Page 122 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

Whitney wasn’t as quick as he used to be, but he wasted no time rolling out of the cavity to land on the floor. He scrambled to standing, and I got a better look at the blood that splotched his uniform from shoulders to shins. A sheath was secured to his belt, but his saber was notably absent.

I flung my glaive away, then faced Whitney, who opened his mouth once, twice, then shook his head.

“I’ll assume you’re as eager to leave this place as I am,” he said.

I nodded, and he broke into motion, a bit unsteady but rapidly gaining his footing as he headed toward the nearest wall. He couldn’t get out that way, and I wouldn’t. I had to go back. For Indy, or whatever remained of him.

“He’s still here,” the words wrenched out of me and drew Whitney to a halt.

“Who is?” he asked.

“Indy.”

His pale brows dipped. “Here? Why? You said he was going to Heaven.”

I swallowed. “He was. He did. But now he’s here, and I…” My hands fisted, and I wished I had something better to hold than emptiness. “I can’t leave him.”

Whitney swayed, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and seeming to debate until he announced, “I’m right behind you.”

Reversing my journey through the catacombs was another sort of slog. I was glad to have Whitney at my back and anxious to return to Indy, but any relief I might have felt was robbed by my imagination plaguing me with images of my phoenix in flames or in pieces.

I’d rushed to get here, but I raced to get out.

I ran, and Whitney struggled to keep up, but I didn’t slow until someone called my name.

“Lorenzo? It can’t be.”

My head whipped around while my ears pricked to the familiar sound. I knew that voice; I used to dream about it. But I hadn’t heard it aloud in over a century.

Whitney stumbled to a stop behind me, but before he could ask the cause for our delay, it made itself apparent.

Jonathan had aged. Twenty years had peppered his hair and flecked his full beard with gray. I’d only ever seen him shaven clean, perhaps with a bit of stubble, but his clear blue eyes were unmistakable as they peered out through the grate that caged him.

My heart stuttered.

He was still handsome. Somehow distinguished, even trapped as he was. He lay in one of the stone recesses, placed at head level so we could face each other directly. Or we could have if I hadn’t immediately shied from his gaze.

“Where have you been?” he asked, squirming in the confined space. “And how…?”

He’d been here all along. Under my feet for a century, well within reach. I could have come to him. I could have freed him the way I’d just freed Whitney, and Moira knew it. But she kept us apart because she wanted me for herself. The thought made my blood burn.

All Hell had ever done was take from me. My life, my lover, and now Indy, who was both of those things and more.

Reply lodged in my throat while I gawked at Jonathan. I studied the crow’s feet creasing his temples and the laugh lines around his lips and considered all the life I’d given him. All the life I’d missed.

“Are you some sort of devil now?” Jonathan asked through a suspicious squint. “You don’t have the look of a dead man.”

He reached through the bars like Whitney had done, but I didn’t react. I simply stared at his fingers stretching toward me and remembered what Moira had called him.

A despicable man.

A philandering narcissist.

Both were true, yet I’d stayed with him. Loved him. Because I was loyal.

What would a loyal man do now?

The answer was obvious: a loyal man would summon his glaive, slice through the bars, and free Jonathan. In doing so, he would take back one of the many things Hell had stolen from him.

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