Page 29 of Hellfire to Come
Later.
Now, there was only forward.
Chester led us onward, a flickering orb of demonic flame floating in his palm to guide our way. The light cast shadows that jittered against the walls, making the hallways ripple with movement that wasn’t really there.
“The back stairwell’s still intact,” the demon muttered over his shoulder. “If we cut through the old wine cellar, Echo and I found a tunnel we can use. Leads beyond the perimeter.”
“Good,” I said. Even though nothing about this was good. Everything about this place screamed trap. Screamed unfinished business.
And part of me feared we hadn’t escaped at all.
We were simply being let go, for now.
We turned a corner, and the air hit us like a wall. Thick, rancid, suffocating. A fetid mélange of blood, mildew, scorched flesh, and the acidic tang of old magic clung to the stone like rot. It wasn’t just a scent, it was a presence, a living memory of carnage embedded in the foundation of this place. The corridor pulsed with a malignant resonance, as if the very walls remembered every scream, every curse, every drop of blood spilled in service of the twisted rituals wrought here.
Alice stirred faintly in my arms. A weak, incoherent groan vibrated against my collarbone. Her head lolled, her breath coming in shallow gasps. I bent down close, brushing her temple with my lips.
“You’re alright,” I murmured. “I’ve got you.”
She didn’t speak, but her hand twitched against my ribs somewhere between a grasp and a flinch. That was enough. Enough to tell me she was still fighting whatever terror they had done to her, even if just barely.
Behind us, the darkness shifted.
It was imperceptible at first, just the tiniest change in pressure, like the air being drawn inward. Then it grew; Cold and aware. The sort of presence that didn’t need to announce itself. It simply existed, as certain and terrifying as gravity.
Dominic stopped without a word. He stiffened, his head turning fractionally, his shoulders coiling with the silent tension of a predator who knew another had stepped into his domain.
“Keep going,” I said softly, but even as I uttered it, I knew it for the lie it was. The pressure crawling up my spine, the frigid bite of instinct licking beneath my skin, whispered a different truth. Something, or someone, was there. Not attacking. Not chasing.
Watching.
“Him?” Echo asked, barely more than breath. Her fingers hovered near her dagger, magic gathering at her fingertips like condensation.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Not with certainty. But I knew the scent of arrogance. I knew the quiet malice of something that enjoyed playing with its food.
Frederic wasn’t dead. As much as I had longed to see him broken and ruined, he hadn’t given us that satisfaction. No, he was alive. Perhaps wounded, perhaps biding his time but alive. And he had released us not out of mercy, but out of cruelty. He wanted us to run.
To think we’d escaped.
To hope.
Only so he could tear it all down again when the stakes were higher.
And that scared me more than a hundred Guardians at our backs.
“He’s letting us go,” I whispered. “Or thinks he is.”
“For what purpose?” Chester muttered, flame still crackling in his palm as he glanced over his shoulder.
“If we get out of this place?” I exhaled, bitter. “Does it matter?”
The ancient stone staircase loomed before us, crumbling and slick with moisture. Echo ascended first, sure-footed despite the unstable setting. Chester followed close behind, his magical flame casting ghastly shadows along the walls, elongated,monstrous things that twisted as if trying to crawl back into the mansion’s heart.
We moved in grim silence, the weight of what we’d endured pressing down as heavily as the unconscious bodies we bore. Dominic adjusted Rowan’s limp form across his shoulders without complaint, though the witch hung like a broken marionette, his limbs swaying with each jarring step.
Alice’s weight in my arms felt heavier now, not just physically, but emotionally. Her heat was growing, her skin nearly scalding. Whatever vile enchantment Frederic had left festering in her system hadn’t abated. If anything, it was thriving.
She was burning from the inside out.
