Page 8 of Unholy Bond
Aziz and Levi joined hands on either side. We started the incantation, the syllables burning in my mouth. The air thickened, then folded inward. For a second, I saw the outline of the old passageway, the one we’d used a hundred times before. I reached for it and slammed into a wall of nothing.
The sigils snapped, the chalk line blackening as if struck by lightning. Levi swore and recoiled. Aziz howled, a deep, guttural sound, and punched the nearest wall, cracking the drywall and sending a shelf of books toppling to the floor.
I spat blood and wiped my mouth. “He’s blocking us.”
“Who?” Levi demanded.
“Lucifer,” I answered. “No one else could shut it down like that.”
Aziz glared at the ruined glyphs. “He knows. He’s scared.”
Levi gave a dry laugh. “Or he just wants us to dance. You ever think maybe we’re the entertainment?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “We try again. Harder.”
The second attempt was messier. Aziz cut his own chest and let the blood drip down his abs, painting sigils directly on his skin. Levi stripped off his shirt and did the same, biting his lip until his mouth ran red. I drew a new glyph, this time in fire. We linked hands again and chanted.
The world buckled, and for a moment I tasted the sulfur sting of the first ring. I saw the black spires, the endless banks of fog, the rivers that glowed with the light of dying stars. I reached for it—
And it slipped away, the vision collapsing like a punctured lung. I fell backward, head cracking against the coffee table. The pain was real, and it cleared my thoughts.
Levi helped me up. “You okay?”
“No,” I said, and meant it.
Aziz paced again, this time faster. “He’s taunting us,” he said. “He wants us to come, but on his terms.”
Levi’s eyes glittered. “Then we cheat.”
I looked at him. “How?”
He grinned, all teeth. “There’s always a side door.”
Aziz stopped mid-stride. “You mean the Well?”
Levi nodded. “Nobody uses it because they always come out insane or dead. But we’re not nobody.”
I thought about it. The Well was a myth, even among our kind. A hole in the world that led straight to the lowest circles, bypassing the bureaucracy and the wards. But it took more than guts toget through. It took a kind of madness, the willingness to let yourself be unmade and trust you’d come out the other side. Like jumping into a black hole in space, and praying you ended up in a different galaxy rather than getting annihilated in the event horizon.
I’d done worse.
“Where?” I asked.
Levi glanced out the window. “Mount Auburn Cemetery. Midnight.”
For the first time all night, I smiled. Not the fake one, but the real thing.
“Lilith’s waiting,” I said. “Let’s not keep her.”
I took my case. Levi pocketed the key. Aziz didn’t speak. We moved.
Midnight pressed a bruise over Mount Auburn. The chapel roof was slick, cedar cold and black. I set the case down and opened the latches one-two-three. Angle, then power.
Levi’s jaw worked. “Tell me you brought a miracle.”
“Miracles are math with a better publicist.” I chalked a nine-point grid—three by three—tight squares. Silver pins went in at the corners until they sang. “We’re not forcing this gate tonight. We’re mapping it.”
Aziz scanned the grounds. Rain in his lashes. Fury under the skin. “You’re certain.”
