Page 94 of To Free a Soul
With little thought, she shoved more magic into the tendrils to give them a burst of power. She lifted the Demons andtossedthem to the side to clear a path.
The castle doors were closed, the purple shimmering ward in place. Lindiwe scrunched her nose at it and phased through it by turning into a Phantom momentarily.
Jabez greeted her in the foyer with more Demons – those who were more humanoid – surrounding him.
His red eyes were cold as he met her gaze. His long white hair was tied back in a neat ponytail, and it fluttered to the side by some unknown draft. His white tunic was tucked into loose, flowy, low-crotch burgundy pants, and she noticed a handful of strange black markings that hadn’t been present on his skin the last time she’d seen him.
Or maybe she hadn’t noticed them.
A few of his fingers had black rings, which appeared like tattoos, while one of his forefingers had little arrow markings. There was a pattern peeking through the vee in his tunic – a spiral of runic symbols of Nyl’kira – but she was unable to see what it said.
“Where is she?” Lindiwe demanded, making her stance wide when she stopped. “I believe I have a promise to deliver.”
Her eyes scanned for the infuriating woman, who she’d promised she’d eat the heart of if she interfered in Orpheus’ life.
She was missing, as was Merikh.
Then again, Lindiwe hadn’t expected Merikh to be there, not after what had transpired between him and Jabez. Their ‘friendship’ wasn’t as strong as either of them thought. This silly half-Demon had turned on the bear-skulled Duskwalker not evendaysafter she’d told him the truth of his origins.
And Jabez had to know he was an idiot for doing so.
He’d lost his strongest and deadliest companion, one who had been utterly loyal to him, over something that changednothing.Her son still hated her – probably Weldir, too – and now roamed Austrális alone to cause havoc.
Merikh wasn’t their ally.
At least he’d no longer be an obstacle.
Jabez folded his arms and rolled his shoulders back in a show of superiority. His sharp fangs, like the outside row of a shark’s mouth, peeked past his full lips when he said, “As if I would let you near her. She’s hidden away.”
Lindiwe lifted her gaze to the tall ceiling before letting it fall to the second level’s railing. She shifted her focus to the right, where there was a hallway beyond a grand staircase.
“That means I will just have to look for her.”
Turning incorporeal, she lunged forward, and the Demons surrounding Jabez snarled and roared as they leapt for her – only to pass through her intangible body.
Lindiwe floated towards the second level. To her right, Jabez jumped over the railing of the staircase and landed halfway up it. By the time she got there, Jabez was already at the top of the stairs and attempting to block her path to the hallway.
She floated through him and headed straight down it, then shoved herself through a wall and landed inside a decently furnished room. By the strange nesting that was happening on top of a single bed, it likely belonged to a Demon who lived with them.
Rather than go back into the hallway, Lindiwe flew herself forward, passing wall after wall as her head turned one way and the other in search of the pretty, black-haired woman. She stopped when she accidentally floated through the castle’s stone wall and outside, then quickly shunted back so she didn’t start falling.
She went to the other side of the building, past the window at the end of the hallway, its yellow-and-red curtains closed. Then she headed in the other direction, passing rooms in her search.
A door slammed before she could get to the end, and she threw her body to the left through a wall. All she saw was the side of Jabez, who had leapt onto the landing’s railing, and a pair of pale legs. He jumped to the ground level, and Lindiwe went after them.
By the time she reached them, Jabez had fled to the left of the castle’s entrance into some kind of ballroom. A throne, which was hardly more than a sad wooden chair, sat behind them.
The room had decorations, but they all clashed. Stone sculptures that weren’t well-crafted appeared to have been made by a Demon artisan, considering the demonic depictions in them. The bust of a sculpture of a horned creature she’d never seen on Earth – likely one from Nyl’theria – sat on top of a stone pillar.
The floor was layered with mismatched red rugs, enough to soften the surface and ease the chill that surely came up through the stone. Wrought-iron chandeliers hung in single file from one end to the other, with eight candles in each, all of which were lit and gave the room decent visibility.
With their curtains pushed open, large windows on one side allowed the lightning to flash intermittently, and it cast its hot light over Jabez and Katerina, who were under a pink, semi-translucent dome. She hid behind his towering form, the woman only coming to his ribs.
A small army of Demon soldiers stood between her and them.
“You think any of this will stop me?” Lindiwe gestured to the ridiculousness of it all. “You are only delaying the inevitable. I will kill that woman.”
“Considering I’m the one who killed Orpheus’ little male companion, shouldn’t I be the one your anger is directed at?” Jabez asked, cocking a white brow.
