Page 30 of Ravenous
“Why couldn’t our patron collect it himself?”
“He rarely leaves his lair and can’t open portals far from it. And hired teleporters”—she cast Ink a sidelong glance—“aren’t known for reliability. Outsourcing the risk made sense.”
Ink rubbed his stinging eyes and stared at the lava, the age-old river seething with power.Should we tap it?“We stand at the precipice.” In more ways than one. He was reminded of the mortal tales of Icarus flying too close to the sun.Just because onecando a thing doesn’t mean oneshould.“Taking lava from this river feels wrong.”
Nadje hesitated, her expression half defiant, half afraid. “It does. But I’ll do it anyway.”
With or without you.The unsaid words hung in the air.
He studied her visage in the fiery light—hair glinting ruby, cheeks flushed, jaw set. “Whatever you ran from, it’s still chasing you.” A kernel of protectiveness grew.
Shrug. “Coin equals survival.”
His own share of tonight’s take would fund his next rare acquisition—the history of a Valkyrie oracle who’d predicted an entire other world of immortals living in peace with humans in Gaia as if the Exile had never happened. She’d spoken of it just before lightning had struck her down. The tome cost a fortune. What secrets would it hold about Gaia, the Skein, and immortals in other worlds?
Temptation prodded him. He unslung the staff and lowered the bowl toward the burning current. “In this wind, whatever I secure will crust over fast. Does he need it still liquid?”
“He didn’t specify,” she said. “Only that I meet him at midnight on one of these three nights, or the offer dies.”
Ink hesitated. The heat felt sentient, clawing up his arms. “Someday we might look back and wonder what we were thinking at this moment.”
“That’s the thing about the future,” she said. “Itwon’t existunless you claw your way to it. I’ll sleep better tonight, dreaming about the plentiful gold I earned.”
He exhaled in resignation. “Thatweearned.” Carefully, he dipped the bowl. The surface hissed, then filled with molten fire.He met Nadje’s gaze as he lifted their prize.
They were still staring at each other when he realized something that gave him chills in this heat. Reflected in the vampire’s eyes was the full red of the lava, cooling not one degree.
It continued to spiral in the bowl, turning on itself, circling in perfect rhythm.
As if it lived.
Chapter 13Inkletter
“And now, another lamentable landmark,” Ink said as he released Nadje.
At her direction, he had traced her to the demon crossroads between Grimrock and Rhun, a place that leeched cold straight into his bones, even with a bowl of lava hissing beside him.
His own sire had died here, during the ancient wars that had left the land steeped in blood.
Now, millennia later, the crossroads served as a place of punishment and as a meeting area where demonic deals stole souls and extinguished hope.
How many who’d met here wished they hadn’t? The old wisdom seemed to whisper from the stony ground:Make no bargains with demons.
He scowled down at the vampire. “Why would your client specify this place?”
“I don’t know. Some do.”
Ink took in the scene: weather-gnawed gravestones on one side of the road; on the other, a hanging tree that refused to die. From a thick limb dangled a ravaged rage demon, neck cinched with a bermetal chain. His wrists were bound behind him, his face a ruin. Crows hopped and tore at it, taking turns.
When a gust scattered them, a sound escaped the demon’s mangled mouth, something like a moan dragged over broken glass.
Nadje didn’t move to help him. Neither did Ink. The demonarchies reserved this punishment for those who’d committed heinous crimes.
Still, best to eliminate a demonic threat completely instead of torture. Another old wisdom:Enrage not a demon for their vengeance is immortal.
Nadje tilted her head, attention shifting to the far side of the trunk. Ink followed her look.
Another immortal hung there, a woman in mesh. A sorceress. Her body fared as poorly as the demon’s, her organs consumed one peck at a time. In addition to the chain around her neck and the one binding her hands behind her back, she wore a sign that read:
