“Watch for us, call down if there’re issues.”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I trusted her. She was family.

The edge of the mineshaft gaped at us, an open maw, the cool air swirling up and out of it. I scrabbled along the edge, looking for the harness work we had waiting for us.

Our ropes were gone.

“Son of a bitch!”

“No time to question this.” Faris grabbed me and pulled me tight to his chest.

“What the hell are you—”

Oh. Shit.

He jumped into the mineshaft and I held my breath. Three hundred feet, give or take if I remembered right, and we were in a total free fall. We went from dark to pitch black in two beats of my heart. His arms were like bands of iron around me and when we hit the ground, they crushed me to keep me from slipping out.

“Can’t. Breathe.”

He let me go and I assumed he stepped away. I couldn’t see him at all. “There’s a spot for lanterns and matches.”

“I’ll find it.” His voice echoed through the cavern to me as the sound of a thump spun me around.

“Just us,” Berget said.

“Yuppy doody! That’s fun. Do it again,” Alex yelped and the sound of rocks scuttling under his feet.

The strike of a match, a tiny glow of light, and Faris held up a lantern. He adjusted the wick, then found a second one, lit it, and handed it to Berget. “We’ll follow you.”

There was more to his words than what he was saying at the moment. I chose to ignore them. This was not the time or place to be dealing with matters of the heart. I was going to find Lark, and she was going to help me destroy Orion.

“I have to be close to her, within twenty feet to sense her in the oubliette. At least that was the way it was with the last one I dealt with.” I muttered that last bit. I was stronger than I’d been in Russia. Maybe I’d be able to sense her sooner.

I sent out a thread, Tracking her. Or trying to. I got nothing back. I started forward, moving toward the door that led into the castle, searching.

“How many times have you walked this route?” Berget asked softly.

“Too many times. One more for the road.” I stretched my abilities to the point that the Tracking thread hummed under my skin. Still nothing. We circled the area around the doorway to the castle twice, then I started off toward an opening in the cave. A narrow crack, pictures engraved into the wall. Stick figures, their bodies progressively surrounded by more and more orbs until the last picture, a stick figure with long hair was pretty much obliterated with an orb.

“Liam, do you remember this?”

“He says he does. That at the time you thought it was a representation of the spirits India was facing.”

I nodded, wondering why Liam didn’t come forward. But then, it would be harder for Faris to stay away from me.

“I think we were wrong. This one is Lark. I’m sure of it.” I tapped the last image, my fingers tracing the circle around her. I eyed up the narrow crack and slipped off my crossbow, holding it at my side. Then I pushed through the narrow crack, much to Faris’s irritation, if his grunt was any indication.

“Wait, Rylee. I can’t fit,” he said.

“Me, neither,” Alex yelped out.

There was a scuffle behind me. “I’m coming.” Berget’s voice reached me a split second before her hand. I took her fingers and we clung to each other as we navigated the narrow slice out of the cavern.

The dirt crumbled around us, skittering around our faces, making it hard to breathe. “How much farther?”

“I don’t know.” I reached out, feeling walls on either side. At least we could still stand.

No sooner had I thought it then the ceiling above us began to lower. “Shit, this is getting tight.”

We were sideways, and crouched so our knees were pressed outward. “Fuck,” Berget whispered, and I laughed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say the f-bomb before.”

“Never had reason to. Did I mention I hate tight spaces?”

A claustrophobic vampire. Of course that was the issue.

I sighed and held my hand out to her, though turning my head wasn’t going to happen. “Give me the lantern and you go back to the others.”

“No. I’m not leaving you.”

How many times had my friends and family said that to me, only to be taken by violence and death?

The distant rumble of a freight train shook the ground around us, the dirt falling faster. Berget let out a cry.

“Relax, the earthquake is over.” Except that even as said that, I wondered.

“Earthquake? In North Dakota?”

She had a point.

Rylee, we’re here. Find the Destroyer, we’ll watch your back! Blaz shouted to me. We? Who was we?

I let go of the threads searching for Lark and reached out tentatively for the only person I knew who could shift the earth like that. The only person strong enough to fight off whatever came. I found her, up top, and fighting for her life.

“Pamela,” I whispered.

CHAPTER 24

Pamela

Blaz landed next to Eve and Marco, and they eyed me up. I flushed but said nothing. Charlie hopped down and hobbled on his peg leg. “How can I help?’

I thought for a moment. “We’ll need a place to stay after this, after they find the Destroyer. People will be hungry. Can you go to Giselle’s, make sure there is food and everything’s ready?”

He gave me a grin and tapped my hand. “Yous got it. Be brave, Pamela.” Eve offered to fly him to Giselle’s. She was fast, swinging back into view in less than half an hour.