Aunt Tatiana disagreed. You don’t need to conserve! You can do it all!
Trying to shut out that internal voice, I kissed Sydney and drew her into a brief embrace. “Be careful,” I murmured. “And if you do need me, I’ll be close by.”
“Not too close,” she warned. “This thing spits acid. I can’t have you injured.”
“Understood,” I said, before Aunt Tatiana could raise a protest about how Sydney was coddling me.
I took up a position on the staircase, allowing me a quick escape if need be but also giving me a good vantage on the action about to take place. I hadn’t argued with Sydney, but Jill’s health wasn’t the only thing I was concerned about. Along with Sydney, the dhampirs were putting themselves at risk. I wanted to be on hand in case any of them were injured in this escapade. After a heated argument, the three of them decided on a plan. Eddie and Neil would wait with me as backup while Rose slipped into the corridor alone. Each of the guys wanted to go, but she pointed out that she was smaller and faster. She also argued that all of them, plus Jill, trying to get back past the demon would make for tight quarters. It was hard for the guys to fault her logic, and Sydney concurred that with fireballs flying, it’d be easier for her to have fewer people to worry about.
So Eddie and Neil reluctantly came to wait by me, and Rose hovered just behind Sydney. “Time to summon it,” said Sydney nervously. “It’d come on its own if I crossed those runes, but I’d rather bring it out on my own terms.” She held up her hands and spoke an incantation that once again made the markings in the ceiling glow. Only this time, a creature materialized below it.
I understood then why a hydra had been her closest comparison. From the waist down, the demon walked on two legs just like we did—albeit with scaly skin and talons in its feet. From the waist up, it had several sinuous tentacles extending from its torso, as well as five snakelike necks and heads. All of them were hissing and glaring at Sydney. I felt fear churn in my own stomach at the sight of it and almost wished for the time when the only monsters I knew about in this world were Strigoi. Despite the terror that thing inspired, I still felt an overwhelmingly protective urge to help Sydney. It wouldn’t matter if my own life was at risk. I’d gladly sacrifice it for hers.
Do it! Do it! exclaimed Aunt Tatiana. Throw something at it!
“There’s nothing to throw,” I said. “And Sydney’s got this.”
“Hmm?” asked Eddie.
I’d spoken out loud again and shook my head. “Nothing.”
Sydney held her ground, staring down the snake-demon in front of her as though she did this every day and hadn’t unexpectedly walked into one’s lair now. A fireball came easily to her fingertips, and she hurled it without preamble at one of the serpentine heads. Her aim was good—except that the snake was just too fast. In the blink of an eye it had swerved its head and dodged. One of the other heads spit a glob of bright green goo that landed on the concrete floor and began eating away at the surface. I didn’t want to think about what that stuff would do to flesh.
Sydney threw and missed again, but her gaze remained steely. “I’ll get a hit in eventually,” I heard her tell Rose. “And that’s when you make your move.”
Rose was braced beside her, ready to pounce. The two of them made a striking combo, one dark and one golden, both utterly fearless in the face of this danger. They were beautiful in their deadliness.
Sydney’s next fireball struck a head. The creature reared back in pain, all of its surviving heads screaming. Rose used that as her chance, sprinting past the creature and keeping to the opposite side of the cement corridor. The demon still noticed her and started to turn, but a direct fireball hit drew its angry attention back to Sydney. Some of its tentacles were short and stubby, but a few were quite long and occasionally made dangerous grabs for her—meaning she had to dodge both those attacks and the acid. She managed it more deftly than I could have, evading the strikes with a skill Wolfe would have applauded.
“Too close,” muttered Neil, after Sydney just barely sidestepped some acid.
“She’s got this,” I said. And as though on cue, another fireball blasted into one of the snake heads, leaving a charred husk behind.
“What’s taking Rose so long?” demanded Eddie.
I didn’t have an answer for that. She’d disappeared into the darkness, and none of us knew what was beyond that. She could have twenty doors to look in. Or maybe they were locked. Or Jill could be tied up or in chains. None of us knew for sure, and that uncertainty was hard on the rest of us.
Sydney had just annihilated a third snake head when I heard Eddie give a sharp intake of breath. In the shadows beyond the creature, I could just make out Rose, with another figure leaning heavily on her for support. The other person’s face was buried on Rose’s shoulder, but there was no mistaking the tangle of long, light brown hair. My heart jumped to my throat.
Jill.
Rose was obviously waiting for an opening to get back through, and a shift in Sydney’s stance told me she’d seen them behind the demon. She threw a fireball wide, one that wasn’t specifically aimed at a head but which forced the creature to rear toward the side of the corridor. Rose recognized her opportunity and hurried forward, half dragging Jill along the way. A cluster of tentacles made contact with Rose’s leg, and I stopped breathing—but then a rapid and well-placed fireball took out a fourth head. The creature let go and turned its wrath on Sydney as Rose broke through and got Jill to the stairs.
In a flash, Eddie and Neil were at her side, helping Rose bring her up. My stomach twisted as I took in the sight of Jill, and I had an unwelcome sense of déjà vu back to the time when we’d finally found Sydney in the depths of the re-education center. Jill’s condition was similar. She’d lost a considerable amount of weight, and her skin was pale, even by Moroi standards. She was in dirty, rumpled pajamas—what she’d been kidnapped in, no doubt—and it looked as though they hadn’t really let her bathe either. Her pupils were slightly dilated, which confirmed they’d given her some kind of drug that had interfered with me reaching her in dreams.
“Are you okay?” I asked. I drew spirit into me, prepared to heal her.
“N-no, don’t do it,” she warned. Even drugged, the bond must have still been working. That, or she simply knew me well enough by now to guess what I’d do. It took her a few seconds to form the rest of her words. “I . . . I’m just weak. Hungry. They gave me animal blood.”