Torn Page 0,25

flying, desperation filling my voice, "I can't stay down here Collin. I don't belong here. I want to go home. I need to talk to Al. There are things happening that I don't understand. I can ask you about the Valefar side of things, but I'm part Martis too and if that part dies..."my voice trailed off. I couldn't even begin to fathom what my life would be like if I allowed that to happen. "I don't want to lose that part of me. I can't become the Prophecy One. I have to do this. I have to sneak up there and find Al."

At one time I'd felt that I could have told Collin everything, but not now. Not when things were so precarious. It could lead to my undoing. And then I wasn't entirely certain of some things myself; like why was Lorren down here? How significant was it that he saved me - especially since there is an army of Martis trying to kill me? I stared at Collin's face wanting to say these things, but feeling like I couldn't. I hadn't told Collin about Lorren either. I didn't know what to think of that whole situation, and I wanted to discuss it with someone very much. But, revealing Lorren would also reveal my fatal wound. I couldn't say anything. Collin couldn't know.

I needed Al for these things. I pushed back the thoughts before the bond betrayed me. Right now I knew that my emotions were running wild and that my thoughts were so jumbled he couldn't get an un-garbled read on me. One thought penetrated all the others. It cut through the worry and fear, shooting straight to the top of my mind.

Please.

CHAPTER NINE

He sighed and through the bond I felt that this was against his better judgment. He thought I was safer down here. He took my hand, "I'll take you to her, but we can't use the portal you're headed towards. We have to use a different one. Shannon will gut you the second you walk through the tomb." I shivered, and was about to tell him that I didn't think she could have gotten back so quickly, but Collin cut me off. "Sorry, but you have to realize what you're dealing with. Shannon is going to be everything she was - times a hundred. If she was good at something before, now she is going to be unbelievably fantastic. And if her job is to kill you, then you have to avoid her. Take no chances. There are no more near-misses, not with her. If you see her again, you have to realize that one of you is not walking away alive. If you see her again, kill her before she kills you."

I nodded. This is what my life had come to. It made me feel sick inside that Shannon had turned on me. I didn't want to think about it. If I could live the rest of my life without seeing her again, that would be okay. But the odds of that happened weren't good. Even with the poison in my chest.

Collin pulled me to my feet, explaining, "Valefar leave the Underworld through various portals. Once you know where they are, you can effonate there, and then pass through them. The living and the dead aren't supposed to mingle, and that includes us. I mean, me...and the Valefar. The angels went to great lengths to keep us separated from your world. But there are a few doors they didn't seal, because they didn't know of them." He winked at me. I wondered if he would have told me the portals locations if he knew there was an angel hiding out in Hell. An angel who would seal the portals. All of them.

I asked, "So, Valefar get around down here by effonating and then passing through a portal? We can't just effonate directly in or out of Hell?" He nodded. "But once we go through the portal, Valefar can effonate through the Underworld, just like they do above? They can go anywhere?" He nodded again. That must be why I never saw Valefar walking around down here. They didn't have to. And it avoided unnecessary unpleasantness with demon birds, dragons, and psychotic Valefar if they effonated. "Then why don't we just effonate to a portal?"

He replied, "We can't. The only portal you've ever seen is the one you came through to get down here. It's not safe to use that