its mouth, revealing rows of sharp teeth, and then skittered up the wall at an incredible speed.
Instinctively, I tried to summon magic as a defense, but it felt like ashes within me. Right, magic didn’t work here. Dammit! My other vampire abilities might not, either, and for once, my Death’s Daughter powers were useless, too. I couldn’t send this creature to the netherworld: we were already here.
“Everyone, pull the chain tight!” I ordered.
Ian snapped the chain back, yanking up the slack. A moment later, Phanes did, too. I grabbed the chain with both hands and braced my feet against the wall. In the next instant, the creature swiped at me with razorlike claws—
I shoved off the wall and kicked it in the head with both feet. My momentum briefly sent me into the darkness with it, but my grip on the chain and its new tautness swung me back. I landed painfully against the ledge before Ian pulled me up.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered as the light from the creature’s bioluminescent flesh illuminated its fall. “What was that? I didn’t even see it until it was right upon us!”
“I have no idea,” I replied.
More than two hundred meters below, I saw the creature land in what at first looked like water. Then its flesh sizzled, and its body broke apart before disintegrating entirely.
“Shit,” I said resignedly.
“What?” Impatience coated Ian’s tone.
“You can’t see that?”
“If I could, would I ask you about it?”
With my other side flowing through me until I couldn’t tell where she ended and I began, I was able to meet his eyes without my usual amount of panic over his safety.
“There’s a lake of supernatural acid below this ledge, so whatever you do, don’t fall in.”
Instead of being concerned, Ian laughed.
“Lake of acid? That’s more like it. Was starting to be very disappointed by the lack of horror in this section of the netherworld.”
“It is only the solitary-confinement area,” Phanes said with a quick, grim smile. “The active-punishment section is sufficiently horrifying, I assure you.”
Good gods! Did he spend all his time spying in here? As the modern saying goes, Phanes obviously needed to get laid.
“Good to know,” Ian said in a mild tone. “Now, let’s get her da out of here before any other critters notice us.”
Phanes continued to lead along the narrow ledge, which curved into a corner up ahead. Either he could see as well as I could, or he knew this route well from his incessant spying.
“Her father is this way,” Phanes said.
I kept one hand on the chain as I walked, not wanting to risk being caught off balance by another charging creature. As I walked, I strained my senses for any indication that another attack was coming from below.
So far, nothing. Just our footfalls and the soft scrape of Phanes’s wings against the wall from how narrow the ledge was. After we came to the other side of the sharp bend, Phanes stopped. I followed his gaze to the other side of the cavern.
I recognized the alcove from Phanes’s previous spy-cam vision. It was still cut into the rock wall as if some giant had swung an ax and cleaved off the small space before growing bored and abandoning the project. But the figure chained inside the short ledge that made up the entirety of his prison wasn’t my father. He also wasn’t alone. Someone with wings was behind him.
“Who is—?”
Phanes suddenly leapt up before slamming down on the narrow ledge with stunning force. The ledge crumbled beneath the impact, sending the three of us catapulting into the darkness.
Chapter 17
My arm wrenched painfully as my fall was abruptly stopped. I looked up. Ian was dangling by the chain we’d been using as a handrail, his grip on my arm keeping me aloft. Rocks that used to be firm ground now pelted me as they fell around us.
I didn’t see Phanes, damn him. I hoped he’d tumbled right into the acid lake, but with those huge wings, he’d probably flown away. I tried to fly, too, and cursed in several languages when I couldn’t. Why were my powers so restricted in this place? I was supposed to be in my element in the netherworld, not as helpless as a human!
“I can’t seem to fly, can you?” Ian ground out as the chain creaked in an ominous way. Despite not having real bodies, it didn’t seem capable of holding our combined weight.
“No, but—”
A large form bashed into us from behind with tremendous force. Ian’s grip