Ruby Shadows Read online

  I did as he said and nearly screamed.

  About twenty feet straight up a massive stretch of black water was flowing. Actually, it was all around us, I saw. We were surrounded by water which was held back somehow by an invisible barrier.

  The closest thing to it I could imagine was some of the underwater rides and tunnels in Sea World, where you walk through a clear plastic tube and see the sharks and fish swimming all around you. But when you go in one of those tunnels, you can see the plastic or plexiglass or whatever it is they use to build the tunnel surrounding you, keeping the water out. Here, there was nothing—nothing I could see, anyway. The water was just there, flowing silently all around us, with no apparent reason for not filling the space we were in and drowning us.

  “It’s Infernal Magic which holds the waters back,” Laish answered my unspoken question. “Do not worry, Gwendolyn—we are quite safe.”

  “Are we?” I was still scanning the “roof” of the long tunnel we were in as Kurex kept on walking. My memory of the tunnels at Sea World was renewed as I saw a Great White shark pass directly overhead—only this was a shark the size of a school bus!

  “What the Hell?” I muttered, looking up at it.

  “A Megaladon,” Laish remarked. “Extinct in the Mortal Realm now for millions of years. Yet it thrives here, along with many of its brethren.”

  “Like that thing?” I pointed to something that was even bigger than the enormous shark. It had a long, pointed snout a little like a crocodile filled with razor sharp teeth. It could have used me for a toothpick or swallowed me without even realizing it—it was that big.

  “A Mosasaur,” Laish said laconically. “One of the largest predators every to stalk the ocean. I remember when the depths were full of such beasts—long before the Creator turned his attention to man.”

  “So you were around during the age of the dinosaurs?” I couldn’t help staring at him. He’d talked more than once about mortals having such a short life span we were like moths or butterflies but it hadn’t really sunk in for me. Somehow knowing that Laish had been around to see these ancient beasts roam the planet seemed to put everything into perspective.

  He gave me a mocking little smile.

  “Now don’t tell me you’ll let a little thing like age difference get in the way of our relationship.”

  Since I didn’t know exactly what our relationship was, I didn’t know how to answer that.

  “It’s just weird, that’s all,” I muttered. “I—oh, look—Nessie!”

  For just to the right side of us, so close to the invisible barrier I felt like I could go stroke its broad, paddle-like fins, was a creature that looked exactly like what the Lock Ness Monster is supposed to be.

  “A long necked Plesiosaur,” Laish said. “I did hear that one of them had escaped back through the dimensional gateway to the Mortal Realm.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t take my eyes off the creature. It was huge, of course, but also sleek and graceful. It had a long, snaky neck and a small head with large black eyes. I knew it was crazy but I wanted to pet it. “Can we touch them?” I asked Laish. “I mean, can we reach through the magic barrier?”

  “You could,” he said dryly. “If you didn’t mind losing a hand…or an arm. Look.”

  The Nessie I had been admiring turned its head and stared at us, as though just noticing we were there. Then it spread its jaws and dived right for us, aiming its entire huge body like a torpedo.

  I couldn’t help screaming this time—especially when I saw that it had teeth every bit as sharp and deadly as the Mosasaur.

  Laish’s arm tightened around my waist. “No fear, my darling—it cannot harm you,” he murmured in my ear.

  Sure enough, the huge creature bounced off the invisible barrier without coming close to breaching it. It shook its head a little, as though it had hit something hard and then swam away quickly, shooting out of sight so fast it was soon just a silvery gray shape gliding away in the gloom.

  “Some of the stupider creatures do not understand the barrier and charge it more than once,” Laish said. “This one, thankfully, learned its lesson the first time.”

  “So how far does this sea go?” I asked as Kurex continued his steady pace along the dry, sandy sea bed.

  “It is far vaster than any in the Mortal Realm,” he remarked. “Hundreds of thousands of leagues in every direction. And it is filled with leviathans and monsters of the past.”

  “Fascinating,” I murmured, watching as a giant, glowing creature that looked like an immense squid floated quietly past.

  “It is,” he agreed. “Luckily this tunnel was built to connect the fifth and seventh circles of Hell or the way would be completely impassible and we would never reach the Abyss.”

  I could see his point. Even in a well equipped boat, how could you possibly hope to sail hundreds of thousands of miles through waters filled with prehistoric monsters, all of them eager to take a bite out of you?

  We traveled for hours through the half light that filtered down through the sea above. It was a strange, watery bluish-green and our journey was completely silent except for the clop-clop of Kurex’s hooves. Above us and around us, strange creatures swam. Some of them were horrible to look at, with jagged teeth and the flat, dead eyes of predators that made me shiver. But many of them were strangely beautiful. They seemed to fly through the water, glowing pink and purple and electric blue, adding neon stripes to the plain white sand and a magical, unreal feeling to our journey.

  Years later when I remembered my time in Hell, this was the part of our trip that I went back to in my mind with longing. It was so quiet, so peaceful. And aside from the Lock Ness Monster thing charging us, it was certainly the most uneventful.

  I thought of about a thousand things I wanted to say to Laish—questions I wanted answers to, mostly—but something stopped me from talking. He was so quiet, seeming content just to hold me against him as we traveled. And I felt content to be held by him. I didn’t want to disturb him or break the dreamy, magical mood that had somehow fallen over the two of us with questions or possibly arguments. So I simply let myself relax back against him as I looked up, watching the strange creatures that swam overhead and trying not to think about how soon the end of our journey was coming.

  We stopped for a very late lunch under a glowing octopus looking creature that was about twenty times bigger than any octopus I had ever heard of. It seemed to be resting on the top of the invisible tunnel and it shed a soft pink light on the sand below that was strange but beautiful.

  Laish made me a sandwich with a single drop of blood—I didn’t let him make anything more elaborate—and got out a few provisions for himself. We spread a blanket from Kurex’s newly restocked saddle bags and ate. I didn’t know why but I felt sad—as if this was the last meal we would share together. I told myself I was being silly—surely we would have dinner as well as breakfast the next morning, but I couldn’t shake the feeling somehow.

  As we were packing up, Laish took out the long, black box he’d gotten from the Minotaur and opened it.

  “What’s that?” I asked, coming to stand beside him.

  “It’s for you—but you must only use it in the last extremity.”

  “The last extremity—what do you mean by that?”

  “If you have no other hope and we have been separated, or you see me die,” he said quietly.

  “What? Why would you die? Nobody’s dying here!” I could hear the panic in my voice but couldn’t control it. I didn’t like the idea of Laish leaving me or dying—not one bit.

  “Calm yourself, mon ange, it is a precaution only.”

  He drew from the box a long knife with a silver handle and a black blade. Which seemed strange—I’d never seen black metal before. In fact, it almost looked like the exact opposite of the little knife he used to cut himself when he made me food.

  “What is that?” I asked, drawing back a little. I could feel the power pulsing off it—dark energy coming in wave