She clung to him for two breaths before pushing back. “I always do.”

With that, she stepped back, put her hand on the door and she and Alex slipped through.

He saw a glimmer of the castle walls within the lower dungeon levels and then nothing as the door shut behind them. In the quiet of the old mine shaft Liam waited. Hating he’d lied to her.

“Blaz, can you hear me?”

Ah. Yes. Why, is something wrong already?

“I don’t care what you have to do, but you get Ophelia to get Erik’s asses here pronto.”

Sweet mother of the gods, I didn’t think you’d let her go without a fight. I’ll make it happen.

Liam stared at the closed doorway. There was no way he was letting her go on her own.

She just didn’t know it yet.

The walls were splattered with blood from the red caps where the hoarfrost demons had gone through them. Except for the distant sputter of torches the place was quiet, even more so than usual. Like a tomb. A shudder rippled through me.

“Fucking creepy,” I muttered, and glanced at Alex. Crap, I stifled a laugh.

He was walking on the tip toes of his front paws, very cartoon like, his lower lip drawn down in an exaggerated frown, mumbling, “Stupid red caps, dumber demons,” under his breath.

I pulled my swords from their sheaths and drew the symbols Erik taught us. Tapping Alex on the shoulder with a clenched fist I pointed at the tip of my sword while I drew the symbol again. He nodded and did the same with his claws. But no flash of light this time, no burning of the blades. Maybe it was only the first few times? Didn’t matter. We were in and going, we couldn’t look back.

A swell of nerves rose in me; why would the symbols work when Erik was around, but not now?

I swallowed hard, tried to convince my brain we were ready to rumble with any demons we might face. Though I doubted we’d face those first. Red caps now, demons later.

We made our way up the first flight of stairs and at the top I peered out a window. It was early in the night here, the crescent moon giving off a bare shiver of light.

That would help cover us, as long as we kept to the shadows. The most direct route to the barricaded doorway was to cross the courtyard. Of course, I was assuming that not only could I get through the door, but it indeed led to the deep levels of the veil. And that I wouldn’t let anything nasty out when I opened the door.

I had to trust my gut on this one; everything brought me back to this doorway.

At the edge of the courtyard we stilled and I stared into the open space. An ocean of red caps lay between us and the other side of the courtyard.

Literally.

They camped, sleeping soundly, weapons within easy reach. Lazy bastards, hadn’t even bothered to set a guard. They just plunked down and went to sleep.

“Stinky dead caps,” Alex said, his voice echoing across the open space. I clamped a hand over his muzzle, but it was too late.

I balanced on my toes, waiting for the first rush, trying to see where we might dodge and get to the other side. Deliberately not thinking about having to retreat like a fucking coward. But they didn’t jump up to charge us, hell, they didn’t move a muscle. Not even a breath. “Wait, dead caps?”

“Yuppy doody. Red caps are dead caps.” He waved a paw in front of his nose and then let out a big sneeze. “Damn stinky.”

Alex trotted to the closest red cap, cocked his leg and peed on his face. “See? Dead caps.”

“Stop that,” I snapped. Alex dropped his leg and shrunk a little.

“Sorry.”

They might not have been my friends, or even allies, but something destroyed them like matchsticks snapped in half for fun. My chest tightened as I walked amongst the strewn bodies.

Limbs and heads twisted the wrong direction, weapons broken and, now that I was closer, I could see the pale moonlight gleaming off pools of blood. I bent and touched my fingers to the red cap closest to me.

He was still warm.

This was bad. I stood and beckoned to Alex. “We gotta move.”

He trotted to my side, snapping his knees up high to miss touching the bodies of the red caps, like a prancing pony.

Another time I would have laughed, or at least smiled. But not tonight. Whatever killed the red caps was close.

“Fuck this shit.” My nerve endings jangled, dancing with the knowledge something big, bad and probably really ugly could be watching us. And if the hair on the back of my neck was any indication, I wasn’t far off the mark.

Breaking into a jog, I wove through the bodies until we were on the far side of the courtyard. I paused at the open, dark doorway and put a hand out, stopping Alex. We couldn’t go in blind, that was just stupid.

“What do you smell?”

He lifted his nose, then dropped it to the ground. “Red caps. And a monster.”

“Do you know what kind of monster?” He was usually good at identifying the things he smelled, even the ones he’d never met before.

With a shake of his head he took another long sniff. “I sees it, but I don’t know what it is.”

I clenched my weapons. “See it in your head?” Shit, I hoped that was what he meant.

A quick nod and he tapped his head with the tip of one claw, and my nerves slowed a half beat. That was only a small consolation prize.

“Is it in there?” I pointed into the dark entryway.

Alex gave a long slow nod. “Yes.”

Fuckity fuck fuck. This could not get any worse.

“Traaaaaacker.”

I spun on my heel, dropping into a crouch. A hand lifted amongst the red caps, the fingers bending to draw me close. Breathing hard, I made my way to his side and crouched near his head. He was the captain who spoke with me in the mine shaft.

“Tracker. You are either braver than any man I know, or dumber than a troll.” His jaw was broken and words were slurred, messy and pain filled, but I understood him.

“Combination of the two. You have to be to do my job.” I wasn’t sure what to do for him. He was dying and we both knew it. He flopped his hand over and dropped it on my shoulder.

“I’ve never seen a thing like this before. We had no chance.”

Chills swept up and down my spine, the skin on my arms tingling. “Can you tell me anything?”

His eyes flickered, the light in them fading and then he let out a cough. “Alex, help me!” We rolled him onto his side as blood and bile poured out. Carefully, I rolled him back.