Page 7 of Monsters of Midnight

“The breaker rune,” he said. “I can use the breaker rune on the area where the door is.”

“Could you do it fast?” I queried. “We need to get out of here.”

“I will,” His voice shook even as mine did.

I wasn’t as worried as the demon in the shadows. It was the molten lava embers creating a ribbon of hot lava, glowing, orange and yellow in the floor. I wanted to believe it was just a portal to another dimension, and that going through it hadn’t actually killed Caroline. It had just put her in another place where I could go and see her. I wanted to dive into the bed of molten lava and find out the truth.

Even if it killed me.

“Don’t look at it,” Magnus admonished.

“How do you know what I’m looking at?” I asked.

“Portals like that always have a sheen to them,” he explained.

“She’s not dead?” I gripped his arm in excitement.

“Yes, she’s dead.” Magnus said without even so much is an apology. “Your best friend in the entire world is dead, but you’re also right it is just another portal. It’s just a one-way portal. There are portals that come into earth like the ones with the monsters are going through and then there are these portals, which only allow people to leave earth…and not come back. She can never come back here. That’s what they were trying to say.”

“She’s alive,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. I didn’t care if she moved to another dimension or another planet.

“She’s not the same, though either,” Magnus said. “She’ll have had some changes because, well, because she’s in Undirheim. It changes the way they think, the way they talk.”

“It can’t change everything about her,” I said. “Caroline was one of the most steadfast people I knew. She was always the same; consistent, reliable, and trustworthy. I can’t imagine she is anything different in the underworld.”

“Well, you will never find out,” Magnus said. “You won’t be going there.”

A screaming from the rafters grabbed my attention as the black shadows came in, racing down toward us. This time I could see the reflection of the shiny talons coming straight toward my heart.

“You better hurry with the rune,” I pressed Magnus.

“I’m trying,” Magnus insisted, taking the stones out of his pouch one by one and flinging them at the door. Each time he would say a different word, until finally one of them exploded.

“’Shit!” Magnus exclaimed.

He whipped around, grabbed my hand, and pulled me toward the gaping hole in the side of the mountain. We passed through just as the talons got to me and scraped along my hand as the wall closed behind us.

Chapter 4

RYDER

“Did you see that?” Katrina elbowed Ratchet, who had fallen asleep next to her sitting by the fire.

Ratchet stumbled to his feet as I roused myself from my negative pondering. “What? We’re home? What’s going on?” he muttered.

The younger two witches in the coven giggled, but nobody else was watching him. We were all looking up at the side of the mountain. An explosion had just rocked a hole in it.

“That’s got to be where she is,” Katrina stood up.

“Agreed,” Lady Albright moved next to her coven mate.

I rose a little more slowly.

“You can’t just assume it’s what you’re looking for just because it shows up where you’re looking,” I pointed out. “It could be anything making a hole in the side of the mountain. And it’s probably not Laney. She’s got a lot of talents, but blowing up the side of a mountain is probably not one of them.”

I glanced over at Lady Albright because I really didn’t know everything about witches that at this stage, it seemed like I should know, considering they seemed to be a large part of my life recently. “What powers does a firefly have?” I asked.

“None that I know of,” she shrugged, turning her peaked face towards the mountain. “Fire-flies are pretty rare creatures. I know they glow and I believe they can flash a lot of bright light.”

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