Through Flame and Blade

Ch. 17 Death Will Keep You

*Logan

Logan, reeling from the kiss with Chiara, wrenched his head into the cool, calm mindset before a battle. He needed his wits, not his dick, for what came next.

He buried his emotions, his desires and needs, like he had buried his dead brother centuries ago.

"Put your sword away, love, and fold your wings. We aren't going up this way. It's too heavily guarded to keep the Pestilences down. We'll take the keepers' tunnels. It won't be pleasant, but as soon as we reach halls, we keep one step ahead of anyone chasing us until we are out."

"What do you mean, it won't be pleasant in the tunnels? Worse than in here?"

"So much worse. And I'm serious, put the sword down, it won't help you."

Logan took the lead to the far side of the cavern where he detected a bit of air-flow, and stopped at the entrance to the arched tunnel, carved from raw stone and seeping moisture. Mold streaked over the rough-hewn rocks, like green and grey frost.

The air coming from it was clammy and damp, and had a different stench than the scorched pestilence nests. He smelled of the cold reach of death, old decay, and bitter winter. It didn't feel cold, though, Not yet.

Chiara lowered her chin, eyes wide. If things went wrong, the passage would test her, damage her, more than all the time she spent in the dungeon above.

"What's in there?" she asked. Her fingers danced on the hilt of her sword, ready to draw it.

He placed his hand over hers. "Nothing you can fight with a sword. Believe me. Death is in these tunnels to keep the Pestilences from entering them and swarming the great halls beyond. Very little bothers those fuckers but they are afraid of the tunnels. Trust me to get you through it."

She scoffed. "Trusting you will get me killed."

"Trust me to uphold my end of the bargain. I get you out of here and you get me to a safe haven once we're topside."

"What is there to be afraid of?"

"Death. But it will not touch us if we don't touch it."

He stepped into the tunnel, letting the darkness swallow him. She would either follow him or not. Seconds later, her fresh, floral scent and the whisper of her wings caught up to him.

"I can't see," she muttered.

"It's better if you don't." He reached down and found her hand in the heavy darkness, and was instantly flooded with a strange sensation. His world off its usual axis.

He had never taken anyone's hand this way, to guide them through danger, and certainly not an angel. He led them forward.

His sight revealed shadowed things in the walls that writhed and strained to break free. Gnashing teeth and eyeless sockets rolled towards them, stopped by an invisible force as they pressed the stone barriers.

They were firmly ensconced in the power that trapped them in the tunnels. Probably. He thought of the plural they when he looked at the hundreds of decaying faces and bony hands, but really it was one entity—Death. Death was legion. Death was multitudes.

Death was always hungry for more.

But his angel couldn't see in the darkness, and being a demon in the warrior class had some advantages. Fear flowed from the walls, worming into him, but he knew how to resist. He pulled Chiara close, inhaling the perfume scent of her warm body. The tunnels were long, but wide and straight. No problem.

Cold crept into his bones. Not a cold he felt on the outside, but one that existed only on the inside. Bone-snapping cold. Heart-freezing cold. Mind-numbing cold.