THE DARKENING (The Divided Realms: Book 2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Willow blinked away aura light as horror engulfed her anew. Black. The host beings that grasped her had pure black auras! She squeezed her eyes, trying to deny what she had felt, trying to hide from the knowledge of what these creatures were, but in the dark of her mind she again saw the swirling black void of their souls. No thorns to pull this time. The host were true demons. Immortal. Immoral. Immune to reason.

Hands slipped from her legs, which suddenly dropped and dangled. Willow gasped, her eyes flying open. Insane giggles erupted all around her. The hands clutching her arms started to let go, then grabbed tight again. They were playing with her. Trying to make her think they would drop her. Willow heard a sob. Realized it was hers and clenched her eyes tight again. She couldn't deal with this. Couldn't deal any longer with monsters and fighting and bloody death. She started to scream. It blocked the sounds of laughter, the nightmarish images of forked tails and cloven feet, of naked bodies, hairless and insect-like in their thinness. She kept screaming uncontrollably. Pointed ears, pointed teeth, wings pulsing with veins, all ran together in her madness.

A sharp dive jolted Willow back to reality, made her open her eyes, changed her screams to one distended wail as she and the host plunged into darkness. Her feet buckled as she hit the ground, her screams and the wind knocked from her. She lay unmoving, trying to catch her breath. Heard other thuds. Dacia, Brand, then Theon sprawled beside her, the three goblin children landing on top of them. The host swooped up to a cavernous ceiling, dove low again, then disappeared down an unlit tunnel in a snaky, howling line.

Pitt, Nox, and Lunk scrambled to their feet and disappeared like shadows into a crowd of onlookers. Willow panted for breath. Her eyes widened. Around them goblins of all shapes and sizes crammed the cave chamber. They loomed from boulders, peered from cracks and alcoves, and even dangled from chains on the ceiling, their eerie torch-lit faces filled with hideous excitement.

Before she and Brand and the faeries could move, red-capped goblins swarmed over them, holding them spread-eagled and helpless. The goblins snatched their bags and weapons then cuffed their wrists in iron shackles. Willow whimpered as goblins poked at her, enjoying her terror. Brand kicked at them with his feet. Theon and Dacia tried to defend themselves as well, but their kicks were slow and weak. Iron from the shackles had already begun to leech their strength away.

"Enough!" roared a harsh voice. The red-capped goblins scurried back to their places. Willow threw a fearful glance behind her to where the voice had come from. A stone dais supported a rickety throne. A creature in a spiky black crown leered at her, his jaw protruding so far out that fanged teeth jutted over his upper lip. Willow shuddered, color rushing from her face.

The goblin king was revoltingly ugly with his bulging black eyes, hooked, warty nose, and matted, gray mop of hair. He sniffed at them, curling out his hairy nostrils as though he smelled something foul. "Humans," he grunted. "So 'tis true." He sprang up, his short legs surprisingly agile, and pointed a clawed finger at Willow and Brand. "Tryin' ta fool ol' Gobby, are ya?" His menacing glare fell on Dacia and Theon's pale faces. "And two faeries with no powers. What's the Unseelie Court playin' at now? Is it me birthday?" A gargoylish grin disfigured him even further. "Or is you two payin' a price for a lost bet or some vain lord's dare?"

The faeries didn't answer. The goblin king strutted between them, grabbed their silver hair, and yanked them to their knees. "Been a long time since I 'ad me some faeries 'ere," he rasped. "Ya'd better speak when ye're spoken to."

"We ... we're being punished," said Theon weakly, "for ... for consorting with humans."

The king's shaggy brows drew together. "Punished, is it? Then why's they here?" He jerked the faeries' heads in Willow and Brand's direction. "I can't harm so much as a hair on their heads with the Compact still in force. What's I supposed to do with 'em? Invite 'em to dinner?" A cacophony of laughter burst out among the goblin crowd. "Too bad we couldn't eat 'em for dinner!" someone yelled out. "Aye! Nothin' like a good piece of human thigh meat!"