Dark Descent: The Arondight Codex - Book One by R Nicole (best books to read all time TXT) 📗

hadn’t met before waved at her. Glancing at me one more time, she turned and strode away, leaving me standing beside the marble statue, feeling like I was two feet tall. It was David Ivan and the devil worship gossip all over again.

I watched Romy walk away and didn’t turn until she’d disappeared around the corner. Then, I was alone again, the silence of the empty Sanctum deafening.

Sniffing, I walked the opposite direction, avoiding wherever it was Romy was headed towards. Had I blown my one and only opportunity to fit in? I’d never really belonged anywhere, and now I knew I was different, I’d hoped this place was it. Maybe it was a case of too little, too late. I was too old to become a Natural and I even then I was too weird. When would I catch a break?

My boots tapped on metal and I looked up. I’d been so wrapped up in my wallowing that I hadn’t realised I’d found my way back to the vaults. Peering into the room Ramona had turned into a laboratory, I frowned. It was empty—no equipment or tables were inside, and there were no signs to say there ever had been. Sniffing, I could detect a slight metallic scent, almost as if someone had been smelting iron.

The smell conjured up the image of the cold iron daggers and I wondered where those were made. Surely not inside the Sanctum.

Leaving the empty room, I went back out into the hall. I knew I should’ve gone back to the gym by now, but I didn’t have it in me to face Wilder. The look on his face… Well, it’d been chilling how indifferent he’d been, especially after that kiss. The kiss that’d stirred my Light. I couldn’t even ask him if that was a thing now.

I peered in the various doors as I wandered down the metallic hallway. Behind each was a cell, much like the one Jackson had been quarantined in, with floor-to-ceiling bars and a greyish expanse of uncomfortable emptiness. There were zero prisoners in residence, which made me wonder where the Infernal was being kept.

Another door was set at the very end of the hall, and I stared at it, wondering why I’d never noticed it before. I thought about it for a moment, trying to recall if it was there the few times I’d been down to see Jackson. It was different from the others—taller, the window set above my head, and there was no door handle. Frowning, I held my hand up to the metal, pretending I knew what I was doing.

I didn’t feel anything.

It was just a door I hadn’t noticed before, unless someone was hiding its existence with Light. An illusion like the one that hid the Sanctum, maybe?

I wasn’t sure how much more trouble I could get into, so I stood up onto my tippy-toes so I could peer through the window. Catching a glimpse of Greer, I gasped, almost slipping on my backside. I fell back onto my heels and immediately propped myself back up again.

A giant glass vial sat in the centre of the room, each end capped with silver, and the Infernal swirled within. It heaved, sparking angrily as it brushed against the edges of its prison. So this was where it went.

Other instruments and equipment surrounded the vial, monitors flashing with graphs and numbers, recording data on the demon. She’d told me they’d research it to see if it was the same Infernal who’d mutated Jackson. It stood to reason they’d keep it hidden down in the vaults away from the rest of the Sanctum.

I was about to back away and leave while the going was good, but the Infernal spoke. “Arondight,” it cried in a digital-like voice. There had to be some kind of computer hooked up to it to allow the puff of smoke to speak.

“So you’ve said,” Greer declared, sounding exasperated. “Who is your master?”

“Did you like him?” the Infernal asked.

“Who?”

“The boy. The boy. I made him better.”

I stifled a gasp. Jackson. It was talking about Jackson! So, I was right after all—the same Infernal was stalking me the whole time.

I glanced over my shoulder, but thankfully, I was still alone. The metal corridor afforded nowhere to hide, so if I was stumbled upon, I was so banned for life if wasn’t even funny. Glancing back through the window, I knew I had to know what was happening. Not to satisfy my own curiosity, but to make sure Jackson got justice for what had happened to him. He might never speak to me again, but it didn’t mean I should give up.

Greer tapped her fingernail against the glass, and the Infernal rushed towards her. Nothing happened, of course. It just bounced off the smooth surface and ricocheted back and forth like an angry bee caught in a jar.

“Human Convergence,” Greer said, “that’s what you’re part of, aren’t you?”

Human Convergence? What the hell was that?

“You should know… Greer.”

“That’s a loop I haven’t been part of for a long time,” she replied. “What’s the end game, Infernal?”

“A better world,” it declared. “Better.”

“Darkness is not better,” Greer snapped. “You will tell me all you know, filth, or I will make sure it hurts.”

“Filth,” the demon chortled. “Filthy in your bed, in your body. Filthy seed in your c—”

Greer slammed her palm down onto a button, shutting off the Infernal’s foul tirade. Her head lowered, her hair hiding her expression.

Lowering myself onto my heels, I hightailed it back down the hall and out into the Sanctum, leaving the vaults behind. My head swam with new information, and I had no idea what to do with it.

Was Greer…? Was she a part of all this? Not on the side of the Naturals, but the demons? If that was true, then the Naturals were in big trouble and so was the Codex.

I wracked my brain trying to think of what I should do, but only one name came to mind.

Wilder.

Wilder would know