That... God, that was terrible, and we should’ve gotten in here earlier, taken the risk, because these people...

We came to the end of the staircase, and the smell of rust and rot increased as we walked into a room. Flickering fluorescent light cast shadows along rows of wide lockers. Doors were ripped off, benches toppled over. I looked around, realizing we must be in the old locker rooms, where the Nightcrawlers had been...incubating.

There were no ghosts in here.

Cayman walked through an archway into another opening while Roth stood near me.

Something occurred to me. I reached out and pressed a hand against the bare brick wall.

The wall vibrated under my palm, and a heartbeat later, a golden glow washed over the walls and ceiling and then disappeared, revealing what Roth had suspected we’d find that day in the tunnel.

The entire school was full of angelic wards. “This trapped them here.” I pulled my hand away. The wards remained. “Those people could’ve been good. Just needed help crossing over. They could’ve even been spirits, because some of them weren’t in their death states, but they all looked wrong.”

I had no idea if Shadow People could do that, but as I looked back at the stairwell, I accepted what I’d known the moment I saw the ghosts and spirits. “They’ll all about to become wraiths, and...”

“It’s too late.” Roth said what I didn’t want to. “Ghosts and spirits are the soul exposed. It’s more vulnerable in death, when decisions and actions become permanent. It’s like they’re all infected, and it’s incurable.”

Heaviness settled in my heart as I tore my gaze from the stairwell. There was no one left here to save.

“Guys?” Cayman’s voice rang out from the other side of the wall. “You’re going to want to see this.”

Roth and I exchanged looks before walking toward the opening. “This is where the Lilin was born, sort of in a nest. It’s the old showers.”

We stepped into a bare room, and I could make out Cayman kneeling. “What’s up?” Roth asked.

“Found something. A hole. There’s light down there.” He rocked back. “No way down other than to jump, but looks to be about ten feet. Was this here before?”

“No.” Roth edged around the eight-by-eight opening. “This is new.”

“Should we check it out?”

It took me a moment to realize Cayman was speaking to me. I nodded. “I think we have to.”

“All right.” Cayman rose. “Meet you down there.” He jumped, and after a moment, he signaled the okay.

I went next. My landing sent a poof of dirt and dust into the air. Coughing, I stepped aside so Roth wouldn’t land on me when he came through the hole a few seconds later. As the dust cloud settled, my vision adjusted to my surroundings.

It was brighter down here, lit by several spaced-out halogen lights on raised tripods and torches that jutted out of earthen walls.

That was a fire hazard if I’d ever seen one.

The place was a man-made cavern of sorts, opening into a larger space where the ceiling was far higher than the hole we’d jumped through. Piles of rocks and mounds of dirt were stacked and pressed to the walls. Several tunnels branched off, and I suspected at least one must lead to the tunnels we’d been in outside the school. But my attention was snagged by what was situated toward the back of the cavern.

Pale white rocks were stacked on top of one another, forming a six-foot-tall archway. The opening wasn’t empty. At first, it looked like a blank space, but as I stared, I realized that the area wasn’t stagnant. It moved in a slow churning motion, and every few seconds, a sliver of white whipped through like lighting.

“Is this what I think it is?” Cayman approached the crudely made arch.

Roth came down the center of the cavern. “If you’re thinking it’s a portal, then you’d be correct.”

My breath caught as my gaze bounced from him to the archway. “That’s a portal?”

“Yes,” he answered.

I’d heard of them but never seen one before. I didn’t imagine many had.

“It’s limestone.” Cayman stepped around it, nearing one of the tunnels. “And you guys discovered there are ley lines through here?”

Realizing Zayne must’ve filled him in, I nodded. “There’s an actual hub in or around this area, where several of them connect.”

“Damn,” Roth murmured. “With the limestone and the ley line, that makes this one Hell of a conductor for power.”

“Limestone is like a sponge, soaking in energy all around it, both man-made and electromagnetic, even kinetic and thermal energy. Everything that’s happened in this school? The Lilin being born? All the teenage angst? Those ghosts out there? It’s all feeding this thing.” Cayman moved closer to the side. “And pair that with the energy line it’s sitting on? This portal could be something we’ve never seen before.”

“Like...like a portal to another dimension?”

Roth grinned at me. “Possible. The portals we use look nothing like this.”

“This is what they’re hiding in here.” Cayman cocked his head.

“Then we need to destroy it,” I said. “Right? Because whatever it’s leading to is probably something Earth ending.”

“You can’t just destroy a portal,” Cayman explained, and I thought about Zayne’s plans. “At least, not by conventional means. Hitting something like this with explosives could make it go up like a nuclear bomb.”

“Jesus,” I whispered. There went blowing up the school.

Cayman reached out as if to touch it, and I wasn’t sure that was a good idea. My gaze shifted to the tunnel directly behind him. The shadows looked different there, thicker.

They moved.

Dammit!

“Cayman!” I shouted. “Behind—”

Too late.

A shadow peeled itself away from the tunnel, moving fast. Cayman spun, but it was already on him.

A Shadow Person.

Without warning, Cayman flew into the air, all the way to the ceiling of the cavern, which was much higher in the middle. At least twenty or thirty feet. He was flipped like a pizza, feet snagged by the shadow.

“Wow.” Roth’s head tipped back.

“You can see that?” I asked. “What’s holding him—well, swinging him?”

“Yep.”

Huh. Demons could see Shadow People. Made me wonder if Wardens could, too.

“What the Hell?” Cayman yelled as the SP swung him to and fro. “Man, I’m going to hurl. I’m going to vomit up that marsala.”

Roth laughed.

“It’s not funny!” he shouted as he swung like a pendulum.

Shaking my head, I stepped forward. “Drop him now!”

The shadow only swung him harder.

“Don’t think that authoritative command worked,” Roth commented.

“Nope.” I sighed. “Put him down! Right now.”

Cayman lifted his hands. “Wait—”

The Shadow Person let go, and Cayman plummeted to the ground like a rock.

Whoops.

The demon twisted at the last second and landed on his feet with a curse. “That was rude.”

The shadow came down like a ball, unfurling to its full height in front of the archway. The thing looked like a combination of black smoke and shadow with the exception of its eyes. They were bloodred, like burning coals.

I tapped into my grace and let it out. The corners of my vision turned white as the whitish-gold fire swirled down my arm, flowing to my hand. Against my palm, the handle that formed was a familiar comfort. The blade erupted from sparks and flames.

The shadow rushed me. I stepped forward, slicing through the midsection of the demonic essence. The shadow folded into itself, collapsing into nothing but wisps of smoke, obliterated for all eternity.

A scratching, scurrying noise like tiny claws rushing over stone drew my gaze back to the tunnel. The shadows in there pulsed and shifted—

Tiny ratlike creatures poured out. Dozens of them, rushing toward us on hind legs, their snouts sniffing at the air.

“LUDs!” Roth exclaimed. “These are LUDs.”

I could’ve gone my entire life without ever seeing them. They really did look like miniature Ravers.

Then the darkness from the tunnel shifted once more. Thick inky tendrils licked out over the earthen walls and seeped across the dirt-packed floor like oil. The mass pulled away and then exploded into a horde of Shadow People pouring into the cavern.

“Holy smokes.” I lifted the sword. “You guys take care of the LUDs and I’ll get these creepy things.”

“Deal.” Roth kicked one of the LUDs, sending it flying into the opposite wall.

I caught the first shadow at the shoulders and had spun and jabbed the sword into the midsection of a second before the first had even evaporated. I straightened, swinging the sword through the shoulders of another. Sweat dampened my brow within seconds. It was like playing Whac-a-Mole. Another replaced the one cut down.

“Dammit,” Roth growled as he tossed a dead LUD aside. “Nightcrawlers.”

I spared a quick glance at the tunnel the shadows had come from. There were many, all of them a bulky, monstrous mass of swirling skin the color of moonstone, horns, and teeth and claws that carried a toxic venom that could paralyze an elephant.

A shadow grabbed my left arm, its touch burning. Swallowing a yelp, I jumped back and brought the sword down. Surrounded, I could only hope that Roth and Cayman could handle the Nightcrawlers until I got to them.

I cleaved through the shadows, knowing the sooner I ended their existence the better. The circle decreased by half, and beyond them I saw Roth and Cayman, now in their demonic forms, their skins like polished onyx and wings as wide as they were tall. For a moment, I was caught by the striking similarity in appearance between Wardens and Upper Level demons—both appeared as if they could’ve been descendants of angels.

Twisting, I took down another shadow with a quick slice just as one of the Nightcrawlers swiped out, nearly catching Cayman along the back as he faced off with another.