T. Grey: Ties That Bind

“He was just doing his job.” Her eyes watered.

Rosa took her by the shoulders. “Look at me. Look at me, Lily.” Lily looked at her friend's pretty brown eyes, her face wobbling in her vision. “Don't cry. Your mother's here and we have to help her. She needs you and your strength right now, okay?”

Lily sucked in a deep breath and let it out, wiped her tears on her sleeve. “Yeah, of course. Sorry. I've never...”

“I know. Neither have I.”

Some of the prisoners clung to the bars, eyes wide yet wary. Lily patted down the guard and found the keys then started at the nearest cell and opened the doors.

“Everyone get out! Leave!”

The cell doors opened but the prisoners stayed inside their cells, huddled in their dirty clothes. Whatever, she didn't speak demonic and she didn't have time to try to convince them to leave.

She unlocked her mother's cell then tossed the keys to Rosa. “Unlock the rest.”

Her mother sat curled up in the corner of her cell with her knees bent and arms locked tightly around them. Her hair covered her face in dirty streaks that hid her eyes.

“Mary? It's time to go now. I promised you I'd come back.” She held out a hand to her and slowly made her way in the cage. She started muttering the words incoherent to Lily but recognizable—she spoke in Demonic. “I can't understand you. Can you speak in English please? Remember me? I'm the succubus.”

Lily stopped several feet away from her. She wanted to rush forward and grab her but she had a feeling her mother would fight back. Something wasn't right in her mind.

Her mother looked up at her through strands of matted dirty hair with eyes so blue it was like looking at Willow. Lily's chest squeezed tight and she almost succumbed to tears again. Aside from pictures from Papa, she'd never seen her mother, had been too young before to remember how she looked.

“I-I remember you. You were in the cage next-next to me.” She started rocking, her dirty hands clinging to her bony knees.

“Good, that's good. I told you I'd get you out and I'm here to do that now. Can you stand up?”

The woman was slow to move but when she did Lily let out a breath she'd been holding. She braced her hands on the dirty wall behind her and the bars of the cage and pulled herself up. Lily saw deep purple and blue bruises covering her legs and wanted to rip the motherfucker apart who'd hurt her.

“Come on now. No one’s going to hurt you anymore. I'm going to take you out of the rift, going to take you home.”

Her mother choked on a sob and then lumbered towards her. Lily stretched out her hand to help hold her up but she jerked away from the touch. It hurt but she understood it. The important thing was getting her out of here. “Okay, good, now let's go.”

Lily saw that Rosa had finished opening the last of the cages and some of the prisoners were slowly ambling out looking cautious. “Telal Demuzi is taking over the kingdom. You're safe to leave now.”

She didn't know if they understood her or not but she left it alone. Lily, Rosa, and her mother made their way back down the corridor and up the stairs. Her mother moved much slower than they did so they slowed their pace to match hers.

At the top of the stairs Lily heard what sounded like a battle going on in the area of the dining hall. Something compelled her to go, the urge irresistible in her gut. Lily pulled a porting pot out of her bag and turned to her mother. “I need you to drink this. It will transport you out of the rift and to a castle—a safe castle. You have friends there.”

Her mother shook her head, eyes wide and backed up a step. “N-no, no, no.”

Lily heard male voices shout and recognized one of them. God, she didn't have time for this. “Please, just drink it; it'll send you out of here. Don't you want to get out of here?”

Her mother made a break for the door that led to the dungeon. “Shit, get her!” Lily caught her mother, wrapping her arm around her chest.

Even bony and weak she was strong as an ox. “Rosa help me!” Rosa came over and quickly chanted some words then laid her fingers on her mother's struggling forehead. Her mother instantly calmed, her body going lax.

Lily popped open the corked porting potion and held it to her mother's lips. The drink went down with some struggling and gargling noises. She broke halfway through the potion to make sure she didn't drown in the awful drink before giving her the last of it.

“How is she going to say the last of the spell?”

Rosa looked grim. “I can do it for her.” Rosa laid her hand over her mother's forehead and then her mother started speaking the spell from her own lips. Lily and Rosa let go of her and she disappeared before their eyes.

“You should go back too and help her. She won't know anyone there.”

Rosa shook her head. “I'm needed here. I can feel it.”

“Let's go then.”

Lily and Rosa walked swiftly, silently, down a long corridor, the sounds of male voices growing louder. “It's Alrik and Telal. I recognize their voices.”

Lily peered into the room, staying to the wall, and saw Alrik's black magic slithering out of his hand and wrapping around Telal. Telal dropped to the ground, screaming as the black bands squeezed around his struggling body, forcing him to the ground. Hard bounding footsteps tore her gaze away from the sight. Lily tensed as the footsteps came towards them but relaxed as she saw familiar faces.

Lyonis stopped on the other side of the doorway. Alongside him were Rayn and Henry. “What are you doing here?”

Before Lily could respond, a taller, bigger man stepped out from behind them. Kearnyn. His eyes locked so hard onto Rosa the look felt like a slap.

“What are you doing here?”

“We came to free her mother and help.”

“Get out of here now,” Lyonis said. “Most of the guards are dead but a swarm of demon assassins are headed this way. They’ve already killed the Atal Warriors and nearly took out Jackie and Thane. They are incredibly fighters.”

A blood-curling scream brought Lily's gaze back inside the dining hall. Alrik stood like a trembling evil force, his palms facing the ground summoning something from the earth. Insects. Swarms and swarms of them, making a hideous cracking sound as they crawled up from beneath the stone floor in groves and scuttled across the floor to Telal. Lily didn’t know what they were but she knew they couldn't touch him.

Running into the room, Lily chanted a quick spell and thrust her arm out. The beetle-like insects screamed as they were kicked back with a tidal force of air.

She had only a moment to hear Rosa's scream when Alrik's blackened eyes settled on her and black magic shot at her. She ran and rolled on the ground. The blast hit the wall where she'd been, the stone crumbling to the ground, sizzling and smoking like acid ate away at it.

“Get up, Telal!” she screamed.

His wide, angry eyes met her and then he spoke in demonic and white light pierced him, killing the black tendrils covering him. He stood and she saw the blood drenching his leg, pooling around him.

“Get out of here!” he roared.

So much seemed to happen at once that Lily felt struck, frozen in place. Demon assassins like she'd seen at Telal's headquarters rushed into the room followed by Telal's own team. Lyonis roared a sound so piercing she had to cover her ears as he shifted into a great hulking beast like a wolverine full of thick fur, vicious talons, and a muzzle of razor-sharp teeth. He jumped into a crowd of demons, throwing his arms around, knocking them away, snapping at heads and biting them off.

Henry, Rayn, Draven, and Kearnyn followed bearing an assortment of weapons from double-bladed axes to two sharp swords. They whipped their weapons in a fast circle, so fast the motion blurred together and ran against the demons, slicing off arms and legs in great bloody sweeps.