Free The Descent Series, Books 1-3: Death's Hand, The Darkest Gate, and Dark Union (The Descent Series, Volume 1) by SM Reine Page A

himself enough to figure out why.
    When James woke up, the active bond had been closed, and Elise was gone.
    E lise gave McIntyre sixteen hours before calling him back. He was still in Las Vegas when he answered.
    “I’ve sent two of my friends down to help you,” he said. “This guy, Bryce, and a kid called Diego—he’s already close. They’re going to meet you at the condo. They should only be four hours away, max.”
    “You’re a goddamn bastard, Lucas McIntyre.”
    He blew air out of his lips. “Maybe you’ll have a family someday. Maybe you’ll understand then.”
    “Not a chance in hell,” she said.
    Bryce and Diego. Elise didn’t know any kopides named Bryce and Diego, and she didn’t want to know them. Whenever she ran across other hunters, like her, they were always a disappointment—too weak, too emotional, or too fixated on her gender. She had never met another kopis she couldn’t hate, and that included her ex-boyfriend. She wouldn’t go into a fight with anyone but James or McIntyre.
    So Elise armed herself and went into the undercity.
    T he entrance was easy to locate. Demons left telltale marks to help each other find their dens: a stack of rocks, a symbol carved into a tree, a sign with demonic text written in graffiti on the back.
    She found the trap door in the basement of a shop five miles away. It was dirty and smelled like a latrine, but the mark on the wall was unmistakable.
    Elise descended the narrow steps. The air became still as the world above was blocked out, and soon, she only had her flashlight as a guide. When she finally reached the bottom, her legs were weak, her nerves were ragged, and one sword was drawn.
    She took a deep breath and pushed through.
    The undercity shouldhave been a home away from home for the horrors that lived on Earth. It should have been teeming with life.
    But it was motionless. The buildings were rotten from time and mildew, and faced the path with open doors. Empty.
    Where were the demons?
    Elise took a step forward and her foot connected with something soft. She knew without having to look that it was a body, and once she recognized the first, she saw the rest—lumpy shapes spread across the uneven ground of the cavern.
    She kneeled to examine the body at her feet. It had the same marks as the corpses of the humans on the surface. Bones gnawed by dull teeth, missing flesh, shattered skull. The tolling of the bells had struck underground, too.
    Stomach acid soured the back of her mouth as she slipped through the undercity, stepping around bodies and avoiding sinkholes. Something smelled like brimstone.
    She strode through the city, focusing on the path. Elise didn’t want to see the racks where they hung slaves for sale. She didn’t want to see the demons—many of which were indistinguishable from humans—that lay in bloody piles.
    It looked so similar to Dis. There were even skulls over the doorways. They grinned at her with missing teeth and dusty eye sockets.
    Many of the homes had pens in front of them, too. In Dis, it was where they kept their more docile slaves. In this undercity, there were strange, grotesque skeletons instead—unholy things that looked like a mix of pig and human. Chills rolled down her spine. She refocused on the street.
    So many dead. The air was thick with it.
    Elise ducked out of one cavern into the next, following a short tunnel that had been carved by a stream. It let out into a murky pool.
    Something scraped on the shore. She lifted her swords, gripping the hilts so tightly that her arms trembled.
    A dark form on the ground moved, then groaned. A survivor.
    Elise made a wide circle around it, squinting through the dim red glow. It looked like a human, but no human had skin so papery-thin that the outlines of its bones were visible. Its eyes twitched open. They were completely black.
    “ Tikest vo ,” it whispered in a quavering voice. That was the demon language. James spoke it, but Elise didn’t.
    “Don’t