Free The Hunter and the Hunted: Two Stories of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong

empty dimension, is it?”
    We can’t teleport out of empty dimensions. They’re off the grid. I had to ask the question again, though. He was looking around, hand tight on his sword.
    “No,” he said finally. “It’s not empty.”
    I didn’t like his tone. “Is something here?”
    “I’m . . . not sure. I think so.”
    “Well, hopefully it won’t mind us taking the book.”
    I swung the light ball in front of us, to illuminate the way, then I started down the corridor. Trsiel followed, walking backward, covering me now. I didn’t see the need for it. We were in a narrow corridor with nothing in sight. Just—
    A growl reverberated through the hall. Trsiel swung in front of me, sword raised.
    “It didn’t come from down there,” I said. “Or behind us. It seemed to come from . . .” I turned to the wall. Then I leaned over and cleared a peephole. “Nothing. Black—”
    The wall crumbled. Just crumbled. So did the ceiling. And the wall behind us. We were standing in the darkness. Endless black on every side. I threw my light ball, but all I could see was the glowing sphere itself, going and going and going until it disappeared.
    The growl came again. Then the flapping of wings. Leathery, bat-like wings, beating currents of hot air all around us.
    “That sounds like . . .”
    “Yes. That’s what it sounds like.”
    “But it can’t be. Hell-beasts are only found in—”
    An ear-shattering shriek as the beast dove at my head. As I ducked, I swung my sword. It made contact, fluorescent green blood spraying my face. The blood burned as it struck my skin, and I let out a yelp, so shocked at the sensation. Ghosts don’t feel pain. Angels don’t either. Not unless they’re in . . .
    “Hell dimension!” I shouted.
    “Which explains the hell-beast.” Trsiel grabbed my arm and yanked me as he stumbled backward over the uneven ground. “Hide your sword.”
    I unconjured it and cast a privacy spell so we could speak without our voices being heard. “It can’t be a hell dimension. We didn’t step through a hell-gate.”
    “No, we fell through one. I thought I felt it, but it happened too fast.”
    “Shit!”
    “Exactly,” he muttered.
    We’d been in hell dimensions before. Very, very rarely, and only when we absolutely couldn’t avoid it. We got in and we got out fast, before anything found us.
    “Hold on,” I said. “I’ll cast . . . Shit!”
    Hell dimensions also negated teleport spells. Meaning we were trapped here, in the dark, with a hell-beast. A very pissed off, injured hell-beast.
    “Just stay still,” Trsiel murmured.
    Right. Hell-beasts hunted like sharks, except they sensed movement through air instead of water. So we stayed still and listened to the flap of its wings as it circled the cavern. Trsiel had found us a spot behind what felt like stalagmites, cold and wet stones soaring up all around us.
    The hell-beast swung past a couple of times. I tried to gauge its size, but all I had to go on was the sound of those wings, which really didn’t help at all. There were hell-beasts small enough for us to take on . . . and some we’d need an army to vanquish.
    “The exit,” Trsiel whispered. “We need to find the exit.”
    I paused. “Right.”
    “We can’t look for that book, Eve. Not here. Not now.”
    “I know.”
    “We’ll get to the exit, climb out and teleport from the top, before the oni attack.”
    “Good plan.”
    It was good. I just would have preferred if it included finding the book. But Trsiel was right—we couldn’t see anything, meaning there was no way to find the book, not while that hell-beast guarded it.
    “Maybe if we kill it . . .” I began.
    As if in answer, we heard claws scrabbling to our left. Then more to our right.
    “Oni?” I whispered.
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Damn.” Oni were a threat I could handle.
    The claws clicked closer on both sides.
    “Any idea where we’d find the exit?” I whispered.
    Trsiel paused.