Rival Demons by Sarra Cannon

of lever that opened the passageway.
    Jackson came through in a rush of cool air,
completely unfazed by the process. He took one look at my face and
knew what was going on. "Mary Anne?" he asked, touching her
shoulder. "How are you feeling?"
    She didn't say a word, but her lip trembled. She
laid her head against my chest, and I could feel her small frame
shaking.
    "Can you help her?" I asked.
    "What's the problem?" Marlana asked, stepping
forward.
    "She was injured by a witch when we first came
through the portal to the shadow world," Jackson said. "I thought
she was healed enough to come through the soul stone, but it might
have been too hard on her. I can do a little bit to stop the
bleeding, but I'm not a full scale healer. Would it be possible to
get her to your shaman?"
    Marlana frowned. "The shaman isn't going to want
to help a human," she said.
    The disdain in her voice made me want to punch
her. I opened my mouth to give her a piece of my mind, but Lea
spoke before I could.
    "Perhaps I can convince her to help," Lea said.
She nodded to Jackson and he lifted Mary Anne's shirt over her
wound.
    Not caring about the blood that trickled through
his fingertips, he placed his hand directly on the gash in her
side. The black energy of his magic manifested and surrounded her
middle section. Mary Anne moaned, gripping the sleeves of my dress
tight.
    "You're hurting her," I said.
    Jackson ignored me, his eyes locked on the
wound. When the tension in his arms relaxed, so did Mary Anne's
body. She slumped against me, and I struggled to hold up her
weight. I glanced down at the bloodied place in her side and sighed
with relief when I saw that the bleeding had stopped.
    "That will hold for a little while," Jackson
said. "But we really should get her to the shaman."
    "Andros will want to speak with you first,"
Jericho said.
    I turned in surprise. I hadn't heard or seen him
come through the soul stone. Marlana had been standing beside us,
and I was certain she hadn't pressed the dark stone to let him in.
I wondered how exactly the portals here worked and how they kept
unwanted demons or humans from coming through. But now wasn't the
time to ask a lot of questions.
    "Then please go and get him and let him know we
are here," Lea said, her voice commanding.
    Marlana stayed with us as Jericho shifted into
smoke and flew down the passageway.
    I helped Mary Anne into Jackson's arms and he
cradled her close as we waited.
    "What is this place?" I asked Marlana. "Did you
guys build it?"
    She turned her face away from me, refusing to
acknowledge me. I took a deep breath and tried to remind myself
that the only humans she'd probably ever seen were witches from the
Order who had come to this world to do terrible things.
    "The Underground was discovered rather than
built," Lea said, filling the awkward silence. "The demons who live
here now call themselves the Resistance, and they began moving into
this place about seventy years ago when they first discovered it.
No one really knows how long the Underground has existed, though.
It's believed to have been built by an ancient race of trolls that
went extinct in the shadow world over six thousand years ago."
    Trolls? Not exactly what I'd been expecting to
hear.
    "Does the king know about it?" I asked.
    "He didn't fifty years ago," Jackson said,
looking to Marlana. "Does he now?"
    She shook her head. "No, we've managed to keep
our whereabouts a secret, but he knows the Resistance exists, of
course," she said. "But there are many portals throughout the
Northern Kingdom and we are very careful to make sure no one knows
where they lead."
    Silence descended on us again as we stood,
waiting for Andros to arrive. I wasn't sure, but I guessed he must
be the leader of the Resistance. At the very least, he seemed to be
the one making the final decision about whether we could stay here
or not.
    When he finally did arrive, it was in a rush of
black smoke. He took form as a tall, very handsome man with long
black