Rise of the Ghostfather

by Barry Hutchison

  Boyle opened fire, sending a volley of glowing red energy bolts screaming along the passageway, forcing Denzel, Smithy and Tabatha to duck for cover.

  When the gunfire stopped, they all cautiously raised their heads. Boyle, like Samara, was gone. The spot where he had been standing was empty, aside from a single torch that spun on the floor, sending shadows scurrying across the walls.

  “Uh, guys,” Smithy whispered, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the narrow tunnel. “I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I think we might be in trouble.”

  A few moments after Samara and Boyle had been taken, the whispers started.

  “He is coming.”

  “He is coming.”

  “He is coming.”

  Denzel and Smithy drew closer together, grabbing at each other in panic. Their eyes darted this way and that, trying to figure out which direction the sounds were coming from. The way the whispering bounced around inside the confined space made it impossible to pinpoint.

  There was a faint whum as Tabatha produced her cane and spun it around her finger a couple of times. She stood rigid and upright in the middle of the tunnel, her eyes closed, her head cocked so that one ear was pointing upwards.

  “This way,” she said, doing a crisp about-turn and creeping ahead along the tunnel. As she passed the torch, she flicked it backwards with her cane, and Denzel scrambled to catch it.

  “Wait, what?” he whispered, shining the torch after her. “That’s not the way out. Shouldn’t we be looking for the way out?”

  “You’re not going to find your friends outside,” Tabatha told him. She made a clicking noise with her mouth, like someone calling to a pony. “This way. Come on. Giddy-up.”

  Smithy turned to Denzel, his face a picture of excitement. “She made a horsey noise!” he said, then he turned and cantered after her before Denzel could reply.

  “So?! That doesn’t mean we should follow her!” Denzel whimpered, but Smithy continued to trot after Tabatha, leaving him behind.

  Denzel swept the torch across the spots where Samara and Boyle had vanished. He looked both ways along the tunnel. Then, with a groan, he hurried after his two ghost companions, the torchlight trembling across the walls ahead of him.

  “He is coming.”

  “He is coming.”

  “He is coming.”

  As Denzel closed the gap, the whispering seemed to come from all around them – ahead, behind and seeping through the very rock itself.

  They crept along the passageway, Denzel and Smithy close together, Tabatha leading the way. Soon the tunnel walls grew narrower, forcing Denzel to hold his breath and try to squeeze himself through a tight space between two bulges in the walls.

  He pushed, he heaved, he struggled and then, all of a sudden, he found himself stuck.

  “Hey, wait for me!” he whispered, squirming and wriggling as he tried to force his way through the narrow gap. Gritting his teeth, he kicked harder with his feet, trying to force his way through using sheer brute strength.

  Unfortunately, brute strength was never really his strong point. Rather than push his way through to the other side of the narrowing spot, he wedged himself more tightly into it. His chest and back were so tightly pinned that he couldn’t breathe. His face was all squashed up, and one arm was pinned awkwardly behind him.

  Well, wasn’t this just great?

  “Help!” he managed to wheeze.

  The others stopped and doubled back. “What’s the matter?” Smithy asked.

  Denzel couldn’t move his head, but managed to look down at himself using just his eyes.

  “Thtuck,” he said, through his squished-up mouth.

  Smithy frowned. “What?”

  “I’m thtuck.”

  Smithy’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “Something about a duck?”

  ‘Not thtuck. Thtuck.’

  “I can’t hear you properly. Your face is all squashed between those big rocks,” Smithy told him.

  Tabatha stepped past Smithy and placed a hand on Denzel’s head. Denzel became intangible like a ghost and instantly fell through the rocks. By the time he clattered on to the ground, he was solid again.

  “Oh, you were stuck!” Smithy realised. “You should’ve just said.”

  Tabatha placed a finger to her lips and tightened her grip on her cane. There was a bend in the tunnel up ahead, and she motioned for Denzel and Smithy to follow as she sneaked towards it.

  While he was stuck in the rocks, all Denzel had been able to hear was the thumping of his own heartbeat in his ears, and a worrying creaking noise that his skull had been making.

  Now he was out, he could hear something else too. Voices. Not whispering this time, but … singing?

  No, not singing either, he realised. They were chanting.

  “Stay quiet, stay low,” Tabatha instructed.

  Denzel ducked into a crouch. Smithy sank into the floor all the way up to his knees.

  “Handy, this ghost thing,” he whispered back to Denzel.

  He turned to find Tabatha glaring at him. “Stay quieter,” she urged.

  Smithy mimed zipping his mouth shut.

  Then he mimed fastening a tiny padlock to it.

  Then he mimed locking the padlock and throwing away the key.

  “Done,” he said, instantly making the entire mime a complete waste of time.

  Tabatha’s glare became a raised eyebrow and a half-smile, then she became serious again and gestured to the bend ahead. “Stick close. Don’t make any sudden movements. We don’t want them to know we’re here.”

  “They already know we’re here!” Denzel squeaked. “They took Samara and Boyle.”

  Tabatha shook her head and pointed back up the tunnel. “They know we were there. They don’t necessarily know we’re here. Now, come on.”

  She raised her cane and the hand on the end made a beckoning motion with one finger, signalling for Denzel and Smithy to follow.

  They crept together through the tunnel. Denzel kept his torch pointed to the floor so that he could see some of what was ahead of him without shining a beam of light directly ahead that might give them away.

  The closer they got to the bend, the louder the chanting became. It was in some sort of foreign language that Denzel didn’t recognise. If he’d had to guess, he’d have said Ancient Sumerian, but for all he knew it might equally have been Welsh.

  Tabatha reached the bend in the tunnel and stopped. The hand on her cane opened up fully, gesturing for Denzel and Smithy to halt.

  After placing her finger to her lips again and glaring pointedly at Smithy, Tabatha sank backwards into the wall and vanished. The torchlight trembled on the floor as Denzel and Smithy waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  “She’s not coming back,” Denzel whispered.

  “Of course she is,” said Smithy. “She wouldn’t leave me. We’re practically married.”

  “You aren’t,” Denzel told him.

  “We practically are,” Smithy insisted.

  Both boys jumped in fright when Tabatha stepped through the wall again, her eyes alive with excitement.

  “You have got to see this,” she told them, grabbing them both by the wrists. Denzel barely had time to take a big breath before he was yanked into the rock.

  For a few seconds, he saw nothing but blurry darkness, and then he emerged into a wider opening in the tunnel. Light danced and flickered across the walls and ceiling. It came from a much larger cave chamber, which Denzel only got a brief glimpse of before Tabatha pulled him and Smithy to the floor.

  The tunnel opened high up in the cave wall, so that when Denzel, Smithy and Tabatha crawled to the ledge, they had a bird’s-eye view of what was going on below.

  Quite what was going on below, Denzel didn’t know. But he felt it was safe to say that it was nothing good.

  Samara and Boyle were tied, back-to-back, to a wooden post in the middle of the cave, the ropes binding them glowing with magical ene
rgy. Thirty or more people in dark-red robes stood around them, their faces covered by hoods. On the front of their robes was the same upside-down skull symbol that they’d all seen on the screen back at headquarters. Then, it had made Denzel uncomfortable. Here and now, it terrified him.

  “It’s some sort of cult,” Smithy whispered.

  The figures swayed slowly, making rhythmical movements with their hands as they chanted the same repetitive words over and over.

  Naga-raxuk koonto shah. Naga-raxuk koonto shah.

  Denzel wanted to ask Tabatha if she knew what the words meant, but he was too terrified to speak. If they were really lucky, it would turn out to mean: “Sorry about this, we’ve made a terrible mistake, feel free to leave at any time.”

  But he suspected no one was that lucky, and especially not him.

  Tabatha prodded him with her cane, getting his attention, then pointed to a raised area of the floor that almost looked like a stage. It was closer to the tunnel mouth than Samara and Boyle were, and Denzel had to shuffle forward on his elbows a little to see it properly.

  A tall figure in a purple robe stood in silence on the raised area, facing the centre of the cave. He held a long golden staff in one hand, the bottom resting on the floor, a half-moon-shaped blade pointing towards the ceiling. Denzel guessed this guy must be the leader from the way he nodded his approval at the chanting.

  Naga-raxuk koonto shah. Naga-raxuk koonto shah.

  There was something beside the man in purple that Denzel could see from the corner of his eye. When he looked directly at it, though, it disappeared. He focused on the leader and tried to let his peripheral vision figure out what else was down there with him.

  It was a person, he thought, although it was hard to say for sure. It felt a bit like looking at a Magic Eye picture, where you had to look through the image rather than at it in order for the real picture to be revealed.

  Denzel shifted his gaze to the spot where the figure was and tried to focus on the floor beyond it. The air trembled as if alive.

  Naga-raxuk koonto shah. Naga-raxuk koonto shah.

  “What’s that?” Denzel whispered. He pointed to the spot where he could almost see the shape, but Tabatha and Smithy just stared blankly down at it.

  “The ground,” said Smithy. “Why do you ask?”

  Denzel shook his head. “There’s something there,” he insisted, squinting to try to bring it into focus. “I can see … something.”

  He was still squinting when he realised that the cave had fallen silent. The chanting had stopped. In the sudden quiet that followed, Denzel was sure his crashing heartbeat would give them away. He held his breath, terrified, waiting to see what would happen next.

  The robed figures had stopped chanting, but they continued to sway gently from side to side. At the centre of the circle, Boyle and Samara squirmed and struggled against their restraints. Denzel could hear Samara muttering various incantations, but whatever magic had enchanted the ropes was proving too powerful for her to break.

  “We’ve been expecting you.”

  The voice rose up suddenly from the figure in purple. The robed figures all turned and raised their heads in the direction of the tunnel mouth.

  Smithy shot Denzel a worried look. “He’s not talking to us, is he?”

  Denzel swallowed. “I think he probably is, yeah.”

  “Do not keep us waiting, Denzel.”

  Denzel nodded. His voice came as a low croak. “Yeah. Definitely us.”

  The next voice that rose up to the tunnel was Boyle’s. It was shrill and urgent, more scared than Denzel had ever heard it.

  “Denzel, run!”

  The panic in Boyle’s voice kicked Denzel into life. He jumped to his feet and turned to run, only for a tiny golden hand to grab him by the bottom of his trousers. He tripped, fell and thudded hard against the rocky floor.

  “Sorry, kid,” said Tabatha, drawing herself up to her full height. She pressed a foot on Smithy’s back, holding him down, then twirled her cane and pointed it at Denzel. The finger extended like a little gun. “You two aren’t going anywhere.”

  For the third time in the past few minutes, Denzel found himself being pulled through solid rock. Tabatha released her grip on him as they all emerged on to the raised platform, sending him stumbling over the edge and crashing to the floor. As he fell, he disturbed the air, making hundreds of candles all around the cavern flicker and dance.

  Denzel looked up to find himself surrounded by hooded figures. Smithy landed in a heap beside him, a wounded expression on his face.

  “Wait, you’re a bad guy?” Smithy gasped, turning in time to see Tabatha jumping down from the stage behind him. “How can you be a bad guy? You said you were a good guy!”

  “I said I was sometimes good,” Tabatha corrected. “And sometimes bad. Today, I’m bad.”

  She smiled sweetly and winked at him.

  “If it’s any consolation, I think you’re cute.”

  Smithy huffed and stammered out a random series of disconnected words and noises. “Well! That’s! I’m! Sheesh! So! Hmm! Now! But!”

  He put his hands on his hips, nodded firmly a couple of times, then sort of deflated with a sigh. “I want a divorce.”

  Denzel sprang to his feet and spun around, taking in their surroundings. He quickly tried to calculate how many of the robed figures he could successfully take in a fight, and decided that the answer was almost certainly “none”. That was a problem.

  Tabatha had betrayed them. That was also a problem.

  Boyle and Samara were tied up. Another one for the problem column.

  And then there was the figure in the purple robe, and the shimmering shape that was barely visible beside him. Those were also problems.

  A giant version of the upside-down skull was carved into the wall directly above the leader’s head. Denzel’s stomach tightened in fear at the sight of it, and he decided he may as well lump that in with all the other problems too.

  All things considered, then, things were not looking positive.

  “Who are you?” Denzel asked.

  “Ask them what they want,” Smithy suggested.

  “What do you want?” Denzel asked.

  “Ask them if they’re going to kill us,” Smithy whispered.

  “Are you going to—Wait. You’re already dead,” Denzel replied.

  “Oh! Yeah!” Smithy said, brightening. He wiped a hand across his brow. “Phew! That’s a relief. Ask them if they’re going to kill you.”

  The golden hand of Tabatha’s cane appeared between their heads. She flicked her wrist and the hand slapped them both on the face, one after another.

  “Ow!” Denzel protested.

  “That’s just mean,” said Smithy.

  From behind them, they heard Boyle growl. “I knew it. I knew we couldn’t trust her.”

  “You could have said something,” Smithy sniffed.

  “I did!” Boyle snapped. “I said, ‘I don’t trust her.’”

  Denzel nodded. “He did say that.”

  Smithy blinked. “Oh. Right. Well, fair enough then.” He gave the helpless Boyle a thumbs-up. “Good job.”

  “Silence!” boomed the figure in purple.

  All around the cave, the word came again as whispers from beneath the hoods.

  “Silence.”

  “Silence.”

  “Silence.”

  “Who are you?” asked the cult leader. It was a man’s voice and he spoke in a strange stilted sort of way that suggested he didn’t often speak English.

  Denzel frowned. “You know who I am. You called me Denzel a minute ago.”

  The cult leader’s head turned a fraction towards him. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to her.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” said Denzel. “With the hood up it makes it hard to…” His voice died away. He cleared his throat. “I’ll shut up now.”

  “Tabatha Tarrin,” said Tabatha, taking a bow. “Spectre at large. I thought I’d help you g
uys out by bringing you this one.”

  She tapped Denzel on the head with her cane.

  “Why?” asked the cult leader.

  Tabatha twirled her cane and pointed it up at the carving above the leader’s head. “Because of that.”

  Denzel and Smithy both turned to look at her. “Wait, you know what that is?” Denzel asked.

  The golden hand slapped them both across the face again. “Shh. Grown-ups talking,” Tabatha instructed.

  “You serve Him?” the man in the purple robe asked. Beside him, Denzel was sure he saw the indistinct shape take a step closer. He shifted his gaze to it and tried to figure out what it was.

  Man-sized. Definitely man-sized. Legs, he thought. Possibly arms too. If he really squinted, there was something on top that might be a head, but might equally be a big turnip.

  “I’d like to,” said Tabatha, shrugging. “I’ve spent years trying to track Him down, and now I’ve found you guys, I thought I’d seize my chance.”

  The cult leader regarded her from beneath his hood. “I see,” he said, after some consideration. “And you thought you could earn a place among us by bringing us the Chosen One?”

  The same confused expression settled on the faces of Denzel, Smithy, Samara and Boyle.

  “Chosen One?” said Samara.

  “Who’s the Chosen One?” asked Denzel.

  He looked around at the others to find them all staring back at him in surprise.

  “Who is it?” he asked again.

  Smithy looked his friend up and down. “I’ll give you three guesses,” he said. “And the first two don’t count.”

  Denzel’s lips moved silently, as if attempting a tricky maths calculation in his head. After a few seconds of this, his eyebrows raised almost all the way to his hairline.

  “Wait, me? I’m the Chosen One?” he gasped. “Chosen by who? For what? How? Why? When?”

  He tried to think of some more questions to ask, but decided those pretty much covered everything. He could’ve gone for “Where?” he supposed, but it felt unnecessary.

  The cult leader’s voice became an awestruck whisper. “For thousands of years, we have waited, we followers of the Cult of Shantankar. We have existed since the beginning. Since the First.”