Overlord Alliance: Book 2 of the Neon Octopus Ally Series

by L. A. Johnson

  13

  The hatch was a big and heavy looking one. Just looking at it filled Ari with dread.

  Harry continued, “And as for the hotel and the rest of it— we had an understanding.”

  “An understanding? With a monster?”

  “Well, obviously I didn’t have an understanding with it, but I was told that my ancestors did.”

  Ari scowled at him, more out of nervousness than anger. “If I don’t get eaten by this monster, and I better not; you and I are going to have a long conversation about sharing information, Harry.”

  Without missing a beat, Harry shot back, “Says the girl with the mysterious magic ring of power you got from a magical Overlord candidate. That’s awfully convenient if you ask me.”

  “Enough,” said Kirian, stepping in between them. “We’ll never know which one of us the monster will actually eat until we go down the hatch, yes?”

  Ari shook her head. “You have a wicked sense of humor, Kirian.”

  “Thank you,” Kirian answered. She gave them both a severe look. “Now, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going down the hatch, and you two are going to follow me quietly and stop fighting. Because frankly, right now I think I prefer the company of the monster.” She put all of her muscles into turning the giant hatch. Finally, with a metallic groan, it came off completely. Then she moved it to the side. “Are you guys ready or what?”

  “I’m ready,” Ari said.

  “Me too,” Harry said. “I’ll go second.”

  “Fine with me,” Ari said.

  “Shut up, you two,” Kirian said, staring down into the hole. “Oh boy, that’s dark. Does anybody have a flashlight?”

  “I swiped a couple back at Harry’s office,” Ari said triumphantly, handing one to Kirian.

  “Where’s mine?” Harry asked.

  “Sorry, I only grabbed two.”

  “I will seriously punch you both,” Kirian said. “You two are friends. You’re work buddies. You’ve saved each other’s lives, matching gang tattoos, the whole deal. Now I know that you’re both nervous about this monster, and that’s why you have me. But we’ll all be better off if you two focus on the matter at hand and not each other.”

  Kirian disappeared down into the darkness. Then Harry. Ari followed them down the hatch. As she descended into the darkness, her ears strained, listening for anything out of the ordinary. She heard only silence, and possibly the distant dripping of water.

  By the time she was all the way down and standing on solid ground again, she realized that there was actually a little bit of light in the tunnel. After shining the light on the ground and making sure it was stable and safe, she switched off her flashlight.

  “What are you doing?” Kirian asked.

  “Letting my eyes adjust,” Ari said. “You should turn your flashlight off too. If anything is hunting us down here, it’ll see us coming a mile away with our flashlights.”

  “That’s a good point,” Harry said it. His voice was shaky. Even in the dim light, she could tell that he had taken one of his weapons out.

  Ari worried that he would accidentally shoot Kirian in the back. “Hey, put it away, Harry. Unless you want to go first.”

  Kirian turned around to see for herself. “Hey! Knock it off, Harry.”

  There was a bump in the distance that caused everybody to be quiet.

  “Don’t tell me,” whispered Ari, “that’s the direction we’re supposed to go.” She indicated the direction of the noise.

  “Yes,” Harry said.

  Kirian, without the flashlight, made her way forward in the relative darkness.

  Ari was relieved to find that her eyes were adjusting to the dark. The trio padded forward as quietly as they could in unfamiliar surroundings. Her magic ring was humming with its own energy again. Maybe it sensed that they were getting closer to the source that would replenish it. She could just make out the forms of Harry and Kirian as they walked ahead.

  In the distance was a new light source. A green, hazy light that Ari squinted at. In fact, she was still squinting at the light in the distance further down the tunnel when she heard movement in the shadows to her left. She swallowed hard and turned to face it. She wanted to ask if anybody else had seen it move, but she was too scared to speak. The forms of Kirin and Harry turned toward it, so they must have heard it too. Meaning it wasn’t all in her head. Ari wondered if that was good or bad.

  There was a flash of reflected light where Kirian was. She had drawn a sword. It made Ari feel better. Until she heard a slither and a splash behind her, to the right of where they were headed.

  Ari spun again, this time pulling out her own pistol. “What the hell?” she whispered, barely audible even to herself.

  Kirian swung with her sword and hit something. There was a shriek and another splash and then another slithering noise.

  “I don’t know,” Harry said, “maybe it would be better to use our flashlights so we could see what was sneaking up on us. We can’t see well enough to defend ourselves here.”

  Ari hated to admit it, but Harry was right. She pulled a third flashlight out of her pocket and handed it to him. “Here, you’re right.” She expected another angry comment, but instead he looked relieved.

  They switched on their flashlights and scoured the area with light. But now there was nothing to see. Whew, Ari felt like she could breathe again.

  There was still a greenish light up ahead of them. To each side, there was a tunnel leading in different directions to the left and the right. Now that she could see, she could tell that the splashing noises came from the quarter inch of liquid coating the cement floor of the tunnel. The ceiling and sides of the tunnel also appeared to be cement. The ceiling in here was high. At least fifteen feet, by Ari’s estimation.

  “Okay,” said Ari, emboldened by her flashlight and the lack of monsters in the immediate vicinity. “Did anybody see what that shadow was?”

  “I think I hit it,” Kirian said, taking a few steps to her left. “There are green liquid drops over here. It could be blood.”

  “Or it could be green mold,” Harry said. “It’s everywhere. On the ceilings and the walls.”

  “Whoa, Kirian,” Ari said, concerned that she was more than a few steps away. “I think we should stay together. If you go too far away, we’ll lose you with our flashlights.”

  “I agree with Ari,” Harry said.

  Suddenly, the ring activated again. It sprang to life, tingling, vibrating, and speaking to her. In ring language, it was screaming. It was so loud, in fact, that Ari glanced around to see if the others had noticed. They had not. “Hey, guys,” Ari said, moving off to her right. “The ring is telling me to go this way.”

  “But that’s the opposite way of where the map said to go,” Harry objected. “Trust me, the right is a bad direction to go in.”

  “I thought you had never been down here before,” Ari said, moving off to her right and listening to the ring instead of to Harry’s objection.

  “Okay, maybe I snuck down here once. I followed them and they never knew. They went right. That was the night that one of them didn’t make it back. I literally lost a family member down here.”

  “I think they were just messing with you Harry,” Kirian said.

  There was a dark moment of silence before Harry continued, “I don’t think so. I was at the funeral.”

  That put a damper on the next few minutes as Ari led the way down the tunnel as the ring instructed, with Kirian close behind. They continued to walk silently, close together. Ever further into the dank tunnel.

  The lack of random splashes and shadow figures allowed Ari to relax a little, despite Harry’s dire warnings. They were almost to the ring’s power source. She could feel it. They approached what looked to be a large, circular room at the end of a tunnel. Oddly enough, the room was dimly lit. Ari couldn’t see any actual lights or lamps though.

  “Ari?” Kirian whispered. “What’s that?”

  Ari took a
few steps closer. The entire room was glowing. Not with light, exactly, but with power. This was what the ring was looking for. “I think it’s the power source.”

  Harry gasped. He was looking behind him, so Ari and Kirian whirled. Ari gasped too. Behind them was a moving, squirming wall of giant worms. Dozens of them. Except these things were way too big to be worms. And they had eyes. Eyes with pupils. No, not worms, worms. What the hell. “How could creatures who live in the dark have eyes with pupils?

  “That’s what’s bothering you?” Harry asked, backing up. “Their eyes?”

  Ari hadn’t even realized that she had said it out loud. She was just as horrified as Harry. She tried to back up, mistimed a step backward, and fell into the dank water with a noisy splash.

  Kirian bent down to help Ari up but froze halfway into the gesture. A worm creature had darted forward pounced at Ari in the split second after she fell. The creature was right in front of Ari’s face. For now, though, it was otherwise unmoving.

  Kirian made another movement toward Ari, but when she did, all the other worms moved too. As of now, it was just Ari and one worm, but any sudden movement threatened to set them all off in a giant scrum.

  Ari stayed still. She didn’t even breathe. All she could see were the creature’s giant eyes, which she feared. Then it hit her what it was doing. It wasn’t trying to bite her, although as she let her gaze drift down from the eyes, she could see glistening teeth protruding from its mouth. It lowered its head and hissed at her, angry that she had let her gaze fall from its eyes, which swirled and danced.

  It was trying to hypnotize her. The eyes looked like fractals. When Ari looked into them deep enough, she could see colors. She could see oceans. Hell, she could see entire galaxies in those eyes. She relaxed and tried to figure out what Soothsayer was trying to tell her. Yes, now I know your name, Soothsayer, and you know mine.

  “Ari!”

  Ari heard Kirian’s voice, but it sounded far away. Like it was in a tunnel. Ari wasn’t in a tunnel anymore, she was in space. Or was she? She shook her head and realized she was still in a tunnel. With Harry and Kirian. Trying to get a power source for her magic ring. How had she forgotten?

  “Ari, what was it saying?” Harry asked.

  “What?” Ari asked him.

  “It was hissing at you. It looked like it was communicating. What was it saying?”

  The other worms didn’t like Harry talking to her. They moved forward and loomed over him.

  Ari’s worm moved even closer, inhabiting her entire field of vision. “It’s trying to hypnotize me, Kirian. What should I do?”

  The glowing eyes hovered and danced. They even sang to her. And the more she fought it, the more it caught her attention and drew her in. The galaxies reappeared. They enveloped her and made her feel safe. In fact, they told her to close her eyes. Somewhere, in the distance, she could hear Kirian yelling. But it didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered now.

  14

  A horrible screaming hiss woke Ari out of her reality and brought her fully back out into the dank, dark, worm infested underground tunnel. She blinked. She was lying on her back on the ground in the liquid. A decapitated worm head was on the floor next to her.

  “What happened?” Ari asked.

  “You closed your eyes and it went for your throat,” Kirian said.

  Ari felt Kirian tug her backward with her and Harry toward the light. “The good news is that we’re at your power source, right Ari? The bad news is that these worms are probably going to eat us for lunch. I’m sorry, Harry, your childhood freaking sucked. There really were monsters under your hotel.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Harry said. “And my recent adulthood isn’t turning out the way I had hoped either.”

  Now that she was upright, Ari went backwards faster and faster, keeping her eyes on the cursed worms. The ring wanted the power. Something about the glowing room behind her was calling to it and maybe if she could just get back there in one piece, she could figure out how to get the ring what it wanted.

  The hissing at them intensified and Ari froze, but not before her back hit something solid.

  “You want me to kill them all?” Kirian asked. “Because I’m good making my stand here. I don’t think there’s any way you’ll get out otherwise.”

  “Hang on,” Ari said. “I think the ring is doing something.”

  “Well, hopefully the ring can do its thing fast,” Harry said. “I’m pretty sure we’re out of time.”

  Ari closed her eyes. She did it to shut out all the worms, Kirian and Harry and try to concentrate on the ring and what she was supposed to be doing with it. To her surprise, though, even after she closed her eyes, the worms remained. They continued to loom at her in a glowing double negative of themselves in real time. How can this be? Without the distraction of Kirian and Harry, she could feel the worms now in addition to seeing their glowing bodies.

  They were trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t hear it. Not over the ring. Now that her eyes were closed, and she was focused, the ring was screaming at her. No, it wasn’t. That wasn’t the right word. The right word is that it was singing. Or at least humming some tune. The tune got stuck in her head, like it or not, and led to the formation of ideas.

  Her hand. Her left hand was on a rock. The ring, that was on the ring finger of her right hand, wanted that rock. There was more to the song, but it was threatening to continue with instructions, so as fast as she could, she grabbed the rock in her right hand and transferred it to her left.

  Kirian started screaming, but Ari didn’t open her eyes. Not yet. She had to keep listening. The singing kept going. Another rock. She felt around in the dark with her right hand until she found another rock. Then, her eyes still closed, she hurled the rock at the pack of worms that had chosen that exact moment to advance on them.

  The worms hissed and backed up. Ari opened her eyes. When she did so, she expected to see normally again. What she didn’t expect was for the wall of sound to hit her. Kirian and Harry were still yelling, and the worms were also making a racket. Weird. She couldn’t hear anything with her eyes closed except for the singing of the ring.

  Once she blinked a few more times, she realized that the reason that the worms were freaking out was that they were on fire. She felt bad about that, but the ring had told her to. And besides, they had tried to eat her and all.

  Harry was silent, but Kirian was still yelling and pointing. To Ari’s right hand, as it turned out. When Ari looked down, she could see that her right hand was on fire. She turned her hand around front to back wondering why it didn’t hurt.

  That’s when Kirian took off her tee shirt and jumped on Ari’s hand. “What the hell is wrong with you, Ari? You didn’t even try to put out the fire on your own hand. Couldn’t you feel it?”

  “No,” Ari said. “I didn’t feel it at all. It’s like I was in a trance.”

  “No kidding,” Kirian said, removing the shirt after snuffing out the flames. “You grabbed that rock and hit the worms and set them all on fire. All without looking. How did you do that?”

  Kirian gasped when she removed the shirt.

  “What?” Ari asked. She braced herself, waiting for the pain to kick in. It was her right hand, too. That would make things more difficult moving forward. Still, she was strangely numb right now. Maybe it was the apocalypse. Maybe it was the ring. She risked a glance down at her hand at last, wincing at what she would see.

  Then she looked up at Kirian, who was wide eyed, still holding her tee shirt in her hand. Ari was fine. Her hand was fine. Everything was fine. And the worms were even keeping their distance.

  “How did you—” Harry asked.

  “I don’t know!” Ari said, getting up. “The answer to how I managed to catch and fire and still be okay is I have no idea. It doesn’t even hurt.” She turned her hand over again a few times, but it was still fine. The whole situation terrified her. She wondered if she was hallucinating. Her entire life philosophy a
nd self-identity was tied up in being smart. And that whole part of her life seemed to go up in smoke the minute she had put on that stupid ring.

  She stood up. The ring. “Oh yeah, the ring is happy now. I think it’s charged up or whatever.”

  The worms were still keeping their distance. Ari could see that there was a space off to the left where they might sneak out and outrun the worms back to the hatch. “Let’s get out of here while we still can, okay? All of us. I’m not letting you die here, Kirian.”

  “Works for me,” Kirian said, Stingr sword out and glowing. “I’ll cover us.”

  Ari grabbed Harry and made a run for it. Adrenaline and fear can make her legs go faster than she thought possible. The two of them were going so fast they darted past Kirian and into the dark hallway.

  The three of them moved quickly, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the now pissed off giant worms.

  That’s when a small, hairy figure appeared directly in front of Ari as she was full out sprinting. She was already having trouble figuring out what was real and what was not down here in the tunnels, so she figured that even if the small hairy green guy was only in her head, it was probably best to go around him.

  Unfortunately, trying to go around him while already moving as fast as possible proved impossible. She tripped, falling and skidding and scraping her knees on the icky and dank cement floor of the tunnel.

  Unlike the time earlier when her hand was on fire, she felt this injury to the fullest. The front of her clothes were all wet, and there were now holes in the knees of her jeans where the concrete had torn away fabric and flesh. “Ow. Shit.”

  Ari looked up to see if the figure was still there or if she had imagined it. It was still there. She closed her eyes and still, its oversized glowing eyes tried to peer into her soul.

  “I have come for you, Ari,” the figure said in her mind.

  At least she thought it was in her mind. Ari screamed and opened her eyes.

  15