“Right,” Pen said. “It was just really disorienting.”
“You get used to it,” Dagger said reassuringly.
Pen sighed but steeled her nerves. Last time hadn’t been unpleasant, there wasn’t any pain, but she wasn’t in the best mindset then. She took Scythe’s hand, surprised by how cold it was.
Color drained from the room, and a gray cloud consumed them for a moment. She stiffened but could still see Dagger and Scythe before her. His hand was around her waist.
The fog lifted as suddenly as it appeared, and night fell over them like a soft blanket.
Pen let go of Scythe’s hand. Tombstones surrounded them now in the oldest section of the cemetery. Next to them was a large enough tree that Pen couldn’t wrap her arms around if she tried. Most of the trees in the city were beautiful with fill green leaves, but this one was already dry and skeletal. She couldn’t even tell what kind of tree it was, and she was usually good at identifying them.
“So, how does this work?” Pen asked touching the dry bark, eager to get down there. “And I’ll be able to see the shades there, right?”
“Of course,” Dagger said. “To open it, we just drive the blades into the bark or roots.”
Resolve and a strong calm fell over Pen as she drew a lot of blood from her wrist. It solidified into a dagger, but she changed it. Gaining a little distance from the tree, mainly because she didn’t know what was actually going to happen, she made a long spear.
In her excitement, she drew too fast and dizziness almost took over. She pushed it aside and then plunged the crimson blade into the tree.
For a split second her heart dropped as nothing happened, but then the wood cracked.
A hole widened from the spear point, and the trunk of the tree was wrenched open. It looked like a vertical tear through parchment, and the sounds of creaking wood was oddly pleasant. Once the opening was wide enough, Pen melted the spear back into her arm and looked inside.
Cold air leaked through the opening, causing gooseflesh to rise. The earth was carved into a set of stairs leading down into the darkness.
“Where does it open to at the end?” Pen asked not looking away from the passage.
“There’s another tree at the base of the castle down there,” Dagger answered.
Heart in her throat, Pen darted inside and down the stairs.
“Rather eager, aren’t you,” she heard Scythe comment.
Dagger and Scythe entered behind her, and the bark creaked as the tree closed behind them.
“Shit,” she cursed as the darkness completely blinded her.
“Oh, you can’t see anything in here,” she heard Scythe’s voice, sounding honestly surprised. “I forgot you can’t see in the dark.”
“I’ll be fine,” Pen said pressing her hands on either side of the earthen tunnel.
Trusting the stairs, she moved down easily, and eventually a glow appeared at the bottom. The steps came back into view, along with another vertical opening.
Pen rushed for it, and the crunch of gravel changed underfoot.
The field of the dead lay before her, with the decayed castle looming above her on its floating rock.
The pale shades of people wandered around as always. Gray ghosts passing through each other endlessly. Tellus was in this crowd, along with Arch and Alard. She couldn’t see them from here, but that didn’t matter. She knew where they were.
“You’re going to visit them again?” Dagger asked, probably sensing her thoughts through her actions.
“Yes,” she said tearing her gaze away from the tiny grove of rocks and trees where her family sat in this cavern. “Now that I think about it, this is your land, and I’ve been intruding on it for years to visit them. I never even thought to come say hello to you.”
Dagger didn’t look bothered by it, and Scythe’s grin even turned sad for a moment.
“We’ve watched you come visit them,” Scythe said, “and it never felt right to approach at the time either. You clearly miss them.”
“Yes,” Pen said around the ache in her heart. “Thank you for showing me how to do this.”
“Of course,” Scythe said softly.
Dagger grinned, nodding his head. “You can come here whenever you need.”
“Thank you for this,” she said again.
She turned to the dead. Her mind was in a fog, but she thought she heard Scythe say something about visiting so often and doing more as she turned to Dagger.
She didn’t see where Scythe and Dagger went, but with the castle close by, looming out of the cave’s dark gray light, they probably went home.
It only took her seconds to find her husband and son. Arch’s ghost sat against another thin dead tree, staring blankly before him as always. Alard’s tiny form was still on the ground nearby, his back against a sharp rock. He lay on his side, exactly how he used to sleep. His little fist tucked up against his mouth.
“Hello, boys,” Pen whispered as she sank down between them.
She wished she could touch them. There was a lock of hair in Alard’s eyes, and she wanted to brush it away. Her hand would just pass through him, though, not feeling anything. They never responded of course. They just sat and laid there unblinking.
The constant ache deepened, and she could hardly breathe around it now.
Pen lay down next to Alard, facing him.
When he was born, she wanted to sleep by him like this, but was scared to. She was terrified about rolling over him as they slept and smothering him. Arch had always been there, reassuring her that he would stay awake and move him when she dozed off.
She felt Arch’s presence behind her too. She would spend hours just sitting against that tree with him sometimes.
It was cold down here, and the dead constantly wandered, but she was finally able to get some sleep.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Pen
The sky was clear, and Pen actually enjoyed the sun on her skin. Skiachora was a cold, dead place, but spending the night there seemed to do some good. When she woke next to Alard, there was no way of knowing the time, but she felt great. After saying her goodbyes to them, she went back to the skeletal tree by the ruined castle that housed the new rulers and opened it as before, only with a smaller knife this time.
The staircase of packed earth led upwards, and she hoped it would open in Stymphalia. She held the image of the tombstones she’d seen in her mind when she stabbed the tree. Similar to the way Scythe told her to visualize her cottage so many years ago.
It worked perfectly. The darkness was unnerving, but the walk up wasn’t long, and she came out of the exact same tree in the city’s graveyard. When she left the last step, the dry bark stitched itself back together with an oddly pleasant sound, concealing the entrance to the land of the dead.
The sunlight told her it was well into the morning, so she’d slept way too long, but she finally felt okay as she walked back to her rooms, avoiding people for the most part.
The green and bronze plated soldiers outside her door in the corridor crushed the good mood. Another guard with a bronze helm and shorter green hair stood closer to the staircase entrance. He spotted her coming up and met her at the top.
“Are you Pen?” he asked.
“Aye,” she answered taken aback. Her instincts told her to lie and hide, but now was not the time. “Has something happened with the Fang?”
“No, but there was another attack last night. We were instructed to find you,” he explained.
“Crap, okay.” Her heart fell as reality set in again. “Let me grab something and we’ll go.”
Pen hurried to her door, and the helmed guard moved aside. She nearly tripped into the still closed door when the latch didn’t move.
It was locked. Scythe had transported her from inside, so of course the damn key was still in there.
Cursing again, Pen picked the scab on her wrist. Both guards gasped as they saw the blood rise from the small wound.
“Don’t tell anyone,” she hissed at
them.
Hardening the blood into the image of the room key, she got the door open. She ran in, grabbed her cloak, and the journal. She also managed to tuck the small ink bottle and quill into another pocket, hoping they wouldn’t bend or break, but wanting to take notes in case she might forget something later.
Dagger said they needed a new body, and they have one now, so she didn’t want to miss anything.
“Okay,” she said turning back to the guards in her apartment now. “Where did it happen?”
She hoped Dagger’s advice on having a new victim would pay off. That this person didn’t die for no reason again.
Pen could see the teeth marks this time. A crescent of blunt, but deep, red imprints covered the left side of the woman’s throat. The right side held the worst of it. An entire chunk was taken out, leaving a stringy mess, and she could see the thick vein of an artery poking out.
The woman’s black hair was piled on top of her head with braids and pins holding it together. Her lips and chin were stained by more blood.
No one knew her name, but they knew her profession. One of the guards, the helmed one from before, knew her as a prostitute working at the Lion’s Den.
Pen knelt beside her, at a loss again. The woman’s cold blue eyes stared up at her, wide in horror and begging for answers.
There had to be something here. The Fang had been right here. There must be some indication of him.
“Was this exactly where she was found?” Pen asked. “No one moved her?”
“Aye, she was just like this,” a new guard said. Pen guessed he was the captain of the guard based on the horse insignia on his breast. Tellus had the same one.
They were in a narrow alley that would have been in shadow most of the day, but with the high noon sun, everything could be seen.
Pen stood and took a step back, trying to gain a larger picture of the woman and the area, but she ran into another guard.
“Sorry, lass,” the helmed man said, shuffling back.
“Okay, everyone back up,” Pen ordered. “I need to think. Just make sure the crowd doesn’t get in.”
Half a dozen guards left her alone, but one lingered.
“What?” Pen asked him.
It was the young man from outside her rooms, with the moss green hair. He looked down, a little embarrassed, but spoke.
“Can you heal her?” he asked. “Bring her back even?”
“What?! No, I can’t do that.”
“But you’re the Blood Warrior,” he whispered insistent. “Can’t you put the blood back in her?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Pen said. “Besides, I can’t even heal my own wounds.”
He sighed, but didn’t argue.
“It’s a decent idea, though,” she said trying to reassure him of something.
He looked to her again, confused.
“I’ve heard hundreds of assumptions on what the Warrior can supposedly do,” she said shrugging. “That one was new.”
He scoffed, but a grin cracked over his lips.
“I’ll help with the crowd,” he said, “just let us know when you need anything.”
“My thanks,” Pen said.
He gave a small bow and left to the northern mouth of the alley.
Most people crowded that end, trying to look over the guards to see her and the body. The southern end was less clogged, but she still felt eyes from that direction too.
Removing her journal and ink from her pockets, she found the quill had snapped. It wasn’t useless the end had just broken off, but the writing tip was fine. It was just shorter now.
Balancing the journal on the windowsill above the woman’s feet, Pen wrote down everything she could see and think of, as well as questions for later.
This woman worked at the Lion’s Den, so Pen would have to go back and talk to whomever was in charge there. She could find Mellas again too. He probably knew her. Pen wondered if she lived at the Den or elsewhere. She’d also have to get the woman’s name to contact her family. Mellas might help there too.
Pen also took note of the wounds for Biros’s sake, hating having to look at them for too long.
During one glance, her gaze drifted to the woman’s hands. They were perfectly still and curled a bit. The left arm was outstretched, while the right was tucked against her side.
Pen stopped writing when she noticed the odd webbing in the woman’s left hand. It was so fine she hadn’t noticed it before.
Leaving the book on the windowsill, Pen stepped over her legs to reach that hand. Kneeling, she realized it wasn’t webbing, but fine blond hair.
A tiny chunk of flesh was stuck under her nail with a few strands stuck to it.
She had fought back, like Adrienne.
Relief and excitement flooded through Pen. It felt wrong to be glad about anything next to the dead woman, but this could honestly help.
“Thank you for grabbing this,” Pen found herself whispering to the woman as she carefully picked it out of her nails.
Keeping a hold of the hair, she hurried back to the journal and tucked it between a few blank pages.
The strands weren’t too long, but they were a good six inches and were a perfect yellow blond against the parchment.
Glancing to the north end of the alley, she saw the crowd had grown. Stowing the journal with the hair and everything else into her cloak, she turned south but stopped.
One figure stood out from the crowd. His hood was up, but Pen could see the midnight blue beard on his jaw. Given the angle it looked like his shoulder was deformed, but she knew it was a shield strapped to his back.
It wasn’t Phaos. Pen had seen him in his hawk form now and then. He would raise his left wing in greeting if she raised her left hand.
The figure’s posture changed. His back straightened a touch and he pulled the hood lower.
“Don’t you move,” Pen muttered heading towards him.
He ducked around the corner and was gone.
“Hey!” Pen shouted taking off after him.
The alley quickly ended, and the crowd filled her vision.
Shoving aside the guards and civilians, Pen got through them heedless of the questions being hurled her way.
Her stalker darted into another narrow street.
“Stop!” she shouted after him, taking off again.
Briefly, she heard a woman shriek something like “here!?”
Her feet pounded on the cobblestones, and blood rushed in her ears. He wasn’t far, only a few yards ahead of her.
Rushing into the alley he entered, she saw him turn the corner at the other end. Not bothering with shouting again, she sprinted after him.
The alley was wider, thankfully, with several doors probably leading to living spaces. She nearly crashed into the far wall as the alley bent left. It carried on into an open market with people everywhere.
Pen rushed to the edge of the crowd, but her stalker was gone.
Only then did she notice the foot falls behind her through her panicked excitement.
Three guards came running up behind her, two of them being the captain and the green haired youth.
The captain turned to the others.
“Gather a few more men and block off any exits to this square. That bastard’s not escaping.”
The two guards hurried off and caught the attention of more.
The captain turned to Pen, clearly looking for any direction from her.
“So?” he asked. “Did you see which way he went?”
Catching her breath, Pen wanted to scream at the guards for following her like this, but also at herself for just taking off.
They thought she had seen the Fang, of course they did.
“No, I lost him,” she growled.
“What did he look like?” he asked.
She couldn’t give up her stalker as the killer. Not only was it false, she knew it had to be, it would throw off the investigation.
“I didn’t see his face,” she said but stuck
to what she’d found under the woman’s nail, “but there was a blond beard, and he has longish blond hair.”
The captain nodded and left to share the information.
Her heart still pounded too hard, as she climbed onto a barrel to see over the people.
Her stalker was gone, and while she swore aloud, she was glad. She just brought the entire Stymphalian Guard down on his tail. She could only hope he found a safe place and would try to find her again later.
There was little doubt on who it was. Phaos lied. Her father was alive.
Why wouldn’t he just come to talk, though? She couldn’t figure out why he was avoiding yet following her like this.
She wished she could leave him some kind of message, reassure him he was safe, and that the guards chasing them had been a mistake.
Shouts from the crowd pulled at her attention.
A taller man with thinning blond beard and hair was giving the captain a hard time, and the guards looked ready to detain him.
Everyone was terrified.
Pen hopped down from the barrel, grinding her teeth. She had caused this turmoil, now she had to clean it up.
Chapter Thirty
Raisa
Raisa had never seen the city this empty before. There were a few people gathering water, or talking to their neighbors, but even the public well was sparse.
Everyone was too scared to step outside, especially at night, lest the Fang get them. News had spread quickly that more actions were being taken to catch him, that a hit had been taken out on him even, by the queen herself. Though Raisa suspected those were overblown stories of Pen tracking him down. There was certainly a reward for his capture, but given the graphic nature of his kills, no one wanted to contend with him.
She tried to not let it get to her, but her skin still crawled. She could hold her own in a fight, but paranoia stuck in the back of her mind like a splinter.
Before she left the hideout, she even asked Kaya and Palrig to keep an extra eye on Drivas. Palamedes would be here today if he’d gotten her message.
There was no return bird, so she only hoped he was actually coming. She’d give him the entire day, just in case he was impeded by something.
Grief of the Undying (The Ichorian Epics Book 3) Page 17
