by Ellie Cypher
“The lights?” I asked confused.
“Amazing, aren’t they?” Cody put a hand to his throat. “Up there all alone.”
I gave him an odd look.
“They are worms, you know. They’ve never been reported up here, least that I know of. They tend to like more temperate climates. Coastal tropics and the like.” He stumbled a little as we walked, his gaze on the lights.
“Worms? You’re telling me all those little lights are worms?” I pulled a face.
“They’re called night crawlers. The University has an extensive collection in the entomology department. I’d go there when my uncle was too busy, and the other kids were…” He shook his head. “They’re related to fireflies, though these prefer to hunt in the dark of caves. That green is their bioluminescent light. The worms make it. Acts like a lure, snaring insects as they pass. Beautiful, but deadly. Toxic.”
Cody gave me a small smile and we walked on, deadly worms hunting high above, undisturbed by our passage.
The farther in we went, the more different the world around us became. The rough hand-hewn walls of the early mines gave way to rock smooth as melting ice. Walls that radiated a strange heat. I began to sweat, thin streams running down between my shoulder blades and into the top of my pants.
My hands, my feet, my face, they all ached something painful fierce. As did the metal of the pendant around my neck. I tugged it away from my skin.
Too soon, however, we came to an impasse. A tumble of rocks and shale had fallen across the tunnel, blocking it.
Just at the edge of the fall, a slender line of darkness cut through the rocks. A narrow slip of space, just wide enough for one person to squeeze through.
“Someone’s made this intentionally,” Cody said, pulling on the sides of the passage. “Not even loose.”
“Only one way to find out,” I said, and pressed myself into the opening. No more than a few yards in, a sudden breeze spat through the space. The candle snuffed out.
I gave a little curse. The rock walls were ragged; edges of stones snagged at my skin, my clothes, my hair. And like tiny teeth, some of them drew blood.
Working hard to control the rising panic, I shoved my body through the high narrow space. Behind me, Cody were doing the same. Only by the rate he were breathing, his fear less contained than my own. Then sudden, without warning, the slither of tunnel exploded upward into the darkness above.
A vast cathedral opened out before us. I relit the wick and scanned the chasm. Directly ahead, like the sun off a fish’s scales, a blue flicker of light reflected back at us. So too did the steady clink of metal on rock. Of ax on stone.
In unspoken unison, Cody’s hand went to his rifle, mine to my revolver. We were no longer alone. Hasty I pocketed the candle, extinguishing any remaining smoke.
We moved across the space, sticking to the sides of the cave, guns ready. The heavy smell of burned wood, sulfur, and something I couldn’t put a name to filled the air.
At the far end, round a series of massive sparkling stalagmites, a slender slice of deep blue light illuminated the air. Bathing us in an uneasy shimmer. As if we was walking below the ice.
Cold air slammed into my front. Like a wall. Goose bumps raised over the front of my arms. After a moment, I gleaned why. Ahead, a wide circular opening gaped in the ceiling of the cave, edges sparkling with piercing spines of melting ice.
The far side of the chamber were dotted with openings to other tunnels. Like numbers on a half-broke clock face, they sat dark and unlit. Eight of ’em in all. Any one of ’em could be the one we wanted. All had footprints going in and out. But there was one tunnel bigger than all the others. Only one with a wolf’s prints. A spike of adrenaline shot through me, making my already warm body flush.
It were the one over which a thin stripe of silver had reflected back fish-scale blue. We peered down it. It went—somewhere. Just to see, I looked down the ones on either side. Both of those dead-ended not three hundred yards in. Cody said the same about two of the others.
“Where do you think it goes?” Cody asked.
“No idea. But we gotta pick.” I ran a finger cross the swirl of silver. “And this ain’t done us wrong yet.”
“I don’t like it. The air in here feels wrong. Like we’re pushing through it.”
A low, long rumble, like the breathing of the mountain, swelled from the tunnel ahead.
Coming to a bend, the path split three ways. One straight ahead billowed with cold gusts of air. The right one ran warm and smelled of iron and blood. And the left one? It were as cold as the first. Only it weren’t black; it glowed with a deep sea of light.
Cody placed a hand on my arm. “It could be a trap.” His voice anxious.
“I know.” We are too far in. So with little other choice, my gun ready and like a moth to the moon, I moved us into the light.
A small half-opened doorway appeared in the stone wall ahead, like a scar of light.
Heart rate spiking, I pushed an eye to the narrow opening. In the dim, a lone male figure crouched over a smoldering fire. A figure I knew well now. I scanned the tiny room, no sign of no one else. No Bren. Desperation bloomed. I made to open the door. A hand caught me. I spun, temper rising.
“Let go,” I snarled.
Cody’s expression flashed hurt as he took a half step back, but he didn’t let go. Scowling, I shook him off. Or tried to.
“Cody, this ain’t the time. The Rover is right there, let me go.” I hissed it, my hand hovering just over the door. We were so close.
“Jorie, wait. Look,” Cody whispered, urgent. He pulled something out of his pocket. “It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.”
I stopped. There were something in his voice. “How did you…?”
Cody shot an uneasy glance over my shoulder to the room behind. “I stole the paper when you were talking with Dev, been working on it when I could. I didn’t want to tell you in case I couldn’t make it.” He shuffled his feet. “I did my best. It won’t fool him for long, but it might just be enough to get your sister back.”
“I…” Words stuck in my throat. “You made a copy of the map. Of Vydra.” It felt like someone had shot fire straight into my veins. Everything went hot and numb and burning inside me all at once.
“You said we needed a plan,” he said. “And now we have one.”
No one had ever in my life given me something near as perfect as this. He were giving me—giving us—a chance.
I didn’t know what to say. But meeting Cody’s eyes, I knew I didn’t need to. He gave my arm a squeeze. And so, straightening my spine, I turned and thrust open the door.
The Rover were crouched over a smoking fire, his hands busy tearing at whatever he were holding in front of him. The air stank of filth and burning fur. He were jabbering on to himself, his entire body moving, jerking odd in the firelight.
Then he half turned, half fell to his side. The entire world slowed.
I took another step into the room. I had the Rover. I had the map. And he would give me my sister.
“Stand up, you coward,” I said. “Now.” My hand steady, my gun raised high.
Slow as molasses, he stood.
CHAPTER 31 Vengeance Burning
Jorie, is it?” the Rover asked, chuckling strange. Voice off in a way that were like he had just stepped to the side of normal. “I never did ask you your name right and proper like. Too busy, weren’t we?”
My skin crawled. It weren’t right. He weren’t right. He shifted his feet, scattering a pile of coals. Little embers, fresh sparks of red over stone, rolled across the floor. Coming to rest against piles of boxes and the broken support beam stacked against the wall. Heat snapping at the wood. Hungry. I glanced at them.
I pointed to what he held in his hand. Bren’s sweater. “Where is my sister?”
Smiling slick, he raised what he held in the other hand. A long, bloodied knife. He met my stare, eyes wild. The look of a man burning desperate. I went cold all o
ver.
“And who else have you brought me to play with? A brother, is it?” His words slurred together. He swayed ever so slight on his feet. He spread his oily glare over me and Cody, raising his knife.
There we were, all of us, in the middle of a dead mine.
“Jorie, what’s wrong with him?” Cody whispered.
Stars above, those eyes. They were near to completely bloodshot. Runny red lines webbed over ivory globes. The man was clear gone off. He were wicked thin now, as if something had melted the fat from his bones, sucked the muscle from out under his skin. Like he’d been hollowed.
“I brought what you wanted.” My voice burned colder than ice. “Where is my sister?” I brandished the fake map Cody had made.
The Rover laughed and laughed. His voice a deep hungry echo. It were the kind of laughter that saw unlucky men into their dark and lonesome graves. “You’re too late, little girl. Your sister’s long gone. I don’t need what you have, not no more.”
“Liar!” I took a step toward the Rover. “You are gonna tell me even if I have to drag it out of you, intestine by intestine, inch by bloody inch.”
“Like to see a wisp like you try,” Rover growled.
I shot. Bullet hitting the wall not a half foot from the Rover’s skull.
The man’s eyes flashed with surprise, and then rage. I smiled. Smiled real wide. Cause I knew then that buried was gonna be too good for him.
“I told ya she’s gone, traded her on for something better,” he leered. “Looks like I didn’t need you after all.”
I had just three bullets—two now—but the Rover, he didn’t know that. I narrowed my eyes, steadying the weight of the gun. “I’ll have the truth of it right now—all of it, mind—or so help me I’ll shoot. And I promise you I don’t need one than one shot.”
Ahead of me the Rover didn’t move, just widened his drunkard’s smile.
An itching sensation, one that I were somehow the one at the wrong end of this exchange, began building in me.
I clenched my jaw. And like all women worth their grit, I doubled down.
“If you don’t think I’ll do it, you’re dead wrong. You don’t start talking sense, I start shooting.” I near shook with them words, but my hand stayed steady.
“Oh, I’d wager, girl like you, you’d do it alright. Given half the chance.” He sloshed a little to the left. His blink slow. “Too bad you got even less than that.”
“Not by my count,” I said.
The Rover waved his knife in front of him, arm swaying. “Maybe I’ll tell ya, maybe I won’t. But you tell me something first. Who sent you? Was it that fanatic and her worshipers? Couldn’t stand it, could she? Me being right after all this time. Bet it got her down in the banks when they figured out ol’ Reeves ain’t that easy to kill. Well, it’s not me that’s the traitor, not anymore.” He laughed. “But I ain’t too worried.” A fervent glint flashed in his eyes. “It’s them that’ll get what’s coming to ’em. I’ve seen to it right and proper this time, I have.”
My finger eased over onto the smooth metal of the trigger.
“Jorie.” Cody’s eyes reflected glassy and wide in the firelight. “We need to go.”
The Rover looked at him up and down, as if seeing him for the first time. He wobbled ever so slightly on his feet. “Look just like your uncle, you do.” He were swaying bad now.
“Pathetic,” I hissed. “That’s what you are.” No one said nothing to Cody but me.
“You killed him.” Cody didn’t scream it, but his voice were deadly still.
A flash of something akin to focus crossed the Rover’s expression, and then it were gone. “So what? I did what I did. It’s them that’s gonna regret it, not me.” He tapped his temple with the blunt end of his knife; it came away wet with perspiration.
“You murdered an innocent man and all you have to say for yourself is so what?” Cody said incredulous.
“Deserved it. Underhanded, gutless man. I were owed. He tried to cheat me. Took my words, tricked me into telling him things he’d no right to know. Steal a man’s coin is one thing, steal his memories—that’s another. So I showed him too.” Reeves swayed on his feet.
I shot Cody a worried look.
“You deserve worse.” His voice brittle, gaze unflinching fixed on the man. The man who’d killed his family. All for the price of a single sheet of paper. For the scratches of a Scholar’s pen.
Running the back of his hand over his dripping nose, the Rover laughed ugly. “Oh, I got a lot to say, boy. But here, I got something you can tell ’em.” Feral smile spreading like oil across his face. “You tell ’em I ain’t sharing nothing with her and her filthy lying pack of Warders, not a single forsaken thing. I earned this.” He stumbled backward, heels crunching into the coals. He made no move to step out of the flames. “Said it can’t be done, but here I am.” The Rover coughed, pink-tinged saliva sputtering onto his chin. “And I ain’t dead yet, am I?”
Only he was. A thick stain leeched across his shirt, black and red. I knew a mortal wound when I saw it. Little sparks of red and gold licked at his pants. But he only had to live long enough to tell me one thing.
“What have you done with my sister?”
He laughed. “You couldn’t save her even if you wanted to. Creature like that woman, a spider in her web, she is. Stories ain’t lied about her, no they did not. She were so pleased when she saw what I’d brought with me.… Said your sister smelled just right, she did. That she’s been waiting for her.”
I blinked. “Who, who did you give her to?”
Rover shifted his weight, not hearin me. Little red droplets cascaded from his right side to the ground.
I demanded it again. Rover leered deep. “The woman in the ice, that’s who.”
“Ice?” The Rover had lost it. “What are you talking about?”
“And all I had to do were hand her over. Some sniffling girl in exchange for everything I’d ever wanted. Everything.”
“So where is it then? Everything you ever wanted?” I gestured round the cave.
“Don’t have even have the first clue about any of it, do you? About what’s here. What’s buried in these walls.” Eyes flashing, he ran a slow palm down the bare stone, the sickening shadow of a smile leeching over his face. His fingers tracing nothing. There were nothing on the walls. Just exposed rock and frost. “About what I am owed.”
There it were again. Owed. He kept saying it like I should know what the stars he were raving about. I glanced over at Cody, his body rigid, eyes hard, angry. Leaning over, I put my hand on Cody’s arm. Mistake.
Seeing my attention swing, the Rover lunged. I turned my head and raised my arm. Bracing for the impact. A shot rang out first.
The Rover screamed, staggering back and against the wall. I weren’t sure whose gun had gone off first, mine or Cody’s.
Eyes fixed on mine, the Rover wiped at his mouth. A wicked smear of blood scraped along the yellow enamel of his teeth. He licked it away. The bullet had grazed the edge of his cheek. My stomach tightened. Close weren’t close enough.
“Foolish brats, you won’t win.” He spat the words. “I’ll walk out of here one way or another. And if you get out of my way and I might just let you live.” Laughter high and sharp bubbled from his throat. Blood dripped steady from the wound, pooling in the soft curve of his collar. He raised not a finger to staunch it.
Redoubling my grip on my revolver, I squared my shoulders. “We may be fools, but there is only one loser here. And just to give you a clue, case your little brain needs the help, it ain’t the ones pointing the guns.”
The Rover smiled feral.
Cody let out a blood-curdling cry. I spun, just as the Tracer sprang from the darkness.
With a scream, the Rover surged right at me. Before I could dodge, he was there. Body looming over mine. His rancid smell thick.
I couldn’t move. I were back in the hall with Bren. But then Cody slammed into me, sending both of us tumbling to the
right as the wolf passed bare inches over us.
Hitting the ground, I rolled and raised my gun. A dark figure loomed above us. I shot. A man cried out. The Rover stumbled and fell. The cave churned with smoke and confusion. Chaos.
I could hear Cody. But I couldn’t see him. The world tilted, as if the very ground were moving. Above me it were all shouting and gunfire.
I pushed up to my side, my hand coming to a stop atop Bren’s sweater by the fire. I grabbed it and sprang to my feet. I’d no bullets left. Yanking on what I hoped were his arm, I tore Cody and me out of the room. As we did, Cody turned and fired the last of his shots. An unnatural piercing shook the cave. Filling the air. I didn’t look back.
We made it all the way back to the large cathedral when I pulled us up short, panting. I could barely breathe. Cody slumped next to me, hand pressed to the cavern wall. I looked at him. He were covered in blood.
“Jorie. I—I shot him. I’ve never shot someone before, I didn’t mean… all that blood.” Cody panted.
Neither had I. If the Rover were dead, it were as like my own bullet as Cody’s. Unease, guilt, shame swirled in my gut. “First time for everything,” I said.
Cody gave a little scuff of a laugh. Weren’t no humor in it.
I glanced back over my shoulder. A thick heady smell drifted up from the tunnel behind us. Something hot and rabid. Like the ox.
There weren’t time to dwell on it. From behind us a bone-rattling howl seared through the darkness.
We ran.
As we did, the smell of sulfur grew stronger. Sharp. Small stones rained down from the rock overhead. A low rumbling began to fill the air.
“Uh, Jorie.” Cody stopped. “What’s that smell?”
Fire. Another boom came from the tunnels. Dust billowed out from behind us. The entire world began to shake. Blasts came as fire found the old deposits of explosives. Rotting wood finally gave way.
“Run.” My entire body thrumming with fear.
“What?”
I grabbed his arm. “I said run!”
The entire world began to shake.
We ran for our lives.
