The Iron Bells

by Jeanette Battista

  ****

  Our team is in the first to head in. The Sweeper teams have already been through, clearing this level. We don’t expect the heavy duty magical deterrents—the true nasty magic—until closer to the Gate. Dham is in the middle with Trick. I’m at the front with Sergei and Michael. Anatole and Lyle bring up the rear. I wait for the time for us to move in; when it comes, I motion for the rest to follow me.

  We’re going in through an old water tunnel. A river ran beneath parts of London at one point and some of the waterways still exist. Earlier Resistance groups had excavated and mapped as much as they could and my group was lucky enough to have drawn this route. It is the safest of all of the routes in play, so we stand the best chance of making it inside with most of the group intact.

  The walls of the cavern are slick with moisture and mildew as we splash through the standing water. I glance at Trick who shakes his head slightly. Nothing to report so far. I follow Sergei, dropping back so I can check on Dham. He looks calm, so I hope he’s gotten his ringing issues under control. Now would be a very bad time for them to flake out.

  “You okay?” I ask as we walk. I keep my eyes moving, alert for any movement out of place.

  He nods, his eyes roving the darkness. We’ve muffled the lights from a few torches so we have barely enough to see by. He seems a bit tense, but otherwise fine.

  “I’m doing rather well,” Trick whispers, leaning over Dham’s shoulder. “In case you were interested.”

  “I’m not,” I hiss back, then move back to the front of the line. So far we haven’t encountered any guards, or signs of Inquisition or demons. The sweepers either did their job well, or this isn’t a known entrance.

  We make a few turns and then come to a dead end. This is what Ryland told us to look for; now we just have to find the right brick. I wonder briefly how his team is doing. He and Peter were in the main group trying the most straightforward way into the catacombs beneath the ruins. I signal for Trick to come forward.

  The demon does, looking none too happy. “Do you sense anything?” I ask.

  “Besides an overwhelming fear of contracting tuberculosis? No, nothing.”

  I count the bricks, then press the fifth one up and one over. It depresses slowly. We wait nervously as the grinding noise of stone on stone echoes through the tunnels. I grit my teeth at the noise—it’s worse than nails sliding down a chalkboard. We might as well just hire a bloody marching band and parade them through the vaults for all of the noise this entryway makes.

  I slip through the opening as soon as there is enough room for me to fit. My blades are out, but I find the corridor empty. Odd. Our sweepers are good, but I would have expected some sign of their passing, some evidence that they’d secured the area. I crouch, creeping over to the next junction while I wait for the others to come through. Nothing there either.

  Dham and Trick join me. “Does this seem strange to you?” I ask Dham.

  He nods thoughtfully. “Seems off.” Dham turned to watch the others. “Something’s not right.”

  I look at Trick who shrugs nonchalantly. When everyone has joined us, I take off again, following the map in my head. Ryland had me memorize all of the routes in and out of the area in case we are compromised. I lead us down the narrow corridors between old burial vaults. I wonder how the rest of our groups are doing.

  Something is niggling at the back of my brain. I agree with Dham—this isn’t right. I wave for Michael, the young man responsible for the explosives, to come up level with me. I put my mouth to his ear and tell him, “Have your bombs ready. You set them when I tell you, understand.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he says. I’m younger than he is, but only by a year, perhaps two. He’s barely old enough to shave off his whiskers. I send him back to his place in line, and signal for Sergei to keep moving forward.

  A few more turns and we’re very nearly there—the main chamber that had been carved out of the rock directly beneath the altar. I crouch forward with Trick. “Anything?” When he shakes his head, I sigh. “It’s fishy.”

  “I’m inclined to agree.” The demon doesn’t sound nervous at all. In fact, he sounds like he might be enjoying himself. Bastard.

  I pass the word for everyone to be ready. Where are the sweepers? We should have run into at least a few of them by now. The knot in my stomach is winding tighter and tighter. Cat is with Kevin’s group—I wonder how they are doing. Are they feeling the same sense of dread? Are they noticing something is amiss?

  I nod to the team, using hand signals to indicate everyone’s placement once we get into the vault. I count three and rush into the room, my team right behind me.

  And I nearly trip over the corpse of one of our sweepers. Her throat has been cut. There’s blood everywhere. I look up and see a small shiver of energy in the center of the room. “Is that it?” Somehow I thought it would be more impressive.

  “No,” Trick says quietly.

  I turn to look at him just as Ryland’s group bursts in. I look up at the roof of the chamber and see Inquisition suspended there, waiting like spiders in their webs. “TRAP!” I scream and point upwards. The stutter shock of automatic gunfire fills the air. I drop to a crouch, pulling Dham and Trick down with me.

  I can see Ryland struggling with an Inquisition member who’s dropped down from an alcove. Where’s Peter? I don’t see him anywhere. He’s supposed to be on Ryland’s team. The remnants of Ryland’s team take up strategic positions, trying to pick off the Inquisition members.

  “Go,” I tell Dham and Trick, jerking my head down a side tunnel. “I’ll catch up.”

  I move to catch up with Michael. He’s crouched behind a pillar, his hands over his ears. I run low, weaving in and out, never in a straight line, trying to make a harder target. He’s got his pack off and is rummaging around in it. “Light it up!” I shout at him, hoping that what he’s rummaging for are the explosives he carries.

  Just as I’m in arm’s reach of him, his head jerks forward. Blood sprays me with a fine mist. He tumbles to the floor, and I’m a moment behind him. I belly crawl to the pillar as bullets hit so close to me that I’m peppered with concrete shrapnel. I grab the body and use it as a shield as I work to remove the bombs from his pack. I try not to look at the ruin of his face. I can hear the screams as people are hit, but I don’t know if those screams come from our men or the Inquisition.

  Shouts come from behind me, and I hear the sound of Dham’s bells. I pop my head up for a quick look. Dark shapes are boiling out of the mini-Gate, or portal, or whatever it is. I can’t tell if they’re demons or more Inquisitorial Guards come to join the fray, but I know we’re done for if that gate stays open.

  My hands find the first of the bombs. I lay it on the ground in the shelter of the body and pull out the rest. Not just bombs, but some grenades, flash bombs and smoke bombs as well. I can’t hear Dham’s bells over the sounds of the fighting, and I hope he and Trick are okay.

  My next look out shows me Ryland positively besieged. I pull the pin on a grenade and lob it in the direction of the portal. My aim is shaky, but it is close enough to take some of the heat off of Ryland. I follow up with a flash bomb for good measure. I know I’m risking blinding my own people but I’m running very low on options.

  I dump everything else out of the pack and shove the bombs in it, holding one in my hand. I lean out to get a bead on the room, throwing the pack over my shoulder. Dham and Trick are making their way back towards me. Dham has his gun in hand, firing at whatever targets make themselves available. Trick crouches behind him.

  I wave at them to go back, but Dham shakes his head. I sprint over to him, bullets riding my wake. “It’s blocked,” he says as soon as I’m within hearing distance.

  I pull them down behind an overturned plinth. “I’ve got to close that thing!”

  “Good luck with that,” Trick says sardonically, then ducks as concrete shatters above his head. “Bloody hell.”

  I pull out a smoke bomb, shoving
it into Dham’s free hand. “This may help give me some cover.”

  “What are you going to do?” he asks, firing off another round. He hits a Redcloak.

  I tuck one of the remaining grenades in his pack. “I’m off. You may need that to clear the way out. Don’t lose it. Or blow yourself up, if you can help it.”

  Dham grabs my arm just as I’m ready to break from cover. “Be careful.”

  Trick nods. “What he said.”

  I nod, then take off. Dham lobs the smoke bomb high. I’ve got my elbow over my mouth as choking grey smoke begins to filter throughout the room. I scurry from area of cover to area of cover--usually just bodies or broken crypts--as visibility begins to waver. The smoke is making the edges of things fuzzy. I wait a moment for it to more fully cloak the room, then take off in a broken line for the portal.

  Nothing else is coming through--there appears to be a pile up of bodies in front of it that may be blocking it. I wonder if it goes both ways. I arm a bomb and toss it into the portal. The bomb disappears and then the small blot of energy shivers moments later. Not sure what that may mean, but I hope it’s good news for our side.

  Ryland cleaves through the smoke to kneel at my side. “Give,” he orders, holding out his hand. I put one of the three remaining charges in his open palm.

  “What happened?”

  “Our intel was all wrong. It was a set up.” His face is coated in sweat, grime, and blood.

  “Tell me something I don’t already know.” I flinch as a bullet comes so close I could feel the breeze of it passing by.

  “They were driving us here, to the killing floor. Exits are blocked. My team got shredded on the way in.” He places the bomb against the stone block behind the gate.

  “What about Peter?” I ask, because I know Dham will want to know what happened to his friend. Ryland sees someone coming towards us in the smoke. He fires as soon as we see the red coat.

  “Haven’t seen him. One minute he was with us, the next we were under attack. I’m hoping he got away.” He spares a look around the room. “Those columns, there and there,” he indicates them with a nod of his head. I can make them out through the wisps of smoke. “They’re load bearing. We take them out the place comes down.”

  “Bury the Gate. Good plan, but what about our men?” I look into Ryland’s eyes and I see the bleakness of his decision. “Oh, God.”

  “We’ll try and get as many out as we can.” He sets the charge. “Set it for one minute, then attach it and get out. We’ll meet back up in the Underground.” I nod and take off running.

  Something rears in front of me from out of the smoke. I dodge past, barely evading a knife strike. I sweep low, taking out the Redcloak’s legs. He crashes down beside me and I’m off again, heading for the pillar. A spray of bullets cuts through the murk right behind me and I leap into the air. I land in a tuck and roll, coming to feet only a few feet from the pillar.

  I slap the bomb against it, and set the timer for one minute. I hit the button to arm it and take off in the opposite direction. I’m hoping I find Dham and Trick where I left them. I feel rather than see something coming at me from the darkness, so I turn my run into a skid, sliding below the blade that was aiming to take my head off.

  Now that my hands aren’t full of bombs, I pull my blades. I lunge forward, extending my arm fully. I feel the shock up my arm as my blade connects and sinks into flesh. I yank back and continue on in a half-crouch. I still hear random gunfire, but it seems erratic. The smoke is beginning to dissipate somewhat, although thicker patches linger.

  Trick’s face leers at me as the mist parts and I stop my sword mid-swing. “I almost skewered you!” I shout, grabbing him and pulling him after me. I almost trip over Sergei’s body. “Where’s Dham?”

  “Here!” I hear him shout from off to my right.

  “Have you seen the others?” Dham shakes his head. Bollocks.

  “Follow!” I order and take off toward the passageway we came in through. “Get ready with what I gave you!” I sheath one sword and pull my last grenade out.

  An overhand throw sends the grenade skittering toward rest against the wall. Dham follows with his. The three of us huddle together, waiting for the impending BOOM. I put my fingers in my ears to lessen the sound, although at this point, I’m probably half-deaf already. The grenades go off and bricks and dust rain down on us. I get hit in the head, but don’t even feel it until blood runs into my eyes from the cut. I wipe it away and lead Dham and Trick over the rubble.

  “Move move move,” I urge, pushing them over the rubble. Water is flowing in from the jagged opening where the secret door used to be, and we slosh through it. Trick loses his footing and I grab him, yanking him back upright and shoving him through the hole. Dham’s gone first, a bell in one hand and his gun in the other.

  I look back, knowing the clock is running down. I can’t see anyone I know: not Ryland or any of the others of our group. As I turn back to go through the blown out wall, I see a familiar face just getting up from the supposedly blocked tunnel. I could swear it’s Peter, but that’s not possible. Is it?

  I don’t have time to think about it. We need to put some serious space between us and that crypt. I stumble over the rubble and splash into the tunnel.

  “Charges are set to blow any second. RUN!”

  Dham and Trick take off like hounds on the scent, leaping away in an impressive burst of speed. I follow after them, wondering if anyone else has made it out. Where’re Cat and her team? Did they even make it into the tunnels or were they stopped before they even got there?

  I felt more than heard the detonation. The ground shudders beneath my feet, pitching me to the ground. I hear two other splashes as Dham and Trick lose their balance. I look back and only see a cloud of dust issuing from the blasted hole in the corridor. I push myself to my feet, feeling more tremors through the water and my boots.

  “Let’s go,” I say, jogging past Dham and Trick who are just now regaining their footing. “We’re supposed to meet up in our section of the Underground.”

  “If there’s anyone left to meet.” Trick says the very words I’m thinking.

  “Less with the talky talk and more with the running,” Dham says, matching pace with me.

  I lead us back the way we came, but when we come to a junction, I make a left rather than continuing down the passage. Dham looks at me curiously. “Where are we going?”

  “We can’t come out where we came in,” I say, from my spot beside Trick, who is jogging between me and Dham. “There’s sure to be Inquisition staking it out. The explosion may have rattled them, but it won’t keep them out long. We need to find another way.”

  “Do you know where we’re going?”

  I give Dham a withering look, which he probably misses in the gloom. “Yes. Approximately.” I hear Trick sigh.

  I haven’t had much cause to come down this way, but I got a look at Ryland’s maps during our prep for the mission. I may not have a photographic memory, but I am good with maps and I have an excellent sense of direction. I’m pretty sure I can put us out someplace reasonably safer than where we were and get us back down to the Underground.

  We wind deeper into the tunnels and the water rises as we go. Soon it is up to our knees. I take another turn, a right this time. The water recedes a bit and the passageway looks to be more recent. Another turn and we reach a fork, one goes into darkness, where older tunnels lurk, and one leads to the way out. I begin to lead us toward the surface.

  Dham grabs my hand. “A, think for a sec.” He points at my swords and then at his bells. “We can’t go up there with these. Or looking like this.”

  I hadn’t really given it much thought, but Dham is right. Plaster and rock dust coat our hair and clothes and skin. I know I must have blood all over me, and not just mine. We look like refugees from a war. And while Trick isn’t packing illegal weapons, he looks just as bad as we do.

  I backtrack. This is the way I’m less sure of becau
se there weren’t very many markings on the map. But I know that if we keep following them, we should come out in an unused Underground terminal. But the Blights are going to be a lot worse this way.

  “There is a way we can go that doesn’t take us to street level.” I scratch at a bit of dried blood. “But stay close. No funny business.” I look at Trick. Then I turn to Dham. “And make sure your bells are ready.” Both nod.

  I sheath one sword and pull out my torch and use it to light our way. These tunnels are dark and old, unlikely to have been traversed recently or renovated at all. I know we’ll be alerting our presence to anything down here with an appetite for human, but I prefer that to stumbling blindly into something nasty in the dark.

  We muddle through the darkness. The noises of the chaotic fighting and explosions are a memory; now all I can hear is the lap of water in the darkness and the splash of our footsteps. Occasionally, I wave the torch off to the side, making sure I don’t pass a side tunnel that will lead us closer to where we want to go.

  Sometime later--it may be a few minutes or a few hours since telling time in the dark is next to impossible--I feel the hairs along my arms and at the back of my neck rise up. I feel like I’m being watched from the darkness outside of the feeble beam of the torch. I flick the light quickly upwards and catch the tip of a blackened, clawed appendage that flees the light.

  “Um, Dham?” I whisper, not wanting to spur on the Blights that are gathering at the edges of our light.

  “On it.” His voice is grim.

  “There are about fifteen of them,” Trick offers helpfully.

  Lovely. We can’t take them all on--we’re outnumbered three to one, and that’s if I allowed Trick to hold a weapon, which I won’t because I’m not completely mad. Dham’s bells might disable some and my blades do the rest but it won’t be enough. Not nearly.

  Dham swings the bells, and their sound reverberates throughout the confines of the tunnel. Shrieks surround us, drowning out the sound of the bells. I leap forward, blade slashing. I hear Dham ring the bells again. I spin and whirl, lighting up demons with each strike of my blessed blade. The demons are nightmarish things: black and bloated and reaching towards me. I shout, stabbing at the scaly limbs outstretched to grab me.

  I hear a shout. Dham! I whirl around, sweeping my sword in a half-circle to gain some room. I back up until I am next to him, blade held in the ready position. Dham’s holding his side.

  “Are you okay?” I keep my eyes on the demons just on the edge of the light.

  “Yeah,” Dham says, breathlessly. “Just a scratch.”

  “Don’t be a hero. How bad is it?” I wish I had the time to look at it myself.

  “It’s not too bad.” He’s still get his arm pressed against the wound so I can’t get a clear look at it. I have to take his word.

  “Do you have anything else useful in that bag of tricks of yours?” Trick asks. I frown, not understanding his question. He points at the extra pack I’m carrying.

  I think for a moment. It should be almost empty. I think there was another smoke bomb and a few flash bombs….

  “Link hands and get ready,” I order, handing Trick the torch. I pull the bag around to the front and dig inside it until I feel my fingers close on the first of two flash bombs. I grab both.

  “Dham, grab my jacket and hold onto Trick. Cover your eyes on three.” I activate the flash bomb, throwing it into the darkness and cover my eyes with my arm. “One, two, THREE!”

  The light is nearly blinding in the enclosed space, even though my eyes are covered. I can hear horrible, painful noises from the Blights that had gathered around us. The bright acetylene light is burning them. “Hang on and keep up with me,” I hiss.

  I lead us through, keeping my eyes focused on the darkest part of the area we’re passing so I don’t wander blindly into a side tunnel and get us lost. Even still, my eyes are watering at the brightness and for a while we don’t need the torch. “Keep your eyes covered,” I warn as I lead them deeper into the tunnels. I hold the second flash bomb in my hand just in case.