by James Hunter
“And here I thought the Undercroft was gonna be a challenge,” I remarked offhandedly as we rounded a bend, constantly sweeping my light across the surface of the water, looking for the glimmer of rodent eyeballs. The flashlights weren’t quite as good as a floating orb of Vis-powered awesomeness, but down here where Flesh Eaters regularly patrolled, it was important to stay under the radar.
“It’s easy now,” Heckabe replied, “but that’s because Asmodeus’ people routinely patrol this area. The Nekropolis, though technically part of the Undercroft, is a whole different animal. Don’t get complacent.”
“What makes it so different?” Levi asked, his feet thudding along like miniature earthquakes. “The Nekropolis, I mean. I’ve been kicking around here for a while, and this is the first I’m hearing of it.”
Heckabe glanced at us; the ambient light turned her face into a skull with golden eyes. “Not surprising,” she said. “It’s old history. History Hellions rarely talk about. Twenty-five hundred years ago or so, not long after the Trojan War, a plague broke out in Pandæmonium. That’s not unusual, of course. Sickness is worked into the landscape like a garden, but this? This was different. Bone-wyrm Fever, they called it. No one knows where it came from, but it hit like a hammer. Seeped into your bones. Corrupted the meat. Turned people mad. Rabid.
“Those with Bone-wyrm went crazy. They’d attack anyone and spread the sickness. Eventually, Asmodeus had the Flesh Eaters round up the infected. He forced them into the Undercroft and built containment wards to keep the sick in. That became the Nekropolis—the city of Second-Dead, filled with the half-living survivors. The Revenants. After a thousand years, once the plague died out, Asmodeus started using the place as a prison. Enemies of the state and losers of the Reckoning get tossed down there.”
Another rodent burst from a side tunnel up ahead, cutting our conversation short as its claws skittered over stone before it hurled its scaly, streamlined body at Levi. The MudMan—gray, fat, and in his true glory—whipped out one meat-cleaver hand and carved the critter in two like a butcher digging into a shoulder chop. One half of the rat landed on the walkway in front of me with a meaty thump while the other half splashed into the water. I stepped right over the severed corpse and kept right on walking.
We moved on in silence after that, Heckabe taking point, me in the middle, and Levi bringing up the rear.
Another handful of minutes saw us to a new section of tunnel, this part blessedly dry, free of half-dead corpses, and built from yellow sandstone blocks carved with ancient glyphs, worn down by the long passage of years. “Not far now,” Levi grumbled as he trailed his fingers over the wall. “I can feel something up ahead. Something different. A door, I think.” We crept forward for another hundred feet, following the tunnel around a sharp bend, which dead-ended at a hulking pair of steel double doors twenty feet tall and fifteen feet wide.
Bingo was his name-o.
The doors were covered in spikes, bolts, and brass rivets and looked like they’d been built to stop a herd of stampeding T. rexes. “You’re up,” Heckabe said, nodding at me as she posted up along the right-hand wall, crouching low on her haunches.
I cleared my throat and ran one hand over the grip of my pistol. Everything will be fine, I reassured myself as I slipped the Hand of Glory from my drop pouch and padded closer to the door. I was expecting to find a thick chain with a traditional padlock, but obviously, I was a naïve idiot. There was no chain. No lock. Not even a door knob. There was, however, a large golden square the size of a dinner plate right in the center where the doors met. On it was a glowing green sigil in a language I couldn’t even hazard a guess at.
Thankfully, since this was Hell, I didn’t have to. In my mind’s eye, the burning glyph morphed and changed, until a single word filled my vision. Open.
I licked my lips and swallowed hard as I reached out, the Hand of Glory trembling in my grip. The relic thrummed with unholy energy, which seemed to work its way through my outstretched arm, into my heart, and up into my head, setting my teeth on edge. When the withered Hand pressed against the golden plate, the sigil flared brightly in recognition, and the plate disappeared altogether as the doors swung inward on silent hinges.
The silence didn’t last for long, however.
As the doors crept to a halt, the sound of scraping, scampering bones drifted along the air currents, followed by inhuman shrieks reverberating down the sandstone-lined hall beyond.
“Revenants!” Heckabe hollered, except it was more of a feral growl—a noise no human throat could ever make. A pack of creatures rounded a corner and sprinted toward us. It was impossible to see them clearly in the wavering yellow beams of our flashlights, but I caught glimpses of red muscle and bits of old bone.
“MudMan,” Heckabe barked, “you’re with me. Lazarus, get through the doors and make sure they close—we can’t afford for these things to get loose. Then, get us better light.” Before the words were fully out of her mouth, she was sprinting forward, her legs kicking into high gear like an Olympic athlete. I watched, momentarily stunned.
Heckabe was no longer a woman, at least not a human one. In her place was a hulking monster of brown fur, rippling muscle, tearing teeth, and flesh-rending claws. Her gear had changed with her, stretching to accommodate her size, but that was the only thing letting me know this was the same woman.
She moved with a wolf’s speed and nimble agility, while the MudMan raced by me a moment later, the hallway rumbling at his passing, bits of stone and dust raining down from the ceiling above. I coaxed my feet into motion, heading into the passage as I slipped the Hand of Glory back into my drop pouch. The second I cleared the threshold, the colossal doors creaked and swung closed, cutting off any hope of a quick retreat.
That made the fight with whatever was tearing ass toward us very simple: win or die. No retreat, no other options.
Without the aid of Heckabe’s Maglite, the hallway was uncannily dark, though the Mother of Werewolves hardly seemed to mind. She probably saw better in the dark than I did in the light, and Levi navigated more by his sense of touch than line of sight, but I was at a huge disadvantage. Sometimes being a stupid human—all frail and squishy and oh-so breakable—sucks a whole bag full of asses. Thankfully, with the warded doors shut firmly behind us, I figured I could use my full range of power without worrying about the Flesh Eaters.
I opened myself to the Vis and conjured a tennis-sized ball of fire above my left palm, pumping more and more air and energy into the construct until it blazed like my own personal sun. That wasn’t enough, though. I pushed essence into the burning ball of gas, supercharging it with Nox until the heat was uncomfortable against my unprotected skin. Before blisters could form, I threw my hand skyward, willing the ball of flame up, up, up, affixing it in place near the apex of the tunnel ceiling. It loitered there for a moment, casting flickering light on the chaos below, then burst outward in a wave of sooty orange light.
The light didn’t fail, though, and wouldn’t for another few minutes. For the time being it strobed and pulsed and everything below was as clear as a cloudless day at noontime.
For the first time, I caught a good look at the creatures up ahead, and I sorta wished the lights had stayed off.
Most were humanoid in shape—though a few skittered around on all fours—but hulking, lopsided and deformed. They were put together like the work of a kid in art class that wasn’t sure how bodies were supposed to work. They were skeletons, or rather each one was a collection of skeletons cobbled together from bones, thin strands of glistening connective tissue, and what could only be old moss. A platoon of skulls decorated each creature, acting as kneecaps, elbows, or smashing fists. Empty eye sockets, devoid of hope or life, stared at us, showing only one emotion: hunger.
Heckabe was on them light-years ahead of Levi, dancing through their number like a cloud of raw death and primal rage. I’d expected her to be a hard-hitter like Levi, but no, she was all grace and elegance, her movements sharp,
precise, and unbelievably efficient. Her round shield turned aside bone-breaking punches, while her heavy mace smashed through fragile arms and legs, removing whole limbs with ease. She never stayed in one place long, though, instead working the crowd, taking them apart one piece at a time without ever suffering so much as a scratch.
Damn impressive.
I drew the beefy Colt 1911 from the tactical holster low on my left side and took aim at one of the shamblers heading my way. The gun kicked and roared as I squeezed the trigger, spewing light. The rounds plowed into the creature, center mass, and blasted out the other side, leaving fist-sized holes in their wake. But the creature hardly faltered. It didn’t seem to feel pain—or if it did, it didn’t care—and the bullets seemed surprisingly ineffective. I planted my feet, readjusted my firing position, and used the remaining rounds to blast its head clear from its shoulders.
Still it walked on.
Time for a new tactic.
I stowed the empty pistol and drew deeply on my power, reaching down into the earth. The ground rumbled as a column of rock surged up beneath me, lifting me seven feet in the air until I loomed over everyone with an eagle-eye view of the battlefield. Immediately, a detachment of Revenants broke left and launched a hail of charred bone spears straight at me. I almost laughed. I mean, I’m a mage, wielding the powers of Creation, and a bunch of half-dead troglodytes thought they could take me out with a bunch of sharpened bones?
I drew in compressed air and razor-thin strands of radiant heat, whipping up a friction barrier in an eyeblink. The air around me shimmered and danced like the air above asphalt on a blazing hot day, and a hazy red mist bled into existence. The bone spears plowed into the construct with the force of a shotgun blast, but the friction barrier took it on the chin like a champ. Instead of merely deflecting the things outright, my handy dandy construct dissolved the bones into a fine spray of slow moving, harmless powder.
The Revenants just stood there, dull witted and uncomprehending—what had happened to their precious little bone spears? Brainless morons. I let them stand there, pondering the sudden turn of fate, as I pried a Toyota-sized chunk of rock from the ground and promptly smashed the lot of ’em into dust. I figured fire or anything supernatural probably wouldn’t do much against a bunch of shit-weasels built from bones and dark magic, but a big-ass rock? Yeah, that did the trick. I let the rock settle as Levi leaped over my impromptu wrecking ball and landed like an artillery round.
Bodies scattered, bones shattered, and skulls flew through the air as he laid in with sledgehammer fists, going to town and showing no mercy. Hell, he demonstrated a special brand of ruthlessness, purposely going out of his way to actively pursue the handful of Revenants smart enough to retreat. None got far, though. Not between Levi’s bludgeoning fists, Heckabe’s deadly speed and precision, and my ability to lift up heavy-ass shit and smash other shit with it. In minutes, the Revenants were nothing more than scattered body parts and bits of bone, ready to be swept up in a dustpan.
I hopped off my stone pedestal, not bothering to drop the rock column back into the earth, and strutted forward. I brushed my hands as I surveyed our handiwork, feeling about as cocky as an NFL player taking on a high school JV team. “And here you had me worried,” I said, voice bouncing off the high sandstone ceilings as I absently kicked a half-pulverized skull out of my way.
“There are a lot of them,” Heckabe growled, her predatory eyes gleaming over her stubby snout. “And quantity tends to have its own quality over time.”
Levi slapped me on the shoulder with his big ol’ gray hand and glanced toward the jagged car-sized boulder five feet away. A host of arms and legs stuck out from underneath it. “Being able to do that helps, too. Still”—he paused, frowned, then nodded—“let’s pray it stays this easy.”
“It won’t,” Heckabe said, her growl conveying supreme doubt. “These things”—she waved at the bone piles—“aren’t the big threat. They can do a lot of damage to anyone stupid enough to wander in, but the real threat is the Bone Collector. It roams these halls like the Minotaur in the labyrinth. If Murkly is right, and it does make its home beneath the colosseum, there’s no way we can avoid a fight. So, save your energy, because we’ll most definitely need it.”
She paused, raised her snout to the air, and sniffed deeply, her lips pulled back from impressive fangs. “This way, and stay close. There are traps down here. Nasty ones.”
TWENTY-EIGHT:
Nekropolis
We battled our way deeper into the heart of the Nekropolis, taking out bigger and bigger bands of roving Revenants. They weren’t hard to kill exactly, but Heckabe had been dead right when she said, quantity has its own quality. It was one thing to rip a thousand-pound boulder from the floor once, but doing it ten times or twenty? Yeah, that’s a whole different story. And these things just kept coming, like the waves of the ocean relentlessly battering against the shore, chipping away bit by bit, grain by grain.
Every time I used my power now, it damn near made me puke from sheer exhaustion, and every muscle in my body ached as though I’d been run over by a freight truck. Several times. Even Levi was showing signs of wear—minor lacerations littered his arms, chest, and legs. Pretty much, this place was the worst. The Nekropolis was a snaking warren of worn yellow sandstone, rusted-out torture equipment—metal cages suspended from the ceiling, iron chains with barbed meat hooks, and bits of dusty leather—and bones.
So many bones.
Rib cages, skulls, femurs, spinal columns. All of ’em lying in heaps.
I spotted another such heap and carefully inched my way around the pile, giving it a helluva wide berth. We’d learned the hard way that the Revenants had some wonky hoodoo, powered by ancient wards and the ambient life force lingering on in the bones themselves. And those powers could be converted into a real bastard of a bomb—many of Levi’s wounds were courtesy of the first IED we’d been unlucky enough to stumble across.
And it wasn’t just the bombs either.
Every tunnel, every turn, was a friggin’ death trap, fueled by the same power animating the Revenants: False floors with spits of sharpened rebar poking up at the bottom, just waiting for a complacent step. Ankle breakers, covered with subtle glamors that were nearly impossible to pick out until you were damn near on top of ’em. These assholes even had magical flamethrowers built right into the walls; only some quick thinking, fancy footwork, and a hasty force shield saved me from being roasted alive.
The Revenants themselves seemed like mindless husks, and I was having a very tough time envisioning those things doing anything other than shuffling around, bumping into each other, and swarming any living thing unfortunate enough to find itself down here. But someone or something had set those traps, and that was very concerning. We hadn’t seen any sign of the Bone Collector yet, but I was starting to think we were gonna have a nasty fight on our hands when it finally popped its head out.
“Hold up,” Levi grunted from my right, his feet coming to a stop as he hunched down. He traced his fingers through the thin layer of grit and bone dust decorating the floor, his eyes closed, his head tilted to one side.
“What is it, MudMan?” Heckabe growled, her predatory gaze tracing over the hallway up ahead. She was in pretty bad shape too, her clothes ripped and stained, her dark fur marred with dried blood.
“We’re close to the center now.” He pulled the map from a flesh pocket and carefully spread it across the ground. “This is us”—he jabbed a plump digit at the paper—“and if we follow this tunnel for another hundred feet, we should be in the cavern directly beneath the colosseum.”
I crouched down, gnawing on my bottom lip and absently running a hand along the handle of my hand cannon. The tunnel Levi indicated shot straight for another thirty feet, then banked sharply left out of sight.
“I also think something’s watching us.” His voice was suddenly a conspiratorial whisper. “I haven’t seen anything”—he looked up, glancing left and right—“but
it’s with us. In the ceiling above us, I think. There’s another network of caves running above these, and something’s moving around up there. And it’s close now. Very close.”
“Well, there’s no point putting it off any longer,” Heckabe growled. “I’m already sick of this place. Let’s just do what we came for. Asmodeus isn’t going to kill himself, gents.” She readjusted her tattered shirt, then lifted her lupine muzzle to the air, taking several long sniffs before nodding in satisfaction. “Keep close,” she said over one shoulder before stealing forward as silent as a ghost and as graceful as a big-game cat.
I followed along, making more than enough noise for three people.
We rounded the corner and found ourselves in a twisting passageway, far more cramped than anything we’d seen so far. Here, the walls weren’t covered with strange hieroglyphs from a different age, but with bones, like morbid decorations on an archaic Christmas tree. It felt like we were passing through the gullet of some long-dead creature, heading straight into its belly. The hallway, in turn, connected with a cavernous bowl-shaped room larger than a football stadium.
Inside was a sanctuary dedicated to some dusty, long-forgotten godling who belonged inside of a horror novel.
The walls were all rough-cut blocks of sandstone with a series of arched doorways spread out at regular intervals, revealing poorly lit passageways that snaked out of view, connecting with the greater labyrinth. There were bones here, too. Piles and piles and piles littered the room like garbage in a junkyard. Haphazard stacks six and seven feet high edged the walls like giant snowdrifts of death.
Circular columns also littered the hall, reaching endlessly up to support the vaulted ceiling above. I paused, mouth agape, knowing the floor to the Flesh Palace’s Colosseum had to be directly overhead. In a little over a day, that’s where I’d be, fighting for my life on the sands with Asmodeus as my audience. And that cheery little scenario was what happened if everything went right.
