“No,” said Darcy, stubbornness kicking in. “We’re right here. If we could just….”
She started shoving again.
“Nash, see if you could aim and zap the lock or something. I’ll push. Maybe together, we can get the lock to let up a little.”
“I might hit you, though.”
“Try it!” whispered Lisa.
Liev laughed. Darcy scowled at them.
She shook her head stubbornly and backed up before she went to ram the door. “Just try… AAA—!”
Her scream was muffled as she fell into the door. Literally, fell into the door. It looked like she had just disappeared into the stone, except her legs still stuck out at the bottom as if the rest of her had melted into the door.
Afraid of what happened to Darcy, the others backed away nervously.
Darcy—or, at least, Darcy’s legs—moved into a kneeling position. Slowly, as she stood up, the rest of her appeared again body moving through the door like air. She turned around slowly, a concerned expression on her face.
Charlie, Nash, and the Vadiknovs watched as Darcy placed an experimental hand out to the door and pushed. She pushed harder. Then she stopped pushing and gently placed both hands against it and walked…right through the stone and cast iron and everything.
“Well,” Lisa said sourly. “I guess that means Darcy’s gifted.”
Just then Darcy’s face appeared. She was grinning fiendishly.
“Hey guys, I think I have an idea!”
She disappeared again and then, a second or so later, they all listened as mechanisms inside the door grated back and forth. Darcy walked out of the closed door and waved for them to come over.
“Help me!”
They did, quicker this time, and with reinvigorated effort. The door creaked on its old, crusted hinges and started to swing open, grating against the bumpy earthen ground.
Darcy put her hands on her hips, looking rather pleased with herself, and led the way into a strange room that looked more like a square cave. In the center of the room, stretching from wall to wall, was an old metal elevator, the type you might see in an abandoned mine shaft. Above it, the rock was carved out in a vertical tunnel, the top of which was cloaked in darkness.
“Cool,” said Charlie and Nash at the same time.
“How do we work it?” Lisa asked, immediately walking over to examine the old machinery that took up half the space. Liev was dragged behind her as they kept the Chief of Assistants between them.
Nash was looking toward the opposite side of the shaft, where an old fashioned generator had been put to power the elevator.
“There’s a lever over here!” Nash tried to pull it, but it was jammed. He stopped and looked around, expectant. “Someone want to help me out?”
Nash and Charlie pulled down together. It took all their strength until the lever ground into place. There was a puff and a sputter and a crackle of electricity before the generator shuddered and became deathly silent.
Lisa looked over the jumble of machinery. “Great job, guys.”
Nash crossed his arms over his chest. Then he had an idea. Uncrossing his arms, Nash stomped, facing the lift’s generator. An electric stream shot from his foot to the generator, and the whole thing clambered to life again.
Charlie clapped Nash on the back. “Nice work. Come on, everyone!” He was the first one on the lift.
Lisa looked a little apprehensive. How much juice could one stomp have given it?
“How do we know this thing’s not going to suddenly give out when we’re halfway up and drop us down again?”
Liev grinned. “Like that freefall ride? Wouldn’t that be fun?”
She huffed and got on the lift, dragging Liev and the Chief of Assistants behind her.
It was an old fashioned lift so, when they were all in, Nash pulled down the metal screen. Charlie pushed the great big green button that was shaped like a crude up-arrow.
The elevator lift jerked upwards, then down, then flew up and sputtered before evening out to a steady, and very slow, pace upward. Everyone had accordingly plastered themselves to the grimy floor. This only made the ride worse, as the floor seemed to be made of wood that had started to rot.
“See?” Nash said as the large metal box was fully swallowed up by the vertical tunnel. They lost sight of the room they had entered into originally, now seeing only the roughly cut walls of the stone shaft. “It works!”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “How comforting.”
The stranger had been in the process of writing. His study was dark.
Part of the reason for this was because, he had observed, when the light was bright, it took away from what you could hear. As he liked to think of it, a man who was blind could feel, smell, taste, and hear all the better for the fact that he could no longer rely on his sight. So he made sure that when he was in the middle of something, he kept some of his sensory inputs—light, in this case—on a minimal level. This way, his other senses could pick up the faintest traces of new information.
As such, the faint crash caught his ear. His hand hovered over the small, thin mirror that laid face down on his desk, wondering if the time had come.
Grabbing the mirror and reverently placing it in its box, the dark stranger ran to the makeshift security room he had built for himself and looked at the different bells that hung on the wall. They all had thin metal wires attached to them, which ran into the ceiling and walls and floor boards.
It had taken a while, but he had positioned the wires throughout the entire Key. Whenever there was an unusual disturbance in the Key—say, an old lift jolting to life—the tremors would carry through the wire and ring a bell. That way, the stranger always knew if an intruder was in the house, and where.
And now, one of the bells began to jingle softly. A laminated piece of paper was pinned to the wall under it. It read, in his precise handwriting, TAVERN ELEVATOR.
The dark stranger shook his head. It was just as well. He had been expecting the company.
He grabbed the shotgun.
The stranger walked very calmly toward the Head Wing Library. If they were coming in that old elevator, he would have plenty of time.
Traveling up in a small, dark, and ancient lift that grated against stone walls as it went—while standing on half rotted flooring—was not soothing to one’s nerves. Especially when one happens to be crowded in and feeling suddenly claustrophobic.
“Get off!”
“Quit pushing!”
“AAAAH!”
THUMP, THUD, THUNK.
Charlie, Nash, and Darcy all fell out of the elevator as soon as the metal screen had lifted.
“Remind me not to do that again,” growled Darcy, rubbing her elbow. She had to catch herself at the last second from falling, afraid she might fall through the floor.
Charlie looked up, sliding his legs beneath him. “Where are we?”
“Dunno,” said Darcy.
Lisa tried to move forward, only to trip on Nash. She managed to not fall down, holding onto Liev and the Chief of Assistants. The monster squeaked, stretched uncomfortably between the twins.
“I can’t see a thing.”
“I noticed,” muttered Nash.
She pulled out her book light, shining it into the darkness, but there was nothing for them to see. Just a dark room.
“Everyone spread out, look for a door or something,” said Charlie.
The others did as he suggested, after a few times of bumping into each other.
“Hey!” Liev exclaimed. His hand had come in contact with what felt like a doorknob. “I think I found a way out! Unless it’s a broom closet.”
At that very moment, the door flung open, pulling a startled Liev forward.
“No,” said the silhouette of the man standing there in the doorframe. “It’s not a broom closet. Everyone come on out, slow and in single file!”
It was the dark stranger.
; He was unlike anything they had expected. The man looked rabid. His white hair seemed combed but still stuck out defiantly. Crystal blue eyes glared at them from craggy facial features. He was wiry and short and a little old, but the half-crazed look in his eyes told them he could take them all on. At the same time. With his hands behind his back.
They did exactly as he said.
They had come expecting to fight, but the dark stranger had caught them by surprise. His shotgun did not help their confidence.
The stock sat against his shoulder, sights trained on the group. It was not any ordinary gun, either, but a custom weapon with strange, rune-like symbols carved into the wood. The barrel was sawed off, and there was duct tape on the stock. There was something both gritty and graceful about it—supernatural, almost.
Nash would have hit the stranger with one of his bolts, but Liev was in the way. Darcy was wondering if she could walk through bullets, and if she should even chance it. She decided not to.
The five teens slumped as they walked, defeated. They had been in Hunter’s Key no more than five minutes, and already failure had found them.
Lisa and Liev walked out last, still holding the Chief of Assistants. The dark stranger looked between them and saw the monster, the black-white energy still flickering on and off around his little frame. The man gawked for a second and lowered his shotgun.
“You!” he growled.
The Chief of Assistants hissed in response, not bothering to fight his bonds.
“Glad to see you’ve found your way back, scab. Looks like you had some help with it this time.”
After a moment, they were all filed up against the wall, next to a very old sofa.
Now that there was nobody between him and the stranger, Nash was just waiting for a good opportunity to stomp his foot. He was not sure how accurate his aim was, and he also had yet to master the ability. If he stomped and nothing happened, he would likely get shot.
In the midst of things, another of Charlie’s headaches had started. Blood felt as if it were going to pound through his head until it reached his ears. It was his nose, however, that began to leak blood.
Then his eyes felt as if they were being torn into pieces.
Charlie pulled and swatted at his eyes, gasping and cringing, then suddenly threw his hands out in front of him as if trying to both shield himself from something and grab hold of something at the same time.
He fell to the floor, shivering in sudden cold sweats. His eyes flickered, shut tight one second and open wide the next—dangerously bloodshot—as if he were trying to see in a blinding light. He continued to swat at things that were not there. He whimpered about a throne room and something that sounded like, “not again.”
Nash and Darcy immediately jumped toward Charlie, concerned for their friend, but the stranger quickly raised his weapon toward them.
“Back, both of you, leave him be! There’s nothing you can do for him now.”
They glared at him, but obeyed.
“Now then,” the man said. He lowered his shotgun with the end of the barrel on the ground and leaned casually on it like a cane. “Would you mind telling me what you’re doing in my house?”
Chapter 5: Loch & Key
“Your house?” Darcy spat, ever the diplomat. “This is my house.”
The dark stranger raised an eyebrow and smiled, amused. “Is that so?”
“It is! I’m Darcy Witherington, Mayor Witherington’s only child. Hunter’s Key is rightfully mine.”
“Does that matter right now?” interrupted Nash. “Something’s wrong with Charlie. We need to help him!”
“I told you, there’s nothing you can do for the boy,” said the stranger.
He glared at the Chief of Assistants then, noticing for the first time the bloody word, VISVS, written on his head.
“Well, well, being a spy for your master, are you?”
The Chief of Assistants growled and hissed as the dark stranger took off his jacket and tossed it to the twins.
“Wrap this around his head. Make sure he can’t see anything. You, scab, be useful and tell them what’s wrong with the boy.”
“The fledgling,” the monster whimpered, his voice muffled by the jacket. “His gift is surfacing.”
“What gift?” Nash asked. Whatever was happening to Charlie, it hardly looked like a gift.
“The gift of Sight. Horrible thing, it is. A dangerous gift to live with, especially for a human.” The Chief of Assistants smiled, licking his lips.
“That’s enough for now,” the dark stranger growled. He turned to Nash. “Happy?”
Nash scowled back in reply. He and the others had simply stumbled on their gifts. Why was Charlie suffering for his?
The dark stranger looked over them with a critical eye.
“It’s time you bunch are educated. You’ve trespassed on the Key’s grounds, and yet you’re all in good health. No doubt you had some sort of authority coming here. A key to that elevator, perhaps?”
“That’s right,” said Darcy, hands on her hips. “My father’s key. Just like this is my father’s house.”
“Right. I am sufficiently tired of your incessant tongue. Here’s your first lesson of the evening.”
The dark stranger stretched out his hand and brought his thumb to the tips of his fingers. At that same moment, Darcy’s mouth closed, and she did not seem able to open it.
“Mff mmm hchchcmmm!” came the retort she had already planned, but to no avail. “Mmmf? Mmckmck… Mmckmckmck!”
The others found themselves speechless as well, but not due to any of the stranger’s weird abilities. Rather, their speechlessness came of wonderment and fear. What kind of man was this that he could shut Darcy up?
“Now that I can hear myself think,” said the stranger. “Hunter’s Key was built with wards of protection all around its grounds. You should never come up here without my permission or some sort of proper authority. Otherwise the Key will incapacitate you.”
“Incapacitate, how?” asked Lisa.
The man ignored her.
“But since you’re here—and alive—it’s time you know the truth. I’ve been waiting for you. My name is Loch, and I am the keeper of Hunter’s Key. The rest you’ll learn over hot cocoa. You all need it, by the looks of you. Follow me. And if any of you have any gift that might harm my personal health, I’d kindly appreciate you withholding it until you’re wiser to the entirety of your positions.”
The stranger, Loch, looked meaningfully at Nash. The iris of his right eye turned red for a moment, too fast for any of the teens to notice. He could “see” enough of the boy’s gift to know it was combat oriented.
Which was good, he thought. They would need a natural fighter in the days to come.
Loch turned and opened a door. Nash picked Charlie up off the floor and gestured impatiently for Darcy, still shocked and indignant, to help him. She came to Charlie’s other side and, with Nash, helped guide him forward. Charlie himself seemed almost brain dead. His feet picked themselves up and set themselves down, but otherwise he was unresponsive.
The most frightening thing was what had happened to Charlie’s eyes. They all had noticed how his eyes had seemed extremely bloodshot. But now they were unnervingly wide, and entirely blood red. Only his pupils remained the same—tiny dots in a sea of crimson.
The five followed Loch, who waited for them at the door. He pointed the shotgun to the ground, fairly sure they would not attempt to attack him now. It was empty anyway. He had simply used it to scare them into submission.
Even in their uncomfortable situation the teens were awestruck by Hunter’s Key. They had come up, of course, in the far section of the Head Wing, which meant they were now in the Library.
The Library was massive. Beyond massive.
It was built like a circular atrium, so you could see all the way up to the ceiling from the bottom floor. Five balcony-like floors were stacked from the bottom up with books, book
s, and more books. It was enough to make the twins nearly drop the Chief of Assistants, who whined at them.
And no sight they saw after that was less grand. Loch led them from the Library onto the first floor of the Head Wing Hallway, lined with stained glass windows on the right and mysterious doors on the left, all lit by numerous cast iron torches, which he kept alight for the express amusement of anyone outside who happened to believe in ghosts. It was convenient for him to be able to see where he was walking at night, too.
Every door was made of heavy oak and brass which had not been polished in two years. Every stairway was marble with gold or silver railing. Every room seemed to have its own dusty chandelier, and every window was stained glass. Not the gaudy type, but the sort of which were artfully crafted, many of them depicting chimerical creatures and strange battles. Rugs that must have been exquisite in their day adorned the dusty floors, which were wooden, marble, or flagstone depending on the room.
Nash looked at Charlie, cringing involuntarily at the sight of his friend’s ghastly eyes.
“Charlie?” he called softly. “Can you hear me?”
To his horror Charlie actually looked at him. He didn’t speak, he just stared, his pupils penetrating Nash’s own eyes. Nash began to sweat, and his breath came in gasps. Nothing he had encountered yet was as disturbing or haunting as the way Charlie’s eyes seemed to look through his very soul. He had to look away.
They were quiet from that point on.
About the same time Charlie fell to the ground in the Library of Hunter’s Key, the varcolac prince realized something was wrong.
The old Hunter had blinded his servant, but the Dark Prince was smarter. As long as the twin fledglings held his servant, he could see through their eyes just as well.
But then he felt someone looking out from his eyes—not by practiced magic, but by the gift of Sight.
Panicking, he covered his face. He scowled deeply and in a rage threw his marble throne across the room, where he heard it smash into one of the pillars. Both chair and pillar shattered.
Charlie Sullivan and the Monster Hunters: The Varcolac's Diary Page 9
