Then, horribly, there was another sound. This one came from in front of them, from between them and the doors. Another chuckle, sounding like bones rattling in a crypt. Shireen was sure that the Soul Gaunt had moved around them, and was now trying to scare them back, away from the exit. But then the noise came from behind them again, at the same time as the one between them and freedom.
There were two Soul Gaunts in here with them. No one could face that, not even Solomon. What chance did they have? She faltered, her steps slowing and felt the terrible, icy, dread sink into her bones.
“Give me the stone,” Thaddeus whispered, reaching for her hand.
No, she thought. The stone is light, it’s keeping them away. I can’t….
“Shireen,” Orlando said, his voice gentle “Give the stone to Thaddeus. We need to get out of here.”
She nodded and dropped her hand enough to reach Thaddeus’s outstretched one. He took it from her and she felt a moment’s panic as the light passed away from her. The fear in the chamber was palpable, and her legs didn’t want to move. Her sword quaked as she held it out in front of her.
“Start walking,” Thaddeus said quietly. Shireen couldn’t. There was a Soul Gaunt there, hidden in the darkness. If she went forward, she would walk right to it, and then it would reach out and…
“Come on,” Orlando urged. “We're getting out of here.”
Thaddeus was speaking in some weird language now, his voice flowing over and around her. The stone in his hand began to brighten, much more than when she had held it. The glow surrounded them and pushed out further into the darkness. As it washed over her more strongly, she felt her old strength of will beginning to reassert itself. She felt embarrassed by her cowardice, but first thing was first. They needed to get out of here.
As the light pushed outward, something in the darkness pushed against it. The Soul Gaunts set up a noise, like the screeching of small animals in pain. It grated against their nerves and echoed in their ears. Shireen could hear the strain in Thaddeus’s voice as he continued to cast his spell over the stone in his hand.
The light pulsed, pushing out, then retreating slightly, before pushing out again, each time gaining a little more area. Thaddeus was doing it, but she could hear how hard it was. His breath was rasping in between each word.
“Help him,” she said to Orlando, and they supported the wizard, one on each side as they moved toward the doors.
“Ruuuuunnnn” The voice came again, this time from behind them, and to either side. Was the voice echoing, or were there more? How many Soul Gaunts were in here? They moved as quickly as they could to the doors, and tore them open.
Outside of the room it was no better. The air was still frigid and the dread was increasing more and more. They made their way back through the second floor, ignoring the rot and decay everywhere they looked.
Shireen looked back as they left the room and saw a piece of the darkness move out of it, trailing them. Then another followed it, and another. Three of them. There were three Soul Gaunts toying with them.
“Do we have fire?” she asked Orlando, panting as she tried to run, hold her sword and support an increasingly weaker Thaddeus.
“No, not right here,” he replied. “Why?”
“Thaddeus isn’t going to make it all the way out. Look at him. He can barely walk now and the light is starting to fade.”
Thaddeus’s voice was starting to crack and falter and, as it did, the light was beginning to waver. She saw one of the black shapes glide forward and the light retreat a couple of inches, the globe that surrounded them becoming smaller.
“I don’t have anything, Shireen. Do you?” Despite his outward calm, Shireen could hear the panic beginning to creep into Orlando’s voice.
“No, but maybe…” She turned to the wizard. “Thaddeus. This stone? Can you make it hot too? Hot enough to catch something on fire maybe?”
“Tired,” he whispered. “Not strong enough….”
“I didn't think so.” She stopped moving and stood up straight. “Okay, Orlando.” She tried to keep her voice light, as if she was talking about a matter of no consequence at all. “The snake in the grass is spent. Looks like we leave him and make a run for it. I’ll grab the stone. Maybe it will keep glowing enough to get us out of here.”
She stared at Orlando as she spoke, willing him to understand what she was doing. He looked back at her, wild-eyed, and then down at Thaddeus. He sighed, and took the wizard's arm from around his shoulder. “Alright. Kind of a shame, but what can you do?”
“Yessss, leave the mage to ussss.” The voice hissed from around them and Shireen peered into the darkness. She had been mistaken. There weren’t two, or even three Soul Gaunts. Everywhere she looked, pieces of blacker darkness waited. They were surrounded. If her bluff didn’t work, they were all dead. Thaddeus, as exhausted as he was, was their only chance.
“No,” he muttered. “No, don’t leave me…I can…” His voice faded away and his arm started to sag, the light fading further. Outside the dome of it, the black shapes crowded forward eagerly.
“Sorry, but it’s every man for himself at this point,” Shireen said and began to gently pry open his hand.
“I said no!” Thaddeus screamed, his arm jerking back.
The light exploded from the stone, illuminating every crack and crevice in the tree. The Soul Gaunts screamed, an unearthly, hollow, undulating sound, and fled.
Shireen and Orlando reached down, grabbed Thaddeus and ran, dragging him between them. As they fled, he railed against them, screaming that they couldn’t have the stone, he needed it. His fear and desperation must have leant him an unreal strength, because the light continued to flow from the stone in massive amounts.
They gained the stairs, and flew down them, Thaddeus’s feet thudding down the steps. The exit was in front of them now, across a large hallway. A few more seconds, and they’d be out, back into the daylight where they’d have a better chance.
Halfway across the hall, the doors thudded shut, causing them to slow down. Shireen put her sword away, reached out and pulled on them, but they were stuck fast, refusing to open.
“I know what you did,” Thaddeus said, a half smile on his face, his eyes closing. “Good trick.” And then he fell unconscious, his strength obviously gone, and the light went out.
Shireen almost lost her self-control. She pulled harder on the doors, yanking for all she was worth, but they were still stuck fast. Whatever the Soul Gaunt who had slammed them had done, there was no opening them now.
Suddenly, she felt a tug on Thaddeus, his body jerking away from her. She screamed in defiance and grabbed him. An ice-cold hand closed over her wrist and fire erupted in her arm. It went numb and she was helpless to stop it as the wizard was pulled away. In the darkness she heard Orlando curse, and knew that he had tried to hold on also. But it was no use, with a final pull, Thaddeus slid away from them, pulled into the blackness.
That cold, evil chuckle sounded again. “Ahhh….this one will sustain us for a while. His fear is delicious.” The sound faded, becoming fainter and the dread that permeated the air around them began to decrease, and the temperature to rise. There was a brief, suddenly cut off wail from Thaddeus, and then silence.
Behind her, the door clicked and opened slightly. She put her hand on it and pulled, letting the sunlight flood into the hallway. It illuminated the mushrooms and fungus, the spider webs blowing in the breeze, the dirt and decay, and nothing else. Thaddeus was gone.
CHAPTER 23
Solomon sat on Lacy’s back deck, legs crossed, back against the house wall. He gazed out to the woods, without really seeing it. For the first time since he had awakened in that alley, he was actively trying to concentrate, the way he had been taught all those years ago. Breath, focus, let his mind empty. Work the problem from different angles and let the answer come to him as it would.
The Soul Gaunt was out there, in the woods, yes, but more importantly, in this world. A world that wa
sn’t designed to handle it. They wouldn’t believe it was what it was, and would try to capture it. Eventually, someone would have enough and attempt to kill it, and eventually, someone would succeed. But in the meantime, it would do a terrible amount of damage.
He had to be the one to kill it. It came from his world, and he was the only one of the Folk here. He had killed one before, after a fierce battle, so he knew he could do it.
Except that he didn’t have his sword, Justice, that burned with a white flame when it encountered evil. It had burned that day, hot enough to raise blisters on his own arms as he wielded it, but also hot enough to destroy the Soul Gaunt. If he had Justice, he could kill this one.
But Justice was still in the Greenweald, somewhere, hidden away, where his memory was still a blank space. Even if he could go home, which he didn’t know how to do, he wouldn’t be able to find it again. So his sword was useless to him for now, even if Daisy completed her mission and found Jediah.
There was Luke, Lacy’s beloved, trapped by the Soul Gaunt for a purpose that he still didn’t understand. If he killed the Gaunt, Luke should be free, but in the meantime, he was sure that the Gaunt would kill Luke first, if it looked like that was going to happen. He needed to keep Luke safe somehow as well.
And finally, there was Ed, and Lacy’s arm. Damage that the Soul Gaunt had done, that he knew of no way to reverse. Maybe, if he could somehow get Ed and Lacy to the Greenweald, someone there would know what to do and be able to bring Ed back, fix Lacy’s arm.
It all came down to the Soul Gaunt. Before anything else, it had to be killed. Once it was dead, Luke could be returned, and Solomon could work on getting back to the Greenweald somehow.
He could simply walk into the woods, search for Luke, and let the Soul Gaunt come to him. He could take it on hand to hand, maybe use a flare again like he did last time. If he held on to it, and didn’t let it flee to remove the flare, maybe he could burn the things robe to cinders, allow him to see what was under it, and where its weak spots might be.
That thought was pure foolishness. Solomon knew his own prowess. He knew there wasn’t a single person, male or female, among the Folk who could stand against him in combat. Probably not two combined, or even three, who could. None of that equaled a Soul Gaunt. Long before its robe would be burned, he would have succumbed to the things deadly touch.
No, he needed a way to stop it before it got to him, trap it and…
Light. He was remembering more of the fight now. Yes, the flames from Justice had hurt the thing. But the light had hurt it as well. Soul Gaunts were creatures of darkness. They thrived on it, and grew stronger in it. In the light, one of their most potent weapons, fear, was greatly diminished. It’s why they only ever attacked at night, and had grown into boogey-man stories for his people. It was never that a Soul Gaunt would get you if you got lost in the woods, it was that they would get you if you got lost in the woods at night.
And this world had an advantage that the Greenweald didn’t. A huge one. Wonderful, abundant, electricity. He smiled to himself as a plan started to come together.
“We need to wait until tomorrow night?” Lacy sounded incredulous. She and Solomon were seated in the kitchen, nursing mugs of coffee.
“I know,” Solomon said. “I understand why it’s so frustrating, but I don’t think we have a choice right now.”
“What happened to going into the woods after it?”
“I’m still going to, but I’ll have a much better chance if we can get some supplies tomorrow. Take the day and get set-up. Then, I think I might be able to beat the thing, and keep you, and Luke, safe at the same time.”
“And what happens if we go after it tonight?”
“Honestly, I think we all die. Luke almost certainly. If the Gaunt feels that threatened, it will kill him out of sheer cruelty. And if it gets by me, and it probably will, it will come here.”
Lacy shuddered and looked out the window, where it was starting to get dark. Solomon could see the conflict in her. She wanted to be out there, hunting for Luke and getting him back, but she had also seen, and been touched by, the Soul Gaunt. Her fear, and in this case, good sense, were overcoming her desire.
“But tomorrow night, we go, right?”
“Yes. If you can help me get some things. We might have to go another town.”
“I don’t care about that. I just want Luke back and that thing to pay for what it did to Ed.”
Solomon nodded, understanding exactly how Lacy felt. If he had the chance to face the thing in the pool and get Celia back, nothing would stop him from trying it.
There was knock on the front door, and Lacy looked at him in surprise. “Expecting anyone?”
“Nope. You?”
“Uh uh.”
But when Lacy returned to the kitchen a few moments later, Solomon wasn’t surprised. The police had finally come to ask them about what had happened to Ed.
“I can’t believe they left,” Lacy said. The police had come in and asked them about Ed, how he had gotten hurt, and what their role in it was. Lacy had told them she had heard a scream in the woods, followed the noise and come upon Solomon carrying Ed.
Solomon had filled in the rest, although he left out the part about the Soul Gaunt itself, and didn’t mention Luke either. Instead, he told them that he and Ed had agreed to keep a watch around Lacy’s place after she had been attacked. He told them about Daisy running into the woods and he and Ed following, but that they had become separated.
He had also heard the scream, and found Ed, as he was now, on the forest floor. His adrenaline pumping, he had picked him up, desperate to get him help, which is when Lacy found them. His only guess was that whatever had attacked Lacy had gotten to Ed too, but he had no idea what it was. His dog was still missing, too.
The police seemed to believe everything he told them, and took him at his word. He had to wonder if that was because he was one of the Folk, here in this world, or if some other force were at play. Regardless, the truth would have only resulted in at least one of the officers getting killed. Solomon had no desire to see that happen.
“I think we should rest tonight,” he said to Lacy. “Maybe we can check in on Ed tomorrow.”
She nodded, but went to the sliding doors and looked over the now darkened back yard. “Do you think he’ll be alright?”
Solomon knew that she was talking about Luke. “I think so. I don’t know why the Soul Gaunt is using him, but I don’t think it’s done with him yet.”
Lacy shivered again. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”
“Me neither. We’ll get him back.”
It took a long time for Solomon to fall asleep, lying on the couch in Lacy’s living room. Every noise sounded like sharp, pale claws trying to get into the house. He was sure that Lacy must be feeling the same way. Finally, he passed into a restless sleep, and dreamed that every plan he tried failed, and the Soul Gaunt stood over all of their bodies.
There was no change in Ed when they visited the hospital the next morning. Maggie was there, looking as if she hadn’t slept since the night of the attack. They offered to stay with Ed while she got some sleep, but she told them family was coming, and she would rest then. They left, Solomon feeling that he had let his friend down.
“Whatever this plan of yours is," Lacy said, "I want in on it. I want to help kill this thing.”
Solomon nodded approvingly. Although vengeance was frowned on both in this world and the Greenweald, he understood it perfectly.
He laid out his plan to her and they went to a couple of stores to get what they needed. The morning turned to afternoon as they gathered the supplies, and the sun was shining high by the time they got back to Lacy’s, where Solomon got to work.
“How do you know how to do this stuff?” Lacy asked him. “From what you’ve told me, it doesn’t sound like your world has electricity.”
Solomon stopped. It hadn’t occurred to him, but how did he know? The Greenweald didn’t have el
ectricity. Darkness was kept at bay with torches and candles, heat was provided by fire and cooling by clever vents that took advantage of any breezes. So why did he know about wiring, and generators?
“I don’t know. You’re right, we don’t have it. Then again, we don’t have cars, or planes, or TV, and those things seem perfectly normal to me too. It’s weird.”
“Very. Does it mean that if I went to the Greenweald, a huge forest with people living inside the trees would seem normal to me?”
“Good question. Maybe there’s some sort of transfer of knowledge that happens when someone moves from one world to another.”
“Maybe I could find out one day.”
Solomon looked at her. “Are you saying you’d like to see the Greenweald? Even after all this?”
“I think so,” Lacy said. “You know, once Luke is back, and the Soul Gaunt is dead.”
“Funny you should say that. I’ve been thinking that it might be a good idea.”
“You have?”
“How’s your arm?” he asked her.
She moved it, but the action obviously caused her some discomfort. “The same. It doesn’t feel like it’s getting any better, but it’s not getting any worse either, so there’s that.”
“Like Ed. That’s what I was thinking though. Maybe someone there would know of something that could help both of you. I don’t know for sure, but it’s worth a try, if we can.”
“Soul Gaunt first,” Lacy said, her mouth set in a line of determination.
“Oh, yes. I think we’re going to solve that problem tonight. Are you ready?”
Lacy smiled grimly. “That thing is going to be sorry it came here.”
Solomon grinned back. But inside, he was less sure. The plan was risky, but it had merit. At the least, he imagined that it would take care of the Soul Gaunt. He just wasn’t sure if he’d still be around after.
CHAPTER 24
Luke could feel it when the sun started to go down without even having to see it. He had learned over the last several weeks that that was when the fear, and the pain, really started. Both of those things were with him all the time now, but in the beginning, they had started at night.
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