by Mina Carter
“A legion of vampires awaits on the bridge. Crane must have followed us across the plain. I eliminated as many as I could but two replace every one that falls.” He tossed aside a sword he must’ve stolen from one of them and reached for Thyme. “I’ll bear her away to safety and come right back for you, Blade.”
I nodded as he scooped her into his arms and leapt off the patch. "Cover her ears," I shouted the warning after them while sliding my harmonica out of my pocket and turning back to the interior of the room. There was only one gargoyle left in the room. The tall one. The horned one must’ve taken off after Morpheus and Thyme.
Shit.
I didn’t think I’d be too successful in armed combat against a creature made of stone. I put my harmonica to my lips and started playing. I had to quickly shuffle to the side to avoid a swipe from his huge baseball glove sized paw. It connected with the wall as he missed me, the crash sounding like a sledge hammer against the splintering wood.
I heard Thyme’s scream in the distance and played faster and harder, spirits popping up all over, crowding the room, their expressions expectant.
"We obey the Harper. What is your command?"
I was relieved that their voices were intelligible to me in the underground, and that they were inside my head for privacy which was really cool. I kept playing and relayed telepathic instructions to my ghostly minions.
"Go, all of you! Grab whatever weapons you can. Find and protect Thyme and Morpheus." As the room began to clear, I refocused on the gargoyle. This time it was him skirting the edges of the room watching me warily. Guess he was afraid of ghosts. Good. I narrowed my eyes blowing an extra high note on my harmonica just to mess with him before stopping and sliding it back into my jeans pocket. I lunged for him. I didn't count on doing any damage, but I was hoping I could at least keep him occupied so he didn’t take off after Thyme and Morpheus like the other one had.
He didn’t budge. I scrambled backward.
“Try again, puny man,” he taunted in a raspy voice beckoning me to come forward. I circled him instead looking for a weakness. He lumbered around to keep me in focus. He was clumsy and awkwardly slow. I was trying to figure out how to use that to my advantage when suddenly, he turned away from me, his head snapping toward the door. Warily, I glanced over my shoulder to assess the new threat.
It was Leon. Paul Leon Johnson. Apollyon. A clever homonym. He looked different below ground. Even more sinister. Definitely larger. The dude had to be at least seven feet tall, and he was much more diabolically threatening minus the business suit and cane. He wore black leather pants and brandished a huge shining black staff in one hand. Here he had the advantage and was upholding quite a different reputation. The woman in a colorful African headdress who accompanied him was a mystery. A gargoyle. A demon. And a wildcard. Three against one. The odds weren’t in my favor.
"Got the hots for a dead girl, eh, Blade?” Apollyon’s thick lips coiled into a slimy smile. “Necrophilia. Very kinky."
Dead because of him. Damaged because of him. Time to make him pay.
I reached in my pocket for my harmonica again, seeing that as my only viable play, hoping Thyme and Morpheus were safe and far away, but Satan spoke a word that singed my ears and took that option off the table. My arms suddenly wouldn’t move. They hung ineffectually at my sides.
Apollyon came closer and when I tried to back up I realized it wasn't just my arms that were immobilized. My legs weren’t working, either.
Not one to ever back down, I lifted my chin defiantly looking the demon straight in his glowing black eyes right before I spit in them.
Chapter 36
He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy. - Socrates
Thyme
“Take me back. We have to go back.” I squirmed ineffectually in Morpheus’ arms, the steep walls of our canyon a blur as he tightened his hold and flew faster than I could ever remember him flying.
“No, Thyme. Be still.” The tips of his talons pressed into me. “I need to get you somewhere safe so I can return for him.”
“But Apollyon and Marie…” I couldn’t finish that thought. We’d seen them cross the bridge. My throat closed, images from the past assailing me, fear immobilizing me in its irrational grip. My chest was so tight if I needed air to breathe I wouldn’t have been able to draw any in.
“I know. He’s my brother, Thyme. It wasn’t an easy choice to leave him behind.” He suddenly banked hard. “By the Dark!” he rasped. “Hold on. We’ve got trouble up ahead and company behind.”
I screamed when we dipped and barrel rolled at a dizzying speed through the mouth of our canyon. I heard shouts, felt Morpheus flinch and falter for a minute, but then we were through. He soared higher than ever right along the roof of the underground where the air seemed thin. If I hadn’t been so worried for Billy I would’ve reached out and tried to skim my phantom fingers along the glittering coating of underground stars.
What was going on back at the house?
I had heard the first note of his harmonica before Morpheus had covered my ears.
Would the shades Billy summoned help him escape?
Would they obey him over their ruler?
“Why are these spirits pursuing?” Morpheus asked.
My heart sank even further because I immediately knew why. “Because Billy summons them when he plays. He must have sent them to help us.” Leaving himself alone and unprotected.
I felt Morpheus tense as he executed a sharp right turn avoiding a stalactite. “Shades. Attend us,” he hissed to our see through allies. “Deal with our assailants.”
I glanced back over his shoulder and saw that they obeyed. Their ghostly forms hidden, blending well in the shadows, they waited, some with swords in hand, larger ones breaking off stalactites to use as clubs, ready to ambush whoever might’ve been able to keep up with us.
Morpheus flew fast and steadily for several more minutes taking us into a section of the underground I’d never been before. The Desolate Lands. A place where nothing grew. No bioluminescent orchids. Not even the protein dense creeping moss that many of the vegetarians ate. It was a completely barren lawless area where the worst of the worst went to hide or to feed... on each other. It was colder way out here and I could hear water seeping through the walls.
Morpheus turned left suddenly folding his wings tightly to his body as we dove into a narrow ravine with a tiny brackish looking stream. He set us down and put his hands on my shoulders. “Stay, Thyme. You’ll be safe here. For the Creator’s sake. Stay. Blade sacrificed himself for you. Don’t make me endure two losses in one day.”
I nodded but he didn’t see me. He’d already leapt into the dark sky but his voice carried back to me as the night engulfed his form. “Hopefully, he’s still lucid.”
Frightened, worried for both my men, I sank down onto the uneven ground beneath me bringing my knees to my chest. I was a ravaged wreck. I didn’t have the option of cathartic tears. I folded phantom arms around myself and tried to think positive thoughts. When that didn’t work I started nervously humming my favorite Billy Blade song, softly to myself. I almost thought I was imagining it when I heard a voice speak my name in a harsh whisper.
*****
Billy
“Take that blasted thing away from him.” Onyx eyes blazing, Apollyon wiped my spittle from his cheek. “And don’t be too rough with him. I want to hurt him myself later.”
A nearly seven foot tall alligator man hybrid shuffled into view and came toward me. With my feet nailed to the floor, I couldn’t do anything but watch, completely helpless.
He hissed as soon as he reached his claw tipped hands toward the harmonica that was peeking out of my jeans pocket.
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Six?”
“It burns, Master.”
The demon seemed to tense, eyes squinting to slits studying me again as if he were trying to figure out an important puzzle.
&
nbsp; “Try again,” Apollyon ordered voice low and menacing.
Six moved closer, his muckish swamp stench making my nostrils burn and my eyes water. He shoved his hand at me again but this time not only did he hiss in pain, but his whole form toppled backwards muscles completely rigid as if he’d been jolted by an invisible current. His body crashed to the floor.
Marie made a shocked sound, hands dancing in front of her chest as if warding off some kind of evil.
“Hellfire and damnation!” Apollyon cursed. “It’s a fucking dark talisman. I don’t believe it. I haven’t seen that particular one in years. I thought it had been destroyed.” He came back at me hands fisted, his expression furious. “You spit on me again, Blade,” he warned, “and I swear by all that’s unholy that I will gut your worthless body.”
I kept my expression neutral and didn’t respond. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I hadn’t consciously done anything to prevent Six from taking the harmonica, but I got the idea it was pretty damn significant that they couldn’t take it from me. Now if only I could brazen this out, stall long enough, stay alive and hopefully un-maimed long enough for Morpheus and my ghosts minus one to return and help me escape.
Apollyon slowly paced back and forth in front of me trying to make me nervous. It was working. My blood ran cold when he snapped his staff and it morphed into a scythe with a wickedly sharp looking edge. It ran even colder when he moved behind me and I felt the hot bite of the metal kissing my neck. “Who gave you that harmonica?”
“No one,” I lied, fighting back the bile from the pain that was worse than anything I had ever felt before. “I bought it. I…”
“Wrong answer, asswipe,” he interrupted and I felt the blade slice deeper into my flesh. It hurt like a mother. Think rubbing alcohol in a raw gaping wound times ten thousand. I had to grind my teeth together and clench my fingernails into my palms to keep from crying out. “I suggest you tell me the truth,” he whispered low. “And that you tell it to me right now before I lose my patience with you. I can sense your fear and your anger and the pain you’re trying to hide. It’s making me stronger and hungry for more. I don’t care how I get my answer or what kind of shape you are in when I get it, but I will get it. This I promise you.”
I pressed my lips together, but was unable to suppress the howl of pain that escaped my lips as he inched the blade in further. I could feel the hot trail of wet blood drip down my chest.
“Why don’t you let me try?” Marie’s feminine voice sounded wrong in the brutality of the moment.
“No. Stay out of this, witch. I can sense the name and the face he’s trying not to reveal. Blade.” His rancid breath near my face made me want to vomit. How had Thyme survived with her sanity intact after what he’d done to her? “That’s not yours, and whoever gave you that ensorcelled harmonica has made you an unwitting pawn in a much larger game you have no hope of winning. No reason you should cover for them.” His voice changed, becoming appealing and seductively soft. “Tell me who it is.”
Along the edges of my mind I recognized that he was using some kind of mental persuasion on me. I was very tempted to tell him what he wanted to know. The name was on the tip of my tongue, but I made myself resist.
Suddenly a boulder crashed through the window. It hit Apollyon square in the chest launching him sideways across to the other side of the room while only grazing me.
“Outside!” Morpheus shouted. “Now!”
I lifted a foot to comply my body flooding with relief when I realized I was no longer bound. I moved backward keeping an eye on Apollyon who was already shaking himself off. Hearing an unholy chanting my gaze swept to the other side of the room to Marie whom I had forgotten. Her eyes met mine. I found no mercy there. I slid my harmonica out while pedaling backward, ghost figures flanking me the moment I played the first note.
Quiet her quickly, I thought. Incapacitate the Prince of Darkness by whatever means you can.
Their willing forms flew across the room to do my bidding while I stepped carefully through the ragged frame where the window had once been. Crouched on the railing, wings outstretched, Morpheus held out his hand and I grabbed ahold of him without hesitating. This time I wasn’t even thinking about it being awkward to be carried by another guy.
After all, he was my brother.
Chapter 37
He was a mark for blight and desolation. - Lord Byron
Thyme
Hearing my name again, my imagined heart racing, I scrambled to my feet. “Who’s there?” I squeaked spinning around, squinting into the darkness behind me and realizing that there was some kind of low opening in the rocks.
“You smell the same as you always did. So sweet. Just the way I remember.” The voice sounded like a rusty hinge in an old door that needed oiling.
“You didn’t answer my question.” I kept my front facing whoever or whatever it was addressing me. Phantom muscles coiled tight getting ready to run if necessary, but then I remembered I’d promised Morpheus I’d stay. He had said I would be safe here. Surely he knew about the inhabitant of the cave.
“Someone you knew an age ago.” I heard a body moving, a large body by the sound of it. Chains rattled.
“I don’t recognize your voice. When did I meet you?” I gulped imagining all kinds of things. I had lived in the underground long enough to know there were ancient and more scary things out there than anyone imagined. “What are you,” I whispered.
“At this stage in the transformation I don’t usually answer to any name. Let me think of one.” I heard a weird type of sing song off key humming that sounded a little like the tune to Jeopardy. “I know. How about Hyde?”
“Like in hide and seek?” He was definitely more than a little off kilter.
“No, bébé. As in Jekyll and Hyde. The bad one. The evil one. The one who does profane things and needs to be chained with solid one inch thick obsidian links so he doesn’t harm himself or others.”
I put a hand to my throat. “But Morpheus said I’d be safe here.” He had also said that bit about hoping someone was still lucid. Hyde, I presumed. Weird? For sure. A little nuts? Definitely. Maybe if I just ignored him he’d eventually lose interest, and I could pretend he wasn’t there.
“You are safe. From other predators and from me. The safest place in the Desolate Lands is where you stand right now.” When he spoke again his voice wasn’t as gravelly but it sounded as if the weight of the underground rested on his shoulders. “Though I wish Morpheus had never brought you here in the first place.” The chains rattled restlessly again. I got the idea that he was sitting now. His voice emanated from a lower spot near the ground. “I feed away from my den and protect whatever is on it as if it were a child… or a mate. A base instinct that preserves my violent species.”
A den? I glanced at my feet and that’s when I noticed. The uneven surface I was on wasn’t rocks. It was skulls. Mounds of them. In all shapes and sizes. Some with horns. Some without. Most picked clean but some still had tiny bits of flesh or hide clinging to them.
I slowly backed away from the cave trying to be quiet about it but the crunch of bones made it impossible. Stupid Ghost Girl. Float don’t walk. I quickly self-corrected and was hovering further down the ravine when he spoke again.
“Don’t be a fool, Thyme. You are too far from my protection. I know I am scary but there are worse things in the shadows here. I know. I eat them. Come back and sit closer. We will await Morpheus’ return together. You can talk to me. The sound of your voice seems to be keeping the beast at bay. And being with you reminds me of another time. A much better time.”
“What do you want to talk about?” I floated closer leaning against the rock face outside his cave, trying to look in and see for myself what he was, but too frightened to. How long was his chain anyway? I stepped a little further away.
“Tell me what you’ve been doing? What your existence is like as a shade? Is it all bad?”
Unusual questions. “I read. I haunt
. And no, it’s not all bad. Some parts are good.”
“Morpheus,” he guessed.
“Yes, definitely. He’s a great friend. And…” I didn’t complete that thought. Billy was more than a friend. Much more.
“The meddlesome bastard returns.” Hyde’s chains rattled irritably.
“What?” Even with my acute ghost hearing I hadn’t heard the subtle hum of his approach.
“Vulture! You dare bring her to my den!” Hyde’s voice boomed from the cave.
“Stay here.” Morpheus suddenly materialized dropping to the ground less than a foot away from me, hand to his left side that I could tell he was favoring.
“You’re injured.” My voice was shrill, panicky. “Where’s Billy?”
“A scratch. It will heal by morning. I took Blade topside. Back to your apartment. He’ll be safer from Apollyon there. He has made an enemy of the Prince of Darkness, for certain. He didn’t want to leave you though. He is nearly unhinged with worry for you. Such intense commitment already. I have no doubt now that you are Fated.”
“No!” Hyde bellowed suddenly chains groaning and popping as they snapped. Limestone straws began falling from the ceiling high above. They shattered and blasted apart the more brittle of the bones on the ground all around us.
“Hellfire!” Morpheus cursed. Turning around abruptly he swept me into his arms even as the dark form of Hyde emerged from under the low overhand of his cave. “Hold tight, Thyme. This will be a bumpy ride.”
Chapter 38
And all our struggles and our toils tighter wind the giant coils. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Billy
Anxious and worried as shit, I paced the apartment checking my Breitling every minute, but it didn’t change anything. It was only morning and I’d promised to stay put until Morpheus brought her to me tonight. This immortal quick healing thing was a good deal. My neck wasn’t bleeding anymore though I knew I would always have a scar. And dammit to hell, despite Apollyon, my word was all that kept me from retracing my steps to the cemetery and breaking down the tomb or digging my way into the underground just so I could be with my ghost girl right now.
