Secret of the Labyrinth (The Temple of the Blind #5)

by Brian Harmon

  “A mysterious voice?” Albert asked, looking at her.

  Andrea nodded again. She stood there without speaking, one arm across her small breasts, her other hand pressed between her thighs. Wayne could have laughed. She’d been unable to shut her mouth before and now she was like a shy little girl, too afraid to speak.

  “She gave us a ride and got us some food and first aid,” Wayne explained. We probably wouldn’t have made it back here without her.”

  “Wow,” Brandy said. “Your guardian angel?”

  “I think so,” Olivia replied.

  Andrea blushed a little, but still could not seem to find any words.

  “Olivia just refused to go home,” Wayne added, looking down at her. “She insisted on coming. Threatened me if I tried to leave her behind, actually.”

  “I couldn’t just go home,” she said, as if that explained everything.

  Albert’s eyes fell on her and for a moment the realization of her nudity sent an odd sense of vertigo through him. It was like a reminder of how completely bizarre all this really was.

  Wayne looked past Albert at the tunnels behind him. “Did you find anything?”

  “We don’t know,” said Albert. Distracted by two more lovely naked bodies, he had to consciously focus himself to keep from becoming distracted. “I think so. That place back there feels pretty important. I think it might be the way out. Did the Keeper talk to you guys?”

  Wayne looked at him, puzzled. “Keeper?”

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Albert said, and then described their strange encounter with the hideous creature at the entrance to the labyrinth.

  As he spoke, Brandy and Nicole sat down, resting their weary feet. Olivia and Andrea joined them, and then Wayne and Albert, realizing that they were the only ones standing, also sat.

  “We didn’t see anything like that,” Wayne said when Albert had finished.

  “That’s odd,” said Albert. “It seemed to want us to know what was down here.”

  “Did you see the Caggo?” Olivia asked. The anxiousness in her voice was perfectly clear. She didn’t like the idea of finding more monsters down here. She had already seen far more than her share of murderous beasts for one night.

  “We haven’t,” Albert replied. “But I think there may be something in that room. The hounds have been gathering in there. It might be waiting at the top of that tower.”

  “Tower?” This came from Andrea, who was still hiding her naked body behind Wayne’s sizeable bulk.

  Albert looked at her, confused. “Yeah. Or some kind of structure, anyway.” He wasn’t sure what made him call it a tower. He hadn’t seen enough of it to tell exactly what it was, but it had looked more like a pyramid than a tower. “Why?”

  “The voice told me something,” she explained. She looked at Wayne, saw the understanding on his face, and then repeated what she told him in the car earlier, the part of the mysterious voice’s instructions that she hadn’t understood. “‘Atop the tower, the secret is blood.’ That’s what it said to me.”

  “Oh good,” grumbled Nicole. “That doesn’t sound at all ominous.”

  Albert ignored her. He stared at Andrea for a moment. It was still so surreal. She was the same girl who had appeared at his door so many hours ago, a manila envelope in her hand, but she looked so strange now, naked but for all the jewelry she wore, her pigtails now hanging dirty and limp over her shoulders. “Tell me about this voice,” he said.

  Andrea looked at Wayne for a moment, as if to ask if it was all right, and then began to tell her story, beginning with her leaving Albert and Brandy’s apartment building that previous afternoon.

  “So that was you in the woods,” Albert marveled when she was done.

  “You really didn’t see me?” she asked.

  “I didn’t see anything. It just felt weird out there.” He remembered standing there in the woods, resting his hand on the trunk of a tree. He’d felt as if something was there, but he’d been unable to see anything at all.

  “That’s so weird. You were almost standing on top of me.”

  “That is weird,” Albert agreed.

  “Maybe the Sentinel Queen did it,” Nicole suggested. “She said that psychic minds are susceptible to suggestion. Maybe she hid her from you.”

  “She acted like she didn’t know how Andrea got mixed up in all this, though,” Wayne said.

  “Maybe she was lying,” Nicole speculated.

  “Or maybe it was someone else,” suggested Brandy. “Like the owner of that voice she was talking about. Maybe they were trying to protect her.”

  “But I wouldn’t have hurt her,” Albert said, looking at her, his eyes drawn to the rings in her eyebrow and nose. In the glow of the flashlights, her jewelry sparkled, catching his eye every time he glanced in her direction.

  “Maybe it wasn’t you she was being protected from,” Wayne reasoned. “Maybe it was Gilbert House.”

  Albert looked at him for a moment, considering, then he turned his eyes on Andrea again. “That’s a good point. If I’d seen her, I wouldn’t have been mad or anything… I mean, I absolutely understand her curiosity. So I probably wouldn’t have stopped her from coming with us.”

  Andrea stared back at Albert. If he’d seen her, would she have gone inside with them? Would she have died in there? A shiver ran through her body as she considered these terrible things.

  “Or maybe she needed to stay put so she’d be there when we got out,” offered Olivia. “I don’t know what we’d have done without her.”

  Wayne nodded. “That’s right.”

  “I’m sure there was some reason for it,” Brandy decided. “And she’s here now. She’s one of us.”

  “I think so,” Wayne agreed.

  “Well, if Andrea’s right, we need to get to the top of that tower,” decided Albert. “And that might mean getting past the Caggo.”

  “Do you really think he’s in there?” Brandy asked.

  “I don’t know. Like I said before, something had those hounds worked up before we even got there. They seemed particularly interested in the area around the tower. I’m thinking it’s up there waiting for us. It even makes a little bit of sense why it never found us in the labyrinth in all the time we’ve been down here. Apparently, it decided to wait us out at the exit instead.”

  “Then what are we going to do?” Olivia asked. She did not like the idea of facing yet another monster.

  “I honestly can’t tell you,” Albert confessed. “But we can’t avoid it. We have to believe that there’s a way. Why would the Sentinel Queen send us here if she knew we didn’t stand a chance?”

  “So, what?” asked Nicole. “We just keep our fingers crossed that we live through it?”

  Albert shrugged. That was pretty much his plan. What else was there to do? Hadn’t blind faith been a significant factor in getting them this far?

  Wayne nodded. “I agree. We have to try it. But first I need to tell you something. I don’t know what’s going on here any more than you do, but I ran into someone who claimed the Sentinel Queen was lying to us all.”

  Albert nodded. “Sounds like something we should hear about.”

  “Tell us everything,” Nicole pleaded. “I want to hear what happened to you.”

  Albert agreed. “Any little detail could turn out to be important.”

  Chapter 47

  Wayne told them his amazing story, beginning with his departure in the City of the Blind and his private conversation with the Sentinel Queen. He told them about the imaginary horrors of what she’d called “Road Beneath the Wood” and of the very real horrors that prowled the vast forest beyond the final seal of that tunnel. He told them of the mysterious old man and the disturbing accusations he made about the Sentinel Queen. He described to them how he found Olivia in the forest and how they fled for their lives from the towering corpse monster. He told them of their near-demise in the clutches of the dead and their harrowing escape through the dark hallways of Gilbert House.
He told them of their journey back through the Temple of the Blind and the Sentinel Queen’s response to the old man’s words. Finally, he told them of his own trek through the labyrinth, following Albert’s chalk lines and hoping he wasn’t too late to help.

  “That’s incredible,” Nicole marveled. She had visibly shuddered when he told them about the living corpses of the Wood and how they literally attempted to eat them alive. That would have been the end for her. In that situation, she would already have utterly lost her mind.

  Brandy could find no words at all. She could not imagine surviving all those horrors. She was sure her heart would have burst long before reaching the safety of Gilbert House’s cellar door.

  “That old man,” Albert said thoughtfully. He was still staring into the darkness that led back to the tower, still half expecting the Caggo to come rushing out at them, but he’d listened intently to every word of Wayne’s story. “The devil?”

  “I don’t know,” Wayne responded. “The Sentinel Queen seemed to think so, but I don’t know if I believe her. It seemed pretty hard to swallow. One of them was obviously lying.”

  “Maybe both,” Albert said, standing up. The others all took his lead and rose to their feet as well.

  “Do you think we should turn back?” asked Brandy. “Just go home? What if that old man was telling the truth?”

  “What if he wasn’t?” Albert said. “I don’t know if I can just turn back now. We’ve come so far.”

  Wayne shook his head. “I honestly don’t know who to trust. But I agree. We can’t just turn back now. That Caggo probably won’t let us out, first of all, and at least down here we’re in the open. We’ve got room to fight.”

  Albert thought about the narrow path of platforms and stone beams leading out to the tower. He supposed it was still better than encountering the monster in a dead end corridor in the labyrinth where their backs were literally against a wall, but it was definitely not an ideal place to defend themselves.

  “So what’s the plan?” asked Brandy.

  Albert began to walk. “The tower is in the middle of that room. We have to cross over the hounds. Then I guess we climb.”

  “We could go,” Wayne told Albert as he walked beside him. “Just the two of us. They could wait for us here.”

  “No way!” Andrea exclaimed suddenly from behind them. “I want to go.”

  “We stay together,” Brandy agreed.

  “Definitely,” insisted Nicole. “There’s no way I’m staying behind.”

  “We’re a team,” added Andrea. “Remember?”

  “Okay then,” Wayne relented. “All together then.”

  Albert stared into the darkness ahead. “That tower is our way out of this damn labyrinth. I’m sure of it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you happened to find us when you did.”

  “You think someone intended for us to meet up in that room?” Wayne asked. “Who? Seems like the Sentinel Queen would prefer to keep us apart.”

  “That old man, probably,” Nicole guessed.

  “Or the owner of Andrea’s mysterious voice,” Albert suggested. “She’s the one with the key. That clue about the blood atop the tower… That’ll probably be important.”

  The six of them emerged from the passage and Albert stared out into the black chamber, unable to stop wondering if the Caggo was really out there somewhere, watching them from the cover of the temple’s perfect darkness. “We need to stay together, but we can obviously only go one at a time. I’ll take the lead. Maybe you should take the rear.”

  Wayne nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Olivia doesn’t have a flashlight,” Albert observed. To her, he said, “You stay close to somebody; don’t get separated without a light.”

  Immediately, Andrea seized Olivia’s hand and held tight.

  Albert turned back to face the darkness again, steeling himself against the fear he felt boiling up inside him. “Let’s go.”

  He stepped out onto the nearest beam and cautiously inched his way across. Brandy and Nicole followed close behind him and Olivia and Andrea behind them.

  Beneath them, the hounds immediately erupted into a furious frenzy as they caught their scent, drowning out all other sounds around them.

  Not being able to hear bothered Albert. He paused repeatedly and looked around, half expecting the Caggo to lurch from the darkness at any moment and tear him apart just as the thing in Gilbert House had torn apart that poor girl on the third floor.

  He wished he knew what the thing was, how to protect himself from it. It seemed like such a stupid thing to do, intentionally approaching the tower where he had ample reason to believe a dangerous monster was hiding. But he didn’t know what else to do. The Keeper had warned them of the Caggo, had cautioned them to stay well away from it for their own safety, but the creepy little creature had neglected to tell them what they should do if they found it guarding the labyrinth’s only exit.

  Quickly, he moved from one platform to the next, growing more and more anxious with every step he took and trying desperately to see in every direction at once.

  Below him, the hounds grew angrier. Fights broke out more frequently among them. At one point, two of the beasts hurled themselves at each other with such force that a spray of hot blood spurted upward and spattered across Nicole’s bare legs, wrenching a startled scream from her which was terrifyingly unexpected to her companions.

  “Sorry,” Nicole squealed as she bit her lip against the grotesque feel of the hound blood on her skin and covered her naked breasts against the stark stare of the four flashlights that were suddenly bearing down on her.

  A moment later, the others turned away and she was relieved that her nude body was no longer the target for every light in the room but her own. The feel of the hound blood trickling down her calves felt awful, but she dared not tempt losing her balance by trying to reach down on this narrow walkway to wipe at it. She left it and bore the awful feeling until they reached the next platform. Only then did she take the time to kneel on the cold stone and try to wipe it away, and by then it had already begun to grow tacky.

  Hopefully there would be somewhere to wash off on the other side of wherever that tower led them. She stood up again and fell in line behind Brandy, who was already following Albert across the next beam.

  The hounds continued their awful racket beneath their feet, the noise of their gnashing blades filling the silent chamber. Wayne hated the sound. He hated the creatures. He felt none of the intrigue that fascinated Albert. He did not care where they came from or how rare they might be. He did not care that he might be among the first people since ancient times to see them and live to tell about it. They were not animals to him. They were monsters. The endless pain in his leg was all the proof he needed. One wrong step and the beasts would happily devour any one of them. He couldn’t help but think that if he had a gun, he would happily put a bullet into each of their snarling heads.

  Albert walked on, his eyes on the path before him. He was no longer thinking about the hounds. He was far more concerned with the Caggo. Was it perched somewhere atop the tower right now, watching them, biding its time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike? He hated feeling so helpless. If only he knew a little more about this monster. Was it blind and deaf, like the hounds? Or did it have a full range of lethal senses? Or even an extra sense of some sort? How fast could it run? How big was it? Did it use claws to bring down its prey or teeth? And most importantly, was it merely a dangerous animal, or was it sentient? The Keeper told them that killing was its only joy. Did that mean that the creature enjoyed the hunt, like a cat stalking a mouse, or that it was actually the act of murder that pleased it? The thought of the beast consciously causing pain and death for its own twisted enjoyment was chilling.

  The tower again came into view and Albert’s eyes drifted up into the darkness, half expecting to see the sinister eyeshine of something staring back at him from high above. It still didn’t look like a tower, though. It still looked
more like a pyramid. But why had he called it a tower back there? The word had just slipped out of his mouth. And if it hadn’t, Andrea might not have remembered her message. He wondered if someone had made him do that, the way the Sentinel Queen had made him leave his car door unlocked the night he found the box.

  Albert made his way across the last of the stone beams, resisting the urge to hurry, forcing himself to ignore the ravenous horde snarling beneath his feet. The closer he came to the center of the room, the longer each perilous crossing seemed to take and the more worried he became that he (or someone he cared about, or perhaps all of them at once) was going to topple off the beam and into the unthinkable nightmare below.

  But he stepped off the beam and onto the relative safety beyond without incident, and so did everyone else, leaving the hounds to fight among themselves. And yet, he felt no real relief as he stared up into the darkness that awaited them. Somewhere up there, he was certain, was something far worse than a hound.

  Albert didn’t look for steps or a ramp. He doubted there would be anything like that here. After all, they had been climbing these six-foot rises all night. They were located throughout the temple, usually in conjunction with the territory of the hounds, although not always. Though inconvenient, these were not impassable barriers for them or they would not be here now. And convenience was obviously not a factor in the Temple of the Blind’s design.

  Without discussing it—they could barely hear each other anyway—he climbed the first rise and then stood and walked to the next. Beside him, the others did the same and soon all six of them were scaling the side of the structure, slowly making their way upward.

  After climbing only the first two sections, Albert could make out a high wall standing at the top of the pyramid. Two more, and he caught sight of a narrow set of steps ascending the outside of the wall from left to right and he realized that this was probably the tower Andrea had mentioned. The pyramid-like section was only the base.

  Again, he wondered how it was that he happened to call it a tower while talking to Wayne. Was it only a coincidence? He climbed up another level and forced the thought away. It was unimportant. Right now he needed to be concerned with reaching the top safely.