by Hazel Hunter
The canyon was guarded on three sides by rock, but from where they stood, Hailey could see an unlikely thing. It was a stone fortress, an edifice so large it fell just short of being a castle. In the dim light, there were a few windows that were lit up, but overall, there was a sense of gloom and abandonment about it. Next to her, the wolf shivered, touching her hip.
“It’ll be fine, I promise,” she whispered, though she knew that it could be the worst lie she had ever told.
She had power, though it was less than it had been this morning. She could feel the edges of exhaustion lap against her. But she had enough strength to threaten someone, to kill them if need be. It would do. It had to.
The wolf led her close to the canyon wall. It was so dark that she had to navigate by feel, trusting her own slow feet and the wolf’s patient guidance to steer her. Not willing to risk being seen, she left her small flashlight in her pocket. It seemed to take an eternity, but the wolf led her to what looked like an iron gate set into the building.
To her dismay, it looked like it had been blocked with rubble and scree from the inside. However, the wolf pawed at the gate itself, whining until she opened it. It wasn’t locked; likely whoever lived in the fortress now figured the rubble would hold back any invaders. Hailey was inclined to believe the same, but then she saw what the wolf was trying to show her.
Near the top of the pile of rubble, there seemed to be a narrow tunnel, a channel where the scree and stone had been pushed and pulled away. It was painfully narrow, however. The way forward led only into darkness.
She bit her lip, hesitating. As she paused, however, the wolf scrabbled into the tunnel, squirming forward into it.
Well, when there’s only one way forward, you need to take it, Hailey thought to herself.
She clambered up the wall of rubble, easing herself into the tunnel as quietly as she could. It was barely wide enough to pass through. More than once, she had to scrape her shoulders or her elbows to push her way through. She was uncomfortably aware that there would be no way for Piers or Kieran to pass this way. If they were going to escape, they would have to do it in some other fashion.
The tunnel was dark and close. Hailey had never been afraid of enclosed places, but now she saw how she could be. It seemed to go on forever with no place to turn around, no place to stretch out. She might have been buried under miles of rock and stone for all she knew. Just when she thought that the darkness would drive her mad, she felt air instead of the tunnel floor in front of her. A moment later, a cold wet nose was pushed into her seeking hand and a warm tongue licked at her fingers.
The opening was located three feet from the ground. She had to slither out of the hole, head first. Though she was careful, she still managed to scrape herself on the way down. She sat on the floor breathing hard, wrapping her arms around the wolf for comfort.
“All right then,” she whispered, when she had her breath back. “What are we looking at?”
She carefully pointed her flashlight to the ground before turning it on. To her surprise, she wasn’t in a deep, dark dungeon. Instead, it seemed like she had come out in what had once been a larder. There were crates that held desiccated vegetables, and not far from where she sat, there was an ancient bag of what looked like moldy potatoes. The place was frigid.
She realized that the tunnel she had crawled through must have been an escape hatch long ago. The people who had lived here had wanted a way to get out if things went wrong. People must have come along later and realized that the exit was a liability that they didn’t need, filling it up with stone.
Hailey climbed to her feet, heading to the wooden door across the room. As she had hoped, it opened at her touch, though it did make a creak that sounded like it would wake the dead. Beside her, the wolf winced, as if sharing her opinion.
They ventured into the dark corridors beyond the little cellar. The wolf slowly gained confidence as they walked through. Perhaps he was becoming more accustomed to the darkness of the place. Perhaps he was simply as resolute as she was.
The way through the halls was dark and twisted. Through the passageways, however, there was something oddly familiar to Hailey about all of it. Something about this dark place made her think of her beloved Castle, the place that Piers had created to be a sanctuary of safety and peace. Like the Castle, this place had been built with a purpose in mind, and that thought chilled her.
Once, they heard a voice singing. She recognized the language as French, though she could not understand a word of it. For a moment, she was panicked, as the voices got closer. The wolf tensed as if to attack. Hailey realized that she could not allow that. Instead, she twisted her fingers through the wolf’s ruff, pulling him into an alcove nearby. It was dark and shadowed, but to be sure, she closed her eyes and covered the wolf’s eyes with her hands. It would prevent any errant light from shining in their faces and betraying them.
It was harrowing to wait as the man passed, stumping by on some errand or another. Templars were just normal men. She knew that. They’re sole purpose in life was to wipe out Wiccans as a whole. They were terribly strong, as skilled in the arts of war as the Magus Corps. Despite all that, they were just men. However, there was a strange taint that followed the ones that she had met. It was as if they had promised themselves to something dark and cruel. In turn, that cruelty had marked them.
She let the man pass by and counted to a hundred. When she was sure he was gone, she released her death grip on the wolf and stepped back into the corridor.
She thought that the path would never end. The building was dark and cold, terrible in its quiet. Then she started hearing noises. It started out subtly at first. She wondered if it was just the sounds of the wind blowing through the old stone. However, the longer they walked, the clearer the sounds became. It was not the wind. Instead, they were cries of pain, echoing against stone. Sometimes, if the corridors bent right, she could hear words in it. Many of the words were in languages that she simply did not understand. The words she could understand made her blood run cold.
Kill me.
Let me go.
Please.
I will die down here.
There is no light.
She kept walking because there was nothing else that she could do. The wolf by her side was patient, trembling from time to time, but he led her straight through the dark maze. She realized after a while that the ground was sloping. They were walking underground. The stone floor underneath grew rough and uneven before it finally became packed dirt. The air, already frigid, took on a clammy feel.
Just as Hailey was starting to worry that there was no end to the darkness, they rounded a corner and were confronted with a wooden door. It was massive, stained and old, but when she touched it gingerly, it swung open.
She faced a large stone room, the floor marked with runes. Lining the edge of the rooms were a series of cells, barred and small. The keys were hung on the wall by the door. It struck her as careless until she remembered that as long as the prisoners couldn’t reach it, it might as well be in plain sight. Her heart beating faster, she started to walk around the room, peering into the dim depths.
The cells were filthy and foul. In one of them, she could see what looked like a skeleton. In another, she saw a pile of rags that perhaps once had been human. She continued, forcing herself to look and to mark what she saw. Close to the end of the circuit, she stifled a cry of pain. In cells side-by-side were Piers and Kieran. They looked whole, but they both lay on their backs, arms and legs flung at strange angles as if they had been dropped their by some strange hand.
She unlocked the door to Piers’s cell. She would have rushed in if the wolf had not blocked her body with his. She looked down, confused, only to see him scrabbling at a chalk figure on the floor in front of her.
Hailey felt the hair at the back of her neck rise. She had spent some time researching runes and ancient magics back before she had been allowed to use her real powers. This was a rune, and though she did not
know much about it, she knew that it was meant to work on anything in its path.
Gingerly, she wiped the rune out of existence with her foot, making Piers blink and groan.
“Hailey… Hailey, where are you?”
“Right here,” she murmured.
She squeezed his hand so that he would know that it was truly her. He clung to her hand when she offered it. He was shaking. She thought of the rune that she had erased and winced. Runes that were meant to bind were seldom pleasant things. It had likely kept him from harming his captors by plunging him into some nightmare realm.
She didn’t want to leave his side, but she knew that she had to.
“Come on, we have to get Kieran.”
He nodded jerkily, rising to follow her from his cell. She wiped the rune away from the floor of Kieran’s cell, leading him to spring to his feet.
He was moving so quickly that there was no way for Hailey to have prepared herself. In the space of a moment, he had her pinned against the wall with his forearm across her throat.
“Demon, you will not trick me again,” he snarled.
There was murder in his eyes. For a moment, Hailey thought that he would kill her where she stood.
The wolf’s growl was loud and vicious. Before it could spring, however, Piers stepped forward. He put both of his hands on Kieran’s shoulders, not pulling but simply letting him know that there was someone else there.
“Peace, Major. She’s no demon. You love her, and you shall not hurt her.”
Kieran’s body stayed as tensed as a coiled spring. Then slowly, inch by inch, he relaxed, letting her away from the wall.
“Kieran?” she whispered.
He shook his head as if it was fogged. When he met her eyes, he swept her up in his arms.
“Gods above, Hailey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know what was happening, and I hurt you.”
“No, no Kieran, you didn’t hurt me. You didn’t, I swear. I’m fine. Now we just need to get out of here.”
“We can’t.” Kieran stood a little straighter. “Or at least, I can’t. This is where we need to be. I need to find out what happened to the other Magus Corps officers, and I know this is where I am going to find my answers.”
Hailey turned to Piers pleadingly.
“Please, tell him that we need to get out of here. Now that we know the location, we can send for help, we can find others who can fight their way in.”
As Piers shook his head slowly, she realized why they couldn’t leave.
“There may be more alive here,” she whispered.
Kieran nodded. “Hailey, if you want to leave, please, that’s what I want you to do.”
Hailey shook her head.
“No. Either we’re leaving together, all three of us or we’re not leaving at all.”
Piers looked like he was going to argue with her, but then the wolf started to growl. His fur stood up high on the back of his neck, and he stalked stiff-legged in the direction of the door.
Kieran swore. With a single motion he thrust Hailey behind him. She could feel his skin grow several degrees colder as in front of him thin blades of ice started to form out of the condensation from the air. In a matter of moments, they were longer than her forearm, moving in a deadly glittering dance.
Beside her, Piers offered her his arm, a dark look on his face. She started to protest, but he shook his head.
“I want to make sure that you have every chance of surviving what comes next, Hailey. Please.”
Nodding, she took a deep breath and pulled the power that she could from him. In return, she tried to feed it back to him as well. This time, she was certain of it. They were more together than they ever could be apart. When he pulled back from her, she could sense the power radiating from him.
The door swung open, revealing five figures behind it. At first Hailey thought that they were enormous men, but then she realized how wrong she was.
The first man through the door was normal enough, though she could tell by the sword he wore that he must have been a Templar. The four figures behind him, however, had only once been men.
Hailey had barely survived a demon attack before. At that point, the demon had only possessed the man for a short time, but even then, the damage was profound. The man had been a shambling wreck, and it had been clear that the demon needed a new body very quickly.
These things were something else. From the stench that rose from their bodies and the way the faces were damaged and twisted, she could tell that there were demons inside. The demons had made the men grow monstrous, however, and these things showed no signs of hurt or harm.
The man who led them swore. With a single gesture of his hand, he commanded his hellish troops forward. To Hailey’s surprise, they were slow and sluggish, moving towards them with a lumbering stride.
The wolf dove at them as Kieran sent his ice blades whirling through the air. Piers had taken flight, and she gave thanks to all the gods that the ceiling was so tall. He whirled above them, coming down to plant all of his weight behind one of the demon’s necks. It should have snapped the thing’s spine, but instead it only screamed, reaching around clumsily to grab at him.
Hailey thought frantically, trying to think of a skill that she could use to help fight. In her panic, her mind was maddeningly blank. Suddenly, a piece of inspiration came to her. She closed her eyes, summoning up her power.
When she opened her eyes, she could see auras of color around the figures in the room. Both Piers and Kieran were a blazing scarlet, their auras showing their full battle frenzy. The demons to her surprise, were a dirty yellow, a color that she sensed meant despair. When she turned to the Templar who controlled them, however, she found what she had been looking for.
He was a big man, and his aura was a flickering, liver red. Her eyes focused not on his aura, however, but on the white-gold outline of something on his chest.
Kieran, Piers and the wolf were holding their own against the four demons, but she could see that no matter what they did, they weren’t hurting them. The demons continued to come for them, ignoring any injuries that they received. They were slow and clumsy, but they were still powerful. Eventually, it would be a matter of endurance. Her lovers would lose.
Moving as stealthily as she could, Hailey clung to the wall and made her way to the Templar. This close, she could see that he was an older man, his face twisted in a parody of pleasure. He didn’t notice her sidle up to him until it was far too late.
Her hand scrabbled at his chest. When he reached for her, ice blades of her own came up to dance in front of his eyes.
Behind her, she could suddenly hear a deafening silence, but she didn’t dare turn her eyes to look. Instead, she grasped the thing with the bright white aura on his chest. It was a tarnished silver medallion, something inscribed with a twisted face that it hurt her to look at. She pulled it away from him with enough force that she was sent skittering backwards. She almost caught herself, but then she fell flat on her back.
For a moment, Hailey was sure that it was over. She was going to have her throat slit by the Templar or she would simply be crushed by the demons he commanded.
As one the demons moved. They pulled away from the battle, heedless of the ice slivers buried in their ruined skin or the blood that was flowing down their backs.
“No! No, goddamn you! You belong to me! I am the one who controls you!”
His cries went unheard as the demons converged upon him. They moved with a deliberate, stone-like determination that filled Hailey with a kind of terror. Almost delicately, each one took one of the Templar’s limbs in their hands.
Oh no, they can’t, Hailey thought blankly.
The Templar started to scream. Piers landed by Hailey’s side, his face dead white. Kieran came to stand with them.
The demons pulled the Templar to pieces with a terrible wet sound that Hailey was sure she would hear in nightmares the rest of her life. She looked away, but she couldn’t get the
image out of her head. She felt sick, more than a little dizzy, but when she could bring herself to look, she realized that it wasn’t over yet.
The demons stood over the mangled body for a long moment. In that instant, they looked like nothing more than broken dolls whose springs had worn out. Hailey dared to believe that it was over for a single moment, but then they turned.
Piers and Kieran tensed as the demons focused their attention on Hailey. They were getting ready to attack them again when Hailey took a deep breath.
“Stop!”
As if they had walked into a wall, the demons stopped. She had an insane moment where she realized that she could tell them to go again and they would. It would be like the world’s most dangerous game of Simon Says.
“Hailey, what’s going on?” whispered Piers, never taking his eyes from the demons.
“This medallion controls them, I think. I think it’s safe now.”
“Yes, because it was so safe for that Templar,” said Kieran darkly. “We need to figure out where these things came from.”
“I think I know,” said Hailey softly.
She could feel grief rise up in her chest. She would have given anything to be wrong. Instead, she took a step closer to the tallest demon. The scars running over his bare torso should not have been survivable. Some of them still bled sluggishly, soaking into the stone beneath him with an ugly, pattering sound.
“Can you speak?”
There was a pause where she was sure the answer would be ‘no.’
“I can speak, mistress.”
The demon’s voice sounded like it came from deep underground, as if it burrowed up with worms and moles.
“Are there any others in this place?”
“No, mistress. The one who held the medallion before was the only one who brought us here, who created us.”
Hailey thought for a moment.
