Only Magnus came with us. The other two were being taken topside. The ghost roads were proving too much for their minds.
We did not walk fast, but the civilized portions of the underground were quickly left behind, along with the feeling of friendly observation. I did not see any ghosts but the twisted ways we traveled felt haunted. The dragon stayed with us until we reached a cathedral-like room and then he launched himself into the air. On the ground he was ponderous, in flight he was magnificent and terrifying. He disappeared between two buttresses.
“Is he clearing the way?” I asked.
“And eating breakfast.” Abrial shook his head and raised his hand to the glassy wall. It opened silently.
“We have not been in this part of the underground for a long while. I did not know if the door would still open. Many were closed with dark magic.” He made some sign and murmured under his breath about children of the rainbow. The very narrow aperture widened slightly.
“I’ll go first. I’m small enough to fit without sticking,” I said.
“What!” Emerson finally reanimated and I had to wonder where and with whom his mind had been occupied. Probably the dragon. I hoped with the dragon.
Sometimes, repetition is the key so I said again: “I’ll go first and make sure you can fit.”
“This is a road through the Darkside,” Emerson said. “It is haunted. I can feel it.”
“That is true,” Abrial said. “That is the reputation. But it is the only safe way. The other paths are through goblin territories or are being used by the hobgoblins.”
“But I can’t see the ghosts. That isn’t my gift,” I pointed out. However as Emerson just raised an eyebrow I asked: “Can I see the ghosts?”
“I don’t know. We are in some ways linked.”
“Well, no time like the present to find out,” I said, swallowing hard. “Abrial, are these ghosts unfriendly? Can they hurt me?”
“They aren’t human,” he answered slowly. “Mostly they are goblin and troll. I do not know if they would make an attack upon you— if they would even sense you since they are just perseverations. It is each other they hate. This was the sight of a cataclysmic battle during the goblin wars and their troubled spirits battle on.”
“I see.” There we stood between a bitter past, in a precarious present and looking toward an uncertain future. But if we got through this in one piece there was every reason to believe that Emerson and I could have a happy life, wasn’t there? If we lived, we could share many more nights and days.
Since delay was not doing anything to steady my nerves I turned decisively and slipped into the crack.
And stopped at once.
I looked down the tunnel and saw a hilltop covered in ravens impaled on stakes. Emerson didn’t curse as he pressed in beside me and peered over my shoulder. I had to wonder if there was some emotional extremity that would lead to profanity. Then I decided that if there were, I did not want to see it.
“It’s not real,” Emerson said, touching my temple and the image winked out. “It’s just illusion, a visual scarecrow to frighten and deter us.”
“But a nasty one. And it was laid on by someone who knew we were coming.”
He nodded.
“Saint Germain has guessed our plan.”
Taking a deep breath, I pressed on. There is no figure of speech that can exaggerate how frightened I was as I went deeper. The descent was almost forty-five degrees and I had to use my hands to steady myself, something I did not relishing doing in this strange environment until I recalled my rubber gloves. Caught in a sudden blast of air that was fresh and moist, but which smelled of no place on earth I had ever visited, I stopped and leaned against the wall, resting against the uneven projections which seemed to be humming. If the passage got any tighter I would have a corrugated spine. What little light there was, showed the walls to be covered in something like rotten cottage-cheese. In a normal cave, this would be called moonmilk. In this cave, given the vague phosphorescence, I was pretty sure we were dealing with something other than basic calcite and gypsum.
“How is it in there?” Emerson called. He was really asking how I was.
“Dark, but the air is fresh. Don’t worry. I am used to caves and mines. We have a lot of them at home. And,” I added hopefully, “I don’t see or feel any ghosts.”
I consulted my inner voice and it gave a long despairing moan at my naive stupidity, but it didn’t warm me away, so I went on. Cautiously. A few steps on I was rewarded by stumbling into a small chamber where I could stand upright. Shattered bones littered the floor. I had found a mass grave. The intact skulls did not look human. That was oddly reassuring.
“I think you can make it,” I called back softly. “But I don’t know about Abrial or Magnus.”
But I hoped they could make it because I was feeling very alone.
My lungs worked harder with every step as I picked through the broken bones. I wondered at first if fear and the eerie half-light of the Darkside had finally gotten the better of me, but soon realized that there was actually a shortage of oxygen in the room. The air was being replaced with something else. Something that crept up from a hole in the floor. Something that didn’t agree with my lungs, something that prickled like the stings of a million fire-ants and started my nerves to shrilling. Though frightened, I felt drawn to the dark opening at the other side of the chamber. As I got closer pit began to glow green. I smelled an odor worse than the ancient goblin graveyard.
In spite of my nose’s warning that I was in the realm of dead things, my sudden encounter with a band of zombies was startling.
Reason momentarily abandoned me when I confronted dozen crawling corpses of what looked like goblins. I wanted to believe that it was only another illusion left to terrify us, but my instincts knew better. Visions didn’t stink.
Then Emerson was there and he was able to leap over me like a cat and pushed me into an alcove. Jack’s deadly gun fired. Shaking off my horror, I lifted my own gun and helped dispatch the last few corpses who screamed angrily as they disintegrated. Jack’s bullets worked like a charm.
Abrial joined us a moment later. Then Magnus who said nothing, but nodded approvingly as we wiped the chalk and grit from his sleeves.
“I see you have some experience fighting dead things,” Abrial said.
“More than I ever wanted,” I grumbled. My hands were shaking but I kept my voice even. “There’ll probably be more of them roaming around. And the air is foul. We have to get out of these tunnels and into some place more open where we can fight without shooting each other.”
“This way.” Abrial bowed. I don’t think he was being ironical. “We are nearly there.”
It figured, since there were goblin zombies.
The last turning in the tunnel ended in a colossal pile of fractured rocks. The rockslide looked unnatural, possibly the result of the explosion that had broken open the cracks in the passage’s ceiling that were letting in moonlight. Mixed in with the stone shards and boulders were bits of glowing green phosphorus, suggesting that the exit may have once opened into a goblin hive. I was learning—blue for faeries and green for goblins. There was also lots of dried blood, both red and black.
If that wasn’t enough to give us pause, the slope of the pile angled off at nearly forty-five degrees and I couldn’t see a pinnacle, though it looked as though it ended before it touched the roof of the rock cavern.
“Okay.” I exhaled slowly, fighting off the coughing fit that threatened to overcome me. I started for the slope. I wanted out before the whole damn place collapsed. Emerson entered my head and I could feel him lending me strength.
The most optimistic of bookies would have given long odds of us making it up that incline in anything under a day— but none of us were plain old humans anymore. We clawed our way upward, thrusting and pulling with unnatural strength, and making forward progress in spite of backsliding. Our struggle was both against gravity and the loose shale that gave out under our
feet in tiny rock-falls, but the promise of fresher air proved inspirational enough to overcome nature’s sharp obstacles. I ignored the blood. The gloves helped.
We crested the summit and then clawed our way through a crack in the ceiling. We didn’t so much climb down the far side of the mountain we had climbed as slide and tumble, but we reached the tunnel floor with nothing broken and no fresh blood spilt. Once we were again on terra firma, Emerson pulled back as much as he could from my mind, perhaps trying to conserve his strength.
Abrial didn’t join us. We looked back and he waved.
“I can go no further. I will kill any stragglers so you needn’t watch your back. The dragon will join you when he can. The goddess be with you,” he said and then disappeared.
We were alone in a ghost town. The structures around us were definitely buildings but their proportions were not pleasing to human eyes. As one we turned toward the west where there was a strong green light and an atrocious odor. That was where Saint Germain would be waiting.
Chapter 16
‘And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the
tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath
prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals
thereof. And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne,
and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a
Lamb as it had been slain.’
—Revelations 5:5-6
We reloaded our weapons and then fanned out. We walked silently, listening hard and breathing shallowly.
Something huge leapt out of a crack in the wall next to me and I was knocked back against a boulder with enough force to have broken a human spine. While I was still too stunned to react in any productive way, a rough hand gripped me under the armpit and another thrust itself between my legs when it pinched cruelly. Claws pierced my flash. I felt myself hoisted into the air and then I was hurled at the ground a dozen feet away. A thing with an ape’s body and a shark’s mouth screamed and leapt toward me. The creature was so fast that neither Emerson or Magnus was able to react in time to save me. The thing was some kind of dead, but like no other monster I had seen and wondered if this was one of the dreaded hobgoblins.
The next blow was stunning, but I managed to roll onto my back and bring my legs into my chest in protective gesture. It hurt, making me think that I had cracked my ribs and maybe even suffered internal injuries, but I still kicked out as hard as I could when the shape loomed over me. I knew that I probably wouldn’t survive a third blow. I had one chance.
Thank heavens my hand had kept a grip on my gun. I brought it around and shot the thing in the chest. I doubt that regular bullets would have killed it, but Jack’s curse worked again.
An instant later, Emerson was there and pulling the corpse off of me.
I stood up and found that we were in the middle of a battlefield. Around us were more of our kind. I thought I recognized some faces—Ambrose Bierce and Alexandre Dumas among them, though the one who looked like Bierce quickly changed into some kind of furred monster so perhaps I was mistaken. Whatever the creature was, he managed to rip his enemies into bloody pieces and could take off a head with a single swipe of his claws.
Hurting badly, I found a space between two boulders and wedged myself in it. Forcing myself to remain calm and ignore the pain in my chest, I aimed, fired and reloaded until I was out of ammunition. By then my ribs had begun to mend and I was able to stand.
As valiantly as we fought, the tide might have gone against us had the dragon not appeared. The dead turned as one when they heard the roar in the sky and many leapt for him, but the dragon breathed his answer to the zombie’s puny. Flaming zombie bones flew through the air and spattered against the wall. The flesh was burned away instantly, the skeletons melted by the heat.
And then there was just one left. Emerson reached the angel first, but others were there to pull the wizard down. At an inner prompting I reached into my pocket and found one last shell which I loaded into my gun.
Walking deliberately—I had no choice since I still hurt inside and every step was minor agony, I joined the group of men and women who held the wizard down. He was still beautiful. He was also still evil. More evil than anything I had felt or seen.
Dawn light was creeping into the sky and painting the shattered building with pink light. Feeling the heat of Jack’s waiting curse under my hands, I added a curse of my own.
“Die,” I commanded, shoving my will into the weapon and then pulled the trigger, taking off the monster’s head.
Then I sat down, giving in to the pain. Whatever else happened, it would happen without me. I was only dimly aware of Emerson’s arms coming around me.
Chapter 17
“For the ninety-nine who are with dreams, content but with the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man grimly bent on making those dreams come true.”
—Edgar Allen Poe
“There are practical reasons to know thyself however irksome the knowledge. A spouse of psychical insensibility can be a benefit to those of us who are true lone wolves and prefer to live a lie, but an emotional torment to those who need to be seen and understood for what we really are.”
These were the words that greeted me when I opened my eyes. Around me were many faces, including the dragon’s. Only on mattered.
Had Emerson’s wife been a source of emotional torment? Or had she known about him and understood? I hoped that someday he would tell me. In the meantime, I wanted a declaration about his feeling for me. The man was a writer, for pity sake. He could come up with something. Even a short declarative sentence would do.
“If you can’t love me now then you never will.”
“I love you,” he said with surprise.
“Then cheer up, damn it. After all, we aren’t dead.”
And suddenly we were both smiling.
Emerson pulled me to my feet and began introducing me to our allies. I hadn’t been mistaken. The werewolf had been Ambrose Bierce. I also met Lord Byron and Ninon d’Lenclos.
As we shook hands a temblor passed beneath our feet and around us the building settled, shaking off dust and debris.
“We’d best be going,” Emerson said.
“This way.”
“Emerson!” I stopped and stared. “It can’t be….”
“It looks like your silly airplane,” Magnus said. “Do you still have it?”
“He does,” I assured Magnus when Emerson didn’t speak. “And he flies like the whole damned Luftwaffe was on his tail. I thought we’d crash at least a dozen times.” Actually it was more like hundreds, but that was my imagination, not Emerson’s flying.
“What nonsense,” Emerson objected, finding his voice. “I was as cautious with you as an old lady holding a basket of eggs. You just like to complain.”
“The only way that an old lady with a basket pf eggs wouldn’t complain about your flying was if she died of fright on take-off.”
This wasn’t entirely true, but the argument chased away the shock. It also made Magnus smile ever so slightly.
“But is this your plane?” he asked.
“No,” Emerson said finally. “Nor are these others.”
Down the side street, one of the few cleared of rubble, there were four other antique planes. One was an Aeronca painted Halloween orange and two were Stinson Gullwings both tinted a sedate gray.
“Your allies have left us transportation since the faeries roads are too dangerous. The Storch was dropped off by someone who looked a lot like Father Christmas. He gave me the rough coordinates for a landing strip,” Lord Byron added. “Follow me to the airfield. I’ve booked a small private jet that we can take from there. Passports have been arranged.”
Our new friends were very organized.
Emerson headed for The Storch.
“What of Magnus?” I asked.
“I’m riding with the dragon,” Magnus said. “I’m of a mind to stay and help our f
ey friends for a while.”
“You’re certain?” Emerson asked even as another temblor rolled through the dying city and large blocks of stone fell into the cracked street.
“Yes. Be off with you. We’ll meet later.” Magnus turned and walked toward the dragon. The beast lifted a talon and waved.
“He’s nuts,” I said under my breath, but hurried for the plane. My terror of flying was gone, replaced by the fear of being buried alive under collapsing buildings.
I wondered what the local people would make of our squadron, headed by a real dragon. If there were local people and not just goblins.
“I wonder where we are. It doesn’t look like South America.”
“Africa I think,” Emerson said, starting the engine. He didn’t do a pre-flight check. Given the almost constant shaking of the ground beneath us, I didn’t blame him for this lapse.
*
Though everyone agreed that we had killed the real Saint Germain and therefore the danger should be past, we resolved to break up and go in separate directions so we would be hard to follow. We would rendezvous in Alaska at the end of the month and make a plan for cleaning up any stray monsters.
I asked Emerson where we were going and he said it was a surprise. Given our strong mental link, it was easy to tell that he was headed for Glasgow. I didn’t ask why or demure. I wanted to meet Charles Dickens.
We touched down some eight hours later. Customers were fast because we had no luggage.
“Edgar!” A voice shouted across the bustling terminal.
“Charlie!” Emersion exclaimed back and I realized that I knew this starnger’s face. The beard was gone but I was looking at Charles Dickens. “Charlie, let me introduce you to Anna Peyton. Anna, this is….” He paused.
“I go by Charles Rudge these days.” He offered his hand.
Dickens was one of those men who gave every woman the how-do-you-look-naked? gaze. Surprised, I looked back with a none-of-your-fucking-business stare. Emerson bit back a smile and then gave in and laughed.
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