The Fellowship of the Muck
“So what does it taste like?” Miranda asked as I took another swig from the canteen to shore up my enhanced abilities.
“Huh?” We’d taken a short break, and I’d stepped away from the group to recharge and double check we were still on the right path. I hadn’t realized she’d followed me.
“The blood. I know you need it to survive, but do you actually like it?”
It had been rare for anyone outside of my roommates to ask that, and they’d mostly just made fun of me for it. Dave had inquired on a few occasions, but it was more in a clinical sort of way - like I was a lab rat.
I smirked at the thought of him. Much to my dismay, he’d gotten firsthand experience as to what it was like. Unfortunately, ever since we’d zapped out of the Northeast, Dave had been off the grid - whereabouts unknown. That wasn’t good, because my friend and former DM was high on ambition and low on human compassion. In truth, when those vamps had walked in with that crate, a part of me was certain he was in it, that someone had finally noticed his uncovened ass and moved to rectify the situation.
“The truth is,” I said, “it’s hard to describe. Think of your favorite food.”
“Oh, that’s easy. There was this little roadside stand right outside of St. George that used to make these incredible fried brain sandwiches served with fresh okra. They were...”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“You ate fried brains?”
“Whenever I could get out there.”
“That’s fucking disgusting,” I said, horrified.
“You drink blood.”
“I know, and I still find that vile.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“And for that I am thankful.” Ugh. My stomach churned at the very thought. I had figured nobody outside of that crazy Andrew Zimmern dude would stuff shit like that down their gullet. Man, people were just fucking weird. “Anyway, imagine that every single one of your senses was now attuned to...brain, I suppose, especially your taste buds. Think of how that sandwich would taste magnified a hundred-fold. That’s pretty much how it is with blood.”
“But even something that tastes that good doesn’t explain why.”
“Why what?”
“Why some of you are such animals.”
I chose to ignore the implied insult. “Actually, I think it does. If something is so insanely good, it’s gonna be almost like a drug.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’re all addicts?”
“I’m not ready to call myself a crackhead quite yet, although I’ve gotta have some rocks in my head to be in this place.”
“About that, why are you down here? I’d heard the official story upstairs, that it was a rescue mission, but there’s gotta be more to it.”
“No, not really.”
“But this guy...”
“Ed.”
“Fine, Ed. He’s just a human,” Miranda said skeptically.
I decided to hold my tongue on that just a human part. Ed was something else nowadays, something that had apparently not been seen before. Even so, at the end of the day, he was still my friend, and that was what counted. I voiced as much.
“That’s it?”
I blinked for a moment. “What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? Isn’t that enough?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that...”
“Most vampires you’ve met wouldn’t step across the street to help out a human?”
“Yeah.”
“I know what you mean. Of the vamps I’ve met, I’d say the vast majority of them have been total assholes.”
“But you’re different?”
“No, he’s still an asshole,” Sally called from where she and the others were checking their ammo.
Goddamned vampire super hearing. “Will you stop fucking eavesdropping?” I lowered my voice to a bare whisper and added, “Bitch.”
“I heard that.”
“You were meant to,” I snapped before turning back to Miranda. “Here’s the deal. I’ve been a vamp for less than two years.” Her eyes opened wide in surprise. “It’s true. Before that...well, okay, during most of it too, Ed was my roommate. He and my other roommate, Tom, are my friends. I’d do anything for them.”
“And they’re not thralls?”
“Would I risk my ass to save a thrall?”
Miranda appeared to consider that. Finally, she nodded, satisfied with my answer. She glanced back toward the group where Sally was busy spray-painting a marker on the wall to note our passage, as she’d been doing every couple hundred yards since we’d started this journey. When it was time to bug out, chances were we wouldn’t have the luxury of waiting for me to smell our way back to the surface. Finally, she stopped and put the can away in her pack.
It was time to move again.
Before we stepped to rejoin them, Miranda said, “Your friend is lucky to have you.”
“Us,” I corrected. “Sally didn’t have to come along. This was her choice too.”
“Are you and she...”
“In his dreams,” Sally replied from her position a couple of yards away.
I sneered in her direction. “Only the ones that take place near a free clinic.”
* * *
Sally had told me some tales of her battle with the Jahabich down in these tunnels during one of those freak storms - real nightmare shit. I still wasn’t sure why she’d been down here - she’d always been vague on that point - but it was enough for me to thank my lucky stars it had been dry for the past couple of weeks. Ignoring the fact that it made tracking Ed’s scent so much easier, I had no real desire to be submerged in ass-water for any part of this journey.
The problem was, dry as it might have been, this was still a sewer. The water had to go somewhere, and chances were it went in the direction we seemed to be heading - down.
We’d been at it for hours, following tunnel after tunnel. Part of the problem was that many of them interconnected. More than once, Ed’s scent had seemed to come from one direction, only for us to find we’d been led in a circle. It was usually at these junctures that I stopped to top off my powers. Thankfully, the fresh swallows of vampire blood seemed to do the trick, giving my nose enough of a boost to right us again.
Even so, it was a fucking slog. At some points, the ground was solid and at others...well, let’s not go there. Miranda, the lone mortal amongst us, was starting to get tired. All of us were filthy, and the two meatheads in our group were starting to get twitchy - occasionally opening fire at nothing more than shadows. All the while, we’d encountered nothing more than rats and cockroaches - along with the occasional freak-out as the sound of our voices seemed to continually echo back at us.
“Any idea where we are?”
“Do you mean...”
“Yes,” I snapped. “Besides the fucking sewer.”
I expected Sally to have some clue. I mean, she always seemed to know something that I didn’t. Thus, I wasn’t particularly pleased when she held up her hands in defeat and said, “No idea. I’m not familiar with the tunnels we’ve been in this past hour. We could be in the heart of the city or well on our way to Reno for all I know.”
I turned a corner and stopped dead in my tracks. “Well, I’m pretty sure you’re at least wrong on that last part. I don’t know where we are, but I’m pretty fucking sure this ain’t the Mustang Ranch.”
The rest of the group joined me at the mouth of the...whatever it was - cavern, central hub, giant fucking French drain...I don’t know. The tunnel opened up in front of us to a space at least fifty feet across. Multiple other outlets along the sides and even the ceiling led away, but it was what sat in the middle of the room that was of interest to me - what appeared to be a massive sinkhole, at least fifteen feet in diameter, leading down into the pungent darkness.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, “I do b
elieve from here on out, things are going to get interesting.”
The Well of Assholes
Vampires can see just fine in pitch darkness. Everything takes on a colorless grey hue, but the details are all there. Even so, it’s not like a clear day where you can see all the way to the horizon. Needless to say, it was a bit disconcerting that even with my smoothied-up senses, I couldn’t see the bottom of the pit. I doubted it went down too much farther than what my range of vision allowed. I mean, it’s not like I could feel the heat of Hell rising from within its depths. Still, this was the point in most horror movies where you know that most of the group that’s going in won’t be checking back out again.
“Let me guess: down there, we all float,” Sally joked, standing at the edge.
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“I do read, you know.”
“I didn’t realize Cosmo had a monthly horror feature.”
She flipped me the finger in the oppressive darkness. “Just be warned, if there are any giant spiders waiting for us, I’m standing aside and letting you trade jokes with them.”
Miranda chuckled at that. Brock and Vlad, well, I doubted they were readers of anything that didn’t have either bimbos or “Guns and Ammo” printed on the cover, so the blank looks on their faces weren’t exactly shocking.
“Did anyone bring rope?”
Sally’s rolled her eyes in my direction. “When are you going to stop being such a newb?” She held up a hand and extended her claws.
Okay, I guess it was the Spider-Man route down. That made me ever so slightly nervous. I’d seen it done several times, so I knew it worked in theory, but I’d never tried using my claws as climbing tools for anything major before.
“I can levitate down,” Miranda offered.
“No,” Sally replied. “I want you fresh in case there’s a welcome party waiting for us. Hold on to Bill’s back.”
Oh, great. So not only did I get a trial by fire for my climbing badge, but I had the added benefit of knowing that if I slipped and fell, I could take someone else down with me. No pressure there.
I took an extra pull from my canteen to bolster myself. It was starting to run low after all this time. I’d need to grab another from Sally soon. For now, though, I knelt down so Miranda could climb on piggyback style.
She was an average-sized woman, which would hopefully not unbalance me too much. When I stood up, though, I realized that was just my subconscious fucking with me. Amped up on the vampire blood, she could have been a silverback gorilla and I wouldn’t have noticed the extra weight.
In a move that was surprisingly supportive, Sally started down, then looked back at me and said, “It’s just like climbing a tree.”
“I didn’t climb trees as a kid. I didn’t want to get bugs all over me.”
She let out a sigh and addressed Miranda before continuing her descent. “You might want to keep that levitate spell handy after all.”
Gotta love the confidence.
* * *
A small part of me had been sure my fingernails would rip right out and send us careening to a painful landing below. Much to my delight, though, they proved to be damn handy - strong and sharp enough to dig into the rock like it was Styrofoam. The only tricky part was figuring out how to brace my feet before shifting my grip. After a few dozen feet, and maybe one or two threats from Miranda regarding vaporizing me if we fell, I got the hang of it.
Honestly, I have no idea how far down we climbed. You always hear of people talking about descending X-thousands of feet, but when you’re plastered against the wall - and not entirely sure of what you’re doing - five feet can feel like fifty. All I can say for sure is we descended for a while before catching sight of the floor below.
I stopped descending for a moment and sniffed the air. Ed had definitely been brought this way. The singular scent of the Jahabich was strong as well, although whether from numbers or continuous passage, I wasn’t certain. There were other scents too - a multitude of them. It must have been my mind playing tricks with me, or maybe I was confusing something new for something familiar, but I could have sworn I caught odors that couldn’t have been down here.
“Are you okay?” Miranda asked, her legs around my waist and her arms clinging to my neck in a death grip.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I tried refocusing on Ed’s smell. “Just making certain we were on the right track.”
“Maybe you should have done that before we started down.”
“Better late than never,” I quipped before beginning my descent again.
Unsurprisingly, Sally and the others were all at the bottom already. Seeing that nothing had leapt out to eat their faces, I hurried down the last few feet to join them. I stepped off the wall, Miranda hopping off my back in the process, and noticed that the ground beneath us was spongy - almost like walking on a trampoline. Weird, but then I realized it was probably the compressed remains of whatever runoff that had fallen down here over the years. Regardless, I probably didn’t want to trip and fall on whatever we were walking on.
“You didn’t happen to bring any antibacterial wipes, did you?”
“Huh?” Sally asked, turning to face me.
“Never mind. What do you think of this place?”
“It’s weird, it...”
“It smells like a fucking zoo,” Brock said, spitting onto the ground - classy guy that he was.
Vlad grunted his agreement, being one of those men of few words and probably fewer thoughts.
“More or less,” Sally replied, echoing my thoughts from earlier. “It’s like there’ve been a lot of different things down here, and not just the things we’re looking for.”
One side of the pit wall was open, leading to a tunnel beyond. Being that it was the only exit that didn’t involve going back the way we’d came, I waved the group on. “He was taken this way.”
Sally stepped to my side and clapped me on the shoulder. “Good job, Captain Obvious.”
The air, although still breathable - as indicated by Miranda’s lack of dying - was thick, almost oppressive. I normally wasn’t one for letting my mind play the obvious tricks on me, but it really felt like this was a place where we didn’t belong. It gave me the heebie-jeebies.
“Check out the walls of this tunnel,” Miranda said as we walked slowly down it.
“Looks like rock to me,” Vlad replied, contempt practically oozing from him.
Sally pushed past him. “Like your head.”
“This doesn’t look like it’s part of any sewer construction,” Miranda continued, putting her hand upon it. I half expected her to pull back a stub, but nothing happened - other than maybe getting God-knows-what germs lived down here all over her. “It’s not natural, though.”
I had to agree. The walls of the tunnel were definitely not any modern masonry that I was aware of, albeit advanced stonework wasn’t an elective offered at my college. Regardless, there was too much symmetry to it all. The tunnel was a little too perfectly round and the walls way too smooth.
“A lava tube?”
“Maybe, but it’s a little too perfect even for that,” Miranda said. “The wall feels almost like glass. Heat was definitely involved, but I get the impression it was quick. I don’t think this was a gradual thing.”
“Could magic have done this?” Sally asked, likewise reaching out to touch the sides.
“I don’t know. Would have taken a lot of it, though.”
“The dwarves dug too deep and too greedily,” I paraphrased in my best wizard voice.
“Let’s go,” Sally said, the moment of wonder broken.
“You...shall...not...oof!”
She elbowed me in the gut and continued walking. Nobody has any respect for the classics these days.
* * *
The tunnel continued for several hundred yards, the same eerily smooth rock continuing to line the walls. The light from Miranda’s headlamp bounced off the surface and
made odd shadows that almost made me jump a few times. It made me wonder what it would have been like walking through this in dim torchlight and, for a just a moment, I forgot our purpose and laughed.
“Something funny, Bill?” Sally asked.
“Fear not, maiden.” I turned and bowed to her. “For Kelvin Lightblade shall slay the orcs and recover the treasure of Kalinbac, the bejeweled city on the River Morrow.”
The group as a whole stopped and stared at me for a moment.
“Did the air go bad down here?” Vlad asked.
“No, it’s just Sir Dipshit vying for the sword of dorktitude,” Sally scoffed.
“You people have no sense of adventure.”
I turned back to continue leading the way, but not before I heard Brock mutter, “What a fucking weirdo.” Huh! See if I invite him to game night.
I was tempted to continue with that line of thought. After all, if ever there was a time to lapse into dungeon-speak, now was it. Hell, it might’ve made the whole trip seem a bit less intimidating if I treated it as another D20 waiting to be rolled. Just then, though, I happened to look ahead. Dim light seemed to be visible - very faint, but in the darkness, it stood out like a beacon. It was uneven, however - broken up as if by...and that’s when I saw the debris.
“Come on, guys.” I raced forward, all pretense of role-playing forgotten. Pity for that, because I forgot one of the main rules of dungeoneering - always check for traps.
Well, okay, traps might have been a bit overdramatic. I tripped over a stone I’d missed and went sprawling, landing amongst multiple sharp little rocks that led up to the destruction in front of us.
“I meant to do that,” I said, clambering to my feet.
“Sure you did.” I didn’t need to turn to know Sally was smirking.
“What the hell happened here?” Miranda asked. It was a worthwhile question. Beyond, where the light was dimly glowing, the tunnel ended and opened up into a much larger cavern. In front of us, though, a field of jagged rocks and shattered stone stretched out over thirty feet.
“Cave-in, maybe?” Brock offered.
“No,” Sally said. “Look at the rest of it. The tunnel is still relatively smooth up at top, just some minor scarring. If this had been a cave-in, it would be pitted to all hell.”
Half A Prayer (The Tome of Bill Book 6) Page 12
