Myths & Magic: A Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection

by Kerry Adrienne

  A claw with half a forearm attached spun in the air. The attacker screamed, a more human scream than I’d heard from shadowling before, and blood sprayed me as it spun around to look at me.

  Its big eyes were full of hatred. And pain. I could dance around it, acting defensively only, letting it wear itself out, bleed itself out, but I didn’t think I’d do that. My anger flashed at this thing. Not only was it bad enough that it took my friends, that things like it killed Rick, but it didn’t even have the decency to deal fairly with its own kind.

  As far as I was concerned, the planet didn’t need any more creatures like this. There were too many humans like that already.

  It snarled and launched itself at me, trying to tear me with its claw, rip me with its teeth, and hurl its body into mine at the same time.

  “Oh, hell no,” I spat.

  I sidestepped and spun, narrowly avoiding its charge. As it passed to my right, I brought the sword around, left hand high, right hand low, blade angling downward. It was a block, a defensive move, but applied to the body moving past, it put a deep gash in the creature’s shoulder. It howled.

  I turned barely in time to be ready for its second charge. The thing was so fast! This time, it put its arms out, the whole one and the half one, so it was too wide to dodge. It rammed me.

  I’d had enough. Just before it was to make contact with me, I dropped into the lowest, most stable stance I knew. And I lowered the tip of my blade so the weapon was horizontal. I held the sword hilt close and lowered my shoulder. Then I prepared for the impact.

  The creature’s eyes widened when he saw what was happening. It had apparently thought I’d try to slip to the side. It was committed too fully to stop, trying unsuccessfully to backpedal. It slammed into me, its face ramming into my outstretched blade. Its remaining claw slashed my left shoulder, though not deeply, but its teeth never had a chance to reach me. The sound emitted was a mixture of a sword going into a metal-trimmed scabbard, a watermelon being sliced, and a hiccup, the last being the only sound coming from the creature’s mouth as it died.

  The momentum spent, the shadowling’s body dropped to the ground, dragging me down with it by the sword hilt. I stumbled until I let go of the weapon, but regained my balance. Reaching over, I slid the blade back out of the thing’s head. It had gone all the way through. My stomach roiled, mainly at the sound I had heard, but I clenched my abs and raised the sword up again.

  The leader shadowling was on the other side of the massive chamber, deftly climbing up a wall to a precarious perch in front of a tunnel. It chittered loudly, and all the rest of the creatures still alive immediately broke off contact and followed it. Before it was swallowed up by the darkness, its eyes met mine, flicked to my left side, and settled on mine again.

  It nodded, as if in acknowledgement. Then it was gone.

  Chapter 28

  I looked to where the shadowling had shifted its eyes. There was a cage there, with people in it, a pile of trash, a lone table, and what looked like boxes of food. Human food; some kind of rations or camping meals. Was that what it had wanted me to see? That it had been feeding the captives, not killing them?

  The room was a mess of bodies and awash with blood. We didn’t even kill half of the horde in the room; most of the shadowling ran away with the leader. I didn’t see any remaining that could pose a problem. Two of them twitched or moved weakly, but none were standing.

  I was about to ask if anyone was hurt when my mother gasped. From the sound of it, she was crying, too.

  “Bobby?”

  My heart stopped mid-beat. I froze. What did she see? Please, God, tell me that after all this, he’s not hurt or dead. Please.

  “Bobby!” she cried again. I located her as she ran across the chamber toward one of the cages.

  In it, I saw a familiar shaggy head of brown hair.

  “Mom?” he said. “It is you. I thought it was, but was sure I was just imagining it. How did you get down here? And where did Dani get a sword?” He squinted toward me and I realized that the headlamps we were wearing were too weak to light a cavern this size. Still, I saw him distinctly. “That is Dani, right? I can’t see her clearly.”

  “Yes,” she cried, putting her fingers through the chain link “It is. We came to get you. Hold on and we’ll have you out of there.”

  It was easy enough to do. The keys were sitting on the only table in the place. There were no chairs, just the table. In no time, the cages were opened and my mom was squeezing the life out of my brother. I waited off to the side until she was done.

  Another commotion from behind me took my attention.

  “Allie,” a quivering voice said. “Allie?” It was Madison. My mom turned to look, but then apparently remembered again that Allison’s nickname was Allie also. She went back to smothering Bobby.

  So that was it, then. The two we had come to get were safe, along with maybe a dozen others. How had they taken so many people without the town knowing? Some of them looked as if they might be homeless or at least people passing through town. Others, though, I recognized, even if I didn’t know their names.

  Jacob came up and stood in front of me. “We did it. We got them back safe. All we have to do is find our way back out, and we’ll have done everything we wanted.”

  “Not everything,” I said, looking down at the sword in my hand. I’d have to go find the scabbard. I was pretty sure I’d be keeping this sword for the rest of my life.

  “Yeah,” he said, some of his enthusiasm waning.

  We were silent for a moment, watching my mom with Bobby and Madison with Allie.

  “You know, I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. We couldn’t have done any of this without you. You were our leader, our greatest warrior, our heroine.”

  I smiled at that. “That almost sounds poetic.”

  He cocked his head and got a thoughtful look on his face. “You know what? It does. Someone should write a poem about this. About you. Maybe I will. I’m a fair hand at it, if Mrs. Rothman is right. She wants me to publish some of my stuff. Wouldn’t that be crazy?”

  “Sure would.”

  He looked into my eyes. Really looked. And I let him. “Honestly, though. Without you, there’s no way we would have survived this.” He looked at the cages. “Or, at least we would have been captured for whatever purpose they took all these people.”

  “Aww, you’re just saying that because it’s true,” I joked.

  “You’re right, I am. You’re the best, Dani. I’m glad I got to know you better.” He reached over and hugged me, just a quick embrace and pat on the back. I squeezed him back. He released me much too soon.

  I sighed.

  “Let’s hang out sometime,” he said. “You know, when we’re not a mile under the earth and don’t have monsters hunting us.”

  “Definitely,” I said, knowing it would probably never happen. Once we got back out, things would go back to normal, he to his world and I to mine. It was a nice dream, though.

  He took three steps, turned, and came back. “Can I have your number? It’ll make it easier to coordinate, you know, hanging out.”

  It took me three tries and a look at my own phone to remember my number. While I had it out, he took it and put his number in. He took a selfie with my phone, the two of us in the picture together, “just so I wouldn’t forget who he was.” Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen in a billion years.

  When I could remember how to walk again, I went over to hug Bobby and ruffle his hair. “You still need a haircut. Are you okay?”

  “I am now,” he said. “I told Allie that you’d come for us. You say you don’t like to fight anymore, but I know you’re a badass.”

  “Watch the language,” Mom said. We both rolled our eyes at her.

  “What did they do with you?” I asked. “Did they hurt you?”

  “No. See, everything is fine.” He lifted up his arms and turned in a circle. He did look unharmed, but I had seen something.

 
; “Let me see your arm,” I said. He put it out and I checked it over. Sure enough. His right arm had a little scab from a catheter, like the others before had. They had taken his blood, too. I guessed they had knocked all of them out before taking it. None of them seemed to remember it happening.

  “What is it?” Mom said.

  “Oh, nothing. Just checking.”

  I gathered everyone in a group and was preparing to get them to leave when I noticed the glint of metal in the pile of trash near where Bobby’s cage was. I stepped over and kicked an old tire and a piece of cardboard away. There was a briefcase there. A brushed aluminum briefcase.

  Memories flashed in my head at the sight. I remembered a briefcase just like that, one my father always carried around. We used to joke that it was his spy briefcase. It had two separate combination locks on it, something I’d never seen before on any other case. Just like this one.

  My hand trembling, I reached for the handle. I pulled it out slowly, scanning it, inspecting it. I turned it over. It was a normal-sized case, probably a foot and a half wide, a foot tall, and six inches thick. And heavy, as if it was full of papers. It felt like it weighed the same as the one I had hefted before, handing it to my father as he headed to work.

  There, just below the handle on the other side of the case. There were three scratches, straight lines, but positioned in such a way that they formed a sloppy triangle. Or a sloppier capital D. My breath caught in my throat.

  A little movie played in my head. My father was in the kitchen talking to my mother. I was maybe eight or nine years old. I peeked around the corner to check where they were, then made a beeline into the room my father used as his office.

  I tried to open the briefcase, something I had always wanted to do. The locks wouldn’t open. Fine, I thought. If I can’t open it, then at least I can autograph it. Hey, I was young at the time. It seemed like a good idea.

  I searched through the desk drawers and found a screwdriver, one of the ones with the sharp, flat end. I held it close to the tip to get the most leverage, and then I started scratching my name in the case.

  It was more difficult than I thought it would be. I couldn’t control the tool well enough to make round letters. I could only scratch straight lines into it. So I did.

  I got three lines down before a shadow broke the light from the hall and fell onto me. I froze and then slowly looked up. My father was standing there, face a thunderhead.

  “Dani,” he said. “Why are you trying to destroy my briefcase?”

  I had explained that I was writing my name. He took the screwdriver from me, explained the concept of private property—again—and grounded me from any extracurricular activities, like karate, and everything else I enjoyed.

  I saw him occasionally running his fingers over that scratched D sometimes. He always got a wistful smile when he did it.

  This was his case. My father’s case. But what was it doing down here?

  “That looks just like your father’s old case,” Mom said, startling me from my reverie.

  “I know.” I wasn’t going to tell her it was the same case. He never did tell her what I had done, so she probably wouldn’t recognize it. “I think I’m going to keep it. It reminds me of him.”

  She eyed me skeptically for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, but you have to give it back if someone else claims it.”

  “I’ll give it back if the owner claims it,” I said honestly.

  I shouted to get everyone’s attention, and soon we were on our way out of the caves, hopefully without incident. I carried Rick’s sword—back in its scabbard—in my right hand and the briefcase in my left, mind swirling with all the things I had seen and done. We were finally going home.

  Chapter 29

  Sam’s chalk arrows and her super-flashlight made getting out of the caves, and then through the mine, much easier than I would have thought possible. We didn’t run into any shadowling or any other hazards on the way out. We did see where the group with the security guards had been attacked, though. There were five bodies scattered across the floor. None of them were human.

  We exited the mine at close to 6:00 am. As we emerged, I thought it was full daylight. It was so bright, I had to shield my eyes with my hands. When I could finally lower my hand after my eyes had adjusted, I saw the truth. Huge spotlights had been set up, pointing right at us. Figures moved around the base of the lights, but it was too bright to see them.

  “It’s them,” a voice said. “Turn the lights to the side.” It was hard to hear over the sound of the gas motors powering the lights, but apparently someone heard. The spotlights were turned so they were not facing directly at us, and then I could survey the scene.

  There were dozens of people lined up, many of them with guns.

  “Sure,” I said. “Now they decide to get the guns out and do something.” All I could do was shake my head.

  The spotlight motors were turned off one by one, each shut down helping to lower the noise level. I looked to the horizon. The sun was just rising, painting the sky with reds and yellows, signaling the start of a day on the surface. I stood and watched it. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

  “…and I crossed over and began to mount the little known and lightless road to ascend into the shining world again,” Sam said, almost reverently.

  I sighed. “What was that?”

  “It’s the end of Inferno, when Dante and Virgil climb back up out of the depths of hell on Easter morning and see the heavenly stars and the sunrise.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That again.”

  “Yeah,” she said, smiling at me. “That again.”

  Things moved quickly after that. There were interviews and debriefings and food, blessed food. They let us go to a local motel and get some sleep and clean up, but they wanted us all to stay together so we could give the police all the information we could. After we got a little rest. We were all dead on our feet. We’d been underground for two days, fighting or running much of the time.

  My mom, Bobby, and I got a suite, two rooms and a sort of living room. Bobby and I crashed in one room, and my mom got the other. I was asleep before I even hit the blankets.

  “Yes, I know,” I heard my mom say. It was loud enough to bring me out of my slumber. I wondered why she was talking so loud, but when I looked at Bobby, he didn’t even change his deep breathing. It was as if he didn’t hear it.

  “I was worried sick about you,” a man’s voice said, his volume lower than hers, with kind of a tinny ping. Jesse.

  “Not worried enough to do anything about it,” she said, her voice booming.

  “Come on, Allie. We already talked about this.”

  “We did.”

  I finally understood. Jesse wasn’t in the room with her. He was on the phone. That’s why his voice sounded metallic. Not on speaker, though. I felt a little guilty about listening in, but if they were both going to talk so loud, they deserved it.

  My mother sighed. “Oh, maybe I’m being too harsh. Someone told me something that helped me understand your side of it.” Her breath changed pitch, as if something had caught in her throat. “Anyway, I think I understand why you did it.”

  “You do?” he said. “That’s good. I’d really like to see you later. Maybe we can talk about it some more.”

  “I…” she said, “I’d like that.”

  I smiled. Well, at least Rick’s lecture did some good. My smile slid off my face. Rick. I stroked the sword next to the bed. We needed to get someone to retrieve his body so he could be buried. In a coffin. Not under tons of rock.

  My gaze passed over the briefcase next to my bed. I reached over and put my hand on it, the cool metal feeling good on my skin. It was my father’s case. That was enough in itself, but I wanted to open it.

  I picked it up and tried the locks again. They were still locked. Of course they were. I tried different combinations, starting with the simple ones like 0-0-0 and 1-2-3. I gave up after twenty or thirty tries. I wonde
red what was in there. Was it just work stuff, or was it something that would be valuable to me, like pictures of my dad or a journal? I’d have to dedicate some time and effort to it when I had gotten some rest.

  I put the case back on the floor, running my fingers over the scratched D one last time before lying down. I settled back to get to sleep, but was interrupted again before I managed it.

  “We’ve talked to the ones from earlier and compared the list to the records for missing persons,” a deep voice said. “Then we looked at the list we made of the ones who came out. There are still people missing.”

  “Are you sure?” another voice, sounding older, said.

  “Yes.”

  “Damn. What did those creatures do with them? Do you think they ate them?”

  “No,” the younger voice said. “We’re not finished interviewing the second group, but no one we’ve talked to yet was hurt or saw anyone else being hurt or killed after they were captured.”

  “Okay, we’ll find out more when…” the voices faded as they walked farther away from me.

  I looked at the ceiling, shocked. I had heard them, outside my room, down the hallway by the sound of it. I had heard them like they were in the room with me. What was going on? I counted the teeth on the fire sprinkler above Bobby’s bed ten feet away while I pondered it. I got to five before what I was doing struck me.

  The room was dark. Yet I was counting teeth on a fire sprinkler head? I looked to the other side of the room and read the placard on the door. I could easily read the checkout times and the instructions for using the door latch. In the dark. A dozen feet away.

  I looked down at my forearm, the puncture marks there cleaned and bandaged. That thing I choked, the shadowling, it had bitten me, and now I could see in the dark and hear like a dog. Sam’s talk about turning into a viper, from Inferno, ran through my mind. Would I turn into one of them? My heart raced and bile rose up in my throat. My hand started to shake. I didn’t want to be a monster. What was I going to do?