by W. J. May
Except, he wasn’t there. The chair, too, was gone.
All that remained were the two beams of light coming out of and fading into nothingness.
Chapter 15
“Why are you here?”
The deep, raspy voice sounded agitated. Raul hated the way it ground like stones against each other, making him shudder. He tried to focus on where the voice was coming from, his head still spinning. “Like I told you, we came seeking help,” Raul said. “Who are you?”
“Wesley. You coming here was a mistake,” Wesley stated. “We don’t have any aid to offer.”
“Why, then, have you kept us in your rotting underground cells? Why put us through your games and traps down there?” Raul asked, raising his head and forcing his eyes to focus, piercing Wesley with a look. I’m not afraid of you.
Raul sat, still strapped in the chair from the labyrinth, his magic useless, the bindings holding him down as if he were glued to the wood itself. Wesley had moved him to a room that was mostly dark except for a flicker of candlelight that kept the corner bristling with the dim orange color of the flames. And shadows. This place had too many shadows.
Wesley bent down, his head at the same level as Raul’s. He scoffed, then stood up tall. Ignoring Raul’s question, he slowly moved towards an open door to Raul’s left and peered outside, as if he were expecting someone to arrive. “Your friends won’t make it out of the maze.”
Raul deliberately bit back his words, refusing to fall for the large man’s attempt to stir up some sort of frustration or fear. “Never?” he said in a mocking tone. “They seemed to be doing quite well when I left them.”
Wesley harrumphed. “It won’t be happy any time soon.”
Ha! He knew it! “Soon?” Raul squinted. “So, it’s your plan that they find their way out eventually, isn’t it?”
Wesley was still gazing outside through the open door; hearing Raul’s question, he turned his focus towards Raul. “If they don’t, I’ll have to go down there and get them out myself.” He shook his head, as if disgusted at the idea.
“Then what’s the point of putting us through it?” Raul shook his head. “Why catch us, trap us, if only to set us free again?”
“We don’t know you,” Wesley replied. “The labyrinth is a test. We learn what we need to know about you from your reactions. We read your intentions and know your deepest fears while you are lost and trying to find a way to escape. It saves us the time of questioning.”
Not a bad idea. “It sounds more like a deliberate attempt at entertainment.”
“There is no entertainment in what we do.” Wesley’s lips turned down in a frown of disgust. “We choose not to waste time with lies.”
Raul opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. Even though it seemed like Wesley believed everything he was saying, a light was shed on the nature of the people of Everlore. Something still didn’t make sense. He felt that even though Wesley was confident in what he was saying, something was off. Like Wesley hadn’t been told the truth. The labyrinth? That’s what he’d called it. The place was a test. Raul didn’t think it was a way to read people. The people of Everlore were looking for something. Or someone. Wesley wasn’t the one in charge of the city; he was taking orders from someone else.
Raul heart dropped. What if Adelaide was here? What if this was a test from her? He had a gut-wrenching desire to look for signs of her in the brick walls of the room he was in, or to ask Wesley if she was the one pulling the strings; keeping him tied, and having Atlanta and Darian storming through the labyrinth. But before Raul uttered the questions that suddenly rained over his mind, Wesley almost magnetically walked towards the open door and outside into the dimly-lit hallway. For all Raul knew, Wesley had just drowned in the darkness that was outside. And after a short while of footsteps ringing behind him, there were no more sounds; he was completely alone, with only the echoes of his own thoughts to keep him company.
He couldn’t stop thinking of how, at any second now, Adelaide could come walking through the door. Then he feared he wouldn’t get to meet her, that she would kill him from the darkness without even looking him in the eyes.
A mixture of fury and anticipation took over when the only light in the room suddenly went out and he could see nothing but blackness around him. He decided to depend solely on his hearing to identify whoever was coming.
There was the sound of crunching, as if someone were stepping on dry leaves, followed by the echoes of footsteps approaching from afar. But before the sounds could sound closer, by the time he was trying to tell how far away they were, he felt the tingling of warm skin rubbing against his forehead. He wanted to stand up, jump out of his seat in surprise; his senses couldn’t have failed him, but they had. Someone was standing right in front him, and from the tenderness of the touch he knew it was definitely not Wesley who had returned.
“You’re quite warm,” a female voice whispered calmly and softly from right in front of him.
“Adelaide?” he whispered, almost unable to control his tone as it disdainfully voiced the name.
The woman laughed, and Raul felt the heat rise in his cheeks. She was mocking him, and that angered him more than the possibility of dying at the hands of this witch.
“You wouldn’t be alive if I were her,” the woman replied.
Raul frowned. If it wasn’t Adelaide, who could it be? His body was ready to face Adelaide, to let her try her worst. There was no one else. “Who are you?”
The woman laughed. “Shouldn’t I be the one asking the questions? You’re the one lurking in my town.” She paused and Raul tried desperately to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but with no luck. “However, since I already know everything about you, why don’t I share a bit of myself? I’m Lenore, queen of Everlore.”
The queen? The thought seemed impossible.
“...And right now, I can see and hear everything that goes on inside your mind, Raul.”
Was she a witch like Adelaide? Someone who trapped people without reason couldn’t be good. She had—
She cut through his thoughts. “You could say I am a witch of some sort. Like Adelaide, in way, yes. Less wicked maybe,” Lenore said, laughing. With her fingers hovering above Raul’s head, the candle in the corner of the room was lit again.
“If you can read minds so well, then you would’ve known our intentions and known better than to put us in the cells,” Raul hissed, fighting against his bindings, expressing his agitation at being tied.
“Dear, I hadn’t read your minds yet.” Lenore smiled, her eyes twinkling in the dim light. “Besides, where is the fun in that?”
With a clap of her hands, the candle went out, and Raul was suddenly immersed in complete darkness again. “Lenore?”
There was no reply. She was gone.
Chapter 16
Miles away, the dust still encircled in bright yellow waves round the towering heights of Calen. The screams had died out, only occasionally piercing the sound of the wind, the scattered few survivors being hunted by whatever lurked in the shadows.
Two figures raced through the storm, staying hidden when needed, bursting through the streets when the chance arose. They seemed to almost be wraiths, much like the monsters around them. However, there was intent in their movement, a deeper purpose that anyone who caught a glimpse of their movement would understand—if they were able to catch them.
Ryan and Marcus ran from one building to the next, moving with purpose and determination. They were supposed to be on opposite sides. One a young Shifter, the other an elder Vampire, and yet they were working together without question. In subtle yet swift movements they swept every corner of the city, and found nothing.
They did find survivors. Many of them, spread out across the city in groups, hiding. Ryan suggested recruiting, but Marcus quickly reminded him that the reason they were still alive was because they were out of Adelaide’s, and her beasts’, sight. Fighting the hybrids loose in the streets of Calen was suicide for any s
urvivor, and the best they could do was not bring attention to themselves until some solution had been found.
As they searched, they didn’t run into any hybrids. Rogue Vamps and Werewolves, eyes red, were compelled to attack them, but they had handled each with ease. Ryan hated to admit it, but they made a pretty good team. It made Ryan anxious: why were they not chasing them? Or were they on a more specific mission? One similar, if not the same, as their own?
They couldn’t find what they were looking for—more specifically, who.
Atlanta was nowhere to be found.
For Ryan, the endless sweeping of the city seemed to take forever. It felt useless, but needed to be done. He had to find Atlanta. He had to explain... explain what? That he had no idea what had happened? That he couldn’t remember? His memory, although foggy, was slowly returning. He could remember before his father’s death, but the time he’d been compelled by Adelaide still resided in the shadows, prickling his consciousness second by second, slowly taking peeks into the realm of his awareness. As much as he wanted to forget, he couldn’t help but push himself to try to remember. Something had happened. So much had changed, and yet the feelings inside of him remained the same.
“How did James die again?” he asked Marcus.
Marcus moved quietly along the shadows. “I’ve already told you.”
Ten times? Twenty times? It didn’t matter. He needed to know. He’d been a party to what had happened and he still had no memory of it. “Just tell me again. It’s a good distraction.”
“A good distraction from what?”
“From all of this!” Ryan’s voice rose as he brought his hands up and motioned to everything around him. “To the city of Calen.”
“You are not responsible, Ryan.”
“You don’t know.” His voice dropped to a mumble, “I don’t know.”
“A hybrid killed James. It wasn’t you.”
“How come I don’t remember?”
“It’ll come back. Give it time. Right now, we need to focus on finding Atlanta. Where are the places she would go? Think hard. There are places you might know.”
Ryan sighed. “Maybe the school?”
“We’ve been there, and it’s too dangerous to enter. She’s not there. Where else?”
“Her house, but she’s not there.” They approached the suburbs of Calen for the third time that night. There, the wave of dust was less intense and the green of the forests behind the houses hovered through the specks of earth in the air. The road they walked on was adorned with gravel and cobblestones that had fallen and cemented itself to the road from the wind.
“This is pointless,” Ryan said in frustration as he kicked some of the loose cobblestones to the dry bushes across from them.
Marcus glared at him and then looked back at the road. Ryan could tell the Vampire was holding himself back from reacting to the hopelessness in Ryan’s voice. “If there was something better to do, we would be doing it,” Marcus replied in a low voice.
Ryan walked on, quiet for a bit. Then he asked Marcus again, “I was there, right? I was there when James died?” He was glad the sand and grit was in the air—it was an excuse for the stinging in his eyes.
“You did not kill James.”
“But Atlanta would be safe if James was still alive. He would protect her.”
“Maybe someone else is protecting her.”
“Like who?”
Marcus sighed loudly. “I don’t know! It should be us!”
“I know. It should be us.”
“We’re going to find her, Ryan. James trained her well. She’s smart, fast, an excellent fighter. She’s a better Druid than most. She had the best teacher.”
Ryan let Marcus take the lead as they moved forward. He knew Atlanta was all that and more. But what if all this had been planned? “What if Adelaide’s gotten to her already?” Ryan glared up at the city, as if this was its fault. He knew it wasn’t Calen’s fault. It was his own. He’d done this. He was the one responsible. He kept the thought buried deep inside him, refusing to acknowledge it. “The longer we keep this up, the more I’m willing to believe that.”
He suddenly stopped. His eyes widened as the inside of his head felt like there were daggers piercing through his skull. His fists balled up, and he felt a shudder race through him. A sharp breath escaped through his locked jaw.
“What is it?” Marcus asked.
Ryan didn’t answer. They’d been walking aimlessly and Ryan hadn’t taken note of where they were. Now, gazing at the willow tree outside Skylar’s house, Adelaide’s house, he felt a rush of emotions race through him. He fell to his knees, the memories rushing back like a constant attack on his being.
“Skylar. It was Skylar,” Ryan whispered after gasping for air. “She’s the one who compelled me. She’s the one who put me under the spell. Skylar is Adelaide.”
“You disappeared for a while after the attack on your house,” Marcus walked up to Ryan and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You went up to the mountains to regain your strength. That’s what James said. Then everything changed when you got back.”
Ryan looked past the tree and through the forests behind the house, then his sight shifted towards the house itself. He remembered he was never in the mountains when he took off after... after his father died. “I never left...” All he could remember were flashes of scenes of him being in that house. Skylar’s home—No, Adelaide’s house. “After seeing my father’s body behind our house, I fought with the hybrid.”
“You did?”
Ryan nodded. The memory came back to him, quick, like a physical assault. It hurt his head, and he clenched his eyes shut, trying to push the excruciating pain back. He didn’t want to tell Marcus any of it, not really. He still had reservations regarding the Vampire, despite the fact that they were in this hell together. He wished Atlanta was here.
“I remember his face hidden under his hood,” he said. “The rage was the worst of it. I had never felt anything like it. I usually feel myself shifting, the bones breaking and rearranging themselves, all of it. But not this time. This time I only saw the hybrid, and all the things I wanted to do to it.” He turned to look at Marcus. “That monster killed my father, and all I wanted to do was rip it to shreds, tear it from limb to limb, bury my teeth in its flesh until I was crunching bone. The anger blinded me, and even though I tried to kill it that thing took me down like I was nothing. Like I was some teddy bear or something. And then it was in my head, and everything I did, everything I said, it was like someone else was doing it and I was only watching.” Ryan paused. “I wasn’t in the mountains like you told me; I was actually here. Right behind that door.” Ryan pointed towards the door of the house. “Prisoner and compelled.”
A light flickered behind one of the windows on the left side of the door.
“Did you see that?” Ryan asked as he lifted himself up and jogged towards the house. He didn’t know if Marcus was following him or not as he sprinted to the front door. A memory of being dragged through the door flashed before him. He hadn’t come here willingly after his father’s death.
The sound of ceramic plates crashing against a wall echoed inside. The curtains where he’d seen the light, moved, as if pushed by a wind.
Someone’s inside.
Ryan tilted his head. He swore he could hear, or sense, something flying or hovering, or something. Hadn’t Atlanta said there were ravens? He glanced up in the air but the dust distracted him and he could see no birds.
“Silence!” Marcus commanded, grabbing Ryan by the shoulder as his eyes searched the whole perimeter of the house.
“What is it?” Ryan asked, shrugging out of Marcus’s grip.
“I hear... something.”
“Me, too. Plates be tossed. Someone’s ticked.”
“No, another sound.”
Ryan frowned and listened. There was the dim humming he’d noticed before. “I thought it was... well, birds. Atlanta mentioned she’d seen ravens. I thought..
.”
“I’ve heard that sound before,” Marcus said, ignoring Ryan. His eyes burned and his fangs glistened as he focused. “Hybrid.” He signaled to Ryan to continue walking towards the house. Silently, they approached the door.
Ryan glanced in the window. He shook his head at Marcus. He could see nothing but the dark maroon of the curtains that fell over the glass. He turned just in time to see Marcus open the front door, the sound of creaking following. Ryan had no choice but to follow.
The house reeked of rotten eggs. Sulfur. And the gagging stench of dead... rats. There was barely any furniture inside, except for a black grand piano by the windows and a long couch just a few feet behind it.
Ryan tried to listen again, but could no longer hear anything suspicious. He cautiously moved towards the kitchen, his eyes briefly resting on a round grey ceramic plate on the table. He figured it must had been moved for him to have heard the sound when they were outside.
Something’s not right.
There was blood on the wood floor right under him, and the smell of gasoline assaulted his nostrils.
Suddenly the humming returned, attacking his senses from all directions. He cringed, rushing out of the kitchen to Marcus who stood by the grand piano, his face scrunched, obviously just as uncomfortable as Ryan was.
“You feel it, too, don’t you?” Ryan asked. When Marcus nodded, Ryan continued, “It’s like someone’s clawing at the inside of my head.”
Marcus didn’t answer.
The door leading outside creaked and then slammed shut. Marcus held up a hand, signaling for Ryan to wait. The ground beneath them began to shake. The walls vibrated. The piano played itself in and out of key until its legs collapsed and fell to the ground, ending the banal piece it was playing.
“Marcus?” Ryan shouted.
Marcus stood stoic, staring at the closed door, as if expecting something to burst through it any moment.
Ryan glanced frantically around. What’s going on?
