by S. D. Stuart
Randall shook himself free from Jasper’s grip and rushed over to them. “Okay, it’s all set. Follow me.”
They followed him out of the tavern, Caleb taking the opportunity, as the door opened, for one last glance at Jasper. His seat at the bar was already empty. Caleb looked around the tavern, but Jasper was gone. This was not a good sign.
Once outside, he had to run to catch up to the others. Taylor was already engaging Randall in conversation.
“Is it far?”
“No, no. It’s close.”
Randall seemed exceptionally nervous. Another bad sign.
A few minutes later, Randall slipped into a side alley that ran between two multistory buildings. The space between the buildings was so small, Randall had to angle his body sideways just to fit.
He craned his neck back and waved them in. “This way.”
Caleb and Taylor exchanged a look. They would have to enter one at a time just to fit.
Taylor took a step back and thrust a hand into his pocket, most likely resting a finger over the button of Caleb’s electric shock collar. “After you.”
The space was too small to make a move against Taylor anyway, so he angled his shoulders and stuffed himself into the tiny crevice.
It was a tight fit. The mismatch stones of the walls tugged at his cloak and pulled back his hood, exposing part of his face.
Halfway down the alley, Randall stopped at a door set into the side of one of the buildings. A look of horror crossed his face when he noticed Caleb was not human.
He fumbled the key into the door as Caleb inched his way closer. Randall disappeared and the door slammed behind him.
Caleb reached the door and twisted the knob, but it was locked from the inside.
Was this part of their plan from the beginning?
Or did Randall panic when he saw Caleb’s face?
Either way, the door was locked and they were wedged into a very tiny space.
Taylor grunted behind him. “Don’t just stand there, open the door.”
Caleb rattled the door handle. “He locked it.”
Taylor shifted around uncomfortably. “Don’t toy with me.”
“I’m not.”
The sound of rock grinding on rock was accompanied by the wall pressing Taylor into the building behind them. He shot forward to join Caleb in the doorway. Within moments, the alley was completely sealed and they were both crammed together into a tiny space.
Their faces so close, Caleb winced at Taylor’s hot breath as he spoke. “If I wasn’t touching you, I’d shock you so hard for getting us into this mess.”
The door flung open and they both fell into the room, Caleb falling onto his back with Taylor landing on top of him. A shaft of light pierced the hazy darkness from the single window on the high ceiling. His earlier guess at this being a multistory building was incorrect. It was tall, but the one room stretched from the ground all the way to the top of the building.
Caleb’s enhanced vision enabled him to see in the semi-darkness. The only door out of this room was the one they had come in. And now, the walls of the alley had sealed that up, leaving no way out.
The rustling of chains brought his attention back to the center of the chamber as a large half-human half-lizard creature stepped into the shaft of light. His wrists were bound by chains that stretched to twin holes in the wall behind him, but the chains were still long enough to give the creature free rein over half the chamber. Fortunately, it was the other half of the chamber from where Caleb and Taylor slowly picked themselves up.
Caleb had seen every type of hybrid imaginable back in the Southern Territories. But they were all mammal based. This is the first one he’d seen that was reptilian.
The creature held on to his chains and tugged at them, unable to get any closer. It let out a mighty roar that nearly emptied Caleb’s bladder. He had been trained as a master assassin since before he could walk and feared nobody and nothing.
Until now.
Nothing in his training or experience prepared him to stare into the cold eyes of a reptilian hybrid. There was no doubt that if the reptilian hybrid were not chained to the wall, he would’ve already torn them to shreds without emotion or remorse.
A clanking sound emanated somewhere deep within the opposite wall. The reptilian hybrid responded by spinning around and pulling as hard as he could on the chains. It didn’t do any good and he was pulled back to within a foot of the wall before the chains stopped retracting into the holes.
A deep voice echoed to them from the darkness above. “Why are you interested in the box?”
Before Caleb could respond, Taylor was already talking. “You enticed us with your sales pitch.”
“But you had only one key, and you didn’t negotiate.”
“Where I’m from, money is not a problem. Your price sounded very fair.”
“Do you know what is inside?”
“We were hoping to find that out when we opened it.”
“How do you know your key will unlock the box?”
Caleb placed a hand on Taylor to stop him from responding and took over the negotiations.
“You tell Jasper that I have Nero’s key.”
The room fell silent, except for a faint snarling and the rustling of chains from the other side of the room.
After a moment, a more familiar voice echoed from above. “Caleb?”
Finally, a friend.
“Hello Jasper.”
There was a sound of rocks grinding on rocks and stairs began to form that led to a niche high up along one wall. Jasper appeared and rushed down the stairs. He charged at Caleb and embraced him in a huge bear hug.
“It’s so good to see your friendly furry face.”
Caleb hugged him back. “I missed you too.”
Jasper looked around, ignoring Taylor. “Where’s Dorothy?”
Taylor, not wanting to be ignored, replied for him. “We have her.”
Jasper frowned. “What do you mean, ‘you have her’?”
“She will stay safe as long as we get what is inside that box.”
Jasper jabbed a thumb at Taylor. “Is he with you?”
Caleb half smiled. “Not exactly.”
Taylor took a step forward. “He is my prisoner. You will take me to the box at once.”
Jasper crossed his arms. “Or what?”
Taylor glanced sideways at Caleb. “Or I will make him suffer as no one has suffered before.”
Jasper glanced around him and laughed. “And just what can you do down here? You don’t exactly have the home field advantage.”
Taylor removed the small box from his pocket. “This button controls your friend’s shock collar. If I hold it down long enough, his heart will stop and he will die.”
Before Jasper could respond, a grinding sound drew their attention to the stairs receding back into the wall.
Jasper called out, “Randall, what are you doing?”
Randall appeared at the niche in the wall, “What I should have done a few days ago when you first approached me with our deal.”
Gone was the stuttered and slurred mumblings of the simpleton. Instead, it was replaced by the eloquent speech of a mastermind criminal. “You have a very unique scam there, Jasper. I think I can do a lot with that. Thank you for your contribution.”
His disappearance through the niche was followed by a hollow thunk in the wall behind the reptilian hybrid. All three of them looked over as the hybrid pulled on his chains, testing to see if they would pull farther out of the wall.
Which they did.
Jasper swore and sat down roughly on the floor in defeat. “I can’t believe I fell for the oldest trick in the book. Scam the scammer. I thought he was a simpleton. It’s a shame I won’t be around to tell my grandchildren about the best scam ever pulled on me. I’m not even going to be around to have children.”
Caleb grabbed Jasper and pulled him back to his feet. “How do we get out of here?”
Jasper stared ri
ght through him, lost in his own thoughts. “We don’t. I don’t know if you noticed the grates in the floor. That’s for our blood to drain away after the lizard man eats us.”
Caleb tossed Jasper into the corner and then whipped off his hooded cloak. They had one chance to survive this and he didn’t need that heavy cloak getting in the way.
“Taylor?”
Taylor was staring at the hybrid, frozen like a statue.
“Taylor!”
Taylor’s head jerked in his direction.
“Get ready to trigger my shock collar.”
Taylor gave him a quizzical look. “What?”
“As soon as I grab the lizard, you trigger my collar.”
The reptilian hybrid kept pulling the chains out of the wall until they ratcheted to a stop. The chains were now looped at his feet, and looked long enough to let him reach anywhere in the chamber.
He was eyeballing the three of them, trying to decide which of them to save for dessert.
It was now or never.
Caleb shot a sideways glance at Taylor. “Get ready.”
Taylor snapped out of whatever he was thinking and shouted.
“Wait!”
“No time!”
Caleb leaped through the air. The monster responded in kind and met him in the middle of the chamber in midair.
They collided heavily and fell to the ground with a thud. Caleb struggled against the powerful strength of the creature and screamed over his shoulder. “Do it now!”
For some reason, Taylor did not trigger the collar.
On his back, he gripped the monster’s arms and pushed up against the sharp lizard claws as the reptilian hybrid pushed down on him with all his weight. Caleb craned his head over to look at Taylor. “Do it!”
Taylor responded, “I can’t. There was only enough power for one shock.”
The truth that his collar was a one-time scare tactic was information he would’ve liked to have had before formulating his hasty plan. The reptilian hybrid was bigger and, he was quickly discovering, stronger than he was. Taylor was useless, but Jasper jumped to his feet and yelled something absurd as he ran by. “Just hold him there Caleb. I have an idea.”
The reptilian hybrid’s sharp talons were getting closer to his face. “I think you’ve underestimated my position here, Jasper.”
His muscles screamed with fatigue as one sharp talon pierced his cheek, blood bubbling up through his fur. Pain shot through his whole body. As soon as he couldn’t resist any longer, the hybrid would slash through him with razor-sharp talons and then quickly finish off Taylor and Jasper.
Of all the ways Caleb had envisioned his death, he never imagined it would be at the hands of another hybrid.
The monster was suddenly jerked backward out of his grip and flew away from him. Jasper was just rolling to the side, and barely missed being crushed, when the hybrid impacted with the wall. He collided with the wall with such force, it crumbled inward. As the dust settled, they could see the reptilian’s lifeless legs poking out, half buried in rubble, from the newly punctured hole in the wall.
Jasper was back on his feet and dusting himself off. “I almost forgot about the chain retraction switch. I didn’t think we’d be able to get past the lizard to activate it.”
Caleb shot to his feet and pinned Taylor against the wall. “This whole time, the collar was useless?”
Taylor smirked. “The threat of violence is far more coercive than the act of violence itself. Besides, we still have Dorothy.”
Despite Taylor’s attempt at bravado, Caleb could smell the fear emanating from his pores. There were many things he wanted to do to this man, but he was right. The threat of what they could do to Dorothy would keep him in line.
Jasper tugged on his arm. “Caleb. We have to get out of here. Randall helped me find some people to guard the box. I should’ve trusted my instincts, but I didn’t know anybody here. He acted so… I thought he was simple. We have to get there before he moves it.”
Caleb ignored him and held his face close to Taylor’s and bared his fangs. “If anything happens to Dorothy, I will tear you apart.”
Jasper pulled harder on his arm. “Caleb. Caleb!”
Caleb spun on Jasper. “What!?”
Jasper flinched, but held his ground. “If you want to get the box before Randall moves it, we have to go now.”
Taylor spoke up. “I thought you said there was no way out?”
Jasper pointed to the new hole in the wall. “There is now.”
Jasper disappeared through the hole that led to the inner workings of the chain assembly. It took only a few turns through the labyrinth behind the hybrid’s feeding chamber to reach the door at the other end of the twisting tunnel. Jasper paused at the door and waited for them to catch up.
“The box is just on the other side of this door, unless Randall has already moved it.” He looked at Taylor. “You really think you can open the box?”
Taylor responded immediately. “We have the key and a flask of Dorothy’s blood to activate the lock. We can open it.”
“A flask of her blood?” Caleb gripped Taylor’s collar. “I thought we needed Dorothy to open it?”
Taylor shook his head. “The key has needles that extract blood from the person using it. You hold this flask in your hand, and the key won’t know it’s not Dorothy.”
Why hadn’t he thought of that? He could’ve left Dorothy with the Southern Marshal. Then she never could’ve been used to control him. She would have been safe.
Jasper nodded his head and pushed on the door handle.
Nothing happened.
He pushed harder. “The door’s stuck.”
“It’s locked?” Caleb asked.
“No. There’s no lock on this door. There’s something wedged into the frame on the other side. Help me push.”
The three of them leaned their shoulders into the door and slowly pushed it. It popped open, the small piece of wood that had been used to jam the door clattered across the floor.
This chamber was nearly identical to the reptilian hybrid feeding chamber. It was a single, circular room that stood three stories high with a single square shaped opening at the center of the ceiling to let light in.
Jasper ran up to the table in the middle of the room. It was the only piece of furniture in the otherwise empty room. He slammed his hands on the empty table, dust rising up from its surface.
“It was right here!”
He continued to bang his fist on the table in exasperation when Caleb heard something strange coming from the hallway they had just been in. It sounded like the steady rush of air escaping a poorly sealed steam engine, only it was growing louder.
No. It wasn’t getting louder. It was getting closer.
And the closer it got, the more he realized it wasn’t a single sound, but a multitude of similar sounds happening simultaneously.
By the time the strange noise sounded like it was right outside the open door, it had attracted even Jasper’s attention. “What is that?”
As if in answer to his question, hundreds of snakes flooded through the opening of the doorway, like honey forced through the nozzle of a syringe.
Chapter 24
The first wave of snakes writhed across the floor away from the door making room for the snakes being pushed in after them.
Jasper was already at the door on the far side of the chamber. It was the only other way out of the room. And the only way that wasn’t filling fast with snakes. He slammed his whole body against the door repeatedly before giving up and running back to the center the room.
“It’s locked from the outside.”
A few snakes made their way to the center of the room and the three of them took turns kicking them away.
Taylor tucked his foot under the middle of a writhing snake and flung it across the room. “They’re still coming through the door. How many of these things are there?”
Jasper kicked at, and missed, the two snakes bearing down on
him. He hopped up onto the table to get away from them. “Enough to fill this chamber three feet deep in snakes.”
Taylor joined him on the table. “That’s way too many snakes.”
Caleb leaped over the snakes as they slithered across the floor and landed on the table. It creaked under their combined weight, but held.
For now.
He looked into Jasper’s eyes and saw only fear. “Did you know about the snakes?”
Jasper shrugged. “It’s why I kept the box here.”
Taylor crossed his arms. “Well, you’re an idiot.”
Caleb shot him an angry look. “We need to focus on getting out of here, now.”
Taylor sneered at him. “I’m open to whatever suggestions you may have.”
By now, there wasn’t a single section of the floor not covered in snakes. And every minute another hundred were spilling in through the door. Above him, the opening in the ceiling beckoned. What he wouldn’t give to have his flying suit right now.
The floor was a boiling mass of writhing snakes. There were so many, they filled the room halfway up the legs of the table.
The three of them were trapped, with no way out.
“Hey!” Taylor yelled as he shoved Jasper off the table. Caleb’s reflexes kicked in and he snatched Jasper out of the air and pulled him back to the table.
He snarled at Taylor. “If somebody’s going into the snakes, it’s you.”
Taylor jabbed a finger in Jasper’s direction. “He hit me in the head.”
Jasper puffed out his chest. “I did not.”
“Something hit me in the head.”
Just then, something bumped into Caleb’s back. Thinking it was a jumping snake, he spun around and grabbed it, ready to throw it as far she could.
Instead of a snake, his hand gripped a rope.
A rope that went up.
His eyes followed it up and out the square window in the ceiling.
Relief flowed through every muscle in his body.
