Netherworld

by Amy Miles

  “You’re late,” he grunted, reaching out to his assistant for my sheet. He gave it a cursory glance and then passed it over, leaving an oily smudge on the bottom corner.

  “There was an accident down at the docks,” I muttered.

  “Taryn.” Tris bumped my shoulder. She knew how I felt about Conall. It wasn’t like I tried to hide my intense loathing.

  “Thank you for your kindness,” she said and steered me away.

  I let her, but not before shooting him a glare.

  “Are ya trying to get sacked?” Tris hissed before releasing her hold on my arm.

  “As if that’s even possible.” When I grumbled under my breath, she pinched my side.

  A disturbance up ahead captured my attention and I let my thoughts fade away. Rising onto my toes to peer over the girls before me, I saw the bobbing of heads and the line ahead of us pushing to the right to hug the wall.

  “What is it?” Tris asked.

  “I canna see.”

  I stepped towards the wall, following the lead of those in front of me, and heard a clanking sound against the deck boards for the first time. The lighting within the boat house was dim. The fog seeping in through the tall doors made it hard to see clearly. When the first figure came into view, a shiver rippled down my spine.

  “Lorcan.” Tris sounded faint as she pressed in behind me. She had never seen one of them up close before. Most in our village hadn’t. We never mingled with them and we never rode on the same ferry. They should have passed through town hours ago.

  Something was wrong.

  My friend’s hand trembled as she grasped my upper arm, but I hardly paid any attention. I stared at the Lorcan’s boil covered flesh as they passed on the dock beside us. The reapers had them well contained, but that didn’t ease the churning in my stomach. Some of the Lorcan looked like their flesh has been torn away. What remained was blackened and charred, much like the scar on my face. Others looked as if an animal has feasted on their flesh, leaving gaping holes in a leg or abdomen. Things crawl among their ribs, slithering out of their nose slits only to enter back through an ear or mouth.

  The smell was overwhelming, burning my eyes. Their teeth were nearly as black as their skin and their breath hung before them in dark clouds as they moved past.

  “These aren’t new Lorcan,” I whispered back to Tris. “They are too decomposed. And look at their wounds…there was a battle.”

  The memory of my da and Eivin’s conversation about rogue Lorcan resurfaced. Had these Lorcan escaped our reapers when they turned? Had they been allowed to roam free in the human realm?

  The very thought of that terrified me.

  At the crack of a whip, one of the beasts stumbled and I heard a sickening crunch. As it righted itself and moved on, I realised its big toe remained lodged between two of the deck boards.

  “I’m going to be ill,” Tris moaned and buried her head in my back.

  I didn’t look away like everyone else or shy back against the wall when one of them turned to stare at me. These were the souls Eivin would soon be fighting. I couldn’t help but wonder if this might someday be the one who took him from me.

  A wave of anger worked its way through me as the prisoners moved past in a single-file line. It was nearly impossible to tell if I was channeling their anger or my own. Most likely both. I hated them just as much as they hated me.

  It was only when the final one came into view that I realised why I couldn’t see their bindings earlier. The chains that lassoed their necks, wrists, and ankles were the same colour as their skin. Dark magic had been woven into their bindings to ensure none escaped while the city was awake.

  This was no normal crossing. These men had been sent in secret to clean up a mess the king didn’t want anyone knowing about.

  “Do not look them in the eye,” I warned Tris. “It will only provoke them.”

  “But they’re trapped, right? They canna get free.”

  I remained silent.

  The final Lorcan turned and looked at me just then. A thick black substance oozed from its empty right eye socket. The other eye was completely white. It stood taller than all the rest. Its shoulders were double in width. Its teeth and claws razor sharp and longer than any I’d ever seen before.

  Its lips cracked as they peeled back into a horrid grin, and suddenly I was no longer sure that it couldn’t find a way free. In fact, I was positive it would do whatever it took to take one of us down before it reached the Wall.

  My hand dipped down to my waist instinctively, grasping my concealed sword as I sensed a growing tension in the creature.

  “Tris—” I started.

  The Lorcan suddenly threw its head back. The bellowing cry echoed off the narrow walls, sending banshees and reapers alike scrambling.

  “Watch out!” I screamed and drove Tris back into the wall, using my body to shield her.

  The warning call came too late as a reaper’s blood splattered the walls. The torn halves of his body dangled from the hulking Lorcan’s hands as it rose to its full height. Its growl shook the walls around me. The Lorcan ahead of it jerked and snarled.

  “You have to get out of here.” I shoved at Tris, trying to push her past the cowering group of banshees in front of us. I grabbed several others as we moved and yanked them to their feet. “Get them to safety and then sound the bells. Eimear needs to know we’re under attack.”

  “Under attack?” She blinked, confused. When a second scream sent her cowering to the ground, she shook her head. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “You canna fight them.” I untied my cloak and began shrugging out of my dress.

  “Neither can you!” Her eyes lit with surprise when I stripped down to my leathers. “You’ve been wearing that under your dress this whole time?”

  I tossed my dress aside and took my blade in hand as the screams behind us rose. “Get to the boat and cast off. Do whatever it takes to bribe the ferryman. These girls need ya, Tris. Be the leader I know ya to be.”

  “But—”

  “Go!” I shoved her away and turned to face the chaos behind me.

  Two Lorcan with their chains still linked together tackled a banshee to the ground. Though Sybil and I had never seen eye to eye while we were in school, I felt a pang of regret when her scream cut short with the snapping of her neck. I was glad Tris had her back turned so she didn’t have to see the girl’s bulging eyes or the ugly twist of her neck.

  “Get down,” I yelled as a freed Lorcan leapt for a petite blonde beside me and tackled her to the ground. I jumped over a crying girl and drove my foot into the beast as it leaned low. It growled and rolled back to its feet, to find me standing between them.

  “Taryn?” The girl blinked, rubbing her forehead. A trail of blood seeped down from her hairline.

  “Get off your arse and run! Head for the boat. You’ll be safe there.”

  I didn’t turn to see if she followed my orders as I faced off with the beast. Her only hope was that I blocked its path to her.

  Its rank breath washed over me as it exhaled.

  The first attack came almost immediately after, but I anticipated it and ducked low. The second took out my legs before I could alter my stance and I hit the wooden floor hard. Pain rippled through my lower spine, but I rolled away just before it slammed its foot down where my stomach had been only a second before.

  Three more Lorcan freed themselves and dove into the madness. I closed my eyes as a girl was thrown down the passage, narrowly missing me as I pushed up to my feet. The beast before me snarled and dug its long claws into the floor. Its foot had lodged in a hole in the wood and dangled into the water below.

  “Someone sound the alarm,” a reaper shouted.

  I glanced behind me and saw that Conall stood paralyzed in the door to his office.

  “The bloody idiot isn’t going to call for help,” I grumbled.

  With the Lorcan temporarily trapped, I ducked another blow from its reaching claws and leapt to gras
p a beam overhead. I swung back and forth to gain momentum and then slammed both feet into its chest. Its body snapped in half so that its back lay on the floor, its spine severed. I waited for its eyes to fall closed before I turned away.

  A guttural cry alerted me to an approaching Lorcan and I swung back with enough force to slam it into the wall. The wood cracked and the beast fell through, landing in the murky water.

  “Move!” I dropped to the floor and yanked a cowering girl to her feet. She trembled so hard I was afraid she’d bite through her lip. “Ya need to be getting to the boat. People will help ya there to safety!”

  “My…my sister. I canna get to her.” She pointed a shaky finger at a small shape lying curled into a ball several feet away.

  “I’ll get her for ya. Just go.”

  The floor was slick as I tried to run. All around me, banshees had fallen to the creatures’ might. The sound of snapping whips paralleled with cries of pain and terror. We were being slaughtered and no one in the city knew.

  I heard a loud crash and looked to see a reaper pressed horizontally against the wall. Blood stained the wood. His face was a mass of claw marks. His eyes were too swollen to see.

  Looking between him and the girl, I knew there was no way I could save both of them.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to the reaper and slid across the floor to the girl. She screamed when I touched her arm.

  “Easy.” I brushed her hair back from her face so she could see me. “I’m here to help ya. Can you walk at all?”

  She started to speak, but all colour drained from her young face. “It’s behind me, isn’t it?”

  A shadow on the wall was my only clue of its attack. I shoved the girl back and threw myself to the side, slamming hard into the wall. My vision darkened under the force of the hit, but I shook it off. One glance behind told me that the little girl was gone. Her splattered blood was warm against the side of my face.

  “Shite.” I beat my palm against the floor. She should have moved.

  Glancing over at the lifeless reaper beside me, I looked up to see that the remaining reapers had fanned out, standing back to back. Bodies littered the narrow hallway. Far too many had fallen in so few minutes. The space was too narrow for them to swing their swords or whips properly. They were being picked off quickly.

  The scent of rot and ruin were now masked by the smell of charred flesh. My stomach tossed and churned, but I forced myself to push it all aside and focus. Conall had an alarm bell in his office and I had to get to it if any of us stood a chance.

  I pushed to my feet and leapt over the dead reaper only to come upon a girl lying several feet in front of me. Black gashes, still sizzling as the poisoned blood ate away my skin. A Lorcan knelt beside her, tilting her face up as its jaw popped out of alignment.

  The outline of the girl grew hazy, like a fog shifting along the surface of a lake. It gathered at her chest and rose, sucked into the open jaws of the Lorcan. I had never seen a Lorcan’s Death Kiss before.

  “It’s feeding on her,” I whispered, feeling both a sense of awe and anger.

  My job was to ring the bell and nothing more. If I lingered, more would die.

  Sidestepping around the feeding Lorcan, I knew the sight of the girl’s body disintegrating slowly into dust would haunt me for years to come. I looked away and didn’t stop running until I reached Conall’s office.

  “Move over!” I shoved him inside and he fell back against the wall, stunned. “Where’s the bell?”

  I slammed the door closed and then whirled around in search of the golden bell. It was a signal that was kept by the overlord for such a time as this: one of dire peril, despite the royals’ assurances it would never be needed.

  Seizing him by the shoulders, I shook him. “Conall? Where is it?”

  Something heavy slammed into us from behind. I crashed to the floor, grunting as pain splashed across my bruised ribs and splinters of the door rained down. When the weight above me shifted, I rolled to my side and up to my feet, ready to fight.

  My gaze rose to the doorway and adrenaline ricocheted through my body as a mountainous beast towered before me. It was the one that made the first kill. The one that laughed at my challenge.

  I glanced towards Conall out of the corner of my eye when the scent of urine hit me. A growing damp spread down his pant leg. He wailed when the Lorcan knocked him aside, sending him flying through the air. When he collapsed to the floor, he didn’t move again.

  “Hey!” Swiping the back of my hand under my nose, I cleared away a trail of blood. The Lorcan’s blank eyes shifted to me.

  “You came for me. Well, here I am.”

  I raised my arm, glass sword in hand, as the sounds of battle and death continued in the hall. The creature attacked without warning. Its gnarled hands curled around my arms, driving me back to the ground. I planted my foot in its stomach and used the beast’s momentum to shove it off me.

  Serrated claws sank deep into my calf as I tried to crawl away but wasn’t fast enough. Grabbing onto Conall’s desk, I smashed my boot against its cheek. Bone shattered behind me, but it didn’t let go.

  Just a couple of feet in front of me, I spied the handle of my dagger poking out from beneath an overturned bench seat. It was my only chance. I pulled myself towards it, gritting my teeth against the tearing in my calf.

  A moan from behind me made the Lorcan go still. I saw the instant the Lorcan’s hunger engaged when it noticed Conall’s prostrate form. He was an easier target. Its jaw detached and dangled low in anticipation of a feast. It retracted its claws from my leg and leapt towards him.

  “No!”

  The deformed creature hovered low over Conall and I forced myself to wait for my moment. A rippling along the outline of the man’s body formed. When the Lorcan opened its mouth wide to begin sucking in his essence, I hurled my dagger straight into its mouth. It choked and grasped at its throat as it stumbled back.

  Using the desk to help push myself upright, I tested adding weight to my wounded leg, but my knee buckled under the pain. “Bloody hell!”

  The sound of nails clicking against metal made me turn. The blade didn’t sink deep enough to kill the Lorcan. Only to anger it as it fought to grasp the dagger and remove it from the roof of its mouth.

  Dragging my leg behind me, I hopped around the front of Conall’s desk and began tearing through the drawers in search of the bell. It had to be there…somewhere.

  Upturning each drawer and finding them empty, I kept the Lorcan in the corner of my eye as I started shoving books off shelves. I looked at the walls in search of the bell. There, suspended from one of the rafters, was a dusty circular golden disc. “Finally.”

  Finding the bell wasn’t enough. I looked all around the mess surrounding me and realised I had nothing to ring it with.

  The Lorcan struggled back to its feet, incapable of biting anyone or performing the Kiss, but its claws were still a danger to me. I snatched an unlit lantern from the window sill and swung as it charged at me. The Lorcan’s knee gave out when I grabbed a broken board and slammed it into its face, driving the white glass deep into its brain.

  The beast shuddered when it landed on the ground. I stepped around the growing pool of blood and wearily slammed the lantern against the bell. It reverberated through my chest, ringing out loud and clear. As Conall curled into a ball on the floor and covered his ears, I listened for a returning bell before pumping my fists with triumph into the air. The warning had finally gone out.

  I slumped back against the wall. Warm blood ran freely down the back of my calf and into my boot.

  “Oh, don’t bother getting up, you bleeding arse. I’ve saved the day,” I growled at Conall, wishing I could kick the stupid man in his gut for nearly getting me killed.

  Soon more reapers would come to wipe out the remaining Lorcan, but it was too late for those lying in the hall. Far too many of us were already gone.

  The throbbing in my leg made me close my eyes and bite my
lip. That would be another scar to add to the others.

  The sounds of shouting in the hallway reached me just before rushed footsteps slid to a stop in the room. I opened my eyes to find a dark-haired man standing in the doorway. His chest was broad, his arms tattooed with battle scars, some appearing to be very recent. Other scars marred his chest, visible through the cut leather bindings of his damaged leathers.

  Two daggers with silver hilts, sheathed at the centre of his back, rose from over his shoulders. A whip rested at his hip and a smaller knife at his calf. A large curved glass sword was poised in his hand as he looked down at the Lorcan. He looked dead on his feet as if he’d just run a great distance, but his eyes were alert.

  “You’re too late,” I said, turning my back on the reaper. “This one is already gone.”

  He knelt down to look at the fallen Lorcan, turning its head this way and that. “You buried glass into its forehead?”

  “Aye. I did.”

  “Why?” He looked up at me with a stern gaze.

  “Because it was all I had while I was saving his arse.” I pointed at Conall cowering several feet away. “It did the job well enough.”

  “Nearly.”

  I turned back and watched as he stomped his foot down on the Lorcan’s head. The bone gave way as the body disintegrated. “They’re not truly dead until they’re dust.”

  “How would you know that?” I turned to look at him, surprised to see Conall hurrying to rise to his feet.

  The man’s gaze was hard as he stared at the simpering man.

  “Are you injured?” he asked.

  Conall couldn’t find his voice. His eyes were wide as he shook his head.

  “His pride, if a coward can possess such a thing, but nothing more,” I said. “The bloody idiot nearly cost my life.”

  The sour tone in my voice made the reaper’s lips twitch into a smile.