“Thank you. And I see the medallion has accepted it.”
I glanced down at the heavy jewelry. Where the gold of the medallion had been bare before, now it shone a great light across the surface in a single beam. I raised it to eye level, pacing around and saw that, as I moved, the light moved with it. Like the needle of a compass, it adjusted itself to show me where I had to go.
“Good.” Dalton stalked around the fire and stopped at my side. “Allow me to create a portal for you. I beg that you return that damn thing while you still can. Get it as far from here as possible, and do not bring it back. Oh, and Lady Keira…”
I listened closely, my human heart beating like a drum.
“Go quickly, for the spell will not last forever.”
CHAPTER NINE
I felt my mortality more than ever within the first hour. The medallion – now a functioning compass – led me all over town. By the end of it, I was puffing and wheezing, practically dying for an opportunity to stop and rest. But I knew that the forces who wanted this thing – the creepers for one, and God knew what else – would soon catch up to me, and I certainly didn’t want to fight any of them as a normal everyday woman.
By mid-afternoon, I found myself at Harold Washington College, a great, glassy building on E Lake Street. Young men and women breezed past me, going about their everyday lives with only education and next weekend’s parties on their minds. I doubted that I could pass as one of them, but when the needle aimed itself at the front doors of the college, I stifled my feeling of misplacement and headed inside.
Following the compass, I navigated a maze of corridors, remembering the days that I almost spent in a college of my own. I had planned to study archaeology, and then go on to work in the field. But that was a long time ago – before the monsters.
Before the mayhem.
The needle directed me to a single door at the back of the hall, isolated from the rest of the rooms. I approached it warily, ready to turn and bolt if I had to. On edge, I turned the knob and eased open the door, letting the light from the hallway bleed into the darkness. All I could see was a narrow staircase leading down, and as the smell of bleach attacked me, I left the door open and ventured down the stairs.
“Hello?” I called out, taking each step with care. The glowing needle on the medallion indicated that I was still heading in the right direction, but the vacancy of the dark room before me contradicted it. The room contained only two signs of life. A dim bulb at the back of the room, and an Elvis song playing softly from the same direction.
My stomach flipped over with trepidation, but I had to investigate. Powers or no powers, it was my job – my responsibility. My heart was still immortal, even if my body wasn’t. My adventures as a Cardkeeper had taught me many things; above all else, that doing the right thing was always tough… but always worth it.
I rushed down the remainder of the stairs and hurried through the space between the lights, where railings and hissing machinery spat clouds of smoke toward me, like a steam room out of the fifties. I had no idea why a modern-day college housed ancient operating systems. And as I scanned the area, my gut told me something wasn’t right.
Alert and aware of my surroundings, I reached the light and found the vinyl player on a long, wooden workbench. A single hanging lamp shone down over the bottles of cleaning chemicals and a pile of cloths. The loud music assaulted my ears, and as I reached out to stop it, a single urgent voice rung across the room.
“Don’t touch that!”
I spun around quickly, raising my arms to shield my face. Those old reflexes remained, even if the speed and confidence hadn’t. I faced a man in his fifties, short and dumpy with filthy dungarees and dark, mop-like hair.
“Sorry,” I said. “Are you the janitor?”
“What does it look like, honey?” He posed the question in a thick, southern accent that I would have enjoyed more had it not been laced with rude undertones. “What are ya doing down here, anyways?”
I had no need to explain myself to a mortal. I was after a mage, or at least someone with the blood of a mage running through their veins. Keeping my thoughts to myself, I squeezed the medallion in my hand and turned away. “It’s nothing. I’m just lost.”
“You sure are. Come on, I’ll show you out.”
The janitor brushed past me, and as he did, the needle on the medallion shone brightly. It spun around in quick circles, like a little boy in a large crowd searching for his mother, before finally settling on the same direction.
“Wait,” I said, grabbing the thing and checking it twice. “You’re him.”
The janitor stopped, scuffing his work boots and turning my way. “What?”
I showed him the medallion, holding it toward him and letting its glow light up his face, which came alive with recognition and something else… fear? Perhaps. I wouldn’t have blamed him. This thing had already ruined my day more than once.
“Where’d ya get that?” he said, his eyes fixed on the needle.
“It belonged to Damien Louse but he…”
“He’s dead, sugar.” The janitor cocked his head aside, sweeping the glowing light away from his face. Too bright. “And I don’t want that thing anywhere near me. Best thing ya can do is head on down to the nearest bridge and hurl it into the river. Ain’t nobody need that trouble in they lives. No ma’am.”
I studied the medallion, watching the light fade from it. As the janitor had rejected it, did it all of a sudden belong to someone else? I knew for a fact that enchantments were complex at the best of times, but this one in particular was starting to get on my nerves.
“But it led me to you,” I said, feeling hopeless. Why couldn’t things be simple?
“It sure did, but like I said, I don’t want it.”
“But why you, is what I’m asking.”
The janitor shrugged. “My son had a lot of weird tricks and doo-hickies.”
“Your son?” My eyes fell to the name badge on his breast pocket, which read: H. Louse. “Damien Louse was your son. So you’re his Next of Kin?”
“I guess so. Though I didn’t have much to do with him.”
“You weren’t close?”
“Not since he gave up his acting career and ran off to that stupid magic school.”
I bit my tongue there. If this guy didn’t believe that magic served a great purpose in this world, I knew it would be impossible to convince him. Besides, I had better stuff to do, starting with finding the new owner of the medallion.
“Any idea who would be next in line for this thing?” I asked.
The janitor shrugged again, an action that was growing tiresome. “Just take my advice, honey. Get rid of it once and for all. For as long as you got it in your hands, you’re servin’ as a lure for those creepers. And I, for one, don’t want those scary sons of bitches anywhere near me.”
“Creepers?” I said, but by then he was already heading back up the stairs, continuing with his chores for the day. For a moment I wondered why he had chosen to stay away from all things magic, only to work as a janitor. At least it was a respectable job.
Stuck and fed up, I stuffed the medallion back into my jacket and took off the same way I had come. But I only made it five feet before I heard a scratching from the back of the room. I spun on my heel and squinted into the darkness, trying to put cause to the sound.
When I saw the pale skin of a creeper lurking in the shadows, a wave of fear washed over me. The hairs on my neck stood on end, and without my magic to defend myself, I knew that I was a dead woman walking.
CHAPTER TEN
The creeper continued to grow, its long white legs extending further and further until its head nearly touched the ceiling. Its back curled into a crookedly shaped question mark and its razor-sharp claws aimed my way, ready to attack. Ready to kill.
I had experienced fear many times throughout the course of my life, but nothing will ever compare to the cold, chilling terror that bit through me at that moment. I was no lo
nger a Cardkeeper – no longer immortal. Defending myself against such a threat was impossible, but I had to keep the medallion away from this creature and, as it made its first long, slick stride toward me, I itched to turn and run.
As my legs worked overtime to carry me across the room, I could hear the growl coming from behind me. It was loud and deadly, laced with a screeching sound that reminded me of a zipper being pulled up fast. I could imagine its drool, a dangling thread of saliva hanging down before dripping to the ground in a gelatinous puddle.
I had to escape before it reached me.
My legs aching as I made my desperate scramble, I reached the bottom of the metal staircase. Before my foot touched the bottom step, a large white claw wrapped itself around my ankle, pulling me onto my face and smashing my chin. Heat shot through my skull, burning through my jaw and causing the kind of agony I hadn’t felt in years. The creeper lifted me into the air, dangling me upside-down in front of its long, hollowed face.
“Get the hell off of me,” I screamed as I thrashed around.
But the creeper ignored me. It probably didn’t even understand me. All it did was stare at the medallion falling from my jacket, watching it swing back and forth below my head like a pendulum. It began to slip from my neck, and as it did so, I knew I had to find a move and then make it.
I reacted instinctively, reaching for the closest object to me. As the creeper tightened its grip, I stretched out to make a grab for the nearby lamp. At first I struggled to get my fingers around it, but when I did, I held it firmly and then swung it into the creeper’s squishy skull.
It howled a long, shrill cry into the air, reaching for the place of impact as if to nurse it, before dropping me onto the hard concrete floor. Without a moment to spare, I spun to land on my side, tucked the medallion back inside my jacket, got up and then bolted it out of there as if the fires of hell nipped at my heels. I was under no illusions that the creeper would follow, but if I stuck to the security of the public eye, or out in the sunlight where it couldn’t survive, I would have a fighting chance of staying alive.
I had never been so glad to be around students. I walked among them in the corridors of the college, dripping sweat and shooting frequent paranoid glances over my shoulder, expecting the creeper to abandon its rules and spring to attack me out in the open. What would I do then? I couldn’t fight it. I would just have to accept death.
The tension was killing me. I broke into a steady jog to head for the exit, ignoring the comments from passing lecturers telling me to slow down or stop running. Even among this crowd of youngsters, I felt like a goldfish in a bowl.
When I finally made it outside into the warm April air, I stalked off into a quiet area, doing my damndest to blend in with the crowd while at the same time keeping an eye on the college building. I found an alley across the street, and stood at the mouth of it with my hands on my knees, panting madly and collecting my breath. Being human was taking its toll on me already. No wonder this job was suited to only the most capable Cardkeepers. I suddenly missed my magic.
Once the horde of drama-seekers stopped watching me and continued on their way, I was entirely alone. The creeper, as Louse’s father had explained, must have been drawn to the medallion. If that was true, I had to get out of Dodge, before another one came looking for me. Assuming, that was, that it would only be one.
I spun quickly and ran through the alley. I had a lot to think about; where to go, what to do when I got there. Link kept slipping into my train of thought. I wondered how he was coping with father/son bonding time. It didn’t take a genius to see that their relationship was strained. I just hoped my little buddy would be okay.
Halfway down the alley, I stopped. The sunlight grew dim and garbage bags and dumpsters littered the path. Something was wrong. I could tell from the sudden silence, broken only by the thin whistling of the wind. Playing it safe, I began to head back, to get back into a crowd, when something huge and heavy landed on my shoulders, knocking me to the ground once more. This time my temple took the damage, making my vision blur like someone had dunked my head underwater.
How had it found me here? Had the creepers found a way to endure the sunlight? I knew that half-breeds could do it, but they were rarer than gold dust. So what the hell kind of a beast had attacked me so easily?
Teary-eyed and weak, I tried to push up, but the tremendous weight kept me pinned against the cold, hard ground. Before I could weakly protest, I felt that huge, dirty claw around me once more. The creeper slung me over its shoulder, but rather than kill me and take the medallion, it dug its nails into the wall and ascended the exterior of the building like it was a spider and I was its fly – its victim.
Its meal.
I didn’t know where it was taking me, but I suspected it would be to no safe haven. As my eyes started to close and my imagination ran wild, I enjoyed the thought of just dying now, before the agony proved too great to bear.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I awoke to the sound of rushing water, while a foul smell lingered in the damp air. My first inclination was that I was in a sewer – that Jason had found me and rescued me, and then taken me back to his lair at the sewage plant.
How wrong was I?
Riddled with fatigue, I groaned and pushed myself up from the hard, lumpy floor. I placed a hand on the ground, touching something cool and smooth, and as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I noticed the soft shimmer reflecting off its surface.
Where am I?
Squinting blindly at the room around me, I could find only one source of light. It bled in through a gaping hole that revealed the moonlit sky. I followed the beam down to the ground below me, where a pile of chewed-up cow carcasses lay in a pile, swarming with buzzing flies. I pinched my nose, the smell nearly choking me.
“Gross.”
Slow and clumsy, I tried to walk toward the hole in the far wall, which led out into the open air. At the rate I stumbled along, it would take at least a couple of minutes to even reach it, and then I would probably have to climb down from wherever the hell I was trapped. Despite this, I ventured on, but as I embarked on my journey to freedom, hoping against hope that I would make it, a realization leapt out at me.
The creeper hadn’t taken the medallion.
Did it not know that I’d had it on me? I reached a hand up to touch it, coming to a stop and shakily looking around. The creeper had taken me here – I knew that much. What I couldn’t understand was why? On a normal day it would have ripped my innards out and taken what it wanted.
So why was I still breathing?
I didn’t want to hang around and find out. That would be pushing my luck. I slipped the medallion back inside my shirt, gazed out toward the sky and started to soldier on again, this time in longer, faster strides, desperately seeking my escape.
But it would not come.
The metallic door behind me made a clunking sound before it fell open, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin. A thick pool of light poured through, illuminating my surroundings. I spun quickly to observe the now-lit room, only to realize that it wasn’t a room at all.
It was a cave.
Fear seized me, as did the sudden recollection that creepers tended to make their hideouts in such places. I faced the door, expecting a creeper, expecting a monster of some sort, ready to tear me to shreds. But there was only the outline of a man, stood within the doorframe while the light beamed in from behind him. I reared back in shock as I stared at him.
“Stop right there,” he said, his voice deep and commanding.
“What… What do you want from me?” Speaking made my face hurt, but I had to bear the pain if I wanted to find out any information.
“You know.”
“No…”
The man turned then, rotating his body only slightly as if to address someone at my side. “Take her and bring her through now,” he said, heading back to where he’d come from. Only then, he stopped. “Oh, and try not to hurt her too much.”
&nbs
p; Crooking an eyebrow, I craned my neck to my left, following the direction of his gaze. Before I could turn around, a creeper rushed me. My instincts let me down, locking me in place while I was scooped up and carried through the cave toward the door. I tried to fight it, to pull its sharp claws away from my stomach as they dug in and threatened to pierce my skin. My hair fell about in a storm of threads. The wind left my stomach and the blood rushed to my face.
It carried me through a series of rocky passages. The creeper had to drop to all fours and crawl through them, due to its incredible height. It winced as it squirmed, squeezing its soft flesh through the tightest of gaps, contorting its fleshy body where needed. It reached back and groped for me, dragging me through the gap like a ragdoll. When we emerged on the other side, I gawked at the expansive space, struck with both awe and overwhelming terror at the number of creatures before me.
It was Creeper City.
The creepers passed me around like a tip jar, carrying me to the depths of the dark cavern, helpless and unable to fight. I could only pray that they didn’t want to kill me, or worse: eat me alive. I had seen it done, and there was nothing I wanted less than to suffer that gruesome fate.
They tossed me to the ground, where my knees struck a jutting rock that made my knees go numb. I tilted my head, gazing up at the throne-like pedestal that stood twenty feet in front of me. The cavern was shaped like a semi-circle, with this rocky chair occupied by a human man. From the shape of him, I recognized him as the man from the doorway, but a closer look told me I knew him from somewhere else, too.
“You were on the train,” I said, trying to stand but falling back down when my legs wobbled beneath me.
The man only grinned, the row of tied-up lamps shining down from a long wire above him. His face was stable now, no longer shaking like it had at the train station. His features were dark and his stubble grew out of control. He appeared scruffy, like a homeless man. I guessed that was to be expected when living in a cave. Suddenly I understood how the creeper had made it out into daylight; it was this man, the half-breed, who had attacked me.
The Cardkeeper Chronicles: Books 1-5 (Complete Collection) Page 32
