The Soul Stealer

by Alex Archer

  She turned and whispered in his ear, “Is it safe to get out of here?”

  “I don’t know. It could come back at any time.”

  “We can’t stay here.” Annja’s eyes wandered back to Bob’s body. There was no way she would ever leave him to rot on the floor of this cave.

  Gregor seemed to follow her gaze and he nodded. “We’ll try to make a break for it.”

  He rose again, taking Annja by the hand and pulling her along behind him. They moved slowly, knowing that if they moved too fast, they’d risk making noise and drawing the attention of whatever they’d just seen.

  Annja’s thighs screamed at her as the slow, low crouch took its toll on her already exhausted body. She closed her eyes briefly and pictured the sword. As soon as she did so, a slight surge of energy filled her body.

  Ahead of her Gregor stopped every few feet, pausing and listening for any changes in the environment. Only after he was satisfied they hadn’t made any noise did they continue on.

  For Annja, they might as well have been walking to the moon. She hadn’t realized that they’d come so deep into the cave when they first entered. And the quick dash for the entrance of the cave and the relative safety of the woods beyond now seemed to stretch interminably before them.

  A groan to their left filled Annja with immediate dread.

  Gregor froze.

  But the groan seemed a fair way off, down another tunnel they hadn’t noticed before.

  Gregor shifted course. He drew Annja along with him, toward the groaning sound.

  After a few minutes of feeling around, Gregor took Annja’s hands and put them over the opening. She could feel the cool breeze coming from it. Was this the hideaway of Khosadam?

  She could feel Gregor looking at her. Annja glanced at him and shook her head. There’d be time enough for exploring the lair later. She wanted Bob’s body removed from any further harm. She owed him that.

  Gregor seemed to sense her intention and nodded. Annja backed away and turned to head back in their original direction.

  She heard Gregor slip behind her, jarring loose a chunk of stone. It skittered across the cave floor, causing a minor avalanche of small pebbles and gravel.

  Annja and Gregor froze.

  As the last pebble came to rest, Annja caught a breeze on her cheek.

  And then heard the roar.

  Something slammed into her, knocking her back and away. It felt as if a giant forearm had clotheslined her. She toppled back against the stones and immediately felt the rush of a giant form moving past her.

  “Annja!” Gregor called out for her.

  She took a step and then it felt as if everything were falling away from her.

  She hit something hard with the back of her head and groaned.

  The cave filled with another roar.

  Annja heard the explosion of Gregor’s gun once then twice, followed by another roar.

  “Annja!” Gregor shouted again.

  Annja tried to get to her feet, but was dazed. She felt the back of her head and her hand came away sticky. She could smell the coppery blood on her fingers.

  She tried to call out, but her voice sounded weak. “Gregor.”

  She heard the beast roar again. Another gunshot sounded and then she heard the metallic clang of the gun knocking against some rocks. Had Khosadam disarmed Gregor?

  She heard Gregor call out in Russian.

  Annja’s vision swam. Her head clouded. She felt nauseous.

  Silence washed over her.

  WHEN SHE CAME TO, Annja felt awful. For the second time in only a few days, she was sure she’d suffered a concussion.

  If this keeps up, she thought, I’ll need brain surgery to relieve all the pressure in my head.

  She tried to ease herself into a sitting position, but moaned as she did. Her head ached and her stomach lurched horribly in protest. She wanted to vomit.

  But she was also immediately aware of the pervasive silence of the cave.

  She wasn’t sure where she’d fallen, but it seemed she wasn’t in the upper part of the cave anymore. She couldn’t be sure without light. And since she had none, she’d have to fumble her way along through the darkness.

  She sighed and tried to get her bearings. The last thing she could remember was a huge form moving past her. The gunfire. Gregor shouting.

  She frowned. Gregor. Where was he now?

  Annja got to her feet again, slowly this time. Each movement seemed to hurt more and more. But she knew she had to get up.

  Her hands palmed the cold, rough rocks around her, her fingers eventually finding sufficient purchase to support her weight as she tried to stand. She took a deep breath and pushed herself up. Her knees almost buckled twice, but then she finally got to her feet.

  The motion was too much and she suddenly vomited.

  She wiped her mouth on her jacket sleeve and paused to close her eyes and take a few more deep breaths. The last thing she wanted to do was move again. She just wanted to curl up into a ball and fall fast asleep. But she knew that would probably mean death.

  And if Gregor was still alive, he might be searching for her.

  Or he could just as easily be dead, too, she thought. Especially if Khosadam got its hands on him.

  She had to find out for sure. And she had to make her way back to the cave entrance to get help. Now that it seemed pretty definite that this was where Khosadam or whatever it was hung out, maybe she could mount an assault with the villagers helping her. Surely some of them would own firearms and they’d be able to storm the cave and kill this thing.

  She stopped.

  What the hell was the matter with her? Had the fall taken its toll on her? Or was she simply reacting to the stress of the trip and then losing her dear friend?

  It wasn’t like Annja to want to kill something she knew nothing about. And Bob had made her promise to let others know about this place. In order to do so, she’d have to find out just what exactly this Khosadam thing was. If it was something supernatural at all.

  She sighed. I’ve got to get out of here.

  Annja turned and started moving her hands along the wall, searching for anything that might help her. As she moved around, she could tell she’d fallen into an almost circular pit that was much too deep to try to climb out of. Annja wasn’t sure she had the strength to do so and the walls of the pit didn’t seem to have enough handholds anyway.

  She needed something else.

  A sudden lancing pain in her head made her shut her eyes tight. In her mind’s eye, she saw her sword hovering. As she looked at it, another burst of energy filled her body.

  She opened her eyes and held the sword, hands extended toward the lip of the pit. She plunged the sword into the cave wall as high above her head as she could reach. It stuck fast.

  Annja could still feel a vague pain in her head, but she shut it out and concentrated instead on pulling herself up. Her fingers ached, but then she was able to climb the wall carefully using handholds and the sword until she could draw one hand up and over the edge of the pit. She got her arms over and then finally, she hauled herself up.

  She lay on the floor huffing for a moment, trying to flush more oxygen back into her system. She willed the sword back to the otherwhere.

  When she felt better she got to her feet. She tried to make a mental note of where the pit was, hoping she wouldn’t fall back down it again in the future. But without light, trying to fix its position seemed impossible.

  Silence still blanketed the cave. Here and there an occasional drop of water would echo through the chambers. But otherwise, there seemed to be nothing moving anywhere in the cave itself.

  Had Khosadam vanished again?

  Annja frowned. She had to find her way to the hidden tunnel that Gregor had discovered. That was probably where the creature had gone. And maybe it had taken Gregor with it.

  Annja shivered thinking about Gregor being eaten or worse by the creature. The sooner she could find her way back to where s
he’d started, the better.

  Annja moved forward slowly and then stopped again. She brought her hands up and they touched the wall in front of her.

  At least I didn’t run face-first into that, she thought.

  She shifted and realized the area felt familiar, even in the pitch-dark. Was this where we were when we were attacked?

  She knelt and ran her hands along the floor of the cave. Her fingers brushed something smooth and small. She plucked it off the floor and held it closer to her face.

  Annja could smell the cordite and knew she’d found one of the shell casings from Gregor’s gun. The casing was cold. Annja figured that meant she might have been unconscious for some time back in the pit. But then again, a shell casing wouldn’t hold its heat once it was on the ground.

  She found three more casings but nothing else.

  Gregor, as she’d feared, had vanished.

  18

  Annja considered her options. She had no light. Plus she had a concussion, although it did seem to be improving rapidly.

  She looked around, not really seeing much of anything in the darkness. The general unfathomable depth of her surroundings unnerved her. She felt the outline of the hidden tunnel, tracing it all the way to the ground.

  Well, she thought, I’ve got two choices—I can go down this tunnel and see if I can find Gregor and whatever took him. Or I can try to find my way out of here and back to the village.

  She pondered her situation. There was no guarantee that any of the villagers would help her even in the daylight. She’d seen fear enough times to know they were all struck by it. The thought of hunting some unknown creature wouldn’t sit well with them.

  No, if she was to get to the bottom of this, she would have to do it alone. There was nothing else she could do but press on.

  Annja took a deep breath and moved into the opening. As she did, her boot rolled over something on the ground. Annja knelt and felt for it.

  It was about four inches long and cylindrical. Her fingers felt along the cylinder and found a switch. She turned it on instinctively, and red light shot out of one end.

  Gregor’s flashlight!

  Annja looked at it and smiled. He must have dropped it during the struggle with the creature. It was a good sign that he had definitely come this way.

  Annja looked around. The cave walls seemed to shrink for about twenty feet and then beyond that, deeper darkness awaited her. She felt a cool breeze coming from somewhere down the tunnel.

  Too bad he didn’t drop me a gun, too, Annja thought.

  Annja stepped down the tunnel and made sure she shielded the light as much as she could. No sense alerting the creature that she was coming.

  The cave still seemed cloaked in silence. Annja’s footsteps were as quiet as she could make them. She could hear the drips and drops that marked most of the caves she’d ever been in.

  But beyond that, nothing.

  She found it a little strange, actually, that with a creature like the one she and Gregor had encountered, there wasn’t more noise. Surely it would have to hunker down somewhere close by and rest? And if it slept, might it not also snore?

  Annja frowned. I’m being presumptuous. There was no telling what the creature was like. And if it was supernatural in origin, then maybe it had simply disappeared into thin air. No, she thought. That’s impossible.

  She shook her head. Unless it’s my sword.

  She reached the end of the narrow part of the tunnel. Beyond the opening, the cave seemed to blossom into a much larger cavern. She could hear more drips now, falling into what sounded like a pool of water.

  Annja stepped down and into the larger cavern. The air was warmer, and she relished the temperature change, suddenly aware of how much the cold had affected her.

  She flashed the red beam of light over the cavern. She was dismayed by what she saw.

  A dead end.

  Annja frowned. That can’t be. There must be something here that leads out. How else could the creature have gotten Gregor out of the cave?

  Unless they went out of the front of the cave while I was unconscious.

  Annja sighed and knew that she wouldn’t have known if they had left or not. She squatted down and took a few deep breaths.

  All around her, the walls of the cavern seemed to mock her. Nothing here but solid rock, they seemed to say. No way out except how you came in.

  She flashed the light along the wall in front of her. There seemed to be nothing there but more solid rock. She moved closer and began tracing her hands over the rocky walls. She refused to give up.

  It took her the better part of twenty minutes to locate a small opening close to the ground. She got down on her hands and knees and put her face close to the opening, trying to see beyond it.

  She saw only darkness.

  She turned her head and listened. She didn’t hear anything, either, but did feel a warmer breeze coming from somewhere beyond.

  She sat back. How do I get this open? She used the flashlight to search for some kind of hidden catch release, but she didn’t find anything that looked unnatural. This was the way she had to go, she had no doubt, but getting through the portal was going to be a challenge.

  Annja’s throat ached and she suddenly realized how thirsty she was. She glanced back toward the pool of water and listened to the drops falling from the cave roof onto the water below.

  She knew that survival experts always cautioned you to boil water for several minutes to kill off any bacteria in a pool of standing water. But she didn’t have anything to build a fire with. And worse, making a fire might alert the creature to her presence.

  Annja glanced up at the roof of the cave. There was no telling how thick the rock was above her. There was a fair chance that it had sufficiently filtered the water dripping down and that pool was, in fact, quite safe to drink from.

  She stepped closer to the pool. It had been many hours since she’d had anything to drink. Her lips were dry and caked. The insides of her cheeks felt mossy. Her tongue had thickened also. She knew she was dehydrated.

  She bent closer to the water and sniffed it. She was aware of the risks. If the water was contaminated she’d know about it fairly quickly after she drank.

  And then she’d be in no position to help anyone, least of all herself.

  She touched her lips to the water and took a small sip. The instant the water crossed her tongue, she felt relief. The ice-cold liquid tasted incredibly delicious and she eagerly drank more.

  After a minute of drinking, she leaned back and waited. If the water was tainted, her gut should have started acting up. But instead, she felt only a measure of contentment as her body processed the hydrating water. She licked her lips and felt her mouth fill with saliva.

  After twenty more minutes, she felt confident enough to take another long draw from the pool. And with each swallow, she felt stronger and more rested.

  Finally, she stood and moved back to the wall where the tiny opening was. Now, she felt better about looking for the release.

  She was almost ready to admit defeat when she accidentally leaned on a section of the rock wall. She felt it give almost immediately, sinking farther into the wall with a low hiss.

  It’s mechanical? Annja frowned. A beast couldn’t do that.

  The wall slid back, revealing a narrow tunnel. The air beyond was much warmer, almost humid.

  Annja closed her eyes and checked on her sword. It hung there, ready for her.

  She stepped into the tunnel and shined the light around. The passage stretched in front of her for at least a hundred yards before it turned. Annja stepped into it and moved carefully along the tunnel.

  The red light from Gregor’s flashlight seemed to be waning. Annja took a final look ahead of her and then shut it off, trying to conserve some of its power. Who knew what might be ahead? She could very well need it desperately and since the way ahead of her looked okay for now, she could stumble along in the dark.

  The warm air that s
urrounded her grew more humid and thick. Annja unzipped her jacket slowly, letting it flap open and shed some of her body heat.

  The tunnel suddenly dipped down for about forty yards and Annja almost slipped twice, but kept her footing. Her stomach still showed no signs of reacting to the water, for which she was grateful. The mountain water had been a welcome relief for her, and if she could keep it down, it would help her with anything she had to do further on. Whatever it might be.

  She noticed her footing felt different. Annja stopped and knelt down. She ran her fingers along the floor of the tunnel and smiled when she touched dirt.

  Interesting.

  She switched the flashlight on again and saw that the walls were changing, as well. Fewer rocks poked their way out of the walls. Roots seemed to stretch out like spindly tentacles from the hard-packed dirt walls.

  Where is this tunnel going to lead me? she wondered.

  She surveyed the area ahead and saw that the tunnel started to ascend again. She switched off the flashlight and kept walking.

  Her thighs let her know when the angle of descent increased. And Annja figured she must have walked at least a mile by now. Or at least, it certainly felt as if she had.

  A sudden breeze washed over her and Annja froze.

  It hadn’t come from behind her, the way she’d come into the tunnel. It came from somewhere up ahead.

  The tunnel was about eight feet across. And the distance between the sides of the walls wasn’t big enough to permit many people in it at once.

  A sound floated toward her that set her heart pounding. It sounded like a raspy cough.

  Someone was in the tunnel with her.

  Annja glanced behind her. To retrace her steps back to the cavern would take her too long. Plus, if she used the flashlight to see, she would alert whoever was behind her to her presence.

  But where else could she go? The tunnel was too confined to hide anywhere.

  Annja closed her eyes and tried to pull out her sword. Nothing. The tunnel was more narrow than the caves had been.

  This is not good, she thought.