by R. L. King
Stone swept the light spell back and forth, illuminating the two hallways. The walls were made of rock, their only adornment a few fixtures along each side that looked like they might at one time have held candles or torches. Now, they were empty. The hallways extended ten feet on each side and disappeared around corners.
“Which way?” Verity whispered. “Down or sideways? Please don’t suggest we split up. I think that would be a bad idea.”
“I concur.” Stone shifted to magical sight again. The blue energy was gone now, so it would be no help. “I think we should—”
A faint sound came from somewhere below them.
“Did you hear that?” Verity whispered sharply, gripping his arm.
“Shh.”
They both fell silent again, craning their ears.
“Is that…someone crying?” Verity’s whisper was barely audible now, so close to Stone’s ear he could feel her warm breath.
That was what it sounded like to Stone, too—a low, moaning sob, probably from a woman or child. As they listened, it stopped.
“Might be a trap…” Verity murmured.
“Might be.”
“But we’re going anyway, right?”
“Of course.” Stone put more energy into his shield, crossed the hall, and slowly descended the second stairway. The crying didn’t resume.
Oddly, the light spell didn’t seem to be illuminating the way ahead as well as it had before. The stairs, made of the same cracked and stained marble as the rest of the mausoleum, showed up as brightly as ever, but the light didn’t reach fully into the room ahead. Stone slowed, moving with care, magical sight at full strength. With a quick glance back at Verity, he stepped forward into the doorway.
“What’s going on?” Verity whispered. “Can you make the light stronger?”
“Apparently not.” He tried, pumping more energy into it. No matter how much he added, the pool of light centering around his hand only lit a two-foot-diameter arc in front of him. “Keep your shield strong.”
“Oh, I’ve been doing that all along. Hey, do you smell something?”
He sniffed. It was faint, but the unmistakable odor of something rotting wafted from the room. “That can’t be good.”
She didn’t answer, but stayed close behind him.
Stone moved forward. Though it was dark, the room gave the impression of being large—probably around the same size as the one above. The air here smelled musty in addition to the growing rot aroma, and the ground beneath his feet was hard-packed dirt instead of marble.
He stopped once he was fully in the room, listening for the crying or any other sound. When he heard neither, he continued forward. He glanced up, noting roots poking through the ceiling. It looked more like a cave down here than a human-made structure.
That’s not a good sign. “Keep a close watch,” he muttered to Verity. “Something’s wrong here.”
“Ya think?”
“No—that’s not what I meant. I don’t think they’re here.”
“Why not?” She had her light spell up now, too, waving her hand around in frustration as she tried to pierce the unnatural darkness.
“We’re underground. Surrounded by living earth, from the look of things.”
She got it. “Oh. Damn. That’s right—a tracking spell wouldn’t find them here. They’ve got to be somewhere else. But what about the crying—”
Stone took another step forward, At the edge of his spell’s abbreviated range, he thought he saw a shadowy human figure.
Wait…was it seated in a chair?
“Careful,” he said. “Something’s up ahead.”
Verity came up next to him, holding her hand in front of her. “It’s…a guy. Is he…dead?”
The combined force of both their spells finally provided enough illumination for Stone to get a clearer look at the figure. He tensed. “Bloody hell…”
“Do you know him?”
“I do.” He hadn’t seen Chris Belmont in ten years, but the man looked much the same as he had then: scruffy, gangly, with dirty-blond hair and thin features. He sat in the chair, his eyes closed.
“I don’t see an aura…” Verity murmured.
Tentatively, Stone extended the hand that didn’t have the light spell on it to grip Belmont’s shoulder. Verity was right: he didn’t have an aura. But was something playing tricks on them, the same way it had with the light spells? Belmont’s position looked almost as if he’d been posed. If that was so, perhaps—
“Nnnooo…trap…get out…”
The ragged, moaning voice didn’t come from Belmont. Instead, it came from somewhere on the left side of the room, an instant before Stone touched Belmont’s shoulder.
At his touch, Belmont’s head lolled forward. Then it kept rolling, coming free of his torso. It landed first in his lap, then dropped to the floor with a soft thunk.
Verity made a little shriek, leaping backward.
Stone stepped back too, raising his shield.
Suddenly, as if Belmont’s grisly action had been a signal, whatever had blunted the light spells dropped away, allowing them to fully illuminate the room.
All around them, things were coming up from the floor.
13
Stone spun in place, taking in the horrific scene.
Now that the light spells reached to its edges, the room—more a rough cavern than a room—was revealed to be twice the size of the mausoleum above. Several headstones and grave markers were set into the dirt floor, and all around them, figures were rising.
“Doc…?” Verity’s voice was tight as she too turned, taking in the room with wide eyes. “What are those things…?”
Stone didn’t answer. He’d spotted something else: a square cage on the far-left side, pushed into a shadowy corner. Another ragged figure knelt in it, gripping the bars with skinny, pale hands. Long hair hung in a greasy curtain in front of its face, obscuring it.
He couldn’t focus on that now, though. The other creatures had reached their feet now, and were shambling toward them. Their eyes had a greenish, unhealthy light.
But that wasn’t the worst.
“Are those ghouls?” Verity demanded. Her voice shook.
“I don’t think so.”
Stone had never seen a fully feral ghoul, but he was fairly sure even they looked mostly human—perhaps emaciated and strange, but still in one piece. These things looked like they had been stitched together from various parts—and not all of those parts were human. One stumped forward on what looked like bear legs, and another had a dog’s or wolf’s head stitched onto a mostly human body. All of them oozed blood and worse, and they were all converging on Stone and Verity’s position. A couple had even shambled up behind them, blocking the door.
Stone took all this in over the space of only a couple seconds. He acted without conscious thought. “Stay close to me, and don’t let them touch you!” he snapped to Verity, and then he was pointing his hands in two different directions, sending a blast of Calanarian energy in an arc in front of him.
It hit three of the creatures and drove them back, but as soon as it stopped they recovered, throwing themselves forward again. Low, inhuman growls issued from their various human and animal throats.
“What are they?” Verity wasn’t idle either, directing a blast of her own at one that was getting too close to her. Her attack had even less effect than Stone’s had.
He didn’t have an immediate answer for her. He’d never seen creatures like these before. What were they even doing here? Had they killed Belmont and left him as a trap? That kind of conscious thought didn’t seem possible for these mindless, ravening things.
Stone didn’t want to give her his best guess at what the things were—but he didn’t have that luxury right now, if they were going to get out of here. “Necromancy,” he said grimly. “If I’m right, magic won’t be much use against them. We need indirect attacks.” He directed a wide-angle concussion blast at another group, bowling them over and driving th
em back again, but once more they scrambled back to their feet and kept coming. They weren’t fast, but they were coming from all angles.
What the hell was going on? What had they stumbled into?
“Indirect how? There’s nothing here. Doc, we’ve got to get out—somewhere there’s more room.”
Stone didn’t tell her his other fear—that there might be more of the creatures waiting upstairs. It didn’t matter anyway, since obviously whatever force was directing them had ordered them not to let the victims get out of this room. Two more of them staggered toward the exit door, blocking the way out with their bodies.
“Let’s see about that.” Stone made a wrenching gesture with one hand, opening himself to the Calanarian energy, letting it flow through him and fill him with power. He ripped one of the headstones from the ground and flung it into two of the creatures, driving them back into the wall and crushing their heads against it. They barely had a chance to yowl before dropping, motionless and mutilated. He picked up the headstone again and slammed it hard into the floor, breaking it into smaller chunks next to them. “Use those,” he told her, already turning to rip another one free.
By this time, three more creatures had reached him. They plowed into his shield, bulling him back with their sheer weight. He faltered, trying to keep his balance, but the shield only protected him from attacks, not from being knocked over. He went down with the three creatures on top of him.
The shield held. The three abominations scratched at it with hands and claws, their glowing green eyes alight with rage as their prey was denied them. Already, two more were heading over, no doubt to pile on.
“Get…off me!” he growled, sending another wave of energy out pounding out. The creatures flew back, once more bowled over but unhurt by the spell.
Verity hadn’t wasted time. Gesturing wildly, she snatched up several pieces of the grave marker Stone had broken, and sent them in a spinning tornado toward another of the creatures. The chunks battered it, driving it away from her. “We need to do something else!” she called to Stone, who’d regained his feet.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” He shot a glance toward the exit. Four of them were milling there now, their eerie green eyes glaring at him with mindless malice. He wasn’t sure whether their instructions had been to keep anyone from escaping or if it was mere coincidence that so many of them had congregated there, but either way he didn’t like it. Maybe they were supposed to kill intruders—or maybe they were only instructed to hold them here until something else arrived.
Stone didn’t want to wait around to find out which one was correct.
“Focus on the ones by the door!” he yelled to Verity. “If we can get outside, we can levitate. I don’t think they can fly.”
She nodded grimly, picking up another chunk of rock and telekinetically flinging it at the nearest creature’s head. It hit hard, taking a gory chunk with it, but the thing kept coming. Not counting the two Stone had crushed, there were six of them now.
“Let me out!” came a weak, rasping voice from the other side of the room. “I can help!”
“Yeah, no, that’s not happening!” Verity yelled.
“Wait!” Stone couldn’t spare much time to look that way, but something about the figure in the cage seemed familiar. The answer came fast: “Maisie? Is that you?”
“Yeah!” She still knelt in the cage, gripping the bars, but now she tossed her head to move her hair out of her face. “I can help! Let me out!”
Stone took stock of the situation and made a fast decision. “Verity! I’ll hold them off. Go pop that lock and let her out. But stay away from her! Keep your shield up!”
“Okay, on it!” She backed away toward the cage, sending more chunks of headstone flying toward the monsters.
Stone concentrated on keeping the six creatures off balance with concussion blasts, walls of air, and whirlwinds gathered from the dust on the floor. He still wasn’t hurting them, but it was satisfying to see they couldn’t seem to overcome his power to force their way past him. He couldn’t do this forever, though. They needed a new plan.
“Okay!” Verity called. “Door’s open, Doc. Be careful!”
He chanced another glance toward the back of the room. The cage’s door stood open now, and an instant later Maisie erupted out of the cage, her movements fast but jerky. Verity leaped back, away from her.
She moved like a mad thing, surging forward past Stone and raking at one of the creatures with long-nailed fingers and bared teeth.
“Careful!” Stone warned. “Don’t get yourself killed!”
Maisie ignored him. She pressed her attack with growing ferocity. There was no blood where her fingers raked—these things didn’t have much blood, apparently—but ribbons of skin tore free of the nearest one’s arm under her claws. Stone had no idea where she was getting all the energy.
Verity wasn’t doing as well. As a white mage, she didn’t have the benefit of Stone’s Calanarian power—or even the power he got as a black mage by taking it from others. White magic was potent, but not generally in combat, where drawing strength from within the mage’s own body became a detriment the longer the fight went. Already, sweat stood out on her forehead and her face was growing pale. Her light spell faltered as she focused more of her concentration on her shield.
They had to get out of here.
He shot another blast at the group by the door, scattering them like bowling pins. But before any of his group could move far, they’d already regained their footing and regrouped. He was sure now they were trying to block the door.
The things were even more hideous up close. Someone had definitely stitched them together from spare parts, and they hadn’t spent much effort on making the parts fit together smoothly. The creatures looked like something out of a nightmare, oozing fluid around their rough stitches, bits of green light the same color as their eyes leaking out from the spots where they’d taken damage.
More necromancers? How could that be? And why would necromancers be blackmailing ghouls?
“Doc!”
One of the pair of creatures that weren’t blocking the door had lurched forward with a surprising burst of speed, slamming its big, misshapen body into Verity’s shield. As Stone watched in horror, her bubble flickered and died, leaving no barrier between her and the thing’s reaching grasp.
“Verity!” He spun toward her, gathering more energy, acting without conscious thought. He snatched up an intact grave marker and sent it at the creature, using it like a bulldozer to shove the thing off her and into the rear wall.
Panting and white-faced, she crab-walked frantically backward, trying to get upright before the creature came at her again.
Two more creatures hit Stone’s shield from behind at the same time, knocking him to his knees with a jolt. His own shield held, but the creatures piled on, pounding on it with massive fists.
Maisie leaped onto them, climbing them like a monkey, slashing at them with savage ferocity. Stone couldn’t see what she was doing, but he didn’t need to—her grunts and the creatures’ growls were enough to get the idea.
They weren’t making any progress! Except for the ones he’d taken down initially, the others seemed as strong as ever. Whatever was powering these things was bloody potent. They needed to get outside, but getting them away from the door was proving harder than he’d expected.
They had to do it, though. Verity wasn’t going to last much longer, and even though the source of his own augmented power was virtually limitless, his body’s ability to channel it wasn’t. He couldn’t maintain the light spell, the shield, and still attack for too much longer before he started to tire.
Desperately, he looked around the room, trying to spot anything else he could use as a weapon. The heavy grave markers were working, but wrenching them out of the ground was slow and took a lot of energy. He could throw more chunks, but that was only a stopgap. If only this room had a metal gate, like the mausoleum upstairs had. Then he could—
> His gaze fell on the cage where Maisie had been held prisoner.
Roughly square and five feet on a side, it was constructed of metal bars an inch in diameter and five inches apart. The hinged door hung open, and the back side was chained to a stout ring driven into the wall.
Could he do it? It would take some effort, but it might be their only chance.
He gathered power again, pulling it into him until his body felt like it might fly to pieces with containing it all. Maisie had managed to get one of the two creatures off him, so he used a concussion spell to fling the other one away before focusing on the cage.
First, the chain. That was easy. He ripped it free of the wall and tossed it toward Verity. “Use this!” he called.
She got it right away. Her back pressed against the wall, she snatched it up with magic and snaked it around the nearest creature’s neck.
Stone didn’t stop to see how it ended. He didn’t have the spare cycles to devote to anything but the cage. Narrowing his eyes, he shaped the Calanarian power and let it loose, driven by his will.
The cage flew apart, the bars separating from it and clattering to the ground. “Yes!” he muttered, but couldn’t stop to celebrate yet. Instead, he took hold of two of the bars and flung them with unerring accuracy and the full strength of the energy surging within him, directly at two of the monsters.
The bars were heavy on their own, but with that much Calanarian power driving them, but the creatures didn’t have a chance. They flew like javelins, piercing the creatures’ chests and continuing through, burying themselves firmly in the wall and pinning the monsters there like bugs on a board.
The creatures made no sound as they struggled to free themselves. They still didn’t seem injured, but that didn’t mean they were strong enough to pull loose from the bars.
Not right away, anyway. Visions of them ripping their bodies to pieces, and the pieces still trying to attack, spurred Stone to keep going. He grabbed two more bars and repeated his performance, pinning two creatures to the wall on either side of the exit.
