by Steve Feasey
Look out! There’s something on the tunnel roof above us! It’s already got me! RUN!
Trey watched as a black tentacle formed into a noose above Tom, ready to be dropped over the Irishman’s head.
Tom! Overhead now!
Trey, his eyes beginning to bulge from the pressure applied round his neck and throat, could only stare ahead helplessly as the Irishman swivelled and swung the machete round in a tight, fast arc about his head. The blade easily sliced through the tentacle, which dropped to the floor with a loud flopping sound. There was a terrible scream from overhead, and Trey got his first look into the mouth of the creature attacking them. The large circular opening, set into the underside of the thing clinging to the roof above them, dilated outward in all directions, giving the werewolf a glimpse of the ring of deadly looking teeth lining its circumference. Behind these a thick black tongue flapped about. And around this foul orifice were the creature’s eyes: eight huge black discs sunk into the flesh stared unblinkingly down at its prey.
‘Light, Alexa! We need light! Now!’ Tom shouted out, staring about him blindly in the dark.
The grip on Trey’s neck was tightened further and his own knuckles, jammed between the snake-like noose and his windpipe, crushed his airway. He was lifted even further from the ground and his vision began to dim as a grey curtain pressed in from all sides.
Help!
Suddenly the light that Tom had demanded filled the tunnel. Alexa stood, looking like a goddess holding a small sun, her eyes screwed up in pain from the sphere of dazzling bright light hovering over the palm of her outstretched hand. The effect was immediate and startling – the black thing clinging to the roof of the tunnel let out a long, piercing ululation. All of the tentacles, including the two that held Trey, were withdrawn in an effort to cover the large black eye-globes set around the mouth. The creature moved incredibly quickly, flowing back along the tunnel and disappearing into the darkness.
Once released, Trey had fallen to the hard floor where he’d crumpled into aheap. Now he stood gingerly, rubbing at his throat, gasping in deep breaths of air. Alexa was looking at him as though she were ready to finish the job that whatever the thing on the roof was had started.
‘Remind me not to listen to you in the future, Trey Laporte,’ Alexa said with a shake of her head. ‘What was it you said? “I don’t think it’s a good idea to light ourselves up in any way. If anything is lurking ahead in these tunnels it would know we were coming.”‘
How was I supposed to know that that thing was in here ? It wasn’t last time!
‘Well, neither were Tom and I, but we’re here now! And a good job we were because that thing was about to throttle the life out of you!’
I was fine. Another few seconds and I’d have got free.
‘Another few seconds and your head would have been stuffed into that big mouth!’
‘The main thing is that we’re all all right,’ Tom said, wiping the surface of his blade against his trouser leg.
Trey didn’t say it, but Tom looked anything but all right. The Irishman must have read his mind. ‘When I say all right, I mean that thing didn’t kill any of us. And look on the bright side – even if it had, only two of us would have stayed dead. I’d have been up and about in a matter of no time.’
Alexa shook her head, unable to keep from smiling at the older man’s grisly humour. ‘I vote we keep the light on until we get out of these tunnels. Any objections?’ She looked from one to the other. ‘Good. Now let’s go and find Helde and put a stop to all of this.’
33
Lucien slowed as he approached the shop that his brother had entered. It was a furniture store: an expensive designer chair with a huge elaborate lamp hanging over it dominated the window space. The interior was dark but his eyes travelled up to the windows above the shop. He tuned into the space, probing it with a predator’s instincts. There were humans up there – humans who had watched the horrors unfold in the street outside and were now clutching each other in terror, too scared to move in the prison that had become their home. He could feel their despair.
Lucien hissed, cursing his brother for what he had done here. This was the world that Caliban wanted – a world of fear and subjugation, a world in which he and others like him could hunt freely and murder innocents. He was about to try the door when he felt a now familiar dropping sensation, as if a hole had suddenly opened up in the floor beneath him.
He was inside the shop.
He paused at the door at the rear of the storeroom, sensing the people in the flat above, their fear almost palpable to him. It was delicious, that fear, and it brought a smile to his ancient face. He reached out and tried the handle, knowing
it would be locked. He would mist – disappear on this side and reappear on the other. It was dangerous to do so. Vampires rarely used their teleportation powers unless they could see the place where they intended to rematerialize – there was no telling what might be waiting on the other side of a wall or door and to reappear in the middle of a solid structure would be disastrous. But the need to feed was so strong now that he knew he would take the risk, and he was about to do so when he stopped. Something was wrong. He had the uneasy feeling that he was being watched. He turned round and crept back through the storeroom to look out of the front of the shop –
Lucien stepped back, flattening himself against a car, just in time to conceal himself from Caliban’s gaze.
The ancient vampire stood, unmoving, just inside the entrance to the shop. He was in complete shadow and knew that he could not be seen by anyone looking in. He stayed like that for a few moments, stock still, all senses reaching out. Nothing moved in the street. He would have to go out and investigate. Better to be safe than sorry.
Lucien knew he had seconds before Caliban appeared. He turned and spotted a zombie shuffling up the road towards him. There was no sign of the furious, lurching charge that he’d witnessed earlier. It seemed simply to be walking aimlessly about, no doubt hoping to stumble upon any humans that might be in the vicinity.
Lucien did the first thing that came to mind: he grabbed the walking dead creature, spinning it about so that he held it out before him, his hands on its shoulders. The zombie groaned and struggled weakly against the vampire’s attentions, trying to shrug him off with a series of jerky, disjointed movements. Lucien shoved it towards the window.
Caliban was on the verge of misting to the outside of the shop when the zombie appeared at the window. It stumbled forward, hands and face pressed against the glass for a moment, smearing the surface with drool before turning and shuffling off again.
‘Damn these creatures,’ Caliban hissed.
He cursed himself at the same time. He was on edge and he’d allowed these shambling, brainless revenants to get to him. They were a nuisance. First they’d stolen the delicious morsel that he had trapped in the car, and now they were bothering him again while he was on the hunt. This one must have been what he’d sensed spying on him – though it had felt more sinister than that. But it must have seen him enter this place and followed him. He spat, shaking his head in disgust.
‘The sooner I can feed and we can get out of here, the better,’ he said to himself, turning and walking back towards the door that led to the flat overhead and the hot-blooded creatures he would feast upon.
Lucien cocked his head to one side, listening. He considered misting into the interior of the shop and pursuing his brother, but he quickly ruled this out – first he had to get to the people upstairs to warn them of the danger heading their way. He eyed the first-floor window. Like his brother, he was well aware of the risks of reappearing in something solid. He visualized the space behind the window, hoping that it was empty, held his breath and disappeared.
34
Alexa and the others emerged from the tunnels, stepping out into the inner bailey. The tower loomed over them now like a giant obsidian dagger that had been thrust hilt-first into the ground, and they looked up in horror at the gibbets
hanging from numerous points around the structure, many of which were occupied by the corpses of nether-creatures in various states of decay. Trey kept his eyes glued to the skies, half expecting an attack from the small winged demons that had descended on him the last time he was here with Charles. None came, but Trey was still anxious to get inside the tower and away from this place – this had also been where Caliban had attacked them as they’d made their escape and where Charles had given up his life to save Trey.
Come on, the lycanthrope said, taking Alexa by the elbow and steering her towards the base of the tower. It was clear to them both that Alexa would not need to use her sorcery skills to unlock the huge door set into the tower wall – it was open, no doubt left that way by the vampire when he’d gone out to prey on the human population outside.
Trey and Alexa stood on the threshold, nervously looking into the dark interior. They were about to step inside when a low, almost inaudible groan behind them made them turn, and what they saw made them hurry back in Tom’s direction. The Irishman looked awful: he was sweating profusely, and the side of his face where the zombie had gouged him was distended and had taken on an ugly purple colour. One eye was almost swollen shut, the white surrounding the ins and pupil flooded with blood. The overall effect was horrific and shocking.
Tom waved away their offers of help, but neither of them was fooled by his insistence that it probably looked a lot worse than it felt. Staying close by his side they moved into the interior of the tower.
The layout to this entrance was very different from the one on the other side of the tower through which Trey and Charles had entered. That one opened up into a large chamber, the walls of which were packed with cells. It was where Trey had first encountered the battle-angel Moriel. The entrance on this side was simply a huge square column that disappeared up into the tower above. Stone steps lined the sides, each set made up of about twenty stairs before a small landing turned to its right and the next set of steps began. They could only make out the first four or five stages, the rest disappearing into the darkness overhead.
‘Look,’ Alexa said, walking over to a hatch set into the floor. It was open and she peered down at yet more stairs that led down under the tower. She frowned for a moment, and then turned to look at Trey and Tom.
‘There’s powerful magic at work somewhere down there. I can feel it.’ She nodded into the darkness. ‘That must be where Helde discovered the source of the Shield.’
‘Which way do we go? Up or down?’ Tom asked.
Trey hooked into the smells at the base of the tower, working through the visual trails they overlaid across his vision. That ancient and unpleasant stink of rot and decay that had accompanied the zombies was here too, and it was clear that whatever creature had left that scent had used the hatchway Alexa had found. But the most recent trail painted by that particular odour led up the stairs.
I think she’s upstairs, he said. My guess is that she’s somewhere near the top of the tower. That’s where Caliban’s rooms are.
Alexa nodded at Tom. ‘You should wait here while we go up.’
‘Now just a moment, young lady. If you think I’m too—’
‘I don’t think you’re too anything, Tom. I think that we need a rearguard at the base of the tower to protect us against Caliban in case he gives my father the slip and reenters Leroth behind us. If that happened we wouldn’t have a clue he was here until it was too late.’
Tom looked at her. He knew that she was taking pity on him and trying to save him from the exhausting climb ahead. And in truth he doubted if he would be able to make the ascent in the state he was in. All of his joints ached constantly, the pain in his back and legs was becoming unbearable and his head ached so badly that he was finding it hard to concentrate on anything but the simplest of tasks. He also knew that Alexa was posing the offer in such a way that he wouldn’t lose face.
‘Since when did you become this great military strategist?’
‘I had a great teacher,’ she said.
The Irishman managed a smile. He flipped the machete in his hand, catching it deftly by the blade so that the handle was pointing in the teenage girl’s direction. ‘Here, you should take this,’he said.
She shook her head. ‘You’ll need it. As I say, what if—’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know. Caliban and all that.’ He nodded at the proffered handle again. ‘Take it. If you don’t I’ll have to insist on coming up there with you.’
With a little shrug Alexa reached forward and took the fearsome-looking weapon from her friend.
‘Besides, when have you ever known me not to tool up properly when out on a mission?’ The Irishman gave them both a wink with his one good eye and fished around behind his back in the folds of the long coat he was wearing. He swung out a small crossbow, which had been hanging from a strap around his shoulder. It was pre-loaded with a nasty-looking barbed bolt, and mounted on top of it was a device Trey recognized as a laser sight.
The werewolf grinned at his friend, his long pink tongue lolling from his mouth as he did so. I thought you said those things weren’t easy to fire accurately?
‘That’s true, but you know what they say – practice makes perfect.’ He winked at the werewolf again. ‘I’ll stay here and watch your backs.’ He turned to look at Alexa. ‘It does make sense, so we’ll pretend that that’s the only reason I’m staying put down here.’ The affection he felt for them both was now clear to see in his expression. ‘Watch out for each other, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’ Alexa went to say something but he waved her off. ‘Go on now. Go and get that mad witch and put a stop to this lunacy. Otherwise the next time you see me I’ll probably be trying to eat your brains or something.’ And with that he sank down against the wall facing the entrance, the crossbow propped on his knees, ready to fire.
35
Alexa was taking another brief break in her climb.
The stairs seemed to go on forever. Flight after flight wound up into the darkness. Occasionally, on one of the small square landings, she and Trey would find a door, but they’d opted to ignore these, Trey insisting that they follow the trail of the scent he was convinced was Helde’s. The ascent was much harder for Alexa. Trey’s huge strides easily carried him up three steps at a time, and he made the climb with very little exertion. In contrast, the young sorceress’s thighs burned with the effort of it, and she needed to rest at regular intervals.
Like the tunnels, this place was almost completely dark. Alexa supplied her own light; this time the orb she held in the palm of her outstretched hand was about the size of a golf ball and threw only a small amount of light ahead of her so that she could make out the steps. Even so, it would shine out like a beacon to anyone or anything looking down from above, so whenever she was forced to stop as she had now, Trey would disappear into the darkness of the higher levels, scouting ahead to ensure that there were no nasty surprises waiting for them.
Alone in the darkness, Alexa’s thoughts turned to her father and the danger he must be in right now. She tried not to imagine what would happen when he caught up with his brother. And then there was Tom, sitting down there alone at the entrance to this place, infected by a member of the undead and doomed to join them should she and Trey fail in their mission to stop Helde. She got to her knees and crawled to the edge of the landing, peering down into the blackness. The light she held did nothing to illuminate the ground level, but she could make out the dim purple glow of light that spilt in through the doorway.
‘Tom?’ she hissed down as loud as she dared. ‘Tom, are you OK?’
There was no answer.
Are you mad? Trey asked as he loomed into view, coming down the stairs towards her. The sound in her head was harsh and loud, and she could tell from the dark patterns that accompanied the words that he was cross with her.
Look, I’m as worried about him as you are, but giving us away right now is stupid. We’re nearly there! There’s a final door after just six more flights.
<
br /> Alexa groaned, and the lycanthrope stretched out a clawed hand, placing it gently on her shoulder. Are you going to be OK? Look, I don 1 know why you don’t just take me up on my offer and let me piggyback you up. It’s not a problem, Lex.
‘You can’t help acting the he-man, can you? No thank you, I’m quite capable of walking the rest of the way. Having come this far, six more flights isn’t going to kill me. I just have to keep telling myself that I’m back at the gym on the Stairmaster and not in a translocated part of the Netherworld heading towards certain death.’ She smiled at him and he grinned back.
Stop being so stubborn. You should be conserving your strength. Who knows what we’re going to face up there. Let me carry you.
She looked up into the darkness and puffed out her cheeks. ‘Oh, what the hell. OK, you can carry me. Happy now?’
He nodded, and as he did so his features became serious. I just wanted to say before we go on. You and me … I—
‘Don’t,’ she said, reaching out to touch his arm. ‘I know how you feel, Trey. I feel the same way about you. Let’s just get this over with, and then … well, let’s see what happens, OK?’
The lycanthrope nodded.
‘And I think you should stop using the thought transference spell until we find Helde. I’m sure she’s far too busy holding the Shield in place to monitor for other forms of magic being used near her, but there’s no sense in chancing it, is there? I can do without this if you’re carrying me the rest of the way.’ She extinguished the little ball of light she held, and then reached out in the darkness until she found his hand, slipping her own into it. He knelt down and she climbed up on to his back for the second time that day.
In this way the two of them made their way through the inky void to the topmost levels of Leroth.
The staircase ended in a short corridor that led to a metal-studded wooden door. Alexa climbed down and the two of them approached it, pausing for a moment before reaching out and pulling it open. There was light on the other side, provided by burning torches held in sconces on the walls. Trey’s heart beat a little faster as he realized he’d been in this passageway before. He and Charles had entered it from another direction, but this had been where they’d found the doors that led to Caliban’s rooms and next to these they’d found Gwendolin. Other memories, unbidden and painful, came flooding back to him and he closed his eyes for a moment, doing his best to extirpate them.
