Veins of Ice

by Melissa Kellogg

  They reached the flood chambers, which had waterline marks on the walls. The highest and most recent mark was one foot below the ceiling. It unnerved Karena. She held up her lantern to examine the waterlines and ponder how fast the water had flowed through there.

  Asher whispered for her, and she walked over. They had gathered around a puddle of clear venom on the floor. Rayson motioned to the next flood chamber, which was pitch black. He went first, and his lantern’s light revealed the still mouth and fangs of a gigantic basilisk. They startled and stepped back out of instinct, but they regained their composure and went to investigate.

  Inside of the massive flood chamber, the basilisk’s corpse stretched from one end of the room to the other. From its belly to the top of its spine, it was as tall as they were. It was as long as a city block. It was an apex predator that should’ve had no equal or foe in the sewers.

  “It’s enormous,” Asher whispered, his voice echoing in the space.

  Rayson nodded. “What do you think did it?”

  Asher shook his head, not knowing.

  Except for its eyes, which had been gouged out, its body was intact. But then, they noticed the strange, horizontal slash marks all along its staggering length. They took note of the huge, gaping wound behind its neck.

  “Look at the claw marks,” Karena said, pointing to them around the neck wound.

  They looked. Karena put her own hand against the scratches. The deep scores had been made by a hand wider than hers, but not by much.

  “The venom and the fangs weren’t harvested,” Jinx said. “That’s the first thing I would do if I had killed this thing. They’re one of the most valuable parts of a basilisk. Skinning it would be next. The bones would make some great potions for years to come.”

  They examined the horizontal slash wounds.

  “There isn’t any blood dripping from these cuts,” Karena said, and went back to the neck wound. There were a few streaks of blood across its dark green scales, but that was it. The snake should’ve been a bloody mess.

  She wandered to the tail of the snake where blood smeared the walls in long strokes and violent splatterings. Most likely, they were from when the monstrous snake had been thrashing around as it tried to escape its tormentor. For a cryptid of that size, it should’ve been able to flee and return to the sewer canals, even if it was injured, but it had been killed before it was able to. She wondered if it had been lured into the flood chambers and then attacked so suddenly and viciously that it hadn’t been able to slither away soon enough. Perhaps the basilisk had misjudged its prey.

  Karena went back to one of the slash wounds, which was about four feet in length, and pressed above and below it with as much force as she could. Blood didn’t ooze from the wound. The carcass was fresh, and it should’ve had blood in it. She examined the ground. The ground wasn’t soaked with blood. It was a mystery she wanted to solve.

  Karena said, “Let’s cut this thing open.”

  “We don’t have the tools to dissect it. We would have to go back to the truck,” Asher said, examining the basilisk’s head. Shadows softly clung to his face, and the glow from his lantern highlighted the concerned look in his eyes. It was clear that he shared the same uneasy feeling everyone else felt.

  “Hang on, I can find something long and make it sharp,” Blade said, and disappeared back the way they had come. He came back with a flattened iron rod.

  “Please don’t tell me you found it in the sewer water or anywhere near those channels,” Jinx said.

  “It was sticking out of the wall, so I think it’s sanitary enough.”

  “Let’s hope it wasn’t a key structural support piece,” Rayson grumbled, but good-natured.

  Blade sharpened it by hovering his hand over it. Sparks and shards flew from one side of it as he shaped a razor’s edge. He stuck it inside the giant snake and jerked it through the creature’s flesh. He withdrew the rod, jabbed it into the center of the deep cut he had made, and lifted his end upwards, so that the flesh parted and they could peer inside.

  “It’s dry inside,” Karena said, and looked at the others who were equally as puzzled.

  Her stomach churned, not from the horrendous smell in there, but because something was horribly wrong. Nothing was making sense. They had more questions than answers, and it worried her. After dealing with that wyvern the other day, she was more than a little jumpy.

  “All of its blood was drained out. That’s why there’s all these slashes,” Jinx said, and her hand returned to her nose and mouth to try to block the stench of the sewers.

  “Who or what would want its blood, but not its flesh?” Karena asked.

  “Blade, cut closer to the ground,” Asher said.

  Blade did so. Once again, the slitted flesh, no matter how deep, didn’t yield any blood.

  A pitter-patter sound caused Karena to freeze. Better run, run, run her blood sang inside of her. From sensing danger, her life force rushed through her. We are not alone it continued until she shut it out.

  She straightened up from her crouched position by the basilisk, and held out her lantern. She washed the walls in light, and listened. A scuffling sound followed by something crunching floated to her ears. She walked towards the end of the snake, and the arches that led into more flood chambers. A shadow flitted just out of reach of her lantern’s light. It crossed the space between the arches, too fast for her to see. Whatever it was, it was in the other flood chamber, masked by complete darkness. Asher’s warm presence came up behind her. Jinx and Blade joined her.

  Suddenly, some kind of being flung itself at them from the pitch-black depths of the flood chamber before her. Her lantern’s light shined through its emaciated frame, filtering through a ribcage where heavy organs pulsed and quivered. In those brief seconds, that was all she could see. Whatever it was, it closed in with wicked speed. Asher jumped in front of her and blasted it with fiery hell. Blood burst from the creature, and then it dissolved into ash. The rancid air sweltered until Karena brought it back down to a normal temperature.

  They stared at the blood on the ground, not understanding why its organs had erupted as it had or what they were up against. Then they heard it, the telltale signs that the creature hadn’t been alone. Teeth on teeth grinded in the darkness, angry. Clicking noises echoed.

  “Run!” Asher shouted.

  Rayson led the way, and they sprinted after him. They flew through the tunnels, over the bridges, and to the ladder. Asher barked at Rayson to go first, followed by Blade, and then Jinx. From her training as a cryptid hunter, Karena didn’t take this personally. She was a Chaos elemental. The most powerful people stayed behind in a dangerous situation until everyone less capable of defending themselves had escaped.

  “Go!” Asher said to her, flashing her a scared look.

  He sent a whoosh of fire into the tunnel, which lit it up and illuminated the skeletal forms of whatever those creatures were before they scurried away from the fire.

  Rung after rung, Karena climbed. It felt like she couldn’t ascend fast enough. The rising temperature caused her to sweat. At the top, Blade pulled her up and away from the manhole. Below, they saw a flash of fire.

  “Asher, get out of there!” Karena shouted down the manhole. On all fours, she looked down the manhole, trying to see if he was making his way up.

  After what felt like forever, he popped his head out of the sewer, and they grabbed him and heaved him out. They shut the manhole cover onto the hole, and Jinx sealed it with a spell. Karena clutched her chest from the scare. It took her a minute to realize she was still clutching Asher’s arm with her other hand, and she pried herself from him.

  “It burst with blood,” Karena said. “It had organs filled with blood.”

  Blade said, “I didn’t get to see; it happened too quick.”

  “It moved fast,” Jinx said, and shuddered.

  “What’s worse, is that there’s more of them down there,” Asher said, eyeing the manhole cover.

&
nbsp; “How many more?” Rayson asked.

  Asher shook his head. He said, “It was impossible to tell. All I know is that if they can take down a basilisk, which I think they did, then we need a team of highly skilled and powerful magical people to destroy them. They’re in the sewers today, but they could find a way out to the surface by tonight.”

  “What do you think they are?”

  “I wish I knew, but my thoughts go first to a necromancer. However, a necromancer would’ve immediately harvested the snake for its venom and fangs, instead of letting the venom spill onto the ground. I have no idea what is down there, and I almost feel as though I don’t want to know,” Asher said.

  “Do you think it was a reanimated corpse that leapt out at us?” Jinx suggested.

  Karena said, “Zombies don’t move that fast, especially when decayed or emaciated to that degree. After we killed the first one, the others started communicating to each other. So whatever is down there has its own intelligence, and therefore, they aren’t corpses, but living entities.”

  Asher shifted his focus to Rayson. He said to Rayson, “Don’t go back down into the sewers. We’re going to return to headquarters and inform Captain Valmar about what we saw. He’ll figure out how to proceed forward with this investigation. We have your contact information in the folder, and someone will let you know what will be done.”

  “I hope something will be done soon. My job is to monitor the sewers,” Rayson said, his thin moustache twitching as he pouted a little in worry. Despite how filthy of a job it was, it was obvious he was dedicated to his job.

  “I understand,” Asher said. “I don’t think I’ll need to prod anyone to hurry in regards to wrapping up this case.”

  They left to go report to Captain Valmar. This time Karena drove the truck. She couldn’t wait to take a shower and change into a fresh uniform. A putrid smell clung to her. Either she had stepped in something, or the odor in the sewers had latched onto her in a rotting, death grip. She couldn’t tell what it was, but concluded it was similar to the smell of dog poop and sulfur.

  Deep in thought and worry, Asher was silent and stared at the dashboard.

  Troubled, he said, “If they could kill a basilisk, then they could’ve easily have wiped us out. Why do you think they hesitated? They must’ve known we were down there the moment we got off the ladder rungs.”

  “Their mindset might not be human or animal. An animal would’ve defended its territory, which we would’ve been entering, especially on a kill site. A human mindset would’ve been to back off, or attack as a group. Maybe that one that leapt at us was a scout, to test what our reaction would’ve been. Once the others saw it, they started to devise an attack strategy.”

  Asher mulled this over. “You’re really smart and observant, you know that,” he said.

  “Thank you. But you don’t need to flatter me. Observation and critical thinking are part of the job, and very necessary.”

  “I wasn’t giving you a compliment for the sake of it. I meant it.”

  She glanced at him, seeing the sincerity in his eyes. “Anyways, I’m still trying to wrap my mind over the fact that its organs were carrying blood, like a…….,” she said, her voice trailing off. She didn’t what to say it.

  “Like a vampire’s would.”

  Karena shuttered. “It has to be something else. The vampires were wiped out. There might’ve been some that were smuggled out of the Sundarin Nation, or fled into the Wildlands, or went somewhere else. But they can’t be here. We would’ve surely have noticed their presence. Everyone says that they are gone for good. We would’ve seen a sign.”

  “I agree. If they were vampires, they would’ve gone after human blood, not a snake’s. A basilisk is far harder to kill than an unsuspecting human. Captain Valmar will take care of this. He’ll know what to do,” Asher said.

  As Karena navigated through the Air district, she prayed that there was a simple answer to their many questions, and that they were getting worked up over nothing. If there were vampires amongst them, the ramifications of such a discovery would send everyone reeling. But vampires wouldn’t be lurking in the sewers, like the rats. From what she had been taught about vampires, they wouldn’t live like that. They craved power and wealth, and the sewers were the exact opposite of those things.

  Karena convinced herself that what they had come across in the sewers was some unknown, unidentified cryptid, and that it would be figured out soon enough. Everyone had made it out alive, and that’s all that mattered.

  Chapter 15

  After dealing with the potato gnomes for their second assignment, they were now on their third and final one for that day, which felt strange considering that it wasn’t even ten o’clock.

  At one lofty house deep in the Air district, next to a wooded area, they stopped and got out. The house was three stories tall, and flanked by massive ash trees that were of a similar height. Though partial, its tower added an additional story to the house. The tower’s adorned, conical top complimented the steep, pitched roof. A balcony on the third level wisped around the tower and across the side of the house. On the first floor, rocking chairs leaned back next to wicker tables on the porch.

  “I can see why she has had problems in the past with cryptids getting into her attic. The trees are like a ladder to it,” Jinx said. She tugged at the ends of her damp hair.

  They walked up to the house. Daffodil-yellow curtains fluttered around the open windows as the spring breeze drifted in. Asher rang the doorbell, and they waited. Karena stood at the back.

  Finally, the door was cracked open by an elderly woman.

  “Thank goodness you showed up. I’ve been worried sick,” the woman gasped, and her grey eyes traveled to each one of them, and settled on Karena. They clouded over in anger.

  Asher shifted his weight. Now his shoulder blocked most of Karena’s view of the elderly woman, and hence, the elderly woman’s view of her.

  “We’re from the Archelm City Cryptid Hunting Headquarters,” Asher said, and Jinx handed him the folder from her satchel, somehow having known what he wanted. Asher cracked it open, and made a show out of going through it.

  Asher continued, “The report says that multiple cryptids have invaded your attic space, and that you believe they could be Carrion monkeys.”

  “Yes, yes, they’re up there,” she said in an irritated way.

  Karena couldn’t see her, but from her tone, she seemed reluctant to let them in now.

  “And your name is Mrs. Whitefield?”

  “Correct.”

  “We can come back later if now is not a good time,” Asher said, “but it might not be until tomorrow.”

  “Oh, no, no, no. I want them gone. The last time was awful. Those foul primates dragged carcasses in from outside and it made a huge, stinky mess. Even after the restoration team came in and cleaned up everything, I could still smell that rank odor for months. I can’t believe this has happened again to me. The sooner you get rid of those horrid creatures, the better,” she said, and held open the door.

  “Let me introduce ourselves—.”

  Mrs. Whitefield cut him off, “Just come in already. We don’t need introductions. You’ll be out of here soon enough anyways, and I won’t remember your names by the end of the day.”

  They entered her home. It was as bright in there as it was outside, not only because of all the windows, but also because the light bounced off of the cream-colored walls and sand-colored floors. Darker paint would’ve absorbed some of it. The entry way, though narrow, felt spacious because of its tall ceiling height.

  Mrs. Whitefield led the way, not at all concerned about how rude she had been and still was. Karena felt unwelcome. On the landing of the third floor, Mrs. Whitefield stopped and put her hand on the handle of the nearby door.

  With pursed lips, Mrs. Whitefield said, “This leads into the tower of the house. If you go up the short stairs in there, you will find yourselves on the top level of the house, and in my tea
room. There’ll be another door on the side, which will take you into the attic space. Make sure to close it when you enter so that they don’t get out.”

  Karena couldn’t imagine carrying a tray of cups and a full pot of tea up four flights of stairs just to drink it in that room. Or maybe there was a pulley system to lift stuff up to the other rooms.

  Asher was the first to go in, and they followed. They closed the door behind them, leaving Mrs. Whitefield in the hallway. To their right, a spiral staircase coiled upwards. In front of them, a study room sulked in the sunlight that flooded in from the bay of windows. Due to the nocturnal nature of such a room in the house, the shelves of books, armchairs, desks, card tables, and cozy lamps snoozed until either the curtains could be drawn or night came.

  They went up the staircase to the next floor. Now they were in Mrs. Whitefield’s tea room. Doilies had taken over the room, like an explosion of lace spider webs that had found their way onto and under everything. They were even on the walls where they had been stretched like animal skins inside of wooden, embroidery hoops.

  Karena turned away from the room, as did the others, and they put their attention to the door in there. Sounds of scratching and scurrying reached their ears. A key stuck out of the door’s lock. Asher twisted it, and the door clicked. Jinx approached the door. She coaxed a spell into life with both of her hands. She tossed it under the sliver of space between the door and the floor. She closed her eyes, and her fingers scooted the spell along.

  “There isn’t anything by the door that’s alive within a fifteen-foot radius. There’s some boxes of stuff off to the sides the attic, and a mirror of some sort, but that’s it,” Jinx said, and opened her eyes.

  Jinx clasped her hands together. She muttered, and light shone through her hands.

  “Ready?” Asher asked.

  “Yup,” Jinx said, standing next to him with cupped hands

  He wrenched open the door, taser ready, and entered in first. Jinx followed as close as a shadow to him, and the light flew out of her hands. It zoomed into the dark, seeking it, as though chasing its imaginary prey. Blade and Karena jumped in, and shut the door behind them.