by Kait Nolan
Sophie motioned him over to one of them. “Put your hand in its mouth. You should feel a sort of lever.”
Mick eyed the open mouth. They were too small, too stylized to be real gargoyles, so he stepped forward and did as she asked. His fingers brushed rough stone, then a bit of smooth wood carved in a rustic sort of lever. “Found it. Now what?”
Opposite him, Sophie slid her hand into the other gargoyle’s mouth. “On my mark,” she said. “One, two, pull.”
Curling his fingers, Mick shifted the lever toward him.
There was a pop, followed by a wheeze of air, as if the tomb had been air-locked. As a Council hiding space, maybe it was. The door shifted up a couple of inches, then swung inward, leaving an entrance into darkness.
Casting another quick look around, Sophie raised her hand, generating another blue energy field like the one she’d made at the apartment. Using its faint glow to light her way, she stepped carefully over the threshold. Mick was right behind. The ceiling was so low he had to stoop or bump his head.
As he crossed the threshold himself, the door began to swing closed. He sprang toward it, his heart thudding with sudden panic, but Sophie said, “Leave it. I know how to get back out.”
It fell shut with a definitive clang that left him short of breath. “Is that really necessary? Can’t you just grab it and let’s go?”
“It’s not here.” In the faint blue glow cast by her energy field, he could see Sophie looking around.
“What do you mean it’s not here?” Mick could hear the tinge of panic in his voice and fought to level it out. Not locked in, he told himself. The door’s right behind. “Did someone take it?”
“I mean that it’s not here in this tomb. This is just the doorway to the catacombs.”
“There are no catacombs in New Orleans.”
With a rasping noise came a tiny wick of flame that grew as she applied it to a waiting torch. The panic didn’t dim much as the torchlight showed him the confines of the crypt. Sophie moved over to a huge stone slab where a body would usually be laid out. This one was, thankfully, unoccupied.
“Help me shift this.”
Grateful to have something else to focus on, he joined her, heaving the slab aside to reveal a stone staircase spiraling down into darkness.
“Grab the torch,” she said.
He did, bringing it back to illuminate the stairs. And the smooth black water that covered them about five feet down. Now he understood why she’d left the phones. “You didn’t say we’d need scuba gear.”
“We don’t.”
She stretched out her hands. At first nothing happened. Then the surface of the water began to ripple and sink. Mick glanced at her face, snared by the electric blue eyes that flashed with lightning and power. The tomb shuddered as the water receded, frothing and bubbling as she seemed to push it back into the ground, clearing the path below.
“Holy Moses,” he muttered. “What are you?”
“My family tree isn’t exactly a priority right now. Give me the torch.”
Mick handed it over, noting the tension in her back. “You’re still holding all that water back, aren’t you? It’s not gone.”
“Right. So we need to hurry.” She stepped over the ledge and started the descent.
Underground. It had to be underground. The wolf paced restlessly under his skin. Neither part of him liked enclosed spaces. At all. But, resolutely, he followed Sophie down the stairs, stepping carefully to avoid slipping in the still wet stone. To distract himself, he started asking the questions that had been spinning in his brain since the ransom call. “Who else knows about this Devil’s Eye? I mean, I’ve never heard of it.”
“You wouldn’t. It was lost to legend for centuries.”
“How did you find out about it?”
She hesitated a moment. “I was part of the retrieval team. We were following up on some rumors for the Council, trekking through the wilds of—well you don’t need to know where. Let’s just say we were feeding our inner Indiana Jones. And then it turned out that it wasn’t a rumor, wasn’t myth. The artifact was real. We didn’t know what it was when we brought it back. I still don’t know exactly what it does, just that it’s extremely dangerous. After some deliberation, the Council decided it was best hidden again, and a core group of us brought it here. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, it’s still lost.”
“It has to be someone from that core group, doesn’t it? Who’s got Liza, I mean. Those of you who placed it here in the first place. Or at least somebody who knew you were part of that mission.”
“That does seem likely,” she admitted.
They paused at the bottom of the steps to take in the long, dark tunnel stretching before them. Water dripped onto the torch; it hissed and sputtered in protest. The air was dank, reeking of sour mud. Mick felt vaguely sick as he thought of how much earth and stone stretched above them.
Sophie was already moving forward, taking the light with her. Mick noted that the walls were studded with bones. Thousands of them in a filthy, imitation of the catacombs he’d once seen in Paris. Except these were odd shaped. Then he realized that the tunnel was lined with the bones of other Mirus. Cheery.
Picking up the pace to catch up to Sophie and the light, his foot kicked something that made an odd muffled noise. Definitely not the hollow click of bone. He called Sophie over with the torch.
“Flippers,” he said. “And a dive mask. We weren’t the first ones to come down here.” He stood and started walking again. “Could be that kidnapping Liza was a Plan B. You think he targeted you because Liza was easy leverage or because you were the only one who could access it? Obviously somebody didn’t have any luck this way.”
She shot him a glance. “You’re quick, Guidry. Yeah I’m one of the few people who could do this part. I don’t know how he found out about Liza, though. I’m very close-lipped about my family. I’m careful.”
He heard what she didn’t say. That Liza wasn’t. “I never heard her say or do anything to compromise you. I’m not even sure anybody knew she had a sister.”
“Clearly somebody did. If anything happens to her I’ll never forgive myself.”
“We’re gonna get her back, Sophie. How much—” He stopped, cocking his head.
“What is it?”
“I thought I heard something.”
Stretching his senses beyond his own shallow breathing, he listened, hard. There was a strange creak and rattle, then a scuttling noise, like beetles or rats. Lifting his nose, he sniffed, but there was nothing beyond the stench of mud and stale air. Frowning he moved several paces back the way they’d come, out of the circle of torchlight. He heard the scuttling noise again, closer.
“There’s somethin’ down here.”
“Do you think we were follow—” Sophie’s question ended with a scream.
Mick whirled in time to see hands dragging her into the depths of the tunnel before the torch hit the ground and went out.
~*~
Sophie screamed again in the sudden darkness. She bucked and twisted, straining to break free of the hands that dug into her shoulders and waist even as she fought the panic flooding through her. If she lost control, the water would come crashing back and drown them both. Her feet were already getting soaked as the things dragged her deeper into the tunnel. Pulling on years of training, Sophie shoved the fear aside and jammed her elbow back hard.
It should have hit tissue hard enough to drive the air from her assailant’s lungs. Instead pain shot down her arm as it caught a glancing blow off of something smooth and hard. She tried to pivot, but another one grabbed her free arm, wrenching it back. Pain bloomed in her shoulder and the earth trembled as water began to rain from the ceiling.
“No!” she shouted.
A roar echoed in the tunnel. The creatures shrieked and chittered. Then suddenly she was free, the bony hands knocked away as something rocketed into them.
No, not something. Mick.
Sophie st
umbled away from the snarling, splashing mass and blocked them out, stretching out her mind and shoving at the weight of the water. It was so heavy in her mind, pressing in on all sides. Her body shook with the effort of forcing it away again.
Something nudged her hip, and she shrieked, raising her hands, lightning balling in her palm. She managed to stop herself from striking out as the flickering light revealed a huge black wolf. He nudged her hip again, pushing her back toward the entrance. Sophie lifted her hand high, looking down the tunnel.
Bits of skeletons were scattered across the floor. Skeletons. No wonder she hadn’t hit flesh. As she looked, the torso of one rolled over and began groping its way toward them. More skeletal figures emerged, their bony fingers outstretched, their mouths gaping and closing with a clack! as they ran with their stumbling, shuffling gait.
“Run!” she shouted, sprinting away from the entrance.
Beside her, Mick snarled and nipped at her heels, trying to herd her back toward the stairs.
“I know where I’m going. Come on!”
Hands reached out from the walls, grasping at her hair, tugging her clothes, making her stumble. She tore free, focusing furiously on shoving every last drop of standing water deeper into the ground. Dry, dry. It has to be dry. If she fired off any of her lightning with water on the ground, she risked electrocuting Mick. His rubber-soled boots had gone the way of the rest of his clothes when he shifted.
Almost there.
Something burst out of the wall to Sophie’s left, and her shoulder sank into rotting flesh. Arms came hard around her, a clumsy vice grip. Suppressing a gag at the putrid smell, Sophie slammed her head back against the zombie’s. Her vision went blurry, and she heard a satisfying crunch before the arms fell away. Shoving hard, she stumbled back.
A stream of zombies shambled out of this new breach in the wall, moving fast. So fast. These were the newly dead, flesh still clinging to bone, desperate with hunger. Mick lunged, his massive jaws closing around a neck and shaking hard until it cracked, then dropping it and lunging again. One after another, more peeled away, coming for her.
She drew her Sig Sauer and fired, knowing the special rounds weren’t coded for zombies. The one in the lead stumbled, and fell, so she kept firing, aiming for their heads. But it wasn’t enough. There were too many. Sophie screamed as they converged around her, clawing, pulling, biting. She collapsed under their weight.
Mick roared, and she could hear him fighting his way toward her.
“Stay back!” she shouted. “Mick, get back!”
Lightning exploded out of her. Flesh burned and bones splintered. Chunks of blackened zombie hit the walls with a squishy thud. Sophie scrambled to her feet, looking for Mick who crouched a dozen yards away, ears flattened. He huffed a noise that might have been approval before yipping a warning and tossing his head. She turned in the direction he’d indicated and shot out another volley of lightning. The approaching pair of zombies splattered.
The stench of burned flesh was so strong, she gagged as she tried to shout, “Move! Move!”
They scrambled around a corner and nearly skidded into the wall. In the strobing light of her lightning ball, Sophie could see the door to the vault at the far end of the tunnel.
And between them and it, a veritable army of the dead.
Panic beat a hard tattoo in her chest. Her head ached with the strain of holding back water. Mick pressed so close to her side, she could feel the vibration of his growl. From behind she could hear the grumbling, growling advance of more. Trapped on both sides.
No. No it wasn’t going to end like this.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
He bumped his head against her hip in a gesture she took to mean yes.
“Stay close.”
Sophie curled her fingers in the ruff of Mick’s neck to ground him and opened herself, reaching deep, beyond the wall of water, above the dirt and stone into the atmosphere. She pulled, using herself as a conduit and throwing the energy out in a sparking, multipronged attack that lit up every zombie with an ounce of flesh. As body parts splatted to the ground, Sophie swayed, tasting blood. But the way was clear.
She let Mick go, and he leapt forward to take out the skeletons still standing. Dizzy, Sophie fastened her gaze on the vault door, staggering through carnage as Mick shattered bone. Twenty feet. Ten. Almost there.
Sophie made a lunge for the door just as an enormous figure separated itself from the wall. Its huge jaws gaped with a roar that shook the earth above, and it lashed out at her with one vicious swipe. Mick threw himself forward, his momentum knocking the claw away, just inches from Sophie’s back. He slid down the smooth bone, crying out as the claws raked his side.
“Mick!”
But he disengaged and rolled, coming up to face the creature, blood streaming from his side.
A Karu. Had to be. Only a bear shifter would be that huge.
It reared up with another roar, empty eye sockets tracking Mick as he moved warily from one side to the other. He feinted left and lunged right, coming up fast to bite through one clawed arm at the elbow.
Sophie whirled for the vault door. The wheel of the lock was cold in her hands, reluctant to move. “Come on!” she snarled, yanking hard. With a screech the lock gave way and began to spin.
She glanced over her shoulder at Mick. With impossible speed, the creature knocked him back into a wall. She heard his breath woosh out. But he was up, dodging in seconds.
The clang of the releasing lock echoed in the tunnel. Sophie tugged the door open and shouted, “Mick, hurry!”
He dove for the open door, rolling into the dark.
Outraged, the creature roared and charged. Sophie slammed the door shut and latched it just as the Karu thudded against the heavy metal.
Then all was suddenly quiet.
“Mick?” Witchlight sprang up around the room, a faint green glow responding to the presence of the living.
“Here,” he rasped.
Sophie scrambled over and knelt before him, searching his bare side for the wound. It had healed on his shift back to human.
“Are you okay?” she demanded.
His face was gray, but he nodded. “Let’s just get the damned Eye and be done with this.”
A voice echoed against the walls of the chamber. “At last. I thought you’d never get here.”
Chapter 4
Sophie whirled, lifting her hand rather than the gun as she sought the source of the voice that was at once liquid smooth and ancient.
A trap, she thought.
For a fleeting moment she wondered if it was the voice from the ransom call, and she found herself scanning the room for evidence of Liza. But no. That voice had been distorted, but still undeniably human. This voice was something else. Lightning sparked in her palm, but it lit nothing other than the raised dais upon which the Devil’s Eye lay in an open, titanium case.
“Stand down little goddess. Your powers can do nothing against me.”
Behind her, Mick scrambled to his feet, automatically moving to block her from the source of the voice.
“I’ll take my chances,” she said, eyes darting around the space. There was simply nowhere for someone to hide. “Who are you?”
“I have been many things over the centuries. Almost all of them have been faces of death.”
What. The. Hell. This was so not good.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
The voice chuckled. “That is not a question I am accustomed to hearing. No one asks what they can do for the devil, only what the Devil in the Eye can do for them.”
Smoke boiled out of the darkness, out of the Eye, coalescing into a form in front of the dais. It was vaguely human shaped. Two arms, two legs, nearly seven feet tall and blue. It was the deep blue of the edge of twilight, accented with swirling silver runes over every inch. Ropy muscle corded its limbs, but that wasn’t what gave the impression of power. No, that was its eyes—wholly black with a pinpoint of red wh
ere the pupil should be, like a tiny, burning coal.
Just ahead of her, Mick was growling, a low rumble of menace. If he’d been in fur, his hackles would have been standing straight up. Eyes on the creature, he repositioned himself in front of her, which didn’t block much of her view given the size of the thing.
“Demon.” The word came out distorted, as if he were speaking around extra teeth.
The demon looked amused at the protective show. Something in the cast of its smile told Sophie that they were still breathing only because this thing had not willed it otherwise.
“The wolf is quite right. I find it curious that you have come all this way, fought through my guardians, returned to where you left me seven years past, and still did not know to expect me.”
This? Sophie thought. This is what I was transporting all those years ago?
“You weren’t exactly a visible part of the entourage,” she said.
It lounged back against the dais and crossed its legs. “Yes, well, there were no particularly interesting hosts among your party. And I had no way of knowing that you all intended to stick me down here where no one would find me. I felt sure that once you trekked out of the jungle, you would take me to a worthy host. But you, you I think I misjudged.”
Sophie ignored the look of interest the demon gave her and asked faintly, “Host?”
“Yes, yes,” it said impatiently. “I must bind to my master in order to wield the full extent of my powers. Nasty technicality, that. It was never a problem, you see, until the Empire fell and the Eye was lost.”
“What Empire?” asked Mick.
“The Mayan Empire, of course,” it said, as if this should be perfectly obvious.
“But we found the Eye in Peru,” said Sophie.
“Why do you think I was lost in the first place? The holy lord Xipe Totec really should have thought it through a bit more before he had me wipe it out. And I did warn him that humans tend not to survive inter-dimensional travel well. Did he listen? Of course not. So I sent him through, and he died, and I wound up in the middle of nowhere for nine hundred incredibly boring years.”
