by Jamie Davis
There were no side passages for some time and so no decisions about direction needed to be made. They continued on their gentle downward slope for about ten minutes without any changes. While the passage wasn’t completely straight, they could see some distance ahead of them with a slight bend in the distance blocking their view. That was why the attack came as a complete surprise.
They had only occasionally looked upwards to check the uneven ceiling. There were the supports that held up the lower sections of the passage but the rest of the ceiling arched upward in dark pockets of shadows that Dean couldn’t pierce. There was an upward shaft leading to another level that Jaz missed as she passed under it. A shape dropped down directly in front of Dean between he and Jaz and with the powerful sweep of one arm, knocked him to the ground. He had barely shouted his pain and alarm at the sudden blow before the attack happened.
Jaz didn’t have much notice, but Dean saw that it was enough. She twisted in place and grabbed the outstretched clawed hand that reached for her neck, pulling it and using its own momentum to propel the assailant past her into the passage ahead. She was knocked to the ground but had avoided the brunt of the attack. Dean still couldn’t make out what it was that attacked. They were between lanterns in the passage so he couldn’t make out details, just that it crouched to the ground and was snarling and growling. It landed on the ground just past Jaz and turned to leap back at her where she had been knocked against the wall. Dean was sure that she was going to be unable to defend against it as she struggled to rise.
Jo rocketed past him in a bound. She had her hands outstretched and he could make out her saying something under her breath as she went by. A cobalt blue light glowed from her hands and then he could see a similar glow appear around Jaz. The creature reached the glowing boundary around Jaz and shrieked in pain, drawing backward for a moment. That was all the time the hunter needed to recover. She turned, sweeping her sword through the air and the creature’s head was rolling off its shoulders, a brief fountain of blood, colored black in the darkness of the passage, appearing in its place. Then the body collapsed to lie next to the head, still rocking in place on the ground. A moment later, the body and detached head disappeared in a red mist.
“What the hell was that?” Dean asked in a whisper. He tried hard to keep his voice under control but he wanted to scream. He hated getting startled like that. It was why he avoided haunted houses.
“Another Oni demon,” Jaz replied. “It must have been set there to guard the passage. Well, where there is one, there are likely others. It just adds to the things we have to watch out for. This one was on me. I should have checked the ceilings for hiding places.”
Dean was glad she could so easily adjust to the advent of a new threat. His heart was still pounding out of his chest. He needed a minute to collect himself and the women paused to wait for him to get squared away. He could see them exchanging glances, but he didn’t care. He was a paramedic. He was not trained to go into dark places and fend off attacks from monsters and demons. Dean took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves and then nodded that he was ready to go on.
A short time later the passage opened up into a small chamber with two other passages branching off from it. The three of them used the small room to take a brief break while deciding to move onward. Jaz checked the passages leading deeper inside the mountain. One sloped upward from the chamber, the other continued down, deeper into the mines. Keeping their voices low, they talked over their options.
“I can see where both branches show signs of recent usage, so I’m not sure which one to take,” the hunter said. “Dean, does anything look familiar yet?”
He shook his head. “The general look and feel is right so I think this is where they are holding Ashley, but I haven’t picked up on any specific landmarks yet. If anything draws me one way or another, it is to take the downward passage. It feels right.”
“I’d go with his feelings on this, Mom,” Jo added, ignoring the look Jaz shot her. “He’s the one who’s come closest to walking this path before.”
“Well it’s as good a choice as the other,” Jaz said rising to her feet. “Let’s get going.”
Dean got up and joined them as they continued on the descending path. He was frustrated. Every wall, lantern and support looked the same to him. He tried to watch and pay attention to the little differences, but he could detect nothing. Then, when the path had leveled out for a bit, he saw a passage branch off ahead. He whispered for Jaz to stop. Jo came up to join the other two.
“This looks familiar,” Dean said. “I think that side passage leads to the cell where Ashley is being held.”
Jaz nodded and turned back to look up the length of the passageway. Dean looked around and followed her gaze. Still no sign of anyone else, which was good news. They were on an even tighter guard since the demon had attacked them. Jaz had figured it had been an isolated sentry set there to guard the entrance passage. They moved up to where the passage branched and Dean looked left and recognized the passage he had seen in his first vision. There was a stout door about ten feet down the passage. It stood open, not closed as he had seen it before.
Before she could stop him, Dean rushed past Jaz and ran into the small room where Ashley was held. Correction. Where she had been held. He saw the armchair there where she had been tied up. The ropes that had secured her were coiled and looped over the back of the chair spindles. Jaz and Jo joined him looking at the chair.
“This was where they were holding her,” Dean said. The room was tiny and probably served as a secure storeroom when the mine was in operation. It only had the one exit. “Where is she?”
“She didn’t escape or get rescued,” Jo said.
“Why do you say that?” Dean asked. He wanted to think she had gotten away.
“The ropes,” she said, pointing to the chair. “They’re coiled. Whoever took her, took the time to leave the ropes in a way that they can be used again. My guess is that she was taken somewhere else in here and they expect to bring her back here later.”
“Good thinking, Joanna,” Jaz said. “So do we keep looking for her or wait here for them to bring her back?”
“We have to keep looking,” Dean said. “Who knows what they are doing to her right now. She’s an immortal, but that doesn’t mean she can’t feel pain.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong, Dean,” Jaz said. “We can go on searching and return here if we don’t find anything or anyone else down here. We know she’s been here and will likely be returned here.”
“I say we keep going,” Jo said, adding her opinion to the mix. “We only suspect they’ll come back with her, and every minute we spend waiting is that much sooner that any of the demons might return from the attack on the cabin.”
Jaz thought for a moment and nodded. “I’m inclined to agree, Jo. Let’s keep going and find her. Dean, can you find the path from here to the room with the portal? My guess is they are trying to use her in some way to hold the breach in the wards between our world and the netherworld open.”
“I think I will recognize it,” Dean said. “It has to be close to this location. Let’s keep going down the main passage and see where it leads.”
“Be ready for anything,” Jaz said. “If I were the leader of this group of revenants from the netherworld, I’d be at the nexus of the connection.”
Dean found his hand drifting upward to the sword again and then pulled his hand back. The sword was still there, and checking on it would only make him look scared. He couldn’t let that happen in front of either of his companions. Sure, it was a stupid macho thing, but it also helped him stay focused on them and not his own quivering fear. He never liked enclosed spaces and thinking of how deep they were in the mountain with tons of rock overhead just made his knees weak.
Jaz took the lead again and Jo had moved up closer to Dean rather than hanging further back and checking behind them. All eyes were focused forward. It didn’t take too long for the sound of the rhythmic c
hanting to resonate up the passage to them. The grunting and snarling nature of the voices grated on his eardrums and made Dean’s skin crawl. They sounded as inhuman as the beings to whom they must belong.
The three companions stopped at a bend in the passage. There was flickering purple light pulsing from beyond the turn ahead. The chanting was clearer now. It was not a language Dean recognized, if it was a language at all. For all he knew it could be a random collection of phonetic sounds. Dean looked at his colleagues as they paused in the passage and Jo answered the question.
“It’s Aramaic, an ancient language used by many netherworlders, as well as their divine counterparts,” she whispered. “I don’t speak it, but I know enough words to recognize it. I can feel the power emanating from down the passage. They are casting some sort of spell. Whatever they are trying to do down there, it takes a lot of magical energy. The air is crackling with it.”
“I think we have found the portal room,” Jaz said. She looked at each of them. “When we round that corner we need to have a plan of what we are going to do. Dean, if Ashley is in there, our goal will be to get to her first. Once we get there, while Jo and I keep them busy, you try and free her. Get her out and away if you can. That is our priority. If we have to beat a hasty retreat, we want her to be able to join us.”
She turned her attention to the Wiccan teen. “Jo, can you draw on that sun-fire spell again?”
“Yes,” Jo nodded. “But only once, or maybe twice. I have some other tricks, though, and the Glock. I can cover my area of responsibility.” She patted the gun holstered at her side.
“Okay, then. Based on how you described the portal chamber you saw, Dean, it’s a big room.” Jaz looked to him for confirmation and Dean nodded. “We will get as close as we can without being seen, and try to see how many we are dealing with in the way of guards and revenants.” She paused for a moment and looked at the passage around them. “Okay, I have an idea. Give me a second to rig something here in the passage.”
Dean watched as the hunter took off her pack and started pulling a few items from it. He recognized several blocks of C-4 plastic explosive. She took some sort of metal stick and shoved one into each of the blocks. The huntress walked over to the nearest ceiling support where it met the vertical wall support beam and slid the block into a narrow crevice between the rock wall and the wooden crossbar that supported it. When she was finished placing the charges, she came back over to them and handed Dean a small hand-held device.
“That is a detonator, Dean,” Jaz said. “If you get Ashley free and you are the last one out, or the only one of us left, you run past here as fast as you can with her and once you are around the bend, flip up the safety and hit the button hard, twice. Two times, close together or it won’t work. Got it?”
He nodded, and started to argue the specifics of what she wanted him to do. She shut him down with a hand raised in the air.
“Jo and I are going to be busy in there, at least in the beginning,” Jaz said. “In all likelihood, we will be running along with you when you blow the passage. But one way or another, someone needs to seal up this portal for the time being until the magic dissipates and it closes up on its own. You’ve seen what these demons will do if they get loose. We can’t let them run wild in the valley, or get into more populated areas.”
Dean thought about all he had seen the demons do and then thought about how the average uninformed human would respond if one showed up where they lived or worked. They couldn’t be allowed to get out of this mountain. Dean nodded and slid the detonator into a cargo pocket in his duty pants.
“Alright, that’s done then,” Jaz said. “Now let’s scoot forward, carefully, and see what we can see before we go running in there.”
25
The trio crouched and advanced along the corridor until they could start to see into the chamber beyond. Just as Dean had seen in his vision, the room opened up into a huge cavern with the far reaches lost in darkness. Again Dean could hear the sound of running water in the distance. The strange, sickly purple glow filled the room with an eerie light source, casting long shadows on the floor and into the passage where they hid.
Jaz motioned them down and then forward. They all belly-crawled up to the entrance and looked into the room. There was a group of figures clustered in a semi-circle in front of the pulsing portal in the cavern wall. Dean stifled a gasp as he spotted Ashley, held between two humanoid figures in front of another robed figure who wielded a strange curved dagger. The blade was of some sort of black metal or stone and had a serpentine shape. The figure was waving it before the captive Eldara while he and the others surrounding her continued their chanting.
There were seven individuals participating in the ceremony as Dean and the others watched. The one carrying the dagger wore a brown hooded robe and only his forearms and hands showed. The skin showing was pasty and white, like the skin of a dead body drained of blood. He guessed that was the one whose head Dean had seen from when he had his visions assisted by the heavenly blade. The others were dressed in lighter tan robes. The whole group swayed in tandem with the tempo of their chants.
Jaz tapped Dean on the arm and motioned them backward into the passage. The three edged back until they were out of sight of the room’s occupants. Then they all leaned close while Jaz outlined their plan.
“Those are all revenants, unless I miss my guess. It is hard to tell for sure from behind.” Jaz said.
“So what do we do?” Dean asked. “Can we handle seven of them by ourselves? I’m not so sure we can take on that many on our own.”
“Speak for yourself, Dad,” Jo said. “Hunters have their own methods to deal with them, and I have my magical resources, too. We can beat them.”
“The bullets in our pistols are going to hurt them but not put them down permanently,” Jaz told him. “The bullets in our magazines are blessed and infused with silver and arsenic. Those will put them down if we strike clean to the head or the heart. If we miss those vital areas, the slugs will still slow them enough to do what we need to do.”
Dean shrugged. He’d have to take their word for it. “So what do I do?”
“You make a beeline for Ashley, Dean,” Jaz said. “I’m going to take on the three nearest us, then I’ll charge the lead revenant. He’ll have to pay attention to my sword. It can certainly send him back to hell, whatever protections he might have.” Jaz gave him a grim smile. “When he lets go of Ashley, pull her to the side and get her ready to run.”
She looked to Joanna and paused a moment. “You are going to have to take on the demons on the other side and then finish off any I miss from the shots I fire at the first three. Are you up to this? I hadn’t tackled anything this advanced at your age and you don’t have all my training.”
“I’ve got this,” Jo said. “You worry about the leader. I’ll make sure nothing gets you from behind.”
“Okay then.” Jaz said. “We can do this. I’ll go first, followed by Jo. Dean, you’ll follow at the rear. Stay right behind me and grab Ashley as soon as you can.”
Dean nodded, checked the sword hilt again to make sure it was there. He didn’t know much about how to use it, but it was his only weapon for defending him and Ashley once they got in there. He got in line behind Jo and watched the teen ahead of him bouncing on the balls of her feet in her black boots. She had drawn her pistol, and he saw her rack a bullet into the chamber, flicking the safety to off with her thumb. She shot him a broad grin and turned to look forward again.
Jaz gave one last check behind her to make sure they were all ready and then, with surprising speed, sprinted forward into the room. There was no battle cry or sound at all beyond the scrape of her boots on the rock of the passage floor. Jo was right behind her and Dean was left there, scrambling to catch up. Then the chaos of the battle took over.
Dean entered the chamber to see the closest of the demons in the tan robes go down as its head exploded in a shower of gore. The robe then flattened to the ground,
empty as the dispatched demon disappeared in a puff of red mist. One down. The other spun around with multiple bullet impacts and fell to the ground. Dean saw no red mist so he knew that one was still alive. The third took several shots to the torso and then misted as the robe fluttered to the ground. He followed the women in as he ran past the single creature writhing on the ground. He saw the three demons on the far side spin away under a flurry of bullets from Jo’s pistol and then a ball of white light erupted from her extended palm, consuming two that were close together. They burst into white-hot flames and soon their charred forms fell to the cavern floor.
He turned his attention to the central figure in the darker brown robes. Jaz was still several yards away, charging in. The hooded face turned and the cadaverous face with sunken red glowing eyes bored into him as it took in the attackers. The lips peeled back in a fierce grin showing dual rows of needle-like teeth in the mouth. As Dean watched in horror from where he charged up behind Jaz, the revenant took his curved dagger and plunged it into Ashley’s side, then flung her to the ground in the charging hunter’s path. Jaz had to leap to the side and that gave the revenant time to reach into its robes and draw a matching serpentine-bladed scimitar from beneath them. Dean only had a moment to take all of this in, then the hunter and the demon were battling each other with a mad, flashing flurry of blades.
Dean had no time for that, though. He had to get to Ashley. He rushed over to where she lay on the floor and gently rolled her onto her back. Blood was pouring from the wound in her side and the paramedic flung off his pack, opening the attached IFAK pouch and pulling out a trauma pressure bandage and a pack of quick-clot impregnated gauze to stop the bleeding. He ripped the package open with his teeth and pressed it deep into the gaping wound in the Eldara’s side. He followed the gauze with the trauma pressure bandage that had an absorbent pad and the dressing that could be wrapped around her torso and secured by tying on the opposite side. She was an angel on earth, but she could bleed and die. Depending on the nature of that curved blade, her fate might even be worse. He had to keep her alive.
