“You’re in the pit. I’m not sure, and I figured you’d need my help after you refused to listen to me.”
“Say again?”
“Right before you reached the top of the cliff, I picked up on Lord Belmont’s scent and tried to warn you,” he explained. “Liches have a peculiar odor, to say the least.”
“Oh,” Ethan said. “We heard you barking, or whatever, but honestly, couldn’t make out the whole warning bit.”
“Yes, I noticed.”
“Where did you get the healing potion?” Ethan asked before he sat up with a groan. His whole body ached, and a splitting headache took hold of him as well.
“In the apothecary’s room,” he said, pointing his muzzle up and to the right. “All sorts of things there. Thought you might want one when I tracked you down here.”
Ethan reached over and scratched Maii behind the ears. “Thanks.”
Maii wiggled in place and smiled. “Do that again. That felt good.”
Ethan obliged. While he indulged the jackal’s request, he had a look around. He’d been tossed into a square room made from mossy stone that had an angled ceiling. A single oil lamp burned steadily at the entrance, and a light mist partially obscured the floor, which was good because it gave Ethan a moment to realize he wasn’t in any immediate danger when he spied the corpse nearby. And then the twenty others scattered around. And then the piles of bodies crammed against the corners.
“Oh, damn,” he said. “They’re all dead, right?”
Maii snorted. “They’re certainly not at the peak of their physique, are they?”
“No, I mean, they’re not like zombies or skeletons or wraiths or whatever else Lord Belmont has around here,” Ethan explained.
Maii shook his head and dropped to his haunches. “No, they’re merely bodies at this point. Which is what the lich thought you were, I might add. I, on the other hand, knew you weren’t dead at all.”
“You did? How?”
“Gave you a nibble,” Maii said. “You tasted very much alive.”
“You ate me?”
“Nibbled.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” Maii countered. “I’ve told you, I’m not beyond eating a former master, and I was hungry. I still have a lot of growing to do, and I wasn’t about to eat one of these poor chaps. That would be disgusting.”
Ethan sighed and rubbed the back of his head, trying to ease the headache that still plagued him. As he did, he noted that the jackal looked even bigger than before. “Speaking of, am I imagining things, or have you grown since this morning?”
“Flattery, my good man, will get you everywhere,” Maii said with a bow.
“Is that a yes?”
“I can only hope.”
Though he knew that Zoey wanted to approach the subject with caution, at this point, Ethan figured if Maii wanted to do him in, he would’ve already. And he certainly wouldn’t have helped when he didn’t have to. As such, he decided to be as straightforward as possible and get right to the point. “What are you?”
Maii gave a devilish grin. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do,” Ethan said. “Out with it. You’re more than you pretend to be.”
Maii took to all fours before launching into a giant downward dog and yawning bigger than Ethan ever thought possible. When he was done, he looked at Ethan with amusement in his eyes. “Wouldn’t you rather enjoy the surprise later on?”
“No. Now, out with it. You have to obey me.”
The jackal let loose a cackling laugh. “Not on that request, I don’t,” he said. “Sorry, your ring isn’t that strong.”
Ethan frowned. “If you don’t tell me, I’m sure I can make things unpleasant for you in other ways.”
Maii strolled around Ethan before sitting down in front of him. “Now, now,” he said. “It’s for your own good that you don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if you’re ever forced to tell someone, you won’t be able to,” Maii replied.
“I think I’d rather know.”
Maii huffed and gave the length of his tail a few licks before replying. “Patience is a virtue,” he said once he was done. “You’re proving to be an exceptional companion, and so when I’m free of this ring—”
“Wait, free?”
“Yes, free,” Maii said. “You didn’t think I’d be compelled by it forever, did you?”
“Well, yes, I did.”
Maii chuckled. “Then I’d suggest you adopt a different attitude, quickly. But as I was saying, being in your presence has certainly helped speed my growth along. I’ve dined on not only a man or two, but an ettin as well. And with fate on our side, I’m hoping to help myself to a few bites of lich.” Maii paused a moment to shut his eyes and groan with pleasure. “I can only imagine what that will be like. But back to the point, keep feeding me, Ethan, and you won’t regret it.”
“Fine, but I want you to stop trying to eat me,” Ethan said.
“Nibbled,” Maii corrected yet again. “And I did stop.”
Ethan nodded with a huff, conceding the point. “I suppose I can’t be too mad, then, especially since you did bring me a healing potion.”
“Precisely,” Maii said. “I think that settles any debts owed to you for a sampling of your foot.”
After a brief lull, Maii spoke up once more. “Might I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“How did you survive getting shot?”
“Nine lives,” Ethan said with a sheepish grin.
“You’re saying you’re a cat?”
“No,” Ethan replied with a laugh, realizing that not everyone or everything in this world knew about the mechanics of the place. “I only meant I guess I managed to cheat death.”
With the healing potion now fully coursing through his veins, Ethan felt a ton better. Slowly, he took to his feet to find that almost all the pain had gone away. That lifted his spirits, but they shot far into the heavens when he inspected his chest to see only a faded scar existed where Lord Belmont had blasted him. “Damn, that stuff works.”
“That’s the whole point of the potion.”
Ethan chuckled. “So it is,” he said. He spent a moment thinking back to what he could remember, which wasn’t a lot, but it ended up being enough. “Lord Belmont has Zoey in the ritual room,” he said. “That’s where we’ve got to go.”
“To save her?”
“Yes, to save her,” Ethan said, put off. “What else would we go there for?”
“Only clarifying your desires,” Maii said. “No need to get testy.”
“Sorry.”
“Think nothing of it,” Maii said. “But before you go smashing down every door in the place trying to find her, might I suggest something?”
“Sure. What’s that?”
“Have a plan. Even if you get to Zoey and free her, Lord Belmont will tear you apart. You’ve got to get his amulet and destroy that ruby above all else.”
“Right. That’s a good point,” Ethan replied. “What do we have to work with?”
“Aside from a lot of dead bodies and whatever paltry weapons and gear we can scrounge from around here? Not a lot,” Maii said. “Everything I can see looks rusted beyond use. That said, I could probably turn you invisible once or twice, but that won’t last long. Not against a lich, anyway.”
Ethan perked. “You can? Since when?”
“Since I dined on that bounty hunter. You’re not the only one around here that grows stronger, you know.”
Ethan drummed his fingers on his side for a few moments, trying to come up with something. Sadly, he was at a loss. He also realized time was not something they could afford to squander. He was about to go ahead and wing it all when he noticed a small black pouch tied to a belt of a nearby corpse. “Is that a powder bag?” he asked.
Maii trotted over and gave it a sniff. “A full one, at that.”
Ethan looked around and saw a few other corpses with one as w
ell. “All right, Maii,” he said. “I think I’ve got an idea.”
“Is it a good one?”
“Probably not,” Ethan said. “But it’s the only one I have.”
“Well, let’s hear it,” Maii said with a sigh. “Maybe I can help make it into something decent.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Ritual
Patchouli, sandalwood, and camphor.
Those were the oils and resins burning nearby. Zoey knew there were more, but she didn’t know what. She’d been chained to a stone slab that rose four feet off the floor inside an octagonal room. Its walls rose thirty feet into the air and spanning half of them, enormous stained glass windows stretched nearly from floor to ceiling.
Three stone columns helped hold the vaulted ceiling aloft, and from them hung threadbare red-and-gold banners with a prominent family crest displayed on each. Zoey didn’t know whose family the crest belonged to, but she did think that whoever embroidered the basilisk had done an outstanding job. Normally, she’d have not even given a passing thought to such things, but focusing on them now turned out to be much more pleasant than thinking about the knife currently slicing through her forearm.
This was the third cut now, and as with the previous two, Lord Belmont picked up the blood she spilled with two fingers before using it to paint symbols on her forehead as well as his upper chest.
While this took place, the lich’s skeletal minions stood in a wide circle, pounding ox-skin drums with heavy, rapid blows that seemed to ignite the very air around her with energy. Adding to the noise were a half dozen other creatures, chanting along with Lord Belmont. These, at first glance, appeared to be humans, but on closer inspection, they, too, were members of the undead, albeit their bodies were in much better shape than their skeletal cohorts.
They sported whole bodies with mostly intact skin that had been painted white. Their eyes, cloudy and gray, stared vacantly, and the foul odor wafting off them was enough to drop even the most seasoned undertaker.
Lord Belmont’s thin black dagger flashed over her face, but this time, instead of it carving into one of her arms, she felt it open the side of her neck.
Zoey instinctively jerked away, but she didn’t get far. The chains that held her were far too strong and far too tight. The side of her neck grew warm and sticky, and she sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and decided to have at her executioner one last time.
“There’s something you should know before I die,” she said, turning her head to face him.
Lord Belmont paused, dagger in hand, and looked down at her inquisitively. “And what would that be, my dear?”
“You’ve got something on your face,” she said a split second before she spit on him.
The lich didn’t flinch. He didn’t even bother wiping it off. He looked at her with pity for a moment before gesturing to someone she couldn’t see. “Light the brazier.”
A ghast appeared near her feet, torch in hand. With it, it lit an iron brazier that was filled with oil-soaked coals. Flames immediately shot upward. Flames, Zoey noted, that were a brilliant white and gave off no heat whatsoever.
Lord Belmont dropped a withered hand on the top of Zoey’s head and drummed his fingers there. “Pity, isn’t it, that you’ll not see what great things Master Ethan will accomplish for me?”
“Screw you,” Zoey said, spitting on him once more.
Again, the lich ignored what she’d done, and instead of replying or retaliating, he rose his skull-tipped staff over her body and began swinging it in a circle, keeping in beat with the rhythm of the ritual. Words, ancient and powerful, rumbled from his mouth, sounding like mighty waves crashing against a rocky shore. “Sorogn palumili imissim aberio!”
A tingling sensation ran across her skin, and then suddenly the inside of her chest burst with agony as if sewer rats were trapped and trying to gnaw their way out. Zoey screamed as she arched her back, tugging violently against the chains.
“Exeribin ostellae loninxia!”
A dark, swirling cloud of greens and yellows took shape over her, and the lich quickly made a small incision in the middle of her chest and then cut some of her hair, dabbed it in the wound, and tossed it into the fire at her feet.
“Sinien agio!” Another cut into her body. More hair was taken and again dipped in her blood and tossed into the flames.
A crushing weight landed on Zoey’s chest, and she struggled to breathe. Her lips went numb almost instantly, as did her fingers. Consciousness, she knew, was a luxury she wouldn’t have much longer. Or perhaps, unconsciousness was a blessing she’d soon enjoy.
“Ethan,” she gasped.
Lord Belmont smirked. “Will never be joining you again.”
The lich pulled his ruby amulet from beneath his shirt and held it over her. The gem pulsed with energy, and if she concentrated on it as hard as she could, the vampire could’ve sworn she heard the sounds of hundreds, if not thousands, of voices screaming in terror.
The chanting came louder and more fervent, second only to the unrelenting beat of the drums. Black tendrils rose from the ground and snaked their way up the sides of the stone slab before entwining themselves around Zoey’s arm. As each one touched her skin, the area around froze over, and her tissue withered.
“Miliec anti-tigelie!”
Zoey’s heart stopped. Her mouth opened wider than it ever had before as she desperately tried to take in much-needed air that never seemed to fill her lungs. Cords in her neck and limbs bulged, and her muscles strained so hard that they nearly tore themselves apart.
Something sailed through the air. Something small, canister-like.
For whatever reason, Zoey’s eyes snapped to it in her final moments. She watched it, mesmerized, as it fell into the brazier.
A split second later, the world erupted in fire and flying metal.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Ruby
The smoke cleared, and Lord Belmont, full of shrapnel, roared when his amulet was no longer in his grasp.
He spun in place, swinging his skull-tipped scepter through the air as if it would connect with the head of whoever had done this. His wild attack struck nothing, and for a brief second, his furious eyes took in only the broken remains of skeletons torn apart by the blast.
But then the sounds of panicked footfalls drew his attention, and he spun one last time to see someone zipping out of the ritual room. The thief was fast, but not fast enough.
Lord Belmont leveled his staff, eager to watch the dark energies contained within and rip flesh from bone. “Tollerium carne!”
To his utmost frustration, while the skull’s eye sockets glowed briefly, nothing else happened. The staff’s energy was still drained, having been spent on the now-interrupted ritual, and it would need time to recharge.
The lich snarled. The power that usually flowed through him might have been diverted for a short while, but he was far from helpless, and the thief was about to find out how much the undead admiral was still capable of.
Lord Belmont rapped the bottom of his staff three times against the stone floor, and with each strike, he called upon words of power that had been embedded into the very stone of his fortress. “Claudere. Portas. Statimae!”
Off in the distance, faint but distinct, the sounds of rattling chain and the heavy crash of the portcullis slamming down filtered through the air. This was followed by the thunderous clapping of massive oak doors swinging shut throughout the castle, effectively cutting off all escape routes for the intruder.
“Stay here,” Lord Belmont growled to a pair of ghasts nearby. He then pointed to Zoey, who was still breathing, but currently unconscious. “And she’d better be alive when I return. If I find a single toothmark on her skin, the two of you will have a new appreciation for eternal torment.”
With that, Lord Belmont tore out of the room. As he raced down the hall and up the spiral stairs that led back to the main floor, the lich scolded himself for being so careless. Though he’d sent
scouts to the vampire’s ship to search for more crew, and he himself had made considerable effort to sniff out any other men or women who might have joined Zoey and her blood doll in their foolish crusade, he apparently had not been thorough enough.
No matter, he thought. He’d catch them soon enough, and he’d ensure that the tales of their upcoming torture wouldn’t be forgotten for a thousand years by the time he was done. It was high time, he decided, that the world saw exactly what he was capable of and what the consequences would be for those who didn’t kneel before him.
At the top of the stairs, he ran into the sunroom right as his quarry was leaving. He whipped his pistol from his belt and took a shot, but instead of taking the head off the thief, the bullet blew apart a marble bust by the doorway.
“Run, coward!” the lich yelled as he gave chase once more. “It’ll only fuel my hatred of you.”
On it went, through the debris-filled galley and then the ruined dining hall. Every time Lord Belmont thought he had him pinned or finally had a clear shot, luck interfered. As frustrating as that was, the lich knew luck only lasted for so long. More important, his guard would soon be reassembled, having healed the damage suffered by the explosion and thus would join the hunt.
The pursuit wound its way up to the second floor, and then the third, taking tours through the servant’s quarters as well as what was once the library. However, once the lich realized that there was somewhat of a method to the thief’s madness when it came to how he was taking his turns, he knew they would soon end up in the throne room.
Lord Belmont grinned to himself and instead of pursuing directly, ducked into a side hall before racing down a small spiral staircase that the cooks of old once used. Once back on the first floor, it was only a short race to the throne room. Right as he entered from one side, Ethan burst through a doorway on the other, his head turned over his shoulder.
“Master Ethan,” the lich growled, though his tone did carry a hint of respect to it. “You’re proving to be troublesome.”
Ethan’s eyes went wide with fright as he spun back around. Lord Belmont aimed and fired. Though his shot was not as lethal as he’d hoped, the lich still managed to score a hit. The bullet tore through Ethan’s outer right hip, sending him sprawling behind a column.
The Pirate (Captains & Cannons Book 1) Page 24
