Labyrinth: The Keeper Chronicles, a prequel (6 page)

She ran.

Roots and sticks stabbed her feet as she fled, the pain sharp and red against the green, but she didn’t dare to stop.

Everything in this labyrinth had one purpose: to hunt her.

She shivered to think of what would happen when it caught her.

*              *              *

“Now, you can't go in there half-cocked,” Jason warned as they drove up to the small shack in the woods. “Let me do the talking.” From her glare as she turned off the car, he could tell he wasn't going to get his way. He'd be lucky if she didn't end up killing someone. “You're a guest in this region, remember. So try to act like one.”

Another glare.

“You two really have a lot in common, you know.”

She arched an eyebrow. “You keep saying that like it's a bad thing.”

The shack looked to have been constructed in the early twentieth century and abandoned not long after. The roof was caved in along the south side, and the wooden slats forming the walls were cracked and faded, bits of brown paint hanging on in small patches as though fighting for their lives. What had probably once been weeds had long since evolved into dense wild shrubs and trees and things he had no name for surrounding the house. Telling the forest from the home was almost impossible.

“Doesn't look like anyone’s lived here for some time,” he said, walking toward what had once been a garage. Or a serial killer’s slaughter room. “No tire treads or footprints. Nothing seems displaced. Place gives me the creeps.”

She kicked the door open, and then turned back with a wry grin. “Don't worry, Jason. I'll protect you.”

Well, at least he was keeping her amused. That had to count for something. He'd have to remember to use that defense at his hearing. Jason drew his gun and followed her into the house, sweeping rooms from the left as she went right toward the kitchen. The living room barely warranted the name, only the remains of a busted fireplace standing lonely in one corner and a heap of dirty blankets and pillows piled in another. A pair of plastic water bottles had rolled to the far corner and some candy bar wrappers were tangled up in the blankets.

Jason knelt next to the pile of bedding and inhaled. Coughing, he covered his nose with his sleeve and backed away toward the next room where Diana knelt near the leg of what had once been a bed. “A demon's lived here.”

She lifted a pair of handcuffs off the floor and held them out to him. “What do you smell here?” Jason arched an eyebrow and crossed his arms. He wasn't anyone's golden retriever. Diane sighed, and the light streaming in from the opening in the roof surrounded her in such a way that she seemed almost transparent. “You've been around her more than I have. Your knowledge of her scent is fresher.” A hesitation. “Please. I need to know if my daughter was here.”

Taking the handcuffs, he rubbed his nose and breathed in. Rebekah favored an amber-scented perfume, and the cuffs smelled as though they'd been bathed in the stuff. “She was held in these,” he said and took another deep breath. “I'm smelling blood. I think she must have cut herself trying to get out. There's also another note here. The stench of demon almost masks it, but I think it's…dirt. Someone had dirt on their hands when they touched this.”

“Why handcuff her to the bedpost?” Diane asked, turning in small circles as she studied the scene. “Why not just kill her right away?”

Jason paced around the bed, studying it. “Had to be a first- or second-order demon. None of the lower orders can exhibit the kind of restraint needed to play with their food before killing it. It must have figured out by now that she's a Keeper, even if unawakened. A first-order would have cuffed her on the bed, not down here on the floor.”

“So a second-order then.”

He nodded, picking up speed as he walked the length of the bed. “I think it's safe to assume the witch who started this called the demon in very recently. Rebekah's roommate would have been its first. Then the feeding frenzy at the fraternity. That would have sated the creature's hunger enough to allow its nature to emerge. It won't feed anymore for the sake of feeding. For killing. Now it'll want to play with its food according to what it feeds on. She's probably got a few hours. A half day at most.”

Diane stood and put her hand on his chest to stop his pacing. “I know you're worried about her. I am too. But we need to be systematic. Your spell showed her here.”

“That was an hour ago. For all I know, the witch sensed the magic and fled with her. They could be anywhere.” He brushed past her and started walking back to the front of the house. He pulled out his phone. “I need to let Elder Xou know what we found. We'll need help if we're going to find her in time.”

“Fine. I'm going to search the woods out back for tracks.”

“Fine,” he said, glad to get her out of the house. He dialed the Elder's number, and the phone picked up on the second ring. “Elder Xou?”

“What do you want?”

He took a deep breath. “We've found where Rebekah was being held, sir. It's an abandoned house about an hour outside the city. I'll send you a pin with the location.”

“What do you mean
was
?”

“They're gone now, but they shouldn't be more than an hour out. I think they sensed my locator spell and ran. If you hurry, a roadblock might sill catch them.”

Elder Xou shouted something to someone in the room with him. Jason tried to figure out what he was saying, but the words weren't intelligible. “Stay where you are in case they come back. You've messed things up enough. I've got it from here.”

“Sir, I think it's best -”

“I don't care what you think,” Elder Xou interrupted. “Just stay. Where's the woman?”

Jason glanced out one of the holes that had once been a window but he didn't see her. “She went outside to look for tracks.”

Elder Xou's voice got really quiet, like the eye of a hurricane. “You let her go outside? Alone?” The engine of his truck roared to life. “Are you an idiot?”

“Shit,” Jason muttered and ran to the front door. When he got there, Diana had already backed down the drive in a cloud of dust.
Idiot, idiot, idiot.
“Sir,” he said, holding the phone at an angle away from his head, “she's gone.”

The line went dead.

“Yep, I'm fucked.” And if she found half the things he had hidden in his truck…really fucked. He had to find Rebekah. Now.

Time to call in reinforcements.

Jason dialed a number reserved only for the most extreme emergencies. “Hey satyr. It's me. Time to repay your debt.”

A hesitation. “What do you need?”

*              *              *

Time was growing more and more elusive, minutes and seconds slipping through her tenuous grasp on reality.

The colors were all wrong – the greens of the shrubs and trees were too bright, glowing around the edges, and the sunlight slanting off the top of the hedgerows took on an almost fluorescent orange hew too painful to stare at for more than a second – so telling time by the sun was out of the question. Nothing stayed still for more than a moment, not the vines, not the grass, not the shrubs. She’d travel down one section of the labyrinth toward what she knew was the wall only to find herself doubling back on a different route, the path evolving as she ran. The wooden barrier which marked the edge of her prison had long ago disappeared until nothing remained but the interminable middle. Without an edge, without finding that exterior boundary, she had no hope of escaping.

She’d just have to settle for staying alive.

Scratches wept bloody tears down her arms and legs, and the welts on her wrist where the vine grabbed her were an angry red. Had they been there for an hour? Two? Why hadn’t they stopped bleeding?

Hiding herself carefully in the center of the path, she knelt and pulled one of the water bottles out of the pack. Rebekah paused as she twisted off the cap. The seal had been previously broken. Someone, sometime, had opened this bottle of water.

Fuck it. I’m probably dead anyway.
She guzzled half the bottle.

As she brought the bottle back down and counted to ten – to see if she was going to start foaming at the mouth or convulsing – she noticed something strange inside the water. Ripples radiated out from her hand, the vibrations making tiny concentric waves inside the bottle. A moment later, another set of ripples jostled the surface.

Then she felt it.

Footsteps pounded against the earth, the thuds shaking the ground. That thing was nearby.

Down the path, the shrubs rustled in a wave of movement.

Rebekah crouched low against the ground, her face buried in the thick grassy floor of the labyrinth as she capped the bottle and shoved it back in the bag. Her breath came in short, quick pants as the footsteps sounded louder and louder, vibrations trembling through her chest, and she covered her mouth to keep from crying out.

The dagger she held tightly in her right hand.

If it was going to kill her, she’d be damned if she didn’t get a swipe or two in first.

The vibrations increased, the wave of shrubs grew nearer like a wave about to crash into a cliff, and the heavy, snorting breath of the creature quickened.

Rebekah didn’t think there was anything more terrifying than those footsteps. Until they stopped.

The creature drew in a noisy breath. Then another.

“I know you’re close, little bird.”

She closed her left hand over her right to keep the knife steady.

Oh god. Oh god.

“Your fear is thick here. Delicious.” The shrub next to her trembled violently as the monster tried to push through.

Every instinct cried out for her to run, but she just closed her eyes and waited for it to stop. Running was what it wanted. Was how it would track her. She couldn’t let it know where she was if she wanted to survive the night.

“Hmm,” it said, taking another snort-like breath as the shaking stopped, “You’re smart. I like that in my meals.”

Rebekah pulled the half-empty water bottle from the bag and threw it down the path back the way she had come. A moment later, the creature with the head of a bull crashed through the shrubs and tore at the ground, his skin glistening a blood red in the weird lights. It gouged at the area with its horns like a bull going for a matador, throwing up dirt and leaves and grass.

She ran.

Knife still clutched in her right hand, she sprinted away from the creature and took the first offshoot of the labyrinth to the left. She stopped at the corner and looked behind her, but the creature was gone. Only the torn earth remained as evidence it had ever been there. She took a breath.

The shrubbery to her side erupted in violence as the creature exploded through.

Screaming, Rebekah swiped at it with her knife, the blade grazing the creature’s cheek and leaving a gash that filled with black, brackish blood like she’d opened the boubou of a plague victim.

It tossed its head and roared.

The sound trembled inside her with its promise of violence and retribution, shaking through her chest, tossing her stomach, and creeping down her legs. She stepped back, just missing being caught by the monster’s clawed hand.

I’ve got to hide. Run. Run, now.

But her legs were paralyzed with fear.

It reached out for her again, catching her around the middle as it drew her closer. Its breath burning against her face; she closed her eyes and waited for it to kill her.

One claw traced the curve of her face in mock caress, slicing her skin as it moved. “Look at me, little one.” Claws punctured her skin as it squeezed her to emphasize the point.

Trembling, she opened her eyes.

Massive, bloodshot eyes stared her down, its bull nose inches from her own. Bright green maggots crawled around the wound on its cheek, devouring the putrescent flesh with an audible squishing crunch. One went close to the monster's mouth and was devoured. A whimper escaped her throat, but she didn’t close her eyes. She wouldn't.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“My mistress has requested your death, and I’m obligated to obey.” Something flashed in his eye. “For now, at least.”

She nodded, tears coursing down her face. “Then get it over with.”

“Are you so anxious to die, little bird?”

She took first one deep breath and then another to steady her nerves.
It wants me to be afraid. It likes that. Needs it. It may kill me, but I won't let it play with me first.
Fixing her resolve with another breath, she stopped her trembling and wiped the tears from her eyes. “No. I'm not. I want to live.” She swallowed the bile in the back of her throat as that thing ate another maggot just inches from her own face. “But I also refuse to be the mouse in your little maze.”

Snarling in rage, it threw her down on the ground the way a petulant child might toss aside a favorite toy. “You'll run, little bird, or we can move on to…
other
pleasures.” The creature stomped its cloven feet twice, then dropped to all fours on top of her. A drop of saliva feel from its mouth and burned her cheek. It ground its all-too-human pelvis against hers.