Authors: A Kirk,E
An abrupt stop. I was dropped on my feet. But between my head spinning and being surrounded by pitch black — no matter how hard I blinked for focus — I gave up the fight for balance and let my knees buckle.
My palms flattened on a floor of cool earth. A loud
ca-chunking
sound was followed by light. Some old Victorian-looking lamps dripped along the walls and came to life, one by one, vibrating with a low hum, a muted amber light illuminating a few yards down either side of a tunnel. The walls were neatly bricked with stone of varying shades of gray and brown. Further down, the cold and musty passageway curved out of sight.
Great, I was trapped in Flint’s tunnels with the ghosts of crazies reliving their torment. And screams of terror. How could I forget that?
Stupid Luna.
At least my arm was still attached.
I stood, slipping on small pieces of rock. Maybe broken off when I came through, but there was no more hole. I pressed my ear to the wall and slapped my hand upon it, yelling, “Ayden!”
Something grabbed my shoulder. I screamed and threw an elbow.
Logan ducked out of the way. “Easy. Just me.”
“Jeez!” I slumped. Attempted to swallow my heart back down. “Where’s Ayden?”
“Still in the library.” Logan licked his lips. “I think.”
“How did you get in here?”
“Joined the wind before the door closed.”
“What?” I remembered the wind, but no door. I rubbed my forehead. Things were still fuzzy.
Logan studied the stone wall we’d just come through. Another double spiral was carved into the rock.
He pointed at it and said, “Touch it again.”
I flinched back. “No thanks. Once was a way bad enough idea.”
“Come on, Aurora.” Logan rubbed his hand over it. Nothing happened. “I think it’s our way back in.”
“Warning.” The woman’s voice came out of nowhere. “Mandatum infiltration. Proceed to sanctuary.”
I twirled a quick circle, but saw no one. Logan had his bow drawn, an arrow of compressed air ready to fly. His eyes glowed white in the dim yellow light.
“What is that?” I whispered. “I heard the same voice when I was stuck in the alcove.”
“Don’t know.” His voice was low and tight. “Matthias said he couldn’t find anything weird in the alcove. We’ll figure it out later. Now, since you’re not hurt,” he indicated my hand, “touch it and try to get us out of here.”
I blew air between my clenched teeth and moved a tentative hand over the spiral, ready to bolt, but…nothing. I wiggled my fingers, moved them closer. No response. I placed my palm over the etching. Slapped. Then pushed. A cool sensation breathed goosebumps up my arm.
“Warning,” the voice repeated. “Mandatum infiltration. Proceed to sanctuary.”
One of the lamps puffed smoke. A baseball-sized piece of gray metal popped out, hovering above the light. Rows of spikes
clicked
onto the ball’s surface, each kicking out a flame.
Then, because it wasn’t lethal enough, the orb’s surface started rotating like a mini buzz saw, and then the thing flew directly at us.
Logan’s arrow hit dead-on and shattered the orb into a burst of flame. Embers cascaded to the ground. Nice shot, except a dozen more fiery metal balls were clicking to life above the lamps along the hall and heading our way.
“Hurry, Aurora!” He kept shooting and exploding more spikey fireballs. “Before things get worse!”
“It’s not working!” I tried rubbing. Hard. The rough stone, with plenty of sharp edges, scraped and sliced my hand raw. I was bleeding, but I kept rubbing until—
Heat bubbled under my hand. I pulled away. Swallowed.
Logan shouted something, but I couldn’t hear him. I was too busy staring.
In horror.
My blood had seeped into the etching, and was flowing, in some bizarre, anti-gravity sort of way, back and forth from one end of the spiral to the other, a bright red, angry river. Oh, and that blood?
It was boiling.
A steam-rising-off, bubbling, full-blown
boil
.
“Warning,” the female disembodied voice intoned. “Blood contract activated.”
Logan backed into me with a sharp bump. “What happened?”
“Things just got worse.”
The floor rumbled under our feet.
“What did you do?” Logan yelped.
“I don’t know!” I ducked behind Logan as sparks flew.
The spike balls increased in number and speed. Logan kept up. Sparks, flames, flying embers. The hallway lit-up like a Fourth of July sky. The caustic smell burned my nostrils and when it hit my throat, brought a fit of coughing. I covered my mouth.
Logan’s concentration was absolute, never missing a shot.
“If I keep this up, the whole place might explode,” he said.
Contrary to popular belief, I did not like a good explosion.
I picked up the largest of the rocks that littered the ground and chucked them at the flaming metal balls.
“What are you doing?” Logan said.
“Going low-tech.”
While the rocks didn’t explode the metal fireballs, like Logan’s cool trick, my Lahey star-pitcher moves knocked several to the ground where they rolled to a stop, flames sputtering out.
“Good work,” Logan said.
“Thanks, but I’m running out of rocks and I can’t get the wall to open! What do we do?”
“I’m thinking.” Logan’s eyes flicked constantly. “Okay. Run to the opposite side of the tunnel and get down. On the count of three, I’m going to blow the wall.”
“But—”
“One.”
I bolted across and thumped into the wall. “Maybe we should rethink—”
“Two.”
Guess not. I hunched in the fetal position as Logan swung around so his back was to me.
“Three!”
He pulled the bow string taut. Not just one but
six
arrows appeared lined up in the bow. He let them fly all at once straight at the wall. As soon as they released, Logan’s bow disappeared in a puff of smoke. He jerked an arm up and dove toward me. A gale force wind blew straight up, acting like a shield as he dropped his body over mine.
The arrows hit with a great, thundering noise and massive shake. But instead of blowing out the wall, the force ricocheted back at us in double-time.
Logan had anticipated a blast from the explosion, and created the counter force shield of air to protect us. However, he didn’t bargain for the wall not blowing out, causing the full force of his attack coming back at us. The immense blowback slammed us so hard we literally rolled sideways up the tunnel wall, until we struck the ceiling, then flopped back down.
I fell on top of Logan who had wrapped himself around me. Sure he missed coverage by more than a few inches, but it was the thought that counted, and his body did cushion my roller-coaster ride up the wall and consequent fall. My hands over my ears had kept me from going deaf. Hopefully.
I pushed up. Dust thickened the air. Debris
clinked
or drifted down.
Logan wasn’t moving. Eyes closed. Face smudged with dirt.
And blood.
“Logan?” I batted away the flameless scrap metal of the spikey balls glittering amid the rubble around us and shook him, coughing on the dust and dirt coating my throat. “Logan!”
I checked my panic, then his pulse, and breathed easier. Unconscious, yes, but breathing normally, and his heartbeat
th-thumped
strong and steady. I convinced myself that he wasn’t any paler than usual. Seriously, how could I tell?
A low
whirr
ruffled my hair. Dots of flame glowed in the clouds of dusts. Another spikey ball was tearing right at us. Fast.
I scrambled in front of Logan, pinning his prone form against the wall behind us. I raised my palm, hoping my explody power would make a grand entrance, but just in case grabbed a rock to club the flying orb out of the air. It raced closer. I could see the fire glint orange-red off the spikes, waited for it to get closer so I could strike.
I swung. And missed.
Crap!
I braced for a fiery, skin-shredding impact.
Through the fog of my broken eardrums, I heard a weird hissing, but I didn’t
seem
to be on fire. Or getting flayed alive.
I opened one eye.
Three spikeballs hovered just out of arms reach. They had stopped inches from my hands, still flaming. I opened the other eye. I could see a patchwork of rivets beneath the spikes.
“Warning. Mandatum—”
“There is no intruder!” I shouted to the faceless wonder wench.
The spikeballs rose high, like a rearing horse ready to stomp me down. The flames went out. The spikes
clicked
back into the balls and they all somehow folded in on themselves until they were smooth spheres about an inch in diameter. They dropped from the air.
I caught one, of course. Stupid! Stupid!
I chucked it across the tunnel. Something
thumped
onto my chest.
“Ack!” I slapped the glittering globes to the ground and kicked them away. They scattered off harmlessly then all three changed course and rolled back. I got to my feet, stepped away. They followed like I was some sort of mama duck.
“Flattering, but I’ve already got an entourage,” I muttered.
I spit the grit from my mouth, kneeled, and pulled the linen handkerchief from Logan’s suit pocket to clean off the trickle of blood along his temple. Just a scratch above his brow. I felt a bump on his head, but no other visible injuries.
As I stuffed his handkerchief back in, I felt a lump inside his coat pocket. I pulled out his cell phone, but…no service.
Shocker.
The woman droned on in an annoyingly calm voice. “Breach neutralized. Sentinel in transit. Proceed to sanctuary. Await assistance.”
As the dust cleared I saw the tunnel wall was intact. Logan’s blast hadn’t made a dent in the stone. There was no escape.
A rumble. A rising hum. I braced for another attack, covered Logan. But all that followed was a series of
ca-chunk, ca-chunks
as the Victorian lamps turned on down one end of the tunnel, lighting as far as I could see. As if beckoning me to follow.
Then the blood from my hand, which had been boiling in the spiral, crawled up the wall like some thin red wormy serpent, and trailed down the tunnel via the ceiling. It slithered a few yards, then stopped, shimmering and swirling from side to side, but going no further.
Options? Well, the arrows hadn’t worked. At least the spikeballs had stopped. Did I just sit here and wait?
The lights along the wall flickered.
“Proceed to sanctuary.”
Obeying the bossy, disembodied voice wasn’t my first choice, But sanctuary sounded good. So did assistance. Especially for Logan.
I stood, hauling Logan onto my shoulder and shifting him to a somewhat comfortable position, hoping this
sanctuary
wasn’t far.
“Proceed to—”
“Yeah, I heard you,” I snapped loudly to drown out her annoying voice then picked up a rock. “And you’d better be right.”
Despite Logan’s small frame, my shoulders were on fire. Despite the cold, my clothes clung with sweat. And despite my dry throat, I didn’t risk drinking the water that trickled down the walls of the tunnel as I delved deeper into the pit.
Of despair.
Okay, I was being dramatic, but there was no sign of sanctuary, and the air just kept getting heavier, mustier, and wetter. At times the tunnel opened up and a rushing stream babbled alongside the path before disappearing into the rock.
I’d been trudging for what seemed like hours, following the trail of light. And blood. Once I started moving, my blood on the ceiling had kept a steady pace in front of me. Little creepy. I also wasn’t too thrilled by my faithful golden ducklings rolling behind me. I flinched every time the deactivated spikeballs
clinked
and
dinged.
I was still worried they were going to attack.
The lights seemed to be leading me in a straight shot, no turns or corners, but it was hard to tell. If they went out and I had to double-back, Logan and I could be lost forever. I’d just passed through a dark intersection when I heard the shouts.
“No bloody way!”
I stopped. “Matthias?”
I retraced my steps. The intersection was a round chamber with six tunnels shooting off in different directions. Four of them were dark.
“Try that again, you crazy bugger!”
It
was
the Aussie. As much as I hated him, I was glad to hear his voice.
“Oh, no you don’t. I’m— Ow! Bollocks! Now you asked for it!”
Thrashing sounds. A whip
cracked
. An angry, glass shattering squeal followed. Along with sounds of a battle.
That Matthias wasn’t winning.
I couldn’t run with Logan on my shoulder, but I tried. Following the tunnel that echoed the Aussie’s cries the loudest.
Of course the tunnel dead-ended. Must’ve taken the wrong one. I started to turn.
“You bloody son of a—Ugh!”
I whirled. Nope, Matthias was definitely on the other side of this wall. I set Logan down and lightly tapped his face.
“Hey, wake up.”
Nothing.
I tapped — okay, slapped — harder. “Logan!”
The fighting sounds were getting worse. Matthias’s grunts increased. So did his colorful language. And my anxiety. My body started to prickle. I was tired and scared, and he needed to wake
up
!
“
Logan!
”
I grabbed his shoulders. The contact came with a flash of light from my hands. His body jolted, eyes flew open.
I jumped back, let go. “What did I do?!”
He flopped to the ground, coughing. Alive. I breathed easier.
Logan pushed back his hair, streaking blood into the neon white, and looked around.
“What happened?” He touched his chest. “Ow.”
“Matthias is in trouble.”
I helped him up, and he cocked his head as the battle sounds echoed.
Logan put his ear up against the wall, slid his hands over the stone, eyes roaming the space. “I’ve never seen these tunnels before. I don’t know where we are.”
Oh, great. Why did I expect good news? We’d be lost forever.
The ground trembled. Logan jumped back as rock crumbled and trickled down the cave wall. Keeping his eyes forward, he gestured me to retreat. The ground shook harder. More and more stone fell from above.
I covered my head with my arms. “What’s happening?”
“Not sure.”
His translucent bow and arrow materialized in his hands. His eyes swirled pale like they were whipping cream. He aimed at the wall.
We heard a muffled screech and the wall shook as if a wrecking ball crashed into the other side. Fissures cracked in the stone, spidered out.
Something was coming through.
“Get out!” Logan yelled.
I wanted to comply, but my muscles revolted. I was too tired to run.
A small tornado whirled around Logan and levitated him a foot off the ground. As the tornado carried him backwards toward me, four more arrows appeared in his bow. Cool.
Another mighty blow hit, and the wall gave up, shattered like a pane of glass, as a deranged demon with eyes the blistering yellow of a sun flare burst through.
Suddenly, I wasn’t too tired to run. But the blast threw me off my feet. I landed on my stomach, lungs collapsing, and rolled sideways, ducking behind a pile of fallen rock, fighting to suck in precious air.
Pulverized stone along with pieces of sharp, twisted metal rained down,
clanging
against the rock around me.
I stayed low as the creature with the head the size of a minivan and the body of a giant centipede barreled toward Logan. The valiant Hex Boy remained levitating, arrows poised, and held his ground, letting the demon get closer…and closer…waiting to shoot the arrows because—
Who the heck knew? It was stupid!
“Logan, shoot!”
He did. Five arrows flew. But three pinged harmlessly off the demon’s side, and the two that buried in its flesh didn’t seem to stop it at all.
Logan reloaded and—
“No!” came the guttural command.
Four black ropes shot through the opening, whipped around the demon’s body, and stopped it in its tracks.
Matthias stepped through the broken wall.
Scowling, scraped, scratched, bloody, dark hair caked with dirt and stringy with sweat, T-shirt ripped, and eyes filled with fathomless black, the Aussie strained at the end of the black ropes. Or as I called them, his shadow whips.
“Shove off! This nasty bugger is mine!” The demon lurched and nearly jerked Matthias off his feet. He grunted a crazed smile at Logan. “On second thought, mate, maybe you could give me a hand getting him back to the portal.”
Logan dropped to his feet and said, “Stay back.”
The white-haired wonder studied the demon, rolled his shoulders, then brought his bow and arrow up, holding steady. At the last second he shifted his aim to the left.
The arrow pinged off the wall and ricocheted back toward the demon. Instead of piercing flesh, the arrow arced around the demon in a spiraling rotation down the body. It created a whirlwind, encapsulating the demon and lifting if off the ground, swaddled like a babe in the eye of Logan’s tornado.
The arrow made one final pass to swirl once around Matthias, ruffling his sweaty hair, before evaporating in wisps of pearly smoke.
“That’s new.” Matthias commented, grunting a pull on the shadow whips and dragging the centimole with relative ease along on a cushion of air. “Something you been working on?”
Logan blushed. “Well, you know, just trying to, uh, change things up.”
The bow disappeared as Logan followed Matthias, readjusting his suit coat.
“I like it,” Matthias said. “So where did you and the nitwit come from?”
I came out of hiding and lifted one side of my lip in a sneer. He sneered back. So mature.
Logan shook his head. “Craziest thing…”
He got Matthias up to speed as they dragged the monster, kicking and screaming but held tight by the wind, back through the hole and down the corridor. I started to follow, but the golden spheres were hot on my heels. Would they go after the Aussie? It wouldn’t pain me, but I scooped them up and dropped them in my pocket. I hurried to catch up with the guys at what I hoped was a safe distance, trying to keep out of the demon’s line of sight because it seriously creeped me out.
I hated bugs.
Even when they weren’t ten feet tall, had a segmented body longer than a bus, and looked like a supernaturally overgrown, demonic centipede. Why couldn’t demons ever be pretty?
Undulating from each body section were dozens of thin, pointy yellow legs, layered with sharp spikes. The body was covered, in part, by scales — more like armor plates — and the rest sprouted thick, chestnut fur lined with jagged black stripes.
The head, other than the six glowing yellow eyes, resembled a mole’s. Long and conical with a pointy nose and long whiskers. The ears stuck out like rolled-up pieces of pink leather, and next to them protruded two very long…horns, I guess, but they acted more like arms and ended in some nasty looking pinchers. One of the pinchers was tied shut with a black whip, but the repeated
click-click
of the other was an ominous sound.
When its yellow eyes tracked me, a low growl rumbled in its throat. I felt a serious need to itch. Everywhere. I did my best to angle myself out of the beady eyes’ reach.
We lumbered along for a while and eventually entered a massive cave. My neck craned to take it all in.
Over his shoulder, Logan smiled at my awe. “Welcome to the portal.”