Days of High Adventure (2 page)

“You were that girl in preschool who really did call for Bloody Mary in the bathroom mirror with the lights turned out, weren’t you?” asked Alex.

“She totally did,” nodded Carrie. “Amanda, that trick only works if you’re trying to summon Hastur.”

“Anyway,” Jason said, trying to get things back on track, “The lieutenants look at one another, seeing that the dead man is not truly their master. Almost as if they know we meant to wrap up an hour ago, they yell, ‘Retreat! Fall back!’” As he affected the shouting voices, Jason began to sweep up the remaining candy from the map.

“Wow,” Eric snorted. “Those are some accommodating guards.”

“Aren’t they?” Jason nodded. “The other guards are clearly going to obey; do you wish to pursue?” His gaze was met with shaking heads. “Okay,” Jason finished, “it’s already pretty late. We should call it a night.”

“Seriously,” Robbie grinned. “You people need to get the hell out of our apartment. Carrie and I need to go to bed.”

Alex was already packing up. “I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” he said, scooping up his motorcycle helmet and leather jacket.

“Boo,” Amanda pouted. “I wanted to kill Bel-Danab.”

“Keep saying that name,” Alex smirked, “maybe he’ll show up in your bedroom tonight and you can have it out with him there.”

“Ooooh,” she giggled. “If he’s cute, maybe we’ll have something else out. Jason, is he cute?”

“Huh? What? Um, I guess so?” Jason shrugged as he put manuals and dice in his backpack.

“Bel-Danab! Bel-Danab! Oh, take me, Bel-Danab!” Amanda said, fanning herself while she swooned to one side. Strangely, she felt herself shiver.

“Don’t hold back,” Eric chuckled. “Let him know how you really feel.”

“Out, people,” Carrie said. “I need to get to bed. Shoo.”

***

“Thanks for giving me a ride, Eric,” Amanda said, looking out the window of his small, beat-up but entirely functional car. “I appreciate it.”

“It’s all good. Ain’t like it’s out of my way or anything.” It was true enough; both lived in UW’s adult student housing. “I just need to get some sleep. I’ve still got a final in the morning.”

“Yeah. Sorry for dragging things out earlier. I know people wanted to go. I just
start having a good time with you all and I don’t want to go home. Work was crappy today and I’m not looking forward to going back tomorrow. It’s nice to have an escape for a little while.”

“I know what you mean. I’ll be shocked if I can get any sleep tonight anyway. My roommates are all in party mode for the end of the semester already. All they want to do is get drunk.”

Amanda snorted. “Mine just get wasted, too. Kinda sucks. I was happy to get away from my crazy foster parents, and so instead now I get to live with stoners.”

“What happened at work?” Eric asked as he parked outside her building.

“Oh, just...I got called sloppy and fat behind my back by women who are prettier and more successful than I’ll ever be. Got treated like I don’t know how to do my job, too.”

“Damn. Amanda, you know that
ain’t true, right?”

She shrugged. “Still. Sucks to hear people talk like that.”

“It does, and it’s bullshit. I think you’re awesome and I know you better than they do. Look, some people just never grow out of high school, you know?”

“Yeah. Well. Here we are still playing the same
nerdy games, right?”

“No,
we’re just doing whatever we think is fun. Look, the last girl I dated was all about overrated clubs and watered-down drinks. We could both go out and do that scene if we wanted, but I thought it sucked. I’d rather game with my friends.”

“I guess. Anyway, I didn’t mean to dump on you. It’s nothing new. I’m not gonna let it get me down. Not long, anyway. Thanks for the ride,” she said, getting out.

Eric followed. “Hey, let me walk you to your room, okay?”

“Um. Pretty sure I’m safe.”

“I know, just...” he shrugged again. “Are you telling me to go away?”

“No,” Amanda smiled. The prospect of her roommates seeing a guy walk her to her room made her blush. That would be kind of funny. By now, they’d probably have beer goggles or the stoner equivalent. “Okay. Come on.”

Eric walked with her, wondering whether he should hold out his arm or not. He opted not to make it weird. Hearing about her treatment at work made him bristle, but there was nothing to be done about those people now. He could at least remind her that she had friends.

The foyer was littered with beer cans, discarded notebooks and the remnants of a piñata.
An amorous couple occupied one corner of the elevator with lips locked and clothing disheveled. Amanda and Eric glanced at one another with slightly embarrassed grins, but said nothing until they left the pair once more.

“Two more years of the greatest time of my life,” Amanda chuckled ruefully.

“What?” Eric asked. “You don’t want to spend Friday night getting freaky in the elevator?”

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind,” she admitted.

“What about Jason?” Eric nudged. “You ever gonna do anything about that?”

“No,” she grumbled
, giving him a playful shove. “I never should’ve said anything.”

“Amanda, he’s available and he’s a good guy.”

“I know, but I don’t think it’d really work. He’s just a year out of high school and he’s still figuring out who he is—“

“Like we’re any different?”

“—and I don’t want things to get weird if it doesn’t work out. It’s not even that big of a crush. I just think he’s cute. Nothing more,” she frowned, wanting to change the subject.

“Sounds like you just can’t make up your mind.”

“Maybe I can’t,” Amanda shrugged. “About a lot of things. Seems like a bad place to start off something with a guy like Jason, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.
I feel ya.”

“Anyway.
Thanks for giving me a lift. I’ll see you next week. We’ll get that dirty Bel-Danab yet.”

“I thought you wanted to be gotten?”

She laughed. “Oh. Right.” She threw her arms in front of her still-closed door. “Bel-Danab, Bel-Danab, take me, baby, Bel-Danab.”

Again, Amanda shivered, but other than that nothing much happened. She noticed, though, that there was a green light coming from under the door, along with a strange smell. “Ugh. Yup. Stonerville, WA, once again.”

“You could maybe crash at my place...?” Eric thought aloud.

“No, I’m good. Thanks,” Amanda said. She pulled out her key and opened her door.

Emerald light and thick smoke greeted her, swirling from a vortex in the center of the living room. Amanda and Eric both looked on in awe. They had but a moment to register that it couldn’t be anything natural.

Then the tentacle, green and thick and covered in warts and boils, burst with lightning quickness from the center of the vortex. It wrapped itself around Amanda’s waist. Eric immediately grabbed at it,
fighting to pry it off while Amanda tried to wrestle her way free.

It jerked backward with Amanda still firmly in its grip. Eric refused to let go; he, too, was pulled into the vortex. The smoke quickly disappeared. The emerald light faded away. All was quiet.

Poking her head out from her room, one of Amanda’s roommates looked around with bleary, bloodshot eyes. She didn’t bother to put down the joint in her hand. Kimberly simply strode across the living room to shut the hallway door once more.

***

Flung roughly to a stone floor, Eric found himself instantly winded, disoriented and soaking wet. An awful, smoking scent filled his breath. He heard shouting, chanting and splashing water, all from different directions. Flickering lights in red, green and orange fought with dark shadows against a vaulted ceiling. Amanda struggled to rise from the floor beside him, similarly wet and dizzy, but also wracked with a heavy cough as if she’d taken in some of the water that had enveloped them both.

Just as Eric
pushed himself up to his hands and knees, someone grabbed his shoulders and heaved him upright. Eric faced his second horrifying sight of the night: a tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man whose very flesh boiled and burned away as he moved. Wide grey eyes that could not close stared at Eric in seeming desperation. A mouth that no longer had lips tried to tell him something in a language he couldn’t understand. An eerie green mist poured from his mouth, filling the air that Eric breathed.

Eric screamed in shock. The dying man shook him,
still trying to speak but succeeding only in bleeding and melting all over Eric’s arms. Then a blade erupted from the stranger’s chest, splattering blood all over the frightened young man.

The tentacles reappeared, this time snatching away the
charred man and jerking him high into the air. Eric saw the man’s killer as well, a dark-skinned man in chain mail armor, but he, too, was snatched up by the tentacles.

Eric fell onto his back, watching in horror.
The tentacles rose from within a broad pool of water just beside him and Amanda, where they squeezed the remaining life from their two new victims. Eric grabbed at Amanda’s arm and turned to flee in the opposite direction.

He found the path blocked. Immediately to his other side stood a
robed man, with his arms raised toward the pool. On the floor at his feet were chalk runes and the outline of a man’s body drawn in soot, but it looked marred. Eric saw the trail of blood and gore that led from the outline to his own feet and realized that the burning man must have been on the floor at the foot of the robed man—who barely spared Eric a glance before he turned his full attention back to the monstrosity within the pool. He began to chant with a loud and forceful voice in a language Eric couldn’t understand.

The tentacles writhed and lashed, yet seemed to shrink back into the waters, dragging the two bodies with them.

Eric looked around, quickly taking in the rest of his surroundings. Several other figures were visible at the edges of the room, all of them standing up straight and still. Some held spears, while others had swords sheathed at their sides. All of them wore dark, flat masks and hardened leather armor.

Stairs rose up from either side of the pool to a raised platform opposite Eric and Amanda’s landing place. Braziers burned at the sides of the platform. At the center stood a blond, well-built man in silken pants and an open robe. He, too, held his arms up and opened wide, holding aloft in his right hand a thick, ornate staff with a large red gem set in its top. He
joined in the chant, speaking even louder than the robed man near Eric. As the tentacles receded into the pool, both sorcerers let their arms sink. Their chanting grew soft and finally ended.

“Twesh amet lor ness malek-Set?” asked the man on the platform as he descended the steps.

“Lo benit qal magrazz nandesh,” the one closer to Eric replied. His gaze was back on the pair now, devoid of benevolence or welcome. Finally recovered, Amanda gripped Eric’s hand tightly. “Anandast?” he closer man asked. He was, they both noticed, closer to their age; the other one was old enough to be Eric’s father. “Erekesh? Vanda?”

The two wet, bewildered newcomers looked at one another in surprise. Eric shrugged. “No hablo, man,” he said.

The older one snapped his fingers. A moment later two guards appeared at the sides of each of the newcomers, gripping them by the arms. “What’s going on?” Eric demanded. A guard punched him in the gut. Unprepared for the hit and unused to combat in the first place, Eric doubled over from the force of the blow.

“Leave him alone!” Amanda cried out, earning a sharp slap across her face.

“Ereng nast valamate garand,” said another voice. It was raspier, growly and deep. Amanda and Eric blinked to see a third robed man, this one considerably shorter and rounder than either of the others. His body language suggested an inferior rank, yet his receding hairline and the flecks of grey in his goatee gave him a much older appearance.

The younger one in robes barked out a laugh. The other, seeming through sheer confidence to be the one in charge, waved a dismissive hand at the older man. “Carlist vanda quen vist,” he said, seeming to come to a decision. He fixed Amanda with a severe gaze. “Olamto Bel-Danab?” he asked.

Amanda blinked. “I don’t understand.”

He nodded and gave another dismissive wave of his hand. “Demest,” he said.

Both Amanda and Eric suddenly felt very sleepy. The guards began dragging them away, hauling the pair toward a doorway, then through it and to the long, spiraling steps beyond. Eric managed to stay awake long enough to see a window. Through it, he saw out over a city lit by small fires and torches that only teased at holding back the night. They were high above the city’s nominal skyline; towers rose here and there, but most buildings looked to be no more than three stories high at the most.

It was all
he could process before his unnatural weariness overwhelmed him.

***

Amanda awoke with her head on Eric’s leg. She lay on a stone floor with Eric sitting against one wall.