Ghostwalkers (31 page)

“We came out here to try and talk sense to Nolan Chesterfield,” said Looks Away.

“Yup.”

“Not to go searching through catacombs.”

“Nope.”

“Our moral responsibility would be to return to town; organize a wagon train; take as much of the gold, silver, and platinum as we can carry; and brush the dust of this town off our feet.”

“That's smart thinking,” said Grey, nodding.

“There is no sane or intelligent reason to go down these stairs.”

“None that I can think of.”

They stood there.

“Shite,” said Looks Away.

“Shit,” agreed Grey.

Guns in hand, they started down the stairs.

 

Chapter Fifty

It was a long way down.

The stone steps curved around and around, and soon Grey lost all track of how far they'd descended. At one point Looks Away stopped and bent with his lantern to inspect the steps.

“These are new,” he said.

“New?”

“I think they were made since the Quake.”

“How can you tell? The house might have been built over one of those old Spanish missions. Those guys used to build all kinds of cellars and sub-cellars.”

“No, that's not what this is,” said Looks Away. “I know my geology and I've been to enough ruins to know one style of stonework from another. The Spanish used broader, flatter stairs. These are narrow and a bit steeper. Much more in the style of French or English castle architecture.”

“If you say so.”

“I do, and I find it rather curious. Chesterfield's family is from England, and they were rich going back to the time of the Plantagenets. So, while I can see Chesterfield using the building style he's familiar with, I can't quite suss out why he cut a staircase so deep into the earth. It must have cost a fortune to do this much excavation through solid rock.”

“He could afford it.”

“Okay, fair enough,” said Looks Away, “but why spend that money on this? What the hell is down here that's worth all of this effort to conceal it from the world?”

They had no answers.

Until they reached the bottom of the stairs.

The steps ended in another circular chamber. Once more there was a single doorway. Once more it was open.

More than open.

The door had been torn from its heavy iron hinges and smashed to kindling. Pieces of it were scattered all around. There was blood on the floor and walls, and the scuff patterns told of a battle between two men wearing ordinary boots and things that made impressions even Looks Away could not read. Much of the bloody spill was smeared as if someone had dragged something long and heavy from inside the room, through that destroyed door, and then back in again. The small three-toed prints were everywhere, but nothing with feet that small could have torn that door down. The timbers of the door had to be half a foot thick.

“I'm having some serious second thoughts about coming down here,” said Grey quietly.

“I'm having third thoughts,” said Looks Away. “And if we don't find something useful soon I'm all for getting our bums back up those stairs.”

They approached the open doorway and held their lanterns up to reveal what was inside.

There were three metal carts of the kind miners used. They squatted on wheels, however, not rails. Two of them were piled high with chunks of rock cut unevenly from the ground. The third cart had been knocked over; its contents spilling outward like guts. Grey felt his mouth go dry. The rocks littered the floor. They were mostly crude, a mix of sandstone, volcanic rock, and variegated sedimentary stone. However each piece also contained fragments of a black stone that was streaked with wavering lines of white.

“By the Queens' lacy…,” began Looks Away, but he couldn't finish.

Grey estimated that each of the carts could hold a full ton of broken rock. If even after smelting the total yield of all three carts was only a hundredweight of that which was the white-veined black rock, then there was a fortune here to rival two full pallets of gold bars.

“Ghost rock,” he whispered.

And ghost rock it was.

“This is what Chesterfield was hiding,” said Looks Away. “I think he was mining ghost rock and selling it. He was making himself insanely rich.”

“Not sure that makes enough sense for me,” said Grey. “Doesn't explain why Deray attacked this place. If it was to get the gold and the rock, then why leave it here?”

Suddenly they froze and it took Grey a moment for his mind to catch up with what his senses had recorded.

There it was again.

A sound.

A scuff of a stealthy foot.

Grey raised his lantern and held it so they could see the rest of this chamber.

“Look!” cried Looks Away in a choked voice. “Dear God what is that thing?”

Twenty feet away, caught in the spill of lamplight, stood a creature unlike anything Grey had ever seen. It was nearly as tall as a man, but it was no man. It stood on two impossibly muscular legs, and each foot had two splayed toes. The creature had a third toe, however, and this one was raised on both feet. It was longer than the others and where they had claws, the third toes curved out with a talon as long and sharp as a dagger. But the strangeness did not end there. The thing had a birdlike body, much like a condor, but larger and more massive. And instead of arms or wings it had something that was akin to both. Short, sharp-clawed arms pawed the air and these were completely covered by smoky gray feathers. The rest of the body was covered by feathers that were a rusty orange banded with black. A crest of red feathers ran backward from the center of its skull, however the face was not birdlike at all. It had a protruding muzzle like a lizard, but its mouth was large enough to bite through a grown man's leg. As it stood there, the thing opened its mouth to display rows of curved, needle-sharp teeth. It glared at the men with eyes that were black and bottomless.

The creature was like nothing Grey had ever seen before. However Looks Away breathed a word, a name, and it rung a faint bell in Grey's mind.

“Dinosaur…”

“What?”

“By the Queen's garters that is a bloody dinosaur.”

“What the hell's a—?”

“Something that can't be here. It's impossible.”

The thing snarled at them and took a threatening step forward into the light and in doing so became more impossible still. Now they could see that many of the feathers were bent and broken or missing entirely, and through those gaps they could see that the flesh was strange. Unnaturally pale and withered, like that of some dead thing that had lain rotting in the dark. Maggots wriggled through flaps of torn skin and from many open wounds wafted the dead meat stink of advanced rot.

“Jesus Christ,” breathed Grey. “That stench…”

Looks Away gagged. “Dear God, that thing's …
dead.”

“No,” said Grey, pointing. “It's worse than dead.”

In the center of the creature's chest, amid the feathers, gleamed a multi-faceted piece of black rock that was shot through with white lines.

Ghost rock. In the chest of an undead monster.

The creature threw wide its mouth and screamed at them as if defying any classification of either dead or alive. The men raised their weapons in trembling hands, ready to fight, ready to kill this monstrosity.

But far away, deeper in the large underground chamber, came the answering cry of other monsters just like this one.

They cried in rage and hate.

And those cries were coming.

Straight for Grey and Looks Away.

 

Chapter Fifty-One

“Christ—watch out!” bellowed Grey as he shoved Looks Away to the side as the first of the monsters rushed them. The creature raced toward them and then leaped into the air. Grey saw the third and terrible claw on its foot snap forward and he tried to twist out of the way. The claw hooked into the pocket of his jeans and tore it open as if it was tissue paper. Coins flew across the room and bounced off the metal carts.

The first of the undead dinosaurs was too close for Grey to get a clear shot at without hitting Looks Away, so instead he clubbed at the thing with the butt of his Colt. The monster shrieked in pain, but instead of shrinking back from its much bigger opponent, it hissed and leaped again, slashing this time at Grey's groin.

He flung himself backward and the claw missed him by half an inch. He landed on his back and used the momentum to roll up onto his shoulders so he could kick out with both heels. He caught it square in the chest and sent it flying backward into the side of a metal cart. It struck with a ringing thud and fell dazed to the floor.

Grey scrambled back to his feet.

“Move—move!” shouted Looks Away as he surged forward and shouldered him out of the way. The Sioux braced the stock of the shotgun against his hip and fired. Grey twisted around to see the buckshot catch another of the dinosaurs full in the chest just as it launched itself to slash. The blast punched a huge red hole in the center of the thing's chest, obliterating the ghost rock implant and tearing off its feathered arms and screeching head. Thick, black blood splashed the men, the cart, and the faces of half a dozen more of the monsters.

Before the echo of the blast could begin to fade, Grey whirled and shot the first creature in the head as it fought to get back to its feet. It flopped back and lay absolutely still.

“How is this even possible?” demanded Grey as he hastily reloaded.

Looks Away shook his head, but then said, “Deray is a necromancer. That means he has power over the dead. It looks like he's discovered some alchemical process for raising the dead and suborning them to his will. Like those creatures who accompanied Lucky Bob. He was a Harrowed but the others were something else. Mindless dead.”

“Mindless?” said Grey, pointing with the barrel of his gun. “Maybe they can't think, but that look in their eyes says that they
feel
something, and it's not anything good. We need to get the hell out of here.” The death of two of the beasts had momentarily stalled the charge of the others. They stared as if in shock. Then all of the strange, feathered and rotting heads turned slowly toward Grey and Looks Away. Those faces may not have been human, but their expressions were easy to read.

Hate.

Rage.

Hunger.

“Oh … shit,” said Grey and Looks Away at the same moment.

The monsters surged forward.

Both men stumbled backward but they opened fire at the same time. Grey emptied his gun into them. The Sioux fired his last shell. The fusillade of pellets and bullets hit the attacking wave like a storm. Three of the monsters went down into red ruin. A fourth staggered sideways, one eye blown away and blood dark as ink poured from a dozen pellet wounds.

The remaining two did not pause this time. One jumped at Looks Away, slashing at his belly with its terrible claw. The other did its best to rip open the arteries on the inside of Grey's thigh.

Grey felt a line of white-hot fire explode along his hip. He cried out in pain and swung the pistol again and again, clubbing the scything foot, battering at the bizarre creature's head and chest. It snapped at the gun and caught the barrel between its jagged teeth. If there had been one more round Grey could have blown out the back of its head. Instead as the dinosaur gave a mighty pull on the trapped barrel, Grey released it and emphasized it with a kick to its gut. The monster staggered backward and Grey immediately whipped out his hunting knife. Now he had his own claw.

“Come on, you undead little bastard,” he growled, baring his teeth at it. He could hear Looks Away and the other monster fighting somewhere behind him, but he didn't dare turn and look.

The dinosaur spat out the useless pistol and lowered its head as it prepared to charge. The big claws on each foot tapped downward onto the floor. The thing's long tail stuck straight out behind it, counterbalancing its weight and twitching with pure rage.

Then it launched itself at its prey.

Grey expected it to be fast, but it was so much faster. It became a blur of feathers, scales, teeth, and claws as it leaped into the air, slashing with those claws.

It was faster than he was.

He, however, was smarter.

As soon as it launched itself into the air, Grey dodged to one side and then twisted, pulling his body out of the path of the claws. He did not stab at it. Stabbing is a fool's way to fight with a knife. Grey whipped his arm in a tight arc that slapped the edge of the blade across the throat of the dinosaur. The combined speed of its leap and Grey's own speed made the blade bite deep. A black spray burst from the throat, but Grey did not want to make any assumptions about how tough the monster was or if blood loss could ever kill it. He jumped at it as the thing landed, clubbing it with one balled fist and slashing again and again with the blade.

Feathers flew. Blood erupted. Tissue parted.