Hoarfrost (Whyborne & Griffin Book 6) (15 page)

Whyborne

As we
marched across the glacier, I wracked my brain for some solution. There must be
some way out of our predicament. I could summon wind and flatten some of the
guards, and set fire to the powder in the guns others carried.

But
could I do it fast enough to save Christine?

She
strode ahead of me, her back stiff. Turner walked at her side, gripping her
upper arm, a long knife pressed against her side with his other hand.

I might
use my fire spell to heat the hilt until he could no longer hold it. But no,
his moose hide mitten would probably protect him, as it had the man who’d
attacked me in St. Michael. Even if I succeeded against all odds, the three
guards would surely just shoot us both. And if I attacked one of them, or even
all of them, Turner would kill Christine.

I’d
never felt so utterly helpless. All of my magic, and yet Turner had defeated me
with ease.

At least
Griffin and Iskander were safe for the moment. God, Griffin…the look on his
face, when he realized Jack lured us into Turner’s vile trap…

How must
he be feeling? Losing his father was difficult enough, but he’d had such hope
for Jack. And after our journey here together, it had seemed those hopes were well
founded.

Something
dark and sharp-edged lodged in my chest. I’d make Jack pay for his betrayal.
How I didn’t know exactly, but he’d rue the day he’d ever decided to hurt
Griffin.

Unfortunately,
I had to find a way to survive this first. Despite what he said, I didn’t
believe for an instant Turner intended to let us live past the point of
usefulness. An opportunity would present itself—I just needed to remain
alert.

The
avalanche had buried the moulin, but the guards soon located it again by
probing the loose snow. They cleared it quickly, revealing the gaping maw into
the underworld. “Dr. Putnam and I will make the descent first,” Turner said. “I
suggest you don’t try anything, Dr. Whyborne, or else I will kill her.”

I didn’t
reply, only glared at him. Christine did the same. If she felt any fear at all,
it certainly didn’t show in her defiant black eyes. Perhaps worried she might
attempt something, Turner added, “And that goes for you as well, Dr. Putnam.
Having Dr. Whyborne alive will make things easier, but there are other ways,
and I’ll use them if I must.”

Curse
it.

A short
time later, we once again stood beneath the glacier. The ice above us creaked
and groaned like a living thing, and a shiver went through me. God, I hoped the
sounds were ordinary and didn’t herald a collapse of some sort.

Turner
gestured. “Now show us this entrance you found.”

How
different were my emotions this time. Tramping through here before, I’d
thrilled with the discovery. Now I barely cared about the carvings, the ramp,
the door into darkness. Nothing mattered except somehow getting away from
Turner without either of us dying.

The
doorway from the hexagonal room led to another chamber of the same shape, and thence
to a third. Any furniture or items belonging to the inhabitants were long gone,
crumbled into dust or washed away by periodic flooding.

Turner
paused to examine the murals, a frown creasing his brow when he saw their poor
condition. “What are you looking for?” Christine asked.

“Certain
signs,” he replied. “Which won’t be found here, clearly. We have to move in and
down.”

“And if
the object of your search is gone?” I asked. “If there is no umbra?”

A smirk
played about his mouth. “I still can’t believe you’re this much of a fool. Why
did
you come here, if not for the same reason any sorcerer seeks out the umbrae?”

Seeks
out? “But the Pnakotic Manuscripts specifically warn
against
approaching
these places, especially on the day of greatest darkness.”

“The
Pnakotic Manuscripts?” Turner laughed, rather annoyingly. “Of course they warn
against it. Who do you think sealed the umbrae away in the first place? If you’d
bothered to refer to any number of other texts, you’d have found instructions
on how to locate a chrysalis and obtain a formidable servant for yourself.”

I ground
my teeth together. What sort of resources did the man think I possessed? Or did
he imagine I spent my days studying sorcery instead of performing my actual job
at the museum? “We believed Griffin’s brother was in danger, and his peril
would only grow as the solstice approached. I hardly had the time or leisure to
read through every book in the library.”

Turner
shook his head, clearly amused at my expense. “You
are
a fool. Good
lord, why on earth did the Endicotts ever fear you?”

I felt
as though I’d missed a step in the dark. “The…Endicotts?” Dear heavens, did my
damnable cousins have a hand in all this?

Last
year, after it was all over, I’d gone to the house Theo and Fiona had rented.
All of their books and notes were gone. A brief inquiry on Griffin’s part
showed the twins shipped everything back to England within hours of learning
the truth about my ketoi blood. No doubt they’d included every detail they knew
about me, in case their effort to wipe Widdershins off the face of the earth
didn’t succeed.

But I’d
heard nothing from the family in the year since. Not a single whisper, or
threatening letter, or assassination attempt.

“Yes.”
Turner’s lip curled. “You and I are related—very distantly—through
our maternal lines. If I had my way, I’d be living on the family estate at this
moment.”

“Then
why are you here bullying us instead?” Christine asked.

His face
flushed dark, and he gave her a shake. “Because they’re fools, so interested in
power and blood they overlook a man’s true worth. But they’ll see soon enough.
They’re cowards who didn’t dare confront Dr. Whyborne in his place of power.
But they looked into his associates and their families, and found Jack.” A
small, tight smile crept onto his face. “And I, the useless cousin whose
sorcery wasn’t deemed great enough to earn him a place at the table, volunteered
to face what they fear. I would confront the great and mighty Dr. Whyborne.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered you’re nothing more than a dithering
fairy with hardly any intelligence to speak of.”

Now that
went too far. “I placed first in my class at Miskatonic,” I said stiffly. “Granted,
they didn’t hand out degrees in thuggery, which I assume was
your
area
of specialization.”

“I’m cut
to the quick,” Turner replied mockingly. “Although to be fair, Jack was the one
who came up with the idea of luring you here, where you’d be more vulnerable
and
could prove useful at the same time.”

“Jack
may not have been in real danger before,” Christine said, the words brittle,
clipped. “But I assure you, he will be if I ever lay eyes on him again.”

“Worry
about your own skin, Dr. Putnam.” Turner advised. “And be silent, the both of
you. I’m done answering questions.”

The
third room let out into a passage that ran level for a short distance, before
intersecting with a smallish, hexagonal chamber. Surprisingly, what appeared to
be windows pierced the opposite wall. And was that faint light coming through
them?

Turner
seemed equally confused. “Windows?” he murmured. “Not here then. Lower?”

Corridors
ran off to either side of the small room. Turner followed the right hand one,
which let out onto a vast open space.

Even in
such danger as we were, I couldn’t suppress a gasp of awe at the sight awaiting
us. Some ancient river had long ago carved deep into the mountain, leaving
behind a vast rift that now opened before us. Buildings, such as we’d seen
depicted on the stele, clung to each flank. There appeared to be no streets,
and very little organization, the whole thing more like a vast hive than a
city. Slender bridges of stone leapt from one side of the gorge to the other,
and high above, almost lost to our sight, lay the great bulk of the glacier. At
one end stood an enormous plaza, with a great temple in the center. Its stepped
sides and flattened top reminded me irresistibly of the great temple where I’d seen
the dweller in the deeps. The flattened top was clearly meant to be some sort
of ritual area, like the peaks of the temples uncovered in the jungles of South
America. A great hexagon had been carved into its stones, and a sort of plinth
stood at one end, overlooking the city below.

The
entire scene glowed softly, lit by what looked like a net of light draped
across the fantastic architecture of the city. Some of the glowing substance
lay on the balcony we stood upon. I pulled off one mitten and touched it
tentatively with my finger. It was sticky and slimy, and a trace came off on my
fingertip when it pulled back.

“It’s
like some sort of-of slime mold, perhaps?” I suggested. I was no biologist
though.

“Who
cares?” Turner jerked his head to indicate a ramp spiraling down. “What we’re
looking for won’t be in this part of the city, where it would have been exposed
to the sky.”

Hatred
scalded the back of my throat, the inside of my chest. Turner had threatened
us, likely meant to kill us, especially if he worked with my cousins. Whatever
creature awaited us, whatever this “chrysalis” might be, he meant to wrest it
out of here without thought of what he might unleash.

And he
couldn’t even be bothered to take a blasted moment and consider the
magnificence surrounding us, to feel the weight of history and wonder.

“You’re
despicable,” I told him.

Turner’s
lip curled. “Strangely, I don’t care about the opinion of a monster. Now come
along, or I’ll start carving bits and pieces out of Dr. Putnam.”

Whyborne

We descended,
as he’d said, eventually finding a path across a wide causeway, far beneath the
delicate stone bridges. Beyond lay another series of hexagonal chambers, their
floors oddly offset from one another.

“Ah,”
Turner said at last. “Yes. Here we are.”

Three
doorways led from this chamber. The murals were in much better shape than those
closer to the outside. Groupings of dots showed over each door, accompanied by
the illustrations of fantastical creatures. At least, I hoped they were
fantastical.

Turner
paused uncertainly, studying the symbols around them. He didn’t share what he
was looking for—although it galled me to admit it, his knowledge of these
matters far outmatched mine. “This way,” he decided at last, and stepped into
the middle hall.

Christine
twisted sharply in his grip, stamping her foot down on his with all of her
weight behind it. At the same moment, she seized his wrist to keep the knife
away from her. “Now, Whyborne!” she shouted.

I
grasped for the first spell that came to mind. Wind roared up out of the
depths, and I shaped it with my will. One of the guards cried out and flung up
his arm, while a second collided with the third, sending them both to the floor.
Elation leapt in me, and I narrowed my focus to set fire to the powder within
the gun still in the hand of the first guard.

Christine’s
scream turned my blood to ice. Forgetting the guard, I spun to see her slump
against the wall, Turner’s knife buried in her upper right arm. He tore the
blade free, and blood spurted out after it.

“Make
one more move, and it will go in her throat next,” he shouted at me.

The wind
died. One of the guards seized me from behind, shoving me into the wall. I
struggled blindly, but he’d gotten a grip on the ugly scarf around my throat. I
twisted, trying to free myself before he succeeded in throttling me.

“I trust
this has been a lesson for you both,” Turner said coldly. “Let him go.”

The hand
loosened its grip. I tore off the scarf and let it fall, coughing and massaging
my bruised throat. “Christine,” I gasped. “Are you all right?”

“F-Fine.”
The word came out in a harsh pant. She leaned against the wall, one hand
clasped to her wounded arm. Blood leaked from between her fingers.

I
started toward her, but Turner raised his knife. “The wound needs to be seen
to,” I said. “You can’t just let her bleed to death!”

“I
certainly can. I won’t, as long as you cooperate.” He gave me a nasty sort of
smile. “But it’s entirely within my power to end her any moment I feel like it.”

I
swallowed against the icy ball clogging my throat. “You’ve made your point.”
God, we were going to die down here. “Please, just do something to help her.”

Turner
motioned to one of the guards. He gave me a rough shove as he passed and was
none too gentle with Christine. The parka proved too thick to tie a bandage
around effectively, so she shrugged out of it. Blood stained the coat beneath,
but the brute didn’t bother to check the wound, just tied a handkerchief around
her arm: coat, shirt, union suit, and all. I hoped it would do some good at
least. Christine winced but made no complaint, dragging the parka back on when
he finished.

“Now, if
we’re done with this nonsense, shall we continue on?” Turner asked, as if giving
us a choice.

The
hallway penetrated deep into the rock. Already it was far warmer than on the
surface, and I tried to remember what temperature caves supposedly hovered at.
The ceiling remained level, but the floor abruptly canted down into another of
the steep ramps. The walls fell away, and great, barrel shaped columns, carved
from the living rock, lined either side of the long ramp.

The ramp
ended in a large, almost plaza-like room. Our lanterns showed bits and pieces
of distant carvings, and once again the style reminded me irresistibly of my
dreams of the abyssal city. Rather than undersea monsters, however, this showed
rank upon rank of mountains, and of great land animals that seemed but the
distant relations of our modern fauna.

How
accursedly old was this place? Had every guess as to the antiquity of the human
species been wrong, or…

No. I
wouldn’t let myself think it. Not yet, anyway.

An
immense door, cunningly carved from stone, blocked the way forward. Like the
walls, it too bore reliefs. But rather than depicting a scene or a series of
creatures, it showed only a single, massive figure. My first impression was of
some Eastern dragon, all sinuous curls and lashing whiskers.

Oh dear.
What had Vanya shouted, about breaking open the mountain and releasing a giant
worm? Was this a depiction of the umbra?

“What
the devil is that thing?” Christine asked. Her voice cracked slightly, whether
from pain or thirst I didn’t know.

“The
Mother of Shadows,” Turner said. “But don’t worry—we won’t be coming across
her.”

The fine
hair on the back of my neck tried to stand up. Umbrae meant shadows. And if
this thing was called the Mother of Shadows… might be more than one umbra down
here? Or was the depiction merely symbolic? Turner seemed certain we wouldn’t
encounter the creature.

Turner
shoved Christine roughly in the direction of one of the guards. “Put a bullet
in her if Dr. Whyborne so much as twitches,” he ordered.

I held
myself as still as possible, afraid the order might be taken literally. How
could I possibly hope to get us out of this situation alive? We’d come so close
in the corridor—if only Turner hadn’t struck such a deep blow, we might
be free now.

But
there was no use regretting what might have been. I narrowed my eyes and
watched Turner as he approached the great door. How on earth did it open? There
didn’t seem to be any visible device, no latch or hinge.

Turner,
once again, had the answers. If nothing else, this trip to the Arctic had served
to show me how utterly inadequate I was in every way. I’d at least thought
myself a competent sorcerer, but rather than spend the last year learning the
finer points, I’d relied on my natural affinity for magic and merely dabbled in
anything more. Perhaps if I’d truly devoted myself to study, I would have known
as much as Turner and been prepared for all of this. Instead, Christine was
injured and Griffin in terrible danger, and I could do nothing but stand here
like a fool.

Turner
drew out a short wand: a thick wooden base strung with crystals and wire, and inscribed
all over with arcane sigils. He inspected the door, running the wand across its
surface a few times, as if dowsing for something. Then he nodded, pointed at
the center of the door, and began to chant.

I didn’t
recognize the language he spoke: low and rough and strangely painful to hear.
Sweat sprang out on his brow, but he repeated the chant over and over again,
the wand steady in his hand.

There
came a sort of subliminal
click
I felt more than heard. The door split
into two pieces down the center, which swung outward with a low groan. A rush
of fetid air flowed from the opening, up from somewhere deep beneath the earth.

“Quickly,”
Turner said, and dragged Christine after him. One of the guides prodded my back
with his gun.

My skin
tingled as we passed through the doorway, as if a thousand ants scurried
beneath my clothing. I let out a startled exclamation, but the sensation
vanished as quickly as it came.

No one
else seemed to have felt it; even Christine looked at me oddly. Turner,
however, smiled. “As I thought,” he said cryptically.

Beyond
the door stretched a short corridor. Its floor was clear of detritus, no sand
or gravel washed down from above. Not even dust; it looked almost as if an army
of maids had come through and swept it clean.

And the
smell…it didn’t seem like the ordinary foul exhalation one might expect in an
ancient cave. Instead, the air reeked like a chemical laboratory. Although it
seemed familiar, and not from the context of university or the museum. Where
had I smelled that particular fetor before?

“Blast
and damnation,” Christine said. Her face paled even farther, and not just from
blood loss. “The umbra. It’s…it’s…”

We’d
come to the end of the hall and stepped into an enormous hexagonal room. Turner
lifted his lantern. Shadows shifted and scurried…and slid. They didn’t move
like shadows should.

“Not ‘it,’”
he corrected. “Them.”

“Daemons
of the night,” Christine whispered.

I stared
at the walls, at the ceiling, and the floor in mounting horror. Dozens of
black, gelatinous-looking creatures crawled and slithered throughout the room,
each one equipped with a single burning orange eye. Tripartite pupils constricted
in the light of the lantern.

“We have
to run,” I gasped. These creatures weren’t the size of the monster we’d
encountered in Egypt, but they were of the same kind. Any moment they’d fall on
us, their acid melting our flesh from our bones. We would die here in this
stinking lair, and I’d never see Griffin again. I only hoped Turner was the
first to go.

Two of
the guards grabbed me, one holding each arm. I struggled wildly against their
grip. “Run, you idiots! They’re going to kill us!”

“Be
still!” Turner shouted. And to the guards: “Hurry, before they can summon a
soldier!”

The men
dragged me forward, making for the nearest of the things. I thrashed madly, but
before I could break their grip, they hurled me directly on top of it.