Hoarfrost (Whyborne & Griffin Book 6) (19 page)

Griffin

The
first part of our descent into the city went uneventfully. I jumped at every
shadow, of course—and with three lanterns moving about, there were plenty
of them. But for the most part, I could pretend the rooms were simply
that—rooms, which just happened to lack any windows. And smelled of dank
stone.

The
voice grew stronger, but only by increments, thank heavens. The words, if it
truly even spoke words, remained incomprehensible.

Was it
tied to the umbrae? To my strange dreams of Egypt? It had to be, surely,
although in what manner I couldn’t fathom.

When we
came to the rift, we all stood for a moment, dazzled by the sight of sprawling
buildings, lit with a delicate lace of glowing blue. “Dear God,” Iskander
whispered, his eyes showing white in his dark face. “Who—
what
—built
this?”

Jack
shook his head. “The question I’m more interested in is, how do we know where Nicholas
went? This place is a maze.”

“Down,”
I said. Because down was where all the terrible things lived, wasn’t it? Down beneath
the earth, beneath the ocean. In the dreams haunting us beneath the surface of
sleep.

Down was
where the source of the voice waited, like a spider in the center of a web.

No one
argued. I started forward, and they followed. We made our way toward the bottom
of the rift, occasionally backtracking when either reaching a dead end or when
the path seemed to lead the wrong way. I had some idea of what direction to go,
but not precisely how to get there. Scarrow had the foresight to bring chalk
with him, and we carefully marked the walls as we went. The thought of getting
lost in this maze, of wandering forever until we died alone in the dark…God. I
couldn’t let myself think about it. Or think about what surely lurked down here
somewhere.

An
ancient river course ran across the floor of the rift, and we crossed it on a
narrow bridge. More bridges spanned the gap higher up, a few intact, most
shattered from the passage of time. As we started back into the maze of
buildings on the other side, Iskander stopped and held up his hand for silence.

We all
froze. My heart pounded in my ears, too loud to hear anything but the insidious
whisper that existed only inside my head. Did the umbrae come for us, with
their burning feelers and gelatinous wings? Would we be reduced to a pile of
charred bones any moment?

“What is
it?” Jack murmured when nothing happened.

Iskander
shook his head and frowned. “I thought I heard something. A voice, higher up.”
He gestured to the levels above us. “I must have mistaken it.”

“Perhaps,”
Scarrow said, but his expression remained grim.

A short
time later, we reached a room with three corridors branching off. All of them
seemed equally level. So much for my suggestion of always going deeper. “Now
what?” Jack asked.

Damn it.
I didn’t know. I knew we needed to go down, but the voice was like having a
compass without a map. If we guessed wrong, we might arrive too late, or not at
all, wandering until thirst and hunger compelled us to give up the search. We
might—

“Look!”
Scarrow said, pointing at the middle passage. “Is that Dr. Whyborne’s scarf?”

I ran to
where it lay, the puce color bright against the cool, gray stone of the floor. My
hand trembled as I scooped it up, afraid to see it stained with blood or burned
through from acid. But it was whole, unmarked except for the ordinary wear of
travel. I brought it to my nose and breathed deep, smelling salt and ambergris.

“We’re
on the right track,” Iskander said. “I suppose the scarf brought luck after
all.”

“We’ll
have to let Miss Parkhurst know,” I agreed shakily. I tucked the scarf
carefully into my coat, nestling it where the heat of my body would keep it
warm until I gave it back to Whyborne.

“Did it?”
Jack asked. “Look. Blood.”

We
gathered around the stain on the floor. Someone had bled here, badly. I ran my
finger over the stain, and it came away red. “Still fresh,” I said.

Iskander’s
dark eyes met mine, reflecting my fear back at me. Who did the blood belong to?
Christine? Whyborne? The person we each loved most in this world was down here
in the dark, maybe hurt. Maybe dying.

Our fear
must have shown on our faces, because Jack suggested, “Maybe it isn’t theirs.”

“They
tried to break free.” I fought to keep my voice steady as I spoke. “But they
failed. Your friend Nicholas hurt one of them.”

Jack
shook his head. “You can’t be certain.”

“Do you
have some better explanation?”

“Perhaps
they hurt him.”

“In that
case, someone would have died here.” I rose to my feet. “Christine might be
unarmed, but Whyborne isn’t by his very nature. Even if they broke free and
ran, he would have set off the powder in one of the guard’s guns, just to even
the odds a bit.”

“If he
didn’t have time to cast the spell…”

“That
isn’t how it works for him.” I swallowed back my fear for Whyborne’s safety and
concentrated on my words. “He’s used sigils and words in the past, but they’re
just a crutch, honestly.”

“Fascinating,”
Scarrow said. “I’ve never met anyone with ketoi blood before, let alone a
sorcerer with such an unusual heritage. Once this is over, I must speak with him
about his approach to magic.”

I rather
thought he was being terribly optimistic, given we might all die down here. But
I kept the sentiment to myself.

We moved
with greater speed now, goaded by the knowledge one of our friends was likely
hurt. Fortunately, the corridor failed to either branch or end in a maze.
Rather, it transformed into a steep ramp, leading us down once again. At the
base of the ramp lay an enormous room with a gigantic doorway cut into it. Two
great slabs of rock formed doors, now standing open.

The air
blowing from the short corridor beyond reeked with a familiar stench. My gut
turned sour, and bile rose into my throat. I’d first smelled it wafting up from
a trapdoor in a Chicago basement. Glenn and I had exchanged a grim look before
we ventured in. Neither of us knew only one of us would ever leave again.

The
second time was in Egypt, when the daemon of the night chased us through the
lowest levels of the lightless pyramid, until driven back by the sun. The
pursuit that still haunted my dreams.

No sun
had ever fallen in these lightless depths. No sun even awaited outside, should
we somehow escape.

I took a
deep breath and tried to calm my pounding heart. Every instinct screamed we
were in terrible danger, but I couldn’t let the fear overwhelm me. Ival was
down here somewhere, possibly hurt. I couldn’t just leave him to die in the
dark.

Iskander
knelt near the base of one of the doors and ran a hand over the stone. “Look.
These scrapes on the floor are fresh. This was opened recently.”

“See the
carving on the doors?” Scarrow asked. “I wonder…could this be what the
aboriginal legends meant about a great worm? Did some hunter find his way down
here, then turn back, realizing that something lived beyond these doors he had
no desire to face?”

“It
seems likely,” Iskander agreed, studying the carving himself. For an instant, a
look of mingled fondness and terror crossed his face. “I wonder what Christine
made of it.”

“We’ll
get her back,” I said. “And she’ll tell you herself.”

“And
probably berate me for not photographing every inch of the place on the way to
find her,” he added with a pale smile.

“We’ll
come upon her and Whyborne standing atop a pile of dead umbrae, arguing about
the correct interpretation of one of the murals.”

He
laughed, then looked away. “God, I hope so.”

Scarrow
stepped up to the doors and examined them carefully. “The magical seals are
here, most likely.” He passed a hand through the empty air above the lintel. “They
won’t react to us, of course, not being umbrae. Still, given the size of the
doors and the image on them, I suspect this room is the last we can count as
remotely safe.”

Fear
wanted to turn my guts to water, but I refused to let it. I couldn’t think
about the piles of melted bones in Egypt, the screams of the dying. “Jack, put
out your lantern for the moment and ready the oil. Reverend Scarrow, I assume
you can light it off at a distance?”

“I shall
do my best,” he said.

Jack put
out his lantern and took a can of kerosene from his pack. His skin was pale as
milk, but determination firmed his jaw.

Scarrow
went first, followed by Iskander and Jack. Steeling myself against whatever lay
ahead, I stepped through the doors after them.

“Thieves!
Stealers of children!”

I cried
out in shock as the distant voice became a howl, clamping my hands to my ears
and nearly striking myself with my burning lantern.

“Griffin?”
Jack called, his voice nearly lost beneath the shriek of rage and pain. “What
is it? What’s wrong?”

“My
daughter is gone, taken, stolen, why? Evil, greedy, monstrous thieves!”

My knees
hit the stone floor, but the pain seemed very far away, drowned by the agonized
cry. Jack knelt beside me. His hand hovered in the air, as if he feared his
touch might do some harm. “What’s happening?”

They
couldn’t hear it. The cry wasn’t in my ears. It was in my head, and it was more
than just a scream of pain. I could
feel
the grief and rage behind it,
the blind terror of a parent whose child has been stolen by those who meant her
only harm. My head threatened to split open, and I tasted blood, felt warmth
trickle over my lips.

“Stop!”
I shouted. “For the love of God, please, stop!”

There
came a shift, as if I’d caught the attention of something that hadn’t even
realized I existed before. In my mind, I saw a great, burning eye punctured by
a three-lobed pupil—then it rushed toward me, into me, and everything
else fell away.

Whyborne

“Run!” I
shouted, and hauled Christine with me.

The
pressure at the back of my mind shifted as the alarm of an intruder spread
along telepathic waves. In the corner, the soldier’s orange eye blinked open,
and it began to unfurl.

I ran
blindly, not caring what I trod on or bumped into. Christine cried out, a sound
of pain I had no choice but to ignore as I pulled her after me. We half ran,
half staggered down the nearest ramp, the flame of my lantern flickering madly.

Fire—it
was the only weapon I had against them. But if I flung the lantern, our only
source of light would be gone. It would be a death sentence.

There
might be some way of delaying the soldier, though. As soon as we hit the bottom
of the ramp, I let go of Christine and turned back to face the way we’d come.
The soldier raced after, fitting its malleable body into the narrow confines of
the corridor.

I called
on the wind, felt the world shift beneath me. Wind poured through whatever
crevices or gaps allowed air into this chthonic place, and I shaped it with my
will. The scars on my arm burned and pulled as I flung my hand out in front of
me, and commanded the world to obey.

A gale
howled through the underground passage, tearing at my hair and clothing. Its
full force funneled into the smaller corridor, striking the jelly-like flesh of
the umbra and shoving it back. Whatever property of its substance allowed it to
fly rendered it vulnerable to a blast of wind, and it hurtled backward.

It wasn’t
much, but at least it bought us a few breaths. Christine grabbed my arm for
support—she couldn’t go far, not like this. If we could only put some
distance between the soldier and us, perhaps I might trick the umbrae again by
covering Christine’s presence with my own.

Unless our
earlier speculation proved correct, and some intelligence guided them all. In
which case, I could only hope it wouldn’t realize I accompanied the intruder
the worker had sensed. If that happened, we were both surely dead.

Two new
corridors opened off the room. I made for the one opposite the way we’d come,
in some vague hope it would take us farther from the agitated nursery.

A great,
burning eye appeared in the shadows of the corridor. A moment later, a solider
emerged. Followed by another.

We
ducked into the only remaining corridor, Christine stumbling but still on her
feet through determination alone. I risked a glance over my shoulder, saw the
original solider rejoin the two new ones, all of them rushing after us. Their
stench washed over me, and my eyes watered. If I summoned the wind again,
perhaps we still had a chance.

“No,”
Christine moaned.

The
corridor ended in a rock fall ahead of us. We were trapped, with no way out.

With
nothing left but desperation, I turned and flung the lantern with all my might
at the oncoming soldiers. It struck the one in the lead, flames and oil
spreading over its skin. It let out a hellish shriek, its gelatinous flesh
retracting sharply as it tried to flee the source of the pain. In the last
light, I glimpsed the other two soldiers still coming toward us.

Then
there was nothing but darkness. I flung my arms around Christine, and she
around me. Together we sank to the floor and waited for the end.