Supernatural Games (18 page)

I couldn’t see his air bubbles and felt anxious when his head broke the water. He swam and walked until he was out of the spring, then trotted back the way he had come until he reached the stairs leading down to the room that demolished the vampire. Once he got into the room, he checked every inch of the space. I think after his episode with the trap door, he was being extra cautious. Finally, he approached the two doors. Unlike the vampire, he didn’t try to touch either door or doorknob. The doors were solid wood with only a knob and hinges.

The fae walked to the door on the right and took whatever he’d retrieved from the bottom of the spring from his pocket. It looked like a small shell. He knelt down in front of the door and pressed it into the ground. There may or may not have been an opening, but I couldn’t see well enough to tell. Then the door slowly pulled up and out of sight. The fae scrambled up and through the door, which silently slid back into place.

At last, one down and three more to go to complete the final challenge, the whole thing had me on edge. It wouldn’t be long before the vampire and wizard again reached the spring, so I scanned my monitors to see where the fae had gone. I found him making his way through a warren of underground tunnels. There were at least eleven levels in this underground city, one time capable of handling as many as fifty thousand people at once.

The fae was in an area where there were large storage rooms, large ventilation shafts and a maze of smaller rooms along the perimeter. It looked like this had been a living area at one time. The smaller rooms were obviously dug by hand. Most of the rooms had fire pits in the floor near the middle of the room. A few had small nooks carved into the sidewalls looking like sleeping lofts. The idea of living so far underground in such snug little homes made me cringe. Between each level, large stones could be rolled across the tunnel mouth to seal intruders out and families in. There appeared to be a central gathering place in the middle of all the sleeping rooms. The market had rough carved benches around the outside of the rectangular meeting space. Unlike the dirt floors found in the rest of the cavern, the agora had irregular sized cobblestones radiating from its center to cover the dirt floor.

I watched as the fae skirted the area, checking out the rooms and the surrounding agora. Finally, he sat down on one of the benches and studied his notes. From the look on his face, I was sure he didn’t have a clue what to look for. He stood, stashed his notes, and stalked off toward the largest storage room. The room had shelves excavated into the walls, grates covering holes in the floor, and all manner of nooks and crannies burrowed into the floors and supporting walls.

The fae approached the grates, but stayed well away from them. It looked like he had learned his lesson after the manhole cover dropped him down a few levels. He leaned in for a closer look, and a bright flash of light exploded in his face. It looked like one of those old fashion flash bulbs used with the first cameras. Then he disappeared with a loud bang. The blinding flash of light and loud boom reminded me of a flash grenade. When the air cleared, the fae was nowhere to be found. I scanned the whole area and couldn’t detect any movement until I noticed the grate nearest where the fae had disappeared had a stream of spiders pouring out of it.

I shuddered involuntarily and thanked my lucky stars this was Corbin’s stage. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d have said I thought the explosion had disturbed a nest. Then I saw hawk-sized wasps swarm up from the closest fire pit to attack the spiders. Shit, those wasps weren’t part of the plan. I mean, every supersized insect, bird, reptile or animal we’d seen so far; hadn’t been. I got on my mic and tried to contact Tokem and Corbin. Tokem was the first to answer.

“Lauren, we’ve got a team on the way, and I have my crews scanning all footage to see if the fae shows up somewhere else.”

“Tokem, is there any way to get a better view of the area? I’m sure there are runes somewhere we missed.”

“Unfortunately, there isn’t, it’s too far underground.”

“Lauren, Tokem, I just arrived at the area near the grate.”

“Corbin, look around and see if you can find any runes near the grating. And be very careful around those wasps.”

“Lauren, the wasps are too busy with the spiders to pay any attention to me. I haven’t seen any runes yet. Wait. I think I found something on the inside of the fire pit. Yes, I’ll take a picture and send it to your phone. Give me a minute.”

My phone chirped a few minutes later, and I said a few unladylike things when I saw the runes. They were similar to the ones we’d found near the big cats and the jumbo frog. I’d have to go down there and disarm those runes or we’d have spiders everywhere.

“Corbin, I’ll need to come and deactivate those runes. Tokem, can you contact the design team and see if this was part of the original plan?”

“Lauren, I’ll talk to the design team and get back to you.”

“Thanks, Tokem. Corbin, I’ll be there shortly. If there are any other competitors near the area, keep them away.”

“Will do.”

I put on my suit and headed for my hovercraft. This was earlier than I’d planned, but I might as well stay once I got the runes disarmed. I sure hoped the fae’s disappearance was part of the competition. It took me awhile to get close enough to the underground city. Fortunately, I’d just watched all the competitors, so when I got to the room with the lake I looked for the stairs. I found them and started down towards the vicinity where the fae had disappeared. It didn’t take me long to reach the storage room and find the agora.

“Hey, Lauren, I’m over here. The wasps are mostly gone. It didn’t take long for them to eat all the spiders.”

“That’s one blessing. I hate spiders, and I’m allergic to wasps,” I said as I moved over to where Corbin was standing by the runes. I looked them over and wasn’t happy with what I found. The person or persons who put these here used a similar signature, but the ending was different. I didn’t know what that meant, but I was also sure I probably wouldn’t like it.

“Corbin, we need to be very careful here. These runes are slightly different than the ones we’ve seen before. The ending couple of symbols are unlike any I’ve seen. Come over here and stand by me. I’m going to put a shield over us. That way once I’ve disarmed them we’ll be protected from any surprises they might have left behind for us.”

“After our run in with the giant sand worms you don’t have to tell me twice. Unless you think I should turn into a bat and hover above. Then if they snag you or blow you up, I can get help,” Corbin added.

Before I could respond to Corbin, my mic squawked with a report from Tokem.

“Lauren, the design team swears they did not build anything into the challenge that would cause a competitor to vanish. Be careful.”

“Thanks, Tokem. I’m putting a shield around us. Can you alert Traygen and Jason and let them know we are missing a contestant?”

“Will do, and I’ll search for our missing fae.”

“Corbin, I think it’s better to stick together. The last time we split up, I ended up in Mab’s territory. Besides, the shield will protect us from anything except Armageddon, and if that happens, hovering overhead won’t save your ass.”

“Well, when you put it like that, count me in,” Corbin added with a chuckle, as he strode over to stand by me.

I drew a circle around us both, chanted the proper words and waited for the shield to pop up around us. It didn’t take long for the buffer to materialize and snap into place. I had a good view of the runes and I was preparing to chant the words to explode them. This could prove to be tricky. I had to give it enough juice to blow them up without blasting us to smithereens. We were at least seven stories below ground, surrounded by very soft brittle rock. To make matters worse, the runes were etched into the side of a fire pit that was dug into the floor of the cavern. We were already working in an excavated area and who knew what was below us and how far.

“Corbin, as you know, I’m not usually known for my finesse. In fact, my usual approach is to get a bigger hammer. Unfortunately, a gentle approach is required in this case, so it may take a time or two to get this done.”

“Lauren, all you need to do is envision the Crown jewels. See yourself lovingly polishing and shaping a rough uncut diamond.”

“Leave it to you to think of the Crown jewels. At least you didn’t say family jewels. I’m going to remove one symbol at a time until the ciphers are gone. Keep your fingers crossed.”

I moved as close as possible to the characters, while remaining within shelter of the shield. The first two symbols were fairly generic, and I wasn’t too worried about them. I knew their purpose, and they didn’t pack much energy.

“Two down and two to go. I knew the first two, but I was SOL with the remaining two. I had no flipping clue what the other two did. Never mind what their combined influence might do or be.”

I returned my focus to the remaining symbols and studied their outlines. Then I started on the third symbol and spoke the words to remove it. Like the two before it, the symbol blazed slightly and then disappeared. I uttered the words to deactivate the remaining icon, when I noticed it start to change. Shit. This wasn’t good. Unfortunately, before I could warn Corbin, the fire pit erupted upward in a geyser of fire, dirt and debris. Our shield was holding for now, but the room we were in was filling up with fiery bits of debris and rubble. Not to mention that everywhere the fire hit, another small blaze erupted. We would be next if we got anywhere near inferno.

“Corbin, change into a bat and get help. I’m going to take the shield down before the debris buries us.”

“I have a better idea. Remove the shield. I’ll turn into my wolf. You jump on, and I’ll get us out of here. Lauren, now. Trust me.”

I dropped the shield as Corbin turned into a wolf the size of a pony. I jumped on and he bounded for the stairs. We’d made it up three or four flights of stairs when we ran into Traygen and his team. Thankfully, for all of us, the fires were already going out for lack of fuel.

“Lauren, Corbin, are you two all right?”

I jumped off Corbin’s back and into Traygen’s arms.

“We are fine. Luckily, our shield held long enough for Corbin to get us out of there. Whoever put those runes there was definitely trying to kill me. I’ve disarmed all the other symbols. Since all our meetings were bugged, they’d know I would remove any others if they were found.”

“Let’s see if we can find anything now that the fires have died. This obviously was caused by a spell. There hasn’t been any naturally occurring seismic activity in this area in over a hundred years,” Traygen observed.

“Spell or not, be careful. It is still plenty hot. In fact, wait here, let me fly back and check out the area.”

“Corbin, that’s a good idea. It might not be moving toward us but it still feels hot enough to fry us.”

We waited while Corbin flew off to check the immediate area. While he was gone, we checked in with Tokem who reported they still hadn’t found any signs of the missing fae. Jason was notified, and the siren blared to halt the games until we found the missing contestant. If we couldn’t find him soon, we’d have to stop the games.

“Here comes Corbin. Hopefully he’s got good news,” Traygen noted.

Corbin fluttered into view, landed and changed into his human form.

“What’d you find? Was there any sign of the fae?”

“Whoever set that trap for you was looking only to kill or maim you. There was only sufficient fire and debris spewed from the fire pit to engulf one person. We are both lucky you had the shield up or we might have been killed. It is cooling quickly, but I think it will take some time to clear out the smoke and rubble.”

“Give me some good news, will you? Did you see any sign of the missing fae or where he might have gone?”

“Lauren, there might be. Still, we can’t get near it until everything is cleared out. It looks like there is a tunnel beneath where the explosion initiated. It’s possible our fae was pulled down another trap door and out of sight.”

“Corbin, do you think there is any way you might fly down there and check it out? You wouldn’t have to touch anything, or is it still too hot?”

“Traygen, you make a good point, but it will be at least an hour or more for the area to cool enough for me to fly down to check out the space beneath.”

“Corbin, do you think it’s worth checking from the floor below the fire pit? We can get a good approximation of how many feet from the stairs the fire pit is if the floors are even similar enough to have the same layout.”

“Lauren, I can fly down there and check that out. I suggest the rest of you check with Tokem and see if you can access the area from another direction. I’ll keep my mic on and let you know if I find anything.”

Corbin changed back into a bat and flew off. We contacted Tokem and got directions on how to approach the area from the opposite direction. We needed to go back up several floors and then go across. It would take us more than an hour if we didn’t make any wrong turns. Traygen and I trotted off in the direction Tokem indicated. It was much harder working our way back through the narrow tunnels. We made several wrong turns even with Tokem’s guidance. There were so many small passageways branching off, it was hard to know which ones to take. Still, we worked steadily back up and then off to the east. 

It took us another thirty-five minutes to find a space approximately one floor below the fire pit. I had no way to gauge the thickness of the floors. We entered another section analogous to the floor we’d been on before. It didn’t have a large open area or agora. Still, there were storage spaces and numerous rooms branching off like spokes in a wagon wheel.