by Ryland Thorn
The manhole cover must weigh close to two hundred pounds. Yet it comes up fairly easily under Jack’s efforts, and he balances it on its edge before moving it out of the way.
There is a ladder leading into the darkness. “After you,” Jack says, and offers Lennox his hand.
Chapter Twelve: Abandoned Station
Jack grips the rungs tightly as he descends. He is regretting that Lennox has gone first. The ladder is considerably longer than he expected, and he fears for Lennox’s safety even as he understands that she is just as capable of climbing down as is he.
There is an atavistic part of his nature that wants to protect her even from this. Given that, he would prefer to be beneath her, so he could catch her if she slips.
As it is, all he can do is listen to the rhythmic sounds of her boots echoing on the rungs as she continues to descend through the dark.
Finally, the sounds of Lennox moving subtly change. There is still an echo, but it is as if the reflected sound takes a little longer to return.
“I’m down,” she says softly.
Jack grunts to himself in quiet satisfaction. Lennox is no longer in danger of falling. But he doesn’t want her to be alone in the dark either, so he speeds up his descent over the final few rungs and quickly joins her at the bottom.
Like her, he is careful to avoid making any unnecessary noise. He doesn’t want anyone to know they are there.
They are in a service tunnel. Surprisingly, it is light enough for Jack to see even without Lennox casting a spell. There are aged fluorescent lights burning a dull yellow. Either someone forgot to turn them off or they are always left on.
The air in the tunnel is cold and still. It smells musty and damp to Jack, and he thinks he can hear water dripping from somewhere. Doubtless there will be cockroaches and rats. He doesn’t care either way. It is the larger, more demonic vermin that worry him.
“This way,” Lennox whispers.
As well as the musty dampness of the tunnel, Jack gets a whiff of wet hair mixed with jasmine and finds it surprisingly pleasant.
Together, they work their way along the tunnel, doing their best not to make any noise and hoping that it will indeed lead them where they want to go.
<<<>>>
For all Jack knows, the tunnel could be taking them anywhere. There are no landmarks, no indications at all where they might be. Jack’s normally good sense of direction is confused and uncertain, and he wonders if Lennox should have simply blasted the subway entrance gate open after all.
Not usually given to undue worry, he finds himself fretting. He wonders how the service tunnel is connected to the subway station. Is there a side tunnel, or another hatch to take them to a different level?
Have they already gone too far and passed it by?
Jack wants to voice his concerns, but instead grits his teeth and says nothing. He trusts Lennox and accepts that she will not lead them astray.
But the dim light and narrowness of the tunnel does nothing for his state of mind.
Fortunately, it isn’t long before Lennox comes to a halt. “Here,” she whispers.
They are standing next to a steel door in the side of the tunnel. The number 78 is displayed in rusty, raised figures off to the side, and the door is held shut with a bolt.
An old padlock is hanging from the bolt, but it isn’t barring their entry. The padlock is hanging wide open.
The hair on the back of Jack’s neck rises. The padlock is an indication that the station is not completely deserted. Someone has been there. They have used this steel door. They have opened the padlock.
“Careful now,” Jack grunts to Lennox. “Be on your guard.”
Jack knows that it might have been the sorcerer they are after who unlocked the door. Just as likely, it might have been a city worker on legitimate business. Either way, the sight of it is enough for Jack’s caution to awaken.
Lennox nods her head and stands back to give him some room. Jack draws out his gun, breathes deeply to calm the beating of his racing heart, and silently, carefully, slides the bolt open. Then, in an effort to prevent the hinges from squealing, he grips the bolt in his free hand and lifts at the same time as he pushes the door open.
<<<>>>
To Jack’s relief, there is nobody waiting for them on the other side of the door. The hinges worked without making a sound, and he and Lennox find themselves in a larger tunnel with railway tracks running through the middle.
It is darker here, but Jack can see that the tunnel opens up only a few feet away. Where it opens, there is what can only be a subway platform lit by the same dull yellow light as in the service tunnel.
There is no need to say anything. Jack knows that Lennox is ready to cast spells at need, and he has his gun. They are as ready as they can be and their goal is in sight. They have found the abandoned subway station.
All that remains is to see if their quarry is there, or if this location is as empty as the last.
Together, crouching low, they move to the platform and peek over the edge.
It is a larger station than Jack had expected. With wide open spaces and a staircase leading to an upper level, it reminds him of a cathedral complete with evenly spaced columns holding up the second floor. But where a cathedral is usually designed with grace and beauty in mind, the station has a more brutal aspect.
It is made of concrete and steel. There are cables and pipes spanning the high ceiling. Fluorescent lights flicker dimly behind yellow plastic covers. The walls are almost concealed by overlapping graffiti, and there is a layer of dirt and grime on the floor.
Yet the designers had made some token efforts toward style. Further strengthening the cathedral-like aspect, there are gargoyles carved high up on the columns, and dominating the floor next to the stairs is a prominent sculpture.
The statue is a minotaur, or at least a demonic version of one. It is a giant standing more than ten feet tall, a wall of muscle and strength with the hind legs and head of a bull and wings of a bat.
Jack can’t help but remember the gargoyle statue he’d been pounded against in his earlier battle with a wight. That had been in another railway station in a different part of the city, but he wonders if perhaps they were both made by the same sculptor. Except that this one seems more life-like even at a distance.
Other than the gargoyles and dirt, the station appears to be empty.
Jack senses Lennox relax beside him. Jack is prepared to turn away, to leave this cold, abandoned place so he and Lennox can track down the fifth of the tar man’s locations.
But perhaps the station is not as empty as it appears. When Lennox uses her magic, the demonic words that she utters irritate Jack on a cellular level. To him, the sound of her words are like fingernails on a blackboard combined with the nausea of bobbing along in a tiny boat on high seas. It is like the after-effects of eating an open tin of fish that has been left out in the sun for too long.
It is like ants crawling over his skull.
Nor is it just Lennox’s spells that affect Jack like this. He experiences a similar sensation when Madame Brigette works with her glyphs, and whenever he is near anyone using the power of their blood to do magic.
Even though Jack can see nothing out of the ordinary within the station, he is feeling that same awful sensation right now.
And if that isn’t enough to cause him to worry, he can also detect the odor of sulfur and rot in the air.
Chapter Thirteen: Minotaur
“There’s nothing –” Lennox begins, but Jack cuts her off.
“Quiet,” Jack hisses at her. Lennox immediately stops talking and frowns in confusion. “There is something here,” Jack says softly. “I can sense it. I can smell it.”
Despite the lack of volume in his words, there is an intensity to them that catches Lennox’s attention. She understands the gravity of what he is saying and turns her focus back to the platform.
A moment later, Lennox nods. “There is something…” she begins, but does
n’t finish her sentence. “Demon magic. Wait here. Cover me,” she says.
Of the two of them, Jack has seniority. It is normally his call when they are approaching possible danger. But magic is Lennox’s field of expertise. And besides, she doesn’t give him the chance to respond. She places her hands on the top of the platform and in one fluid movement pulls herself up.
Jack curses under his breath as he watches Lennox move quietly toward the middle of the platform. The small hairs on the back of his neck are rising. Demon magic is not his strength. That he has sensed it here concerns him, and he is not happy for Lennox to risk herself against whatever it is.
All he can do is aim his revolver in her general direction and hope that his worry is needless.
Lennox pauses. With her back to him, she mutters under her breath. Jack’s sensation of creeping nausea increases and he has to blink to clear his eyes, which have become blurry. Then he realizes that his eyes aren’t the issue. It is the air itself that has suddenly become unfocused.
It is like there is a ripple in the air immediately in front of where Lennox is standing. As Jack stares, he sees that the ripple is in the form of a dome, as tall as the minotaur and at least twice as wide.
Jack doesn’t know what he is looking at, but Lennox does. She casts a glance at him over her shoulder. “It’s a ward of some kind,” she says. “I don’t know what it’s for. Give me a moment….”
Jack is still down on the tracks. As a rule, he solves his own problems without relying on anyone else. But he and Lennox are hunting a sorcerer in an unknown organization that is bent on destroying the Brotherhood of Perdition. And they have just come across a magical ward in a location where the tar man said the sorcerer might be.
To Jack, the conclusion is obvious, and worrisome. The sorcerer has been here. Perhaps he has never left. Either way, Deedee had specifically forbidden Jack from doing any more than checking these locations out. Nor are Jack and Lennox equipped to deal with a sorcerer right at this moment. The only weapons they have are their knives and guns with garlic salt ammunition. Good for taking down wights and ghouls and the like, but insufficient against any serious foe.
Although it goes against his more violent instincts, Jack thinks it is probably best to respect Deedee’s directive. They should call the Brotherhood and let them know what they have found.
“Lex!” Jack hisses. He is trying to get her attention without making a lot of noise.
Lennox gives a quick shake of her head and ignores him. The shimmer in the air has faded, but Lennox is holding her hands up against where the edge of it had been. “Just a minute,” she murmurs without turning around.
Jack doesn’t know what she is trying to do. All he knows is that the smell of sulfur and rot has grown stronger. There is danger here.
“Now!” Jack says. Without waiting for Lennox to respond, Jack levers himself up to the top of the platform despite the twinge of pain in his thigh where the shrapnel still rests.
He is already too late. Before Jack can take a single step toward Lennox, the minotaur statue comes to life.
It is not a sculpture at all. It is a Hell-beast, conjured from the pit and likely ordered to protect the station against intruders like Lennox and Jack.
It is monstrous. A powerful creature that also has the guile to stand as still as a statue to lure the unwary in close. As Jack watches, the minotaur looms up over Lennox like a mobile mountain. It is exhaling plumes of dark smoke from its nostrils and its eyes are orbs of cankerous yellow.
Yet despite its size and bulk, it has yet to make a sound.
“Look out!” Jack bellows, and it is only at the palpable fear in his voice that Lennox looks up.
Such is the speed of the minotaur that it is almost upon her. Jack has time to take half a step and then he starts firing. Bang! Bang! Bang! Three bullets fly past Lennox’s head and into the minotaur’s chest. The bullets have been blessed and are filled with garlic salts, and have proven effective against all manner of creatures from Hell in the past.
But this minotaur is a different level of monster. It is like the Hell-beast, the three-headed Cerberus creature that Jack and Lennox had faced at the time the Daemonicon had been stolen.
It is a much more potent servant of evil than what Jack and Lennox typically face.
Its skin is like granite. It must be an inch thick. Jack’s bullets do no more than ricochet off, leaving cracks in the monster’s chest but doing no serious damage.
Lennox barely turns toward it when it raises an empty hand the size of a medicine ball. Dark smoke gathers around the minotaur’s fist and coalesces into something more solid. Within half an instant, the minotaur has gone from being weaponless to wielding a club that is like a thick branch of a tree.
“No!” Jack yells as the minotaur swings its club at Lennox.
From the minotaur’s first step until now, no more than a second has passed. Lennox raises her hands and barks the first words of a spell of defense. The air crackles around her just as the club connects.
It is a sickening blow. Lennox sails through the air and collapses on the floor next to one of the columns. Jack is terrified that the monster’s blow has killed her on the spot. He doesn’t know if her defensive spell has done anything to lessen the impact. All he knows is that Lennox is crumpled and unmoving, and the minotaur is still looking at her as if it intends to attack her again even though its club is no more than a smoky memory.
An inarticulate cry of fear and fury rips from Jack’s throat. He doesn’t know if Lennox is dead or alive, but he knows that he will do anything to keep the minotaur away from her. Without consciously planning to do so, he charges at the minotaur with his trench coat billowing out behind him.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Click!
He empties the revolver in an instant and watches as three additional divots appear on the monster’s chest. The bullets do no more damage to the minotaur than a rock hammer would do to a boulder. But Jack’s actions have attracted its attention.
Instead of continuing to stalk Lennox, the minotaur is focused on Jack. Jack is sprinting as hard as his injured leg will allow. At that moment, he doesn’t care about the ward or the sorcerer or anything else. His enemy is the minotaur. Nothing else matters.
Jack flings his empty revolver at the monster’s face and then has to duck beneath a smoky, double-headed ax that has appeared in its hands. Jack uses his momentum to slide in behind the monster.
The minotaur suddenly forgoes all its stealth and unleashes a roar that is so loud it hurts Jack’s ears. It spins in place and swings its great ax at the same time, and if Jack didn’t dance swiftly backward it would have cut him in half.
Any normal man would have responded in terror to face such a monster. They would have frozen in place or tried their best to escape. But Jack is not a normal man. Beings like this bring out his fury more than his fear. His blood is boiling in his veins and he wants nothing more than to shatter the minotaur into pieces.
Snarling in rage, he unlimbers the shotgun from over his shoulders even though he knows it is not powerful enough to damage this monster. As the minotaur steps forward and raises its ax over its head, Jack lets it have both barrels right in the face.
Like the revolver bullets, the shotgun shells are packed with garlic salts. If he had shot a wight or a ghoul, he would have blasted half of its face into mush and the air would be filling with noxious exudate as its flesh dissolves.
But the minotaur is not a wight or a ghoul. The double blast is no more than an irritation to it. It barely pauses, then continues its swing at the same time as it shatters the air with a second deafening roar.
Jack leaps to the side and feels the edge of the minotaur’s ax cut through the air where he had been. It takes a huge chunk of concrete out of the floor, and fades into nothing but smoke as the minotaur leaps toward him.
This time, Jack doesn’t back away. He grits his teeth and stands his ground and pumps two more shells into his shotgun barrels, ready to
fire.
It is an uneven contest. The minotaur is nearly twice Jack’s height and must weigh close to a ton. It is fast and full of demonic strength. It conjures weapons out of smoke and could crush Jack’s head like an egg in the palm of its hand.
Jack’s demon blood gives him durability far beyond what is normal. When enraged, he is considerably stronger than most. But he is in no way close to the minotaur’s league.
Yet he does not back down. He is furious that this thing dares to walk the earth. He is livid that it would even think to strike Lennox.
He is enraged to the point of madness and beyond that it could have already killed her.
The minotaur lands in front of him with its fists raised, ready to pound him into paste. But Jack doesn’t give it the chance. He jams the barrels of his shotgun into the granite of the minotaur’s stomach and pulls the triggers.
BANG!
The force of the explosion is enough to blow Jack off his feet. He lands on his back on the platform floor with his hands and wrists vibrating to the tune of the blast.
He is still holding onto the shotgun, but it is useless. Both barrels have bulges in them, and the one on the left has split near the end.
Jack had hoped that the contained explosion might be enough to damage the monster. But it is still standing. Still looming above him like a specter of doom. The only evidence of Jack’s efforts is a network of cracks on the monster’s stomach.
Jack swears to himself under his breath. He is in danger now, on his back, effectively weaponless for the moment, and the monster is at his feet. He struggles to rise quickly, but the minotaur is much too fast. It lunges toward him and ends up with its hooves on either side of Jack’s body.
The minotaur could have stomped Jack into a body pulp where he lies. It is what Jack would have done. But the monster instead rears back and roars once again, and is suddenly gripping a smoky trident in both of its fists.
Jack knows that his immortality is about to be put to the test. There is little he can do to stop the monster burying the sharp end of the trident in his face. He has time only to sit up and use the shotgun like a club with all the force that he can, aiming between the monster’s legs.