by King, R. L.
He paused a moment to make sure no one was approaching, then, still using the wall for balance, began hopping forward. He felt along as he went, but found nothing but more rough concrete. He even reached up with his left arm and tried to touch any edge that might be there, but wherever it was, it was either higher than his reach or at a different location. He kept going.
Before long—he estimated eight to ten feet—he reached a corner. In front of him was another blank concrete wall. All right, then, at least it’s got a boundary.
He kept going. It seemed to take forever, since he hadn’t started out moving fast, and got slower as he went because his good leg grew sore and tired from all the hopping along. He took frequent rest stops, always standing because he feared if he sat down again, he might not be able to get back up. A couple times he tried to put his weight on his other leg, but the sharp pains shooting upward quickly convinced him that was a bad idea. Back to hopping, then.
This section went on longer than the first one, he was sure of it. When he’d made it about another ten feet, his leg brushed against something hard sticking out of the wall. He stopped, crouching a bit to examine it with his hand. It protruded only an inch or so, and felt like it was made of metal. It had an uneven, raspy end that suggested something had been broken loose from it. He felt around a bit more and found a corresponding protuberance about two feet farther forward. It took him a moment to figure out what they must have been: the remains of ladder rungs. He felt upward and found two more sets of them that he could reach, but none intact. Someone had broken this ladder off, or else it had simply decayed from rust and moisture and broken off on its own when someone tried to use it. Either way, it wasn’t going to be of any use to him, even if he could climb.
He slumped against the wall again, bowing his head. Don’t get discouraged yet, he told himself. Just because the ladder was gone didn’t mean there wasn’t another way out of here.
But there wasn’t. His slow, painful circuit of the area took him nearly an hour, accompanied by a lot of pain and increasing exhaustion, and netted him several bits of information: he was trapped in some kind of sunken section of the tunnel roughly ten by twenty feet; the broken ladder was the only one there; and wherever the upper level was, he couldn’t reach it even when he braced against the wall and stood on tiptoe, stretching his left arm as far up as he could manage.
In other words, he was well and truly trapped down here.
He discovered two other things in his search, one he was sure of and one he was reasonably sure of. The latter was that no useful debris existed in the middle of the open space: nothing he could climb on, no rope, no heap of discarded metal or wood he might be able to fashion into something to help with his predicament.
The former was that his prison had a door.
It was on the opposite wall from the one where he’d started, and he’d been quite excited when he found it, until he realized it was made of metal—probably similar to the one he’d seen earlier splattered with Luke’s illusionary blood—and it was solidly locked. He spent a bit of time pulling on the handle and trying to slip a flat piece of metal he found on the floor into the crack between it and the metal frame, but the door refused to budge. He even risked pounding on it, but only did that once because no one came to answer, and the echoes of his knocks made him nervous. Did he want to attract the attention of whoever might be lurking nearby?
All of these bits of information gave him a clearer picture of where he must be: some kind of sunken maintenance area, formerly accessible by the metal-runged ladder set into the concrete, but long since abandoned by anyone official. It hadn’t been meant as a trap, though he didn’t think it out of the question that someone might use it as such.
Was someone, even now, heading slowly in his direction, perhaps making a circuit and checking other similar locations for any hapless prey that might have fallen in?
He sank down, finally giving in to his leg’s increasingly insistent protests. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that all he’d had since early the previous day was a bottle of water and an energy bar. How long had it been since he and Luke had set out? Were the Forgotten missing them yet?
He scrubbed at his face with his good hand, shoving damp, matted hair off his forehead, then leaned back against the wall. It felt good to sit down, even on the hard floor. He wasn’t ready to give up—not yet. His brain was tired. He wasn’t thinking straight. Perhaps if he let himself rest for just a little while, things would be clearer.
He refused to let himself think that he might die here.
Stone was running.
His breath rasped in his throat, his chest on fire, his legs spiking pain with each step. But he couldn’t stop.
It was coming.
It was getting closer.
He risked a glance over his shoulder and his heart pounded faster.
The thing filled the corridor, its gaping mouth full of teeth stretched wide, saliva dripping in shimmering strands. Its thick arms, ropy with muscle and slimy with scales, reached out for him, its fingers tipped with sharp yellow claws. Its eyes glowed red. It smelled like the opened doorway to Hell.
And it was catching up to him.
He had to go faster or it would catch him, but he couldn’t go faster. He stumbled, his legs finally giving out—
The thing roared—
“Dr. Stone!”
He blinked. How did it know his name? And why hadn’t it caught him yet?
“Dr. Stone!” the voice called again.
But it didn’t sound like a monster.
It sounded like—Verity?
That was absurd. Verity wasn’t here. Verity didn’t even know where he was.
And then a light—a light so bright and dazzling it hurt to look at it—snapped him awake. He flinched away from it, covering his face with his good arm, barely aware that he’d slumped sideways while he’d slept.
“Oh my God!” said a voice. “He’s here, you guys! Come over here!”
The light was pulled back, and a face peered down at him from what seemed an impossible height. A familiar face, wide-eyed with fear.
“Verity…” he rasped, barely able to believe he wasn’t still dreaming, or hallucinating.
“Oh, God,” she moaned. “Dr. Stone! Are you all right?”
“I’ve definitely been better,” he said.
Chapter Eighteen
More faces peered over the edge, and more lanterns shone down into the pit. “Somebody get some rope,” somebody called. Stone thought it sounded like Malcolm, but he couldn’t be sure. Everything was a little fuzzy, with voices drifting in and out.
“No,” Verity said. “We don’t need rope. I’ll get him out. Just stand back.” She leaned over the edge. “Dr. Stone?”
“Verity—” He blinked, half-afraid that she and all the rest of them would disappear, and he’d awaken from his uneasy nightmare to find himself still alone and trapped. “How—”
“Dr. Stone,” she called, her voice firm and confident. “You’re gonna be fine. Just hang on, okay? I’m gonna levitate you out of there. Okay?”
He nodded wearily. If this was a dream, at least it was getting better. He decided to roll with it.
“Where’s Luke?” Malcolm’s face appeared over the edge. “Where’s Luke, man?” When Stone didn’t answer, he got louder. “Where’s Luke? He alive? Tell me! Tembo and Kyle came back and said they heard screams, but they didn’t find nothin’. We gotta go look for him if—”
“Dead…” Stone muttered. “He’s dead…I’m sorry…I couldn’t—”
“What you mean he’s dead?” Malcolm demanded. “What happened?”
Stone was about to try formulating an answer when Verity’s voice broke in. “You can ask him that when we get him back to your place. C’mon. Stand back so I can get him out of there. I think he’s hurt.”
The sound of shuffling feet and mumbling voices, and the lanterns withdrew again. “Okay,” Verity called again. “You ready, Dr. Stone?”
He nodded wearily. After a moment, he felt his body lifting up off the ground, and cried out as suddenly no hard surface supported his leg. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes.
In a few more seconds he lay on solid ground again, and Verity dropped to her knees next to him, her eyes huge and scared. She put a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “What happened to you?” she asked softly. “What did you do?”
Once again he tried to formulate an answer, but once again he couldn’t manage it. “I’m—sorry,” he whispered, and passed out.
When he awoke, he didn’t hurt—or at least nowhere near as much as he had before. He opened his eyes to find verity seated next to him, cross-legged on a pillow. “Hey,” she said when she saw him watching her. “How do you feel?”
He considered. “Well…” he said at last. “I’m out of that pit. It’s not dark. And my arm and my leg don’t hurt. So…ghastly, I’d say. But less so than before.” He looked around at his surroundings; they didn’t look familiar, except that he could see they were still in the Underground. “Where are we?”
“Little side room down the hall from the big main one,” she said. “You want something to eat or drink?”
He nodded. “It’s been a while.”
“Okay, be right back. Stay put, okay?” She got up and hurried out.
He sat up a little and looked at himself. He lay on another thin pallet, covered with a sleeping bag. When he shoved it aside, he saw that he still wore his jeans, but they’d removed his overcoat, shirt, and boots. The belt sling was gone, and he couldn’t feel the strip he’d wrapped around his ankle. Tentatively, he raised his right arm. No pain. He tried flexing his ankle. No pain there, either. His muscles still hurt in general, especially in his back, but nothing he couldn’t function with.
Verity returned carrying a bottle of water and a couple of protein bars. “Sorry, they don’t have much right now,” she said, sitting back down. “They’re all out there having a meeting.”
“About Luke,” he said, remembering. He closed his eyes.
She nodded. “They’re gonna want to talk to you,” she said. “I made ’em let you sleep, but they’re pretty agitated.”
He sat up tentatively, and when his head didn’t spin too much, he opened the bottle and downed the whole thing, then ripped the wrapper off a bar and devoured it like he hadn’t eaten in days. After swallowing the last bite, he sighed. “I know. And I need to talk to them.” He looked hard at her. “What are you doing here? How did you know I was here? How did you find me?” Realizing something else, he swept the small area with his gaze. “And where’s Jason?”
“You have a lot of questions,” she said. “But yeah, I guess you would. One at a time, then. What am I doing here? They called me. Malcolm did.”
Stone paused in the act of peeling the wrapper from the other bar. “They—called you? How did they even know how to reach you?”
“Malcolm had the number,” she said. “He was trying to reach Jason. Remember when we were here before, Jason gave ’em his number and asked ’em to call if they found out anything about the Evil? They kept it.”
“Is Jason here, too?” He wanted to ask her what she knew—if she and Jason knew about his magic—but the longer he didn’t, the longer he could assume the Forgotten hadn’t told her yet.
She shook her head. “We thought you’d gone off to England, so Jason went to visit a friend of his down in Ventura for a couple days before we had to go back to work. When these guys called, they said you were in trouble. I didn’t have time to wait for him to get back.”
“So you just—flew here yourself?”
She grinned. “Sure, why not? I do know how airplanes work. And I even have my own credit card now.” Then she sobered. “I thought they were trying to pull something at first—like maybe the Evil was trying to lure me here. But then I called Marta down at the restaurant, and she said you never used the portal.”
Stone closed his eyes again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to lie to you. But I—”
A woman Stone didn’t recognize poked her head into the alcove. “Sorry,” she said. “Verity said you were awake. You up to movin’ around? Malcolm and the rest want to talk to you.”
He exchanged glances with Verity. “I’d better do this,” he said. “I owe them an explanation.”
“Yeah,” she said. She rummaged around next to the pallet and held up a red UNLV T-shirt. “I know it’s not really your style, but it’s about your size, and your other clothes were pretty funky. They cleaned you up some, but—”
He nodded, took the shirt, and stood up. His boots were lined up neatly at the foot of the pallet. “Nice job on the healing, by the way,” he said. “Seems like you’re patching me up quite a lot lately.”
“Yeah, we’ll talk about that later,” she said.
He pulled the shirt on—at least it fit and didn’t smell like a week’s worth of hot garbage, which was something—stepped into his boots, and followed Verity and the woman down the passageway. Dread settled in the pit of his stomach; he wished more than anything that he didn’t have to deliver the report of what had happened in the tunnels, but there was no helping it. He owed them that. He owed them a hell of a lot more than that, but at least he could make a start.
When they reached the big main meeting area, Stone stopped and stared. It seemed like every member of the Forgotten band was here, filling the couches, perched on the milk crates, leaning against walls. Several lanterns provided illumination, but the way every face turned to look at Stone gave them a menacing aspect. No one smiled, not even Malcolm, who was seated in a mangy plaid recliner jacked up on a pair of wooden pallets.
“Uh…” Verity said next to Stone, under her breath.
“It’s all right,” he murmured. He wished he believed it.
The crowd parted for them, leaving a path open to reach Malcolm. The chubby Hispanic woman, Zenna, perched on the corner of his chair. Her expression was cold, unreadable.
Stone walked slowly but steadily forward. He knew there was no point in showing fear—if they wanted to kill him, there was nothing he could do about it. He stopped a few feet away from Malcolm’s chair and waited. Verity stopped a couple steps behind him.
“Luke’s dead,” Malcolm said, his voice flat, his eyes steady.
Stone nodded. “Yes.”
A murmur went up from the crowd. Malcolm held up his hand, and it gradually died down.
“Tell us what happened.”
Stone took a deep breath. He felt like a defendant on trial for murder, and was acutely aware of the volatile mood of the crowd. He had to play this carefully; he didn’t think Malcolm would seek to harm him, but if the crowd lost it, he had no doubt that even Verity’s magic wouldn’t be enough to save them.
“We found the monster,” he said.
The crowd rumbled again.
“Where?” Malcolm asked.
Stone shrugged. “I don’t know. There was a T-intersection—one end was blocked. There was a door. It came down the other passageway.”
“I know the spot,” Zenna said.
Malcolm nodded. “What happened? Were you right about it being some kinda illusion?”
“Yes.”
“So how did Luke die?” Zenna demanded. The crowd rumbled louder in agreement. “How come Tembo and Kyle didn’t see nothin’?”
Stone bowed his head, struggling to find an answer that wouldn’t require him to explain magical theory to a room full of homeless people. “Illusions…” he said slowly, “can be dangerous if the viewer believes them. It’s sort of a—mind over matter thing. Belief is a powerful force.”
“So you’re sayin’ Luke believed this thing was real, so it killed him?”
“No,” Stone said. “The illusion didn’t kill him, but it did confuse him. It was one of the best illusions I’ve seen in years. Frighteningly authentic. For a moment, even I believed it was real.”
“So why didn’t you tell him?” Zenna asked, fists clenched. “Why didn’t you tell him it wasn’t real?”
“I did,” Stone said. His heart pounded faster as he replayed the last moments of Luke’s life. “I was yelling at him that it wasn’t real, that he had to see through it, but he was beyond hearing me at that point. I tried to drag him away, but I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t strong enough.”
Malcolm considered that as the crowd began their ominous murmurs once more. “You said the illusion didn’t kill him,” he said. “What did?”
“A black mage,” Stone said.
Malcolm’s eyes narrowed. “A black mage?”
“A dark mage,” Stone amended. “The sort who draws power by draining other people.”
“Did you see this guy?” Zenna asked.
Stone shook his head. “No, but I heard him. I don’t know how many others he has with him—at least one. And I think I know now why he’s here, and what he’s doing.”
The crowd made noise again, but this time it was subtly different: they still weren’t favorably disposed toward Stone, but the overall tone held more curiosity than threat.
“And what’s that?” Malcolm asked, leaning forward.
“As I said, dark mages get their power from other people. They drain it from them. Usually they don’t kill them—but when they do, they get a massive amount of energy. I think this mage has found himself a ready-made source of power.”
Malcolm paled. “You mean…he’s pickin’ off the people down here—killin’ ‘em—just to get magic power?”
Stone shrugged. “It makes sense. I’d lay odds that he doesn’t even spend all his time down here, but only comes here when he needs to top off his magical batteries.”
“But if he’s killin’ all these people with magic,” a man near the front said, “how come we never find any bodies? Is he takin’ ‘em away?”