Ibenus (Valducan series)

by Seth Skorkowsky

  Video footage fills the screen—descending stairs, brick walls moving past in the harsh camera light. "Once the police finished their investigation of the Paris apartment where the kill squad was sighted, I took a peek inside." The camera turns down a hallway, briefly scanning two empty rooms before entering a third. A giant furnace dominates the rear of the chamber, hinges bent and torn from the missing door. The camera pans across a dark stain on the floor, then slowly approaches a yawning round hole. "A shaft beneath the apartment led straight down into the Paris Underground, a labyrinth of abandoned mine tunnels and sewers." The camera peers down the round tunnel, seeming to lower as it zooms. Far below, the light plays across a pile of debris, dead rats, and glinting metal at the bottom.

  "The Underground has been a popular site for explorers, the homeless, illegal activities, and parties for centuries. There's hundreds of miles of tunnels and it could take a lifetime to see it all. This also makes it the perfect lair for cryptids. So I decided to go down there and see what I might find."

  A shaky video fills the screen, black bars crop either side, indicating it as from a mobile phone. Over a dozen youths hop around, shoulder to shoulder, their necks and wrists encircled with slender glow sticks. Electronic music thumps, its sounds distorted by echoes and the inadequate microphone. Spinning lights seethe and strobe across the graffiti-coated stone walls around them as they dance and drink. A girl in her early twenties laughs in front of the camera. A smudged smiley face in blue glowing paint decorates her left cheek. Her glassy eyes are all pupil.

  TommyD's harsh voice comes in, crisp above the poor audio. "This footage was found on a cell phone not thirty feet from one of the many ladders leading to the surface."

  Screams erupt, drowned out beneath the music. Partiers drop their plastic cups and surge past the camera, pressing the owner against a wall. Behind them, doll-faced insects the size of small dogs pour from a darkened hall, skittering along the walls. Shrieking victims flail and fall as the pale monsters spring and latch on to them. The wails of crying infants ululate beneath the still-thumping bass. Two giant insects emerge from the darkness and the camera whirls away. It jostles madly as the owner flees with the shrinking mob. The tunnel is black, lit only by a few wildly waving lights, luminous body paint, and multi-colored glow sticks. The music fades as they run but the wailing cries grow louder. Finally, the phone tumbles to the ground, landing face-up, the stone ceiling visible in the phone's LED light. A pale carapace scuttles past and the screams continue, silencing one by one.

  "There was no trace of anyone nearby," TommyD continues. Baby coos and giggles sound from the still-playing footage. "Though there was blood. The trail led a hundred yards to this…"

  The video changes to a dimly lit scene of an arched chamber littered with bottles, dead glow bracelets, clear plastic cups, and crumpled clothing. A white folding table stands against one wall, an open Styrofoam cooler atop it. The camera's sweeping light elicits ghostly afterglows from the phosphorescent spray-paint scrawled across the walls and ceiling. A pair of barrel-shaped speakers occupy two corners. One lies on its side beneath a smeared red-brown handprint.

  "Who these poor victims were is still unknown. Many partying tourists pass through the City of Lights and, unless someone escaped, no one might know of this illegal rave or what happened to their loved ones. I myself encountered these monsters during my exploration."

  The video cuts to the image of a doll-faced insect emerging from the gloom of colorless night vision. The camera jostles and a crisp laser beam swings into frame. Two more creatures scuttle along the walls behind the first. The laser cuts through the hall, the end flaring on the lead insect as pincers unfold from the black slit of its mouth. It cocks its head slightly, then coos like an amused infant. A loud pop and a brilliant flash fills the screen, washing out the night vision in white. High shrill screams, like a dozen terrified babies, wail through the speakers. The image contrast restores. The insect's corpse lies on its back, smoking and smoldering black. The other monsters charge, mouth wide as they weave side to side.

  The laser beam slices toward one but the screaming bug jumps to the left as another shot rings out, blinding the camera. More shots, and then the cameraman is running down empty passages, his breath hard and panting. The camera swivels around again. Three more bugs scuttle behind him. The laser moves wildly, trying to lead one before more shots blind the night vision.

  "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," repeats like a desperate mantra as the cameraman continues to run, racing past dark chambers and blurred graffiti. He turns again. The insects are closer now. A giant six-legged creature with a wedge-shaped head runs along the floor behind them like a fox hunter behind his dogs.

  The chant continues, the words blurring together. "Oh, shit, oh, shit, shit, shit, shit…" Beneath that and the clomps of racing feet, the child-like screams grow louder.

  The camera spins violently to the side, the owner slamming into a wall as he takes a hard right. He continues running, his words now just an unintelligible noise. He turns again, pausing before a wall set with rusty bars. Looking up, the rungs lead up a narrow shaft to a pinhole of light above. Without looking back, the cameraman hurries up, the bars now racing past the screen in rapid succession.

  The wails distort in the echoes and the camera peers back. One of the nightmarish dolls has started up. The camera jostles, then a pistol swings into view. It has no laser, but instead a long square silencer. The gun barks a metallic chunk and the wall above the closing beast puffs, blasting dust and shards of masonry. The gun fires twice more, hitting the monster and sending it down to the floor. Two more of its kind scuttle into view along the bottom.

  The camera pans up. Brilliant daylight flares through a rectangular hole in the center of a manhole high above. The camera surges towards it. A gloved hand reaches up, pressing the lid. Metal grates and light eclipses around the disk, washing out the image.

  "I barely escaped," TommyD says, the video returning to him before the wall. "Had I not found an escape, I can promise you that I wouldn't have made it out, and the secret of what lies beneath Paris and what happened at a recent rave would go unknown. But not by all. There are some who do know. There are those mysterious killers of monsters who we have witnessed, but have yet to come forward with the truth. And while I, as many of you, have always hoped that one day they might share the truth, I now know they will kill to keep it from you. You see, my friends, I met them, too."

  Footage of a dark passage fills the screen, an arched tunnel, seeming to go on forever. Bits of debris and broken rock line the corners, leaving a dusty path between them. Lights move in the distance. The camera pauses, watching a pair of figures make their way closer. One wears a sword at his belt. The other carries a long wavy-bladed knife, its edges occasionally gleaming in the glow of their headlamps.

  "I found these two coming toward me shortly after my discovery of the party kill-site. Despite my apprehensions, I braved speaking with them, to tell them of what I'd discovered."

  The black and white footage cuts to a slender man in a filthy bulletproof vest and a helmet with a light. A pistol butt peeks out below one armpit. A black, irregular shape, like something on the lens blocks the lower portion of the frame. Only the most scrutinous viewers might notice that the distortion along the edge remains curiously consistent as the autofocus adjusts.

  "Excuse me." the voice, while slightly different, is still clearly TommyD's, despite the microphone's poor placement or quality. "Please, I don't mean to startle you."

  The man wheels, eyes wide. He takes a step back and his dark brow furrows.

  "I found something. There's—"

  "TommyD?" the man asks, his accent German.

  "Yes, but listen."

  The German stands rigidly still. Then one hand slowly reaches across his body, vanishing beneath the lens' black obstruction.

  "Please," TommyD shouts.

  The camera jostles and a second man leans o
ut from behind a pair of stacked plastic bins, a small pistol clutched in his hand. The gun fires, the flash blinding the swinging camera as it tries to adjust.

  "No!"

  The camera flash fades as the German wrenches the kris blade from his belt and dives to the side. More gunshots erupt and the camera swings wildly, unable to focus. From the blur, the German's face lunges forward, his mouth open in a scream, his serpentine blade raised. The brilliant laser springs into frame, gleaming off the man's bared teeth and up toward his eyes. A gun fires, the flash filling the screen and it fades back to TommyD seated before the stone wall.

  "Again," he says, shaking his head. "I barely escaped. Had I not been armed, I have no doubt they would have murdered me. Many of us had hoped that these mysterious hunters were silent guardians, protecting us from what lurks in the shadow. That is not true. What these men and women are hiding is something they'd kill for. Monsters, humans, it doesn't matter. There's a secret war, my friends, being waged right now, below the streets of Paris. The monsters are on both sides. And we are trapped in the middle.

  "From Paris, France, this is TommyD, signing out."

  Chapter Nineteen

  "How do we look?" Malcolm asked, turning the van onto a dark street, his voice echoing in Victoria's ear bud.

  Hunkered in her seat, the backpack pressing awkwardly against her, Victoria scanned the windows along the empty avenue. Nothing. Above the rooftops, a white beam from the Eifel Tower blocks away, sliced across the clouds. "Clear."

  "Clear," Chaya said, followed by Luiza, Matt, and finally Orlovski seated beside her.

  "Okay," Malcolm said easing the vehicle along the curb. "You know the drill. Ready in three…"

  Despite this being their fourth night, Victoria's heart pounded like it was still the first. Sweat ran down the back of her neck.

  "Two… "

  Mouth tight, she crouched behind Orlovski, her hand squeezing the nylon handle of the second backpack.

  "Go!"

  The van doors swung open. Orlovski charged out first. She was right behind him, the sticky night air hitting her already hot cheeks. Ibenus bounced against her thigh as she ran. Crouching beside a wide manhole, she surveyed their surroundings as Orlovski slipped a metal hook into the cover's slot. With a grunt and the grating of steel on concrete, he heaved it to the side. Matt and Chaya came next, each taking a separate point to look out. Luiza shut the doors and ran to them, katana in hand as the van rolled silently away.

  Without a word, Matt reached down the opening, cracked a bright green glow stick, and let it fall before he climbed down. Chaya followed, her movement concise and graceful, zero hesitation. Once she was a few feet down, Luiza gave a sharp nod and Victoria pulled the extra pack onto one shoulder and swung her legs into the hole. Her boots found the thick rungs set along the side and she started down, pausing long enough to click the red light atop her helmet once her head was below the surface.

  Maddening swirls of graffiti coated the ancient masonry, most of it completely illegible. Four feet down, a grimy ledge filled one half of the shaft, creating a platform wide enough to stand. She set Malcolm's gear onto the landing, happy to be rid of its awkward weight, and then pulled the hanging sword closer so it wouldn't catch on the platform's lip before continuing down. The sounds of the already quiet city faded, replaced only by the metallic pings of boots on the ladder below her. Eons of dust and grit coated the round rungs, making them slippery. More rained down as Luiza began her descent.

  Lowering her head to shield her eyes, cascading dirt tinkled off Victoria's helmet and ran onto her sweat-moistened neck. Ignoring it, she continued, the air growing chillier with each rung.

  "Watch out for the last step," Matt said.

  A few seconds later, Malcolm's voice came through the radio. "Parked, locked, and heading back."

  A green light grew brighter beneath her feet. The claustrophobic walls opened up as she lowered into an arched room. More graffiti decorated the three walls and Matt and Chaya stood off to the side.

  "Careful," Matt said.

  The ladder ended two feet from the floor, above a pile of cigarette butts and crumpled wrappers, their shadows long in the glow stick's jade light. Carefully, Victoria eased herself to the bottom and stepped out from beneath the gritty rain. A carved stone block in the wall read, '1853.' The spray-paint vandals had left it completely untouched, as if some reverence had stayed their hands.

  Matt gave her an emotionless glance, then returned his attention to the small plastic bottle clutched in one hand. The faint pinkish hue of the water inside seemed heightened under his headlamp's red glow. Minutes before they'd made their final approach, Matt had stuck his finger with a diabetic's lancet and squeezed several drops into the water. Blood compass, he called it. Evidently the blood would gather in the direction of any nearby demons.

  What a weird power, she thought.

  She eyed the snarling bronze wolf heads jutting from the holster beneath his arm. The holy revolver, while impressive, wasn't silenced. Victoria only hoped she wasn't beside him when he fired it down here. By contrast, the blocky machinegun he carried slung from his other shoulder sported a comically huge suppressor.

  "Careful at the bottom," Matt warned as Luiza emerged from the ceiling.

  "Thank you," she replied, a musical tone to her voice. She hopped down and walked over to them, brushing her hands together. She wore her katana along her back, beneath the black pack, its metal handle nearly flush with her head.

  Metal grated above, followed by a muted clang. "We're all in," Malcolm said.

  Victoria ran her fingers along Ibenus' smooth handle as she waited for the knights to come down. How she wished Allan could have been here, given her a kiss for luck. Not that he would have. They video-chatted nightly, but there was still that distance, and more than just the miles between them. He didn't fully trust her. She didn't blame him. But he believed in her, and that's what she needed.

  Now she was down here, with five knights who didn't trust her, two who hated her, one murdering bastard lurking around and, of course, the monsters. In the nine days since Allan's maiming she'd had the dreams he'd spoken of. Her in some Arabian landscape, creatures emerging from the sands. She wanted to kill them, sure. But more than that, more than anything, she wanted TommyD.

  Standing orders were to take him alive if they found him. Squeeze him until they recovered Umatri and the footage he'd taken. She ground her teeth at the thought of that awful video he'd posted that morning. The image of Gerhard's death, the blatant fucking lies. Fucking bastard. He still hadn't communicated with her. But the fact he hadn't named the Order and everything else meant that he was still honoring her request. Didn't it?

  Malcolm and Matt might posture, making their threats and claims of what they'd do to him, but TommyD was hers. He was going to see her face, know what he did. Ibenus would taste his blood. There would be more. Oh she had plans. But first…

  "All right," Malcolm said as he followed Orlovski down into the passage. "Let's get to it."

  First I need the Order to trust me.

  They followed the hall single file, Malcolm in front, Luiza, the second Team Leader, on the rear. Victoria was in the middle, between Orlovski and Chaya. The passage was almost coffin-shaped—narrow at the floor, subtly widening until eye-level, then it quickly came together with three tapered steps, forming a kind of arch. Victoria could easily have pressed her palm flat against the ceiling. After thirty or so feet, it turned. A rusty wrought iron gate, its top crowned with spikes, stood open. A pair of chipped holes marred the wall where its latch or lock had once been. They continued on, giving the ancient relic no more than a passing glance.

  There was no smell, no sounds but their boot steps and shifting gear. The passage opened into a long vaulted chamber. Faint lines across the stone floor showed it had been swept. And a colorful array of empty glass candle holders and various trinkets formed a semicircle before a skillfully p
ainted mural depicting a Virgin Mary with a bearded dwarf suckling at her disproportionately large breasts. Several cataphile maps referred to this as La Cathédrale de la Vierge Profane.

  Chaya gave the shrine a non-committal grunt as she passed it.

  "At least it's not a mime," Orlovski quipped.

  Taking the eastern exit from the cathedral, they followed the next tunnel twenty yards past a pair of rounded chambers to where it ended at a long stairway, hewn from the solid stone.

  Matt checked the compass, shook his head, and they headed down.

  The cool air became heavier as they descended. Victoria could smell the stale moisture before the first of their lights reflected off the smooth surface of the flooded passage. The water was the creamy tan of parchment, so cloudy that their lights only penetrated it by millimeters. Crimson light played off wall and ceiling, extending further and further into the darkness. Narrow ledges ran either side, about a foot above the water.

  "How far does it go?" Chaya asked.

  "Fifty meters," Victoria said, recalling the map.

  "Taras, you're on point," Malcolm said.

  Drawing his kukri, Orlovski squeezed his way to the front and stepped onto the water. The surface bent beneath his feet, sending distorted reflections down the tunnel.

  Once he had made it a few feet, the rest of them moved forward, straddling the flooded passage. The low ceiling required even Victoria to stoop, head down, legs wide as she shuffled along, her incremental progress measureable in inches. Her pack scraped along the ceiling. The position left her feeling vulnerable, exposed above the unseen depths. She imagined the pale, black-eyed doll's face rising out from the murk beneath her. What would she do it if one did? Kill it, she decided.

  Movement caught her eye. Adrenaline shot up her spine and down to her fingers. Her headlamp zeroed in on an unfurled condom lazily bobbing in the milky water like a dead jellyfish. Victoria released a breath. Her surging pulse slowed and she continued onward. Her hips ached from the awkward movement but she pushed through it. No way was she going to complain or, God forbid, fall.