Unless they’d use magic on her, coerced her to get in.
I wanted to call out to her, to try and wake her up from where I stood, but I knew that noise was my enemy right now, so instead I took a step toward the center of the cavern. The ground was made of concrete, but it almost seemed to be getting softer beneath my feet, its consistency changing to that of wet earth; wet earth that squelched with my next footstep.
The mulching stopped, a jingling of bells tickled the walls, and when I looked across from where I stood, the jester was gone.
My heart slammed against my chest and pounded against my temples like a madman trying to get out. It was now or never. I dashed along the soggy ground, reaching Lucia in a manner of seconds, dropping to my knees, and tapping her face, begging her to wake up, but she wasn’t responding to me; she kept shaking her head and pressing her lips tightly together, like a child who didn’t want to be fed.
“Luce,” I said, “Luce! Wake up!”
“No,” Lucia said, “No, not me, not me next—please, please, God, not me next. Not me.”
“Next? Lucia, wake up, I’m here—it’s Andi!”
“Andi, no, it can’t be Andi. You’re not here. You’re not here. There’s only it, and it’s going to get me next. Me next. Not me next, please, God, please don’t let it eat my dreams!”
“Eat your…”
For an instant I took my eyes off Lucia, just long enough to glance across from where she lay at the other person next to her, just long enough to regret ever having done it. The woman lying on the floor had looked like any other person from my vantage point on the edge of the pit, but now that I could see her fully… the top of her skull was cracked open, and her brains were gone; there was only a mess of dark blood and matted hair where a brain should have been.
“We need to get you out,” I said.
“There’s no out,” Lucia said, hysterical now, screaming, “There is no out, it just eats you. It eats your dreams. It’ll eat yours too, and mine. Mine next. Me next. Please, dear God not me next!”
Lucia suddenly shut her mouth tightly again, and all sound seemed to drain out of the cavern. My lantern light flickered, faltered, and was about to gutter out when I had the sense to stand up and move, not backwards, but around the edge of the pit. I could see the tunnel I had come from, the lights were on, but they were far away from where I was. I would have to run, but before I could run, I would have to circle the pit because I couldn’t just go back; there were rules, wasn’t that what Eli had said?
Magic had rules.
A sound emerged from deep within the pit, a sound like a breath, long and drawn out—or more like the satisfied sigh someone makes… after emerging from a good night’s sleep. I kept walking fast, ignoring the sound as much as I could, my attention focused on not falling into the pit and watching my light as it flickered and dimmed to almost nothing.
“How… long?” A voice floated up from within the black mouth of the pit, echoing along the walls as it climbed. It had a distinct feminine quality to it, though the voice was very much a man’s voice, with that same deep bass to it that allowed it to almost vibrate through your body as it passed.
I said nothing, keeping my eyes on the tunnel which was almost directly ahead of me now; another couple of seconds and I would be able to make a dash for it in a straight line, but I didn’t take the opportunity when it presented itself. Instead I turned to face the dark hole, watching it for signs of movement. I held my lantern up, but the light wouldn’t make it past the edge. There was only blackness there, darkness like I had never seen before, the kind with the power to steal the courage from people fifty times braver than me.
Another sound, like shuffling, came out of the pit, and then… a jingle of bells. My light guttered out, and then something came rushing out of the darkness, running, sprinting along the vertical walls at superhuman speed. With only the light of the tunnel as my guide, I turned and ran as fast as I could, but the tunnel stretched ahead of me as I reached it, becoming longer in front of my very eyes.
Every time I reached one of the lights, it would go out, casting me into darkness again until I reached the next one, which would also flicker out and die. As I ran, I got the impression that this thing was directly behind me, reaching for me from the darkness with a cold, pale hand, desperate to catch me and eat me, eat my dreams. I screamed for Damon, for Eli, for Logan—for anyone to pull me out of the dream and take me away from the jester, but my voice wouldn’t carry, and as the tunnel continued to stretch and elongate in front of me, I feared the jester would catch me.
Just then, the tunnel snapped, the door came into reach, and I threw myself at it, bashing my shoulder against the hard, metal bulkhead and emerging… in a casino. There were people all around me, lights flashing, machines whirring and chiming. I spun around, anxious to see where I had come from, but the door was gone. Then I saw it—the jester—walking calmly across the casino floor, catching only glimpses of its smiling, porcelain face as people passed in front of it, blocking my view.
Someone grabbed me, shook me hard, and yelled “Andi!” into my face, and then my eyes snapped open, and I was in the car again.
But my heart didn’t relax, didn’t calm down. I reached for Damon again, sensing the onset of a panic attack coming on and desperately wanting to avoid it. He wrapped his arms around me and held me close to his chest, rocking with me as I started to settle. Logan had turned around in his seat and had reached for one of my hands. I took it and held it.
“Are you alright?” Damon asked.
“I think so,” I said, my voice trembling. “How long was I out?”
“Two hours.”
“Two hours!”
“Relax, it’s fine. Tell us what you saw.”
I turned my eyes up at Damon. “It,” I said, “I saw It.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, but it has Lucia.”
“We know. We heard you sleep-talking. We knew you had found her, and had possibly run into the demon—”
“—jester,” I said, interrupting.
“Jester?”
“That’s what it looked like; a jester.”
Logan and Damon exchanged a serious look. “We think we know where she is,” Logan said.
“You do? How?”
“You talked about a casino, and a tunnel underground.”
“I remember… but how does any of that make sense? What tunnel underground?”
“There’s only one place I know that fits the description,” Eli said, “And we’re pulling up to it right now.”
I sat up, the shakes now gone from my body, and looked out of the window. Coming up on the left was a tall building standing stark against the cloudy night sky. Lightning flashed above it, ripping through the clouds and turning them purple, and yellow. In front of the building was a glittering sign; Mississippi Royale Casino and Hotel. Eli pulled up to the side of the building and followed another car as it cruised along the only road available; a road leading into an underground parking lot.
“How is this… possible?” I asked. “I’d never heard of an underground parking lot in New Orleans.”
“Neither had I,” Damon said, “But nevertheless, here we are.”
“And maybe, here Lucia is, too,” Eli said.
“And the jester…” I added, “Maybe the jester is here too.”
CHAPTER NINE
Eli pulled the car into the underground lot, collecting a ticket from the machine at the entrance before proceeding. There were other cars parked here, too; some flashy, expensive looking ones, others not so much. I saw a man step out of a shiny, clean, silver Mercedes, toss the keys up in his hand, twirl, and pretend to shoot the car with a finger gun before catching the keys and pressing the lock button. The car bleeped and flashed, locked.
“Alright, your turn big guy,” Eli said.
Logan rolled the window down and discreetly sniffed the air, his nostrils flaring while Eli cruised. “Wait,” he said,
after a pause, “Wait…”
Eli slowed the car down until it stopped, then Logan stepped out and walked a few paces. He pointed at a car several stops down. “That’s it,” he said, “That’s the one.”
I tried to get a glimpse of the car Logan was pointing at, but I couldn’t see it from inside the car. Damon stepped out, and I decided to step out too. Then I circled around the car and went over to where Logan was standing. Following the tip of his finger allowed me to spot the very same car Lucia had stepped into last night. Sure, there were probably plenty other black cars out there, but this one, I just had a feeling this was the right one.
Maybe it was that luck thing at work again.
Eli pulled the car into a parking spot while Logan, Damon and I approached the car that had taken Lucia. There was nothing that particularly stood out about the car itself—Louisiana plates, interior was pretty clean, a couple of scratch marks on the body. I did, however, notice more of that grey dust on some of the seat covers.
“Here,” Logan said, and when I looked over at where he was standing, my body froze. He had found the door.
“Shit,” I said.
“What is it?” Damon asked.
“That’s the door… that’s how we get in to where they are.”
“Any idea where it’s supposed to go?” Logan asked.
“Judging by where it’s placed,” Eli said, “It goes toward the Mississippi. Must be a service tunnel or something.”
“Service? What kind of service?”
“The illegal kind, I’m guessing. Look at where the door is. Doesn’t make sense. It’s unmarked, too. You wouldn’t know it was here unless you happened to park in this or either of those two spots, and those are empty. I’m willing to bet they’ve been empty for some time.”
Logan moved around in front of the car and went to open the door, but it opened outward, and couldn’t open far enough for anyone to squeeze through—the car was parked right in front of it.
“Let me take care of that,” Eli said, cracking his knuckles.
Damon stepped back, reaching for me and pulling me away too. Logan, also, squeezed out of the gap and moved away. Eli walked up to the car, rested his hand on the hood, and shut his eyes. I could see him mumbling slightly, and as he did, I noticed a faint, green light begin to manifest inside his throat, illuminating his veins, his windpipe.
The light travelled from his throat, through his chest, into his arm, and then into his hand. From his hand, the light moved into the car, then it spread in a flash all throughout the body of the vehicle, leaving a slight dusting of sparkling green light that persisted for a moment. A second later, the car started on its own, the gear shifted to reverse, the parking brake lifted, and the car began to roll back. I noticed Eli continued to mutter under his breath as this all took place.
When the car was far enough away that the door would open, Logan approached and opened it, revealing the exact same tunnel I had seen in my—Lucia’s—dream.
For a moment I did nothing but stare at that dark, foreboding tunnel, but then Damon started to move toward it, and I felt compelled to follow where he was going. Eli and Logan converged at the door, too, stared into it, and then looked over at me. I nodded, confirming that this was the one. Logan was the first through, then Damon. Eli beckoned me over, and I moved in behind Damon, holding my mask tightly against my chest. When I was through, Eli stepped in, shutting the door as he went, sending a clang echoing through the tunnel that I hoped no one on the other end of it had heard.
Then again, it was after 3am; maybe we’d get lucky and find everyone asleep?
We walked, the four of us, single file for what felt like an eternity. This tunnel, like the one in my dream, also dripped and flaked and dusted on us as we went. Several parts of it showed cracks in the ceiling and walls, some which were dripping with water, others which weren’t. These cracks became more frequent the deeper we went, making me wonder if we were actually underneath the Mississippi river at this point; a thought that on its own made me want to get the fuck out of there.
Dying at the hands of a demon is one thing; drowning in a tunnel under tons of water after one of those cracks gives way is another.
Logan put his hand up and made a fist with it. Damon stopped, gesturing for me to stop too. Eli, behind me, did the same. Ahead I could hear voices, two of them I thought. It was difficult to see the back of the tunnel, though, because the last set of lights weren’t working, just like in my dream. The more I waited, and listened, the more it sounded like the people at the end of the tunnel were arguing about something, only I couldn’t understand what they were arguing about.
“Logan, ears,” Eli whispered.
Logan nodded, turned his head to the side, and shut his eyes. He screwed up his face, concentrating hard on something, then I noticed one of his ears start to change, grow, stretch. Amazed I stared as fur poked out of his skin and covered this new, wolf-like ear sticking out of his head.
“Definitely two people,” he whispered, loud enough for us to hear. “Two men. One of them is telling the other something isn’t right; the wind has changed, and it’s time to go.”
“The wind?” Damon asked.
“I don’t know, but I think they’re getting ready to leave. They’re trying to figure out how to transport the bodies. One of them is talking about just leaving them here.”
“This is the only way out,” I said, “If they’re going to leave, they’re going to come through us whether we like it or not.”
“You know that for a fact?” Damon asked.
“I didn’t spot any more tunnels… I mean, there could be, but I feel like I’m right.”
Logan looked around, eyes sharp and focused. “Should we rush ‘em?”
Eli nodded. “Rush ‘em,” he said.
Damon sighed. “Yes, fine.”
The three looked at me, as if asking for approval. Rushing into that place was the last thing I wanted to do, especially considering I knew what was down there. Death, just lots, and lots of death. But what was the alternative? Wait here and, what? Or worse, gamble on what I had seen during a dream and hope there wasn’t another exit somewhere through which the people that took Lucia could escape.
In the end, the choice was the hardest one I’d had to make, but also the simplest. I strapped my mask to my face and tied the knot around the back of my head. “Rush ‘em,” I said.
Logan grinned, rolled his shoulders, and started running down the tunnel, oddly making almost no noise as he went, but moving like a cannonball; too fast for it to be normal. Damon went behind him, moving at a crawling speed compared to Logan. I followed, and Eli came up behind me. Ahead of us, surprised shouts rang out as Logan engaged the people in the opening just beyond the last, broken light.
I heard the thud of someone fall to the floor, heard the crack of a fist against a jaw, and the growl of an animal, like a lion. There was confusion in that dimly-lit ante-chamber even before we arrived, and when we did, I saw the extent of Logan’s physical prowess. There were five people in the chamber; two of them were knocked down and hurt, one of them was Logan, and another was the man that had cursed me, the others I didn’t recognize.
When the Hexer spotted Damon, he turned and—this time pointing some kind of wand—launched a bolt of light in our direction.
“Damon!” I screamed, but when the magic struck Damon in the chest, it did nothing to him; the light simply curled around him and disappeared, harmlessly.
Damon, in return, pulled a knife out of his jacket pocket, tossed it into the air, and whispered “Him.” The knife then began to glow red, hovered in mid-air, and shot like a bullet toward the Hexer, striking him square in the shoulder and taking him down. A second later, the knife pulled itself out of the Hexer’s body and flew across the chamber and into Damon’s hand again.
“It’s her!” someone yelled, “The Harlequin!”
Eli pushed in front of me, stretched his hands out, and began to mutter under his breath in
a strange, rasping tongue I couldn’t understand. The chamber rumbled, and from one of the chamber walls two shimmering, spectral forms burst through, radiating with ethereal green light that touched everything within the chamber—including Lucia, who was exactly where I remembered she’d be.
The spectral entities howled as they circled the room, a sound that turned my blood to ice. With grabbing, bony hands, these floating skeletons wearing long, tattered, shimmering green robes, began to dive at the people putting up a fight; one of which, I saw, was a girl, not older than sixteen. She had black hair, piercings in her lips and nose, a black t-shirt, black jeans, black everything.
She rushed across the chamber to the Hexer that had fallen, slid across the floor, touched him, and disappeared just as one of the spectral entities dove toward her. The spirit, seeing them disappear, let off a frustrated wail, then turned its attention to a man who was looking right at it.
The creature flew at this man at full speed, hands stretched, mouth open, but the man’s eyes flashed pale blue, he opened his mouth revealing more blue light inside of his throat. He then swallowed the flying spirit whole, staggering from the force of the impact but not quite toppling over and falling to the floor.
This was all happening way too fast, there was too much to keep up with, so I ran as fast as I could toward Lucia, throwing myself at her sleeping form and trying desperately to wake her up. Just like it had been in my dream, she was lying close to a deep, dark pit in the center of the chamber next to another sleeper just like her. There must have been a dozen people lying that way, all of them arranged around the pit. I tried to remember which of them looked like their brains had been eaten and wondered if they were still alive.
“Stop!” Damon’s voice exploded through the cavern, bouncing off the walls and demanding everyone’s attention, and they—I—gave it to him.
Twisted Fate: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (The Harlequin's Harem Book 1) Page 10