Benediction Denied: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel

by Engstrom, Elizabeth

  BENEDICTION DENIED

  A LABYRINTH OF SOULS NOVEL

  BY

  ELIZABETH ENGSTROM

  Smashwords Edition

  ShadowSpinners Press

  Copyright © 2017 Elizabeth Engstrom

  All rights reserved,

  including the right to reproduce this book,

  or portions thereof, in any form.

  Cover art by Josephe Vandel.

  Book design by Matthew Lowes.

  ShadowSpinners Press

  shadowspinnerspress.com

  Typeset in

  Minion Pro by Robert Slimbach

  and IM FELL Double Pica by Igino Marini.

  The Fell Types are digitally reproduced

  by Igino Marini,

  www.iginomarini.com.

  Learn more about

  the Labyrinth of Souls game at

  matthewlowes.com/games

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

  A

  LSO BY E

  LIZABETH E

  NGSTROM

  When Darkness Loves Us

  Black Ambrosia

  Nightmare Flower

  Lizzie Borden

  Lizard Wine

  The Alchemy of Love

  Suspicions

  Black Leather

  Candyland

  The Northwoods Chronicles

  York’s Moon

  Something Happened to Grandma

  Baggage Check

  How to Write a Sizzling Sex Scene

  Word by Word (editor, with John Tullius)

  Imagination Fully Dilated (co-editor)

  Imagination Fully Dilated vol. II (editor)

  Dead on Demand (editor)

  Pronto! Writings from Rome (editor, with John Tullius)

  Ship’s Log: Writings at Sea (editor, with John Tullius)

  Lies and Limericks (editor, with John Tullius)

  Mota 9: Addiction (editor)

  T

  ABLE OF C

  ONTENTS

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  ALSO BY ELIZABETH ENGSTROM

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PREFACE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  This book is dedicated, of course, to my sweet husband, Al Cratty. Thank you for marrying me and making my home life a warm and serene place to be.

  A

  CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  It’s hard to imagine that one person could actually write an entire book without a long lifetime of influences. My personality and proclivities have been formed by family, friends, teachers, mentors, and experiences—horrific, sublime, and most everything between. My great thanks to all of the above and more, most particularly the very patient Al Cratty, Wordcrafters in Eugene, the Ghost Story Weekend gang, and Matthew Lowes for the genius of the Labyrinth of Souls.

  E

  DITOR’S P

  REFACE

  Dungeon Solitaire: Labyrinth of Souls is a fantasy game for tarot cards, written by Matthew Lowes and Illustrated by Josephe Vandel. In the game you defeat monsters, disarm traps, open doors, and explore mazes as you delve the depths of a dangerous dungeon. Along the way you collect treasure and magic items, gain skills, and gather companions.

  Now ShadowSpinners Press is publishing this and other stand-alone novels inspired by the game. Each Labyrinth of Souls novel features a journey into a unique vision of the underworld.

  The Labyrinth of Souls is more than an ancient ruin filled with monsters, trapped treasure, and the lost tombs of bygone kings. It is a manifestation of a mythic underworld, existing at a crossroads between people and cultures, between time and space, between the physical world and the deepest reaches of the psyche. It is a dark mirror held up to human experience, in which you may find your dreams … or your doom. Entrances to this realm can appear in any time period, in any location. There are innumerable reasons why a person may enter, but it is a place antagonistic to those who do, a place where monsters dwell, with obstacles and illusions to waylay adventurers, and whose very walls can be a force of corruption. It is a haunted place, ever at the edge of sanity.

  1

  ADAM SWAN STRUGGLED UP through dark, painful layers of consciousness. Way in the back of his awareness, he knew that full consciousness would mean full pain. He resisted, wishing desperately to sink into blissful sleep, but he didn’t think his sleep had been all that blissful, and he couldn’t find anything to cling to in order to help him get there.

  His head pounded so hard it actually moved with each heartbeat. He not only saw the red pulses behind his closed eyes, but he heard each heart beat thundering through what surely must be a broken skull.

  He brought his knees to his chest and cradled his arms over his exploding head.

  He was lying on his side. He tried to imagine where he was, how he got there, but he had no room for anything but the pounding, the thundering hammering in his head. There was a very real possibility that the top of his head could blow off with the pressure of each raging beat of his pulse.

  He grabbed his head with both hands and squeezed. The dirt beneath him moved, too.

  Dirt floor.

  What the hell?

  He cracked an eye open, bringing with it harsh, jagged waves of pain. Although there was very little light, he saw walls.

  At least he was alive.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, he moved around to assess the damage. His arms worked. His hands worked. They didn’t seem to be injured. He flexed his shoulders.

  It was just his head.

  He reached around with a tentative touch and picked off crusty dried blood above his ear. Probing fingers found a lump the size of a lemon.

  Slowly, carefully testing, he moved his feet, then his legs. One knee gave him some grief, but nothing like his head.

  He squinted his eyes, then opened them just a tiny bit, adjusted his glasses, and looked around.

  A dark room. Dirt floor. Indistinct light coming from above. He pushed on his temples, trying to arrest the pain, scooted to a wall and pushed himself up to a sitting position, leaning against the wall. Wooden wall.

  He stopped moving and closed his eyes again, seeing red and yellow starbursts of pain emanate from his cracked skull until they seemed to fill the room. The pounding lessened when he was still, quiet, not moving.

  After a long moment, he carefully opened his eyes again and looked around, gently moving his head, assessing any damage that might have been done to his neck, trying desperately not to start the shattering waves of pain that threatened to shoot his eyeballs right out of their sockets.

  Dirt floor. Small, square room. Door at one end. Vent in the roof, the source of the light. Hot. Steamy. Jungle. Still in the jungle. Still in Congo. Stench of urine. Bucket in the corner, perhaps the source of the stench.

  Small table next to the wall.

  He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Tried to remember.

  Oh!

  The memory of saying goodbye to his wife at the airport startled him. He twitched and sent fresh shockwaves through his fragile cranium.

  He’d put his family on the plane home. He, a hydraulic engineer with th
e Justice Corps, would stay another three months to finish the water system he and his local helpers were installing. He’d been here for six months, working in the jungle and he wouldn’t leave until he was certain the system would work the way they had engineered it.

  His family—wife and three daughters—had come to visit for the summer.

  And then …

  And then, as he returned to the village from the airport, along the rutted dirt road, two beat up and muddy pickup trucks blocked the way. He stopped the Jeep and reached for his passport and NGO identification card from the glove compartment.

  Two big men with guns stepped out of the jungle, opened the Jeep door, grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him out, papers in hand.

  One of them grabbed his ID.

  “Water man?” he asked.

  Adam knew about the rebels, of course, criminals that ran guns, made snuff films, trafficked in women, and sold anything illegal they could get their hands on. They seemed to be some kind of paramilitary force, but nobody really knew their mission, except to terrorize the locals. Adam and his crew had had no interaction with them at all. The only way he knew about them was at his initial orientation session, but their impact on his mission had been minimized. Jolmy and some of the village elders occasionally talked of the thugs, but the bad guys seemed to stay away from the village. There was nothing of value for them there.

  And now, here they were. Adam struggled not to panic, but to remember what he was told about how to deal with them.

  Be polite. Be firm. Answer questions. Don’t antagonize them. Don’t challenge them. Just do what they want and they will leave you alone.

  Adam put the most innocent look he knew how to manage on his face. “Pardon me? Excuse me?”

  The big one with the military shirt, big gun and evil eyes grabbed him by the shirt front and pulled him close. Adam smelled his rotten breath and the jungle body odor on his filthy, sweat-stained uniform. “You water man, yes?”

  Adam nodded. “Yes, yes. Water man.”

  “Very valuable,” the rebel said to the others.

  Adam realized where this was going. He held up his hands in protest. “No, no, not valuable. Volunteer. No pay.”

  “American.” The kidnapper shoved him backwards, someone else tripped him, and Adam hit the dirt.

  Another thug climbed into the Jeep.

  “Hey, no, hey, that’s my Jeep. It belongs—”

  Adam saw someone else come at him from the side. He looked up just in time to see a black baton come down at his head.

  And now this.

  So they would try to ransom him. The Justice Corps wouldn’t pay. They had no money. The American government wouldn’t pay. They didn’t negotiate with terrorists. Chrissie’s family had money, but not the kind of money these animals would be demanding.

  He’d seen it all in the movies. Soon, if the money to support their rebel government coup—or whatever their organization was about—didn’t come because he wasn’t as valuable as they wanted him to be, he would be more trouble than he was worth. If they didn’t kill him outright, they’d likely just leave him here in this makeshift jail cell to starve.

  Or die of a broken skull.

  He gritted his teeth and let his fingers gently explore the enormous lump behind his ear. It seemed to be just a knot. He gingerly touched the split in the skin again. Blood had leaked down the back of his neck, but it hadn’t been severe. If his skull hadn’t been fractured, if he had just been knocked out by that baton, then the pain should eventually subside.

  He pulled his feet up, then tipped over onto his side, his back to the wall. He would sleep, if he could, and when he awoke, the pain wouldn’t be so bad. He was strong and healthy. He would heal.

  He closed his eyes and thought of his wife and girls. They had enjoyed their summer in Congo. They should be getting back to Minneapolis soon, excited and ready for the new school year.

  The summer had gone by quickly.

  Adam was busy working on the water system, and didn’t spend as much time with them as he wanted to. The system wasn’t complicated, but the little village, way out in the bush, miles from anywhere, had grown up next to a river. With climate change and political fighting upriver over water rights, the river had, over time, changed course. Now, the villagers had to walk over an hour for their daily water.

  Adam’s company loaned him to the Justice Corps to join a team that designed a simple system to bring water to the remote village. The system may have been simple, but it had its issues.

  After numerous tries, they finally dug a well that hit a good aquifer between the village and the river. The water tested potable, but laying that much pipe proved problematic. Those details were left to Jolmy, Adam’s foreman, who employed the local men to dig the trenches. Adam worked on the pump assembly, the holding tanks, the filtration devices, all the other things that went into a solar-powered water system out in the bush.

  While Adam worked, Chrissie and the girls found much to entertain and intrigue them, making friends, learning new things. Adam knew it would be an excellent cultural experience for them all, and he had been right.

  The small village was home to about a hundred fifty people, most of them children, it seemed. This year there were seven Justice Corps volunteers: four on Adam’s crew, and three teachers.

  In some way each of his girls had been a help to the village elders and the other Justice Corps volunteers.

  Chrissie, Adam’s wife, spent her days sewing shirts, skirts, and dresses on an old treadle sewing machine left behind by some other NGO group. As she worked, she taught the local women how to use the machine, how to use their clothes to make patterns for new clothes, and then to stitch them up. She brought a small stash of beading materials and taught beading skills to a little knot of interested local women, and took home a whole box full of handcrafted jewelry to sell for them. These women were all excited with the prospect of a small export business that could benefit their families and the village economy.

  Adam loved seeing her talking and laughing with her circle of friends while babies crawled around the floor in the kitchen tent, and the older children played just outside. He was delighted that each family member fell into the culture with such ease. Well, almost each family member.

  Lisa, fifteen, had been a help to one of the teachers, helping to teach English, reading, and writing to the older children. Lisa was the writer and poet in the group, the science nerd of the family, but as an introvert, she didn’t bond with her peers as well. She was happy to teach the younger children while she counted down the days to going home.

  By contrast, Sonja, twelve, had made very close friends. She was always busy in the kitchen, helping Belvina, Jolmy’s wife, prepare meals, learning how to cook on a wood-fired stove, how to bake in a wood-fired oven. If she wasn’t in the kitchen or helping Belvina in the little kitchen garden, Sonja was out fooling around with her friends, playing games and sharing the secrets that twelve year old girls all have to share with one another. They all hugged and cried when she got into the Jeep with her little flowered backpack, headed for home.

  Mouse, the youngest at ten, loved the jungle. She was quite the wild thing, completely different from her older sisters. She was dark haired, adventurous, and always getting herself into trouble. Officially named Monica Sue Swan, Adam’s father had immediately re-christened her Mouse before they were even out of the birthing center, and that name stuck. She had been quite a challenge in the village, not at all interested in abiding by the local customs and standards of behavior. After a while, Adam and Chrissie soon realized that Mouse had many aunties to keep an eye on her. She was not the first daring child the village elders had seen. Eventually, she survived all her forays into places she shouldn’t be, playing with creatures she should be leaving alone, and tasting things that weren’t edible.

  Overall, Adam and Chrissie were very proud of their girls—the Swan Sisters. He missed them the minute he hugged them all goodbye at the lit
tle airport.

  A pang of homesickness set off a new set of painful waves in his vision.

  Were they home by now?

  No, they wouldn’t be home yet, not for a couple of days.

  But how long had he been here? Did anybody know yet that he was missing? Had his captors made their ransom demands to the Justice Corps?

  If he didn’t return, the superstitious locals would begin to spread rumors that he had been kidnapped by jealous gods and taken into the underworld.

  In addition to designing and helping to build their potable water system, Adam’s supervisor asked him to teach Sunday School, since there wasn’t currently a missionary or a chaplain on site. Preaching was not his strong suit, but he tried. The best he could do was help the villagers see Christianity as an adjunct to their superstitions about the strange forces that dwelt beneath their feet. The locals, most of whom knew more about Christianity than he did, found it faintly amusing, the prospect of an invisible, good, Christian god above and an invisible, bad, superstitious god below, yet neither one helped get fresh water to drink or medicine for their sick children. He had to agree. What would be the purpose of an all-powerful god if people got sick and died?

  Adam considered himself a man of faith, so he tried to teach them, avoiding the difficult theological questions, and he tried to learn from them, particularly Jolmy, his foreman on the water crew, who was happy to counter Adam’s Christian stories with strange stories of his own faith.

  The village library, in addition to the raggedy collection of worn and torn children’s books, had an old, shabby Lutheran hymnal, so he used that to teach them songs, and create his sermons, which he kept very simple.

  Sonja encouraged the other children to put on little dances and skits that went along with some basic Bible stories, to the delight of everyone. Such festivities were always followed by a communal feast.

  Sunday became a time of joy, a respite from the work week, and Adam was happy to be a part of it.

  “Please, God,” Adam whispered out loud in his cell of unimaginable pain. “I’ve tried to be a good man. Have mercy on me.”