The Soul Collectors dm-4

by Chris Mooney

  The Archon smiled and Darby saw shark's teeth, tips sharpened into daggers.

  'Satisfied?'

  Darby didn't answer.

  'You haven't asked about Mr Casey and his daughter.'

  'They're here?'

  'Yes. Most of them, anyway.' The woman clasped her hands together. 'Which one do you want to live? Do you have a favourite?'

  'Both.'

  'You're going to have to kill one.'

  'I don't think so.'

  'The one you pick shall decide your fate. You can contemplate this while we affix the obedience device to your back.' The Archon held up the device Darby had seen on the spine of the toothless, tongueless thing in New Hampshire — a black plastic box with a series of spiked metal ends. 'You will do what you are asked or you will suffer incredible pain.'

  The mask came back down. The Archon left the room.

  The door shut. Darby heard a creaking sound coming from somewhere outside and then the chains loosened and she collapsed on the floor, the whip marks throbbing and a pins-and-needles sensation sweeping across her limbs.

  'You will,' a strange voice whispered in the darkness. 'Believe me, you will.'

  81

  Time passed. Had to be at least two days, Darby thought. The welts on her thighs and shins had started to scab over.

  She lay in the dark, thinking.

  Planning.

  Dreaming. The next time the door opened, one of them came in holding a candle and a bucket. Darby saw a bar of soap and a washcloth floating on the full pail of water.

  'Wash,' he said. He wore a robe and a hood covered his face. He was barefoot.

  'Which Archon are you? Tinky Winky or Dipsy?'

  'Wash.'

  She picked up the bucket and started to wash herself, not an easy thing to do with the chains, and the Archon or whoever he was standing there, watching.

  After scrubbing her hair, she dumped the rest of the water over her head and then threw the bucket at him. He wasn't prepared. It bounced off his face before he could catch it and he staggered, catching himself on the wall to keep from falling.

  He stood up, slowly. His hood had fallen slightly and she still couldn't see his face. It was hidden behind some sort of fencing mask made of black mesh. She saw the part where the bucket had dented it.

  He took the bucket and the candle and left her there in the dark, cold and wet and dripping. Only one came through the door. Holding a candle and something else. She didn't see it; he tossed it to the floor.

  Clothing.

  'I hope you're taking me out someplace nice,' she said.

  He unchained her. 'Dress.'

  She picked up the clothing. Black cloth trousers and a black tunic. No shoes. The fabric felt greasy. Used.

  He didn't watch her this time. He placed the candle on a ledge high on the wall, well beyond her reach, and shut the door him.

  It seemed to open a moment later, just as she had slipped into the tunic.

  A small robed figure with a hood came in holding a tray of food. Nuts, an apple, water in a big plastic cup.

  The door shut and Sarah Casey placed the tray on the floor.

  Darby thought about moving the hood away from the girl's face, then decided against it. Sarah Casey had no idea who she was.

  'Sarah,' Darby whispered, her gaze on the door. 'Is that you?'

  Sarah Casey removed her hood to get a closer look at Darby. Her eyes were glazed over, either from shock or drugs, maybe from a combination of both. She had a fading bruise on her cheek and what looked like a burn mark.

  'I'm a friend of your father,' Darby whispered. 'Is he here?'

  The girl didn't answer. She licked her lips and swayed slightly on her feet.

  Jesus, they drugged her.

  'Who are you?'

  'My name is Darby McCormick. I'm working with your father. Is he… Can he walk?'

  Sarah nodded, pursed her lips. 'My mother…'

  'Tell me about your father, where they're — '

  'My mother here?'

  'No,' Darby said, not seeing the point of telling her the full truth. 'And keep your voice down. Where are they keeping you?'

  'Far away.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'This place is big. Lots of corridors and tunnels, lots of floors.'

  'Do you know where we are?'

  'Hell,' she said. 'We're here to pay for our sins.'

  'Listen to me.' Darby kept her voice low. 'I will find a way to get you out of here. I promise, but I need — '

  'You're lying.'

  'No. No, I'm not. Look, your father and I, we were working with people. The FBI. They're looking for us right now. It's going to take some time. I need you to be strong and brave for yourself and for — '

  'You're the one.'

  'The one what?'

  The girl's eyes grew wider. 'You're going to kill me.'

  'No. No, I'm not going — '

  'You are. They told me. You're going to kill me tonight in front of the others.'

  'What others?'

  'The children. They have children down here and these… people who look like ghosts. They're all chained in the great hall, where they're going to watch you kill me.'

  'I'm not going to kill you, I promise. Don't walk away. Have you eaten? Here, take some of this food.'

  The door opened and two people with lobotomized stares and ghoulish features limped into her room, barefoot and wearing torn sarongs. Their skin, heavily scarred and emaciated, was leached of colour. They held stun batons. One held a key ring.

  A robed person came in and hauled Sarah Casey away. He didn't lock the door. It stood open and Darby stared at it, thinking, when she heard the crackle of electricity.

  The stun baton hit her waist. Her legs collapsed and the baton hit her again, causing her to fall headfirst against the wall. The baton remained pressed against her waist and she shook violently, chains bouncing against the floor. One of them grabbed her ankle and unlocked the manacle, the fetid odours baked into their scarred skin making her gag.

  The baton was withdrawn and, as they rolled her on to her stomach and shackled her wrists, she knew her opportunity had come. She lay there limp and useless, and they grabbed her by the arms and lifted her to her feet.

  She was dragged out of the door and down a long, candlelit corridor with a dirt floor and the walls on each side stacked with skulls. She passed an archway and saw a dirt floor leading down and then it disappeared as they led her into another hall, this one narrow and made of bleached and dusty brick. They were close to her now and, suddenly moving her feet behind their knees and arching her back, she threw them off balance. The one to her left fell to the floor, taking her down with him.

  She lay on top of him and smashed the back of her head against his face, breaking his nose. Not much room to manoeuvre, but the one now on top of her had no idea how to fight at close quarters. He seemed confused. Scared. His neck was inches from her mouth and without hesitating she sank her teeth into the thin, foul flesh and bit down hard like a rabid dog, tearing. An arterial spray of blood exploded against the wall and the thing howled, a ragged sound, and she slammed her forehead into his nose, pushed him to the side and got to her feet. Rolled back against the dirt floor, swept the chains from underneath her legs, brought her hands up as the bottom one scurried to his feet, clawing the walls for purchase and slipping on the blood. A quick snap of the neck and the bleeding thing dropped. The other one tried to scrabble away and she wrapped the chains around his neck and went to work on strangling him, some boy who had been brought to this place and turned into a monster.

  With the things dead and lying on the floor, she found the keys. Four of them. She tried the first one and it worked.

  Darby wiped her bloody mouth on her sleeve and ran.

  82

  A sepulchral tomb of twisting halls leading left and right and forward, some lit by sconces holding candles, some dark, almost every wall lined with bones. Some dirt floors dipped down
and some rose, and Darby paused at each one, thinking about Jack Casey and his daughter and the decision she would have to make.

  Up, she thought. Towards the surface.

  She ran with the keys gripped in her fist to keep them from jingling and each hall led to a circular area of dirt, some with barrels decorated with skulls and bones and holding water. She saw no one and heard nothing but her ragged breathing.

  Another circular area, one that held a granite sarcophagus placed in front of a stone altar. Latin words and phrases cut into the dusty stone and she recognized only one, the name on the sarcophagus: Iadabaoth.

  To the right of the altar, a staircase made of ancient brick. She saw it curved and led only one way, up. She climbed it, her bare feet sliding across the smooth stone, and it seemed to go on for ever. It was cool and dark in here, musty and dank, and she was sweating. She paused when she heard the screaming.

  Not screaming. Roars of approval and delight and triumph, like a Red Sox crowd at Fenway Park on opening day. Darby kept climbing, only more slowly, eyes wide and searching the cool and musty-smelling dark, the roars growing louder.

  The staircase ended and led to another smooth-bricked hall. She found a ladder. Ahead, maybe twenty feet, an archway lit up by candlelight coming from somewhere far below. No floor beyond the archway, just the candlelight and the cool air throbbing with roars and screams. She moved towards it, had to see, needed to see, and when she reached it she got on her hands and knees and looked down and down.

  A great hall, full of manacled children and the manacled pale things with shaved heads and scarred bodies, a crowd of at least a hundred down there. Some were shackled to the walls; others were shackled by only one wrist, and they picked up rocks and threw them at the person in the centre of the big space: Jack Casey, his massive body tied to a giant, raised wheel that was opposite his kneeling daughter. Sarah Casey had been chained to some contraption that wrapped around her throat, the stiff metal bars leading to rings that encircled her knees. Hooded figures stood behind her and others were gathered near their leader, the Archon Iadaboath, sitting high on a perched throne.

  Darby stared at the sailing rocks; the roars were like slaps across her face. Even from this height she could see the tears on Sarah Casey's face, the look of abandonment and hopelessness on Casey's. He had been broken. Shattered. Physically and mentally. He looked dead on that wheel — a medieval wheel used as a torture device. St Catherine of Alexandria had been tortured on such a device, and when the wheel broke, they beheaded her on a guillotine.

  Darby looked at the table set up at the end of the Archon's throne, a table stocked with strange and ancient torturing devices. She saw a metal-framed helmet with blades on each side that sat right above the ears. Saw spiked instruments and whips and metal vices used to crush bone. Collars lined with metal teeth.

  You can't save them, a voice said.

  She knew that, logically. She couldn't take them on without weapons. Without a small army at her back. And yet she didn't move, because the crowd gathered below was waiting for her to enter the room — waiting for her to kill Casey or his daughter. Or both.

  You can't take on these crazies by yourself. You'll need help.

  Yes. That made perfect sense. She couldn't do this by herself, but if she left now, what would happen to Casey and his daughter? They could be dead by the time help arrived.

  If you want to save them, you need to save yourself first. You're their only chance for survival now, so get moving.

  Darby backed away and climbed the cold metal ladder that stretched high into darkness. At the top she found a hatch.

  It was locked.

  Panic fluttered through her limbs and then vanished when one of the keys worked on the padlock. Darby pushed the hatch open and climbed outside, into woods lit up by a bright moon.

  She eased the hatch shut and started moving through the cold air, telling herself she had done the right thing. She hated running away — she had never run from anything in her life — but she knew this time she had no choice. She breathed in the cold air, trying to ignore the primitive part of herself that rejoiced at being free. At being alive.

  83

  Darby ran.

  The wind was cold and raw and kept shaking the tree branches and limbs high above her head. Most of the terrain was flat, nothing more than freshly shed leaves, and she kept running straight, figuring, at some point, she'd hit either a road or a clearing.

  She covered a lot of ground and had a lot of speed despite the fact she was barefoot. Then her thoughts became consumed by traps — trapdoors and bear traps hidden underneath all these leaves, things with steel jaws and clawed metal teeth ready to tear flesh and snap bone — and she traded pace for caution. The Archons would have planned for something like this. Get a foot stuck in a trap, and she'd be dragged back under the earth and set up on one of those operating tables for an amputation, maybe even an emergency lobotomy.

  Were they already out here looking for her? By now they had discovered the bodies. They knew she had the keys. They were searching every hall, every room, every hidden area. The staircase. She imagined one of them poking his head out of the hatch, looking around and seeing her footprints in the damp earth. Saw him climbing out and releasing the ghouls, sending them off into the woods like dogs to follow her scent, and she knew she couldn't slow her pace and ran faster.

  The woods never ended; like something from a nightmare, they stretched on and on.

  She ran until she was rubber-legged. She paused and leaned forward, gripping a tree as she sucked in air, her hair wet and matted against her face. Her skin felt hot and wet but her mouth was bone-dry and she couldn't get any moisture into it.

  She pressed on, jogging this time. She had almost given up hope, thinking she would die out here of dehydration, her flesh picked apart by crows and animals, when she saw a path straight ahead and bolted for it.

  Not a path but a dirt road that broke into different directions, some leading into new sections of trees. She looked up at the sky and searched for the Big Dipper. There. The Pole Star was located directly off the Dipper's top and she turned slightly to her left. Now she was facing north, the way the road led. She took it, noticing how the air had turned cooler.

  She smelled the salt in the air before she heard the ocean.

  The road wound its way around a cliff. Looking over the edge, she saw water lit up by the moonlight, the spent waves creaming against the rocks, and then they disappeared, lost in a blizzard.

  She jerked backwards, blinking. No snow. She could see perfectly well. A hallucination. What had caused that? She hadn't drunk their water. What? Her heart was thumping erratically and when she touched her face it felt as dry as her tongue. Dehydration? Or had that bucket of water she used been laced with something?

  Looking off to her left, she could see endless water. To her far right, more water lapping against cliffs and a half-standing lighthouse sitting on a small island. The area directly above the lighthouse was a field of broken boulders. No choice but to go down.

  She had made it halfway when she saw some stairs cut into the rock. She took them down, relieved to see she didn't have to swim to reach the lighthouse. But she had to wade through water cold enough to turn bone to ice, and it rose all the way up her legs before she reached the next set of stairs. She stumbled up them drunkenly, her head pounding by the time she reached the top.

  The door was locked. She went to try a key and found she was no longer carrying the key ring. She had no memory of having dropped or lost it.

  It took four blows of her shoulder to knock it open.

  A winding metal staircase, the wind howling above her. She found a storage room in the back, the wooden shelves stripped bare.

  Shivering, she took the stairs, her breath pluming and then disappearing in the cold air.

  Halfway up she found another room with an upended cot and an old AM radio covered in rust. Warmer in here than outside. She shut the door, heard the wind w
histle through the gaps and cracks, and turned over the cot. She lay down on her back and stared up at the black ceiling, thinking.

  Where was she? Had to be somewhere on the East Coast, okay, but where? Some sort of island? She hadn't seen any homes or cars. Nothing but woods and the ocean and this lighthouse.

  Despair pressed against the walls of her heart and she closed her eyes and ignored it. Think of a plan. Wait for sunlight. Pray for a bright day and then head out of here. There has to be something here. Those people had brought her water, and Sarah Casey had brought her food. There had to be a grocery store somewhere near by. Darby switched back to Sarah Casey and wondered about the girl and her father, praying that they were still alive — still had the will to live. Jack Casey had had it crushed out of him, but his daughter — would she still cling to it if something happened to her father? What would she do if her father died? The question hung in Darby's mind as she drifted off to sleep. She dreamed that Coop had rescued her. He came with an army of helicopters that soared above the lighthouse, men rappelling down ropes and carrying guns.

  Coop sat on the edge of her cot and nudged her awake.

  'I came back for you,' he said. 'I found you.'

  He took her in his arms and kissed her cheek and hair and held her as she let it all out, dry sobs at first, then the rest of it, the worst part, and she wailed into his neck and screamed into his chest, wanting to purge it from her heart.

  When she pulled herself away, she saw Jack Casey's face pulverized and blood running from his nose and ears. His eyes.

  'Luck always runs out,' he said. 'You have to come back home now.'

  *

  Darby sat up in the dark and saw light creeping underneath the door. Heard footsteps.

  'Miss McCormick? Miss McCormick, you in here?'