The Truth Collector (Demon Marked Book 1)

by Corey Pemberton

  His lungs burned, begged for air.

  But there was none of that down here. No air and no light. Just something that had once been a woman shoving him deeper into a watery grave. Malcolm closed his eyes, opened them, closed them again. No change.

  Deeper and deeper into the abyss.

  Splashes and shouting filled his ears, warbled beneath the water. Then a humming sound replaced them. The end credits. The ride's over, folks. Hope you enjoyed it.

  Maybe he'd pass out and drift dreamlessly into death. He probably didn't deserve that, but it seemed like the best way to go. He let go of the sides of the well. It was useless. That force shoved him deeper.

  But he didn't fall asleep.

  His mouth opened instead.

  Convulsions came next as his lungs tried to reject the water, but there was plenty more where that came from. Flooding his lungs. Sending him into a silent, wrenching coughing fit he couldn't escape. Malcolm reached for his throat.

  He closed his eyes…

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  And then the water turned into nothingness. He fell through it, deeper and deeper, picking up speed. Maybe death was a free fall instead of a slow slide into the beyond.

  Thunk.

  Something stopped him. Now there was only pain and water in his lungs. He writhed around in some kind of primordial ooze, spewing out well water onto a hard surface. He coughed until his face was covered in mucous and saliva. Then his body torqued in a seizure and all the water that remained came out of him.

  He lay still on his back until his limbs stopped twitching.

  Malcolm clutched his throat and looked up. There was only darkness. Yet the air was different down here, heavier. “Am I dead?” he said. His voice echoed but no one answered. His hands went from his throat to the ground around him. Sand? Ash? He couldn't see it, but it slipped between his fingers.

  Then there was movement somewhere above him. It flashed across a tiny pinprick of light in the darkness. Malcolm tried to sit up to get a better look at it, but his muscles weren't working right. His head fell back onto the ground, limp. He tried again and another coughing fit took him. Somehow he turned his head to the side to spit out the saliva.

  Something landed on the ground next to him.

  Someone.

  Either a man whose limbs were just as useless as his, or a crash dummy they used to test cars. The thing started writing around, coughing. A man. He opened his eyes.

  “Paul?” Malcolm's voice came out in a tortured whisper.

  The man couldn't answer. He was fighting for his life – if they weren't dead already. His eyes were bloodshot and his face blue. Malcolm watched his lips open and close for a moment before remembering how to react.

  He willed his body to move closer, dragging himself across the ground. With all of his concentration he raised an arm and let it fall on the man's back. He lifted it and let it fall again and again. Each blow sent water spewing from the man's mouth.

  Finally the man stopped coughing. Malcolm flipped him onto his side. His body felt real enough. “Paul? Are we dead?”

  The man's head swiveled in a circle, but no words came out.

  Malcolm looked up again and found the pinprick of light in the darkness. Tiny men in blue uniforms circled in and out of view. Their bodies were upside down, reflected off the surface of the water from where they came.

  “Is she up there?” said Paul. At least it sounded like Paul, but the timbre in his voice had been stripped out and replaced with straw.

  “I don't know,” Malcolm whispered. For some reason it felt wrong to speak loudly down here.

  “I saw her push you down there,” Paul said. “She got me too before I could get away. Turning myself in seemed a lot better than drowning in a well.”

  “You're probably right. You all right?”

  “Besides being beat up and emotionally scarred for life? I think I'll manage. You?”

  Malcolm nodded. “Sure. For now.”

  They fell silent. Malcolm started to make out sounds as his senses grew accustomed to the darkness. Dripping sounds. Little splashes slapping against the ground. More water… and lots of it.

  “I think we're on a beach,” Paul said. “Next to an ocean or lake or something.”

  Malcolm sniffed the air. It was warm and damp. It covered his prison jumpsuit and wrung the sweat out of him. “We're underground. It's like a cavern or a big bowl.” His fingers opened and closed on something metal. He still had the locket.

  “She said to find a boat,” Paul said. “How the hell are we supposed to do that?

  Malcolm sat up, finally able to make his muscles obey. “I don't know.” The light above them darkened as a cloud rolled past the moon somewhere up there. Somewhere in another world. He could still see the tiny policemen swarming. They stomped around the well and played with their flashlights and radios, but they didn't give any indication they could see down below.

  Then Malcolm got up and rose to wobbly legs. A patch of sand surrounded him as far as he could see. The sand was dark – some kind of special underworld volcanic ash. He stuttered along the little beach until his feet struck something metal. He reached down to grab it and held it up to the pinprick light.

  His fingers were wrapped around a pewter goblet. Gems encrusted its sides – gems larger than Malcolm had ever seen. He spun it around in the light and set it back down on the sand. “I think I just found a treasure.”

  “What?” Paul still lay on his back, catching his breath.

  “I don't know. Some kind of old goblet or something. It looks fancy.”

  “Does it have water in it?” said Paul. “Otherwise I'm afraid it isn't much use to us down here.”

  “I just had a gallon of water in my lungs and it's the only thing I can think about. Is your throat dry too?”

  Paul groaned.

  “I'll take that as a yes.”

  “We aren't supposed to be down here, man. This place is going to kill us. If we aren't already —”

  “No,” said Malcolm. “I don't think we're dead. Just… stuck between somewhere.”

  “She never said how she'd get us out. Oh, God.”

  Something else caught Malcolm's eye. He picked up a book buried beneath a layer of dust. When he opened it some of the pages fell out. He held up what was left to the little shaft of light and squinted, unable to decipher the strange language that filled the inside. He ran his fingers across the pages and dumped it back on the sand.

  Paul joined him on his expedition a few minutes later. They wandered forward together – two strangers in a strange land – and spoke only in gestures. Every few steps one of them would kick something. Then they'd pick it up and examine it under the light. They found eyeglasses and a telescope and books. Pictures and dust-eaten love letters that disintegrated under their touch. Once Paul even lifted a metal breastplate with a chimera painted on it. They lifted daggers and swords, handkerchiefs and pistols. Malcolm opened a glass decanter, sniffed it, and dabbed a little whiskey on his finger. He licked it. Still good – preserved perfectly with time. He brought the bottle with him and they passed it back and forth, wandering into the abyss.

  They wandered until their feet touched the water's edge.

  Then they found ships.

  For a moment it seemed they'd stumbled into a forgotten marina.

  Ships of all shapes and sizes lined the little ashy beach. There were rowboats and canoes, longboats and galleys. Steamships and makeshift rafts. Some were covered in fire and pitch, ravaged by violence and neglect. But others gleamed untouched in the pinprick light.

  Malcolm and Paul wobbled over rusty anchors and hemp ropes, the splintered remains of a sailboat mast. Paul dipped his shoes in the water while Malcolm walked beside him on the sand, splashing along in the giant cavern beneath the world. Or between the worlds.

  Then, before Malcolm could say anything, Paul reached down and put his finger in the water. He licked the droplet off his fingertip and smacked his lips. “
It's good. Cold and almost sweet.” He bent down again – this time with his entire face.

  Malcolm grabbed the back of his neck and jerked him back onto the beach. “She said not to get in the water. Don't you remember?”

  Paul's cheeks flushed. He opened his mouth, suddenly awake, but no words came out.

  “Stay out of there,” Malcolm said. “Unless you want to get stuck here forever.”

  Paul rose to his feet, smacking his lips. “Aren't you thirsty? We won't make it out of here if we don't get anything to drink.”

  “That's why we need to hurry,” Malcolm said. “In and out.” The water rippled in the corner of his eye as they walked among the ship wreckage. He couldn't not look at it now. Cold and sweet and perfectly drinkable. All he had to do was put his head down and fill his cheeks. Then the burning in his throat would go away.

  The water moved closer.

  It had either gotten deeper or he was kneeling down to reach it, unable to stop himself. Closer and closer. It settled in a pool of jet and he could smell it now – like some flower about to bloom. His lips opened, snapped apart by a thirst so intense he could almost see it.

  That thirst was stronger than hunger. It was stronger than the drive for life itself.

  Malcolm had to have that water…

  And he had to have it now.

  He rushed into it.

  As soon as his feet touched the water, the pain in his ankle evaporated. He bent over and let the cloying sweetness touch his lips. It was too sweet. But he couldn't stop drinking it. He slurped until his mouth was full and swallowed. He slurped and slurped until something slapped him on the side of the head and sent him sprawling back onto the beach. Malcolm sprang to his feet. Every nerve in his body fired, prepared for a fight to the death against whatever came between him and his water.

  Paul stood in front of him. He held his hands at his sides, watching Malcolm with wide eyes. “I'm sorry. But you said we had to stay away from...” His words trailed off. He couldn't say the word or even bring himself to look at it.

  “Water,” Malcolm said. “My water.” He lunged forward before Paul could reply. His hands found the back of Paul's legs and drove him into the sand. Malcolm scrambled forward before Paul regained his footing. Just a few more sips. Then they'd be on their way. He bent down to the water…

  And something moved beneath the surface, glowing pale in the tiny shaft of light.

  Malcolm watched it. It moved slowly in the water. Pulsing in a calming way like a resting heartbeat. It writhed and rose to the surface in a little circle. Around and around it went. Malcolm stared at it as it approached. His thirst for water was temporarily sated, but a new thirst replaced it. A curiosity. A longing to know what lurked beneath the depths of this lost place.

  A fish?

  No. Some kind of faceless algae or sea sponge?

  He lowered a hand to it, and it reached out and touched him. Cold and clammy and strong. It snapped around his wrist, pulling him down, and only then did Malcolm make out its features.

  A hand. A human hand at that, complete with bony knuckles and fingers and shriveled pads of flesh. Its fingernails were black, like its owner had been buried alive and tried to dig himself out through packed earth and tree roots.

  Something gasped behind Malcolm's shoulder, and another hand grabbed him there. This hand was warm at least – warm and alive. It jerked him back toward the sand while the other pulled him into the depths.

  “Malcolm! We gotta get out here.”

  Malcolm grabbed the cold, waterlogged wrist on his arm and started to pry it off. But every time he loosened a finger it snapped back down on him. Its strength grew while Malcolm and Paul's weakened. They kicked and shouted and threw their body weight against the beach…

  Yet still that hand snapped around him.

  It dragged him down slowly but inevitably. The sweet water covered his elbow, then his upper arm. It washed over his shoulder and crept up his neck. That hand pulled harder, and Paul's grip slipped free. Malcolm's chin was covered now. The water splashed against his lips. Down that thing carried him. He held his breath. Down, down, down until the light shrunk to a needlepoint somewhere above him.

  He was drowning again. Except this time there was no frantic movement. This time was slow and steady – almost peaceful. Malcolm opened his eyes. They landed on the pale wrist pulling him. Another hand joined it, and then there were two hands on him. Not just hands, but bodies connected to those hands.

  Hairless and waterlogged bodies. They looked at him with unblinking eyes. Dead eyes. Man and women they looked at him, old and young. Names and personalities erased by time and decay. They all looked the same now, a school of them writhing under the water with skin like paperback books that had sat out in the rain and stretched and discolored.

  Malcolm kicked and let out a silent scream of air bubbles. But his movements only seemed to call more of them closer. His head snapped this way and that. But there was no empty space to slip away. Just bodies on top of bodies, filling the sweet ocean and raising their hands. They reached desperately past one another, snapping at Malcolm's arms and feet and throat. Their eyes widened when he kicked back at them. Hands all over him now, freezing him. Pulling apart his prison jumpsuit and exposing naked flesh.

  Another whirlwind had formed to his left. Some of the things that were after him slipped away and got caught up in it. Paul was in the middle of that chaos, feet kicking, eyes bulging. His jumpsuit had already fallen off his gaunt shoulders. Now he fought them off, one man surrounded by innumerable things the color of soggy wax paper.

  Those things had him too.

  There was nothing left for Malcolm to do but close his eyes and slip out of consciousness. He wasn't religious – no benevolent God would have given him the curse of the truth – but he prayed he wouldn't end up like the things tearing him apart...

  Then the tremendous pressure eased.

  Malcolm's eyes shot open. The things were still close, but now they drifted away in a widening circle. They swam in terrible, choppy strokes. Something cruised across the water above them.

  A boat.

  Paul was free too. He pointed at it, and then they started swimming. They stretched for it just like the dead things had stretched for them.

  Lungs empty, Malcolm half stroked and half shivered his way to the surface. His fingers landed on a rope running around the side and he held it, gasping. Paul grabbed on too as the boat pulled away from the shore. Masses of bodies swam in front of them, giving the boat just enough room to pass. Malcolm looked over his shoulder and watched the beach shrink. Above them, the moon shined through its tiny hole. Then Sheriff Robbie's face filled the reflection in the well. He peered down into it, lines spreading across his forehead in rage. His mouth opened and he started shouting orders at the men around him. But the volume was turned off and Malcolm couldn't read his lips.

  The boat coasted farther from the shore. The things still reached for their ankles, but Malcolm and Paul kicked them away and held onto the boat. The things gave way, opening up an empty swath of water and illuminating it with their pale bodies like air traffic controllers guiding them down a runway.

  Paul moved closer and whispered in Malcolm's ear. “That was close.”

  Malcolm put a finger to his lips. Something moved on the boat deck above them. Then there were sounds: a pair of voices, with interludes for creaking ropes and rustling fabric. They conversed in a language Malcolm couldn't understand, plodded back and forth across the deck without a twinge of concern in their voices. They'd sailed here before… and with this ship.

  The voices grew louder, echoing in the abyss above them. Then something ripped and the boat shot forward. Malcolm looked up and saw a sail stretching above the ship. They were on some kind of catamaran, propelled forward by a wind Malcolm couldn't feel. The sailors guided it confidently through the darkness – the only boat, the only movement in sight.

  “No going back now,” Paul said.

 
Malcolm nodded. “They've done this before. They sail like it's their job.”

  “How are we going so fast? I don't feel any wind.”

  “I don't know. But we have to take this one. We can't go back.”

  “That's for damn sure. I'm freezing, man. What are we supposed to do? We can't just go up there and hitch a ride.”

  “Wait here.”

  Malcolm grabbed the side of the boat and pulled himself up. He peeked over the edge. A stack of crates rested on the catamaran's deck, precariously close to falling in the water. Weapons and guns and other shiny things spilled out of them. More valuables lay strewn across the deck. Two men trampled among them. One lingered near the mast. The other kept close to the bow, pocketing gems from time to time and sometimes leaning forward into the water to knock off one of the reaching things with a long pole. Malcolm watched while they hummed to themselves, caught up in their duties.

  They looked and moved like men at least. Malcolm couldn't see their faces, but they wore leather and silk and other fine things. Their hair was long, held back in greasy ponytails that nearly reached their waists. One of them – the man by the mast – turned and looked at him. Malcolm froze, but the man didn't call out or leave his post. Malcolm exhaled and slowly lowered himself into the water. Maybe he and Paul were the only ones who could see the pinprick light. But that didn't explain how the men were able to sail in the darkness. Nothing made sense down here.

  “Well?” Paul said. He kicked away another hand reaching for them.

  “There are two of them up there. I can't tell if they're alive or dead.”

  Paul shrugged. “I'm not sure it matters anymore. Maybe we can just try not to freeze and let them take us. Charlotte said as long as we look at the locket and think about the girl we're good, right?”

  “Uh huh.” Malcolm reached into what was left of his jumpsuit. Slowly at first, then picking up speed and getting frantic. He patted himself down half a dozen times – even stopping to feel around his neck in case he'd slipped it on – but the locket was gone. It had slipped off somewhere, lost among the writhing things with their black fingernails.