The run to the small side-street he’d snuck her away on the night before was maybe the most exhausting thing Lowell had done in the past five years. He stood behind a brick fence at the corner, wheezing like an asthmatic. The blue lights of a police car popped in and out as they spun around, though there was no obvious talking from around the corner. Makes sense they’d be in their cars. He’d need to round the corner casually and just see what the scene looked like. Drawing suspicion would end somewhere way south of poorly.
With the most convinced innocent face he could manage, Lowell rounded the corner. There was a cool breeze running down the street and it sent an oddly cold chill running across his previously hairy neck and chin. The feeling reminded him that he’d shaved and suddenly he felt like the police would be able to smell the guilt on him.
He’d made it twenty feet before he had the confidence to look up and survey the area and when he did he stopped dead. The police weren’t in their cars. No, they were very much out of their cars. But they weren’t walking and talking and doing cop stuff. They weren’t walking or talking at all. He could see three of them laying on the ground in front of their cars, not moving.
“Ohhhhh shit. Okay. Okay. This… not alright.”
He heard a metal clang from the alleyway and the cops on the ground disappeared from his mind. The alley leading to the clearing where Lowell had found Marka the night before was empty and eerily quiet. Or maybe it was just normal quiet and Lowell was convinced he was going to be murdered by a monster or by a cop. The truth of it was less dramatic and when he came to the edge of the small lot there was nothing to see.
The space around the collapsed wall had been taped off and there was a small tent at the far side of the area, though it was dark and didn’t seem to be in use by anyone. Another sound pulled Lowell toward the collapsed wall and he saw a small shadow move against the dark of the room.
“Marka!”
He called out, but it was probably a stupid move. The figure dropped down through something and Lowell rushed over. What he found was a jagged hole coming up through the ground. It was the size of the monster Marka had fought, or so he told himself. There wasn’t a good deal of level headed thinking before Lowell stepped out over the hole, but when he began to fall the thoughts all came rushing in.
Before they had time to coalesce in his brain, his feet turned first wet, then cold, then impacted on something hard and slick. He managed to bend into what he now recognized by smell as sewage. It was either that or a distinctly sewage like substance. There was splashing in the distance ahead of him and he pushed the concern out of his mind as best he could.
The sludge was watery but came to his mid-calf and gave considerable resistance in the shrinking sewage tunnel. He could stand well enough just under the building but he was crouched now and the air was thicker and it was all he could do not to vomit.
“Marka! … Marka! It’s Lowell! Come back!”
He couldn’t see anything ahead of him, the dim light having long since left him behind. He patted the pockets of his jacket, nothing. The phone he was looking for was broken anyway, so he wasn’t going to have any light. A flash of the dinosaur thing ran through his mind and he decided the lack of light was probably fine.
He took a few more steps, he hadn’t heard any splashing in who knows how long. Another section of pipe came, smaller than the last one he’d passed. He’d need to crawl into it. Lowell frowned in the pitch black. He wouldn’t find her. He felt himself lurch to the side and his stomach turned, the full force of the stench plunging into his lungs. He vomited, a choking, painful heave in the dark. He sucked in air and wretched again. He fell to his knees, the sewage at his thighs. He was going to die in a fucking sewer. God, his mom was going to be pissed. Probably. He choked out a laugh.
A purple light bloomed at the edge of his vision and there was a tug at his jacket. Lowell wrenched his head, but in the direction he’d come. She was there, Marka. He reached out for her and felt a wind push the foul air away. The fresh air ran into him and filled his lungs. He smiled as his vision blurred and dimmed. He could almost touch her.
Chapter 5
Lowell’s mind swam back from the black nothing of being knocked out by poo gas. He realized he wasn’t dead before he opened his eyes or heard anything. A brief second after he realized he wasn’t dead, the sound of lightly burbling water was around him and he opened his eyes. Above him was a rounded roof of pale rock. He was in a cave of some sort.
He moved to sit and looked around the cave. Sitting in front of him, staring intently, was Marka. He coughed a small laugh.
“Morning.”
Rubbing his head, he looked toward the burbling sound. It was a small stream of perfectly clear water. He pulled himself over to it lazily and scooped a bit up with his hands.
“Is this safe?”
He held the water aloft and turned toward Marka. That was when he saw it. The stream and the recent return to consciousness had distracted him to the point that, somehow, he’d managed to miss the thirty foot tall, pure white door that stood at the far end of the cave. It was made of an entirely different sort of rock as the surrounding cave structure, marble maybe.
Lowell’s eyes widened and he looked from the door to Marka.
“What is that? Why is there a door?” He looked back at the door. “Fuck sake, it’s massive.”
Marka stood quietly and looked at the door.
“Home.”
She said the words without looking at Lowell. He pulled himself to his feet and stood doubled over for a moment, steadying himself.
“Home?” He scanned the door again. “Wonderful.”
He walked closer to the door ahead of Marka and looked at it a bit closer. The door was done in an intricate style with carved pillars reaching up in staggered levels toward the top. The entire surface was carved with designs that were similar to the tattoos that covered Marka’s body. They spiraled toward the middle of the door where four cloaked statues stood facing outward, each at a corner of a diamond alcove with a hollow latticework ball of onyx in its middle. Staring at the door, Lowell realized that he could see because it was emitting a blue-white light that filled the cave around them.
Marka stepped in front of him and the cave dimmed. The door’s light shifted a deeper blue and then toward purple. It was a light Lowell was growing familiar with. The cave dimmed and the glow intensified. Marka’s leg glowed intensely and she winced against the strain. The door began to slide open away from them, trailing in deep grooves. The opening was unearthly smooth and silent aside from a humming that came from above. Lowell looked up and saw the black sphere glint dully in the dim purple light. The humming came from the ball as it spun in the air.
He was transfixed by the ball. The purple energy in the grooves of the door seemed to flow toward it and dive in at different angles. Inside the ball it fell to the middle and disappeared into a dead black hole that looked like it had ripped open the world.
Finally, it fell into place at the far end of its arc and Marka turned to Lowell. He came to her side and stood next to her.
“Lowell…” She paused, looking for the word. “Go?” She pointed beyond the door.
He smiled. “Yeah, I go. You saved me, I’ve got to make sure you get home safe.”
She nodded and started through the door. Lowell followed closely and when they had passed over the arc of the door it pulled itself shut in a rush. Lowell watched it slide soundlessly past and then looked out ahead of him.
It was beyond comprehension. There was an entire city and more. To his left, where there should have been a limestone wall was a sprawling farmland that seemed to curl up onto the rounded rock of the walls what seemed like at least a mile away. To the right stood what he’d have sworn was an old European city, full of ornate buildings. At the center of the odd city there was a spire that shot up sharply along one side and stood triumphant and beautiful above everything that sat below. He couldn’t quite tell what it was made of, but it was a spiral
of white around black stone. Maybe the same materials as the door?
Marka tugged at his jacket, pulling him back from the trance the spire had put him in. It didn’t seem as though it should be able to stand. The girl started down a smooth cobbled path that lead out from the doorway. It was his first step onto the path that made him realize the entire expanse of the city was lit. He looked up, there was nothing. Rock along the walls fading into blackness as they climbed away from the ground. It must have been more than a few hundred feet. The spire stood that tall at least and was nowhere near anything that could be recognized as a ceiling.
The blackness above meant there was no lighting up there either. The world was being lit from ground level. He looked down at the path as he paced along behind Marka. He blinked at the stones, swearing there were tiny strands of light rushing over and between them, but he couldn’t ever seem to focus on any of them.
Ahead, he heard a slight shuffling sound. Marka had increased her pace and was walking with purpose. The road forked not too far away, one path leading straight and the other heading down into a series of shoddier looking homes that was maybe a few hundred yards to their right.
The walk was quiet as things with Marka so often were. She’d spoken on her own a pair of times now. Lowell had tried not to overreact to it but he could see her start to shake any time she made a sound. If she meant to put on a brave face, he would as well. He decided to lose himself in the architecture around him. It was like a trip to some forgotten Swiss city or something. Even the smaller, less impressive houses had pillars and ornate statues. Each of the statues was of a different person, dressed all in different ways. Some smiling, some well-dressed, some children, some older. Lowell though they might be family members or remembrances of people who’d passed on. None of the statue people wore the cloak that Marka had on, though many of the statues of older people had indentions in a familiar style but unique patterns.
He hadn’t considered it too much, but it slowly became clear that these houses were mostly abandoned. They hadn’t fallen into disrepair and the strange world around him had seemed to keep them in perfect condition. It was the empty insides of the houses that gave them away. Occasionally they would pass a row that had taken damage. Lowell couldn’t help but imagine the monster he’d seen Marka fight lumbering into walls and pillars and destroying the carefully crafted statues.
No two of the houses were alike and Lowell did what he could to try to survey each one, appreciating what he imagined was a good deal of work and craftsmanship. He was admiring the carving in a stone overhang when the corner of his vision saw Marka come to a dead stop in the middle of the narrow street.
Standing in the street ahead of the unseemly pair was a short, fat woman. She was broad and pale with light hair, though closer to a sandy blonde and wavier than Marka’s dreadlocks. Her skin was free of any sort of markings. She stared forward, seeming not to notice Lowell the entire time, her eyes locked to Marka and her eyes wide. Lowell watched the scene motionlessly for what felt like forever before a pain in his foot forced him to shift his weight. The motion pulled the woman’s eyes up to his face. She narrowed her eyes a short second and shook her head, then looked back to the heavily tattooed girl. As if a wave of realization swam over the woman, she let go a piercing scream and turned running away flailing just about everything she could in awkward lopes down the street.
Lowell didn’t really have to ask. That was definitely bad. There was a sort of universal language in the whole running away screaming thing. It wasn’t good, but he couldn’t know what to make of it. Maybe the beast Marka killed was some protection monster? Maybe she was a criminal? The woman had almost seemed more in awe than anything before she had looked at him. Was he the problem? That stood to reason. This was a gated community after all, not the sort of place that wanted strangers walking around unattended. Though he was attended. Maybe it didn’t matter.
Marka looked at him with a stern face and motioned with her head toward the side streets that ran through the city. They were thin, not nearly able to let two people walk down the alleys side-by-side. They were winding and Marka moved through them quickly. She clearly knew her way around, but that seemed as though it ought to be expected. Lowell kept up well enough but regularly caught the edge of an arm or shin on the outcroppings that the houses sent into the alleyway. They seemed to serve no purpose other than to inhibit free movement. Occasionally they would pass a patch of inscription in the wall, again in the style of the tattoos and the door markings and all the rest. They were magic and they were there for a reason. Lowell felt almost stupid thinking that, but there wasn’t another explanation.
The jagged, winding alley gave way to a thin, clear street. There were doors here and windows, though it was not as wide as the street they had left. It was in the middle of the street when Marka again stopped abruptly. Lowell was ready this time and watched her intently. She seemed to shudder from the ground up and her eyes shot toward the direction the tower had been when they had been on the hill at the door to this curious world.
He seemed to feel it before he heard it. A wave of warm wind and a pressure that pulled him toward the ground. Then the sound came. In any language, a siren. An alarm.
Marka grabbed his hand and began to run.
Chapter 6
Lowell could hardly keep up as Marka pounded through the narrow alleyways. The outcroppings caught his legs more than a few times, doing their best to hobble him, but the girl didn’t care. Her eyes were locked forward, occasionally shooting up to check the lines along the roofs. Lowell, for his part, was given a chance to rub his shins a pair of times as they crossed larger streets like the one before.
The ruined houses with their curious statues had been left behind now and the lots were more spacious and filled with nicer houses. There were no people, though. Not a soul since the woman who had been the cause of the hurry that was now tugging Lowell toward some unknown place. He pondered where it might be as they ran but none of the situations were particularly bright. The best case Lowell could make for the fleeing was that they were hurrying to some sort of place with people in charge of things to tell them there was some crazy misunderstanding. The woman had looked at him before she ran off. That’s never the best feeling and the alarm only really drove home the idea that he was probably going to be experimented on.
He’d been lost from the start but now the spire had disappeared behind taller houses and though the yards were larger, each had an eight foot high wall wrapped around the perimeter. As they flashed by the occasional gate when crossing roads, he saw that the houses were ornate and covered with intricate designs as everything seemed to be. These were a bit different though. The designs were put on with care and in places that were more aesthetically pleasing. They worked with the contours of the buildings where the poorer area hadn’t seemed bothered. The lines themselves were clean and expertly put into the stone.
There wasn’t much time to enjoy the work as they took a sharp turn in a direction he told himself was away from the center of the city proper. They had made several turns, though, and he couldn’t say with any certainty. He thought about asking Marka but she hadn’t taken a spare breath to make a sound since they’d started moving. Lowell was beginning to hit the edge of his admittedly pretty pitiful endurance. It hadn’t been so long, maybe five minutes, but the work was exhausting and he was a desperately lazy man.
The houses seemed to become more modest again as they moved, still not a sign of a person. As they moved along, in the streets proper now, the walls started to shrink. Soon there were open yards and clear overhead views. Lowell looked around to orient himself and found the spire in the distance. They were moving away from it as he had guessed. Marka’s pace slowed and he turned his attention to the girl, worried she might be hurt.
She was scanning the rows of houses intently. Her speed returned and they took another sharp turn at the next bend. The run was getting to Lowell but what could he say? He didn’t see anyone
give chase. He hadn’t seen another living being since the woman ran off. Part of his mind wanted to stop Marka and demand an explanation or to try to calm her down but the part he decided to heed told him that she knew this place in ways he never would.
Another pair of turns and Lowell’s troubled mind and tiring lungs would have a bit of rest. Well, his lungs anyway. The pair stood in front of a crumbled stone wall that sat in front of one among many of the dilapidated houses that seemed to make up the bulk of the strange city.
Marka listened to the sky a moment and looked over the empty streets cautiously before she stepped over the rubble of the wall. Lowell didn’t follow immediately, only stared at the back of the girl, her tattoos drawing his eye. Before he had time to drift too deeply into the curiosities of this world, Marka made a short, quiet clicking noise with her mouth. Lowell looked up and she waved for him to follow. He did.
The inside of the house was, he imagined, more or less as it had been before whoever lived there had decided to abandon it. The furniture was covered with dust and dirt from the collapsed surroundings. It was not nearly as ornate as the rest had been and was made of a hard smooth material that he was beginning to think might be bone. There were large stone tables around the main room and small statuettes on each featuring heroic looking men and women in various poses. Some among the small set appeared to be carvings of children.
The chairs were padded but too dusty to bother sitting on. Really, it was a bit eerie in general and Lowell half believed he was going to get possessed by some ghost and forced to live out a weird domestic life in this strange land at the hands of the embittered former owner of the place. There were stairs to a second floor, but they seemed to be more or less out of order as some upstairs wall had collapsed onto them.
“Stay.”
He looked down at the tiny, scratchy voice and saw Marka looking up, intent and concerned.
My Black Beast Page 4