We followed the narrow tunnel for a good hundred feet before Tony commented on the distance.
“I don’t remember it being this long.”
I pointed up ahead. “And I don’t remember an intersection.” We stopped when the corridor ended at a crossroad that I was sure we had not negotiated before. “Does this look familiar to you?”
“No.” Tony held the light up to the left, then to the right. Both directions seemed unimaginably long. “You’re right. We didn’t come this way. We went through a door, walked down a short passage and then came to the roundabout with the three doors. Where the hell did all this come from?”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re here. Pick your poison.”
“All right. We’ll go this way.”
“That way? Are you insane? You never go down the first passageway you come to.”
“Lilith. Don’t––”
“Relax. I’m just fuckin` with you. We can go that way if you want. Come on.”
We headed left, which turned out to be an interesting choice. It led us through to a series of chambers and rooms, some as small as office cubicles, others as large as cafeterias, all lit by wall-sconce tiki torches or hanging candelabras.
Most of the furnishings were typical medieval decor: heavy wooden tables and chairs, carved stone sculptures, drab colored tapestries, the occasional suit of armor and the ever-popular crossed swords and shields hanging up on the walls.
There seemed no rhyme or reason for the hodgepodge floor plan, except that making no sense made perfect sense in the ES. I think I was finally beginning to understand that.
“Well, dig this,” I said, after funneling into a grand ballroom the size of an aircraft hangar. The great hall with cathedral ceilings, marble floors and life-sized statues of Roman, Greek and Egyptian gods dwarfed anything we had seen in the castle earlier. “Look. You could hold a rock concert in this hall.”
Tony said, “Rock concert? You could hold the Rock of Gibraltar in here.”
“Hey, this is interesting.” I leveled my hand and observed an unusual glow radiating between my fingers. “There’s a serious energy struggle going on in this room. It’s a give and take sort of thing. Can you feel it?”
“I can feel someone watching us, if that’s what you mean.”
“No. That’s not it. I mean a paraphysical thing. Here, let me try something.”
I pointed across the room at a life-size statue of Julius Caesar. Pinching my finger and thumb together, I shrunk the statue down to the size of a bowling trophy.
“Wow!” Tony seemed genuinely impressed. “How did you do that?”
“I don’t know. There’s just something about this hall. Some weird force in here is letting me manipulate the sub-atomic disposition of comprising matter.”
“English?”
“It lets me fuck with things.”
“That’s better.”
Tony crossed the room and attempted to pick up the shrunken statue. It wouldn’t budge. “It’s bolted to the floor.”
“No, it’s not.” I walked up to it, positioned my hands on Caesar’s head, leaned into it with all my weight and pushed the statue over.
“Huh.” Tony smiled as though I had just pulled a rabbit out of a hat. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s all still there,” I said.
“What is?”
“The original mass. The same particles that made up the larger statue are still there in the smaller one. They’re just condensed really, really tightly now.”
“So it weighs the same as it did before.”
“Exactly.”
“Cool.”
“I know. Want to see it again?”
“No. We need to get going before––”
“Chawdogs!”
Jerome pointed across the great room at three monstrous-looking doglike beasts rushing towards us. We hadn’t seen animals like them before in the ES, but their stout, muscular bodies, flat faces, fat heads and three-inch canines told us they definitely weren’t your typical shorthaired yelpers.
“Lilith?” I could hear the crack in Tony’s voice.
“Yeah?”
“Think we can outrun them?”
“Think we have to,” I said. “Because even if we can stop them, there’s four more coming down the corridor behind them.”
“Okay then. RUN!”
We turned and ran across the open floor, hoping to reach a door at the far end of the hall before they reached us.
I estimated our chances as good, at least for most of us. Jerome and Leona had a decent jump on things already, but my concerns rested with Tony. His ankle was still swollen and slowing him down. I knew I had to do something.
I pulled back and turned to confront the dogs. They were fat and stubby, but they ran like Greyhounds. Drool from their slobbering jowls blew back on their fur in the rush of wind, giving their smiles a glistening stripe stretching all the way back to their tails.
“You want something to smile about?” I said, feeling cocky with the powers in the room emboldening me. I pointed at a statue of Anubis and rolled my finger in a sweep across the floor. The statue toppled at my command, crushing the dogs flatter than a New York shadow.
“Ha! Take that!” I then prepared to address the second wave of bigger, meaner-looking Chawdogs.
I set my sights next on a statue of Zeus, mythical King of the Gods and keeper of the universe. It seemed only fitting I should bring the crushing blow of the heavens down upon the savage hounds that sought to mince my flesh. What better reward, I thought, than the bane of irony applied in justice? No equity in any plane of reality could taste as sweet.
The Chawdogs raced across the room, staggered in formation but aimed with purpose. I could hear their claws clicking on the marble floor as they approached. Their husky breaths hoarse and labored.
I was ready.
I thought.
It seems that for all the time I spent in the ES, I guess I never fully reconciled the one constant of an inconstant world. Nothing predictable is predictable, not even the unpredictable, which sometimes is.
As I prepared to send Zeus toppling to the floor in a game of bowling for Chawdogs, something happened. Something not good. In fact, the something not good was that nothing at all happened. I had no powers. No witchcraft and no paraphysical ES powers. I was magically impotent. I couldn’t topple Zeus, Apollo, Athena, Isis, Poseidon or Medusa. I couldn’t do a damn thing but run.
So, run I did. Turns out I was good at that.
I ran like the preverbal witch with her broomstick on fire. Tony and the others had made it to the door and were holding it open for me.
“Hurry!” they cried, as if I needed their encouragement not to get eaten by a pack of wild dogs.
“Slide!” cried Tony.
I hit the slick marble floor like a runner stealing second base. My ass skidded past the threshold just as Tony slammed the door shut. A second later, we heard the four brutal thumps in quick secession, as the Chawdogs dominoed into the door.
“Damn. That was close.”
Tony hoisted me to my feet and helped me brush myself clean. “Too close.” He patted the back of my shoulders, legs and butt. “What happened to you? Did you lose your mojo back there?”
“Yeah, something like that. It’s weird. All that energy in the room, yet it’s so volatile. I think some of the statues in there are made of dolomite. It’s the only substance I know that can zap a witch’s power like that.”
“Whatever it is, it’s not important now. We need to get moving. Doctor Lowell obviously knows we breached his fortress. He’ll surely make things tougher for us from here on out.”
“That’s if we get out.”
“We will.”
“So, which way?”
We had gone through the door of the great hall and come out in a dimly lit corridor resembling a purple-painted subway tunnel. There were no other doors or passageways, and of course, no windows. The walls and ceiling appeared chiseled
from a single block of stone.
Tiki torches, evenly spaced but at great distances, threw dancing shadows in the darkest recesses where beady, glowing eyes kept watch over our every move. I guessed they were tunnel rats. Hope so anyway, but as long as they minded their own business, it didn’t much matter.
Tony made his choice. “That way.”
“Wait,” said Leona. “Listen.” She pitched her ear toward the tunnel Tony wanted to take us down. “I hear dogs.”
“You sure it’s not the dogs in the hall?”
“No,” I said. “She’ right. I hear them, too. They’re coming this way.”
“Okay. He hiked his thumb up in the other direction. “Guess we’ll go this way. Come on.”
We hurried down the corridor, each of us looking back over our shoulders to see if the dogs were gaining. We could hear them. Knew they were getting closer, but still couldn’t see them. I took that as a good sign and thought we’d have no problem outrunning them.
Then we hit a wall. I mean we literally ran into a block wall.
“Damn!” said Tony. “It’s a dead end.”
“Gee, ya think?”
He planted his hands on his hips and gave me a bite me look. You know the one where he’s super pissed, but doesn’t want to show it in front of someone like Leona. He said to me, “What the hell, Lilith? You’re going to dish out sarcasm now?”
I smiled shamelessly. “Only sarcasm knows when the time is right.”
Leona pointed down the tunnel. “They are almost here!”
We had to do something, but turning back the way we came seemed impossible. I thought we would have to make a final stand against the dogs right there and hope for the best. Then Jerome surprised us again.
He stepped up to the wall and began digging away at it with his claws. Amazingly, the stone seemed to scratch away easily, as if made of sand. I watched the pile accumulate at his feet, when it hit me.
“That’s it!” I scooped up some of the sand let it sift through my fingers.
Tony still didn’t get it. “What’s it?”
“This stone. I knew I saw it somewhere before. You remember at the lagoon when Carlos was scratching his name into that purple boulder and it collapsed under him?”
“Yeah.”
“This is that same type of rock. It’s soft like sandstone.”
“Then let’s dig!”
He took out his bayonet, and together we began frantically carving away at the stone. Before we knew it, we had punched a hole in the wall the size of a baseball.
“Look,” said Tony, peering through the hole, “there’s a room on the other side. I think if we––”
“Wait. Listen.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t hear the dogs. They’ve given up.”
“Doesn’t matter. Keep digging. Come on, hurry.”
We redoubled our efforts, and soon the entire wall caved in, collapsing into a pile of purple sand as fine as pixy dust. Tony offered his hand to Leona and helped her over the pile. Jerome went next, then me and finally Tony.
You might imagine our relief, knowing the dogs were no longer chasing us and that we were out of that stinking tunnel. Yet, you cannot imagine our surprise when Doctor Lowell and two guards stepped out from the shadows, grabbed Leona and pulled her from our grasp.
Chapter Twenty-three
My initial inclination was to lunge at Doctor Lowell’s throat and choke the living shit out of him. Of course, that wouldn’t have worked at all because he wasn’t an actual living being. I realized as much after Tony charged him with his bayonet and sank it deep into the doctor’s chest. It didn’t faze him.
“Fools!” Lowell cried. “You can’t kill me. I’m already dead.”
Undeterred, Tony removed the knife and turned it on the guard holding Leona. He slashed him across the face and sheared off a chunk of flesh from his chin to his cheek.
The guard immediately released Leona and fell back against the wall, prompting the second guard to strike Tony with a backhand that sent him flying across the room. Jerome, circled in from behind, wrapped him arms around the guard’s leg and sank his teeth into it.
In all the commotion, I seized the opportunity to snatch Leona by the hand and pulled her away. Lowell immediately grabbed her other hand and reeled her back.
“She’s mine!” he bellowed.
I leaned up in his face. “Yeah? And your ass is mine.” I punched him in the throat with my Incubus ring, drilling its horns deep into the side of his neck.
The doctor fell back, instinctively bandaging the wound with his palm. I watched as blood slowly seeped through his fingers and down the back of his hand. His eyes grew wide. His mouth withered.
He jerked his hand away. Confusion warped his brow. “What… what have you done?” he cried. “I can’t bleed. I’m already dead!”
The guards, obviously frightened by the events, backed away and cowered into a corner.
“You’re not dead anymore,” I said, my gaze leveled to a hardened glare. “You’re undead.”
“I don’t… understand.”
Already, his eyes were bloodshot, his skin cold and pale.
“I injected you with zombie blood. Soon, you’ll become one yourself.”
“But why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I can’t kill you as spectersoma. You’ll only come back more powerful than before.”
I pulled a chunk of rock salt from my pocket and began scratching at it, allowing the smaller crystals to collect in the palm of my hand.
“You see, Doctor, unlike spectersoma, zombies aren’t dead, but they aren’t exactly alive either. They’re somewhere in-between. The only thing that can kill a zombie for sure is salt: pure, simple, everyday sea salt, which I happen to have here in my hand. As a precaution, I made sure it’s homegrown. This is salt from right here in the ES.”
I opened my mouth and dragged the piece of rock salt across my tongue. “Mmm, yum.”
Tony was just picking himself up off the floor. He came to me on unsteady legs and palmed my shoulder to maintain balance.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Fine. What’s all this about zombies?”
“Yeah, I brought along some zombie blood. Just needed a trace of the stuff. Thought it might come in handy.” I held up the Incubus ring. “Had it in the horns. Clever, eh?”
“Lilith, where in the world did you get zombie blood? Or should I ask?”
“Newcastle.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Fine. I got it from the Paynes. Remember them? The husband went to see that crazy voodoo mambo to bring his wife back from the dead.”
“Payne. Right, Alex and Angela. I remember that case. Whatever became of them?”
I shook my head. “That’s another story. Can’t go into it now.”
Even as we spoke, I could see the profound changes taking place in Doctor Lowell. He could hear us, but no longer could he understand what we were saying. His brain was turning to mush. His muscles, however, were getting stronger. Soon, he would possess incredible strength. Zombies are like chimps and orangutans in that respect, pound for pound stronger than humans.
“Okay, it’s time,” I said, having scraped the rock salt down to a handful of crystals. I walked up to the doctor and unceremoniously dumped the salt over his head.
The effects were immediate. The salt began burning into his skin and eating through his flesh. He let out an ungodly cry as he thrashed and kicked about the floor. It reminded me of a poisoned cockroach on its back, its legs twitching as toxins destroy its central nervous system.
Leona’s face soured, contorting through the emotional gamut from shock to dismay and finally disgust. She turned away, sickened and repulsed. Guess it’s true what they say. Zombie killing is not for the faint of heart.
We stuck around long enough to make sure there was nothing left of the body to reconstitute a viable spectersoma. Judging from the puddle of
bubbling green slime left behind by the run-a-way meltdown process, I’d say we were okay in that department.
Besides the hole in the wall, there was only one other way out of the chamber. To buy a little time before leaving, I walked up to the two guards sheltering in the corner.
“See this?” I shook my two fists. “I have two handfuls of witch dust with your names on it if you try following us. You understand?”
They both nodded.
“Good.”
We headed out, following a passageway back to ground level. From there, we slipped into a room opposite the turret steps. Tony looked out the window and gave the thumbs up.
“We’re good. The front gate is just outside. All we have to do is reach it, open the gates and run like hell.”
I looked at him as though he had just explained cold fusion in a bottle. “That’s it, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t think the guards will have anything to say about it?”
“Yes, but I thought we would pulverize them with a zip ball or something.”
“Or something? Tony. There’s too much dolomite in this castle. It’s zapped all my power. Yours too. We got nothin`.”
“So then we do it without zip balls.”
“Without the zips?”
“Sure.”
“All right, what do you suggest? We can’t do the cloaking spell because we can’t cloak Leona.”
“Maybe we don’t need to.”
“She can’t cloak herself.”
“She doesn’t have to. Sometimes the least obvious things are those that are right under our noses.”
“Yes, and whatever it is, I think it stinks.”
“You haven’t even heard my plan yet.”
“You’re right. Sorry. Let’s hear it.”
“What if we go out there acting like Leona is our prisoner? We walk right by everyone, act as if we own the place. It could work, couldn’t it?”
I thought about it for half a nanosecond. “You’re damn right it could. NOT!”
“Then let’s hear your plan.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Of course you don’t. So we’ll do it my way.”
“All right, fine. Get us killed.”
“I’m not going to get us killed. Not if we have these. Wait here a sec.”
8 Gone is the Witch Page 27