Cast in Stone

by Bilinda Sheehan

  “Grey, wait, I’m sorry,” I said, catching his arm as he moved away from me. He didn’t stop, his eyes stony and focused on the task ahead.

  “It’s fine.” We were right back to curt.

  “What was Alex?” I blurted out, my bluntness verging on rude, and Grey turned toward me with an incredulous expression.

  “You didn’t just say that aloud,” he said, barely keeping his temper in check.

  “I did, and I meant it. What was he?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Come on, what kind of preternatural was he?”

  “In the test he came back as psychic, although he couldn’t read the future. They tried to get him to read cards and such, but everything was a dud.”

  “I think he knew what the creature was doing. You said he couldn’t read the future, but what if he could read people, creatures,” I said. “You know, like he could see through their facades, glamours, and, in this case, the creature’s trick memories and mimicry.”

  Grey seemed to think about it for a moment before he nodded. “It’s possible. I mean, he was damn good at getting confessions, and he could pick one of the fae out in a crowd…”

  “You see, it makes sense,” I said.

  “So why would the creature kill him?”

  “Because it couldn’t trick him,” I said, my stomach flipping excitedly. “Which means its nest is probably somewhere nearby.”

  Grey glanced back up at the cave mouth. “You mean up there?”

  I nodded, swallowing back the bile that threatened to spill up the back of my throat. I could still remember the black shadows that had cloaked the mouth of the cave. There had been nothing to see, and then seemingly out of nowhere the creature’s eyes had appeared. The more I thought about it, the more I started to believe that the creature was protecting a nest of some sort, and I’d very nearly walked straight into the middle of it.

  Of course, the creature would try to move now, and the longer we dawdled out here, the less chance we had of catching up to it again. If Alex really was dead—and my instincts were telling me he definitely was—then I couldn’t let it be in vain.

  “We have to go up there. Tracey could be there…” I said, dropping my voice to a whisper.

  “We should call in backup,” Grey said, reminding me of Alex.

  “Alex tried,” I said, “but I don’t know what happened after that. I could hear you calling out to me, and I had to get up to the mouth of the cave.”

  Grey nodded. “I should still try. If we go in and…” He trailed off.

  “I know, they need to know where to look for our bodies if we don’t make it out.”

  He smiled at me as he pulled a small radio from his belt. “You always had a way with words.”

  I turned away as he called in our location. The cave looked empty, but I never had the chance to find out just how deep into the mountain it went. For all I knew, an entire network of caves and passageways could be up there. If so, we were definitely screwed.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I pushed away the negative thoughts. We would get lucky. After everything that had happened so far, we had to catch a break somewhere.

  Chapter 17

  It was easier this time to scale the rock face, my hands and feet automatically finding the footholds in the loose rock. I dragged myself over the edge and scanned the area for signs of the creature but found nothing. The air prickled with magic, but it was merely a trace, a lingering on the air that tantalised and taunted me the way a scent could bring a long-forgotten memory to mind.

  Grey made no sound as he rolled over the lip of the cliff. Somehow, he’d managed to complete the climb with the blade still gripped in one hand. If we got out of this alive, I was going to have to ask him how he did it. I knew from experience that making things look effortless always took some kind of supreme effort to achieve. And Grey wasn’t that much of a special snowflake.

  “There’s nothing here,” he said, his dark eyes raking over the rocks.

  “But there was.” I pointed to a gouge mark in the rocks where the creature had used its claws to mark its territory.

  “Blood,” Grey said, his voice dropping to barely a whisper as he moved stealthily into the cave. He took five steps and then dropped to his knees, bending low over something only he could see. I followed and peered over his shoulder. Grey moved slightly, allowing me a better view of the bloody droplets splattered on the rocks.

  “Alex?” I asked, but Grey shook his head.

  “No, there’s real power here. I think this is what is giving off the magical remnants,” he said.

  “The creature is injured?” I couldn’t keep the happiness from my voice. I wanted the creature hurt, to feel its victims’ pain and anguish.

  “Alex didn’t go easy,” Grey said, his tone as emotionless as always.

  But I knew that when Grey went cold, when his voice lost all of its colour and tone, he was hurting. This was just his version of tough-guy.

  I reached out and gripped his shoulder, then gave it a gentle squeeze. I wasn’t very good at the whole giving comfort thing, but I wasn’t completely heartless either. I understood that sometimes it took only a simple touch to ease another’s pain. At the end of the day, humans, preternaturals, we were all pack animals at heart, and we derived comfort from touch and closeness.

  “Don’t,” Grey said, and shrugged away from my hand.

  Curling my fingers back into a fist, I withdrew from him as he pushed up onto his feet.

  “We don’t have time for this,” he said. “I need to focus on finding Alex, whether he’s alive or dead.” I refrained from sharing my opinion on the matter, biting down on my tongue to keep the words from slipping out. If he needed to hold onto hope and delude himself into the belief that we would find anything but a corpse at the end of all of this, then I wasn’t going to burst his bubble.

  “I know you mean well, but…” He sucked in a deep breath. “The guilt is mine to carry, Jenna. I left him. I saved you and ran like the coward I am, like the coward we both know I am.”

  “You’re not a coward, Grey,” I said. “You were tricked—it’s part of the creature’s repertoire. But you’re right, we don’t have time for this now. I saw you were in pain and I tried to comfort you, that’s all…”

  He studied me, his expression unreadable in the half-light of the cave entrance. When he spun away from me, I let him go without question. He could have his secrets, and I would have mine. Maybe, when all of this was said and done, we would finally sit down and discuss what had gone wrong between us, but I had a sinking feeling that day would never come.

  There would always be something new. Another case. Another perceived insult. Another barrier between us.

  Sighing, I followed Grey as he moved off into the darkness, pushing all thoughts but those of Alex and the beast from my mind. One problem at a time.

  The walls closed in around us, getting more claustrophobic until we were trudging through a narrow passageway. If I deviated even slightly from placing one foot directly in front of the other, I would bump into the rocks, scratching and tearing my skin on their rough surface.

  Grey’s shoulders, on the other hand, were simply too wide to fit, and he’d been forced to turn to one side, making it look as though he was sliding along the walls. The air was much colder down here, and the scent of damp earth and rot tickled my nose, causing my eyes to water. The ground sloped downwards, and in the distance I could faintly make out the sound of running water.

  “How much further do you think this thing goes?” I asked, as Grey shone the beam of his mini flashlight on the ground.

  He shrugged. “Without seeing a map of the area, there’s really no way of knowing.”

  I contemplated suggesting that we turn around. For all we knew, we were wandering into a dead end and the creature had planted the blood at the mouth of the cave, once more tricking us into following a trail that led to nowhere, while it escaped through the trees. After all,
we hadn’t figured out what had caused it to attack people at the new site; the circumstances were way too different from all the other attacks to have been merely coincidence. And the creature was smart; it wouldn’t just wander into a place like that without good reason and risk exposing itself to so many humans at once.

  “Did you hear that?” Grey asked, stopping so suddenly that I bumped into him.

  “I didn’t hear anything but water,” I said, straining to listen inside the echoing tunnel.

  Something splashed ahead of us, followed by an unmistakable squeak that sent the hairs on my arms standing to attention.

  “Rats,” I said, letting out a low hiss. I hated them. Rats as pets I could get on board with; I didn’t want one, but pet rats had a certain cuteness about them that I could see, if I tried really hard. But wild rats, the kind that ate through walls and scurried about in the sewers, were a different animal altogether.

  “Not a fan, I take it,” Grey said, shooting me a grin over his shoulder.

  “Nope.” Another splash caught my ear, and I froze. It was quickly followed by another and another. The lone squeak we’d heard was joined by another, and I wrapped my hand around Grey’s arm. Instinct was telling me that we needed to get the hell out of there.

  “Really? After the things we’ve faced, you’re afraid of a few rats.” He sounded way too pleased with himself. He’d discovered a weakness about me, and I knew it was something he would file away for use at a later date. Grey was the teasing kind, and this was something he’d more than get a kick out of.

  “I’m not worried about one, or two, or even three rats, Grey,” I said, my senses kicking into overdrive. “There’s a hell of a lot more than a few heading our way.”

  “I heard only one,” he said, glancing back down the tunnel. “You sure it’s not the creature playing with your fears?”

  That thought had already occurred to me, but I allowed my whip to drop down into my hand. I instantly felt my gorgon nature responding, working to push back my fear.

  Reaching out with my senses, I closed my eyes and allowed my power to flow down the tunnel.

  I gasped and dug my nails into Grey’s arm as my magic found what it was looking for. As though I were standing on the edge of the scene, I could see the black mass of furry, squeaking bodies swarming over Alex’s body. His eyes were wide and staring, but thankfully no spark of life was left in him.

  For that, at least, I could thank the Goddess for small mercies. I watched as the mass of rats tore at his flesh, fighting each other for the most tender pieces of meat.

  “I’m not imagining it,” I said to Grey as I kept my eyes closed and studied the scene. “There are so many, I can’t count.”

  The sound of splashing caught my ear once more, and I tried to stare past the heaving, writhing pile of feasting bodies. One rat paused and glanced up at me. Or at least that was how it felt in my head.

  You’re not really there, Jenna, I repeated in my head, forcing down the fear trying to work its way up my throat.

  The rat’s beady eyes glowed with the same blue light as the creature’s had, and it let out an ear-piercing shriek that seemed to echo through the tunnel. The moment the screech died away, the other rats turned to stare at me, thousands of blue eyes glaring up at me.

  When they moved, they moved as one, surging forward, toward me. They passed through me, sending a shudder rolling down my spine as I stumbled backwards. It felt as though the heaving mass of bodies had passed through me and not just the manifestation of my powers.

  “What’s wrong?” Grey asked, catching my hand.

  “They’re coming.”

  “I know that, I heard them squeaking, but—”

  I cut him off with a shake of my head. “No, these aren’t ordinary rats, Grey. They’re a part of the creature, or they are the creature. I’m not sure how it works, but their eyes glow with the same power, and there are so many of them…” I left out the part about seeing them eating Alex’s body. That could wait until later, if there even was a later.

  “We need to move, they’re way faster than us.” I turned and began heading back out of the cave.

  “What about Alex?”

  Pausing, I glanced back over my shoulder at Grey. Whatever he saw in my face caused his expression to harden. “You know he’s dead, don’t you?”

  “He’s dead.” I didn’t try to sugarcoat it. If Grey didn’t wrap his head around that fact fast, then we would join his partner.

  Without waiting for me to explain, Grey started after me. The speed and force of his movements knocked loose pieces of stone and dust, clouding the already damp air.

  I didn’t slow my pace, covering as much ground as I could, but despite our speed, I felt the rats gaining. My senses prickled as they closed in on our location.

  Within moments I felt the ground begin to tremble, and the squeaking I’d heard in the distance suddenly sounded as though it was just around the bend. The narrow tunnel magnified the sound as it echoed around us until I was certain I’d lose my mind.

  “Faster,” Grey urged, his hands on my back, pushing me ahead of him.

  The rocks grew slippery, and Grey’s hands suddenly disappeared from my back. He grunted as he went down, and I turned in the tight space, tearing my jacket and arm on a particularly jagged lump of shale that jutted out from the walls.

  Grey was scrambling to his feet, but over his head I saw the first of the rats appearing out of the darkness, their eyes lighting up the confined space with an ethereal blue glow.

  “They’re on us,” I said, as Grey made it to his feet and thrust the torch into my hands.

  He muttered something beneath his breath, and his hands were suddenly engulfed in flames. I took a step backwards as he did his best to turn in the tunnel. Everywhere he touched, the fire spread out, burning across the surface of the rock as though it were covered in accelerant.

  The rats squealed as the flames reached them, their fat black bodies writhing as they struggled forward despite the fire.

  The small tunnel started to fill with grey smoke that billowed back toward us, burning the back of my throat as I struggled to draw a clean breath.

  “Go,” Grey said, pushing me ahead of him once more. I didn’t need to be told twice.

  The path started to widen, and I could see the dull light of the tunnel’s mouth ahead. The squeaking rats continued to follow us, and I fought the urge to glance back at them. Smoke spread around me, making it more difficult to pick out the terrain beneath my feet.

  The closer we got to the mouth of the cave, the more slippery the rocks became, and it wasn’t until we were practically upon the entrance that I realised it was raining outside.

  I paused at the mouth of the cave, staring down the cliff face to the ground below.

  Grey caught up to me, and I glanced behind me to see the rats slowly spreading out in the cave.

  “We’ll never get down the rock face before they overrun us,” I said.

  “We jump,” Grey said, never taking his eyes from the rats that were cautiously creeping forward.

  He raised his hands, and the fire danced across his fingers, flickering on the cave walls. The rain slanted in toward us, causing the flames to spark and sizzle in the damp air, making the smoke much denser.

  As I stared at the ground, I knew that landing wrong would mean serious injury, but we had no other choice.

  “Jump.”

  Turning, I flung myself from the cave mouth, aiming for the soft dirt near the trees.

  The ground rushed up to meet me and I landed with a thud, knocking the air from my lungs as pain speared through my legs. I rolled with the momentum and came to rest at the base of a particularly large fir tree, sap sticking to my hands and arms as I scrambled back to my feet and looked around.

  But there was no Grey.

  Glancing back up, I could see the flicker of his druid fire lighting up the mouth of the cave.

  Panic and fear clawed at my insides, causing them to
churn as my heartbeat sped up.

  “Come on, come on,” I muttered to myself as I waited for him to join me.

  One flaming rat fell from the cave, and my heart came to a shuddering halt. Where the hell was he?

  Grey suddenly appeared, arcing into the air as he jumped. He hit the ground far more gracefully than I had, using his momentum to push his body into a shoulder roll and springing back to his feet.

  Rats began to flood out of the cave, some on fire, others just little black furry balls of fury that squealed as they leaped after him.

  “We should get out of here,” he said, watching one of the rats that was on fire run in circles before it collapsed onto its side. He didn’t need to tell me twice, and I jogged after him back into the woods.

  Chapter 18

  By the time we made it back to the main crime scene, Grey had already called in exterminators to take care of the rats that had followed us from the cave. Many of them had perished in the druid fire, but many hadn’t even been touched by the flames.

  Sitting in the passenger seat of Grey’s car, with the blanket from the backseat wrapped around my shoulders, I watched as he directed the other officers. My body trembled, icy shivers trailing down my spine despite the heat that blasted from the vents.

  It just didn’t make any sense. Why would the creature kill Alex? I’d been out for the count; if it had wanted to, it could have killed all of us. Neither I nor Grey were immune to its abilities, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Alex had known what it was doing.

  His voice echoed in my head: “Wait!”

  The driver’s door was yanked open, and I jumped. Grey slid in behind the wheel, pushing his rain-damp hair back from his face as he slammed the door shut.

  “You all right?” He didn’t meet my gaze, but I knew he’d seen me jump at his sudden appearance.

  “As all right as can be expected,” I said, huddling down into the warm blanket.

  He sighed and folded his arms across the top of the steering wheel before burying his face in them.