by Rain Oxford
Black, but not silent.
There were some sounds in this world that any person would know instinctively, and one of those sounds is the hissing of snakes. I was in a room full of snakes. I felt some of them wrap around my boots. They were big, but I couldn’t be sure if they were serpents or constrictors, so I didn’t move except to pull out my penlight and gun. I snapped my penlight into the bracket I made on the gun, aimed it frontward, and clicked on the light.
About two feet away was a creature that towered over me. It had the body of a three-headed snake with three human heads. Instead of hair, the back of the heads were scaly and raised up like the hood of a cobra. At first, I thought it was paralyzing fear that kept me from pulling the trigger, but when I looked into the eyes of each of the heads, the tension in my shoulders faded.
“Devon Ssssanderssss…” the middle head hissed, “there issssss an enemy very clossssse to you. You musssssst beware.”
It was almost ironic that Watson’s first lesson of the year was to not make an enemy out of a friend, and here I was about to shoot a snake monster who only wanted to warn me of danger. I lowered the gun and clicked the safety on. I wasn’t about to turn off the light with the snakes slithering all over the floor. “Keigan Langril.”
“He isssss dead,” the left head hissed.
I froze. “Langril’s dead? How?”
“To get the key, you mussssst sssssee without your eyesssss,” the head on the right hissed.
I sensed something moving behind me, but before I could turn, the snake creature’s ginormous tail wrapped around me and squeeze. When I felt a sharp sting in my left shoulder, I dropped my gun.
Although pain radiated through my body in tune with my heartbeat, it wasn’t crippling. Instead, it was my eyes that really bothered me. As the sharp spike withdrew from my shoulder, my vision became fuzzy and dimmed until I couldn’t see anything. Only then did the snake creature let me go.
I felt around on the ground, found my gun, clicked off the light, and slipped it back into its harness. “How am I supposed to do this blind?”
“You mussssst sssssee without your eyesssss.”
The hissing faded and I knew I was alone. At least, I was for a few minutes. “Are you going to stand there all day?”
“Dad?” I would recognize Joseph Sander’s voice anywhere, despite the fact that he was very much dead. The man was a hard-ass, drunk, and abusive bastard most of the time, but he had his moments. When he wasn’t drinking, working, or judging me, he sometimes acted human. He was still not the kind of man I wanted to be.
“You know I’m not your father. Now get your ass moving before I beat some sense into you. Do you want your girlfriend to die because you’re afraid of the dark?”
“I’ve never been afraid of the dark.” My first few steps were hesitant, but then I got the hang of it… and walked straight into a wall.
Joseph laughed. “You were always a weird kid,” he said. “Who else only made friends with a vampire?”
“You were always a moron,” I said. “You had no more than I did; even your wife hated you. At least Astrid always loved me and always will. My mother would have left you in a heartbeat if she didn’t think I needed a father. What happened to you wasn’t your fault, but I never cried over you. My mother, yes, but not you.”
No answer.
I listened to the silence for a moment before I noticed a difference in temperatures around me. My instincts told me the warmth was good and I needed to find it. As I searched it out, I was reminded of the “getting warmer” game Astrid and I would play as kids. Actually, it was hide and seek, but Astrid didn’t know many games that other kids played and always insisted on yelling out when I was getting closer or further from her hiding place by saying that I was getting warm or cold.
I felt my way through several hallways until I finally knew I was getting close. I followed the heat away from the wall and hit a table. It was then that light started seeping back into my eyes. It was also then that my instincts warned me I was surrounded. Since I couldn’t see anything anyway, I moved my hand over the table, looking for whatever I was after… carefully. If it was another snake, I was going to be pissed. If it was the chalice, the last thing I wanted to do was accidentally spill it.
What I actually touched, however, was not anything I expected; wood. More specifically, I felt what I knew to be a raw wizard’s staff. I ran my hands up and down the wood and felt the crude carvings. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I moved out of the way just in time to avoid the claws that tried to take a swipe at me. When I turned, my vision was clear enough to see a blur of something short and flesh-colored. I pulled out my gun, but I wasn’t going to shoot until it either attacked again or I saw what I was up against.
The creature moved towards me again and I pulled the trigger. Fucking safety! I pressed the button on the side, but it was too late. Blunt teeth dug into my arm. I beat it off with the gun, aimed at the blurry creature, and shot it.
It bit me again.
I shoved it off once more and ran around the table to buy myself a few seconds, which was all I needed for my eyes to finish clearing up. The creature I saw was horrible enough that I regretted having my vision back. It was dead to say the least; there was flesh hanging from its bones and organs, dried blood inside and outside of its body, and sludgy blood oozing out of the bullet hole I had just made. Worse still were the light blue irises of its bulging eyeballs.
Actually, the worst part was that the creature I had shot wasn’t the only one; I was surrounded by five of them.
There were many plans that went through my head at that moment, many of which involved running away as fast as I possibly could, followed by getting a voodoo doctor to make sure my wounds weren’t infected. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen any time soon as I found myself completely immobile. I couldn’t move a muscle.
Instinctively, I closed my eyes. It wasn’t my normal reaction to danger, but I understood why I did it, because I was able to move the second my eyes were closed. I grabbed the staff off of the table and swung it, hitting three bodies. Then, not wanting to fight blind, I opened my eyes again.
And again, I was rendered motionless.
I could be slow, but I wasn’t an idiot. I closed my eyes again and opened myself up to my instincts. There was no way in hell I would try to get into their heads. My motions were jerky at first, but I could somewhat feel their approaches and after a few minutes, I was able to fend them off easily.
Fend them off? Yes. Defeat them with a stick? No.
I shaped the magic inside me into fire and let all the training I did with Langril form the fire into something much darker. This time, my magic was drawn out of me, through the staff, and into the enemy. I struck five times and heard five bodies hit the ground. When I didn’t hear anything else, I opened my eyes.
The ghouls were dead, and the staff had changed. There were now elegant, almost creepy magic sigils all over the wooden surface. A crystal was almost seared into the top of the wood. It was almost completely clear with a dark, blood-red spot in the center that resembled a little heart.
“You probably don’t want that getting any darker,” Remy said, startling me. She was standing in the doorway, looking completely normal.
“Are you my subconscious again?” I asked.
“Even if I was technically a part of your mind, that doesn’t mean I belong to you---” Instead of letting her finish, I imagined her in a baby-pink bikini top and school-girl skirt, because I knew she hated pink. Instantly, her attire changed to the outfit I had in mind. She sighed. “Yes, I’m your subconscious.”
“Well, you did try to get me to open up to love and emotion. I’ll show you my girly side if you show me yours.”
She rolled her eyes. “You want me to open myself up to you?”
“Well, this is my head.” I stepped over a dead ghoul body and she met me halfway. “I can do this whole obstacle course with you naked any day.”
“I bet you would.” She snapped her fingers and was fully dressed.
I groaned. “Why? I was about to enjoy myself.”
“It was distracting you. Saving Astrid is more important than playing with me.”
I nodded. “You’re right.” Unlike the other avatars of my subconscious, Remy took the lead, having known my intended direction and not about to take no for an answer. Damn. I can’t even fantasize a Remington who isn’t feisty.
I followed her through several tunnels until I heard a voice in the distance. I stopped and listened. “We must be getting close,” Remy said, starting to take a side hall, where the sound was coming from.
Although it sounded eerily like Astrid calling for help, I only took a couple of steps before hesitating. “Wait. Something’s wrong.” My instincts were screaming at me not to go that way. “We need to keep going the same way we were going.”
Remington shrugged. “You’re the boss.”
“Why does that sound so much like you’re saying ‘Fuck you’?”
We continued following my instincts, despite the calls I heard to the right. In fact, it soon sounded like more than just Astrid— it sounded like Darwin and Henry were calling out, too. That right there told me it was a trick; Darwin would communicate in my mind and Henry would never call for help.
We came to another door and Remington paused. “This is it,” she said. “This is the end of the line.”
“How do you know?”
She ran her hand over the seal on the door. “Every door had one of these, but they were all different. You’ve learned about these in class; you just don’t remember. This final task will test your ability to get yourself out of trouble. This isn’t going to be easy.”
“It never is.”
I pushed against the door and it opened easily. Inside was a room about ten-by-ten. All of the walls were stone, but one of them had a window, which was about four-foot wide and six-foot tall. Through the window, I saw Astrid. I entered the room and didn’t look back when the door closed. Astrid was waiting for me by the window and put her hand on the glass as I approached
She looked even more pale and thin than usual, as well as a little sweaty. “How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Sick. What’s going on? I don’t know whether I’m awake or not.”
Just to make sure she was real, I imagined her wearing a sexy red bikini. I concentrated so hard on it that I almost flinched when she tapped loudly on the glass.
“Stop that!” she demanded. She was still wearing jeans and a red leather jacket. “This is not the time to be picturing me naked.”
“This test is very simple, Devon Sanders,” Janus said. I looked around for him, but he didn’t suddenly appear. “All you have to do is escape. Both of you will find a lever beside the door.” There was a brass lever angled upward to the right of the window. “In just a moment, the levers will release and the walls will close in. Each of your levers will control the walls of the other room.”
Astrid cussed.
“There is an altar on the opposite side of both rooms. When the levers release, a key will appear on both of them. One key opens the divider and the other opens the exit.”
“What the hell is this shit?” I asked. “This isn’t a fucking test; it’s murder.” Janus didn’t answer me. I made a grab for the staff, planning to use it to reach the key from the lever, but it vanished. “Screw the entire paranormal world.”
“We’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out,” Astrid said, her voice strained. She was always the wise, calm one.
Just then, I heard a sharp snap and the lever went down. The walls instantly started closing in. Astrid and I grabbed our levers and pushed them back upward, which stopped the walls. Unfortunately, they didn’t retreat, so we had still lost a good foot or so of room. I looked at the simple podium behind me and saw a round, metal disk, about an inch thick and three inches in diameter.
“Are there any markings on the door or wall that might indicate which key is which?” I asked.
She looked around and shook her head. “Nothing.” She leaned heavily against the glass. “I don’t feel good.”
“Janus said you were poisoned. Please tell me that was a lie.”
She shook her head. “He was right. I’m losing strength, getting really dizzy, and my body hurts.”
“Be as quick as you can. Let go, run over to the key. If it unlocks the door, I’ll know mine will unlock the divider.”
“If I let go, you’ll die.”
“You’re a vampire; you’re fast. If it doesn’t unlock the door, grab the lever and unlock the middle door. I’ll hold down both levers while you get the second key and unlock the door.”
She shook her head as her eyes slipped closed. “I’m not letting go.”
“You’re a pain in the ass.”
I looked around the room as I patted my pockets with my left hand. In particular, I was searching for the glass sphere Hunt had given me. Not to my surprise, it was missing. I needed something, but I had no idea what.
What the hell is that?
Something stabbed my finger when I stuck my hand into one of my pockets. I pulled it out to examine. It was the metal pen Ghost left behind, which I had completely forgotten about. I jammed it into the side of the lever and pushed until it was stuck hard. Then, very slowly, I let go. The lever stayed up. “I love that damned cat.”
I grabbed the key and studied both sides, wishing there were instructions. Nothing. There were no grooves or anything. I went to the door and tried the knob without any success. Wondering if Astrid might have a clue how to use it, I returned to the window and pressed it against the glass.
“Do you know how to---” I snapped my mouth shut when the glass split down the middle and slid open. I entered her side of the room, grabbed her key, and went to the door. It opened on its own when I reached for the doorknob. I set the first key in front of the door frame just in case it wanted to reclose and returned to Astrid.
She was leaning against the wall, only half conscious. “Hold on. You’ll be okay, just hold on for a few more minutes.”
“I knew I would see you again,” she said quietly. “I wanted to see you again.” When I tried to take her hand off the lever, she clenched her fingers. “I have to hold on.”
“Open your hand.”
She did and then her legs gave out. I picked her up and brought her to the door, which opened to a much larger room. It was actually fancy compared to the rest of the complex. The floor and walls were stone, not dirt, and light came from burning torches along the wall. Across from us was a small bed of pillows in front of a podium. A gold, ceremonial goblet sat in the middle of the podium. A narrow beam of light lit up the chalice from above, but I couldn’t tell where the light was actually coming from.
I approached the pillows, laid Astrid down gently, and reached for the chalice.
“Wait,” Janus said, appearing on the other side of the podium.
I stopped, frustrated. “Don’t tell me I have another test to pass.”
“No, you have proven you are able to protect the key. I am now offering you a choice.” A thin, inch-long, spear-shaped weapon that was clear as glass appeared in front of me. More specifically; an inch away from my throat.
“Let me guess; my choice is to die so that she can live?”
“Precisely. Attaining the key requires a sacrifice of what is most important to you. If you choose to sacrifice yourself, Astrid will live. The key will be destroyed, the tower will be sealed, and no one will ever be able to cross worlds again. Or… you can choose to sacrifice the one you love and you can have the key and the power that comes with it.”
“So I can have everything I want and die, or lose her and be responsible for everyone else, too? That’s not a very difficult choice.”
“It is if your mind is weak. If what you want most is to save your friends and make the world better for them, then step forward. If, however, you want the power that the key will pr
ovide you, then step back and let the one you love die. It must be your choice.”
“If I die, how am I supposed to save Astrid?”
“If your choice is to sacrifice yourself, I will help her drink from the chalice.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“Then let her die. It does not matter to me.”
I looked at her. She was white as a sheet, covered in sweat, and struggling to breathe. I knew the feeling and couldn’t stand to see it. “Swear to me you will save her.”
“I swear that if your choice is to sacrifice yourself, Astrid will not die.”
I almost wished my instincts would make me stop, but they didn’t. Somehow, I knew this was the only way to save her. It was the only way to save everyone. Two steps. I closed my eyes and took a step forward. The sharp point pressed against the base of my throat. This was the worst part about “sacrificing” myself; actually doing it myself.
I wanted to ask what was going to happen to me afterwards, what there was in the way of an afterlife, but the thought of speaking with the spike against my throat kept my mouth shut. I cleared my mind because thinking of my friends would only make this harder. No matter what I had been through, I had no desire to die. I wanted to live. I wanted to survive, return to Quintessence, and pretend I never had to make this choice.
But Astrid would die and it would be my fault. Krechea would get the key and make Earth just as bad as Dothra.
I had no reason to trust that Janus would save Astrid and prevent Krechea from reaching Earth, but I knew if I didn’t, everyone I cared about would lose everything.
“You are running out of time, Devon Sanders.”
I stepped forward. The sharp edge broke my skin.
Chapter 13
The sting in my throat was almost shocking in its severity, which was why I didn’t open my eyes immediately when it disappeared. After a moment, though, I couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. I opened my eyes to find myself alone with Janus, standing before the tower.