The Forgotten Mountain (The Collectors' Society Book 3)

by Heather Lyons

  Bless that sneaky woman.

  “What about the ear pieces?” Alice asks.

  Mary shakes her head. “Wasn’t sure if the wireless signal would work here. Obviously, we’re also not going to be able to use the view function on these outside of individual camera shots, but there’s a night vision function.”

  Victor high fives his lady love before kissing her. “Have I told you lately how astoundingly awesome you are? Because you are, Mary Lennox.”

  She smiles winsomely.

  The glasses are passed out to everyone save Grymsdyke, who informs Mary he already has excellent night vision. Nobody points out that they wouldn’t have fit him anyway. When she offers me my pair, I say slyly, “Mary Lennox, the optimist? Bringing me some even though it wasn’t a guarantee I’d wake up? Did you go into one of those body snatcher Timelines and not tell any of us?”

  “Oh, ha ha, you ungrateful lout. Just take your damn pair.” She glances at the woman standing next to me. “In all honestly, I’ve come to realize that Alice’s determination gets her just about anything she wants.” She pauses. “Except, well, remaining in Wonderland and marrying that hot king of hers.” Another pause. “Sorry about that.”

  Nope, I was wrong. This is most definitely the Mary Lennox I know, not some kind of changeling or alien.

  Alice says nothing to the callous remark, but her smile is tight.

  Glasses on with the night functions activated, weapons drawn, we make our way slowly up the winding path to the cave. I take the front, Victor carries the back. The closer we get to the mouth of the cave, though, the more those hairs on the back of my neck tingle and stand on end. The air feels charged, leaving my skin itching uncomfortably.

  We really are descending into the mouth of hell, aren’t we?

  I hold a hand up as soon as we reach the ring of deadened plants. The A.D. was right—these are definitely poisonous belladonna. Clustered tightly together, the blackened line they form is a stark contrast to the green of the trees looming overhead. I grab a nearby stick and poke at the space just beyond the plants, but nothing happens.

  Why all the dead belladonna?

  Mary quickly collects a number of the berries and leaves, stuffing them in her satchel.

  Stick tossed aside, I take a deep breath and step over the crumbling plants. The air’s charge becomes a hundred times stronger, so much that my eyes water behind the glasses.

  This is not good. This is not right. And still, I take more steps forward.

  The entrance is exactly as the A.D. described it. A jagged lip juts out, blocking much of the view. I slowly allow myself a peak around, but in the green of my glasses, I see nothing more than a thinning tunnel that eventually will only allow one body through at a time. A faint glow emanates from beyond the space. There are no sounds, though, no indications that there is anyone lying in wait behind the bend.

  Gun drawn, I make my way around the lip, Alice directly on my heels. Several feet into the cave, my ears begin to ring from a growing pressure I can’t find a source for. Discomfort turns to pain.

  Well, hell.

  A hand against my shoulder has me pausing. Alice leans forward and whispers, “I know this place.”

  My eyebrows lift in question.

  “When I went to Bücherei, to try to find the Piper shortly after the attack on the Institute. There was nothing there, just . . . just a cave. A tunnel. The rocks here are the same.” She reach out and runs a finger alongside a ribbon of sparkling quartz. Similar lines run through the entire tunnel, up and down the walls. “This cannot be a coincidence.”

  A quick glance behind us at Mary and A.D. shows confirmed recognition.

  “The rock bled,” she breathes into my ear. “When I hit it with my war hammer. Look here.” She points to a rust-stained section of one of the rocks.

  How can that be, though? How can a cave in 1816/18GRI-GT be in New York, too, without a doorway or editing?

  However it is, though, it’s further confirmation we’re on the right path and that we need to keep on going. Soon, I reach the point where the cave slims to just roughly two feet across. The light from the around the bend grows brighter. A peek through shows the tunnel sharply veering to the left and widening to . . .

  I blink. Holy. Shit.

  I slip through the space and stare down a torch-lined tunnel. No longer filled with rough stone and quartz, there are frescos and tapestries decorating the walls filled with familiar scenes. Fairy tale scenes. A girl, in a red cloak, escaping the belly of a sliced-open wolf. A woman, lying on the ground, a partially eaten apple just inches from her open hand. A witch in an oven, burning, as children nearby watch. A glass coffin. A griffin. Dwarves. Fairies. Giants. Princesses. Princes. Women with mutilated feet, their eyes pecked out by birds. Castles. Birds. Gnomes. Each descriptive, nearly all brutal in nature. They’re all here, all of the Grimm’s tales my mother used to read to me.

  And while the tunnel stretches a good distance, the pièce de résistance is on the far wall at the end, shortly before another bend. Stretched from floor to ceiling, at least twenty feet wide, is the depiction of a man in a colorful outfit playing a pipe in the foreground, while a group of children led by the same man march toward a mountain and cave in the distance.

  There can no longer be any doubt. We are in the lair of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

  Alice grips my arm, her eyes narrowed meaningfully. Angrily.

  I nod, my sentiments the same.

  We make our way slowly through the macabre monument to the stories of 1812GRI-CHT and 1816/18GRI-GT. Every face in my group shows horror at what they see. These are not the happy endings one imagines for fairy tales—no, what is depicted is the worst of each tale. When I get to the Piper’s fresco and turn to the right, I’m shocked into pausing once more.

  It’s Bücherei—the first one I went to, when I was sent to acquire books for the Librarian.

  I turn around and find the outline of a door that looks very much like the one Alice and I first entered the Piper’s mansion. We’re in a small foyer—complete with electricity—that leads to another hallway. There is no doubt in my mind what lies at the end of that one, and when I turn the corner, I find out just how right I am. Massive carved and painted doors with golden knobs loom before us.

  The hidden library is here, in the forgotten mountain.

  I flip up the screen for my glasses, switching the night vision function off as I take in my surroundings. This—this cannot be. I’ve been in here before, in New York. This exact place. How can it come to be here, in 1816/18GRI-GT, in a mountain of all places?

  My brother comes to stand next to me. His whisper is barely audible as we stand there, staring at the monstrosities before us. “Is this what I think it is?”

  It is. I don’t know how, but it is.

  I motion for the A.D. to scout the astoundingly long hallway to the left of the doors and beyond. He nods and is off without a single word.

  Alice slowly approaches the door, running her hands over the sides, as if she was searching for something. When she doesn’t find it after several minutes, she grips one of the golden doorknobs and turns.

  It’s locked.

  Frustration fills her face when she turns back to me. “If memory serves, the mechanism was complicated, but the key was simple. Do you think our thief could pick it?”

  Before I can answer, the man in question appears, his face pale.

  “Did you find anything?” I ask.

  He tugs out an earpiece. “Yeah. I found a whole hell of a lot that you need to come see.”

  I turn to Victor. “You and Mary stay here.” I glance at her, and she pulls out one of the earplugs. “I know you’re pretty damn good at locks, too. See what you can do?”

  She nods and squats so she can rummage through her bag.

  “I will come with you,” Grymsdyke says from Alice’s shoulder. Together, we follow the A.D. down the hallway, past several locked doors, and up a gilded staircase. At the top,
a wide veranda of sorts spreads before us, surrounded by elaborately designed wrought iron. There are chaises up here, plants that appear healthy despite the lack of sunshine. Fur rugs spread across a marble floor. A large fountain is showcased in the middle of the area with an emerald-covered frog perching atop it, water spitting from its mouth down toward carved lily pads and lotus flowers crusted in more jewels, gold, and silver.

  Apparently, this bizarre scene in the middle of a mountain is not what we’re to see, though, because the A.D. holds a finger up to his mouth and motions to the edge with another finger. Alice and I creep over to the side, hovering as close as we can to the wall closest to the stairs.

  My breath falls away.

  I can only best describe it as a sumptuous chamber, complete with two massive carved and painted thrones holding court at the head. Tapestries line the walls; gold-lined marble fills the floors. Behind the throne is yet another replica of the fresco I’d seen in the tunnel, of the Piper and the children. Resting on an elaborate golden stand in between the two thrones is an enormous, closed book. An elaborate chandelier, made of crystal and antlers, hangs from the high ceiling above the space. But none of this is what shocks us—no, it’s the crowd of people, both children and adults, standing completely still as they face the thrones. There must be at least a hundred. At least. And all are armed with some kind of weapon at their side. There are guns, swords of all flavors and varieties, sais, daggers, bows and arrows, crossbows, machetes, axes, war hammers, pikes, and maces.

  He’s made an army. And by the looks on the others’ faces, I can tell they’re just as taken aback by this turn of events as I am.

  I scan the crowd but cannot find the man I know to be the Piper anywhere.

  Alice whispers, “Finn. The woman who attacked Mary and me at the library, Jenn Ammer. She is there, just to the left of the bookstand. The last I saw of her, she had been taken into New York police custody.”

  The A.D., who has so far stayed close to the stairs, says tightly, “You’ll want to look about halfway through the crowd, dead center.”

  I do so and my heart nearly drops out of my chest. I can only see the back of her head, but there is no doubt in my mind who it is. Standing there, a gun in her hand, is my former partner Sara.

  I’m on the A.D. immediately. “You said you left her in some sort of motel, that you locked her up!”

  Alice places a hand on my arm, warning me to keep it down.

  “I did!” the bastard whispers. “I swear I did! Even took the key back with me to the Institute! It’s sitting on me dresser!”

  “Is Wendy present?” Alice scans the crowd. “Did you find her in the throng?”

  “No.” Still, the A.D.’s words crack. “No green hair. But I’d know her even if it were brown or any other color. Wen isn’t in that crowd.”

  But it doesn’t mean she might not be here. I want to smash something, I’m so pissed off.

  “Our odds,” Grymsdyke says, “have greatly decreased with so many opponents.”

  No shit. Six of us, including him, against hundreds of fighters who, if they’re like any of the rest we’ve faced, will do whatever they must to take us down? And there are the pair of a Wise Woman and the Piper? I’m good in a fight—so is Alice. Victor, too. The A.D. can hold his own, as can Grymsdyke. With her back up against a wall, Mary always pulls through, but her strengths have always been elsewhere.

  Wait. Mary’s strengths. Of course. Could she have brought any of Wonderland’s SleepMist with her? Or anything else that can wipe out a crowd’s potential, thereby restoring our odds?

  I’m down the stairs, hurrying back toward the library doors. I turn the corner to find Mary behind Victor, eyes wide in terror, a hand on his arm. He’s staring down the hallway leading to the foyer, sword in his hand, all the blood drained from his face.

  “No,” Mary cries. “It—it can’t be. No.”

  “Mary, run. Run to Finn and Alice.” Victor holds out his sword, hand shaking just as badly as his voice. When she doesn’t move, he says more firmly. “Go.”

  “I’m not leaving you!”

  But he shoves her, as hard as he can, in our direction. And I’m right there with Mary when the person they’d been staring at appears, because this cannot be happening. This cannot be real. Thick, lustrous black hair falls around a sallow face with skin so tight, it appears as if it’s stretched over bones. Stitches form rings around the neck, the hairline, his wrists, and other places. He’s tall, his body fit beneath the rags he wears.

  My God. It’s my brother’s nightmare, come to life.

  It’s real.

  The monster holds out a club, pointing it at my brother. “A family’s sin is a stain that cannot be washed away!”

  Alice and I bolt down the hallway. I fire my gun, striking the creature in its neck. It doesn’t even flinch, though, because the bullet bounces off like it was made of Styrofoam.

  The monster swings its club; Victor’s sword readily meets it.

  “You will not get away now,” it bellows. “Not until retribution is mine!”

  Mary screams his name, and Victor pleads with her to stay back. Alice catches hold of her, and my brother’s girlfriend is rabid in her attempt to get away.

  I fire again, hitting it right in the back, right where I know its heart to be. The bullet bounces once more off the monster, slamming instead into the nearby wall. It lunges for Victor, its club too fast for the blade. Victor hits the wooden library doors, his sword clattering on the ground next to him.

  Mary screams again, his name falling over and over from her lips.

  I shoot again. And again. Nothing makes contact. The club swings once more, crashing down upon one of Victor’s arm. The crush of bones is so loud it echoes in the hall.

  It’s my turn to yell my brother’s name.

  “Get Mary out of here!” Alice yells at the A.D. And then, to me, “Finn!”

  I catch the sword she tosses me. In turn, she tugs out her daggers.

  Victor grapples for his fallen sword, his crushed arm hanging awkwardly at his side. As he rolls to duck another swing, he roars in pain. Alice and I converge on the monster, our blades flashing, but no blood is drawn in our initial attack. Grymsdyke leaps off Alice’s shoulder, landing on the creature’s neck, but just as he readies to sink his fangs in its neck, the spider is sent flying with an ungodly strong swat of a stitched-together hand.

  Alice immediately doubles her attack, but it manages to catch her shoulder with its club. I watch in horror as her back slams into a wall. My fist swings and smashes into its face during the distraction—and for a blinding second, I wonder if I’ve struck a brick wall rather than a pieced-together monster made of man parts.

  Its club swings at me now, sending me flying back a good three to five feet.

  Victor struggles to his feet, his newly reclaimed sword pointing at the monster. “Leave them alone. They have nothing to do with this! This is between you and me.”

  It bellows once more, “A family’s sin is a stain that cannot be washed away!”

  Victor charges him just as Alice and I regain our footing. Club clashes against metal, and for a moment, it appears as if my brother’s desperation has the upper hand as they fight their way back down the hallway toward the foyer. Alice and I grab our swords to follow, but then—I swear to God—the hallway grows right before our eyes, stretching farther and farther with each second.

  “Victor!” I’m frantic now, my gun once more in my hand, firing as many rounds as I can get out. “Victor!”

  My brother’s sword makes contact, driving straight through the monster’s heart, into the wall behind them. For a moment, everything around us calms even though Alice and I sprint down the lengthening hallway. The monster gasps, its head sagging before stilling completely.

  A smile of disbelief curves Victor’s lips. “I—I did it.” He turns to face us, still so far away. “I—”

  The monster’s head snaps up. With a howl, it tears away from t
he sword, smashing a fist into my brother’s head. Victor slams into the wall behind him just as the monster pummels him relentlessly.

  “VICTOR!” All of my bullets continue to deflect off the monster as the hallway continues to stretch them farther into the distance. Even Alice’s thrown blades merely bounce off, the sharp tips which I know to be striking their marks not cutting through cloth and skin. “VICTOR!”

  My brother is no longer moving. Blood cakes his face, his hair. It soaks his clothes.

  “VICTOR! GODDAMMIT, WAKE UP AND FIGHT HIM!”

  But he doesn’t. The monster grabs a leg and hauls him up, dragging him to a door I hadn’t noticed before. Before it goes through, though, it turns to face Alice and me, smiling like the cat that ate the canary.

  Its teeth are blackened shards within its mouth.

  Another bullet whizzes through the air, aimed at the space between its eyes. It laughs at me, deftly entering the room with my brother in tow. The door slams shut just as the bullet passes by.

  No. No. NO.

  The hallway stops growing, and Alice and I finally gain ground. My fists pound against the door, she tries the knob. I step back, ready to kick the damn thing in, when the door fades away. It just . . . vanishes without a trace. The hallway is once more the size it was before, and we are in the foyer at the front of Bücherei.

  I grab my hair, pulling at it as I spin around, searching for any kind of door. It’s gone, though. There’s no doorway, no monster, no brother.

  What the fuck just happened?!

  “Finn.” Alice grabs hold of my arm, but I try to shake her off. “Finn. Look at me.”

  “He’s gone.” My heart thunders in my chest. “It took him. Just like he always fucking feared it would!”

  “Who did?” She grabs hold of my face now. “Who was that monster supposed to be?”

  Bitter, nearly hysterical laughter falls out of me. “That’s just it! The monster. His father’s monster.”

  “No. Love, listen to me.” But I can’t. I’m—this has to be one of the Piper’s tricks. Hallways don’t grow. Doorways don’t disappear. But my Alice is stubborn, though, refusing to let me fall apart. She yanks my face to ensure I’m looking at her. “Finn. Whatever that thing was, I do not believe it was any creation of Victor’s father’s. You must have seen its teeth. They were just like Todd’s and Rosemary’s. Wholly blackened and rotted. Its eyes were completely black, too. It was just another creation of the Piper’s!”