by Phil Maxey
She walked into the centre of the room, where six large computer monitors displayed newsfeed, colorful charts, and open files showing images and text. Darren finished typing something into one of the windows on a screen, then pulled the wires from the back of a laptop. He then grabbed some small black slim boxes, and put all of it into a backpack that was sitting on a small desk.
“I must admit, I’m impressed. This is super villain level of badass.”
Ignoring her comment, he slung his pack over his shoulder and walked to the door. “Let’s go.”
As they stepped back out onto the balcony, the snow was once again falling.
“Just what we need,” said Justin.
Kat leaned in towards Gus. “Could there be more of those things?”
“Ghouls?”
She nodded.
“They travel in packs, so there’s probably still more around.”
She looked suspiciously at the dark windows of the flats around them.
They were soon back outside, retracing their steps to the street.
Darren looked up at the block that he had lived in since he was twelve, and sighed. Something caught his eye in the window of one of the other flats.
“What is it?” said Kat.
“Thought I saw the curtain move, maybe there are people in there after all.”
Kat wasn’t sure if he wanted to go back, but instead he turned and followed the others forging a new trail through the freshly laid snow, making his way to the nearby street. After a few minutes of walking they stopped at a junction. Ahead, a modern high building sat to one side with a blue sign proclaiming that this was the rear entrance to a hospital.
Justin looked up at the steel and glass of the boxlike building. “Maybe we should check out the hospital?” he said to whoever would listen.
Jarwin looked back. “We keep moving.”
Since his time near the station in Oxford he had felt as if he had entered a different world, one that should only exist in his imagination. Seeing real people doing real jobs would ground him back in reality. At least that was what he thought it might do. He hesitated as the others moved forward, then spotted movement beyond some nearby glass doors. He looked over to the others who were already ten or so feet away, then moved towards the doors. As he grew near them the shape on the other side began to take on a more human form. It limped forward towards him. He strained his eyes through the falling flakes to make out who they were. Their gown ebbed and flowed around their legs as they walked up to the door, bumping in to it as if they didn’t realise it was there.
Justin stopped for he was looking straight into the face of another ghoul. This one used to be an elderly man, who by the looks of it had been recovering from some kind of surgery as bandages adorned his midriff. He started slowly walking backwards, when the creature leaned back, stretching its body more than he thought a human could contort and slammed its bony fist forward shattering the panels in the door. The sound echoed out bouncing off all the nearby buildings.
Justin scampered backwards too quickly and slipped over, landing on his rear and being buried in a few feet of snow that blocked his view of what was in front of him.
He scrambled to gain his footing and grabbed at his own sword which was still in its sheath.
The creature lunged at him, its claw-like hands out front of it just as he slid his weapon from his side and swept it across him. The creature grabbed the blade with both hands, stopping the sword from moving any further.
“Help!” he shouted into the flurry of white flakes as the creature tried to wrestle the sharp piece of metal from him. It was a battle he was losing as he tried to hold onto the hilt with both hands, but it slipped from his grasp and the momentum made the creature stagger backwards slightly. Seizing the slight window of opportunity he dived past the ghoul and leapt forward as best he could, trying to jump over the snow mounds, rather than clamber through them, but it was to no avail as the creature managed to grab the back of his boot sending him spiralling forward once again into another mound. He immediately swivelled onto his back and looked up at the thousands of snowflakes falling from the grey sky above, and then the distorted face of what once used to be a human sauntered into view.
He looked about himself, but he was encased in an icy shell, one which there was no way out of other than through the thing in front of him. Panic began to overwhelm his mind, when an intense beam of blue-white light came from his right instantly disintegrating the creature that was just a few inches from him.
He looked up at the concerned face of Kat and the disgruntled face of Jarwin.
They both offered Justin their hand and he pulled himself up. He hadn’t realised how out of breath he was. “Thanks, I thought . . .”
Jarwin mumbled something and walked away.
Justin realised he could only see himself and the other two. “Where are the others?”
“Up ahead.” She looked at the broken hole that was once the door to the hospital. Deep in the shadows she was sure she could see movement. “We need to go.”
Justin looked in the same direction as Kat and saw the same. He grabbed his sword which was quickly becoming hidden by the falling snow and both of them stomped forward down the street. Behind them the crunching of glass was just audible through the wind. The others were waiting near another junction.
“I think we got more of those things coming,” said Kat, her breath taking form around her.
Gus who already had his sword in his hand, took a few steps back from where they had just come from and strained his eyes into the gale. A number of spindly hands and legs grew visible in the distance. He shook his head then turned back towards the others. Just as he went to say something, a loud artificial wailing pierced the sound of the wind, coming from a multistorey car park ahead of them.
They all looked up at the concrete building and its dark recesses just as figures appeared on a number of its floors.
“Err . . .” said Darren, pointing.
“We have to move now!” shouted Jarwin charging forward.
The others followed, jumping and ploughing through the snow. As they moved past the car park Darren, Kat, and Justin looked up at the figures that were climbing over the edge of the walls.
“They’re going to fall!” shouted Darren.
But the beings that were clambering over the walls, didn’t crash to the ground. Darren stopped suddenly, his mouth agape trying to make sense of what was playing out in front of him. Instead of gravity grabbing hold of the creatures that were now all letting go of the external wall, these things just started descending down to the ground as if they were as light as the snowflakes around them.
He went to say something else, but was knocked from his hypnosis by Gus grabbing his arm and dragging him forward. “Come on!”
Moving as quickly as they could they all arrived at another junction.
“There’s more of them!” shouted Justin looking to their left and right at the grey staggering figures just visible through the increasingly heavy clumps of falling snow.
Gus ran forward to Jarwin. “We’re not going to make it back to the statue, do you know of any other entrances to the labyrinth near here?”
The half-elf looked at the ground around them. “There might be a sewer below us, which might lead us to the labyrinth, but we have no way to get to it with all this snow!”
“Look out!” shouted Kat as two ghouls descended through the greyness above them landing in the snow up to their waists, just a few yards from Gus. They immediately leapt through the air at him. With one movement he pulled his sword from its sheath and swiped it through the air, shattering both on impact.
“There’s more coming from up ahead!” shouted Justin, looking at their planned route.
The group retreated towards each other in the centre of the junction, watching the creatures that were neither alive or dead clamber towards them.
Kat held her hand up in front of her, not knowing exactly what she should do
, although she was sure she didn’t have the strength to teleport them all away.
Darren moved to the centre of the group as the four readied their weapons.
Gus rubbed shoulders with Jarwin. “How sure are you that there’s a sewer under us?” he shouted, through the howling wind and murmurs of the things almost on top of them.
“Most of these old roads have sewers beneath them! I’m sure.”
Gus turned to Kat. “You’re going to have to teleport us!”
“There’s too many of us, I can’t!”
Justin swiped his sword through the air at one of the creatures, but instead of it shattering, sparks flew from the impact. He momentarily wondered what he was doing wrong, and swung again with the same result. “They’re not dying!”
“I just need you to take us down underground, ten feet, there’s a sewer beneath us!” said Gus, as Jarwin waved his small branch that was now glowing towards the closest creature causing it to come to an abrupt halt and then collapse in pieces.
“Everyone hold hands, it might help me!” she shouted.
They did as requested and she focused her mind, ignoring the bitter cold, wind, and imminent danger, on what she hoped lay underneath their feet.
The stench of putrid water and earth hit all of them before they knew they weren’t where they just were. Kat collapsed to the ground.
CHAPTER 5
The sinewy fingers of a man far older than even his frail appearance suggested, gripped an equally twisted wooden walking stick. He stood looking at a wretched woman chained to the damp stone wall. A much sturdier looking man wearing riveted leather garments, and a sword at his side approached the old man.
“The cyning wants an update on the woman, has she told us anything useful?”
“No, but she will. She can only withstand my magic for so long.”
“He won’t be pleased.”
Ulysses Goran looked at Thomas Fyodor and smiled revealing yellowing teeth. “Tell him, he will have what he wants by the morn.”
The warrior went to walk away.
Goran shook his head. “Actually, I’ll tell him myself.”
Fyodor nodded and left.
“What’s ya boss gonna do when you don’t have a thing to tell him?” Eden’s words took every bit of strength she had to produce, but it was worth it. The bandage on her right hand was full of dark red patches.
Goran looked at her through the bars of the cell.
“Do you know this place used to hold the worst of the nescient’s. Murderers, rapists, monsters of the highest order.”
“So . . .” she groaned.
“This place is full of negative energy, full of . . . my kind of magic.” The old man raised his staff, which began to glow. Even through her swollen eyes, Eden could see ethereal figures start to form in the darkened cell around her. Within a few seconds, two men were standing in the cell with her. An overweight man, in his forties, his armpits dark with sweat, and a young man, perhaps only just in his twenties who stood a good few inches over the other. They looked eagerly at Goran and then back to Eden.
Eden looked up at the two men that had just appeared from the ether, and pulled closer to the wall.
“Meet Frank, and Emmet. They spent many years in this place for well, maybe they will tell you themselves.”
“What do you want from me?” Eden attempted to shout, but the words came out scratchy.
“We want to know more about the girl . . .” said the tall man.
“I told you, I hardly know her! Glastonbury was the first time I even knew she existed!”
“I find that hard to believe,” said the sweaty man, drool threatening to drop from his mouth.
Goran looked at the two men and then to Eden. “I’ll leave you three to get better acquainted. If you think of anything else to tell me, just say my name and I shall return.”
As the sun began to set outside, the two men stood smiling at the chained woman. Despite the pain from her missing finger, she gripped the chains even tighter.
CHAPTER 6
Kat drank from her water bottle while sitting on some loose red bricks which made up the floor of the sewer.
Gus walked over to her. “You feel ready to head back?”
She nodded, putting her bottle back in her pack.
“I’ve asked Jarwin to take us a different route, it’s not far out of the way, but it will take us past one of the grand portals which is down here.”
She forced a smile. Her body felt like she had just run a marathon and would have preferred the more direct route back to the sanctuary but she also needed to learn as much of this new reality as she could. Any piece of information might help her find her mother.
Justin held his hand out and she used it to pull herself back up, wavering slightly as she stood.
“You OK? That was really something, getting us all down here.”
“I’m good to go.” He gave a faltering smile in reply, but she could tell his mind was elsewhere.
Jarwin looked back at the others, his mysterious twig lighting the area around them. “The things above us will be the least of our troubles if we are down here at nightfall. If we make haste we should be at the grand portal shortly, and then back at the sanctuary within the hour.”
They all nodded and traipsed forward, crunching the ice that resided on top of the small pools of water which sat at the bottom of the circular tunnel.
Soon they were descending down narrow steps and back into the straight cut stones that made up the tunnels of the labyrinth.
Kat walked alongside Darren and leaned in closer to him. “You took one, didn’t you? You couldn’t wait until we got back?”
“I couldn’t think straight!” he whispered back.
She shook her head and sighed.
She hadn’t realised but he took one as soon as he got the chance back at the flat. Life was too crazy for him to be without his medication.
True to Jarwin’s word after only a few minutes of walking they entered a tunnel that was considerably wider and higher than the previous. At the end of it a large stone arch acted as the entrance to an even darker space.
As they neared it, Darren looked up at the strange letters etched into the stones. ““Ann . . . w . . . fyn . . .”
“It means ‘otherworld’,” said Gus, looking back at him.
They all walked up a set of stone steps and through the arch, then stopped. Jarwin once again lit a nearby pool of dark liquid that caused a flame to shoot across the walls, and ignited other torches.
“Now that’s not something you see every day,” said Darren looking down from the steps to the remains of a large stone circle, all of which was encapsulated inside a huge stone domed roof.
“Come,” said Gus stepping down a number of steps, and then up to the outer ring of a few perfectly cut vertical slabs, each of which had capping stones that ran across the top.
They all slowly followed.
Gus walked to the centre of the ring. “Kat, stand with me here.”
She wasn’t sure about being singled out, but walked to him anyway.
She looked around at the twelve-foot-high rectangular blocks of bluestone. “Does it still work?”
“Unfortunately its power was diminished greatly during the war of the houses, but there are some that say there’s still some residue of magic here, I was hoping you would sense that?”
He was right, she could feel something, but wasn’t sure what. “I’m not sure.”
Gus briefly looked at the others that were now fanning out and examining the various symbols and shapes that were carved into the chamber walls. He walked closer to her. “I need you to try something for me. You might be able to use what’s left in this place to channel your own power. I want you to try and see if you can find Eden, and of course your mother.”
“How do I do that?” she said.
Gus once again glanced at the others, primarily Jarwin who was looking at some of the other entrances to the chamber. “Stand
where you are and just think of Eden, try to get as clear an image of her in your mind as possible.”
Kat steadied herself then closed her eyes. She clasped both of her hands together, her left-hand fingers touching her ring and imagined the Scottish woman she had briefly gotten to know a week before.
As she opened her eyes, the stone circle and rock walls beyond started to fade, being replaced with a much smaller room, of stained painted walls. Kat looked down at a shivering and murmuring figure, hunched on the floor of what looked like a prison cell.
“Eden?” she said, not knowing if it was her.
The woman rocked back and forth. “You’re not real, you’re not real.”
Kat knelt next to the woman. “Eden, it’s me Kat, where are you?”
Eden’s head looked up, making Kat jump back slightly. The person looking at her was only a shadow of the woman she had come to respect during the short time she knew her. Swollen eyes and lips, were masked by black and blue skin. She also noticed the bundle of bandages tied around her ring hand.
“Are you real?” Eden went to reach out with her good hand, but it only got so far before the chains stopped it.
“Where are you? We are coming!” Kat looked around trying to understand where this place was. She looked at the tiny barred window, but it was at least a yard above her head. She then turned and walked to the bars and tried to see along the corridor that stretched in both directions. Opposite her were more cells with bars, but they were empty.
Damn it.
“Kat?” said Eden, her voice a croak.
Kat turned around and went to kneel again, when the world fell away and she was back in the centre of the stone circle. Jarwin was lying on the floor, his hand on his dagger, sneering at Gus who was standing close to her.
“You know using magic here is forbidden!” shouted Jarwin.