Dungeon Crawl (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 8)

by Annie Bellet

  That sounded good to me. I could better direct clean up from there. Hopefully the bleeding would stop on the way. I gave in to the pain and exhaustion and let him carry me home. It was kind of our thing at this point. Like date night, but with a lot more bleeding and less consciousness.

  It was close to six in the morning when I woke again and stumbled into the bathroom. My stomach and back were a mess of bruising. Alek had gotten my clothes off, I wasn’t going to ask how, and cleaned me up. I had been semi-conscious for some of it, in and out because of the amount of pain I was in. I had no idea what vital bits the sword had cut through, but from how my guts felt, it hadn’t missed much.

  My left arm felt weak, but no longer a giant mass of agony, and my fingers responded to commands to open and close. My grip wasn’t great yet.

  Ezee had crashed in the guest room but my ablutions woke him and he came out into the living room as Alek set down a cup of tea and a plate of cold pizza in front of me.

  “We tarped up the broken window,” Ezee said before I could even ask. “Not much damage done inside, just some stuff knocked around. So don’t panic.”

  “The ghoul in the park?”

  “Buried it,” Alek said. “Eat.”

  I obeyed, starving despite the pain in my belly. I needed to fortify myself for what I wanted to say next, since I knew Alek wasn’t going to like it. I’d dozed on and off as I healed over the last few hours, but my mind had been at work even in my fitful dreams.

  Washing down the last bite with the last swallow of tea, I looked from Ezee’s calm, dark gaze to Alek’s icy one. From his expression, I had a feeling that Alek knew me too damn well.

  “I’m going after the necromancer,” I said. “Today.”

  I’d decided it had to be today. If I gave him more time, he might move. I also didn’t want Noah to try anything. I had a hunch those zombies wearing fatigues had once been in the employ of the Archivist, his first attempt to get the jar or whatever his true plan was. If he sent another group of armed men in to die and provide fresh bodies, it would only make my job tougher.

  Alek picked up my empty plate and stalked back to the kitchen without a word. Yup. He knew me too well.

  “Why?” Ezee asked. “You believe he’ll come back?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Perhaps. He knew where his jar was, or had a way to track it. He will find out he’s failed if he didn’t know already. But also, I can’t ignore him now that I know he’s out there, mere hours away. Where does he get his bodies for the zombies? What other monstrous critters is he constructing? What happens if he gets his hands on another vampire?” I shook my head. “Too many potential problems.”

  “So we go back and you what? Kill him?” Ezee asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Though this all sounded less bloodthirsty in my head.”

  “He tried to kill you,” Alek pointed out as he sank down on the couch beside me.

  “After I invaded his home and took his stuff,” I said. “Shit. Okay, so maybe we go try to talk to him?”

  “I’ll call Levi and Harper,” Ezee said, pulling out his phone. He looked at me as though expecting me to object.

  “Cool. I want another couple hours of sleep and then we should get going. I want to get there by midday. Full sunlight might impede his magic.”

  Ezee made the calls as I went and took another shower, hoping hot water would wash away my tiredness.

  “Levi will be here in two hours. Harper says she’ll sit this one out,” Ezee said as I re-entered the living room.

  “Oh,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. It was her decision, but it made me sad. She was always ragging on me about being the lone hero and not letting people help. I guessed things really had changed.

  “Jade,” Ezee said. “Relax, I’m joking. She said she’ll be here in twenty.”

  I glared at him. “I’m tired, don’t do that to me.”

  “Go get more rest, crankypants,” Ezee said.

  I took the professor’s advice.

  “You’re letting us come with you? No arguing about how dangerous it is?” Harper said, squinting at me.

  Everyone was assembled and dressed for battle, such as it were. I’d pulled on the toughest jeans I owned and a plain shirt I didn’t mind getting burned up or ripped to pieces, though I hoped none of that would happen again. Harper was wearing a pair of BDU’s that she might have borrowed from Ezee from the looks of it, since he had a similar pair on now. She, Levi, and Ezee had leather jackets, though the styles varied, and all had machetes looped through their belts with cord. They’d even brought an extra weapon for Alek.

  “Where do you get that many machetes on a Sunday morning?” I asked.

  I’d gone back to sleep and slept longer than I meant to. We were getting a late start, but would still reach the house in daylight at least.

  “I know a guy,” Levi said with a grin.

  “Ha,” I said. “Okay, the plan is we go down the ladder we came out and head back to that intersection where we went right instead of left.”

  “You going to use the jar to track?” Ezee asked, pointing at the kitchen table.

  I had dismantled the jar as best I could to get the spinny bit on top off. I didn’t need the whole jar to cast a tracking spell, just the dial thing would work well enough. I hoped. If the necromancer wasn’t the one who had made the jar, it might be useless.

  “Just this part,” I said, pulling the dial out of my pocket. “But the range on spells like this isn’t great. It’ll be easier to see if it can lead us once we’re there. I don’t even know yet if it’ll point at the necromancer.”

  Alek’s phone rang and he mouthed “Rachel” at me and ducked into our bedroom to take the call. I followed him after a minute.

  “Thank you,” he said to the phone and hung up.

  “She okay?” I went to him and wrapped my arms around his waist. His neck was mostly healed now, only a pink scar remaining.

  “Calling to ask if we knew about the vandalism at the park,” he said. He tucked his phone into his pocket and returned my hug. “I forgot to mention it when I warned her about the store window.”

  “Lara’s explaining the shop damage as a remodeling issue we just now caught. She wanted to open today, so I’m going to let her.” Thank the universe for good employees.

  “Are you healed enough to do this?” Alek said. His lips were a tight line in his face, his eyes full of unhappiness.

  I rolled my eyes at him and then head-butted his chest, ignoring the twinge of pain that sent down my left arm.

  “I can’t just leave this mess for someone else to clean up,” I said. “You know that.”

  “You lovebirds going to move it, or are we heading out alone?” Levi said, leaning into the bedroom.

  “Let me grab a change of clothes to stick in the car, and then I’m ready,” I said, breaking away from Alek.

  Levi had brought a bigger car, which we all appreciated, Alek most of all since even in the front seat it was still a crunch for his six-foot-six frame. Weapons went into the trunk along with a thick coil of rope, a couple tarps and a change of clothing for me.

  “I brought real lock picks,” Harper said. “So should it go faster if we have to open more doors.”

  “We got a tank, a rogue, a mage, and two fighters. We’ll be fine,” Levi said.

  I snorted as I climbed into the back seat. “You two are fighters? More like torch-bearers.”

  “Levi did bring a flashlight,” Ezee said.

  “No badmouthing the driver,” Levi said as he turned the key in the ignition.

  It was a long drive.

  The house looked much like we’d left it, the backside caving and sagging. There was no more smoke hovering over the ground to show us where the trap door was beyond the house, but it wasn’t tough to find. We just followed our own tracks back across the dusty ground.

  The sun was sinking slowly toward the western horizon but still warm on our backs as we pulled open the t
rap door. The heat wasn’t helping the rotting flesh chunks that still decorated the area from my phoenix impression the day before. The scent of rot and death was as pervasive as the dust. The shifters bent and listened at the ladder.

  “I hear nothing,” Alek said. The other three nodded.

  “Looks good to me, guys,” Harper said, winking at me in an exaggerated fashion.

  “Tank goes first?” Levi bowed to Alek and swept his arm out in invitation.

  “I go first,” I said as I stepped up to the hole. “I’m the immortal one, remember?”

  “You can still get hurt,” Alek said.

  “So can you,” I countered. I didn’t wait for them to keep arguing with me but stepped down onto the ladder.

  Rung by rung I descended down the ladder. I hung at the bottom, my feet on the last rung and looked around. The walls were blackened by the fire and corpses decorated the floor. I’d smoked at least a dozen zombies from the look of it. They were mostly burned up, zombies apparently being highly flammable, but here and there I could make out bones among the charred remains.

  “Lot of bodies, nothing moving,” I said, knowing my friends would hear me. “Dropping down.”

  I let go of the ladder and jumped down to the floor. My feet almost skidded out from under me on a leg bone but I waved my arms around in a very heroic manner and caught my balance.

  No movement as the soot settled. These zombies were truly dead. The electric sconces in here were still lit, giving the room an incongruously cozy glow. I moved away from the ladder and toward the hallway we’d come down. Behind me I heard Alek drop down with a muttered Russian curse, then the sounds of the others following suit.

  I pulled the dial out of my pocket and summoned my magic. I focused on the metal in my hand, willing it to seek out the one who had used it the most, guessing that would be the necromancer. The pull was immediate and strong. My guess wasn’t wrong.

  “This way,” I said. I moved the dial to my left hand and drew the Alpha and Omega.

  With a glance over my shoulder to reassure myself my friends were following, I started back down the hallway and into the dungeon.

  The dial pulled us along the hallways until we reached the junction again and turned into the unfamiliar hall. Nothing rose up to try and stop us and the place was eerily silent except for the sound of our shoes on the stone floor.

  The hall here was reinforced with wooden scaffolding and larger than the ones we had been in before. The floor sloped downward and we descended. My hand started to ache from holding the dial thingy, my partially healed muscles lodging a protest against being forced to do work for this long. The hallway went deep and it felt like we were walking miles underground, but I knew some of that was because of the unchanging perspective of the hallway itself.

  “Wait,” Alek murmured behind me.

  I halted and stood, trying to breathe quietly so I could listen. The lights were on here as well, but spaced far apart. We stood in a section of near darkness in the gap between two of the sconces. I felt almost like I was on a mission in Skyrim, only I didn’t have a bow.

  “Behind us,” Alek said.

  “What? For those without super hearing,” I muttered, my eyes straining to see anything ahead of us. Turning around wouldn’t help, I’d just see Alek’s body. He took up a lot of space even in human form.

  “Sounds like zombies,” Ezee said.

  “Keep moving,” Levi said. “They aren’t close yet.”

  I started forward again. Three sconces from where we’d stopped, a door appeared. This one was newer than the others, its metal not rusted and the wood untouched by rot or water damage. It had a keyhole but no handle.

  “Harper,” I said. “Rogue up.”

  The hallway was wide enough she could get past everyone easily. She pulled a small leather pouch from one of her cargo pockets and unrolled a set of lockpicks.

  “If we don’t get eaten by zombies,” I whispered to her, “you have to teach me how to do that.”

  She chuckled and got to work. With the proper tools she had the door open within a couple minutes.

  “Helps to hear really well,” she said as she stood up.

  The door eased silently open away from us. Nothing leapt out to attack us so I moved inside. The vestibule opened up quickly into a large rectangular chamber that was lit by a huge chandelier high above. Discarded coffins lined the sides of the chamber in varying states of decay. The smell of rotting wood, putrid flesh, and mildew was strong enough that all of us were gagging. Swirling around it all was the stench of the necromancer’s magic, though I saw no bodies. But with so much clutter along the sides of the chamber and shitty overhead lighting, an army could have hidden in here.

  “That’s not promising,” Levi said as we fanned out into the room.

  “This guy has seriously weird decorating tastes,” Ezee said.

  There was another door in the far end and my tracking spell was still pulling my arm that direction. I adjusted my grip on the Alpha and Omega and pointed.

  “Spell says that way,” I said.

  “Should I lock the door behind us?” Harper suggested.

  “That traps us,” Alek said with a head shake. He rolled his shoulders, muscles and sinew crackling in the dead silence of the room. Good to know I wasn’t the only who was tense.

  “Wedge with a piece of coffin?” Levi said.

  Ezee and Levi pulled over a chunk of wood that had once been a simple pine box. Some of the coffins were nice, modern contraptions with silk linings. Many were not as nice, just simple wooden boxes, quite a few half-rotted away or smashed.

  The door kind of secured, we grouped up and picked our way across the hall.

  I felt the slight hum of magic right before I stepped onto the ward. I tried to hop backward but Alek was too close and I bumped into him. My foot came down and a deep chime like an old brass bell reverberated around the chamber.

  “Forgot to check for traps,” Harper said. I glanced back and saw wild grins on the faces of my friends. Alek’s expression was more resigned but there was a light in his eyes.

  Coffins started to move, lids sliding off the whole ones. Broken wood was shoved aside as the dead hiding beneath the mess came to life again.

  My estimation that an army could have hidden in here wasn’t inaccurate.

  Not waiting, I charged the nearest zombie and dusted it with my sword. Alek came to my side and smashed in another zombie’s head as it clawed at me.

  “To the door,” I yelled as I started swinging. It was difficult to fight zombies and keep the tracking spell going, so I gave up and dropped the spell, jamming the dial into my pocket to free my left hand. Through that door was where I needed to go. I’d worry about the details post-zombie fight.

  We reached the door. Behind me I heard Ezee cry out in pain. A zombie had gotten around Levi’s machete swing and sunk its claws into Ezee’s side. He kicked it away and smashed in its skull as it fell back.

  “I’m okay,” he said. Blood darkened his leather jacket.

  Two more zombies leapt down from a stack of coffins. There was too much stuff in here to use fire to deflect them. We had to rely on our melee skills. Levi slashed right through the arm of a zombie but it kept coming, slamming into him and knocking him back. Another tried to bite into his leg, but Ezee was there, stomping down with his boot and crushing its skull with shifter strength.

  “Harper, get that open.” I shoved away from the door. My sword was the most effective thing against the undead since I didn’t need a headshot to kill them.

  “Back up,” Alek told Ezee and Levi as they scrambled to reach us.

  We formed a half circle around Harper as she took up a litany of curses by the door.

  The zombies kept coming, charging one after the other into my sword swing. I had to be very careful how I used the blade, fighting in close quarters with Alek to one side. If I nicked him, he’d die. I felt more than saw Alek move away from me as Ezee cried out in pain again. />
  Dusting the zombie in front of me, I turned my head. Ezee was down, more blood on his right leg as well as his ripped jacket. Levi and Alek had closed the gap he left, putting him back behind them.

  Five more zombies crawled out into the open. Rotting flesh hung from their bones. These sad creatures were very decayed, older than the corpses littering the ground in front of us. They moved jerkily, bones scraping the debris as they tried to charge us.

  I ran forward, ignoring Alek’s yell. I could take five skeletons and I wanted nobody else to get hurt. The first reached me and I severed its arm with an uppercut, using both hands on the blade. I reversed the swing and cut back across the zombie’s body.

  This time I was ready for it when it turned to dust and able to stop the momentum. One of the skeletons had gone past me but two more tried to close. I swung the Alpha and Omega in a wide arc parallel to the ground, slashing through their rotting torsos. Chips of bone flaked away in the path of the blade and gore spattered me as I flicked the blade back for a reverse swing.

  The zombies dusted before I could connect again, their gaping mouths giving them an almost comical expression of permanent surprise as they turned to grit.

  The last zombie lurched at me from the side, its claw-like hands swiping at me. I danced backward, tripping over a piece of wood. The zombie crashed down onto me. Its teeth sank into my forearm as I tried to bring the sword around and stab it. The blade scraped along the exposed bone of its loose arm. Then it was dust coating my body instead of rotting flesh and bone.

  I scrambled to my feet.

  “Got the door,” Harper called out.

  No more movement in the hall that I could see. Hopefully we’d killed all the zombies.

  Ezee had shifted to his coyote form, which meant he was more hurt than he had let on. Levi had a gash in his left leg but was still in human form. He leaned heavily on his machete like it was a cane, however.

  “You okay?” I asked as I stumbled back to them.

  “That was stupid,” Alek said. He looked unharmed, to my relief.