by M. D. Massey
The farther we went, the stronger the smell of decomposing flesh became. The trail was easier to follow now, and we tracked the creature through the warehouse district and down into a construction zone. Along the way we found other animal corpses in various states of decay, most tucked under trash piles, or hidden in unobtrusive locations. We followed the trail for several hundred feet until it ended at a jagged sewer pipe jutting from an excavation site.
The pipe itself was narrow, a little more than two feet in diameter. Foul-smelling water dripped from the opening. There were signs that the creature had come this way, including footprints in the mud beneath. I debated going into the pipe or trying to track the creature above ground. Past experience told me that was going to be difficult, since drainage tunnels could lead anywhere in these older areas of the city.
“Looks like it’s time to get dirty,” I said.
Bells merely nodded stiffly.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’ll be fine. Let’s just focus on catching this thing.” She held her arm to her side, a sure sign of guarding an injury. I figured she might have busted or bruised some ribs, but I didn’t want to push it. Bells was nothing if not proud.
I nodded once and crawled inside the pipe, using my phone to light the way. Chances were good this tunnel would end in a rainwater collection chamber at some point. That would give us little space to maneuver should we run into the ghoul. I wasn’t concerned, since I had switched out my war club for the Glock a few blocks back. If we were lucky, we’d catch the thing off guard and I’d put a bullet in its head before it ever got wind of us.
I followed the tunnel about fifty feet before seeing the faint glow of daylight ahead. I turned off my phone to avoid giving us away and continued to low-crawl through the tunnel, which ended where it connected with one of the rainwater collection chambers that were common under Austin’s downtown city streets. Faint light streamed in from a curbside drain above, revealing an empty chamber. Tracks in the mud below indicated the ghoul had headed south just a few minutes before.
I crawled out of the drainage pipe and used my phone to illuminate the space, crossing the chamber as I followed the ghoul’s trail. It led me to a bare and unbroken concrete wall on the other side of the small chamber. The tracks dead-ended at the wall.
“What the hell?” I muttered aloud as I looked at the concrete in front of me. I reached out to touch it, and my hand passed right through.
“That’s one hell of an illusion,” I muttered. The last time I’d seen something this convincing had been when I’d tangled with the Avartagh on my first case. The Avartagh was a vampiric dwarf and a seriously powerful magician, and I’d only survived that encounter because he’d underestimated me. I hated to think I might be tangling with something that was equally as deadly, and without the advantage of being underestimated.
I waited for Bells to join me, then stuck my head through the illusion to see what was on the other side. I was looking through an irregular hole in the wall, one that had been made recently. It was pitch black on the other side. I shone the light from the phone’s display into the dark beyond, illuminating a winding passage that had been dug from both earth and bedrock.
I pulled my head out and looked at Bells. She shrugged and nodded at the hole.
“After you, loverboy.”
I chuckled and ducked through.
As Bells and I passed deeper into the tunnel beyond, we smelled the stench of rotting flesh. The farther we went, the stronger the smell became, so we knew we were on the right track. Besides that, there were fresh tracks in the muddy floor of the tunnel that matched those I’d seen in the chamber outside.
What worried me was that the trail we followed was accompanied by dozens of older tracks, indicating that some serious traffic had gone through here. Either this was some sort of thoroughfare being used by the ghouls, or there were a few dozen of those things hiding somewhere underground with us. I decided not to think about it and pressed on.
Within minutes, the tunnel opened into a large underground chamber, so large that the light from my phone was too dim to illuminate the entire thing. I tried to adjust the screen brightness to compensate, only to hear Bells sigh behind me.
“Don’t you have some sort of magelight spell you can cast or something? Or a crystal staff you can puff on, like a magic flashlight?”
I snapped my fingers. “Flashlight! Hang on a minute.” I rustled around in my Craneskin bag until I found what I was looking for.
“Ta-da!” I said as I clicked a tactical flashlight on. The space was suddenly lit by 300 lumens of LED light. What all that light revealed had us shitting our pants. The chamber had to be 150 feet across or more, a natural underground cavern carved from the limestone bedrock by tens of thousands of years of water erosion.
And across that vast underground expanse, hundreds of ghouls stood in a magical stasis, awaiting some trigger or command to snap them out of their current state.
“Ruh-oh, Raggy,” I whispered under my breath.
“You have to be shitting me,” Belladonna responded.
As if in answer to our exclamations of disbelief, a voice sounded from across the chamber. It was deep and sonorous, and altogether unsettling, with an ethereal quality that said it had either been magically enhanced, or magically disguised.
“Oh, believe it, children. I’ve been planning this a long, long time.”
“Bells, I think we found our necromancer.”
She deadpanned her response. “Really, Captain Obvious? What gave it away?”
I shone the flashlight beam around the room, searching for where the voice had originated. There were no shadowy figures lurking in the dark, no tall dark silhouettes staring at us from a balcony above. That’s when I realized the freak was hiding in plain sight, somewhere among the sea of dead flesh in front of us.
“What I wouldn’t do right now for a FLIR camera,” Bells muttered.
I whispered under my breath to her. “Bells, we have to get out of here, like now. One word from this asshole, and we’re going to be overrun by undead.”
“But he’s right there in front of us!”
I wasn’t so sure it was a “he,” but now wasn’t the time to discuss gender assumptions. “She may as well be on the other side of the planet right now, because there’s no way we can get to her.”
She sighed heavily and nodded. “Points for assuming it’s a she.” She pursed her lips and frowned. “Run like hell?”
“Run like hell.” And that’s what we did, just as a palpable wave of power burst forth and a stampede of dead bodies came rushing across the space in a tidal wave of death and decay. We sprang from the chamber and back into the tunnel, with me lighting the way and Bells hot on my heels.
“Colin, what are we going to do when we get to the pipe?” she asked me with labored gasps that were altogether uncharacteristic. I glanced over my shoulder, catching a look of agony on her face that she quickly tried to hide. Even in the dim light reflected from the walls of the tunnel, I could see that her face was drawn and pale. She held one arm to her side, bracing an injury that was obviously far worse than she’d let on.
I dug around in my bag frantically as I ran, checking every so often to make certain I didn’t leave her behind. She began to lag, so I slowed my pace and draped her arm over my shoulder, reaching around her waist to support her. I felt something wet, hot, and sticky under my hand. She winced away from my touch.
Blood. Bells was bleeding, and badly. And I’d missed it in my eagerness to catch the necromancer.
Despite my assistance, soon our progress slowed to a crawl. I helped as she propped herself against the wall, drawing a pistol and sighting down the corridor behind us.
“Set the flashlight on the floor, and point it that way so I can see,” she gasped.
I did as she asked, all the while searching my bag for one of the spells I’d prepared. Finally I located it, and pulled it out to show her, holding it up lik
e the Lady of the Lake wielding Excalibur.
Bells glowered at me. “An M80? You’re going to save our asses with a firecracker? McCool, you’d better have a better trick than that up your sleeve.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” I spoke a few words, casting a cantrip that lit the fuse to the firework, and tossed it down the tunnel as far away from us as possible. It landed just beyond the beam of light cast by the flashlight on the ground.
I moved over to shield Belladonna with my body. It occurred to me that overpressure would be a problem in these tight confines. “Close your eyes and open your mouth,” I warned, and she did as I asked.
I closed my eyes, and then spoke a word in Gaelic to trigger the spell. The magically enhanced firecracker went off like three sticks of dynamite, collapsing the tunnel behind us. I continued to shield Bells for a few seconds after the blast, peppered by dirt and debris, but thankfully by nothing larger than a dime or harder than mud.
“Are you okay?” I asked loudly, wiping dust from my eyes and face. Receiving no response, I opened my eyes and blinked several times, just as Bells slumped into my arms.
Chapter Eighteen
I gently slid Bells to the ground, then stuck the flashlight in my mouth so I could see while I assessed her injuries. Her pulse was thready and her breathing steady but shallow. A rapid head to toe assessment revealed a puncture wound in her side leaking blood, with quite a bit of swelling in her abdomen.
The puncture wound was bad enough, but what really had me worried was all the swelling. That could indicate internal injuries, possibly life-threatening. Part of my druid training included first aid; I was a shitty healer and awful at healing magic, but I knew a bad injury when I saw one.
I pulled the flashlight out of my mouth and placed it so the light would reflect off the tunnel wall.
“Hang in there, Bells—I’m going to get you out of here.” But first, I had to tend to that puncture wound. I pulled a first aid kit out of my bag and applied a pressure dressing to control the bleeding. Then I grabbed the flashlight and picked her up in my arms, heading for the exit to the storm drain where we’d come in.
As I half-walked and half-jogged to the exit, I noticed several things. For one, Bells felt light and insubstantial in my arms. Whether that was just my own fears playing tricks on me, or whether I’d never really noticed how small she was compared to me, I didn’t know. Bells was anything but frail, but right then I may as well have been carrying a box of pillows. Maybe it was the adrenaline, but it just felt wrong to me.
I quickened my pace as I rounded the last curve to the exit. But instead of a hole in the wall, I ran into a dead end made up of solid limestone rock.
I wondered, had I made a wrong turn somewhere? Impossible. The tunnel had been one long, singular path, and I’d noted no side tunnels or branches on the way in or out. I gently set Bells down and probed the wall ahead, hoping it was just the illusory magic playing tricks on me.
But it wasn’t. The rock wall ahead felt as solid and real as my own body, and it was much more substantial. I retraced my steps, making certain I wasn’t missing anything. But the trail back to the cave-in lacked any side tunnels, and the hundreds of tracks in the muddy floor below my feet said that I hadn’t lost my mind. This was exactly the way we’d come in earlier.
I took a moment to kneel beside Bells and checked her pulse. She was eerily still, and the fact I could barely detect her breathing was unsettling. Her pulse grew weaker and I started to panic. I jumped up and reached into my bag for my war club; if there wasn’t a way out, I’d make one for us.
Practically charging at the wall, I swung at it with all my might, right above the place where the footprints trailed to an end. I figured that was where the opening had been before it had been spelled shut. But instead of making a solid hit on the limestone wall, my club struck a magical barrier. As it connected, silver light flashed in front of me, both bright and cold at the same time. The backlash from the two magics hit me and threw me a good ten feet, where I landed on my rump and skidded across the damp muddy floor.
I popped my neck and stood. Then I walked back to the wall to examine it in the magical spectrum, which was what I should have done in the first place. What I saw shocked and worried me. The weaves that made up the spell on the wall were both complex and powerful, many degrees beyond anything I could conjure up. The last time I’d seen weaves like these I was in Maeve’s treasure room, examining the spells and wards that had guarded the Eye. I couldn’t break those bindings even if I had years to do so.
There was no way in hell I was getting through that spell.
As they said in the epics, this boded ill for my companion and me. As far as I knew, this was our only way out of the tunnel. I’d caved in our other exit, and even if we could get out that way there were hundreds of ghouls to fight through, plus the magician who’d cast the spell that now sealed us in. I suspected they’d triggered it soon after we’d entered the cave, which would have funneled us toward them even if we’d decided to turn back and get help.
Why did I suddenly get the feeling this necromancer was no ordinary wizard? And why did I also feel that he or she had been toying with me all along?
The way things had gone, it looked as though someone had been trying to move me off the playing field this whole time. And stupidly, I’d gotten Bells involved and put her squarely in my enemy’s crosshairs.
The realization that this person was my enemy was staggering, and I chided myself for not seeing it sooner. While I’d stumbled across this stupid case while working for Maeve and Luther, it was now apparent that events had been manipulated specifically to get me involved.
I moved over to Bells and placed several large stones under her legs, placing her in a recovery position that would hopefully keep her blood pressure up until I could figure out what to do. Then I checked my phone for a signal, thinking I might call for help. No signal. Things were looking bleak, and I was running out of options.
And so was Bells.
I looked at her and hung my head in shame. What a fool I’d been, and now a person I cared for deeply was injured and possibly dying before me. I was helpless to intervene in any meaningful way.
I sat next to her and placed her head in my lap, brushing her hair away from her face. Then, I wept silently as I wracked my brain for a way out of this mess.
I only allowed myself a few minutes of self-pity before I got up and checked the walls of the cavern inch by inch, looking for an alternate escape route. First I looked for cracks or other signs of weakness, both with my mundane sight and in the magical spectrum. Finding nothing, I used the handle of my war club to tap on the walls, thinking I could get lucky and find a spot where I might break through—one that wasn’t warded and spelled against my efforts.
I worked my way around the space, from the magical barrier and down one wall of the tunnel, around to the cave-in and up the other side. I only lingered at the cave-in for a moment, both out of fear of getting trapped by falling rocks, and because I could hear debris being moved on the other side. Apparently the ghouls hadn’t given up on us. Whether that was at the direction of their master or due to their inherent single-mindedness, I didn’t care to speculate. All I knew was that I needed to get us out of here, and fast, before they moved enough stone and dirt to reach us.
My tapping and probing revealed nothing, and as I reached the barrier once more I growled in frustration, slamming the war club flat against the wall. I rested my head against the cool limestone, leaning in as I looked to my left where Belladonna rested. I didn’t need to take her vitals to know her condition wasn’t improving. I took a deep breath and ran through my options again, desperate to find something I may have missed.
That’s when I heard digging noises on the other side of the limestone wall. I pressed my ear against the rock, at once hoping I was mistaken and praying I wasn’t hearing things. While I feared that it could be more ghouls trying to get at us from an adjacent tunnel, I hoped th
at it might be someone coming to rescue us. It was a thin hope, but one I held onto as I the noises grew louder.
Soon the digging and scraping sounds seemed just inches away from my ear. I backed away from the wall and hoisted my club, ready to bash anything that came through the wall should it not be friendly.
The clinking sounds of metal on stone grew in rhythm and intensity as I waited. Five minutes stretched into ten, and then chunks flew from a spot in the wall roughly four feet off the tunnel floor. A dark hole appeared in the wall, and the sharp end of a metal implement widened it as I shielded my eyes and face from the shrapnel.
The digging stopped, and I held my breath as an eyeball came into view, framed by the jagged hole in the limestone that had been made just moments before. It was no human eye, but one that was yellowed and bloodshot, set in lumpy gray-green flesh. A bulbous green nose soon replaced the eye, and it sniffed a few times and withdrew.
Raucous laughter and cheers erupted from the other side of the hole. A thin pair of rubbery lips set in a wicked grin filled the gap again.
“Druid, I see you okay. Trolls get you out now, no need to pray.”
I sighed with relief. “Guts, is that you?”
“Hah!” he exclaimed. “Told them druid remember mighty Guts! And trolls all say Guts is nuts.”
“Guts, not only do I remember you, but you might just be my favorite troll right now.”
The eye jumped back into view. His words were muffled but clear enough for me to hear. “Then you tell other trolls, once you out of that hole. Guts be hero who saved Druid of Junk—who’d a thunk? Now move so can prove.”
Despite the horrendous rhyming, I really was glad to see Guts. Within minutes he had made a hole large enough for us to pull Bells to safety. As it turned out, one of the troll patrols had come across the ghoul’s trail and followed it. They’d called Guts in to check it out, and he’d somehow determined that we had been trapped. I didn’t quite get the details of how that happened, something about unique scents was all I got. Besides, I was too concerned with getting Bells to the hospital to pay much attention.