“Theseus,” Pearl blurted, finding her voice and stepping out from the wall. Theseus spun towards Pearl and a smile spread across his face when he saw her. He ran to her, lifted her up into his arms, and embraced her tight, cracking her back. She laughed and coughed at the same time, overjoyed to see him, despite his arms crushing her. He set her down and, with wet eyes, inspected her body for injuries. A few red scratches covered her body and her clothes had suffered some minor tears.
“What happened to you?” She told him about running from the Khaous, the moving walls, the pool of souls, the bone construct, and her conversation with Lucifer. Theseus stiffened when she mentioned the Devil telling the truth about George Mallory.
“But you already knew that, didn’t you?” Pearl questioned.
Theseus took a moment. “Yes. I knew George Mallory wasn’t your father. I just…didn’t want to distract you while we were training. Pearl, you have to believe me, I wanted to tell you the truth—“
“It’s okay, Theseus,” Pearl reassured him with a hug. “It’s hard to understand, but I’m making my peace with it. More so than ever. We need to focus on our mission.”
“And you spoke with the Devil himself?” Theseus didn’t let her go. “Consider yourself lucky. If he wanted to, he could kill you with a look. Gods willing you never see him again. But should such a day come, speak as little as possible. His serpent’s tongue will twist your words against you.”
“Theseus, all is well.”
“And thank the gods for that.” He squeezed her tighter. The Ghost Boy walked up next to Pearl and wrapped his arms around her waist. She ran her hand across his short, rough hair and hugged him back. “Who were you chasing?”
“The girl,” Theseus remembered as he broke away from Pearl and scanned the ground for footprints.
“She went this way.” Pearl led the way, and as they turned down the path, they saw the girl waiting for them at the other end. She ran off out of sight to the left and when they followed, the three found her waiting for them again. The moment she saw them, she took off down another path, and every time they turned the corner after her, no matter how long the path, she waited for them at the opposite end.
“After we got separated from you, the boy and I wandered around,” Theseus told Pearl as they chased the girl. “We didn’t encounter any Khaous, but got lost nonetheless. Then she showed up and we followed after her.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you follow her in the first place? Why are you still following her?”
Theseus didn’t answer. They reached the halfway point when the girl ran right, and Pearl grew certain they had caught up with her. But her heart sunk when they turned the next corner and saw the girl for them at the end of a long straight away.
“Because it’s Beatrice,” Theseus answered Pearl’s question at last. His stone cold voice sent a chill down Pearl’s back. He scowled, his eyes pointed straight forward. “I know how it sounds, but it’s her. She’s wearing the dress she wore that day we fell into the tunnels. She has Beatrice’s hair. Hell, she’s even the same age.”
“But you told me Beatrice died forty years ago,” Pearl reminded him.
“I don’t know how, but I know it’s her,” he repeated, not hearing Pearl. He didn’t hesitate to enter the covered part of labyrinth, running head long into the shadows. A dim purple light coming from somewhere deeper in the maze illuminated the paths just enough for them to see the girl disappear around corners and to stop them from running into the walls crawling with life.
Theseus drew his katana and signaled for the others to arm themselves. The Ghost Boy’s armlets snapped and clicked into their glove forms. Pearl still held Ragenoz Rako in her hand, the runes getting brighter as the blade ate the Chaos energy thickening the air. They turned the final corner and found the girl waiting for them, but she didn’t run away as they stepped closer. Her back to them, she stared into the expansive room laying before her. A large, pulsing construct dominated the center of the room, its black, fleshy material giving it the appearance of a large muscle or organ.
“It’s a heart,” Pearl gasped. “It’s the Black Heart.” Veins, glowing with bright purple energy rooted into the ceiling and floor, shook every time the Heart pumped its contents. Every beat sounded like a deep drum and reverberated off the walls until the chamber growled. The Black Heart exhaled excess Chaos energy in a thick, sparking cloud, and shimmers of heat twisted around it. The Artifact glowed with strange dark violet light and the small girl cast a large shadow over the three of them. Theseus approached the girl one step at a time, holding up a hand to stay Pearl and the Ghost Boy.
“Beatrice?” he whispered. The girl remained motionless.
“Theseus,” Pearl whispered and took a step towards him.
“Shhh,” he hushed her, his glare silencing her. Pearl stepped back and kept her mouth shut. Theseus turned back to the small girl and reached out to her. “Beatrice? Is that you?”
The girl nodded, but didn’t face Theseus. His voice wavered as tears rolled down his face. “Beatrice…I thought I had lost you forever. Gods, Beatrice, I’ve missed you so much. I’m so sorry I left you.”
He dropped to his knees, the weight of his joy and sorrow too much for his legs to bear. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. The girl fell through his arms and collapsed apart onto the floor. The silence falling over Theseus haunted the immediate area around him. Pearl tried to shrug it off, but it pressed down on her. The Ghost Boy fidgeted. Theseus stared at the small lump of a person in front of him and reached down to pick her up. He froze when his shaking fingers grazed her white dress, then he grasped and jerked it aside, revealing a pile of bones, decades old.
“No…” Theseus gasped as he touched the bones, denying their existence. The girl’s hair still laid on top of her skull, but when Theseus touched it, the hairs turned into black snakes, which slithered away before burrowing into the ground. “No. What happened?”
A loud, sharp hiss from the Black Heart answered him. A seam appeared in the surface of the Heart facing them, a brighter purple light shining through it. The Black Heart’s pulse slowed and it peeled open to reveal a girl, curled up in the fetal position, hovering in the Heart’s core. She uncurled and floated to the ground like a feather. She wore nothing, though the bright light within the Heart shadowed her body features. When her toes touched the ground, a black dress flowed down from over her shoulders and covered her. She looked identical to the young girl they had followed through the maze, though a couple years older. A black ribbon choker with a deep purple amethyst jewel embedded in silver wrapped around her neck. She opened her eyes, the same color as her choker’s jewel, and looked at the three of them. Her eyes stopped on Theseus and she covered her mouth as she gasped his name. “Theseus…”
Theseus took a step towards her. “Beatrice..? Is it truly you?”
“Yes, brother. Yes, it’s me,” she sobbed with a smile on her face. They ran to each other and Beatrice leapt up into his arms to embrace him. Theseus spun her around and threatened to never let her go. Pearl couldn’t help, but smile. She wanted to join them, but the Ghost Boy grabbed her arm. She tugged to break free, but he held fast. His blank face gave no clues to his reasons or intentions, but the last time he had held her back, the danger had been real.
“Look at you, Theseus,” Beatrice laughed as she tugged at the gray hairs conquering his brown hair. Her fingers traced some of the wrinkles on his face. Theseus always looked youthful for his age, but next to the young Beatrice, he seemed as old as Father Alexander. “You’re so…old. What happened? How long has it been?”
“Forty years,” he confessed. “And look at me? Look at you. You’ve barely aged at all since…” He hesitated, his face growing grim. “You’re not going to break into a pile of bones too, are you?”
“No, silly,” she giggled.
“How are you alive?” he inquired as he inspected her hair with his finger
s. “It’s been forty years. How are you so young? How did you survive down here for so long?”
“The Black Heart,” Beatrice pointed to the still and silent Artifact. “I don’t know why, but the monsters brought me here and put me inside the Heart. I entered a quasi-sleep state, awake and asleep at the same time. I could see things happening around me, but I didn’t know how long they happened. And the energies within kept me from aging.” Worry flashed across her face. “Does this mean I’m going to become one of them? Am I going to become a monster?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll be damned if I let that happen to you. I just got you back and I won’t lose you again. I’ll take you back to my house, and Pearl and I will remove the Chaos energy from your body.” He glared at the Black Heart. “After we destroy this abomination.”
“What?” Beatrice snapped. Her hair lifted off her head, like the fur on the back of a cornered beast. “No, you can’t do that. You can’t destroy the Black Heart.”
Surprised, Theseus observed Beatrice like a sick child. “Why not?”
“Because if you destroy the Black Heart, you’ll kill me,” Beatrice informed him. Theseus studied her, then the Black Heart, searching for some way to save his sister and complete his mission. Pearl and the Ghost Boy looked at the Black Heart as well, which had remained motionless since Beatrice emerged.
“We’ll take you back to Lightholme now,” Theseus suggested, drawing closer to the Black Heart. “We’ll remove the Chaos energy from your body, sever your connection to the Black Heart, and then destroy it.”
“It won’t work,” Beatrice assured him. The pile of bones and white dress at Pearl’s feet disturbed her. Something didn’t make sense. “I’m forever tied to the Black Heart.”
The Khaous had taken Beatrice and, according to Beatrice, placed her within the Black Heart, but according to Theseus, Beatrice had stabbed it with a stick. The Black Heart had deflated and fallen to pieces. So the Khaous couldn’t have taken her to it, and if they had, how come her bones laid here?
“Theseus,” Pearl cried out as the truth came to her. But before she could warn him, a loud series of clicking and snapping came from behind her. The bands around the Ghost Boy’s ankles, waist, and forehead unfolded and covered his entire body in white armor until he looked like a miniature knight. He raised both of his hands at Beatrice and, before Theseus or Pearl could call him off, he fired a powerful combined blast of white light from his gloves. The beam pushed Beatrice through the Black Heart and into the wall on the opposite side of the chamber, a good thirty yards away.
“Boy, what the hell do you thinking you’re doing?” Theseus roared as he drew his longsword and pointed at the Ghost Boy’s throat. The Ghost Boy didn’t move, standing statuesque. “Why the hell did you attack my sister?”
The Ghost Boy didn’t reply, though Pearl heard a soft voice coming from inside his helm. Theseus ran towards the pile of rubble burying his sister. “Beatrice. Beatrice, say something.”
“Theseus, it’s not Beatrice,” Pearl shouted, and pointed to the pile of bones and the ragged white dress. “This is Beatrice.”
“What are you talking about?” He didn’t wait for an answer and called for his sister again. “Beatrice.”
“Beatrice died and these are her bones. Whoever that is, she is not your sister.”
“No, she’s alive, if that damned boy hasn’t killed her,” Theseus cursed. The Ghost Boy remained still, though his armor shook a little every few seconds. Pearl leaned in to listen to the soft voice inside his helm. She hoped for the boy’s voice, but instead heard a woman’s, her speech stilted, with syllables coming in spurts and jerks.
“Lan-guage lo-cal-iz-a-tion…com-plee-t…lan-guage des-ig-na-tion: Sec-ond Earth: Early Common/English…” the woman’s voice announced. “Genome mapping…initiating…synapses calibration…initiating…”
Beatrice let out a battle shriek as she blew away the pile of rocks on top of her with a burst of purple energy. She looked as if nothing had happened, her silk dress without a dirt smudge or tear in it. She shot Pearl a smug smile.
“Beatrice,” Theseus sighed in relief. “You’re alright.”
“More than alright,” Beatrice scolded him, and waved a hand at Pearl. “Not that you would care. You always were a lousy playmate.”
“What?” Theseus asked, confused and taken aback. Beatrice ignored him as she walked towards Pearl.
“Theseus, that’s not Beatri—ah!” Dark Chaos energy snaked up Pearl’s legs to her head and wrapped around her like chains, forcing her arms against her side and lifting her off the ground. Beatrice waved her hand at the Ghost Boy, but stopped when she saw he couldn’t move.
“Oh dear, it seems his armor is stuck,” Beatrice laughed as she flicked the Ghost Boy’s head, producing a solid ringing. “I don’t expect him to be too much trouble.”
“Beatrice, what are you doing?” Theseus barked, the gems on his Titan Gloves glowing. Though armed with both of his swords, he kept them pointed away from Beatrice.
“You abandoned me down here,” Beatrice barked back. She raised her hand above her head. Chaos energy crackled up her arm and into her palm, the stretched out into a crooked, purple thunderbolt. She swung the thunderbolt with flourish and the energy solidified into a long, crooked, black sword. “Left me to die alone in the dark. And then you come here, and try to have your little minion kill me?”
She swung her sword over her head, down at Theseus. He raised his longsword to block, but the power of Beatrice’s sword forced him to his knees. He grunted as he pushed her blade to the side and it clawed into the ground. He spun away and raised his swords at her. “Beatrice, please. I’m not trying to hurt you. I want to help you.”
“Liar,” Beatrice shrieked. She swung across at his chest and he leapt back to avoid it. Pearl strained against the Chaos energy, struggling to reach her bastard sword. With the slightest cut, Ragenoz Rako could devour the strands of energy and free her. Theseus leapt back several more yards. Black bones emerged out of Beatrice’s back, and shorter, thinner bones branched out from them. Chaos energy spread out between the bones, forming the violet membrane of her bat wings.
With a single powerful flap, she launched forward, her feet only a hand’s width off the ground. She closed the distance between her and Theseus in seconds. Theseus did all he could to protect himself from her unholy speed and power, but she knocked his swords aside and kicked him in the chest, throwing him backwards. He slid to a stop just short of Pearl. Slow to get to his feet, he used his swords to prop himself up.
“Theseus, are you okay?” Pearl asked. He didn’t hear her, his eyes out of focus as he searched for meaning.
“Why?” he asked no one. “Why is she doing this?”
If Pearl could have moved her legs, she would have kicked him. “Would you just shut it and listen to me? That’s not Beatrice. Your sister died. Maybe not when the Khaous got her or when she was placed in the Black Heart, if any of that is true, but at some point in time she died. She, this thing you’re fighting, is the Black Heart.”
“What?!?” Theseus didn’t believe her at first, but the idea dawned on him as he studied Beatrice with clear eyes.
“I don’t know how, but I think the Black Heart took the form of your sister and is using her memories to torment you,” Pearl suggested. “She was telling the truth when she said that she would die if you destroyed the Black Heart, because she is the Black Heart. She doesn’t care who we are. She’s going to kill us. You don’t have to hold back. You can’t hold back. You saw what the Ghost Boy was able to do to her. Nothing.”
Strength returned to Theseus’s body as he straightened his back and lifted his swords at Beatrice, who laughed at him. “What is this? A second wind?”
“Theseus,” Pearl smiled.
“Pearl?”
“Kill this bitch.” He nodded with a smirk, then let out a roar as he lunged at Beatrice. She raised her sword just in time to catch both his blades, her eyes wide wi
th shock. Theseus didn’t wait long to attack again, spinning around and striking out at Beatrice, forcing her to take a step back. Not giving her time to mount a counterattack, he attacked her with speed and power the likes of which he had never shown before. Beatrice blocked every attack at the beginning, but as she tired, cuts appeared on her dress. Black blood poured from her wounds and the blood-soaked silk stuck to her body. Pearl’s body ached as her Bloodlust wanted her to take advantage of the injured Beatrice. Theseus’s Bloodlust must have burned within him as his attacks became more aggressive.
Beatrice jumped back to put some ground between them, but quick Theseus pursued her, a wolf closing in on wounded prey. She swung her sword at his head, he slid under her blade and rammed his shoulder into her neck. She stumbled backwards, coughing, hacking, and grabbing at her throat. Her blade fell out of her hands and crashed to the ground, cracking the floor. Theseus charged forward, ready to deliver the killing blow. Beatrice raised her arm in an effort to block the slash, then let out a breathless gasp as the blade passed through the flesh and bone of her arm, and sliced her throat open. She tried to cover the wound and hold back the torrent of black blood pouring forth. Her panicked eyes looked to Theseus for help, but he just watched before he walked behind her and kicked her legs out from under her.
“How dare you?” he growled, his entire body shaking with rage, as he grabbed both sides of her head. “How dare you take her form!? I want you to die. Die a thousand deaths, and know it will never be enough for taking my sister from me.”
The room grew dark as Theseus’s hands glowed with dancing sparks of blinding lightning, casting sinister shadows onto his face.
“Please,” Beatrice wheezed. “Theseus…no…”
“You don’t get to call me that,” he growled. Beatrice’s skull glowed as Theseus channeled lightning into it. Light shone out of her eyes and mouth, and from her came an inhuman scream, a sound from an ancient nightmare, discordant bellows and shrieks reverberating together in an unnatural chorus. Even when she fell silent, the lasting echo warped into a haunting overtone. When Theseus released Beatrice, she fell to the ground, lifeless, her head charred black. He stood over her, still shaking, his breath haggard and primal. Then he broke and fell to his knees, sobbing.
The Lamplighter (Lamplighter Saga Book 0) Page 17