by Amy Cross
"You have transgressed," the head says. "You have deactivated one of my guards".
"He's not your guard," Darla says, sounding angry. "He's my friend. His name's Eddie. Or... he was. Not any more. You killed him".
"I need guards," the head says. "I need to protect myself".
"Not by killing other people," Darla says. "You didn't have to do that".
"You must leave," the head says. "But you must leave your bodies behind. I need them".
"Do you?" Darla asks. "Why? Because this building eats people?"
"I need to consume," the head says. "I have locked all the exits. You cannot break out. You must remain here. You must be consumed as well".
"I don't think so," Darla says.
"We have to go," I say, stepping forward. "We have to go and help my friend. You've got to open the doors".
"I can't," the head says. "If I open the doors, they will get in".
"Who?" I ask.
"You," the head says.
"We're already in," I reply.
"Exactly," the head says. "Which shows how easy it is".
I look over at Darla, who has a puzzled look on her face.
"It's eating me," the head says suddenly. It sounds confused, almost scared. "It's probably jealous of me, because I'm the world's greatest architect. That's why it grew. That's why is devours me day by day".
"What does?" Darla asks.
"I killed your friend," the head says. "But only because I was scared. I need to defend myself. No-one will help me".
"I'll help you," I say, stepping forwards.
"What are you doing?" Darla hisses.
"Helping," I say. I reach out and put a hand on the side of the head's face.
"Is that you?" the head asks.
"It's me," I say. "If you tell me what you want, and if I do it, will you let us leave?"
There's a pause. "I'll think about it," says the head. "I might do. Is that good enough?"
"I have a better plan," says Darla. "Why don't we kill the head with fire, and then blast our way out of this fucking place".
"No," the head says. "You can't kill me!"
"I can," Darla says.
"It's eating me!" the head shouts, panicking.
"What is?" I ask. "Tell me what the problem is!"
The head twitches. "It's getting too big".
"What?" I ask again, raising my voice a little.
"I think I see what he means," Darla says.
I look at her, then I turn to see what she's looking at. In the corner of the room, a large wall panel seems to be moving, straining, as if something behind it is trying to force its way through.
"What is that thing?" I ask.
"It's devouring me," the head says. "It wants to eat my brain. It thinks... It thinks that if it eats my brain, it will become a genius, like me".
Darla gives a snort of contempt. "For a genius," she says, "you don't half talk a lot of crap".
I walk over to the panel. It's as if it's alive, as if whatever's behind the panel is breathing. It's moving slowly and rhythmically.
"Careful," Darla says.
I turn to her. "We need to get out of here, right?" I say. "Whatever this thing is, I'm sure two werewolves can handle it".
"Werewolves?" the head asks. "Where? Don't let any werewolves near me".
I step to the side and try to kick the panel away. Although it's loose, it doesn't quite come off, so I kick it again and this time it clatters to the floor. Behind the panel, a large bloody blob is pulsating. It's hideous, and for the second time today I think I might be about to throw up.
"What the fuck is that?" Darla asks, coming over to take a closer look.
"It's devouring me," the head says.
"Cancer," I say slowly. Darla looks at me. "Cancer," I repeat. "This is cancer. The building has cancer".
Darla peers closer at the large, pulsating blob. Blood oozes from its red, black and purple surface. "Cool," she says. "But how?"
"He must have had cancer when they plugged him into the building," I say. "It's definitely cancer. Trust me. I recognise the smell".
"You had cancer?" Darla asks.
"Not me," I say. I walk back over to the head. "Your entire body is in this building, isn't it?"
"Yes," the head says. "I was going to be the greatest, most famous architect of all time. I was going to live on through history. I was going to become part of my own building".
"But the cancer took over," I say. "Did you know you had cancer when you agreed to do all this?"
"I knew I was dying," the head says. "But I had no idea the cancer would make the leap with me. I assumed... I assumed..."
"Never assume," I say, heading back over to the large blob.
"Look," says Darla. For a moment, we see a human hand emerge from the blob before being sucked back in. "It's eating people. The building that eats people, just like Jeremy said".
"How do we kill it?" I ask.
Darla shrugs.
I run across the room and into the next room. Looking about, I spot an access panel on the wall. I go and pull it off, and there's another blob pulsating in there. I go out into the corridor, then I run along to the window at the far end. There's a panel in the ceiling, which I pull away to reveal another blob. The whole building must be infested. There's cancer throughout the entire body.
Heading back through to the main room, I find Darla is poking the blob with one of the spades.
"It's everywhere," I say.
"You have transgressed," the head says.
"Shut up," Darla and I both say at the same time.
There's a pause. "Help me," the head says.
I look at Darla and shake my head.
"It hurts," the head says. "I had no idea it would be so painful".
"What the fuck?" Darla shouts. I turn to see that part of her leg has been consumed by the blob. She tries to pull it out, but it seems to be stuck. "This isn't good," she says. I run over and try to help, but her leg seems to be stuck fast. I just back as the blob seems to reach out towards me. "Kill it," Darla says, her voice tinged with worry. "With fire. With ice. With kicks. With love. With anything. Just fucking kill it".
I turn to look at the head.
"I know what you're doing," the head says. "You're looking at me. You want to kill me so that the cancer dies. But I won't let you. I'm more powerful than you can possibly imagine, I'm... I'm... I'm unstoppable".
I stare at the head for a moment, then I walk over. "Do your worst," I say. I put a hand on either side of the head. "I'm really sorry," I say.
"You mustn't do this," the head says.
"It's the only way to save my friend," I say. "Maybe both my friends. And your pain will be over. Sometimes... sometimes you can't save everyone. I realise that now".
"You are transgressing," the head says. "You are transgressing. You are transgressing. You are -"
I rip the head away. The wires fall from the back of its brain, the cables come out of its eyes, and the base of the skull is ripped from the main supporting cable. I'm left standing in the middle of the room with the wrecked remains of the head.
"The pain is gone," the head says.
"You're about to die," I reply.
"I..." He falls silent, his large empty eye sockets staring up at me. For a moment, I think he's died already, but then his voice returns one last time. "I should have died a long time ago," he says finally. I look over at the beating heart on the wall. It beats a couple more times, and then it stops and just sits there. It's dead. The architect is dead. The building is dead.
"Fucking wanking bollocks!" Darla shouts as she's finally able to pull her leg out of the blob.
"Are you okay?" I ask, running over.
She checks her leg, which seems to be undamaged. "Yeah," she says. She pulls up her trouser leg. There's a slight cut, but nothing more. "That could have been a lot worse," she says. "We have to get out of here". She looks at head in my hands. "What are you gonna do with him?"
"It's just a head," Darla says. "Leave it here".
She tries to take the head, but I keep hold of it.
"He was a human being!" I say firmly. "He deserves a little respect. He deserves more in death than he got in life".
Darla shrugs. "Sometimes," she says dryly, "I'm reminded of the fact that you weren't born a werewolf".
I look down at the old man's head, with all the wires and junk sticking out of it. I swear, I've never been religious, but at this moment I'm struck by how this man's body has been ravaged by technology. This shouldn't have happened. None of this should have happened. And the idea of giving him a proper burial, no matter how absurd and pointless it might seem, feels like the right thing to do.
9
With the building now dead, the doors are deactivated and we manage to get out quickly. As soon as we arrive at the cemetery, we start looking for a fresh grave. It's dark and we struggle to see much at all, but eventually Darla calls me over and I find her standing beside what appears to be a freshly disturbed patch of soil with no headstone.
"This has to be it," she says.
I put the head on the ground and Darla and I begin to dig. Working by moonlight, it's hard to see what we're doing and it seems to take forever. Eventually we get five or six feet down, but there's no sign of a body so far.
"Maybe we should look for other graves," Darla says.
"He's here," I say. "I swear he's here".
At that moment, my spade strikes something under the soil. I throw the spade to one side and get down on my hands and knees, hurrying to dig it out. After a few seconds, I find that I'm holding a foot. I pull and a whole leg emerges from the soil.
"It's him!" I shout.
Darla helps me to pull, and soon there are two legs free. But as we pull one final time, the legs and lower part of the torso come away, but there's no sign of the rest of him. It's just his lower half.
"What the hell?" Darla says.
"It's him," I say. "I recognise the clothes".
I push the legs aside and start digging by hand. The rest of his body has to be here somewhere.
"We need the top half," Darla says, helping me to dig. "It's the part with the head and the brain that regrows, the legs are just garbage now".
But after digging for a few minutes, it seems like the top half of Duncan's body is nowhere to be found. This is crazy. Why would someone bury the lower half, the half that can't regrow, on hallowed ground when it's the top half that poses the danger? It doesn't make any sense.
"Look!" Darla says suddenly.
I look and see what appears to be the start of a small tunnel.
"What the fuck," Darla says. She grabs a torch and shines it down the hole. "It goes downwards," she says. She turns to me. "He dug his way out of his own grave. He went down".
"That doesn't make sense," I say. "Why wouldn't he try to get up to the surface?"
Darla sighs. "I have no idea". She turns and looks at the pair of dismembered legs attached to the lower half of Duncan's torso. "He got split in half, and the top half crawled away by digging this tunnel with his bare hands". She smiles. "This Duncan guy sounds pretty cool. Can't wait to meet him".
"We've got to find him first," I say. I grab the torch from Darla and I start crawling into the tunnel, but she holds me back.
"Wait," she says. "You don't know what's down there. It's not even remotely safe".
"I've got to find him," I say.
"You've found half of him!" Darla replies, indicating the lower half that we recovered. "The other half's somewhere. If he got away from the hallowed ground in time, he'll be able to regrow his entire body".
"And he'll need me," I say, pulling away from her. But I only get a metre or so down the tunnel before I find that it's blocked. I pull back out. "The roof must have caved in". I stare at Darla. "There's no way to find him now. He could be anywhere".
"If he's underground," Darla says, "you won't be able to sense him from up here".
"Then I'll find some other way to follow him down there".
Darla seems lost in thought for a moment. "There's a story," she says slowly. "A legend. A nightmare. Something I was told about when I was younger. I never considered it could be real, but... It was said that beneath London there was a ruined werewolf city, with -"
"With a throne," I say, interrupting. "I've seen the throne. It's at the bottom of a pit".
"You've seen it?" Darla says. She seems lost in thought. "If that's real, then maybe the rest of the werewolf city is real. Maybe that's where Duncan is headed. It'd be the perfect place to wait to recover, if he needed to hide from someone".
"He needs to hide from everyone," I say.
"That's where he is, then," Darla says. "He's in the Underworld. But... We'll never find him. It's huge down there. And there are things living down there. Dangerous things. I've heard stories about it. There's no way we can just blunder in".
"Then we won't," I say. "We'll get some help".
We climb out of the grave. I take the head of the architect and place it in the hole, and then we cover it with soil. We stand there for a moment, two werewolves in the night. It seems only right that we should pay our respects to the head, even if we were the ones who ripped it out of the building. It feels proper to give the head a final resting place. After all, it deserves peace after a life filled with pain.
"Rest in peace," I say.
"The world," says Darla eventually. "It's a crazy place. Filled with fucked-up stuff that most people don't notice or don't want to notice".
I nod. "Come on," I say. "We've got a different type of grave to dig up".
10
Darla lifts a brick away from the pile and throws it to one side.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asks. "I mean, not to doubt you or anything, but are you really really really really really sure? Are your really really really -"
"I'm sure," I say, pulling bricks away as well. Part of me is desperate to find Matt, to pull him out alive, but part of me is worried about the consequences of setting him free. The last time he was free, after all, he tried to kill me, and he's not exactly in control of his werewolf side. He's crazed and chaotic, but right now he's the only one who can possibly help me to find Duncan.
Darla seems cautious, almost nervous. "Whatever you say," she replies. "I just remember you saying that this guy is crazy".
"He is," I say. "But sometimes crazy is good. And if he -"
"There!" Darla says. I look down and see a face looking back up at us from under the remaining bricks. It's a face I never thought I'd see again, a face I thought would remain buried forever.
"You came back," he says, sounding weak.
"Yeah," I say. "Of course I did".
"You..." He pauses. "You took your time".
"Darla," I say, "meet Matt DiMera. The wolf in the pit". Matt stares up at us. It's hard to tell whether he's alive or dead, but then I see his eyes narrow slightly. "I promised I'd help you out of here," I say. "I just... didn't say when".
Darla and I pull more bricks away, and then we help Matt out of the pit.
"I thought this was a legend," Darla says. "I heard stories but... I never thought there was an actual wolf in an actual pit".
There's silence as Matt stands up and looks around. He's covered in small scratches. "I never though I'd get out again," he says slowly. "I thought you were going to leave me down there forever".
"I would have," I say. "But I need your help".
"I helped you already," he says, almost sneering. "We're done".
"I need your help again," I say.
He smiles. "And why would I want to help you again?"
"Because you're crazy," I say.
"Thanks".
"And because we're going somewhere totally crazy". I take a deep breath. "What do you know about the Underworld?"
Matt stares at
me. It's immediately clear that I've got his attention, but there's a look of fear in his face. "I know enough," he says eventually, "to know that there's no way I'd ever tell you how to get down there. Been there, done that. Not many people go to the Underworld and live to tell the tale. The odds of doing it twice? Not a risk I'm willing to take. I'm sorry, there's nothing more I can tell you about it".
"I don't want you to tell me," I say. "I want you to take me. I want you to come with me".
He laughs. "I'm crazy," he says, "but I'm not that crazy".
"I have to rescue Duncan".
"Not if he's in the Underworld," Matt says. "Not if he's down there. If he's down there, the only thing you can do is wait for him to come back up. If he ever makes it out alive". He pauses. "If he's really down there, the best thing you can do is try to think of something nice to say at his funeral".
"He'll make it out," I say. "Because I'm going to go and get him".
"You don't even know what the Underworld is," Matt says. He turns to Darla. "Neither of you do".
"I've heard stories," Darla says. "When -"
"All the stories are true," Matt says. "Every one of them. Think about that before you decide whether or not you want to go down into the Underworld".
"It's not a case of wanting to go down," I say. "It's a case of having to go down".
Matt sighs. "I've been down there," he says. "It's a ruined city. I've seen the kind of creatures that are living in those ruins. Things you never dreamed could be real. Bog Babies. Harpies. Loom People. Some even say Black Annis herself has been seen down there. Do you really want to bump into any of those things in the dark?"
"No,"I say, my heart feeling heavy. "But I also don't want to leave Duncan down there alone. He needs my help". I wait for him to tell me it's okay, for him to tell me that he'll help us. But he just stares at me. "If you won't come with me, at least tell me what I'm up against. At least prepare me". I turn to Darla. "You too. You don't have to come with me. I understand if -"
"Oh I'm coming, darling," she says. "I've always wanted to see a Bob Baby or a Harpy. I met one of those Loom People once and damn near had to crack his skull open to get his jaws off my leg. And as for Black Annis, I wouldn't mind running into her at all: she still owes me a cow".