The taint of hell was thick around them, making Patrick grind his teeth. They passed junctions that split off into dark tunnels his magic had no interest in following. Lisette sometimes looked over her shoulder at him for clarification, and he’d motion which way they needed to go. The saturation of black magic and hellish taint was strongest in a particular direction, and when Lisette would’ve turned right at one junction sometime later, Patrick tapped her on the shoulder and pointed left.
“Can we go that way?” he asked.
Lisette frowned, her headlamp casting strange shadows on her face. She swung her waterproof backpack around and opened it up, pulling out a thick stack of folded-up, plastic-lined paper. She swiftly flipped her way through it, finally stopping on a square filled with silvery-gray lines that were washed out by her headlamp. Beneath them were lines of various colors depicting areas and notes in French that Patrick couldn’t read.
“We are here, oui?” Lisette tapped a faded junction with a fingertip before following the line leftward. “We can go this way, but it is tight.”
Patrick studied the section of the map depicting the underground network, tracing a route that shot off in the direction his magic was tugging him toward. The problem was he didn’t know what he was looking for.
If Ilya was using the Catacombs as a place for his people to pray to their god, then he’d need room for his sermons and their moments of worship; space for an altar and all that entailed. He tried not to think of Santa Muerte and her altar draped in marigold beneath New York City. The similarities drawn out of need were difficult to ignore though.
Patrick tapped at a large square that seemed a viable spot and hopefully still where his magic was taking him. He wouldn’t know until they got farther into the tunnels. The hellish taint was everywhere, and even the water in the extra bottle Lisette had brought for him wasn’t enough to wash the foul taste away.
“What’s this?”
Lisette looked at where he pointed and hummed softly. “The Salle du Drapeau. It is a large chamber, one where parties are sometimes held.”
“Can you get us there?”
Lisette folded up the map. “Oui. It is a long way though. No easy exits.”
She sounded a little uncertain, and a little scared. So far they hadn’t come across anything out of the ordinary, or anyone else for that matter. Not having an exit strategy wasn’t great, but Patrick couldn’t walk away from this.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he promised.
Lisette gave him a brittle smile before tucking the map into her backpack. She settled its weight on her shoulders before turning down the leftward tunnel and started walking.
They walked for hours.
Hunched over, upright, sometimes even crawling—they kept moving. The cold and the dark surrounded them, headlamp and witchlights providing the only illumination. From time to time Patrick thought he heard movement in the tunnels they left behind, and they’d wait while he scanned the area using his magic, coming up empty of a threat each time.
It didn’t make him feel better.
However many hours later, they came upon a set of old stone stairs and descended deeper between levels. Patrick’s ears popped on the way down, the air getting colder and the hellish taint getting stronger.
Lisette slowed at one point, pointing at a tiny space Patrick thought was a shadow until it revealed itself to be a narrow passage in the wall, only a couple of feet wide.
“We’ll go through here to the Bone Well,” she said.
What dead were buried below had been mostly hidden behind the limestone walls they’d passed through, bones few and far between in the tunnels. That changed once Patrick dragged himself through the narrow passage, finding himself in a space on the other side where a tall wall was filled to the edges with bones.
The witchlights floated upward, revealing numerous skulls, ribs, spines, arms and leg bones embedded in the wall itself, the structure bulging from the mass grave. The space was thick with bodies slowly pushing free of their resting place.
As Patrick pulled himself out of the hole, his hands brushed against fallen bone gathered on the floor. He straightened slowly, breathing musty air and tasting dust on his tongue, trying not to think about where that dust came from.
Lisette tugged on his arm. “This way.”
They kept walking, the passageways filled with bones and a trail of hellish taint that only grew stronger the closer they got to its origination point.
Then the noises started.
And Patrick’s magic sparked a warning.
Scratches on stone, the echo of quick footsteps, and the sound of heavy, monstrous breathing drifted their way. Lisette froze, face draining of all color as her breath came in rapid puffs. Patrick touched her arm, conjuring up a small mageglobe, the pale blue light casting them in an eerie glow where they were half-hunched in a tunnel.
“How much further to the Salle du Drapeau?” he asked. Lisette didn’t answer, and the feel of hell pressed closer through Patrick’s magic. “Lisette!”
She let out a shuddering gasp, hands shaking. She clenched the straps of her backpack to keep them still. “We’re close, but the way in is very tight.”
“We need to go.” Patrick grabbed her hand and pulled her forward, even though he didn’t know the way. “Tell me where we need to go.”
He had to drag her along after him, her feet not wanting to work, the ceiling slanting low as they kicked bones aside with their feet. Patrick’s heart was pounding double time even as they ran, the light from his magic and her headlamp bouncing around them.
Then something screamed behind them, the sound glass-sharp and echoing through the dark with the same ferocity he remembered on London streets.
Drekavacs.
The demonic-looking zombies threw themselves around the corner, crawling on the floor and walls and ceiling of the tunnel, moving shadows that smelled like rotten death. Their eyes reflected the light in a hideous way as they scuttled closer through the dark.
The ceiling dipped, forcing Patrick and Lisette lower, stunting their forward momentum. Patrick raised a shield between them and the drekavacs as he and Lisette were forced to their knees by the confines of the tunnel. His palms scraped against the cold ground as he pushed Lisette forward, trying to see around her in the dark ahead while hell nipped at their feet.
The tunnel was a dead end.
“Motherfucker,” Patrick ground out.
Lisette squirmed in the tight space, twisting free of her backpack and kicking it aside. “There’s a way through!”
Patrick couldn’t see what she was talking about until she shoved herself headfirst into a tiny opening that was maybe a little taller than twelve inches if he was lucky. Lisette pushed her way deeper using her toes, the panicked sound of her breathing echoing beneath the screams of the drekavacs.
Patrick did not want to go into that space.
He had no choice but to follow.
As Lisette’s feet disappeared, Patrick crawled after her, sliding flat with his arms outstretched, the ceiling so close he had to turn his head to the side, stone scraping against his cheek. He breathed out, a puff of cold air that left his mouth dry, magic the only thing keeping the drekavacs from tearing them to pieces as they desperately inched their way forward through the impossibly narrow shaft.
And then they didn’t even have that.
The spell that ripped through the tunnel crashed into Patrick’s shields with enough force to crack them, pain lancing through his head. The walls around them vibrated in a way that made him freeze, lungs gone tight. Stone dust fell onto his face, and he breathed it in, trying not to choke on it.
They were going to be crushed.
Then Lisette’s voice reached him, high and thin from panic. “Just the late-night trains. We’re beneath Gare Montparnasse.”
“Sure, just the trains,” Patrick muttered under his breath as they dragged themselves forward by their fingertips and toes while the drekavacs clawed again
st his thinned-out shields behind them. “Not like I need my heart or anything.”
The stone walls got impossibly closer, and Patrick swallowed against the tightening in his chest and kept going.
The only time he stopped clawing himself forward was when his shields broke.
The spell came out of nowhere, powered by an immortal’s strength, tearing through his focus like a bomb. His mageglobe sputtered out, plunging them into darkness, Lisette’s body blocking the shine of her headlamp.
Then the drekavacs screamed, and Patrick didn’t know which way was up as his head spun, nausea from the backlash twisting his gut.
He could hear the dead clawing at the stone, wriggling through the space beyond his feet, and the thought of getting torn to shreds while trapped underground got Patrick moving through the pain. He reformed his mageglobe and dragged his shields back up. His bones ached from the weight of them as he pieced them back together, leaning into the soulbond to do so, drawing magic from a ley line far below.
Half a second later, a drekavac slammed into his shaky barrier, screaming loud enough to make Patrick’s ears pop. Patrick was ready for the next hit, bracing himself for the blow. The walls vibrated around them again, and he wasn’t sure it was the trains that time.
Lisette moaned, high and frightened, but she kept moving, kept dragging herself forward through the dark. Patrick followed her, listening as the stone creaked all around them while the drekavacs screamed like a nightmare behind them, forcing himself to breathe through the taste of hell.
Patrick didn’t know who had summoned the drekavacs, but he’d be unsurprised if it was Ilya. The necromancer could be anywhere in the Catacombs. Patrick only hoped Ilya wasn’t ahead of them, where the black magic roiled against his senses like crude oil in water—a poisonous, tainted mess.
He could sense the drekavacs clawing at his shields, desperately trying to break through. Patrick willed his shields as strong as they would go, painting over the cracks with magic. The anchors in his bones that Persephone had reset last summer hadn’t been damaged, but his head throbbed from the attack. The stone his breath blew against was so close he could feel the chill of it.
Another couple of inches, another rolling hit of magic, and then the ceiling above started to slant away from his body. Patrick’s lungs expanded the same way the tunnel started to. He breathed in dust, then air, fingers clawing at the ground as he dragged himself forward, following Lisette’s kicking feet.
The ceiling bent higher, and Lisette pushed herself to her knees, able to crawl. Another foot, and Patrick could do the same. Patrick’s breath came sickly fast, and he wished he could cast a spell of some sort, knowing the only magic he could use down here would be defensive wards, or he’d risk bringing down the stone and graves above them, burying them alive.
He could hear Lisette crying as she continued forward with a speed that probably skinned her knees and shredded her palms. Patrick’s weren’t much better. But he could breathe again, and soon they were both hunched over and running down a jagged tunnel. Then the ceiling angled upward and they were running upright, cutting through the dark.
The drekavacs never stopped screaming.
The damage to Patrick’s shields made his nerves burn, but he kept them up as Lisette scrambled her way through twisting tunnels by memory alone. The dry floor beneath their feet began to turn damp, then muddy, the tunnel they were heading into partially flooded.
Lisette barreled into the water with a trembling cry, running toward a corridor Patrick hoped they wouldn’t die in. Water splashed over his chest as he followed in her wake, the tunnel rising ahead to a dry path that led to a rectangle opening carved into stone. Patrick reached out and grabbed Lisette by the arm. Her scream was nearly as loud as the drekavacs, and she swung around to hit him before she saw his face and remembered he was there.
“Sorry,” Patrick said, pulling her to the side. “Let me go first. Stay close.”
He raised a shield between them and the entrance, pouring raw magic into a mageglobe that he sent hurtling through the opening. It wasn’t giving off enough light to push back the darkness entirely, but the glimpses Patrick got when they entered made him wish he could pretend he never saw what was hidden in the Salle du Drapeau.
Bone cracked beneath their boots, no matter where they stepped. The smell of bodies left to rot in a damp grave filled the air, making Patrick gag. Lisette moaned, her breath coming shallow and panicky.
Witchlights spilled from Patrick’s fingertips, the bright white illumination glittering like stars as the sparks rose into the air. The space had a high ceiling, and a tricolor flag was painted on the large far wall, giving the room its name.
Against that wall was an altar made out of bones stacked on top of each other, layers of femurs rising between three layers of skulls. The skulls that made the topmost layer had all been smashed open on the top, dark from old blood, the altar covered in it. Stretched out on top was a man whose throat had been carved open all the way to his navel, his guts spilling out down the altar.
Around them, filling the rest of the space, were piles and piles of bodies not yet eroded into bones.
Sacrifices.
“Fuck,” Patrick breathed out, staring at Peklabog’s altar.
He didn’t think much of Lisette moving behind him—not until the rounded joint of a femur slammed against the side of his head and the witchlights high above smeared through the dark like shooting stars.
21
Patrick’s concentration broke, but at least it wasn’t his skull.
His shields far down the tunnels collapsed, and he knew what was coming. The witchlights all around them sputtered and nearly died from the pain in his head, blackness eating at the edges of his vision.
“I pray to our god in the Orthodox Church of the Dead, and you’ll be our next sacrifice,” Lisette bit out.
Lisette no longer looked fearful, only murderous as she swung the femur bone down like an axe. Patrick rolled out of its way and kicked out hard with his foot, catching her in the knee. The crunch was bone getting broken and jammed into an angle the joint was never meant to go. Lisette screamed in agony, dropping the femur and falling to the ground with a sob.
Patrick got an elbow underneath him, yanked his dagger free, and retracted his shield to cover only himself. It left Lisette beyond the safety it provided as the drekavacs hurled themselves into the Salle du Drapeau.
“Je vénère votre Dieu!” Lisette yelled, holding out one arm toward them in a pleading manner.
The drekavacs never stopped coming. Lisette never stopped screaming until one ripped out her throat with its teeth.
There went any hope of getting answers.
The rest of the demonic zombies threw themselves on his shield, clawing and biting at his magic. Their screams made Patrick’s ears ring as he struggled to hold up his shields through the throbbing ache in his skull and the nausea twisting up his stomach.
The soulbond pulled tight in his chest, but Patrick paid it no mind, forcing himself to focus on the problem at hand. Something wet trickled down the side of his face, but he ignored it. Shoving himself to his knees, Patrick flipped the dagger around in his hand, readjusting his grip.
His shields were thin, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. But they stayed up, powered by external magic when his own kept slipping away from him like his thoughts.
Head wounds were a fucking bitch to deal with.
Patrick lunged, stabbing the closest drekavac straight through his shield, tearing into its torso. The scream it let out was furious for a single second before what magic animated it bled away beneath heavenly white fire. Patrick yanked his dagger free and withdrew his arm back behind his shield before it could get bitten off by sharp teeth.
“This will not do.”
The raspy voice came from behind him, dry like bone. Patrick froze, breathing harshly through the pain in his head. He conjured up a mageglobe, filling it with raw magic despite the way it made the nerves in
the back of his eyes burn.
The drekavacs wrenched themselves away from his shield, skittering backward, low to the ground, all the while screaming furiously. The shadows were pushed away by a dull light flickering to life behind him. Patrick slowly twisted around, still holding his dagger, and watched the altar move.
Bones shivered and jumped, rising up on their ends to roll around each other as the altar broke apart. Every eye socket in every skull glowed with a dim orange light. The body lying atop it slipped through bone, falling to the stone below as the altar reshaped itself into something else.
The long bones and skulls adhered to each other in the shape of a tall, narrow column that resembled a mortar if one squinted hard enough. The bones shifted and spun until they settled into their final shape, supporting a shadowy figure that slowly coalesced into an old, haggard crone who took her place on top of the floating mortar.
Shadows played across her heavily wrinkled face, mouth and large nose both misshapen to a monstrous degree, but her eyes were clear and sharp in the light from the skulls. Her long white hair fell around her face in a tangled mess, knees pressed to her chest, dirt-stained fingers gripping the knobby ends of thigh bones beneath her.
The crone smiled, revealing iron teeth that reminded him of Ashanti. “Perhaps I should give you task, da?”
She gripped the air in front of her, and a wooden pestle appeared between her crooked fingers. The crone whacked the pestle against the mortar, and her strange mode of transportation floated closer. The drekavacs skittered over the bodies and bones surrounding Patrick, keeping their distance from the crone.
The spark of ozone in the air was familiar, if dulled. The crone was immortal, but not a god. Still a myth prayed to life through stories though.
Still a problem.
“Pattycakes here already has a task, Baba Yaga,” a gratingly familiar voice said from behind Patrick. “Persephone won’t appreciate you trying to give him another.”
On the Wings of War (Soulbound Book 5) Page 26