by Greg Howard
After an uncomfortably long ten seconds, Randy won the stare down. Rafe shrugged. “Suit yourself. I just hope you’ve got a big one.”
“What the hell did you say to me?”
Rafe grabbed the buckle of Randy’s utility belt and gave it a firm tug. “A gun, you hot-headed hick.”
Randy’s top lip tightened into a sneer. Cooper was sure he would lay Rafe out cold. He took a step toward them, ready to jump into the middle if needed, like that would do any good.
Randy pulled his jacket open. A large service revolver hung from his shoulder holster. “That big enough for you, Princess?”
Rafe glanced down at the gun and then just below Randy’s utility belt. “That should do just fine.” He looked up with a smirk and walked away, leaving Randy speechless and scowling.
With her thumbs tucked into her back pockets, Odessa actually tapped the toe of her boot on the sidewalk. “If you boys are finished measuring your cocks, we’ve got work to do.” She walked up to Randy and planted a hand on her hip. “You can come, but you’re on your own down there, cowboy.” She nodded over to Cooper. “He’s our number one concern.”
Randy got so close to her that their noses almost touched. The threat lacing his words made Cooper’s heart skip a beat. “No, lady. If anything happens to him, I’m your number one concern.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Closed for renovations.
Cooper stood in front of the group, staring at the white paper sign taped to the inside of the glass door. “Follow me.”
He led them around to the back of the building with Randy on his heels, searching windows and doors that looked accessible. He was on a mission, the need to release the dark power inside him reaching a dangerous boiling point. Odessa and Rafe followed his lead for a change. Maybe they were finally starting to trust him.
When they reached the back door of the museum, Cooper pulled on the handle. “It’s locked.”
Randy stepped in front of him and dangled a daunting ring of keys in his face. It looked like he had a key to every business in the historic district and most of the houses.
Rafe slapped Randy on the back. “Nice, Officer Thor.”
Randy rolled his eyes and fiddled with the key ring until he found the right one. “It’s a small town. I have keys to most municipal sites.” He shoved the key into the hole and looked back at Rafe. “And please, please touch me again, so I’ll have a legitimate excuse to break your fucking hand.”
Rafe raised both hands in the air like he was being arrested and grinned. If he only knew how serious Randy was, he wouldn’t be grinning. Randy turned the key, pushed the door open, and held it for Odessa and Rafe. Cooper followed them, but Randy stopped him with a hand to the shoulder.
“Hey,” Randy said in a whisper. “Your boyfriend in there is a real prick, you know that, right?”
Cooper cocked his head. “My boyfriend?”
Randy nodded over his shoulder in Rafe’s direction. “Diesel meat. I mean, I know he’s got the face, the muscles, and a sweet-ass Harley, but other than that, I can’t for the life of me understand what you see in him.”
Cooper stared at him, horrified. The blood drained out of his face, not only because Randy assumed he was with Rafe, but that they were having the discussion at all. “Rafe is not my boyfriend.”
Randy raised his eyebrows and tucked a thumb in his utility belt. “He’s not?”
“No.” Cooper ran nervous fingers through his hair. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” The word sounded foreign on his tongue. He couldn’t ever remember having a boyfriend. Not since high school. Not since Trevor.
“Oh. Sorry. I just thought—”
Cooper shook his head and pushed past him. “You thought wrong.”
“Well, okay,” Randy stammered, sounding almost relieved. “Good.”
Good? Cooper wasn’t at all sure of Randy’s meaning. Good that he didn’t have a boyfriend, or good that it wasn’t Rafe? He let it go and walked into the center of the room. It was warmer inside the museum, though there was very little light. The place was a maze of Georgetown history. Large sheets of plastic protected antebellum artifacts and machinery from dust. Placards lined the walls and the bases of the table displays, filled with a lot of information about rice cultivation.
Cooper unzipped his jacket, allowing the warmth to reach his body. He rubbed the back of his neck, kneading his fingers into the base of his skull. His muscles had been bound in tense knots for the last two days with no relief in sight.
Randy moved to the front of the eclectic group. He was obviously used to being in charge. Problem was, so was Odessa. And Cooper was never fond of playing follow the leader either, so they all jockeyed for position as they explored the room.
Randy eyed Odessa. “So? What are we looking for?”
Odessa nodded up. “How do we get to the base of the clock tower?”
Randy pointed over his shoulder to a door at the far end of the long rectangle-shaped room.
Cooper walked over to the door and tried turning the knob. “It’s locked.”
Randy moved in front of him, holding up the same key that gained them access to the rear entrance. He opened the door, stuck his head inside, and looked up. “I doubt anyone ever comes in here unless they have to do repairs on the clock or something. It’s just an access space.”
Cooper slipped around him into the four-foot wide space. A cool draft caressed his cheeks. He got down on hands and knees, brushing away the thick layer of dust covering a slatted wood floor. Unlike the kitchen house, there wasn’t a trap door, which didn’t make any sense to him.
“What are we looking for anyway?” Randy asked, hovering over him.
Cooper scanned the floor around Randy’s feet. It creaked when he shifted his weight. “Step back a sec.”
Randy looked down and then moved to the side. Cooper ran his fingers along the seam between two of the boards where Randy had stood. He finally found a crack wide enough to slip his fingers into. He tugged, but the board wouldn’t move.
“Hang on.” Randy kneeled down beside and found another crack in the same seam. With their combined strength, the board popped up.
Cooper caught a shiny glimpse of what he’d been looking for and went to work on the rest of the boards with Randy’s assistance. Within a couple of minutes, they had most of the floor removed, exposing a rusted silver latch and hinges in the center of the room. Odessa leaned in over Randy’s shoulder, her relaxed expression hinting at something like approval.
Cooper looked over at a frowning Randy. “That’s what we’re looking for.” He curled his index finger through the metal ring recessed in the wood and pulled open a two-foot square section of the floor. A wave of putrid air rushed up from the dark hole and blew over his face, triggering his gag reflex.
Randy crouched and peered down into the opening. “Great. Another dark-ass hole in the ground.” He’d read Cooper’s mind.
Cooper stood and looked at Odessa. “You really think the nest is down there?”
She stepped up to the edge, turned around, and stuck her right foot down onto the top rung of a wooden ladder. “Only one way to find out.” The top of her head quickly disappeared into the darkness below.
Rafe had already descended waist-deep down the ladder when he looked back up at Cooper and Randy. “Remember, aim for the head.” He flashed a crooked grin and then disappeared within seconds. Cooper knew what he meant from his encounter with the changeling at Phipps House. Rafe obviously found exploding zombie brains infinitely amusing.
Cooper moved toward the opening, and Randy stopped him with a firm grip on his bicep. “Are you sure you can trust these people, Red? How do you know they’re not leading us into a trap?”
Cooper forced a reassuring smile. “I know they’re odd, but yes. I trust them.”
Randy shook his head. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“They’re Divinum, like me.” Cooper cupped Randy’s elbow in his palm
. The Gortex jacket was cold and scratchy to the touch. “Remember those… things, the changelings we ran into at Warfield last night?”
Randy peered down into the black hole. “Those demonic-looking zombie fuckers?”
“Yes. We have to find their nest and eliminate them so Rafe and Odessa’s friends can get to Alexander.” He squeezed Randy’s elbow until he’d regained his attention. “You really don’t have to come with us. In fact, I would feel better if you didn’t. We’re not sure what we’ll find down there. Or how many of those things there might be.”
Randy cocked his head. “You think I’m scared?” He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Look, I wouldn’t mind taking out a couple of those nasty fuckers myself. But more importantly, you’re not going down there without me. So stop trying to get rid of me, already. I’m not going anywhere.”
Cooper’s cheeks flushed with heat. If he could have formed a coherent response, he would have. Instead, he nodded, stepped down onto the top rung of the ladder, and descended into darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The waning light from above provided little assistance in the frigid black void that enveloped Cooper at the bottom of the ladder. He couldn’t see a damned thing, and the foul odor had intensified with every step of his descent. He stood cupping his nose and waited as Randy stepped down off the ladder.
“Jesus!” Randy’s feet hit the ground, and he waved a hand in front of his face. “Smells like the asshole of death down here.”
“It’s the changelings.” Odessa’s voice drifted over from somewhere in the darkness. “The nest must be close.”
A light flickered on. Randy held the flashlight from his utility belt in his left hand, the beam illuminating the backs of Odessa and Rafe.
Odessa turned and squinted into the light. “Oh, right. You do need that.”
Cooper cocked his head at her. “And you don’t?”
Odessa looked back down the tunnel. “Neither do you, Cooper. Just keep your eyes open and focus. You’ll see.”
Cooper stared at the blinding wall of darkness in front of him and focused his eyes, straining to see. At first, he saw nothing. Then goose bumps popped up on his arms as shapes outside the bounds of Randy’s flashlight beam took form in a haze of greenish illumination. It was like wearing night-vision goggles, or like the green glow he’d experienced the first night he arrived at Phipps House when he was outside looking for Lillie Mae. It wasn’t perfect, but he could see.
The tunnel was five feet wide, with no sign of any human presence. No crumpled soda cans, beer bottles, or cigarette butts littered the ground. Ahead, the outline of Rafe’s sizable green frame emerged, looking like the Incredible Hulk.
Cooper eased forward, running his hand along the dirt wall. “This is so freaky.”
Rafe looked back at him with glowing green orbs for eyeballs. “See what you’ve been missing out on, bro?”
Rafe and Odessa continued, their backs fading into the void. Cooper struggled to recalibrate his vision. It flared full blast one minute and waned the next. Something heavy scrambled over Cooper’s foot. He jumped and kicked at the dirt.
“Holy hell!”
Randy shined his light down at Cooper’s feet. “What?”
Grabbing Randy’s hand, Cooper aimed the light down on the ground in front of him. A fat rat scampered through the beam and back down the tunnel. Randy laughed softly as Cooper sighed and let go of his hand, suddenly too aware of the contact.
Odessa had stopped ahead. She held a hand up to halt them and peered down the dark tunnel, craning her neck. Waiting. Listening. She looked back at them and whispered, “We are close.”
The pungent smell grew stronger with every step. Cooper struggled to maintain his night vision. At the moment, though, he flew blind. He would have to work on that. With eyes peeled to the beam of Randy’s flashlight for guidance, he mapped their path in his head, imagining what sat above their location. The tunnel was more like a maze, and he couldn’t tell exactly where they were. They could have been going in circles for all he knew. Randy slipped his hand just under the hem of Cooper’s jacket, touching the small of his back and sending shivers down his spine. It remained there only a few seconds. Then he dropped it.
In front of them, Odessa and Rafe came to a sudden stop, which halted Cooper and Randy as well. A cool breeze swirled around them, tickling the rims of Cooper’s ears and filling his nostrils with the unbearable acrid odor. As best as he could tell, they had emerged from the tunnel into a large open space. Cooper followed the beam of Randy’s flashlight, inspecting their surroundings as they edged forward. The area was at least double the size of the space under the kitchen house at Warfield. A dozen tunnel entrances dotted curved clay walls leading in all different directions. One of them to Warfield, he supposed, and one of them toward Phipps House.
Odessa moved from one tunnel entrance to the next, inspecting each and sniffing the air until she had circled the entire perimeter. Rafe stood in the center of the room, chest puffed out like a shield and staring up the walls to the ceiling.
Randy covered his nose with the back of his hand. “What the hell is this place?”
Rafe’s hand shot straight up to silence Randy, his head back and eyes peeled on the ceiling. Cooper’s breath caught in his throat. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Rafe pointed up.
Cooper looked up, a knot of dread forming in his stomach as he did. He focused his eyes on the darkness above and concentrated. The night vision kicked in again, and green shapes materialized about thirty or forty feet above them. A mass of twisted bodies tangled in knotted clumps of decomposing flesh hung from the ceiling, moving in waves of labored breathing. Cooper’s heart pounded in his chest so hard, he was sure the sound would wake the sleeping monsters. Palms and fingers burned with blistering heat like they were being held over an open flame. Randy innocently raised his arm and pointed the flashlight up at the ceiling, its searing beam landing right in the middle of the nesting horde.
Cooper wished to God he hadn’t done that.
Chapter Thirty
A bulbous head snapped backward, unnaturally so. Beady green eyes locked onto Cooper. The creature’s jaws parted in jerky slow motion, like it was about to vomit. What came from its mouth instead, was an earsplitting shriek that reverberated through the cavern.
“Fuck me,” Randy muttered, gazing up in a trancelike state.
Odessa backed toward them with her eyes peeled to the ceiling. “They are waking up.”
“Yeah. No shit,” Cooper replied, trying to keep his voice steady and low as he edged closer to Randy.
A chorus of cracking bones and ripping flesh trickled over the ceiling as the changelings untangled themselves and woke one by one. Dozens of them slithered over one another and hissed at the intruders. Odessa and Rafe closed in around Cooper, circling with their backs to him. The pale-skinned changeling that started the battle cry dropped to the floor only a few feet away from Odessa. Dirt bounced up around its feet upon impact. It crouched and hissed at her.
Odessa threw a hand out in front of her and the creature sailed backward, slamming hard into the dirt wall thirty feet away. Odessa curled her fingers into a tight ball. The changeling screamed and writhed around on the ground. The cry was somewhat human, but amplified tenfold and laced with a piercing cadence that started a chain reaction of equally shrill cries above them.
Two changelings hit the ground in front of Rafe. He drew daggers from somewhere inside his leather jacket and charged the beasts, spinning away from their grasps and driving the blades down into the center of two hairless skulls. The bodies exploded, flesh, bone, and brain matter shooting in all directions. Cooper edged back, wishing to God he still had Betsy’s dagger, or Betsy herself for that matter. They needed all the help they could get.
Randy jumped in front of him, aiming his gun over Cooper’s right shoulder. “Get down!”
Cooper dropped to his knees. The gunshot blasted in his ears, echoing through the room. He ho
ped Randy had gotten one, but he had no time to check. A linebacker of a changeling barreled toward him, snarling at him with a dislocated jaw. A mass of pointy teeth snapped as it advanced with surprising speed. Adrenaline burned in Cooper’s veins, and a surge of destructive power rumbled deep inside him, like molten lava erupting from his core. With slight trepidation, he allowed his instincts to take over.
Springing to his feet, he threw his hand straight out in front of him and released the power percolating inside him. He wasn’t sure what he did, but the creature wailed and fell back, tumbling several times over itself until it slammed into the wall. It rolled over and sat up. Shook its head—dazed, but not dead. He didn’t have time to relish in his minor success. More changelings dropped from above and surrounded them. Escape through one of the tunnels would be hard-fought, but it was their only chance. Cooper eased back and looked over his shoulder. Randy held his gun out in front of him in one hand and wielded the flashlight in the other.
“We have to get to one of the tunnels,” Cooper yelled over the deafening screeches. His night vision was a shaky mess of green monsters and a hundred bright orbs of sinister eyes. He’d lost track of Odessa and Rafe, and his clarity of vision waned once again.
Another gunshot exploded from behind and a shriek sounded right in front of him. Panic solidified in his gut when the faint green glow of light illuminated a changeling rushing straight for him, its teeth gnashing and its claws reaching out for him. Cooper spun around, crouched, and sliced a hand, palm up, through the shrinking space between him and the charging monster. His fingertips sizzled, releasing a sharp spasm of power that took his breath away.
The creature stopped in its tracks, a howl of pain roaring from its mouth. A straight line across its fleshy stomach opened up, like a zipper in his skin had been yanked back, purging its contents in a gush of foul-smelling innards and thick steaming blood. The creature’s mouth hung open as it looked down and inspected the front of its body. It looked back up at Cooper, lingering a moment before melting onto to the ground into a pool of blood and entrails.