Nothing came back but static. The silence was ominous.
“Hurry up!” Opal said to Ruiz. “What are you doing down there?”
“Hey, this is a government setup, you know? So it was built by the lowest bidder. And it’s like really old. All these plastic connections, all basura.” Ruiz clamped his screwdriver between his teeth and dug deep in the console with both hands. “Hold on. Jus’ a sec.”
Opal tried the microphone again and again, calling Dru’s name. As the seconds ticked by without a response, a wave of panic rose up inside her. Something was obviously horribly wrong. She wished she hadn’t had so much to drink. But they were so good.
Without knowing where Dru was, or what had happened, there was nothing Opal could do. She could only stand there, helpless, trying to raise Dru with the clacking button on the old government microphone.
She stared at the dead screens of the control console, wishing they could show her what was going on. The dead gray ovals looked like a graveyard full of tombstones.
Yellow lights flickered on across the console. A row of needles jumped, and an electric hum reverberated from the speaker.
“Titus is coming back,” Dru said clearly, her voice loud and strong. Then it broke up again, alternating bits of dead silence with chopped-up syllables that made no sense.
Opal keyed the microphone again. “Dru! We can hear you. Where are you?”
“Opal? Oh, thank—” The speaker crackled and went dead again as the light winked out.
Opal slammed the microphone down. “Ruiz!”
“Hang on,” Ruiz said. “Almost got this. There!”
The lights came back up again, and with them Dru’s voice. “—as far as I can tell. Millions of gallons of scourge. And I see generators, pumps, everything. The underground lakes are full of scourge, and Titus is planning to release it on the world. To raise the dead. All the dead in the world. I’m going to try to stop him, but you have to get everyone out of there!”
“Titus? For real?” Opal’s mind whirled. “Scourge in a lake? What are you talking about?”
“A series of huge underground reservoirs of scourge. Imagine the biggest toxic waste spill in the world.”
Opal tried to picture that, but she couldn’t. She clicked the button. “A toxic waste spill? Here in the mountains?”
“This is the continental divide,” Dru said matter-of-factly. “That scourge won’t stay here in Colorado. It’s going to flow both east and west from the Rocky Mountains. All the way to the Atlantic and Pacific. And from there to the entire world.”
Ruiz crawled out from beneath the console. Even through his silver mask, she could see the fear on his face.
Opal clicked the microphone on again. “So it’s just all going to get washed away, right?”
“No,” Dru said tightly. “Titus’s necromantic powers have been magnified by the coming apocalypse. This scourge will keep growing. Every time it reaches a dead body or even a bone, it will multiply. Until all the dead in the entire world have become undead creatures. Imagine the carnage. Millions would die. Maybe billions.”
Opal and Ruiz traded long glances.
“Is she serious?” Ruiz said. “Because, man, that doesn’t sound good.”
“Can you warn Rane and Salem?” Dru asked.
Opal clicked the button. “I don’t know where they got to. Last I saw, they went sneaking off together.”
Dru went silent so long that Opal was afraid they had lost her again. “I need to find them,” Dru said finally, sounding frightened. “Meanwhile, you need to get everyone out of there. This place is a trap. And don’t let anyone drink any more. That stuff will mess them up.”
Opal’s gaze slid to the half-empty glasses perched on the edge of the metal control console, and she fought down a wave of nausea. “Dru, where are you?”
“I don’t know, exactly. But I found a map. I’ve got to find Greyson. And Rane and Salem. We’ll meet you outside. I hope.”
“Greyson? What? Dru, get out of there, right now!” Opal waited. “Dru!”
But Dru didn’t answer.
Opal looked out across the dancing crowd, all of the sorcerers oblivious to the looming danger. If they all took off their masks, she wondered how many she would recognize. Probably most of them had set foot in the Crystal Connection at some point or another. They would recognize her.
“Party’s over.” She pulled off her mask. “Ruiz, can you get the PA system working? Turn on all the lights in here?”
“The lights? Sure. No problem.” He pulled off his silver mask, leaving his black hair sticking out in all directions, and studied the console. “Oh. Here we go.” He spread out his fingers across a line of wide plastic switches and threw them all at once with a loud click.
Something thumped in the distance, and the cavern faded to pitch black. A murmur of worried voices broke out in the darkness.
“That’s not it,” Opal said.
“Yeah. Sorry.” After a few more clicks, the lights all came back on, brighter than ever. Grinning, Ruiz pointed at the microphone in Opal’s hands. “You’re on.”
Opal clicked the button. “Hey! Listen up, people!” Her voice reverberated off the rock walls, startling her.
The crowd milled about, looking up into the bright lights.
“Over here!” Opal waved her arms. “Hey! Party’s over. Time to go home. Out the door, turn that way, head down the main tunnel to the entrance.” No one moved. She lifted the microphone again. “Listen. You know who I am. You’ve been in my shop before. Right? All of you. Have I ever lied to you?”
No one answered, but now at least everyone was looking at her. She could see recognition in their eyes.
“There’s a wave of undead about to flood this place. Anybody who stays here is probably gonna end up dead. Everybody’s got to go. Now!”
A wailing alarm Klaxon drowned her out. Across the cavern, old yellow strobe lights began to spin on either side of the blast door. Voices in the crowd shouted, and they quickly turned into screams of fear.
Opal pointed toward the only exit. “Everybody! Run!”
Greyson snapped awake in the darkness of his cell. Something had changed in the cold, stale air surrounding him, but he wasn’t sure what. His glowing red eyes scanned the tiny stone chamber, allowing him to see its dim outlines, if just barely.
Everything looked the same as it had when he’d been dragged in here. The floor was littered with dirty debris. Rock dust, gravel, scraps of wiring with brittle insulation, unidentifiable bits of plastic.
The creatures had left him in here for hours, possibly days, without food or water. It had taken enormous effort to struggle free of the webs that bound him, breaking the strands one by one against the rough metal edge of the vault-like steel door.
Now, those webs lay in a shapeless pile in the corner. Greyson was free, but there was no way out of this small room. On hands and knees, he had dug through the useless junk scattered across the floor, finding only a rusty braided steel cable. What he could do with that exactly, he wasn’t sure yet. It certainly wouldn’t get him through the thick metal door.
He had spent hours running his fingers across every gritty square inch of the stone ceiling that arched overhead and then abruptly ended in a wall of rock, like the termination of an unfinished tunnel. The only way out was through that door. And it was bolted from the outside.
Left alone in the dark, all he could think of was Dru. Where was she now? Was she safe?
Every so often, he swore he could sense her presence, as if she was somewhere just outside the door, looking for him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she was calling his name, over and over. But no matter how he strained his ears, all he could hear was the echoing silence of his own steady breathing.
It was just wishful thinking, he told himself. There was no way she could know where he was. No way to find him.
As time dragged by, his fate became more and more clear. There was no way out. Sooner or later, he would
die here.
He’d always thought of himself as someone who lived a life without regrets. But he realized now, shivering against the cold steel door, that it wasn’t true. There were so many things that he wished he could go back and change.
He wished he could have fixed things with his family. He wished he’d known the truth about his father, that he was much more than just a crazy old man who always dragged Greyson into his troubles. He wished he’d listened when his father and his sister talked about the magic that ran in their family. Instead, he had shut them out with accusations and ultimatums. Though they had tried to tell him the truth, he had ignored them and instead let his own bullheadedness drive them apart forever.
He wished he hadn’t walled off the world after that, throwing himself into his work until there was nothing else left in his life. He could have spent less time fixing cars and more time fixing the things that mattered.
But most of all, he wished he hadn’t walked away from Dru. He should have trusted her. Trusted in her knowledge, her compassion, and her inner strength. She would have figured out a way to break this demonic curse, if he’d given her a chance. He’d been afraid of hurting her, ruining her life, but now he knew he was just being selfish. It was his own fear that had driven him away.
She wouldn’t have rejected him. Even if he was still some kind of monster. He only saw that now.
But it was too late.
Thirsty and exhausted, Greyson realized he must have fallen asleep with his ear to the steel door, listening to the impenetrable silence until his eyelids finally drooped closed. Now, as he breathed in a slow lungful of the cold, stale air, he figured out what had woken him.
It was the sharp sound of leather-heeled boots on stone. A single pair of footsteps echoed down the tunnel toward him. It sounded nothing like those skeletal creatures, who tended to shuffle and scrape.
These were booted feet, striding closer with what sounded like determination or barely restrained fury. Someone big, he figured. Someone on a mission. The same footsteps he’d heard walking on the road where he’d been captured.
Instantly, Greyson was on his feet, his whole body tense. This time, he would be ready. Quickly, he picked up the braided steel cable he’d found among the debris and wrapped it tightly around his fingers. The cold, rusty metal formed a crude set of brass knuckles. Not much of a weapon, but it was all he had, and he was going to make it count.
The footsteps strode closer, and a faint yellow stripe of light crept beneath the door, picking up the bottom edges of the junk that covered the floor.
For a brief moment, Greyson entertained the possibility that somebody might be coming to rescue him. But who would even know he was down here? And where was here, exactly? He had no idea.
The footsteps marched so quickly that Greyson was worried they would walk right on past. But they stopped, and the massive lock on the steel door screeched. An icy spike of adrenaline shot down Greyson’s spine and across his shoulders. He was only going to get one shot at this.
The steel door groaned. With a shudder, the heavy hatch swung outward, until the yellow glow of a foot-long metal flashlight spilled in. Behind it loomed a man in a long red double-breasted jacket with shining gold buttons.
Lips drawn back in fury, the man pointed the flashlight at Greyson’s eyes, nearly blinding him. “Where is she?” the man roared.
He stood a couple inches taller than Greyson, and didn’t look like a pushover by any means, despite the George Washington outfit. Squinting painfully into the light, Greyson took in all the details he could: the man’s distracted stance, the shrinking distance between them, the growing gap between the doorframe and the door as it swung open.
Everything after that happened on instinct.
As the man drew in a breath to shout something else, he lifted the flashlight, and Grayson snatched it with his left hand. Gripping the rounded end with the hot lens, he twisted and pulled. The man hung on for a split second, losing his balance as Greyson yanked him closer.
At the same time, Greyson drove his right fist—the one wrapped in steel cable—hard into the man’s gut, doubling him over. His breath exploded out of him.
Greyson pulled the flashlight free, holding onto the bell-shaped lit end. In one motion, he swung it up overhead in a fast arc, driving it down hard on the back of the man’s head like a club. His slicked-back hair flew with the impact.
With a meaty thump, the man dropped in the doorway.
Spots pulsed in Greyson’s eyes from the flashlight beam, and the edges of his vision pounded with adrenaline. Breathing hard, he had to rein in the animal instinct that made him want to press the attack. Pay the man back for trapping him here. Finish him off.
Greyson shook his head to clear it. That wasn’t who he was. That was the remnant of his curse, the part of him that made his eyes glow red. He couldn’t give in to it, not ever again.
The man was down, and the door was open. That was all that mattered. Greyson stepped over him into the wide tunnel beyond, ready to run. He shone the flashlight around, looking for a way out, and came face-to-face with the undead.
They had him surrounded. Dozens of silent undead creatures stood there filling the tunnel, staring at him with hollow eye sockets.
He hadn’t heard them approach, even though he’d been listening at the door for endless hours. Had they been stationed outside his cell all along? Why? Were they just waiting for him to wither away and die?
He didn’t have time to process that unsettling thought. As one, the creatures raised their bony hands. Webbing swirled into existence around their fingers.
Greyson ducked and twisted, dodging streams of webs as they hissed toward him. Swinging the metal flashlight like a club, he bashed his way past two creatures, and then a third, before a web caught the flashlight and yanked it from his fist.
He let go, knowing it was no use trying to hold onto it. The flashlight tumbled, sending a jerky beam of light across the mob of shuffling undead creatures and their outstretched arms. Streamers of web shot through the light toward him, throwing spidery shadows.
Greyson held onto one end of the coiled steel cable and swung the length of it like a lasso. It sizzled through the air, knocking off the nearest creature’s skull with a hollow crunch. He sprang through the gap and charged into the darkness of the tunnel, leaving the horde of creatures behind.
He only got a few steps before more webs tangled his legs, sending him crashing to the hard floor. He struggled to keep moving, but the creatures were on him too fast, tangling up his arms and chest in a tight cocoon, until he couldn’t move.
As he struggled onto his knees, the man in red slowly got to his feet.
Breathing hard, the man slowly stripped off his torn red jacket and tossed it aside. With one gloved hand, he swept his dark hair out of his eyes and then picked up the flashlight. Its yellow beam, now pointed at the floor, made the space seem to shrink between them.
He regarded Greyson with untempered malice. “She’s looking for you, Horseman. You’re all she seems to care about.”
Greyson glared back at him. “Who?”
But as soon as he asked, he knew. Dru.
If she was here looking for him, that meant she wasn’t a prisoner like he was. His surge of hope quickly turned to fear as he realized just what she was up against. There was no way she could fight these things and win. There were just too many of them.
“She doesn’t understand,” the man said, slowly shaking his head as he stalked toward Greyson. “We all have our destiny laid out before us. You’re here for a purpose, just as I am.”
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Greyson ground out. His mouth tasted like rock dust from his fall. He spat it out. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the one who’s going to create the new world. And you’re the one who’s going to destroy the old.”
Greyson had no idea what that meant, but he didn’t like the sound of it. There had to be a way for him to get out of this
. Inside the cocoon, he tried to shrug his arms loose, but they were bound too tightly.
The man stepped closer, looming over him. When Greyson refused to tilt his head back to look up at him, the man gracefully knelt down on one knee, just out of reach.
His eyes lit with a fiendish hunger. “She thinks she can stop doomsday. She’s wrong. If I can’t convince her of that, I’ll just have to show her. Tonight is the night.” He tightened his gloved fist until Greyson could hear the leather creak. “That is why you’re here. It’s your destiny. The power inside you is the perfect catalyst. The final trigger for doomsday. She’ll see for herself.”
“Don’t bet on it. If Dru’s here, she’ll find a way,” Greyson said firmly. He held the man’s dark gaze until the unspoken message passed between them. Greyson knew just what Dru could really do. He knew how strong she was, deep down, and he knew she’d never give up. “If anyone can stop doomsday, it’s her.”
The man’s nostrils flared, and he rose to his feet. Breathing hard, he frowned at Greyson.
“You aren’t worthy of her,” he finally said through clenched teeth. Then he pointed down the tunnel, throwing his entire body into the gesture, like a commander leading his troops to war. As one, the undead creatures turned and marched, dragging Greyson behind them. Teeth gritted, he fought against them, trying to hold his ground or at least slow them down.
It was no use. Seemingly without effort, the undead hauled him away.
He just hoped that whatever happened to him, Dru wouldn’t be forced to watch.
Deeper inside the machine shop, beyond the edge of the light, Dru saw a silhouette that made her breath catch in her throat. Not a human being. Something much bigger.
A car, swaddled in webs.
Long and sinister, pointed at the front with a piercing nose cone. Black-speckled webs wrapped every inch of it, starting at the sharp nose and continuing up over the windshield, all the way back to the angled spoiler wing that rose up from the tail.
Dru stood stunned, staring at the unmistakable shape of Hellbringer glistening in the darkness, cocooned by the undead webs.
Hot tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She covered her face in her hands, as all of the emotions that she had kept bottled up inside came spilling out. If Hellbringer was here, then Greyson was too. The two of them were inseparable.
A Kiss Before Doomsday Page 26