Carnival of Stone: A Novella (The Soren Chase Series)

by Rob Blackwell

  “What are you doing?” Glen whispered, still on the ground.

  “What I always do. Making it up as I go along.”

  Soren stuck up his hands and stepped back onto the road. The two leprechauns were perched on either side of the car. They were again dressed in fancy pinstriped suits, but were wearing what appeared to be tailor-made flak jackets over them. Both leprechauns were covered in ammo and, from the look of it, a few different types of grenades. The two held automatic weapons in their hand. Soren was no gun expert, but they looked like Uzis.

  “I’m open to ideas about resolving this peacefully,” Soren said. “Just do me a favor and let my partner go.”

  “C’mere, ya don’t think that’s really going to happen, do ya?” Lochlan said, smiling wide at him. “We know he’s the one who helped ya last night. He doesn’t get off that easy.”

  “Lochlan, you need to think this through,” Soren said. “You came through Hilltop. You must have seen what happened.”

  “All we saw was a ghost town,” Lochlan said. “Ya say there’s a monster, and I’ve got no reason to disbelieve ya. But I’m not going back to me boss empty handed, cockatrice or no.”

  “It’s not a cockatrice; it’s a gorgon,” Soren said. “And it’s really pissed off about something.”

  “I don’t give a shite what it is,” Lochlan replied. “We’re gonna take ya, yer partner, and the fookin gorgon too if we can find her. Our boss wants to see the both of ya. Now he was unspecific about whether he wanted ya dead or alive, so I’m going to say this one more time. Surrender and get in the car.”

  “I thought you just wanted the boy’s name,” Soren said.

  Lochlan shrugged.

  “The deal changed. It always does.”

  Soren saw a flash of movement in the forest behind Lochlan and Keevan and knew what Emily had been up to. While they’d been talking, she’d been busy flanking the leprechauns. At least it showed she was afraid of their weapons. After Soren had shot her, he had begun to worry she might be impervious to gunfire. Her caution suggested that wasn’t the case.

  The gorgon stayed hidden in the trees, but Soren knew she was there.

  “Uh, Lochlan?” Soren said.

  “I’ll give ya ten seconds,” Lochlan said.

  “The gorgon we’re talking about?” Soren said. “She’s behind you, in the trees.”

  “Nice try,” Lochlan said. “And maybe if I ate some Skittles, I’d start shitting rainbows.”

  “Is that more leprechaun humor?” Soren asked. “Because it kind of sucks.”

  “Fine, we’ll do it the hard way,” Lochlan said.

  Before he or his brother could open fire, however, Emily burst from the trees, moving in a blur of motion. She attacked Lochlan first, hitting him with her tail and sending the leprechaun soaring into the air.

  Keevan turned and began opening fire on the gorgon, screaming unintelligibly as he did so. Emily let out a shriek and slithered toward him.

  Soren knew he should run, but he couldn’t help but watch. The gorgon bore down on Keevan, but the leprechaun apparently knew enough to avoid her gaze. Just as she was within striking distance, he vanished.

  He looked to see Keevan now twenty feet behind the gorgon, reaching into his vest. Soren remembered very well what he was reaching for.

  The gorgon turned to look around her, but didn’t see Keevan in time. The leprechaun lobbed a grenade in her direction. She must have heard it land by her, however, because she batted her tail and sent the grenade flying into the air, where it exploded far enough away that it didn’t do any damage.

  Emily spotted Keevan and burst toward him, but the leprechaun kept his eyes fixed away from her. Soren could say this for the leprechauns; they were smart. Keevan was using his peripheral vision to track his enemy, avoiding her deadly gaze.

  When she neared him, she reared back to strike again—and Keevan disappeared, reappearing behind her a few feet away. What happened next was so quick, Soren had a hard time tracking it.

  Keevan fired his gun, letting off several rounds from his Uzi, and then vanished again, popping up a few feet away, where he quickly began firing again. Every time the gorgon turned her head toward where the bullets were coming from, the leprechaun was already gone—and then firing at her from a different location.

  Soren could barely see Keevan he was teleporting so fast. He seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Soren had never seen anything like it—and clearly neither had the gorgon. She screamed and began lashing out blindly with her tail, trying to strike the leprechaun wherever he appeared again.

  Soren felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Glen.

  “We’ve got to go,” he said.

  Soren shook himself from his daze. He was standing in the middle of the road watching the battle before him, unaware of his own vulnerability. If either the gorgon or the leprechauns noticed him, he could easily be killed.

  He nodded but gave the battle one last look. It occurred to him that Keevan might actually prevail—the leprechaun could outwit and outfight the giant serpentine monster in front of him. Emily was thrashing her tail about at random, striking empty air and screaming in frustration.

  But as Soren watched, he saw her get lucky. Her tail stabbed a place just as Keevan materialized there. The leprechaun had a surprised look on his face as the gorgon struck him dead center in the chest.

  Soren didn’t stay to see the final result. Instead, he motioned for Glen to follow him and began running back to the camp. He looked around for a place to hide and could think of only one option. Emily and Keevan were between them and the town, so there was no heading back that way. The camp was destroyed, now just a mass of wrecked tents. And the forest was too risky. He’d just seen what the gorgon could do to a man fleeing through the woods. She was too fast. He needed somewhere they could hole up for a bit and think of a plan. He pointed at the mine.

  “Get in there!” he yelled to Glen.

  “Are you nuts?” Glen shouted.

  “Probably. But go!”

  Soren noticed that Lochlan was between him and the mine. The leprechaun was lying in the dirt just ahead. As Soren neared, Lochlan sat up and aimed his gun.

  This is it, Soren thought. This is the moment I finally die.

  But Lochlan seemed to be looking past Soren for a moment, watching the fight between his brother and the gorgon.

  “No, no!” Lochlan shouted. “Ya can’t do tha, ya bitch!”

  Lochlan began firing past Soren, presumably at the gorgon.

  “Turn him back! Turn him back!” Lochlan cried.

  Soren didn’t need to turn around to know what had happened. Keevan had been turned to stone. Soren sprinted past Lochlan, who now appeared unconcerned with him.

  He turned to see Emily trashing the car, her powerful tail smashing its windshield. A small stone statue stood next to it. As Lochlan fired, he saw her turn her attention back to the remaining leprechaun. In a moment, she would be on Lochlan as well. He expected Lochlan to teleport away, but as she headed in the leprechaun’s direction, he just kept firing away. He either was too stubborn to teleport—or maybe he couldn’t do it at all. Soren knew that not all leprechauns had the exact same abilities.

  He made a snap decision, one he hoped he wouldn’t regret. He walked up behind Lochlan and covered his eyes, yanking him backwards.

  “Get off of me!” Lochlan yelled, struggling.

  “I’m saving your life, you dumb fuck,” Soren said.

  The leprechaun stopped struggling and saw where Soren was trying to head toward. As the gorgon headed in their direction, the two of them fled into the mine.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The mine was blessedly free of snakes, which had apparently all left in order to take up residence in the gorgon. The center shaft was large. Soren estimated it stood eight feet wide and ten feet high, big enough for the three of them to run together. Aside from that, it had few other advantages to recommend it. It was dark, c
old, and a dead end.

  But Soren also had an idea. It was crazy, but it might give him the space he needed to think things through. Soren could already hear the gorgon in pursuit.

  He stopped in his tracks, and looked back up toward the tunnel’s entrance. The sunlight was obscured by a large serpentine shape. Emily stood in silhouette for a moment. Her eyes weren’t visible from that distance, but Soren could see the individual snakes snapping in mid-air. For a second, she almost looked like a statue herself. Then she started down into the tunnel.

  They had run several hundred yards, but the gorgon moved quickly, a hissing sound growing steadily louder as she neared them. He turned to find Lochlan and Glen also staring up the tunnel. Soren stepped toward Lochlan and grabbed his vest. The leprechaun objected, but Soren found what he wanted and yanked it free.

  The light in the tunnel was poor but Soren grinned when he saw the grenade in his hand. He pulled the pin and lobbed it up the tunnel as far as he could toward the approaching monster.

  “Get down!” he shouted.

  The three of them hit the ground as a large explosion rocked the mine. He heard the tunnel collapse and there was a scream from the gorgon, though it sounded more like frustration than pain. Rocks began falling down around them. Most came from higher up in the tunnel and were now sliding past.

  Soren stayed crouched there, tucked into a ball, and waited to see if the rocks would crush him. But after a moment, the rock fall stopped. Soren was still breathing, and felt around his body to make sure he was okay.

  “You guys all right?” Soren whispered.

  He had no way of knowing. The cave-in near the top of the tunnel had taken away the only source of light. The mine shaft was now pitch black.

  “What the fook did ya just do? If I could see ya, I’d kill ya,” Lochlan said, sounding like he was only a few feet away.

  “Calm down,” Soren said. “For right now, I saved your life. Glen, are you okay?”

  “I’m alive,” Glen said, his voice echoing in the shaft. “I wouldn’t say I’m okay.”

  “Are you physically hurt?” Soren asked.

  “No,” Glen said. “But I’m about to freak the fuck out.”

  “Hold that thought.”

  Soren stood up slowly and was happy to discover the cave-in hadn’t affected their part of the mine. He could stand at his full height.

  “I don’t suppose you have a flashlight on that vest, Lochlan,” Soren said.

  “I don’t have one, ya crazy mutherfooker,” the leprechaun replied. “Do you realize what ya just did? Ya trapped us down here. And we can’t even see.”

  A light suddenly bloomed in the darkness, illuminating Lochlan, who was covered in rock dust. Soren turned to see Glen holding his phone in his hand.

  “Flashlight app,” Glen said. “Phone doesn’t work, but the apps do. We can play some Flappy Bird down here while we wait to die. You know, to pass the time. On the plus side, I charged the phone while I was in the car so it shouldn’t run out of juice before we all get a turn to play.”

  Glen said the words flippantly, but there was an edge to them. Soren could tell he believed they weren’t going to make it.

  He used the phone to illuminate all three of them. Despite being covered in gray dust, they appeared mostly unharmed. Glen shone the light back up the tunnel, but there was no longer much of one in that direction. The top of the tunnel was now just a pile of stones.

  “We’re not getting out that way,” Glen said.

  “We never were,” Soren said. “The gorgon was going to tear us apart, if she didn’t turn us to stone.”

  “And now we’re going to die of slow asphyxiation,” Glen said. “Yay. Go team.”

  “I can put a bullet in both yer brains if ya don’t shut the fook up,” Lochlan said.

  “Why? So you can contemplate our awful, terrifyingly lonely deaths in silence?” Glen asked. “Or did you want to listen to a few tunes first? I think I have some Chieftains on here if it’ll make you happy. Maybe a little Sinéad O’Connor, some Pogues. I might have some Riverdance in here too if you’re into dancing.”

  Lochlan turned to Soren.

  “Seriously, is he trying to get me to kill him?” Lochlan said. “Cause it sure seems that way to me. Riverdance!”

  He said the last word and spat on the ground. Soren didn’t remember what Riverdance was, but Lochlan seemed displeased by it.

  “You’re more of a U2 guy, then?” Glen asked. “Want ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’?”

  “Okay, you can shut up anytime now, Glen,” Soren said. “The stress is making you babble and I think Lochlan really will kill you.”

  “At least it would be quick,” Glen said.

  “Oh, I can make it slow and painful, ya stupid little shite,” Lochlan said, and he held his gun up, pointing it menacingly in Glen’s direction.

  Soren put a hand on Lochlan’s shoulder.

  “Easy there,” he said. “Let’s think this through. We need to assess our options.”

  Lochlan gave him a nasty glare.

  “C’mere, what options? That bitch killed me brother and now she’s either going to worm her way in here and kill us or we die slowly, like the yob over there said. Those don’t sound like good options to me. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t just kill the both of ya right now for stranding me down here.”

  “Because I saved your life,” Soren said.

  “Saving me life for five minutes don’t exactly count,” Lochlan replied. “Also, just look at me fookin suit. It’s torn to shite now. Do ya know how expensive it is? I had to import it from Italy.”

  “Take a breath, Lochlan,” Soren said. “Feel anything?”

  The leprechaun paused for a moment and then turned back to Soren.

  “I don’t feel anything, no,” he said. “Should I?”

  “There’s a slight breeze in here,” Soren said. “And if it isn’t coming from the mine’s entrance, it’s coming from down there.”

  He pointed into the darkness below them and Glen shone his light in that direction. The tunnel beneath them kept descending into pitch black.

  “I did some research on the trip to Hilltop about the Virginia mine system,” Soren said. “It was extensive. This shaft almost certainly connects to another, which connects to another. A lot of mines were built around the existing caves.”

  “No,” Glen said. “No way. I’m not going. Who the hell knows what’s down there?”

  Soren arched an eyebrow at him, but he doubted Glen could see it in the dark.

  “Then you really will stay here and die,” he said. “If there’s air coming from down there, it’s because there must be another way out. We’re just going to have to find it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  They trudged in the dark into the depths of the mine, with Soren leading the way. He held Glen’s phone in his hand and periodically swept it to both sides to make sure there wasn’t a side tunnel that might lead to the surface.

  “It’s creepy down here,” Glen said. “I can’t imagine voluntarily coming to try and dig the gorgon out.”

  “Emily undoubtedly helped convince the professor there was some way to control the gorgon once they found it,” Soren replied. “He didn’t know he was already talking to one.”

  Glen stopped walking, causing Lochlan to run into the back of him and start swearing. Soren paused for a moment and swept the beam of light back over the two of them. The leprechaun looked pissed off while Glen just appeared thoughtful.

  “Shit, I didn’t even think about that,” he said. “I’m still thinking of the gorgon as something the professor set free. But if it was Emily all along, what were they doing here? Jay said he was dating her when I saw him this summer. She was already free.”

  “What the fook are ya two talking about?” Lochlan asked, still glaring angrily at Glen.

  Soren gave him the highlights of the professor and what had happened to the town. He wasn’t generally in favor of sharing information, but
if they were going to survive, he needed Lochlan’s help. Besides, the leprechaun might know something about gorgons that he didn’t. The three of them started walking again as Soren spoke.

  “All Emily said was that she wanted to restart the Carnival of Stone,” Soren said. “But that doesn’t explain why she turned the town to stone. She didn’t need to come to Hilltop.”

  “Ya sure about tha?” Lochlan asked. “Maybe her base of power is here.”

  “Base of power?” Glen asked.

  “A lot of creatures’ power is focused on where they call home,” Lochlan said. “It’s not true for us, but I’ve seen others that don’t like to go far away.”

  “Maybe,” Soren said. “But then the question is: why’d she leave here in the first place? Hell, how long has she been free?”

  “She did mention the earthquake a few years ago,” Glen said. “Maybe it set her loose?”

  Soren considered that. It was certainly possible. The earthquake hadn’t done much damage above ground—nobody had been killed and it had mostly just spooked Virginia residents, who weren’t used to tremors. But it likely had a large impact underground, particularly in a caved-in mine. Maybe it had moved the rocks just enough to free her. But it still didn’t answer why she would come back now.

  “It’s as good a guess as any,” Soren said.

  “I’ve got another question,” Glen said. “I called her Medusa as a joke. But you don’t think it’s actually her, do you? I know Terry didn’t think so.”

  “Medusa’s dead,” Lochlan said before Soren could answer. “But she did have sisters. Stheno and Euryale. Medusa was killed by the nancy boy hero Perseus. All three were beautiful women who angered the gods and were turned into abominations.”

  “You are surprisingly well versed in Greek mythology,” Glen said.

  “I’m a leprechaun,” Lochlan replied. “Ya don’t think I like reading books about other mythologies?”

  “I think I’m more surprised you read books at all,” Glen said.

  Lochlan turned to Soren.

  “I really will shoot him, ya know tha?” he said.