“You know your orders,” Kyle told them. A mix of nods and salutes rippled across the team. He tapped his commlink. “We’re going in,” he told Trish, wanting nothing more than to hold her just once more before this all went down. “Tell Derek to follow our scent.”
“Bring everyone home,” were her only words as Alexander approached the fence and, putting his fingers into the links, simply tore it apart.
“I will,” he promised, hoping he wasn’t lying to her as the team poured through the ruined barrier.
The entrance to the cave was a quarter mile from the end of the road, and it was a relief when clouds scudded over the moon, leaving the area in almost complete darkness. He nodded approval when he saw that wolves had paired up with all of the Magi to make sure they didn’t trip or get lost in the darkness. Tabari and Athena led the way, walking at a brisk rate, but not rushing as they scanned for magical traps.
Trish had sent him a picture of the cave entrance set into a small nondescript hill, but it turned out to be redundant, as within just two minutes of walking, Kyle could scent them: humans, but with an unusual aftertaste, something that agitated his wolf, setting him to snarling. They rounded a copse of tall trees and found a small level piece of ground littered with 4 x 4s, vans and a pair of six-person helicopters. The Vodun had made their own route in.
Behind the vehicles Kyle recognised the rock-strewn hill from Trish’s photo. This entrance was very different to the solidly concealed one that opened onto the Source. It nestled between two large boulders and was just wide enough that two people could walk in side by side. By all accounts this cave had been well explored by humans, but they hadn’t documented anything that could be considered the Patrium. Either it was hidden from human eyes, or there was an as-yet-undiscovered part to the cave system. Kyle was betting on some kind of spell that kept humans away.
His wolf suddenly stopped his pacing, lowering his head and allowing his ruff to bristle to full size. Kyle’s hands flashed to his thighs, coming away with a short sword in each as adrenalin surged through his system. The others reacted to his movement, Tabari and Athena coming to a halt while Gabi and his wolves flowed out and to the sides, heads down, bodies low, tensed for action. They paced forward one step at a time, sniffing the air as they slid between the vehicles converging less than two hundred feet from the entrance. Moonlight suddenly lit the area, and the patch of shadow just to the left of the entrance writhed before erupting into humanlike shapes. The smell hit Kyle’s nose instantly, and he wondered how the hell he hadn’t scented them earlier.
“Zonbi,” Tabari warned, stepping in front of Athena as the undead creatures rushed towards them.
“There are traps to either side,” Athena yelled, her arms held out as though warding off attack from left and right.
“How far?” Gabi demanded.
“Fifteen, twenty feet,” Athena yelled back.
“Get behind us. We’ll cut them down; you make sure Lucy does her thing,” Gabi ordered, surging past the Magus with Alexander and Tabari flanking her.
Taking down zombies had begun to feel like a familiar activity: slash, chop, hack, gore, body parts. The only sounds came from Gabi and the wolves. Fighting in such close quarters was a challenge in itself, but the Hunters were skilled, giving each other room. Gabi and the Vampires ploughed through the group in a V formation, knocking zombies down, taking off arms, slashing hamstrings, never slowing. Kyle and the rest backing him up took their turns, decapitating downed zombies, flicking moving limbs to the side, kicking heads away, ducking blows and evading gnashing teeth and rabid grasps. Kyle wiped a glob of dark goo from the side of his face, flashing a glare at Butch, whose axe had flung the gore in his direction. In the moonlight the older Werewolf grinned, his eyes flashing with the grim excitement of battle.
A flash of fire and the stench of burning flesh drew his attention; Lucy had begun her grim work. He hoped they could contain the blaze, not letting it turn into a rampant grass fire. That was the last thing they needed. He turned just in time to see a headless body lurching towards him. He kicked it sideways, and it stumbled to the ground. Its legs continued moving as though running. He skirted around it as Athena appeared at his side; her hair was dishevelled and her face was streaked with something dark and disgusting. She wiped her hands down her pants and looked at him. His wolf could scent the fear oozing from her pores, but her face was calm and determined.
“This is probably just one of many obstacles,” she warned him through gritted teeth. “Don’t let your wolves become complacent.”
He didn’t need the warning, but he nodded, turning to work his way through the body-littered ground, to where Gabi and the Vampires were cleaning their respective weapons on the long damp grass as Razor stood watching the cave entrance, his tail twitching in agitation.
Once the rest of the team had worked through the zombie horde, they left Lucy, two Red Shadow wolves and another Magus to finish up the grizzly work of burning the zombies, and regrouped a little way from the entrance to the cave. Athena moved to the front again, Tabari once again joining her. The two of them took a few steps forward as the rest waited tensely. Athena suddenly stopped just as Tabari reached out a warning hand to her.
“Lord and Lady,” Athena whispered, her words tinged with frustration.
“It covers the whole entrance, doesn’t it?” Tabari asked her, looking around at the rocks and weeds as though he could see something the rest of them couldn’t.
Athena shook her head, but Kyle didn’t think she was disagreeing with Tabari. “It’ll take me some time to break this,” she muttered.
“You know, it is difficult to create this kind of trap at the best of times,” Tabari said, reaching out as though to touch something. “Making one that traps non-humans is even more difficult. And to make it trap more than one kind of non-human, well, that might well be almost impossible.”
“So you think this trap is keyed just to Magi?” Athena asked, looking at the Vampire with narrowed eyes.
“It’s a guess, but an educated one,” Tabari replied.
“We need a non-Magi to try to walk through it?” Kyle asked.
“If they get caught in it,” Athena’s voice was warning, “they’ll be trapped in their own personal version of Hell until I can destroy it.”
“We have to keep moving,” Gabi growled. “They know we’re coming; who knows how desperate that will make them.”
“I’ll do it,” Alexander said airily, and, even as Gabi opened her mouth and reached out as though to grab hold of him, he was suddenly gone from Athena’s side.
“Tabari was right.” Alexander’s voice echoed out of the cave mouth; it was only slightly tinged with smugness.
“Lord and fucking Lady,” Gabi hissed, “you’d better make sure I don’t catch up with you right now.”
“Lucky thing I’m fast.” His disembodied voice came back to them. “Now hurry up. Tell Athena to wait for Nathan and Charlie before following. They shouldn’t be far behind us.”
Athena scowled slightly at the order but didn’t say anything. Gabi was the next to dare the trap, with Razor at her heels, also walking straight through without trouble. Kyle drew breath as he readied himself to step forward but was held back by an arm on his shoulder.
“One of us first,” Butch said quietly in his ear, though everyone would hear anyway.
Before Kyle could issue a new order, Rory stepped around him and directly into the space. Kyle found himself holding his breath. The Vodun had repeatedly demonstrated their willingness and desire to kill Werewolves.
Rory stopped in the mouth of the cave and turned with a triumphant grin.
“Be careful,” Athena said as she watched the wolves troop past her, but Kyle thought her words were more for Alexander than the rest of them. “We’ll catch up as soon as we can.”
The narrow mouth of the cave led into an even narrower stone corridor. Kyle had never liked enclosed spaces, especially ones where several thousand ton
nes of rock hovered above you. Adding to his anxiety was the white noise crackle that hissed in his ear when he tried to contact Trish. The rock was clearly disrupting their signal, not an ideal situation, but one they could do little about now. Pushing aside the paranoia, he turned off the commlink and followed the others into the pitch blackness.
After what felt like an eternity of walking in suffocating darkness, but was probably only a couple of minutes, the cave system widened into some kind of large open space.
The darkness was so complete even he couldn’t see anything. Somewhere to his left a flashlight clicked on, quickly followed by several more. The flashlight was definitely one of the most underused, and grumbled about, items of gear they normally carried, but they were all grateful for them now. His wolves backed up enough to open up a space around him, Gabi and the Vampires.
“So they don’t want the Magi getting to them,” Gabi mused.
“They haven’t counted on Athena,” Alexander said. “She’ll pull that thing down and they’ll join us. Let’s go and spring whatever other surprises they have planned for us.”
“Lead the way, oh fearless Leader.” Gabi quirked a sarcastic eyebrow in his direction as she gestured with Nex in the general area behind him. The torchlight showed that they were in a cavern about the size of a basketball court. There were three tunnels running off in different directions, and Kyle started walking towards the nearest, lifting his head to scent the air.
“Those are not the ones we want,” Tabari said, and began walking to a shadowy area to their right.
Kyle paused, frowning; that way was blocked by a solid rockfall.
“This is an illusion,” the Vampire said, putting his hand right into the rock to demonstrate.
“Cool,” Gabi said, sounding impressed, though he suspected it was Tabari she was impressed with rather than the illusion. “That way, then.”
Walking through the illusion was an uncomfortable experience. Kyle’s skin felt as though it wanted to crawl away from his body. He suspected it was all part of the illusion, and one not necessarily laid by the Vodun they were chasing. It was exactly the kind of thing that would have kept the Patrium from being discovered by inquisitive humans. Beyond the ghostly rockfall was another rock-lined corridor, this one narrow and meandering, with large boulders jutting out at irregular intervals. Stone and rock fragments littered the ground, slowing their progress. Kyle breathed steadily through the thoughts of the mass of rock and earth above their heads. Gabi glanced back at him more than once. She was the only one present who knew of his stupid hang-up with caves. Each time she did it, he bared his teeth at her in a grim facsimile of a smile.
“There’s something…” Tabari lifted a hand in warning, freezing them all in their tracks. The corridor had widened by a couple of feet, enough that Kyle could come up alongside Gabi and see what had piqued Tabari’s interest. Several places along the way had been wet from moisture seeping down the walls, but now their torchlight illuminated a small pool of water across the width of their path.
“What is it?” Kyle asked quietly, hating the way his voice rebounded off the walls. “Another trap?”
“Perhaps,” Tabari said. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
“Well, there’s no way around it,” Gabi muttered. “We should all be able to jump it.”
“That’s what worries me,” Tabari said.
“So there’s more likely to be something on the other side, something we’d jump right into?” Butch stood at Kyle’s right shoulder, also studying the pool. “We could toss rocks over, see what happens.”
“Do it,” Kyle agreed. And in a few seconds three wolves shouldered their way forward, carrying rocks in sizes varying from football to car tyre.
Alexander took the first, a rock probably weighing more than Gabi, and tossed it casually over the pond to just the other side of the murky water. The rock split into three smaller pieces with a loud crack, but nothing else happened. “Next,” Alexander said, reaching for the biggest rock, tossing it with a little more effort. This one flew almost three feet over the water, and they all braced for the sound of rock against rock, but it never came. The rock simply disappeared into the ground.
“Another illusion,” Kyle muttered, and then they heard the crack that told them the rock had found the bottom of whatever hole had just swallowed it.
“What is it with these guys and their traps?” Gabi groused.
“They don’t want to take us on face to face; they’re trying to whittle us down,” Tabari said as Alexander threw a handful of smaller rocks to ascertain the true extent of the void they would have to avoid stepping in. “They know they are lost that way. Without a Vodun priestess, they have to rely on rituals, trances and things like hex bags. Those do not help when faced with an immediate physical threat. Unless they can get Flora to…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
Satisfied that he knew where he could land, Alexander took a step back and launched himself over the water, landing on the narrow strip of ground between the water and the void. From there he again threw the rocks to find the furthest extent of the hole. The void was only a couple of feet wide, luckily, but more than wide enough for a person to fall through. Gabi glanced over her shoulder and told the third wolf to throw her rock into the centre of the water. The rock made a large splash, the green, brackish water splashing their boots, but the very top of it rose a couple of inches above the surface. Kyle nodded, that would make it easier for those following them to get through without risking stepping into the pool.
“We should leave some warning for the others,” Butch said, bending to scoop up a handful of loose stones. He stepped over the pool using the newly placed rock and arranged the pebbles to form a distinct skull and crossbones pattern on the ground. The rest quickly followed, careful not to disturb the warning or step too close to the void. Kyle worked on damping down the irrational worry that the rocks above them could fall in at any second. His wolf whuffed at him in irritation. He would take over if Kyle needed him to; he wasn’t afraid of the cave. Kyle reminded himself that there would only be one route in to the Patrium. The Vodun or Decuria or whoever were involved in this wouldn’t risk caving the tunnel in; that was the least of their worries.
They passed into another open cavern, not quite as large as the first, the scent of stagnancy was strong as water ran in rivulets down the walls, glistening in the artificial beams of light. The air was growing warm and muggy. There was no clear route out of the cavern. Tabari and Alexander split and began searching the dark rock walls. Behind him the six other wolves also began to search for an exit.
“Wait!” Tabari shouted, spinning, his hand already outstretched towards Ross, who was several feet to Kyle’s left. But his warning was too late.
CHAPTER 19
Everyone in the dank cave froze. The hissing that had started the moment Tabari shouted his warning increased in volume. It sounded like steam escaping a burst pipe. They cast around with flashlights, searching desperately for the source of the noise. Kyle’s senses zeroed in; it was coming from the rocks above Ross’s head. He made to lunge towards the Werewolf, but something grabbed his arm, yanking him to a halt. A fine spray of liquid droplets cascaded from the rocks, oozing like a thick silvery fog. Gabi’s hand tugged Kyle away even as he fought to rush towards it.
Ross’s hoarse roar pierced his eardrums, freezing him in his tracks. He watched aghast as the droplets hit the man’s face and hands, and he reacted as though he was being burned with acid.
“Silver,” Gabi yelled in his ear. “That is liquid silver.” Her hand was tugging at his arm, pulling him off balance. He was vaguely aware of Gabi ordering Alexander to help and Tabari to find a way out. Then more of his Pack began to scream, their pain piercing his brain, blotting out rational thought.
The world was hazy and painfilled when Kyle felt the sharp cold of jagged rocks digging into his spine. His flesh tingled with the urge to change form, to let the beast take control.
; “Kyle.” A stinging sensation across his cheek made him gasp. The tingle of the Change diminished as he opened his eyes and tried to focus through the agony of his wolves’ pain. “Kyle.” Gabi’s voice was stern, angry. “We need you here, pull yourself away from the others. You have to.”
Suddenly his wolf whipped around, snapping at what he thought was some kind of threat, but it was only Gabi. She was inside his mind; she was putting out a calming hand to the wolf, telling him to stand down. Yes, he needed to take control. He knew that it was important. But the pain was so real, attacking him from all sides.
“Put their pain in a box, and close the lid,” Gabi told him. Her hand must have clasped his forearm, her fingers were cold, but her grip was firm enough to be uncomfortable. “Focus,” she ordered.
He started by concentrating on the pressure of her hand; that was real. Once he knew what was real, he could separate out the pain that wasn’t his.
“Dig your nails in,” he managed to gasp out to her. “Give me something to focus on.”
Her hand moved from the sleeve of his jacket to his hand, where she did as he asked and dug her fingernails in. Gradually he was able to pull himself out of the torturous well of silver-sickness, building mental walls around their suffering and dropping a heavy lid on top. His breathing was ragged and he felt exhausted when he finally was able to look at Gabi and really see her. The pressure of her nails in his flesh abated, and she put a hand up to cup the side of his face.
“You back with us?” she asked.
Raising Hell_A Hellcat World Novel Page 22