by Queen, Nyna
Darken pulled at one of the handles. The door swung open soundlessly.
Alex blinked.
Behind it waited an impenetrable darkness that neither the feeble moonlight nor her true eyes could pervade.
She reached into her backpack, extracted her magic torch, ignited it and pointed its light cone inside. Darken followed her example.
The light bounded off the walls of a small quadratic security room with an empty desk behind a palm-thick wall of bulletproof glass, complete with a closed metal hatch. The room seemed to have no windows. Naked gray concrete walls and ugly beige linoleum made it even more depressing than the outside of the camp. A mesh of tube lights crisscrossed the ceiling, dead at the moment, but no doubt horribly bright if switched on. A barred wall at the far end of the room led into a long corridor with matching security doors on both sides. The cell tract.
Alex probed the inside with her senses, but her threads reported no movement.
“Clear,” she said.
Darken nodded and stepped inside. Taking a deep breath, Alex followed.
After a couple of steps, she slowly spun in place, running her torch in a circle along the bare walls.
Her eyes burned and she blinked, yet the stinging only got worse. She raised a hand to rub at them, stopping halfway when she was rocked by a cough. Dry heat scorched her throat as if she’d just inhaled hot dust. She wheezed and retched, clawing at her throat.
Darken rushed to her side and grabbed her shoulder. “What's wrong?”
He pointed his torch at her face. The light seared her already burning eyes, and she jerked back, hissing, then retched even more, bent over double.
“I … hchh … I don’t … chhh … know,” she wheezed. “It started … out-outside.” She hacked. “Thought … sulphur … but … got worse … hchh… in here.” She wiped her eyes which were watering so badly by now, she could barely see anything. “Burns … like hell.”
Darken let go of her shoulder and flicked his light around, seeking the source of her ache. Even through the veil of her tears, Alex could see the red glow of his irises suffusing the room.
He walked over to the wall and followed it, one hand running along the concrete. Alex trailed him, dabbing at her watering eyes.
Please, Great Mother, don’t let me go blind!
In the corner, Darken stopped and crouched, inspecting something on the ground.
“Wha … what?”
“Some kind of powder.”
She bent closer to see and dissolved in another coughing fit, this one even worse than before.
“Well, I think that clarifies it.” Darken reached for his pack and produced a pair of sterile gloves and a vial, carefully scooping a bit of the fine, dark powder into it.
“Any … idea what it … is?” Alex asked, leaning away from the vial.
“Not yet. But it’s clearly what’s causing your reaction.”
“T-th … t-th…”
Darken paused, vial in one hand. “Yes?”
“T-th … th-thanks … C-c-captain Obvious.”
Darken mildly shook his head. “What would it take to kill your sarcasm?”
Alex rubbed her sleeve over her face. “N-no … chance.”
Darken swiftly screwed the lid on top of the vial, pocketed it and took out a second one. When it was filled, he dribbled a bit of liquid from a small flask into it, added a few grains of white powder and then shook it gently. After a moment, the liquid turned a deep blue.
He rubbed his chin. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to be generally dangerous to humans. At least, it’s not among any of the hazardous substances known to the Order.” He pointed his light into the other corners. Frowned. “It seems to be everywhere. Looks like they used a magically engineered distributor. I don’t think I would have noticed it if you hadn’t reacted to it.”
He rose and peered at Alex’s face. “Can you manage?”
Alex pushed his torch aside. “If you stop … pointing that stupid thing into my eyes, y-yes.”
The light softened as Darken lowered his torch a little. A second later, a water bottle was deposited in Alex’s hand. She gratefully chugged down some water. The sting in her throat lessened almost immediately.
Darken took the bottle back and traded it for a small hanky soaked in a pungent-smelling liquid. “Here. Put that on your eyes. It’s a neutralizing solution. It should help.” Alex shrugged and wiped her eyes with the tissue. It couldn’t exactly make it any worse.
It took a while, but gradually her full sight returned. Thank the Jester! Her eyes still burned, but at least she could see something.
Alex allowed her senses some more time to adjust before she joined Darken in inspecting the security hall, though there really wasn’t much left to discover.
The lights didn’t work. Whatever power source they had used here was down.
A slim door led to a few carpeted but otherwise empty rooms—a bathroom, a kitchen, both devoid of anything but the basic sanitary equipment. Probably where the prison guards and workers had spent their idle time.
The place wasn’t exactly clean—there was dirt and dust here and there—but it had definitely been occupied a short while ago. Alex could smell the remnants of different human scent signatures, the greasy smell of recently eaten food—something with way too much garlic in it—and the lingering stench of cold cigarette smoke that wasn’t much older than a couple of days.
They returned to the security entrance hall. Up ahead, the barred wall led straight into the long cell track.
Darken opened the door and held it for her.
Alex hesitated. The feeling of dread that had claimed her when they had entered the prison camp returned more fiercely, pressing against her like a cold, foul wave, and the primeval voice of her feral soul screamed at her to bolt. Thick revulsion crawled along her neck, yet when she scanned the corridor with her senses, she still couldn’t feel anything out of place. There was no one there, except for the two of them.
She started to move forward but halted again.
Oh, don’t be foolish, sugar!
Before she could change her mind, Alex slipped through the door and let her torchlight creep up the walls and over the ceiling of the grim, cold corridor.
Metal tubes ran along the ceiling. Flecks of rust and mold pockmarked the walls but not in the intensity one would expect after years and years of abandonment.
The walls were lined on both sides with reinforced steel doors with heavy bolts, all equipped with a one by one foot barred window that could be closed by a sliding cap.
It was so quiet here that the sound of the barred door falling into its lock gave her a start.
Sweet Jester!
Darken came to stand beside her.
Alex faced the first cell and shone her light through the barred window in the door. It was a tiny room, barely enough space for an ordinary-sized person to take three steps across. Stone walls sprouted from a stone floor to rise to an equally stony ceiling. No window.
If the cap in the door was closed, it would be pitch black in there. Like in a tomb, Alex thought with a shudder. Like being buried alive. Her skin crawled. This was a hundred times worse than climbing into a mine shaft.
A low metal bed was welded to the floor with heavy bolts and a round hole in one corner of the floor led into bottomless darkness. Not even a primitive toilet. Nasty! Treating prisoners more like animals than like human beings. Alex was pretty sure Arcadia had a law concerning the basic rights of prisoners that probably included sanitary facilities. Tharsians, on the other hand, were known for their barbaric practices. Alex had heard many stories about their cruelty when she still lived with her mother, who had served in bars as a waitress. People talked. Especially drunk ones.
The tales about Tharsian bestiality were only outshone by the tales about shapers. Yet, while most of those were utter bullshit, at least some of the stories about Tharsis appeared to be true.
Leaning back a little, Alex studied the b
arred window. The bars were almost as thick as her wrist. Alex grabbed one and rattled it for good measure. It didn’t give an inch. Not that the window would be big enough to squeeze through even if the bars were gone. They had really made sure nobody left this place who wasn’t supposed to.
Reluctantly, she opened the door and stepped inside just to stumble back out, gagging from the stink of feces and urine emanating from the hole in the ground.
Darken moved past her and frowned.
“Don’t you smell that?” Alex asked with watering eyes, this time for a different reason.
He wrinkled his nose. “Unpleasant.”
That was one way of putting it. “Be glad you don’t have my sense of smell. Believe me, it’s disgusting.”
The smell was truly abominable, and it confirmed one thing—this cell hadn’t been empty a long time ago. She and Darken exchanged a long glance, and she knew he was thinking the same thing. The question was: Where was its inmate now?
They moved on to the next cell. Alex followed Darken inside, careful not to breathe through her nose … and went rigid.
Deep scratches marked the walls and the floor, some of them inches deep. They were everywhere, even on the metal bed.
Darken paused beside her. For the first time today, he looked unsettled.
“A shaper?” he asked softly, his deep voice rough.
Alex studied the welts and slowly matched her hand to one set of scratches, letting her claws slip out of her fingertips and into the scars. Even pushed out to the rim, they didn’t touch the bottom.
“Maybe.” Her own voice sounded a little unsteady, too.
If those marks had been made by a shaper, it had been a huge man, a scorpion perhaps, and it would have taken him—what? Days? Weeks? Months? Alex couldn’t even begin to imagine how long it would have taken to scratch marks this deep into solid stone. She dragged her claws along the wall, producing the cringe-inducing sound of chalk being drawn over a chalkboard. She flinched and dropped her hand. That sound alone would drive any shaper out of their skin. She wouldn’t be able to stand it for five minutes without going berserk. What could have driven anybody to commit this kind of self-torment?
Beside her, Darken started taking memoras.
A cold finger whispered along Alex’s spine.
She jumped and spun, the beam of her torchlight quivering across the opposite wall of the cell track.
Darken lowered his recordare memorandi, alarmed.
Alex flicked her light left and right along the corridor like a crazy pendulum. She didn’t see anyone, didn’t sense anyone, but…
“Did you hear that?” she hissed.
Darken changed from concerned male to honed predator in five seconds flat. A fiery glow rolled over his irises. “Hear what?”
Alex licked her lips, suddenly feeling a little stupid. “I just thought … never mind. Let’s go on. The sooner we get out of here the better.”
This place was getting under her skin. Under both her skins. She rubbed her upper arms, but still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was there, watching them from a thousand resentful eyes. Suddenly, she really wanted to be out of this cell. Out of this building. Away from this mountain and its secrets.
Alex forced herself to take a deep steadying breath. Get a fucking grip, sugar! Since when do you believe in ghosts, anyway?
They had a mission to finish. She couldn’t lose it now.
They checked the other cells—all fifty of them—but they didn’t give any more revelations about this place than they had already gotten, except for the fact that at least half of them had been in use just recently. A lot of them bore scratch marks like the second one they had entered, and every time Alex saw them, another shiver climbed down her spine on chitinous insect legs.
With every cell they entered, the horrible feeling inside her got stronger, expanding like a poisoned balloon in her stomach, squeezing her innards and gnawing on her nerves. She glanced over her shoulder again and again, but if there was anything here beyond her over-fertile imagination, it remained hidden.
By the time they reached the end of the cell track, she felt so sick she almost wished she could throw up just to lighten the load.
Another barred door opened to yet another short corridor with a handful of rooms attached. The first was a bare, rectangular shower room of white tile with rows and rows of rust-stained metal shower heads along the walls. No privacy at all. Opposite it, was a canteen kitchen with a few metal benches that looked utterly untouched, like some kind of creepy dollhouse that had been arranged but never played with. Same for the laundry and storage room. The thick metal crust inside the huge magic-fueled lavitorae spoke of years of disuse.
So they had held prisoners here, but they hadn’t fed and clothed them? How did that make any sense? And what had those prisoners done here? They hadn’t worked in the mines, that much was certain.
While Darken was still taking pictures of the lavitorae, Alex retreated into the corridor and faced the last door at its end. It was a heavy metal sliding door without a spec of rust on it. When she pushed the handle, it rolled aside on well-oiled tracks.
The moment Alex stepped over the threshold, she was hit by the cloying stench of rot and decay. It was so thick in the air it enveloped her like a disgusting blanket, choking her. The scent of dried blood chafed the inside of her nostrils, laced with the repugnant, bitter reek of ruptured intestines and sickness.
Nausea punched Alex in the gut. The room spun and she staggered, eyes watering. She reached for the wall in support, then jerked back with a yelp when a cold blast of icy fury burned her fingertips, racing along her arm and right into her brain.
Fury. Fear. Pain. Alex gasped as the sensations pelted her senses like thousands of voices screaming in her mind. She bent over and clutched her head in her hands, her fingers digging into her skin, into her skull, trying to reach inside and tear out the anguished shrieks that were pounding her brain with enraged fists.
So much fear. And pain. Sweet Jester, the pain!
Alex dropped to all fours and vomited, retching until nothing but acid bubbled up in her throat. But the fear and agony were still everywhere around her. She could taste them on her tongue, feel them on her skin like a sickening, slimy miasma trying to worm its way into her bones and chew her up from the inside out. Fear and pain and death. Death, death, everywhere, death! It screamed from every inch of the room, seeping up from the floor, dripping from the cracks in the walls like the putrid tears of tormented souls.
The blood scent was driving the spider crazy. Too much blood and death!
A hand touched her arm, and she jerked away with a scream.
Instinct took over, and she was at the ceiling before she knew it, true teeth bared, the spider hissing a challenge.
She glared around, wild.
Bad place! Foul place! Danger! Death everywhere! Out! She had to get out!
Run, run, RUN!
Her hands and feet skimmed the rough stone, quick like a spider.
Have to get out! Out of the bad place! Away from the screams! Get out get out get out!
A door loomed in the wall below. The spider dropped from the ceiling to the floor and yanked at it. Locked!
No! She snarled and yanked at it again, pounding on it with her fists. Let me out!
With a furious howl, she clawed at the door, her nails scouring the metal, leaving nothing but shallow grazes. She screamed and screamed, lashing at it in a wild frenzy, oblivious to the blood that started to trickle down her fingers as she broke her nails and skin.
“Alex!”
Someone was coming up behind her. Human male. Dangerous. Threat, threat, THREAT!
“Alex, it’s me!”
The spider growled deep in her throat. He was behind her. Coming to get her! Coming to make her part of the horrid chorus of screams!
Oh no, you won’t get me!
The spider wheeled around with a howl, claws poised for the kill.
A sho
cked face swam into view. Eyes like fire, like death, like—Darken! Alex froze in the last moment and stumbled back, eyes wide, hitting the door behind her.
Her hands dropped to her sides, limp. Her entire body sagged.
Darken caught her arms and pulled her to him. Alex buried her face in his chest, shaking, feverishly breathing in his familiar scent, clinging to it as if it were a lifeline in a boisterous sea.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Darken whispered soothingly, while his warm hands moved up and down her back, rubbing some life back into her ice cold body. “It’s me. You’re safe.”
Safe. Yes, she was safe. But others hadn’t been. Others…
Alex shivered violently.
Darken tugged a finger under her chin, gently lifting her face until she was looking up at him.
“Alex, what happened?”
Alex swallowed. Her mouth still tasted of blood and death, and she struggled to control her feral nature enough to form coherent human words. The panic was clutching her chest in an iron vise, and her instincts wanted nothing but for her to get out of here.
After a short internal battle, her human side finally gained the upper hand.
“Something horrible happened here.” Her voice creaked like an unoiled door. “People died in here. Many, many people. I can … smell their fear, their pain. It’s everywhere.” She closed her eyes and shuddered, entangling her fingers in his jacket. “It’s almost as if I can hear their screams, echoing from the walls.”
“I know.” Darken’s silver-sweet whisper produced another shiver over her skin. His’s eyes flared deep red, bathing the walls around Alex in a bloody glow. “This is Death’s territory. I can feel her presence. She rules this place.”
It was only then that Alex realized his body was taut as a bow string, muscles trembling under his skin with the effort of keeping his magic under control. She could feel it’s destructive heat, like boiling water trying to bust the lid of a pot. Water that had its own deadly mind.