After Pete screamed for a solid three minutes, Jules dismounted. She intended to knock Pete unconscious again, hoping she could wake him up once they got to the eye of the storm. They were still a few miles away from it, and the riding was slow and ponderous.
“Wait, no,” Miranda said.
She jumped off her horse and approached Pete, who was still slung across the back of the horse like baggage. Miranda leaned down and whispered in Pete’s ear.
Jules couldn’t hear what she was saying, but as soon as she started talking, Pete quieted down. Within a few moments, he was laughing with her. A minute after that, Miranda cut Pete loose of his binds and helped him off Jules’ horse. She then asked him kindly to get onto hers. He obliged, putting his hand to his head as if he were wearing a hat and tipping it in her direction.
Jules looked at her sister in shock. “What the hell did you say to him?”
“I explained to him that we weren’t really here,” she said. “I told him we were back in Stanton and that he was only dreaming.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, he didn’t take much convincing. I told him he only needs to tell us where to go in the dream, and once he’s finished doing that, he’ll wake up in his own bed safe and sound.”
Jules looked at her, impressed. And then just as suddenly, she was annoyed.
“You couldn’t have done that yesterday?”
“I didn’t think of it until just now,” she said.
They rode on, this time with Pete as a more willing accomplice. He was chatting amiably now, apparently thoroughly convinced that this was a nightmare he was having. Jules got the impression that he dreamed about this place a lot—and was almost grateful to have others sharing it with him.
Their path became less clear once they squeezed between the two mountains. The eye of the storm was directly ahead, but the hills rose up before them, blocking the way. It wasn’t clear if they should go left, right, or leave the horses there and try to climb over instead. But that would slow them down even further.
She looked at Pete. “Right,” he said cheerfully when the wind and thunder subsided enough for him to be heard. “There’s a tunnel we need to go inside.”
Jules swallowed hard. Apparently they were headed underground. She normally wasn’t afraid of that kind of thing, but as long as they were in the open, they could theoretically flee in any direction. Once underground, their options would be limited dramatically.
They rode around the steep towering hills to the right. There didn’t appear to be a path, and Jules wondered how Duggett had fared. Had the map led them in the same direction or was there an alternate route?
A half a mile on, Pete started gesturing wildly uphill.
“There, there,” he said insistently.
Jules looked at Luke, who nodded. Above them, more lightning flashed in the sky, followed rapidly by thunder. She heard so much of it, it was almost beginning to feel normal.
They left the horses, allowing them to roam free. Onyx trotted for a bit, and then gave Jules what seemed like an annoyed look.
“Sorry, girl,” she said. “There’s nothing to eat. You’ll just have to wait until we get back.”
Her horse shook her head and snorted, which Jules took to mean that she would wait here, but she wasn’t happy about it.
Jules looked up at the steep hill in front of them and began to climb. It was tough going, like trying to scale a wall, but after a bit, Jules spotted what looked like hand holds. They were weathered and eroded by the wind, but barely visible. When she saw them, she knew they were on the right path. Yet she would have passed by this area without a second glance if not for Pete pointing uphill.
The path was challenging. Several times, Jules slipped and almost fell. If she did that, she would take Miranda, Pete and Luke, who were all following behind, with her. But she managed to hold on.
Finally, just when she was wondering how long this could go on, she reached the top of a small plateau. She crawled up onto it to find a small, flat path leading to a tunnel inside the hillside. It was covered by an archway.
The tunnel was roughly six feet tall, with two stone pillars to either side of it. They’d been carved out of the hillside. They were straight up and down, and looked oddly familiar.
“Are those Indian?” she asked when Miranda, Luke and Pete made it up onto the plateau with her.
Miranda shot her a withering look, accented by a loud burst of thunder and a small shower of rock from above them.
“Those aren’t my people,” she said. “They’re yours.”
“Huh?”
“She means indirectly,” Luke said. “Europeans. Those columns are Ionic style. They’re Greek.”
“Oh,” Jules said, before adding, “What the hell are Greek columns doing out here?”
Nobody answered. It didn’t make a bit of sense to her. She had a momentary feeling that maybe Miranda was right about what she told Pete—maybe this was a dream. She would wake up to find herself back in camp, perhaps suffering from a fever. That would almost fit.
“We need to go in,” Pete said, now sounding eager. He was likely anxious to get this over with and wake up in his own bed back home. Jules knew how he felt.
Jules shivered, and put her hand to her gun to steady her nerves. The archway was wide open. There was no door, nothing to stop them from strolling in. That’s what worried her. It was almost an open invitation.
“Someone’s been here recently,” Luke said. He was bending over, studying the dirt. “Very recently, from what I can tell.”
That settled it. “Okay. Drop anything that you don’t absolutely need.”
They’d already mostly left any inessential items behind before they entered the Maelstrom, so there wasn’t much to drop. She, Miranda and Luke had guns and some extra silver bullets. Jules wished Miranda could bring her bow, but she didn’t see the point. She didn’t have silver tipped arrows, and a regular arrow would only annoy any Vipers they came across.
Jules glanced at her companions. Luke appeared as ready as ever, placid amid the turbulent storm above him. Miranda seemed anxious but determined while Pete appeared to be almost sleepwalking, as if he were trying to make Miranda’s lie true by willing his body unconscious. His eyes were half-shut.
Jules drew one of her guns and walked inside the tunnel. It was only a few feet wide, but easy enough to move single file. She expected to stumble in the darkness but twenty feet in they found a lit torch in a holder fastened to the wall by iron bolts. As convenient as that was, it also deeply unnerved her. That sense of being invited in was even stronger as a result.
She’d heard a poem once, something someone read out at one of the traveling shows she’d attended with Miranda as a girl. “Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly.
*****
They found the dead body after thirty more feet. It was one of Duggett’s men. She remembered him from their brief street encounter, a youth not even twenty who’d laughed when the prostitute had been shoved to the ground.
She leaned over the body, examining the corpse. His throat had been cut. There was no sign that Vipers had done it. His flesh was pale, but not black and twisted. There were no bite marks that she could see. She touched his throat, which was red with blood. The blood was still warm to the touch.
“They’re just in front of us,” she whispered back to Luke.
She cursed again. But perhaps they still had a small window of opportunity.
“Come on,” she said, feeling a sense of mounting dread.
At the next torch, she grabbed it out of its holder, wondering if Duggett—or something else—had lit them. Had Duggett killed his own man? If it wasn’t the Vipers, that must have been it, but she couldn’t think of why.
The tunnel sloped upwards, but seemed to stretch on forever. She was moving so fast, she nearly fell over the next corpse she found.
The only difference was she recognized this man. It was Gilroy. Or, rather, wh
at remained of him. His throat had been slit, with blood blanketing his front. Gilroy’s eyes were staring. He almost appeared to be surprised.
But there were no other obvious signs of a fight. It appeared that whomever had done this had caught Gilroy unaware and killed him in the dark. But who was doing it and why?
She paused long enough for the others to catch up. As she’d ordered, Luke was bringing up the rear.
“Watch yourselves,” she said. “I don’t think Duggett or the Vipers are behind this.”
It was the only explanation that fit. She didn’t see why Duggett would be executing his men before he pulled his heist, nor why Vipers would be eliminating trespassers so quietly.
Luke nodded. Jules stepped over the body and kept moving, one hand holding the torch and the other grasping her revolver.
The tunnel kept going on and on. She was grateful there were no alternate passages or she would have been concerned about finding her way out again. They were now so deep in the mountain, she couldn’t hear the thunder outside. She wasn’t sure when, exactly, she’d stopped hearing it.
It would have made her more nervous, but she was no longer sure that was possible. Every fiber of her being felt like it was on guard against something. The hairs on her arms and neck were up.
Twenty feet on, she heard a shout behind her. She stopped. Pete came crashing into her, followed by Miranda a second later. In the torchlight, Miranda’s eyes were panicked.
“Luke,” she said. “I can’t find him!”
Jules’ heart sank. She immediately crossed back, retreating into the tunnel some distance. She kept expecting to find Luke with his throat slit, sprawled dead in the tunnel.
She retreated all the way until she found Gilroy’s corpse—but no Luke.
“Luke!” she whispered in the darkness. “Where are you?”
There was no answer.
“What do we do now?” Miranda asked.
As if there was anything to do. Going back was an impossibility. The only choice was to move forward.
“I want to wake up now,” Pete whispered. “Can I wake up now?”
“Not yet, Pete,” Jules said. “But soon. Are we getting close?”
Pete didn’t respond, but made a strange clacking noise. It was the sound of his teeth chattering, not from the cold but from fear.
This time Jules stayed in the rear while Miranda took the lead, with Pete penned in between them. Jules kept looking back over her shoulder, but there was no trace of Luke or anyone else.
Finally, when it felt like they’d been in the tunnel forever, they were abruptly free of it. There was no warning—the tunnel suddenly opened into a tremendous cavern. Jules’ small torchlight barely illuminated any of it, but she could see it was huge. She had the sense that they’d reached the center of the mountain—maybe even the center of the Maelstrom itself. The thought made her uneasy.
She held her torch along the outer wall, trying to get a sense of the place. But as she moved, her footfalls echoed up and around the cavern. It sounded like several people were walking with them.
“Juuuuuuulllllllessssss,” a voice said in the darkness.
It was high and wispy, almost like a whisper carried on the breeze. Jules raised her weapon high, but she was uncertain where to point it. She was sure they were being watched.
“Juuuuuuullllessss,” the voice called again.
Pete started whimpering.
“Show yourself!” she shouted, growing tired of whatever game was being played. Her voice echoed throughout the cavern.
“If you insist,” the voice called again, a little clearer.
Torches sprang to life all along the cavern, flickering to life as if triggered by some switch. In a moment, the cavern was completely lit.
What she saw took her breath away. The cavern housed a structure in the center the likes of which she’d only seen in drawings. Elevated by several white, gleaming steps, there were several rows of immaculate, stone columns arranged in a perfect square, holding up a flat stone roof. In the center was a single large chair—a throne. It was the perfect reproduction of a Greek temple.
“Do you like it?” the voice called.
Jules looked all around her, still not seeing anyone. But she spotted movement in the recesses of the cavern. As the rest of the cavern beyond her was lit up, she could see other buildings carved into the rock. It was like some Indians, tribes she’d heard of that had made homes inside a cliff side, whole villages that were also part of a mountain.
The same had happened here. The cavern was no empty space inside the center of a mountain. Instead, there were elaborate constructions carved into the rock. There were thousands of small holes inside carvings. She’d compared the Vipers to a nest of ants, but all at once that analogy seemed wrong. This was like being inside a beehive, one carved by men.
She understood what this place was even before the voice spoke again.
“Welcome, Jules Castle, to the City of the Dead.”
Chapter Forty
“How foolish I was, to think I could avert fate in this way. I should have known better.”
— Attributed to the Lady of Shadows, 1872, excerpted by Terry Jacobsen, “A History of the Supernatural,” 2013
Red eyes appeared in the darkness just beyond where the torches reached. Jules counted a dozen, then two dozen and hundreds more. In the spaces carved into the cavern, she saw thousands of pairs of eyes peering at her. She had no idea there were so many Vipers.
They didn’t make a move to attack, but stayed where they were, watching her from afar. She looked back at Miranda, realizing all she’d accomplished was to bring them to their own doom. Miranda looked panicked, and Pete had fallen to the ground, his hands clutching the wooden cross hung around his neck. He began muttering to himself, rocking back and forth.
Jules’ heart pounded in her chest. Every instinct in her body told her to run. But she was through fleeing—and she damn well wasn’t going to show them how terrified she really was.
“I’ve come for my father,” Jules yelled. “Let him go!”
The sound of laughter bounced around the cavern. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It was all around her.
“I let Trent go when your friends arrived,” the voice said. Jules thought it sounded distinctly feminine. Did the Vipers even have genders anymore? “I wanted him to give them a proper welcome so you’d understand.”
Jules was confused for a moment before she remembered the bodies they’d found in the tunnel. Had her father done that? “Understand what?”
“That he’s mine now,” the voice replied. “He’s not truly one of my brood, of course. I suppose you’d call him a pet.”
Jules shook her head. “I don’t believe you. My father would never break.”
“You’d be surprised, little one.”
“Why don’t you show yourself and find out how little I am? Or are you too cowardly to face me?”
“My, my, but we have gumption,” the voice answered. “Fitting for the daughter of Trent Castle.”
“Show him to me,” Jules demanded, keeping all trace of nervousness from her voice.
“He’ll be along soon. He does like to play with his food.”
“Where are my friends?” Jules asked.
She knew the voice was probably referring to Duggett, but she couldn’t rule out the idea that the Vipers had taken Luke too.
“Here they are,” the voice said.
From the far side of the cavern across from the temple in the center, she saw five men emerge from one of the holes. Duggett was in front, followed by Jacob—the surviving brother from the bank—and three others Jules hadn’t met. Luke wasn’t among them. Vipers pushed the five of them to the center of the room and up the steps.
They all looked human, at least. Duggett and Jacob appeared scared, as did the other three, but there was no blood on them or any obvious wound. Duggett stared at Jules as he ascended the steps.
“Help me,” he said
. “Help me, please!”
The Viper behind him screeched and Duggett stopped pleading immediately. Jules kept her hand on her gun.
“Clever girl, sending them in first,” the voice continued. “You wanted them to trigger any defenses, and perhaps lay a trap for me. You sent them to destroy my temple. I cannot stand for such heresy, but I admire the goal. And now I have a gift of men. You intended me ill, but I must thank you. There are some places even we have trouble entering. This will solve that problem.”
Jules’ eyes narrowed, trying to make sense of what the voice had said. Gift of men? Did she mean the keys? The reference to entering somewhere suggested as much, but something felt off. She glanced at Duggett, but he was too terrified to give any kind of response.
“Yeah, I’m very clever,” she said. “Which is why you’d best give me my father and let me leave.”
The voice laughed again, and Jules was struck by how in control the Vipers seemed. Every other time she’d encountered them, they’d been in some kind of blood lust. These seemed more intelligent, or at least more disciplined.
“You wouldn’t want him now. I’ve broken Trent, I’m afraid. That’s what happens to toys who live too long. I offered him to join us, but he refused.”
“Who are you? What the hell do you want from me?”
“What makes you think I want anything from you?”
“You’ve been searching for me,” Jules said. “Sending your tempests out.”
“To a point. My storms are primarily about recruitment. We needed to add to our numbers. We come to a town and set it free.”
Jules snorted. “That’s what you call wholesale slaughter?”
“Slaughter?” the voice responded, and for the first time it sounded angry. “Slaughter is what you committed three nights ago when you blew up that church. That was murder. What we’ve done is nothing like that.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“You don’t understand. The world isn’t as simple as you believe it is. Nor am I some storybook villain. I’m on a mission of mercy.”
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