Ibenus (Valducan series) (34 page)

"Hold up," Luiza said as they reached an intersection.

Matt halted, keeping his attention to the passages ahead and to the right. Chaya maintained rear guard. He checked his blood compass. Nothing.

Pale light blinked on behind him, flooding the area in colors other than shades of red and black. "Right tunnel," Luiza said, and then the light went out.

She put the tablet away. Luiza motioned her head and they followed. The tunnel turned a series of right angles, eventually widening into a large chamber easily forty feet across. At its center, between a pair of questionable support columns, their lights gleamed off a miniature castle built of clay with bottle glass windows and tiny, dusty banners along its towers.

Luiza led them past it without a second glance.

Matt checked the compass. Still nothing. They'd been going for forty-three minutes. Another twenty, twenty-five and they'd need to head back. They'd lost radio contact with Mal's team after the first half hour. He didn't like being cut off. What if they needed help? Maybe they found a demon, or one of them got hurt. What if that murdering son of a bitch TommyD showed up? Matt couldn't help but wonder what Victoria might do if that happened. Would she stay true to her word, a word that meant jack shit to him, and plug the bastard? Or would she pop Mal and Taras in the back of the head, steal their weapons, and take off?

Why Luiza trusted her, Matt didn't know. Luiza just said that she did, and that was that. Matt knew better than to push the point once her mind was made up. Still, it felt like she was siding against him. For Allan' sake, Matt hoped she was right.

Alcoves lined the passage beyond the room, each haphazardly packed with yellowed and crumbling bones. In Paris' long and bloody history, burial space became a premium. After centuries of bodies buried atop bodies, graveyards formed pregnant hills. Sometimes they burst, spilling rotted corpses into neighboring basements. Eventually, they made the bold decision to exhume the millions of dead and transfer them to the old quarries. Several hundred thousand were stored in the official ossuary, a special section that was sealed off from the rest of the mines. It was now a tourist site, the bones cleverly arranged in artistic patterns, walls of skulls and pillars of femurs. But the bulk of those bones were unceremoniously deposited down here. While bones and the dead didn't bother Matt, not after the life he'd led, the sheer volume of it was staggering.

"Did we take a wrong turn?" Matt asked as they reached a mortared wall sealing the passage.

"Shouldn't have," Luiza said, a hint of uncertainty in her voice. She unzipped the pouch with her tablet.

Not one to pass the opportunity, Matt removed his pack as well and set it on the floor, happy to be rid of the weight. Chaya followed suit. She stretched, her vest
creaking
with the movement.

The glow from Luiza's screen flipped on. "The map says it goes through."

"Map is wrong." Matt wandered the fifteen feet back to a brick wall along one side of the hall that sealed two thirds of a side passage, leaving a crawlspace along the top. He peered down the narrow tunnel. The floor was solid bones, ribs, broken craniums, vertebrae–thousands of bodies worth, four feet deep and stretching beyond the end of his light like a river of death. "Christ."

"That tunnel should cut through," Luiza said. "Maybe that's what they were referring to."

"Is there another way?" Matt clicked his headlamp, increasing the beam. The trough extended at least sixty feet before opening up at the far side. It reminded him of one of those ball pits he played in as child, but nowhere near as inviting.

"I'd rather not go through that," Chaya said, craning her neck.

"I bet there's a prize down there if you dig."

"You first."

Luiza fidgeted with her map. "If we go back a kilometer, it appears to loop around. Passage might be flooded though."

Matt dimmed his light. "Don't think we have time."

"Me neither." Luiza frowned, her chocolate eyes studying the passage of bones. "By the time we made it through that, we'd have to turn back around and hustle."

"Well," Matt said, taking the cue. "I say we mark this as a spot to return to and head back. Maybe Mal's team found something."

"I'm down with this," Chaya said.

"All right." Luiza clicked off her tablet and slid it back into its waterproof bag. "Let's see what the others found."

Matt heaved his pack back on. He gave an unconscious glance to the bottle in his hand and froze. The blood-pinked water was clear. Along the side, the one facing the bone trough, a sphere of blood pressed against the inner wall. A surge of excitement shot up his spine, banishing the exhaustion. "Contact."

The two knights spun, hands moving to their swords.

Matt motioned his head in the direction the compass pointed. The red bead was sliding along the bottle's wall. The demon was moving.

Luiza looked at it, drew her katana, and moved toward the half-wall in a crouch.

"We going for it?" Chaya asked, sliding Khirzoor from its scabbard.

"That a problem?" Luiza's tone was ice cold, serious.

"Just making sure." Chaya's humor seemed to have risen by the same degree Luiza's had vanished.

"I go in first," Luiza said. "Chaya, then Matt. Stay close so Khirzoor hides our sound." They nodded and she was up and over the wall. Bones clicked and crunched as she slithered through the gap. As her feet slid inside, Chaya grabbed the lip and pulled herself up before Matt could even offer to help. Once she was through, he scrambled up, scraping his helmet on the low ceiling.

Bottle still his hand, he wriggled across the dead. The ancient bones crackled beneath him like dry rotted sticks. His padded knees and elbows sank into them with each movement. Chaya's boots pistoned inches from his face as she crawled, and he had to keep his head down to prevent one from taking him in the face.

Above the pops, rattling, and scrapes as they hurried, a baby's soft coo echoed from up ahead.
Shit
.

They scrambled faster. A giggle. Gabi's chubby face flashed in Matt's mind, a sound that once brought joy now perverted.

"Visual!" Luiza called.

Children's screams erupted in the tunnel, echoing all around them. How many? Four? Five? Matt's pack slammed into the ceiling as he tried to hurry and his foot became buried in bones. They were almost half-way through now. They needed to get out before they were trapped. He glanced at the compass. The blood sphere had split.

"Two demons!" he called. The minions wouldn't show on the compass, only the mantismeres themselves. Six screamers per monster.

The sharp
clack, clack
of a suppressed pistol made him wince but they kept crawling.

One of the red beads slid away from the other, moving around. More shots came from ahead. Wisps of gun smoke danced in the beam of Matt's headlamp.

A giggle came from behind, sending a cold shiver down Matt's neck.

He rolled and looked back down the passage past his own boots.

A pale, doll-faced insect stood in the opening, its eyes liquid black. Its mandibles opened and it cooed.

Shit!

Spidery legs reached around the edge and a second screamer crawled up into the trough.

"They're behind us!" Firing Dämoren in here would deafen them all, but the holy revolver wasn't needed for these fuckers. Dropping the compass onto his stomach, Matt clawed for the Ingram slung tight across his chest.

The first bug cocked its head and scuttled inside as a third one climbed into view.

Matt pulled the machine pistol up, not bothering to remove the protective sock he'd put over the barrel. Spreading his knees and feet as wide as possible, he squeezed the trigger. The burst came as a metallic roar.

Old bones exploded in plumes of dust and the monster blew apart. Steam poured from the mulched corpse, bringing a gut-wrenching stench.

The other two bugs wailed. Matt swung the gun toward them, shearing the legs off one with another burst, but the other one leaped to the side and burrowed beneath the bones.

Fuck!

Putrid steam and smoke filled the tight tunnel. Eyes watering, Matt searched the bones. He caught a glimpse of movement as another screamer hurried inside, but it was gone before he had the gun up.

A bowl-shaped cranium wiggled, the bones shifting beneath it. Screaming, Matt pulled the trigger, unleashing an explosion of grit and shattered bone. Hot brass bounced off the walls, tinkling around him. One shell landed in the crook of his neck, scalding him, be he kept firing until steam wafted out from beneath the powdered bones and the Ingram's bolt clicked.

"Go! Go! Go!" he yelled, scrambling along his back, one hand fumbling at a magazine pouch. The compass rolled off him, but he snatched it up, holding it beneath his chin. Matt slapped the fresh magazine in and fired at something moving at the exit. He had no idea if he even hit it.

They were almost out. Luiza's gun was still firing. Splinters of bone dug into the backs of Matt's arms but he kept going. His ears rang but he could still hear the shrill wails.

The bones between his legs shifted, forming a mound. The tips of mandibles poked through and Matt rammed the Ingram's barrel directly against them and fired. Shards of bone pelted his face as he drilled out the area, moving the gun in a circle. Black ooze splattered his thighs and hands.

Dark steam belched from the rubble, the cloud so thick he couldn't even see his own feet. He choked on the stench, struggling not to vomit.

"I'm out!" Luiza shouted.

Matt kept crawling backwards, tears running down his face. He slid over the greasy remains of one of the screamers Luiza had killed, smearing it down his back.

"Look out!" Chaya yelled.

Matt kept kicking his way backwards. Clattering came from behind him, but he couldn't turn his head to see. Luiza was yelling something, and then blue flickering light filled the tunnel.

Matt pushed himself further and the ground seemed to vanish beneath his shoulders. He was out! The compass fell from beneath his chin as he twisted around and pulled himself from the hole, nearly falling to the floor.

Panting, he looked up. Luiza was standing above a six-foot insect encased in icy blue fire. Flames dripped from Akumanokira's blade as she looked around.

"Here," Chaya said helping Matt to his feet. She clutched her scimitar in one hand, the other on her pistol. Four more black and rubbery screamer corpses littered the floor, each spewing their vile stench.

"Where's the other one?" Luiza asked, her head swiveling around.

Matt fetched his bottle from the floor. The bead pointed beside them, but there was nothing there, nothing but a wall. "I don't know."

"How did they get behind us?" Chaya panted, shining her pistol's light down the trough tunnel.

"I don't know," Matt said. "The demon moved around and they were there." He looked at the compass again. The red bead was moving. The range was shit through solid rock, so it had to be close.

"There should be a tunnel here." Luiza motioned her sword at sealed passage like the one before. "The other end of the hallway stopped at a bone-filled pit.

"Where did this one come from?" Chaya searched her light across the ceiling.

In the blue fire of the burning demon, Matt noticed the tiny footprints from screamers across the dusty floor. They ended at the sealed wall. Tiny trenches, like scuff marks extended at the very edge. "What the hell?"

He stepped closer. The wall appeared no different than the dozens of other sealed passages. Matt touched the ancient mortar. It gave slightly. He scraped a fingernail and a sliver flaked off like dried snot.
Son of a bitch
.

Matt brought his boot up and kicked the wall. It gave a hollow thud and crack like the sound of breaking Styrofoam. He kicked it again, and one of the stones fell inward.

"Here!" he shouted, breaking more rocks free. The wall was thin, no more than a hand-width thick. He pulled one of the loosened stones and the whole wall shifted under the strain, hinging off the top before the rock came free.

"What is this?" Luiza shined her light through the hole Matt had torn.

He gripped the edge of the hole and pulled. The entire wall moved with a crackling groan, pivoting upward like a dog door. There must have been a counterweight of some kind, allowing it to swing so easily. Matt was able to lift it three feet before it wouldn't go any further. "Like a trapdoor spider."

Chaya and Luiza shone their lights down the hidden passage beyond.

Matt caught the faintest hint of vinegar beneath the stink of the steaming bugs behind him. He peered up at the gooey mortar along underside of the door, some kind of hardened mucus. He wondered if a black light would have helped in spotting it.
Too late now
.

"We need to tell the others about this," Luiza said.

The blood bead was still moving in the bottle, away from them. "We need to kill that demon. If it warns the others, they might bolt. We'll never find them."

Luiza's sucked her bottom lip. She looked at the door, then back down the passage. "Then let's go get it."

Chapter Twenty

The day that Thomas Doershuk's life had changed was the day he first tried amphetamines. Twenty years old, believing he was invincible and ready to conquer the world, Tommy's life took the surreal twist from promising musician to resistance leader in the secret war by way of addiction. How it was, Tommy was in a band with his best friend Aaron Lemming. Together, they embarked on a cross-country adventure from Danbury, Connecticut to LA, playing gigs along the way. Aaron introduced him to meth and, by the time they made it to California, Tommy was masterfully versed in the ways of addiction.

Addicts develop a hyper-evolved set of skills that only those helplessly obsessed with illegal drugs can possess. Skills that allowed you to look at a room of strangers, instantly gauge who might be in the know and the courage, that only real addiction grants, to approach this complete stranger and try to score. An addict's life is also about networking. Once you have established those connections, you must maintain them, grow on them, diversify in case one link gets pinched or runs dry. This skill, prized by businessmen, is second nature for a truly proficient addict. Finally, the addict knows when those rare and unexplainable strokes of luck come by that you must seize them without hesitation.