Morpheus Road 03 - The Blood (21 page)

"And what is it
you
hope to prove by coming here?" he said coldly. "That you are something other than a coddled mother's boy who
shies
at the realities of a cruel world? Let me offer you one last dose of reality. Your misguided act has doomed you to forever remain the pathetic, frightened little boy you so wished to leave behind."

Marsh grabbed the crucible, yanked it out of his pocket, and held it out toward Damon threateningly.

Damon was taken aback at the sight of the crucible, but didn't drop his sword.

Marsh held the orb out farther, expecting something to happen.
Hoping
for something to happen. The two stood facing each other, with Damon holding the point of the poleax at Marsh's chest.

Nothing happened.

Finally Damon offered a condescending smile.

"You do know that this is a dead existence," he said, smug. "There is no spiritual power in the Blood."

Marsh's stomach fell. The crucible was useless.

Damon swung the poleax without warning and knocked the orb out of Marsh's hand.

Marsh tried to catch it . . . too late. The golden ball hit the ground and shattered, splashing the blood of Alexander across the stone walkway. There was no earthquake or any
other sign of the power that the crucible possessed in other dimensions. In the Blood it was no more powerful than an ordinary piece of shattered glass.

Marsh stared at the thick blood that trickled down and disappeared between the stones of the walkway, not want
ing to believe that another crucible was gone.

Damon smiled in triumph. "I believe there is one last crucible still in the possession of the lovely Sydney."

Marsh looked up to the warrior, steeled himself, and said, "Which means you'll never get close to her."

"Not at first," Damon replied. "But these wretched crucibles hold no power over other spirits. Once my army marches into the Light, rest assured there will be no short
age of volunteers to hunt her down and destroy the infernal trinket that has kept me at bay for so long. Once it is gone, there will be nothing left to protect your lovely friend . . . from me."

Marsh screamed and jumped at Damon.

Damon quickly and calmly swung the poleax back toward Marsh . . . and drove the blade directly into his heart.

Marsh had never known such pain.

His entire body was racked with an excruciating agony that radiated out from the center of his chest. He couldn't even catch enough breath to scream out. The feeling of an alien object inside his body, cutting his flesh, nearly made his mind snap.

Damon pulled his lips back in an unconscious gesture, revealing the points of his two sharpened front teeth.

Marsh feared that Damon was going to rip out his heart and eat it, as he had done with so many of his enemies in the Light.

Damon shook his head, as if forcing that very desire from his mind. He pulled the poleax out of Marsh and examined the blade. It was clean. Spirits didn't bleed. Marsh fell to his knees, clutching his chest, holding his hand to the wound in a vain attempt to stop the searing agony.

"You are fortunate," Damon declared. "Pray I will not have this same opportunity in the Black."

With Marsh dismissed, Damon sidestepped him and strode toward the cathedral.

Marsh fell onto his side, gasping for air, willing the pain to go away. The sounds of the battle meant nothing to him. The battle itself was inconsequential. What mattered was that he had stood up to Damon and lost. The hurt that came from his pathetic failure rivaled the pain that tore through his chest. The only difference was that the pain from the injury slowly diminished. He blinked back the tears and dared to take his hand away from his wound. He examined it, expecting to see blood but not surprised when he didn't. Injuries were only a temporary setback. A
painful
setback, but minor nonetheless.

Marsh didn't want to have to go through anything like that again. He wanted to run off, find the Rift that led back into the Black, find his own vision, and crawl under his bed to hide.

He might have done just that, if his head hadn't cleared enough to once again register the sounds of the battle that was still raging. A quick look toward the cathedral showed that it was a standoff. The figments hadn't gotten any closer to the cathedral, but they hadn't been turned back either. Press was still spinning his stave like an attack helicopter, and Coop was still sparring with the old spirit. Nothing had changed . . .

. . . except that Damon had made his way through the battlefield and was entering the front doors of the cathedral.

Marsh jumped to his feet, the pain forgotten. His first thought was to run to Coop and Press to let them know that Damon was inside, but he dismissed it. He couldn't afford to waste the time.

He had to stop Damon.

Rather than plunge straight ahead, he took the wid
est route possible around the battle. It took time but not nearly as much as if he had had to fight. He moved stealthily between the crumbled remnants of the garden, past broken statues and crumbled walls, dry fountains and empty trel
lises. He felt like a coward, but stayed focused. He had no idea how he would stop Damon from releasing Brennus, but he knew he had to try.

Finally he reached the bottom of the stone stairs that led up to the front door of the cathedral. He waited for a moment, making sure that the banshees were too busy to notice, then sprinted up the stairs and jumped through the dark doorway.

"I knew plenty of boys like you," Sanger spat at Cooper. "Good for nothing but trouble."

"I'll bet you were a real prince," Coop shot back. "That's why you landed here."

Sanger lashed out at Cooper, swinging hard. Coop ducked the punch easily, but Sanger came back with an uppercut that drove straight into his gut. Coop was surprised by the skill of the old man. In life he must have been a real battler. Coop was also surprised by how much the punch hurt. He staggered back but Sanger was on him quickly. He leaped at Cooper and tackled him, driving his knees into his chest. Coop landed on his back, and Sanger grabbed his arm and flipped him over, wrenching the arm up and behind his shoulders.

Sanger leaned down to him and spat in his ear with vicious intensity, "You're a smart-ass, kid. I'm gonna enjoy seeing the likes of you eating dirt when the rising comes. I'll be
lookin
' for you in particular . . . and for the ones who killed me. You're all gonna suffer, I'll make sure of that."

Coop's other arm was free. He held his breath, forced himself not to think of the pain, and drove his hand up and backward, jamming his palm into Sanger's nose. Sanger squealed and let go. Coop spun and was on him fast, first throwing a side kick to his head that sent him sprawling, then leaping on him and jamming his knee into the old spir
it's throat.

"I don't know who you were in life, you old dog, but this is where you belong and this is where you're staying."

Sanger's eyes were wild as he let out a laugh that chilled Cooper. In that one second, Coop realized that if these were the kind of spirits that Damon was gathering to stage his war, Ree's Guardians wouldn't stand a chance.

The vast cathedral was dark and quiet. The sounds of the battle grew faint as if it were miles away. Marsh stood just inside the front door, taking in the ancient, crumbled struc
ture. The ceiling that would have been several stories above was long gone, allowing him to see the stone tower that stretched into the purple sky. A balcony ringed the space a story above.

From where he stood, the altar looked to be fifty yards away. Marsh had been in similar colossal structures when his family had toured England, but never had he seen one that was so foreboding. So ominous. So dead. Rows of wooden pews stretched all the way to the front, defining the aisles: one directly down the center, one to either side of that, and two more along the left and right walls.

Where did Press say the tomb was? The left aisle? The right aisle? Marsh swore at himself for not remembering. He stood quietly, hoping to hear Damon moving about but the old church was as quiet as a tomb.

Or many tombs.

As terrified as he was, his hope grew. Damon couldn't have found Brennus's prison, or Marsh surely would have heard the sounds of him breaking into it. All he could think to do was find the tomb and stand guard as best as he could and hope that Coop and Press would soon be there. Before moving, he picked up a broken chunk of wood that was once the leg of a chair. It was the only weapon he could find.

He started to walk down the center aisle, feeling vulner
able. Damon could be hiding anywhere, watching him from the shadows. He chose instead to move to the far side and keep a wall at his back. He walked cautiously to his right, trying not to create too loud a footfall, but every time his toe touched the floor, it felt as though he were creating a booming echo that reverberated off the stone walls.

He reached the far side and, with his shoulder to the wall, slowly moved forward. As with the cathedrals in Europe, he passed by several stone crypts that were built into the walls. He didn't understand the practice of creat
ing such garish displays for the dead. A statue to a revered person would have been plenty. Why did they have to have their bodies stuck right into the walls? It seemed barbaric. Most of the crypts had ancient writing that he couldn't read. It seemed to be some form of Old English. Or Celtic. Or whatever. All he knew was that he couldn't decipher any of it. He held out hope that he would come upon one that simply said BRENNUS, but that didn't seem likely.

Complicating matters was that there were hundreds of crypts covering the walls and the floors. If he had any hope of finding Brennus's prison, he would have to trust in what the Watcher told them.
He would have to just "know."

He remembered that Press said the tomb was in the floor. That reduced the number of possibilities by at least two thirds. He passed over several rectangular sections that were flush with the floor but were actually inlaid tomb coverings.

None of the inscriptions were any easier to decipher than the ones on the walls. Marsh had the brief hope that Damon would have just as much trouble figuring out where Brennus was. Maybe neither of them would find the tomb before the cavalry arrived. That would have been okay.

He didn't put much faith in that, though.

Farther up the aisle he came upon a heaping of pews that were piled on top of one another as if they were the discarded LEGO toys of a giant. An angry giant. Some were splintered as if split in two by a massive force. Jagged pieces of wood created a sharp labyrinth for him to make his way through. It was as though the pile had been placed there deliberately as a deterrent to keep the curious away.

Marsh felt sure that he was getting closer.

He wove his way through the jutting points of splin
tered wood until he came to an area where only a few bro
ken pieces were scattered on the floor. Marsh stepped for
ward and scanned the space, realizing that it was a clearing of sorts and he was surrounded by a wall made of splin
tered seats. The pews formed a ring, perhaps to act as a final, defensible barricade. Marsh stepped to the dead center to see that the barrier had been arranged around a tomb in the floor that looked to be about seven feet long and four feet wide and was covered by scattered pieces of broken pews.

Marsh knelt down on one knee and put his palm on the corner of the marble slab. It was warm. He reached for
ward, grabbed the edge of a long wooden plank, and pulled it aside to reveal the inscription. In simple three-inch-high letters was inscribed:

JAMES BRENNUS 1642-

It confirmed what he already sensed: The sin eater was imprisoned below.

His mind raced to the next step. Damon would surely find the tomb. Marsh would have to protect it until Cooper
and Press got there. He clutched the splintered chair leg and looked around for something else to use as a weapon. He knew that anything he might find would be pathetic com
pared to the poleax, but he had to try. He grabbed another length of sharp wood off the floor, and froze. Something had dropped onto the back of his hand. Something wet. Had it started to rain? Did it rain in the Blood?

Marsh slowly looked up to see where it had come from . . .

. . . and saw that he wasn't alone. Leaning over the bal
cony railing, staring down at him from above, were a dozen of the hollow-eyed demons. Drool fell from their open mouths. They had been watching him the whole time.

Marsh clutched the chair leg, ready to fight, as the mon
sters vaulted over the railing.

Outside the cathedral the figments were tiring.

The spirits who were defending the cathedral had been spurred on by the arrival of Press, their spiritual men
tor, and were finally able to push the demons back toward the river. Every inch of ground was hard fought, but the demons were losing.

Press was attacked from behind by two of the small mon
sters. He spun quickly, flinging one off before rapping it on the side of the head with his stave. The second grabbed him around the throat. Press went with it. He fell into a back
ward somersault, crushing the little monster with his body weight and then continuing the roll to his feet, bringing the stave around again and knocking the demon senseless.

Coop saw the whole thing and ran to join Press.

"Nice," he declared. "I didn't think Watchers went there."

Press shrugged. "I guess that's your answer."

"Answer to what?"

"To why I'm the one who gets these jobs."

Coop was impressed.

"Where's Damon?" Press asked.

Their conversation ended when the banshees made a last-ditch assault, charging en masse. Coop and Press were ready, Press with his stave and Coop with the powerless black sword. Together with
the spirit guards, they stood their ground and drove the small demons back to the water. Several fell in and floundered while others boarded their flat-bottom boats and paddled away quickly.

Press and Coop stood together on the shore, breathing hard, then looked to each other.

"Damon," Press declared.

Coop glanced to the lake and boat
the
they had arrived in. The empty boat.

"Yeah," he added. "And Marsh."

Marsh swung the wooden chair legs wildly and managed to knock a few of the figments back, but it was a futile effort. There were too many of them. One grabbed his arm and wrenched the weapon from his hand while another threw him to the ground and held him on his back. Others quickly pinned Marsh's arms. The figment on top of him leaned in close and smiled, revealing sharpened teeth.

Marsh struggled but the best he could hope for was to keep his mind from snapping.

The demon opened its jaws wide and leaned in, ready to take a bite out of Marsh's cheek.

"Enough!" Damon commanded.

The figment snapped its mouth shut, angered that it had missed out on its snack. It jumped off Marsh's chest, revealing to him that Damon was standing on the far side of the tomb.

"It seems your family is quite skilled at finding hidden tombs," Damon said, bemused.

Marsh struggled to lift his head but the demons kept his arms pinned to the floor.

"Of course I would have found it eventually," Damon said. "But it is so much more poetic that you have saved me the trouble."