Chaos Lives in Everything - 30. Chapter 30

The steps seemed to stretch on through the darkness for forever. Steep and without a rail Skold and the rest of the group moved slowly and cautiously. The further they went into the dark the stronger the smell of a thousand rotting bodies became; the air was cold and damp. Finally it seemed that they reached the bottom of the stairs.

Just to make sure Skold cautiously stuck his foot out and set it on solid ground. He signaled for the others to wait and held out one of his Uzis before him, the flashlight in his other hand. He turned this way and that, searching and listening for signs of danger. No monsters shot out of the darkness to attack him; at the moment it they were alone-or so it seemed. There was a tunnel in front of him. It was the only way to move any further. Skold motioned that it was safe for them to move on.

The tunnel was just wide enough and tall enough for them to put through; it sloped downwards, taking them deeper underground. Dom actually had to crawl he was tall, cursing under his breath as he did. The walls of the tunnel were perfectly smoothe, has if they had been carved out of the rough stone. Runes had also been carved into the walls. They shimmered with a faint light. Skold experimentally turned off his flashlight. The runes left off just enought light for them to be able to see. This is good, he thought. Now we can save our batteries. Dom, Rebecca, and Candestine did the same. Annabelle, of course, did not have a flashlight.

He frowned. The runes kept shifting and changing, unintelligable from one second to the next.

“I suddenly feel like I’m back in Paris with all of the secret tunnels,” Candestine said conversationally. She looked at Rebecca. “You know it’s true what they say about how they throw the dead underground. It used to be a big thing up until the 19th century but not so much anymore. We still throw dead bodies down there however, when we’re done interrogating out prisoners and we need to dispose of them of course.” She sighed sadly. “Sometimes I find myself missing my job. But mostly I’m just happy to be away from that sorry sod that calls himself a king.”

Even in the dim lighting Rebecca’s face had gone noticibly pale. “Uh, cool,” was all she could manage to say.

“What do these runes say?” Skold asked, puzzled. “I can’t read them.”

“That’s because they are incantations for death magic,” Annabelle said. “The barrier that King Yaldon put on your mind is keeping you from being able to read them.”

“I don’t mean to dampen the moment,” Dom growled, “but can we move on for fuck’s sake? My knees are hurting and I can’t stand being scrunched in like this.”

“How far are we from the necromancer?” Skold asked the seer.

She shook her head. “It’s impossible to tell. There’s too much interferance from these runes. It is clouding my vision.”

“Is the necromancer even here?” Candestine asked increduously.

The seer nodded. “I can feel his presence although it is weak from all of the interferance, as I said. But I get the sense that he knows we’re here. He’s just waiting for us to come to him.”

Candestine snorted. “You can’t see him but you can sense him? What bullshit. In that case we could be down here all fucking night, get lost, or worse get trapped down here. And how do we not know you’re in league with this necromancer?”

Skold flashed her a sharp look. “Sister, if you want to start a fight do it when the necromancer is dead and we are back on the surface.”

Candestine saluted him and gave him a sarcastic wink. “Whatever you say, younger brother. You’re the boss.” She said something under her breath but Skold could not hear what it was, nor did he care. His sister’s need to start feuds with everyone was impossible to cope with a times.

The group moved on, resuming their journey in silence.

Skold kept glancing at the runes everchanging runes; it was almost as if they were made of blue, glowing liquid. After a while a familiar feeling came over him: the same feeling that had come over him when he had touched the rune that Bane had left at Robert P. Parker’s gravesite; the feeling of nails scratching against the black barrier that King Yaldon had put in his head. I know I haven’t been in these tunnels before but I’ve been in a place much like this, Skold thought. I can’t remember but I can feel it just like I knew that Bane was telling the truth.

He remembered what the seer had told him: You went to the necromancer and you sold your soul to him the same way that he sold his soul to the Frrey Mann.

Skold shook the thought out of his head. I have to stay focused. Nothing else matters but stopping Bane.

After several more minutes they came to an opening. Candestine let out a sigh of relief and said, “For a moment I thought that we were going to have to walk through the same monotonous tunnel.”

“I know,” Rebecca said with equal relief. “And I was just getting used to the dead smell.”

The opening led into a humongous cavern. The ceiling was so high that Rebecca’s human eyes could not see it. The walls were covered in more the glowing blue runes that filled with the cavern with sapphiry luminence. Everyone was so amazed with the size of the cavern that no one had noticed what lay before them until Rebecca said, “Oh my God, this is so not good.”

Looking for the first time at what she was seeing, Skold felt his heart stop.

Spanning across the floor of a cavern were hundred of the black crystal-like cocoons that they’d encountered in Gihanni’s lab. There were so many that it was impossible to tell just how many at first glance.

“You were right,” Dom said. “He’s making more of these things. An army of them. Can you imagine the damage that they would do, how unstoppable they would be? Immune to silver. Look at how much trouble we had just killing the one.”

“Yeah but where is he getting all of the bodies?” Rebecca said. “They can’t all be from the cemetary and the morgue and they can’t all be missing people. With this many people the city would have known something was up a long time ago.”

Skold thought of something that Bane had said to him: I have eyes everywhere, thousands of souls right here, in this very city, working with me to make it happen. It goes all of the way to the top and the battlefield is right in the streets of the place that you now call home...

He thought of Marcus Sloan, the bounty that Vanessa Holland had hired him to kill. Marcus Sloan who had been in league with a human harvesting operation. “I have an idea,” he murmered. “Marcus Sloan. The company he worked for. They must be supplying the necromancer with people to turn into these things.” I wonder if Vanessa’s sister is in one of these cocoons, he thought. If she was there was no way to tell.

Rebecca stepped cautiously towards one of the cocoons. She stooped over it.

“Be careful,” Skold said.

She looked up, her lips quivering in fear.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The thing...it’s moving.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded timidly. “Look.”

He came to her side. Sure enough the creature inside was moving, its sharp nails scraping at the inside of the cocoon. It’s growls were muffled by the cocoon but he knew that it wouldn’t take long for the creature to burst its way out.

But it wasn’t the only that was moving. There was movement coming from inside all of the cocoons. They’re all waking up, Skold thought.

He grabbed a hold of Rebecca by her shoulders and leapt out of the way just as the creature before him burst out of its cocoon.

Skold got to his feet and unsheathed his sword in one fluid motion. There was no sense in wasting his ammo on these monstrosities. He lunged at the creature and decapitated it with a single stroke of the blade. He leapt over the cocoon and blew the head off another in a flail of bullets. Blowing their heads off seemed to be the only way to kill them.

He could see the seer just in his field of vision. She had shed her glamour-skin and became what she was-the old hag. Her nails had turned to razor sharp claws that slashed and rendered. With each slash limbs fell in sprays of black fluid. Skold risked a glance over his shoulder. Rebecca and Candestine fought side by side, their swords gleaming as they danced. Rebecca was holding herself surprisingly well for someone who had little to no combat experience. Dom was obliterating any abomination who dared to step in his path with shots from his shotgun.

The glance he’d risked to make sure that his compansions were safe costed Skold: He felt the sudden sting of sharp claws tearing through the flesh on the side of his face with such a force that it knocked him to the ground. His sword fell from his hand. The creature that had attacked him was already on top of him, its mouth of razor sharp teeth opening to engulf his face. Just as it was about to take his face off Skold managed to grab a hold of its throat. The thing thrashed and struggled like an animal, screeching, its mouth snapping on him. It took almost all of his strength just to keep his grip on its neck. Gritting his teeth, Skold squeezed its neck with both of his hands and pulled as hard as he could; he was more enraged by the fact that the creature had surprised him than he was in pain. Already his wound was starting to heal.

The head came off with a wet squelching sound that brought more joy to Skold’s ears than no other sound had in quite some time. He shoved the lower half of the creature’s body off of him and sprung to his feet. A sudden sharp twinge vibrated in the pit of his stomach.

Dom.

He glanced at Dom. Three creatures had thrown themselves on top of him and were tearing relentlessly at him with their claws. Even with his strength and size with three of the creatures on top of him was too much for Dom to fight off.

I’m coming, Skold thought. He tried to send the message with a vibration of his own. He picked up, sheathed it, and pulled out his other Uzi in the time that it took to blink. Already several monstrosities were charging in his direction, trying to get in his way.

Skold was not having it. He lashed out with a sharp, precise kick that crushed the skull of the closest advancing creature. The rattling report emitting from his Uzis was deafening. Skold could almost keep count of the number of bodies that fell before him.

One...two...three…

He knew that he didn’t have enough ammo or strength or power to kill every creature in this cavern; and who knew if there were more in this labrynth of underground tunnels. Even with the power of a seer in their presence it was not enough. In this instance they were fighting a losing battle, a battle than an entire army might not be able to win in confined space such as this. But Skold would be damned if he was going to let that stop him from getting to Dom. Dom was the first person that he could remember who had looked at him has something more than a killer, filthy eunuch. Here was the first being who thought that Skold could redeem himself. And if it is true what they say about Vervolechent then I will never find another mate like him? he thought. We are to be lovers for all eternity.

Despite the inescapable danger that he was in, Skold could not help but notice how ironic, even laughable that he should think this way now. In the past Skold had never placed an importance in partnership, in true love. The only thing he’d ever taken pleasure in was noncomittal sex-it didn’t matter what the species was as long as it was male. And the more the merrier.

But this one elf had changed everything, just when Skold thought he would was doomed to be hollow for the rest of his immortal existence.

Dom was nothing less than his salvation.

Four...Five...Six…

At last he reached Dom. He barely remembered killing the first two. He pried the last one off of Dom and threw it to the floor. The abomination landed on its hands and feet and scuttled towards him like an insect. With a grunt Skold curled a fist and punched straight through its chest. His fingers wrapped around its still beating hard, and with a sharp wrench, he pulled it out.

He watched as the creature spasmed and then died when as the heart stopped beating.

So not all of these creatures had been raised from the dead by the necromancer. Some of them were still alive. Technically anyway.

Skold tossed the heart aside, his hand covered in black gloo. Fuck technicalities.

He helped Dom to his feet. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Dom said, spitting on one of the dismembered creatures. “Just a few scratches. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“If that was so you wouldn’t have signalled for me to come over here and save your ass. That makes us even.” More urgently Skold said, “We need to get out of here. There’s no way we can face all of these.”

Dom nodded to the left, sliding a few shells into his shotgun. He blasted an abomination’s head off and said, “There’s a tunnel over there. It’s new, I think.”

Skold craned his head to look. Indeed there was the mouth to a tunnel. With all of the commotion he had not seen it. “Whether it’s new or not we’re going through it. If it’s not we will have to find some other way to get to Bane.” If there is another way, he added silently.

He glanced at the others, hoping no one in his group had died. He was relieved to see that Candestine, Rebecca, and Annabelle were clustered in a circle, fighting as a team. Abominations were falling around them. But hordes of them were surrounding them and soon they would overrun them.

“This way!” he shouted. “We’re leaving!”

At the sound of the voice the three women came running. The group of five fled down the tunnel, the legion of abominations chasing them like something conjured from the nightmare of all nightmares. He threw a glance over his shoulder. The monstrosities were gaining on them.

Luckily I still have a shirt up my sleeve, he thought. A last resort.

Pulling several grenades from his belt, he waved the others past him. “Go! Go! Go!” he barked.

“What are you doing?” Rebecca cried shrilly. Her eyes with terror.

“I’ll be right behind you!”

Rebecca turned and fled back in the direction of the others. With flashing fingers, Skold uncapped the grenades and threw them in the direction of the oncoming hordes. He didn’t stick around to see what effect the explosion would have on the horde. But he did feel the explosion. It shook every bone in his body and rattled every tooth in his skull and made every bone in his bottle shake.

Skold felt the heat of the explosion at his back, heard the screech of almost human-like agony as numerous monstrosities were ripped apart by the explosion or incinerated in a roar of flame. It singed his hair and even the quality leather of his waistcoat could not keep the sting of it from burning his back. Still, even with the grenades, he knew it was not enough to keep the abominations back. What came next was.

The tunnel was shaking all around them, seeming to come to life, bellowing in rage. Skold saw Rebecca fall down hard, sprawling on her hands and knees. Skold almost tripped over her legs. He grabbed her, pulled her to her feet and pushed her forward.

Like the previous tunnel this one did not seem to end nor did its attempt in trying to take vengeance for their revolt. After a moment Skold realized that the ceiling was not collapsing on top of them. Rebecca seemed to realize this too. She stopped as did the others.

“I...can’t...breathe...anymore…,” she panted breathlessly. “Give...me...a...minute...”

Despite all of the excursion he had spent in fighting and trying to survive, Skold had not lost his breath. By appearance neither had Dom or Candestine. Still, he took sympathy with Rebecca. She was human; even with the spike of adrenaline she could not push her body like they could.

He nodded. “We’ll take a minute to rest. I don’t think those things...”

Skold did not get to finish his sentence. With the tunnel still quaking slightly, the ground beneath his feet crumbled and the next thing he knew, he was falling into darkness.

One second was standing there and in the next he wasn’t.

Two sensations went through Dom. One was a jarring shock that numbed his mind and the other was like taking a spear through the heart.

Rebecca was on her knees, screaming Skold’s name into the hole, sobbing helplessly. Her voice echoed, the d in Skold’s name stretching eerily. “Skolddddd...Skolddddddddd!”

Dom’s heart was being crushed. He couldn’t breathe. He lurched foward, his muscles and limbs not moving as they should. Each movement felt stiff, mechanical. He fell to his knees next to Rebecca and looked down into endless, bottomless darkness. Tears clouded his vision. His throat became impossibly tight.

“He’s dead,” he croaked.

“What?” Rebecca looked at him as if he had said something blasphemous. Her face had contorted into an expression of agony, resembling the agony that he felt inside. “No, he’s not dead! He can’t be!”

“There’s no way he could have survived that,” Candestine’s voice was hardly a whisper. Dom did not have the energy or the care to turn around and observe the expression on her face. You bitch, a distant voice, a voice of rage, said in the back of his mind. You wanted him dead and now he is dead.

“Fuck you all!” Rebecca screamed, shooting to her feet. Her grief had turned to anger; she was angry at the fact that they had given up on her so easily. “It would take a lot more than a fall to kill him and you know it!”

Dom’s mind slowed. Did Rebecca truly believe this or was she trying to deny the truth? She turned to him glaring. “I can’t believe you would give up on him that easily. That you would think that his life could be snuffed out like a candle.” She clicked her fingers to emphasize the point. She turned to the seer. “Is he dead?”

The seer, who had gone back to her younger self, closed her eyes, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her body became as still as a statue. Dom rose to her feet and watched her. The small glimmer of hope that had risen in the midst of his despair felt like the conjuring of a malicious clown. The sudden silence that surrounded them was unbareable, stretching around them like a rubber band. Again Dom dared not to breathe.

Annabelle opened her eyes. The ghost of a smile, ever so slight, flicked cross her face. “Yes. I can feel his life force. But it is faint.”

“Is he hurt?” Dom asked. The spark of hope grew into a flame.

“I don’t know. Once again it is the interferance of this place. But he is not dead. If he was, you yourself would know it. Probably more so than I.”

“Can you find him?”

“No. But you can. Close your eyes. Calm yourself.” The seer’s voice grew softer with each word. “Open your mind and search for him. You will find him.”

Dom closed his eyes and stared into the void behind the tissue of his eyelids. He let his mind stretch out beyond his body, beyond the walls of the tunnel. At first he felt nothing...and then...and then...A tremor echoed through the darkness. It was small, faint. Eyes still closed he took ten paces forward. There came another tremor. It only slightly stronger but it gave Dom hope.

“Let’s find him,” he said.

Dom took the lead.