33

ONCE OUR ARSE-KICKING BOOTS ARE ON

“Two more lefts and we should be there,” I say, glancing at the directions I’ve scribbled down. I try to inject my voice with confidence. It turns out maps made out of magically evolved butterflies are a bit inconsistent when it comes to scale. Well, either that, or I’m crap at writing down directions. I’m really banking on it being the first of those options.

Another roar echoes around us. They’ve been coming more and more frequently, slowly growing more distinct but still defying identification. It is something like a ripping noise. An almost mechanical tearing. A sound out of place in this world of rock and moss.

“You know,” Hannah says, “at some point that’s going to get pretty bloody disturbing.”

We keep on walking. We make the first left, then the other. A tunnel leads ahead, revealing nothing but shadow and darkness.

Hannah pipes up again. “You sure this is the way?”

“Just following the directions,” I say, and for Felicity’s sake leave my comments at that.

“You fuck up the instructions?” Tabitha asks, taking a slightly more direct route to this conversation’s end point.

“Feel free to go back and double check,” I snap.

“You know, I don’t really think that’s totally appropriate, Arthur,” Clyde says, slightly apologetic. “I mean, considering Tabby’s condition.”

The sound of Tabitha grinding her teeth almost drowns out the next roar.

“Is it me or does it seem like we’re walking toward that noise?” Felicity asks. Potentially attempting to change the subject.

But then abruptly the tunnel widens. The pool of our torches’ light is no longer abutted by walls, but fades off into darkness.

“Maybe,” I say, turning to Hermann, “a little more light.”

He hawks massively, and with a degree of ostentation that probably isn’t necessary. And a thick wad of flaming oil sails across the room to splatter against a far wall.

It is indeed another cavern, smaller than the one where we made camp, but distinctly more endowed in the large bronze door department.

The door is a large oval set into one wall, broader on the horizontal than the vertical. Swirling lines cover it, twisting and tangling, as if the metalworker who wrought this great thing had a pretty substantial hard-on for paisley. The world takes all sorts, I suppose.

“Seems a little lacking in handles,” Hannah comments, bringing her usual level of optimism to proceedings.

“Seems like this place is a little feckin’ lacking in Minotaurs to battle,” Kayla comments, bring her usual level of unnecessary violence to proceedings.

As if in response to her call, another roar booms into the cavern. The loudest yet. I swear I feel the air pulse with the noise. Kayla’s head snaps to a shadowed corner of the cavern. She stalks toward it.

At the same time Clyde and Tabitha are moving toward the door. I can’t argue with Kayla’s instincts, but we definitely need someone covering that pair as well. That’s the direction the magic-imbued death cult is in.

“Another tunnel over here,” Kayla calls. She cocks her head. “Think I can hear something.”

“Getting closer or further away?” I ask.

“Which do you feckin’ think?”

Shit and balls. I turn back to Clyde and Tabitha. “What sort of time frame are we looking at with that door?”

“More you talk, slower we go,” Tabitha barks back. Clyde gives me a slightly reproving look. I assume for having bothered Tabby. I need to tell him not to do that. If I’m getting tired of Clyde’s mother-hen act, then Tabby is almost certainly going to throttle him with his own urethra within a week.

On the plus side, there’s a decent chance of the universe ending before then, but still…

“Can you help?” I ask Volk. Just rip the door open or something.

“The cultists would hear,” Volk points out, a degree of apology to his voice. And he’s right: they would, and we are seriously outgunned.

“Just so you know,” Hannah says picking up on the theme, “I have, like, three-quarters of a clip and then I’m bollocksed.”

“Just so you know,” I say, “you have my gun.” I wanted to bring my wooden sword but apparently wood doesn’t hold an edge the same way as steel. And when Kayla tried to trim all the bone bits and hair off the edges a few fairly fundamental cracks reduced the thing to three short sticks of no conceivable use in a fight.

Hannah looks down at the gun, with at least a sliver of panic on her face. I should probably take less satisfaction in it. “But—” she starts.

“Don’t worry,” Felicity cuts in. “You keep the gun.” She tosses hers my way. “I have some hand-to-hand combat training that should help. And Arthur will have six shots at his disposal with which he can secure a new weapon.”

It’s my turn to look slightly panicked. I don’t want to give Hannah a chance to see it, so I try to mask it with officiousness. “Any sense for what’s coming?” I say, approaching Kayla.

“Yeah, a feckin’ carnival with fourteen clowns and a troupe of pygmy jugglers. Who do I look like, feckin’ Tonto?”

I look at the still-closed door and decide it’s probably not worth asking how that’s going.

Felicity sidles up to me, slips an arm around my waist. “Stop worrying,” she whispers, “I once saw you kill a giant mutant dog with a pointy stick.”

It’s true enough. Except, “I don’t have a stick,” I say.

The moment stretches out. Nervous shuffling feet. A growing rumble from the corridor Kayla is watching, one that even I can hear now. Another roar tears through the space. And Hermann and Volk definitely share a look on that.

Just like they did the last time the sound came. Back in the cave with the butterflies. It wasn’t the map that they recognized. It was that noise.

“What?” I ask them. “What is it?”

And then at the same time, Clyde says, quite loudly, “Oh, I see,” and Kayla says, “Incoming!”

Behind me, the door starts to rumble open.

From the shadowy corridor before me, I hear the distinct sound of metal striking rock.

“Oh crap sticks.” Clyde’s voice is leaden behind me.

“Oh feck in a handcart.” Before me, Kayla blurs into motion.

The moment is frozen. A tableau in cold, unmoving marble to illustrate to wayward children the exact meaning of the phrase “between a rock and a hard place.”

Behind me: the door is half open, rolling back into rock, blue light shining out of the swirling lines that decorated the bronze surface. Beyond it, a group of thirty or so death cultists look up in our direction.

Before me—Friedrich emerges, hulking, filling the tunnel mouth, for a moment resembling some monstrous child being birthed into the cave. His head scrapes the tunnel ceiling. Sparks scrape, rock complains, metal screams. An ugly booming, roaring sound. A terribly familiar one.

My eyes fly to Volk and Hermann. And they knew. They knew. I knew that they knew something. That moment, that look. It was a decision to not tell us. To not bring us to this moment in full awareness.

But why? Are they the traitors Hannah suspects, or just the desperate people I want to believe they are?

But then there is no time for why. Because far too many people are trying to kill us at once.