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Murdoch tore the drum out of his AA-12 and cast it aside. He reached into his bag for another.
Lara’s MP5 roared to life in short, disciplined bursts. The first three round burst drilled through a demon creature’s torso. The beast exploded in a cloud of black ichor. A second and third creature perished in similar fashion.
Dizzy drew and fired an arrow, skewering three of the creatures but not quite killing them. Instead, the trio of clamoring demons formed a sort of absurd shish kabab, bound together by the hunting arrow. The creatures on both ends tried to pull the arrow out and degenerated into a fight against themselves.
But I had seen Drewitt’s work before. I knew what the others didn’t. The tide of demon creatures dragging themselves through the summoning circle were without end. Even Eurynomos, Hades’ personal flesh-eating demon pet, had been overwhelmed by the sheer volume. Killing a handful of the gibbering creatures meant nothing.
“You have to kill him to stop them,” I shouted, pointing at Drewitt.
Lara raised the MP5 and let off a burst at Drewitt. The shimmering ruby shield flared as the burst ricocheted off its surface.
Drawing what power I could, I lashed out with my left hand and shouted, “Relámpago!“ Twin shafts of lightning arced across the room, faster than the eye could track. They struck the shield and played across the surface before earthing themselves into the tiles.
Drewitt didn’t even look up from his summoning; his chanting continued unabated.
More of the creatures poured through the inky portal in the kitchen floor.
“It’s no use. We need to get out of here,” I shouted. “We’re going to be overrun.”
“Free Lucius. I’ll hold them off,” Murdoch called, hefting his AA-12.
As Murdoch obliterated the next wave of creatures, I rushed to Lucius’s side. The heavy black chains were etched with some kind of runic inscription.
Drewitt had come prepared.
When I touched the chains, I could feel the latent magic running through them. The real question was, what sort of enchantment was it? Normally I would have studied the chain, probing the enchantment to discover what I could of the working, but time was a luxury that we just didn’t have.
I searched for the padlock, hoping it would be the weak link that I could exploit, but as my hands played across the strange iron, I couldn’t find it. Just loop after loop of iron etched with runes, binding Lucius to his chair in a single unbroken chain. How it had been fashioned was beyond my understanding.
“It’s no use,” Lucius whispered, lifting his head. “Take the key and save yourselves.”
“He’ll never forgive us,” I replied, nodding toward Murdoch. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out.”
I channeled and compressed my magic into a wedge of power that I drove into the link between Lucius’ legs to bust the chain open. The runes on the wrought iron flared red hot, as link after link glowed angrily. I had to pull back my hands lest they burn.
Lucius screamed as the links binding his legs burned through his slacks and branded his flesh.
The chain faded back to the same black iron.
Sweat poured down Lucius’s brow. “I told you—it’s no use.”
Whatever enchantment had gone into their forging was proof against my efforts. Unless I knew how the working operated, I didn’t stand a chance of undoing it.
I changed tack, attempting to transmute the iron into clay. The chain simply burned red-hot, forcing my hands away.
Lucius grimaced as the links burnt his flesh.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I grimaced.
I wasn’t trying to torture the poor man, but if we couldn’t free him, he was as good as dead.
I checked on the battle behind me. The tide was steadily turning against us. Murdoch, Lara, and Dizzy were pouring firepower at the wave of demons, but slowly, inexorably, my team was being forced back into the lounge room.
Any moment now, we’d be overrun.
“I can’t break the chains,” I called to Murdoch. “Whatever enchantment is on them, it’s too strong.”
Murdoch didn’t even turn around. He just shouted over his shoulder, “Try harder!”
“Every time I do, it just burns him. I can’t free him, and my efforts are torturing him. I won’t be the instrument of his suffering.”
Murdoch emptied the shotgun and cast it aside before racing back into the lounge room. He looked at me and then his friend. The smell of burning flesh lingered in the air.
“We’ll get you out, Lucius,” Murdoch said, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“I’m done, old friend,” Lucius whispered, his head lolling as he tried to hold it up. “I’m sorry I could only carry our burden this far.”
His head sagged against his chest as more of the skittering black demon monkeys poured out of the kitchen.
Murdoch grabbed the silver chain from around Lucius’s neck.
“We’ve got to go.” I shook Murdoch’s shoulder. “We’ve got to get out of here before those things overrun us.”
With Dizzy and Lara fighting a rearguard action, we retreated into the hallway. A dozen of the chittering creatures waited for us at the other end of the corridor, blocking the door we’d used to enter the Abbey House.
We needed a way out. As we moved down the hall, I searched the other rooms for another door, but even the windows revealed a host of the demon creatures.
Drewitt had sprung his trap well. We were totally surrounded and it was growing worse by the moment. We were going to have to shoot our way through the demon cordon.
“Downstairs, into the cellar,” Murdoch shouted from behind me.
“What? We’ll be trapped,” I yelled back, struggling to make myself heard over the sound of gunfire filling the house.
“We already are. It’s just a matter of time before we’re overwhelmed. There is no choice but to press on to the sanctuary.”
The cellar? Of course. The gateway was there and with it the path that led to the sanctuary and the Grail. There was just one problem: if the other keys weren’t in place, the gateway wouldn’t open and we’d be trapped in a cellar with an endless wave of demon spawn pouring down the stairs after us.
“If it doesn’t open, then what?” I replied.
Murdoch booted one of the creatures that got too close, sending it flying back down the hall and collecting two of its fellows along the way.
“And how long do you think it will be before they overtake us anyway?”
Minutes. I already knew the answer to that. I’d watched it happen in the underworld. The creatures didn’t seem to tire or fatigue. They would run us down outside, just as well as here. But it didn’t comfort me that we were stuck deciding which of two awful fates we wanted to embrace.
I groaned, drawing my pistol. “Lead the way.”
Murdoch charged down the hall. The creatures at the other end shifted excitedly in anticipation.
But halfway down the corridor, Murdoch stopped at a doorway and shoved open the door. A steep set of stairs led downward into a dark cellar.
He reached around in the stairway and found the switch.
An overhead bulb flickered to life, driving away the darkness. Murdoch raced down the steep stairs. I snapped off a handful of shots at the creatures chasing us down the corridor. Two shots went wide but two others found their mark. The creatures exploded in puddles of ichorous ectoplasm.
Dizzy charged down the stairs, followed by Lara, who slammed another magazine into her MP5. I brought up the rear, pulling the basement door shut and snapping the lock into place, for all the good it would do us.
I suspected it would only buy us moments, but every bit would help. I grabbed the handrail with my good arm and clutched my pistol with the other. I hadn’t come this far just to break my neck on a set of bloody stairs.
The creatures howled and shrieked as they beat on the door, their wickedly sharp claws tearing into the timber.
The basement was a large rectangular room with stone walls. A hot water system stood in one corner, and a number of old copper pipes led into the roof. Janitorial supplies were piled next to an old bucket and scaffolding rested against the other wall, the remnants of the house’s most recent paint job.
“Where’s the stone, Murdoch?” I called, hunting around. “The one the key fits in?”
The whole floor seemed to be made of slate or some other rocky tile that had been jammed together. None of them stood out to me, and I couldn’t find anything resembling a keyhole.
Murdoch made his way across the room and pulled at one of the painter’s drop sheets that covered a small patch of floor. I grabbed the other corner and helped him peel it back. The worn stone floor looked like it had been here for centuries, and as I considered the abbey’s history, I realized that was likely the case.
Murdoch dropped to his hands and knees, poring over the pieces of slate.
“You don’t know where it is?” I shouted.
“It’s been years since I last used this gateway,” Murdoch snapped. “Now be quiet and let me look. It’s here somewhere.”
The howling upstairs intensified. The Abbey House seemed overflowing with the miniature demons.
Which begged the question, how had Drewitt survived Hades’ underworld? Had he escaped using his own ability? Did those portals he used to summon his minions allow him passage out of the underworld? Surely that meant he had to traverse whatever realm the demons called home. That couldn’t be good for one’s health, particularly a mortal.
It was also possible, I supposed, that he had somehow convinced Hades to let him free. Though what that kind of deal looked like, I couldn’t rightly say.
“I’ve got it,” Murdoch shouted as he hefted the key aloft.
“Then use it,” I said. “We’re about to be overrun.”
Murdoch jammed the key into a small gap in the slate floor. The key sunk right into the slot, up to the hilt like they were made for each other.
Nothing happened.
I stared expectantly at the key, but it just sat there.
“Are you sure that’s the right one?” Lara asked. “It looks just like a hole in the floor. What about this one over here?”
She pointed to another gap between two slate tiles.
“I know what I’m doing,” Murdoch said. “The other keys mustn’t be in place yet.”
“What do you want us to do?” I asked as a foot-long piece of timber from the door came tumbling down the stairs.
“Hold them off,” Murdoch replied, “or we’re all dead.”
He made his way to his discarded duffel and went fishing for his other shotgun.
I raced back to the stairs only to find one of the demons clawing its way through the hole it had made in the door. I raised my pistol and fired. The second shot found its mark. The creature collapsed, thrashing wildly as its form melted into black ichor that ran down the steps.
Another demon was right behind it. An arrow from Dizzy punched through the gap in the door and skewered the creature. Hissing and shrieking echoed down the staircase as the creatures turned their frustrations on the door. The gap widened rapidly as more of the door was torn free.
The trickle was about to turn into a flood of demons pouring down into the basement.
“We need to slow them down,” I called as I crossed the basement. I grabbed the first piece of scaffolding against the wall. “Give me a hand moving this.”
My arm ached as I subjected it to the work, but Murdoch, Lara, Dizzy, and I took turns dragging the scaffolding to the base of the staircase. Two of us would provide covering fire while the other two moved a piece into position as a makeshift barricade. Piece by piece, we formed a wall at the base of the stairs to try and bottle up the demons before they could spill into the basement.
“This is the only point of entry.” Murdoch nodded at the stairs. “If we can hold this, everything else is solid stone.”
The steel scaffolding formed a serviceable barricade, but the bodies of the fallen demons continued to tumble down the staircase before melting into the disgusting black ichor that seeped through the gaps at the bottom of the stairs.
The door was entirely gone. The creatures streamed down the stairway three or four at a time.
Dizzy was almost out of arrows and Lara was working on reloading her next magazine. I’d used two myself and was looking at my last few rounds.
Our resources were dwindling fast, but for each creature we killed, two more took its place.
As the creatures scratched and tore at the steel barricade, we shoved against it to hold it in place. I jammed my gun through a narrow gap between planks and fired into the dense mass at point blank range. A creature hissed, but searing hot pain flooded through my left hand. I yanked it back away from the barricade and found a long gash in the back of my left hand. One of the creature’s claws had found its way through.
More of the creatures piled against the barricade, their claws tearing and scratching at the steel in a horrifying rendition of nails on a chalkboard. The sheer weight of creatures grew, and the barricade slid inch by inch away from the stairs, threatening to topple inward.
“Put your backs into it!” I shouted as I pushed against the barricade. There simply weren’t enough of us to hold them at bay.
“I’ve got it,” Dizzy replied. “Just give me a second.”
She stepped away from the barricade, her form shifting and growing as she went. She materialized into the hulking gray form of an African elephant.
She was comically large in the small basement, but understanding her intentions, Lara and I made space for her to back up between us. She shunted back into the barricade and the creatures howled as she jammed them back against the staircase.
Unfortunately, with Dizzy in place, we could no longer fire around her at the massing demons. They hissed and shrieked as they renewed their attack, but when the barricade held firm, they tried to tear it down like they had the door.
“Murdoch, we can’t hold them forever,” I called. “How will we know when the other keys are in position?”
“When the gateway opens.” He glanced at the key in his hand. “Those guards were already in the Abbot’s Kitchen. And the Inquisition was crawling all over the other two portals. We know they have Ben’s key and it’s safe to assume they’ve found the others, or they wouldn’t be there. With all the keys in place, they will find the gateways. It’s just a matter of time.”
“If they don’t?” I asked, sweat running down my brow.
Murdoch placed his hand on my shoulder.
“If they don’t, well, it was good knowing you, Seth Caldwell. You’ve been a good friend.”
There was an exhaustion in his voice I hadn’t expected. Murdoch was always the optimist, holding out hope even in the face of trying circumstances.
“Murdoch, I’m not dying in this basement at the hands of those little bastards. I didn’t survive the Trial and New York just to lose everything here.”
“You seemed to know him?” Murdoch motioned with his head toward the kitchen. “When did you two meet?”
“He was one of the champions in the Trial of Ares. I thought he died there during the first Trial. Turns out he is a lot harder to kill than I expected.”
“How do you mean?” Murdoch asked.
“The last I saw him, he was locked in the arena of Hades in the heart of the underworld. He and his followers destroyed Eurynomos as I slipped through the last gateway. Based on what Ares said, any who didn’t make it back would be trapped there for eternity.
“Well,” Murdoch replied, “if he treats with demons, I suspect he escaped by traveling beyond.”
“Beyond? What do you mean, beyond?”
“The place he draws those creatures from. They shouldn’t exist in our plane.”
I didn’t say anything, largely because I had no idea what he was talking about and I certainly wasn’t expecting a lesson on life beyond the mortal plane from my pilot.
When I didn’t speak, Murdoch continued.
“In the supernatural world there are many realms. You’ve been to some of them, but beyond the fringes of the realms ruled by the gods, beyond what you might call the organized realms, there is darkness and chaos. That is where creatures like these dwell.
“He must have used his talents to traverse the darkness, though why such creatures would let him do so and live is beyond me. They tend to consume all that trespass in their domain, and whenever those creatures succeed in taking form here, they do the same in this plane. They are anathema to life and organized matter.”
“It’s times like these I wish I could move through the Veil,” I replied. It would certainly give us a way out of the basement. “One of these days I’m going to have to learn how it’s done.”
“You get into enough trouble in our world,” Murdoch said. “I worry about the damage you’d manage beyond the Veil.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” I muttered. “And how do you know about the realm beyond, Murdoch? Have you been through the Veil?”
“Many times. Every time I’ve checked on the Grail I have passed through it. But I rely on the portals others have formed. I am not free to travel the supernatural realms at whim. My purpose is here.”
“Defending the Grail?” I asked.
Murdoch nodded. “It is one of my responsibilities, yes.”
“What are the others?” I asked as I checked the magazine on my pistol. I couldn’t have more than eight rounds left in it.
Murdoch hesitated, as if he’d already said too much.
“Come on, Murdoch. If we’re going to die in this forsaken cellar, at the hands of those creatures, the least you can do is tell me why. You know things but the more I think about it, the more I realize just how far you’ve gone out of your way to ensure others don’t realize it.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“When your plane went down in the desert, you should have died. When you didn’t, it drew attention, and instead of lapping it up like most men would, you got yourself discharged, uprooted your life, and spent the last ten years following me all over the world pretending to be a pilot.
“The more I think of it, the more questions I have. You haven’t aged a day in ten years, and it’s not for lack of stress. We’ve been shot at, shot down, kidnapped, and harried across the world. You’ve barely batted an eyelid.”
“I’m sure there’s a question in there somewhere,” Murdoch replied, “though I can’t seem to find it.”
“What are you, really?” I asked. I had my own theory forming. If Murdoch had access to the Grail, it would explain how he never seemed to age, but there was more to it than that.
“I am a watcher, Seth. It’s my duty to see mankind prosper, in spite of their contrary nature.”
“You say that like you aren’t one of us,” I replied as the demons hurled themselves at the barrier for the umpteenth time.
“Oh, I was like you once, but that was a very long time ago.”
“And what happened? How did you become a watcher?”
“It is a calling of sorts.” He paused as he rubbed at his chin. “I met a man unlike any I had ever before seen or heard. He taught me about myself, about the universe, and about the way of things. Before he departed, he asked what I would have him do for me.”
A pained trumpeting howl reverberated through the basement. I turned to find Dizzy ramming her elephantine bulk against the scaffolding, driving the creatures back and producing a tortured chorus of howls from the other side of the barricade.
A trail of blood ran down her hind leg. One of the creatures must have gotten a claw past the barricade.
“Dizzy,” I shouted, leaving Murdoch to race over to her side. Above us came a scratching in the roof like a dozen angry possums having a drunken party in the ceiling.
“They’re digging down through the ceiling,” I shouted as a two-foot long section of roof collapsed.
The swarming forms of a dozen of the creatures tried to press themselves through the tiny breach. One of the demons managed to compress itself thin enough to drop to the floor of the basement with a wet thud. It scrambled about before rising to its feet.
A gunshot echoed through the basement and the creature exploded. I turned and found Murdoch, the barrel of his AA-12 smoking furiously.
“This is it,” I muttered looking to Lara as the hole above us grew wider and wider.
A brilliant golden light bathed the cellar. With one hand, I shielded my eyes while trying to search for the source.
The key was still wedged in the crevice in the slate tile, but it was now glowing. The light streaming from it illuminated the entire cellar. Two more demons dropped into the room only to have Murdoch blast them away.
“The keys are in place,” he shouted.
Before I could process that, the cellar floor around the key simply vanished.