He tried to yell Shavi's name to check his friend was okay, but dead fingers drove into his mouth like sticks blown off an old tree. Sandpapery hands crushed tight around his wrists and his legs, pulled at his head until he feared they were going to rip it off. He choked, saw stars, but still fought like a wild animal.
And the gaping black mouth of the mausoleum drew closer.
Dead hands passed Shavi from one to the other across the angry sea. It was impossible to get his bearings, or even to call out, and any retaliation was quickly stifled. From his occasional glimpses of Veitch he knew the dead were not treating him as roughly as his friend. Perhaps they considered him one of their own.
Veitch was thrown roughly into the mausoleum first. Shavi was pitched at head height into the dark after him. He skidded across the floor, knocking over Veitch, who was clambering to his feet in a daze.
Before he could say anything, Shavi noticed his pale hand was slowly turning grey. At the entrance only a thin crack of white mist and grey sky remained. As he threw himself forward, the door slammed shut with a resounding clang.
"Are you okay?" Veitch whispered.
Shavi felt a searching arm grab his sleeve, hauling the two of them together. "Bruised."
"Bastards." A pause. "Is this the best they can do? We'll be out of here in no time."
"How?"
A long silence. "How solid can this thing be?" Another pause. "It's not like it's meant to keep things in. We could jemmy the door-"
"Wait."
"What?"
"We are not in here alone."
"What do you mean?"
"Hush."
There came the sound of a large, slow-moving bulk dragging itself at the far end of the mausoleum.
"What the hell's that?" Unease strained Veitch's voice.
Shavi felt the hand leave his sleeve as Veitch scurried in the direction of the door. Several moments of scrabbling and grunting followed before he crawled back, panting and cursing.
Whatever else was in there was shifting towards them. Shavi had an image of something with only arms, dragging what remained of its body across the floor. He couldn't help but think it was hungry, probably hadn't been fed for a long time.
"I've still got my crossbow." The note of futility in Veitch's voice suggested he wasn't about to use it. "I thought this was just the land of the bleedin' dead."
"Ryan. Hush."
After several minutes, the dragging noise died away. From the echoes, Shavi estimated it had halted about fifteen feet away. All that remained was the sound of breathing, slow, rhythmic and rough. Although there wasn't even the faintest glimmer of light, he couldn't shake the feeling it was watching them with a contemptuous, heavy gaze; sizing them up, dissecting them.
At his side, Witch's body was taut. Neither of them knew what to do next.
"The rules of this place were formed long before your kind emerged from the long night." The voice sounded like bones rattling across stone. Its bass notes vibrated deep in Shavi's chest; he felt instantly queasy, not just from the tone of the voice, but from the very feel of whatever squatted away in the gloom. "No warm bodies, no beating hearts, no words or thoughts or ideas."
"No. There's a deal. I was allowed to come here," Veitch protested cautiously.
"You were allowed to cross over, but the rules of this place can never be transgressed. The living are not wanted. The dead rule here. And they will have no warm bodies spoiling the cold days of this land. They will have punishment."
Shavi waited for it to attack, but there was only silence. He pictured it savouring its taunting before the inevitable. Here was not only intelligence, but also cruelty, and hatred.
"What are you?" Shavi asked. The hairs on the back of his neck had snapped alert.
"This is a place without hope for those who do not leave. Where behind is too terrible to consider, and ahead is an unwanted distraction. This is desolation, and despair. Misery and pain."
"A land for those who prey on those things," Shavi said.
"Here, the dead have their own existence, their own rules and rhythms, their own hierarchies and mythologies, fears and desires."
The dark was so all-encompassing Shavi was beginning to hallucinate trails of white sparks and flashes of geometric patterns. The atmosphere of dread grew more oppressive.
"What are you?" There was no bravado in Veitch's voice. Shavi really wished he hadn't asked the question again; he was afraid the answer would be too terrible for them to bear.
"I am the end of you."
Those simple words made his stomach clench. They were flatly stated, yet filled with such finality, hinting at a fate much worse than death.
Slowly it began to drag itself forward, an inch at a time.
"Wait," Veitch said sharply. "I was allowed to come here-you can't get away from that. And Shavi here, he's not dead-"
"He will be." A blast of cold air.
"But he's not now. He shouldn't be here. What I'm doing… yeah, it might go against your rules-but against the bigger rules I'm doing the right thing. I'm taking him back. I'm making everything all right again."
For a long period the mausoleum appeared to be filled with the soughing of an icy wind. Then: "There is the matter of trespass."
"What do you mean?"
"The dead want no reminder of the living. It makes them aware of what they have lost and what they have yet to gain. To remember makes their suffering even greater."
Veitch sensed a chink in the seemingly inviolate position. "So they want some kind of payback," he said, warming to his argument. "We can do that. Then you let us go, and everybody's sweet."
"No!" Shavi gripped Veitch's wrist; the memory of the price he had paid for the deal with the dead of Mary King's Close was still too raw. "You never know to what you are agreeing. Words are twisted so easily."
Veitch shook him off. "We have to cut a deal-it's the only way. There's too much at stake."
"Ryan! You must listen to me-"
But Veitch had scrambled off in the dark. "Go on then." His disembodied voice filled Shavi with ice. "What's the deal?"
There was silence from the brooding presence. Shavi couldn't work out what that meant, but he felt like it was swelling in size to fill all the shadows.
After a moment or two, Veitch repeated, "What's the deal?"
"A hand," the rumbling voice replied.
"Ryan, please do not do this. We can find another way."
"A hand?" Veitch's voice was suddenly querulous. "Cut off my hand?"
"A small price to pay for your friend's life."
The price is too high! Shavi wanted to cry out, but he knew his voice would only tighten his friend's resolve. The sense of threat in that confined space felt like strong arms crushing his chest. They both knew their lives were hanging by a thread.
In the silence that followed, he could almost hear the turning of Veitch's thought processes as he considered the mutilation, what the absence of his hand would mean in his life, what the absence of Shavi would mean. There was an awful weight to Veitch's deliberations as he desperately tried to reach the place where he could do the right thing, whatever the cost to himself. Do not agree, Ryan, Shavi pleaded silently.
"Okay." The word sounded like a tolling bell.
Shavi tried to throw himself between Veitch and the dark presence, but he misjudged his leap in the dark and crashed into the wall.
"Don't worry, mate. Really," Veitch said. "I know you'd do the same for me. Whatever you say, I know that. We've got bigger things to think about. That's what Church always said. I can do this. For everybody else."
Shavi bit sharply on his knuckle to restrain his emotions. All he could do was make his friend feel good about his choice. "You are a true hero, Ryan." Shavi knew it was what Veitch wanted to hear, what he had wanted from the moment he had got involved with them.