“Oh yeah,” Cole said as he looked around at the bloody remains scattered upon the dirty mat of soil, broken rock, and dead leaves. “Prime real estate here.”
Paige held her flashlight in one hand and one of her clubs in the other. Now that he knew what was along the handle of those clubs, Cole had to admire her for wielding it so fearlessly. He found his own weapon and picked it up, careful to slip his fingers between the thorns rather than place his hands on top of them. Since the danger seemed to have passed, there wasn’t a reason to maim himself just yet.
“I think there’s an infection from that stuff you used to coat those thorns,” he grumbled as he followed Paige out of the room. When he checked his palm, he found the wounds irritated but mostly closed. “It’s healing up pretty good, but my skin is burning. I don’t think this is good, Paige.”
Heading for the doorway that led from the room, she said, “Your blood bonds you to the weapon and also to the venom. Everything Nymar reacts to human blood anyway, but you can’t feel it until you get close to an actual spore.”
“So there’s a Nymar nearby?”
She nodded. “Just think of it as an early warning system. It’ll work with shapeshifters too, now that you’ve added some of their blood into the resin.”
“Wow,” he said with genuine admiration. “Did you guys happen to get a Skinner who was also a chemist?”
“No, a couple dozen Skinners worked on the formula for God knows how long before it was perfected. There just happened to be some useful side effects.”
“Were there any bad side effects?”
“Oh yeah,” Paige whispered. “But you probably don’t want to hear about those.”
She walked into a crumbling, dirty hallway beyond the door that led out of the Half Breed den. Taking a few more steps, she swung her flashlight, illuminating the walls and ceiling, which were in somewhat better condition than the room they’d just left. The hall ended a few paces to the right, blocked off about ten paces to the left by tightly packed debris that had settled into a solid barrier.
Having found his flashlight, Cole shined it on the obstruction at the left end. It didn’t take much searching to find the blackened scorch marks that formed a ring all the way around the rubble blocking the rest of the hall. “Looks like there was a fire,” he said while brushing his fingers along the wall. “Maybe this hallway was blasted shut. Whoever did that must have really wanted to be sure nobody else got in here.”
“Or maybe they didn’t want someone getting out,” Paige added. “Take a look over here.”
The wall separating the pit from the hallway was buckled and cracked. Most of the doors had been wedged into their frames by the shifting of the building around them. The room she was pointing at didn’t even have a door. It was directly across from Misonyk’s old cell, and judging by the sounds coming from inside, it was currently occupied.
“Do you hear that?” Paige asked.
Cole nodded. “Should I get the shotgun?”
“No. I’ve still got mine. But,” she added as she took a look into the next room, “I don’t think a gun will do either of us any good.”
Cole’s hand reflexively tightened around his weapon. Some of the thorns scraped against his fingers, but he was more concerned by the way the irritation in his hand suddenly felt as if someone was holding a match against his skin. The wheezing voice coming from the next room, however, was more than enough to distract him from a bit of pain.
While keeping her flashlight pointed into the room, Paige held her weapon so the curved blade was ready to be swung.
As he followed her into the room, Cole noticed the etchings on the outside of the door frame. They were similar to the strange letters he’d seen in the other room, but the symbols inside this one had been scratched and clawed until they’d almost been gouged from the brick. Somehow, the marks still showed up like stubborn water stains in a leaky basement. The room stank of urine and worse. There were no furnishings or anything else in that cramped space apart from a few short bones on the floor next to the door and a large figure rocking anxiously in the opposite corner.
The beam from Paige’s flashlight played along the walls and reflected off the smooth, rounded surface of Henry’s corner. Even though it appeared to have been made from the same brick as the rest of the walls and floor, that corner had been worn down to glassy perfection, which hugged Henry’s body like an old rocking chair. Although that body was more compact than the last time Cole had seen it, Henry’s flesh was still gnarled and twisted into something alien and unnatural. A hole in the ceiling opened up to show the bottom of a pile of rubble that could very well have been the same pile he’d scaled while searching the mansion grounds. Dirt trickled in to patter upon the floor in a dusty drizzle that blended nicely with Henry’s voice.
“I’mGod’sfavoriteHespeakstomeandtogetherwemakeh armony,” Henry mumbled in a single, continuous stream. As he spoke and rocked, his head lolled back and forth with a hypnotic rhythm. His lips twitched and his mouth hung open to reveal a few sharpened teeth that had pushed through his jaw and split apart several of his old teeth in the process. “SitandwaitsitandwaitsitandwaitwaitwaitforGodtocallmyname.”
Paige stepped into the room, keeping her hands where Henry could see them. When she spoke, it was in a soothing voice that almost blended in with Henry’s seamless mumbling. “Where’s Misonyk?” she asked. “Where is he?”
When Henry shook his head, the disconnection from his spine made it difficult for him to stop. “I made a friend,” he said in a slower, clearer voice. “He’s…like me.”
From behind Cole, a coarse howl rolled through the subterranean confines. It was definitely coming from outside, but that didn’t make Cole feel any better. The howl didn’t sound like it came from an animal nor did it sound like it came from a man. It was more like the sound a demon would make while getting its bony wings torn off. After the first hellish roar, it tapered off into something more familiar.
Familiar, but still unnerving.
“Uhhh, Paige?” Cole whispered.
She waved quickly at him and nodded. “Can you hear that howling? Are those more like you, Henry?”
Curled up in his corner, Henry looked as if half of his body mass had simply folded in on itself. His arms were wrapped around his knees and his chest heaved with strained breaths. When he rocked forward to get a closer look at Paige, it was easier to see the deep groove that had been worn into the corner behind Henry as well as beneath him. “They weren’t like me. Not at first. God told me to hurt them, so I did. He said they’d help us, and they will. They did. They like to run with me. They…like me.”
“How many did you hurt?”
“Don’t know. God didn’t teach me to count. God told me about you,” Henry said as he bared his teeth. “He said you wanted to kill me.” Furrowing his brow, he clenched his eyes shut and let out a groan that boiled up from the back of his throat. “You tried to kill me! I remember!”
Paige held her weapon behind her back. “I want to hear about God,” she urged as she took a few steps toward Henry’s corner. “What did God say? Where is he?” When she saw the happy gleam in Henry’s eyes, she added, “Can you take me to him?”
Henry kept trying to see what was happening in the shadows behind her, but Paige pulled his attention back to where she wanted it to be.
“I…didn’t mean to make her,” Henry said.
Paige narrowed her eyes and asked, “What?”
“I was looking for someone. She reminded me of the pretty lady from the saloon.”
“Saloon?”
Henry nodded, but could only manage a slight bob before letting his head swing along its normal course. “The golden-haired one. She…so pretty. Her friend was so pretty. I thought she missed me. They all screamed at me. Just like they did the first time I…” Henry’s eyes shifted and his brow twitched. On anyone else the expression would have seemed vaguely contemplative. On Henry it looked as though a caterpillar was slowly crawling beneath the skin of his forehead. “I don’t…I don’t…I hear His voice now. I hear him!” Suddenly, Henry twitched and he flopped into his corner as if he meant to curl into a ball of filthy, knotted muscle. “God don’t like it when I think too hard. AgoodmanobeyshisLordandhonorsHimwithswiftstepswhenHecalls.” In a voice that had suddenly cleared, Henry said, “I’m hungry. God will provide! Godwillprovide! I’m so hungry.”