I nodded to Dante’s door, “Abandon all hope, you who enter here,” and we headed through. We followed the passage past several antechambers, each decorated in its own style. In one, a support pillar had been carved into that of a long-haired maiden, a rotted green blanket wrapped over her shoulders like a cape, and a hundred empty tea light cups laid out on the floor before her. I took comfort that none of those candles were burning.
The passage continued on, shrinking lower and lower until we had to crawl. Nick cracked another glow stick and hurled it ahead. It skittered and fell into a room at the far side. “Is there another way around?”
I shook my head. “No. Not unless we doubled back three kilometers. That should empty into the hall we want.”
He shined his light onto the ceiling, revealing a wide crack running the length. One good bump might easily bury us forever.
“Stay low,” he said, and continued forward.
Something moved past the light ahead, casting a shadow. Icy fear shot down my spine. There was no way to draw our weapons and fight in this tiny space, and whoever crawled into that room would be open to attack, helpless.
Scratching came from ahead, like fingernails desperately trying to dig their way through a chalkboard.
“Back!” Nick whispered through clenched teeth. “Back! Back! Back!”
We scrambled backwards. Colin cursed as my heel nearly took him in the eye, but I dared not slow lest Nick’s back-scrambling boots hit me. Heart pounding, sweat ran down my face and into my eyes. Finally, my feet made it back to the opening of this death trap and I nearly screamed as hands gripped me from behind, yanking my belt.
“Gotcha,” Colin said pulling me out.
I rolled onto my knees and helped pull Nick from the hole.
I peered down the empty tunnel, seeing an orange glow the far side, but nothing more. “Did you see it?”
Panting, Nick shook his head. “No. But, it… growled.”
“Shit.” I looked back down the shaft. “You think it’s waiting?”
He blew a long breath. “Possible. If it is, whoever sticks their head out of the passage first is a dead man.”
“What if we go close to the edge and pushed each other through at the end?” Colin asked.
“Not willing to risk that. Not if there’s another way.”
“Three kilometers,” I said.
“Then we need to hustle.” Nick cracked another stick and dropped it on this side of the shaft. “Keep your eyes and ears open. They’re hunting us now.”
Taking point, I led us back down the passage, past the cloaked maiden, and into another hall. Steps led down into gray water, leaving narrow ledges on either side. Straddling the flooded passage, our backs against the arched ceiling we moved on, our red-hued reflections staring up at us.
Twice we stopped and listened for sounds behind us, but heard nothing. Each time we dropped another glow stick so that we might see any pursuers following us past that point. After two hours, I turned down a passage and saw an orange glow ahead. Cautious, we drew our weapons and crept forward.
The glow stick rested on the floor, nine inches beneath the square passage in the wall. Hounacier ready, I removed a telescoping inspection mirror from my belt and held it out, making sure the tunnel was vacant, then peered through. Fifteen meters down, I could see the light of Nick’s second stick. “Clear.”
“Look at this,” Colin said, kneeling beside me.
More bare footprints, like those from the previous night, marred the dusty floor. They crisscrossed back and forth across the side entrance.
“At least two,” Colin said.
“And one in shoes,” I added, nodding to a set of sneaker tracks mixed in with the other prints.
“Which way?” Nick asked.
I motioned ahead.
“So let’s find ‘em.”
We marched on, following them as best we could until reaching bare stone. We stopped in a cathedral-like chamber with four other exits. After checking the map, I selected one. Nick left a fresh stick on the floor as Colin and I built a line of empty cans across the passage entrance.
We made it twenty meters down the hall before coming to a chamber with a dusty folding chair resting in the middle before a framed photograph affixed to the wall.
“That’s just creepy,” Colin whispered.
I nodded, about to move toward it, when a distant sound of falling cans came from behind.
We spun and headed back. Heart thudding, I crept closer to the room, seeing the spilt can-wall cast in red and orange light. I reached it first and looked around the cathedral seeing nothing.
Nick’s bright lights swept the room then froze on a lone figure standing before the far wall, with its back to us.
“Bonjour?” I said, stepping closer. My fingers tightened on Hounacier’s horn grip as the figure shuffled but didn’t turn. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female, only a human in dust-caked clothes. “Turn around!” I ordered, raising my holy machete.
The figure didn’t move.
Nick stepped up beside me. “Don’t get any closer.”
Just then, the figure turned toward us. The flesh along the left side of its face was gone. Its single milky eye locked onto us and a hissing growl came from its shredded mouth.
More hissing sounded to the right. I turned, bringing my headlamp’s beam on two more staggering corpses coming from another passage. Each only had one eye.
“Behind us!” Colin yelled, his voice booming in the stone chamber.
A trio of ghouls scurried out from another tunnel, moving on all fours like long-armed monkeys.
“Circle up!” Nick ordered. He swung his nadziak at the half-faced creature coming toward us, though it was still a good seven feet away. Yanking the weapon back mid-swing like a cracking whip, a shockwave of compressed air shot like a cone from the war pick’s tip. The cone struck the creature’s shoulder with a loud thop, and blew a hole through it like a high-powered rifle. The creature reeled around, its arm coming free at the motion and landing several feet behind it. Nick lunged forward and slammed the pick into the zombie’s chest — heart shot — before it could recover. It fell dead to the ground.
Colin stepped beside me, eyes on the circling ghouls, and swinging Saighnean before him in a figure-eight. The blade moved faster and faster, gaining momentum until it was nothing but a whirring blur.
“Mal, take the minions,” Nick shouted. “Colin, the demons.”
Hounacier in hand, I threw my left palm forward toward the closing zombies. The tattoo’s warding eye stretched wide, feeling as if the flesh might rip. The zombies froze their advance, their growling hisses rising even above the sound of Colin’s swinging sword. Seizing the opening, I lunged, driving the machete’s blade at creature’s heart. It brought an arm up, deflecting the blade so that it plunged into the right side of its chest and missed the target. Unfazed, the creature grabbed my forearm.
I screamed. The bones in my arm bent, threatening to crack under the creature’s inhuman grip. Desperately, I tore Hounacier free from the rotting corpse and swung, burying the blade into the zombie’s skull but to no effect.
Nick moved past me in a blur and buried Ozkareen in the creatures back. Its chest exploded as the pick came through, showering me with rotted gore. “Go for the heart!” he shouted.
A pair of ghouls charged Colin.
One moved as if to lunge, but dashed to the side at the last moment. The other one leapt toward him, claws raised. Colin brought his blurring sword up as it reached him. The ghoul’s arms diced apart, the blows striking so fast they seemed simultaneous. Shrieking, the demon fell, blood spurting from its twin stumps. Colin rammed the blade down into its head.
Golden yellow fire ignited along the slain demon’s skin and from the severed pieces scattered about the room.