Darkness Bred (Chimney Rock) Read online

  They moved on, but Saul stopped again, holding up a hand. He turned slowly to face Sean and put a finger to his lips while he watched something behind Sean.

  Sean pushed back onto his haunches and stared back the way they had come. Not twenty feet away, a short, thick stick hung, horizontal, perhaps six or seven inches from the ground, a crooked stick, unremarkable except for its resistance to gravity and its lonely condition.

  “Any ideas?” Saul asked.

  Sean shook his head. If The Island was as mysterious as Saul had said, then this could be anything, including someone’s silly effort to be annoying.

  “It looks like a wand,” Saul said. “I haven’t seen many because I don’t move with those who use them, but they can be powerful, and mischievous.”

  For an instant Sean saw a wavering shape, a ghost of a shape, something small and long and so faint he couldn’t identify what kind of creature it was.

  As quickly as it showed itself, it was gone, and the stick glided along to disappear around the next bend.

  Saul gave Sean a long and serious look. “Sally has sticks that are wands. There are plenty able to make very efficient wands, they just aren’t usually among those we’re likely to come across.”

  Wind-driven rain beat against them. The scent of salt came heavy on the wet air and the sky disappeared behind lightning-ripped, dark cloud.

  Both Saul and Sean held their heads high, staring ahead, watching for what they expected at any moment—an attack.

  Thunder rushed at them in echoing, flesh-shaking blasts.

  They trudged on.

  And twice more Sean saw the floating stick.

  The ghostly, transparent shadow came and went again.

  He halted, and so did Saul. The vampire faced him, his long, black hair sodden and water dripping from his face. “I saw a phantom—I think it intended to be seen.” Their eyes met and Saul said, “I believe you have your hands very full.”

  Sean took off, ran past Saul, but hesitated when the other zipped in front of him and held up a hand. “Did you know she could become invisible as that cat? She attached herself and followed us—came with us. Elin can be invisible, or should I say Skillywidden? She will only slow us down, or worse. Should we turn back?”

  Pacing, Sean thought. He and Elin had only communicated telepathically as humans. He had no way of getting into her mind and telling her to come back to Whidbey with them.

  Saul raised his hands and let them fall heavily to his sides. “Women were always spoilers. They could always make men weak. Damn, why do they have to be so irresistible?”

  This piece of insight was something else unexpected coming from the vampire.

  “There’s no way to communicate with her?”

  Sean shook his head.

  “Then if we go, we won’t be sure she’s with us so there’s no point. We go on and encourage her to stay with us—and do no harm.”

  Making his decision quickly, Sean shifted again. He stood, naked, in the raging storm. “I have to be able to talk to you,” he said. “I need a disguise.”

  He accepted the coat Saul took off and offered without question. The thought seemed to have come to both of them instantaneously—a prospect Sean had no intention of examining too closely.

  The coat had a hood and he pulled it far forward to shadow his face. Voluminous and heavy with an attached cape, the long coat slapped at his skin. Saul’s white shirt stuck to his body. On any other man his skin would have shown through, but not on the pale vampire.

  “Elin,” Sean hissed, ignoring Saul’s muttered protests. “Elin, stay close and show yourself. I know you can hear me now so don’t try to pretend you can’t. I’ve seen you—stop hiding. Come to me. We’ll go back to Whidbey.”

  A blast of rain hit like a wave crashing from the sea and Sean wiped his face to see. “You’ll be fine as Skillywidden. If someone sees you, they’ll think nothing of it.”

  Seconds turned to minutes and no small, silver cat appeared.

  “Damn,” Sean said, throwing off the hood and shaking back his hair. “She won’t show herself. She wants us to finish what we’ve come for so I won’t return—or so she thinks.”

  “I doubt we’ll return,” Saul said evenly. “And who knows if we’ll even leave.”

  Sean glared at him. “Pay him no heed, Elin. Just show yourself.”

  Nothing.

  “Two choices,” Saul said. “Go back and hope she’s with us, or carry on and hope…Just hope.”

  Sean made up his mind. Anger thumped at his temples as he leaned once more to climb upward, this time without the benefit of shoes, or hardened pads on his feet.

  “This has to be done,” he said to Saul. “We’ll never be free if we don’t stop this thing. Stay with us, Elin,” he said. “And don’t try any heroics. If something happens, don’t interfere. This is an evil place.”

  “You’d do well to be afraid, Elin,” Saul said to the wind and rain and emptiness. “It isn’t me you’ll have to deal with when we get out of here but I doubt the experience will be pleasant nevertheless.”

  With Saul at his shoulder, Sean scrambled to the top of the next rise only to face a rough and muddy downhill stretch. Fortunately he was too surefooted to slip. “You’ve really made a mess of things this time,” he told Elin—wherever she was and that couldn’t be far. “Who gave you the silly stick? Sally? Did the pair of you think it would be any defense against what we’re facing? Get behind us and stay there.” It puzzled him that there was no sign of that stick at the moment.

  “Look,” Saul said suddenly and lowered his voice. “Just up ahead. That rock’s moving. The wand. It’s the wand doing it.”

  Quite a large rock heaved loose of the mountainside under the unlikely leverage of their familiar floating stick. The boulder tipped slowly forward, rolled sideways, and slid onto the pathway.

  “Why did you do that, Elin?” Sean said. “I can tell it’s you with the stick.” Which should have snapped off the instant she tried to use it.

  “Better not insult the wand,” Saul said, laughing unexpectedly. “They have personalities, or so I understand. You could get yourself punished.”

  Less than amused, Sean stalked toward the fallen rock, and Elin, or where she must be, the wand held high.

  “Get behind us,” he told her, his jaws aching with the effort of not losing his temper. “Do it now. We’ve got—”

  The wand disappeared—into the ground.

  Squabbling voices wafted from the place where the boulder had been dislodged. The babble grew louder, the babble and argumentative yelling.

  Saul hauled Sean behind a row of rocks and they threw themselves to the ground. “Elin’s probably down there,” he said.

  “We’ll see,” Saul responded although he didn’t sound calm. “Be grateful she’s invisible.”

  Like a flock of gray birds, figures resembling a retreating army clambered from the earth, falling over each other, climbing on those who fell to keep going, and yelling all the time. Most of them wore gray leggings and tunics and a head covering that looked like a medieval chain mail cowl with a fencing face mask.

  Among these, and there were many of them, a ragtag melee of various creatures rushed along, some willingly, some dragged.

  The whole streaming band scrambled and leaped their way toward the beach until they passed out of Sean and Saul’s sight.

  “I could feel something different going on here,” Saul said. “Some change. I told you as much.”

  “Looks like rats abandoning the ship to me,” Sean allowed. “I couldn’t even tell what most of them were, other than the ones in uniform or whatever it was.”

  Falling silent, Sean stood and went to the spot where the wand had slipped from sight and the exodus erupted. He reached the hidden rim of a large hole.

  Hardly daring to breathe, he knelt and looked over the edge. A few feet of rough-hewn lava rock angled away from him before he saw a step, and the shadow of a second. Beyond that, everythi
ng was dark.

  He stood up and looked around. “I’ve changed my mind. We’ll have to go back.”

  His eyes met Saul’s.

  The vampire gave an eloquent shrug, and raised his arms. “Nothing’s changed, my friend. We don’t know where she is. Leave and she might come with us. Leave and she might already be poking around inside that hole and on the way to hell—alone.”

  chapter TWENTY

  At last the rushing horde of yelling riffraff were all gone, scuttling through the hole Elin had found. Little did they know they’d had invisible help getting out of the mountain.

  She breathed more easily.

  Unbelievable. Neither Sean nor Saul had considered that the wand might also be capable of invisibility. She felt it at her side, occasionally tapping against her. Bless Sally for her wonderful gift. Just its presence gave her confidence. Elin hoped the wand would be useful if she got into even more trouble—she also hoped Tarhazian wouldn’t find out and punish Sally.

  It would be a disaster for Tarhazian to know Elin and Sally were close conspirators.

  Mmmm, she loved the feel of her sinuous Skillywidden body winding along. But then, her Elin body could be supple in all the right ways, too—if she wanted it to be.

  Until Sean and Saul passed her, Elin huddled at the side of the long flight of rough, downward-sloping stairs she had uncovered. She wanted to throw herself at Sean and feel safe in his arms. But this was no time or place for wimps who couldn’t stick to their plans.

  Both men kept their voices very low but Elin heard them clearly. She was almost certain that even now she could communicate with Sean. But it suited her to have him think she was guilty only of hearing him and not doing what he wanted, rather than also deliberately not talking to him.

  Doing what he wanted? He did still have things to learn about her.

  She slunk along behind the men. Sean had to be uncomfortable in Saul’s heavy, wet coat but he kept it on and the hood up. He looked so much better naked.

  Later she could expect him to blame her for his discomfort because he’d shifted back to try and talk to her.

  If she were talking to him, she’d say he should use his head not his heart and return to his hound. Conversation with him at present was out of the question. He would only spend valuable time trying to persuade her into something he decided was safer for her.

  Saul stopped walking and held up a hand. “This looks like the first inhabited cavern.” He edged forward and leaned into a space that had been invisible to Elin.

  “Empty,” Saul said, bracing his hands on either side of an opening he had to crouch to enter.

  “Who’s usually here?” Sean said, dropping to his haunches and staring past Saul. “Is that some sort of altar? On the far side. The top looks fluorescent.”

  Elin peeked inside. Too bad there isn’t a supply of The Veil hanging around with some extra green I can use. Who knows how many monsters I may need to get rid of in here?

  “Yes. An altar. The group that was here fashioned themselves after the original Templars.” Saul went into the cavern. He called back, “They sacrifice whatever they can get their filthy hands on. Like deadly scavengers. They are a banished band of Austrian Verbols. They began as members of the renegade Embran tribe and continue to manifest in many forms as the Embran do, but they cannot return to the center of the earth, where the kingdom of their ancestors flourishes again now.”

  “And The One wanted all these creatures here? Nothing seems too low for him to gather in. He really is desperately searching for something,” Sean said. “But even these have deserted his mountain.”

  “Or been sent away because he decided they weren’t of any use to him.” Saul peered into the semidarkness. “They haven’t been gone long. They must have been in the middle of a sacrifice when they left. See, the blood on the altar and the floor? It still looks wet. And there’s enough of it to float a boat. God knows how many deaths have happened here.”

  “Do you think they would just leave?” Sean said.

  “Not all of them. Look over there, on the left.”

  “Rags,” Sean said, following Sean inside.

  Elin skittered in behind. At least she could feel Sean’s aura, his strength, and be near him. Please don’t let him leave me after this. Her stomach squeezed painfully at the thought.

  Saul pulled the black rags aside, or tried to. They were attached to the neck of a colorless man with a completely bald head. Death had already filmed his wide open eyes and a gaping gash across his neck from ear to ear showed how he had died. Saul grunted. “They are more easily killed than either your kind or mine.”

  Werehounds and vampires did not usually die from a wound.

  “He’s not the only one here,” Sean said. He stooped to peer through another opening. “There must be more than a dozen bodies in here.” He entered this new cavern.

  “We’d better get on with it,” Saul said. “Let’s see if we can find out what The One’s up to and get the hell out of here.”

  “Yeah.” Sean’s voice echoed back. “Throats cut. Every one of them. But no blood. Can you explain that?”

  “Verbols don’t bleed,” Saul said. “Neither do they breathe. It’s air that can kill them if it enters their bodies. The wounds on their necks let air past their nose and mouth shields. It got inside them and they died.”

  “How do they survive at all?” Sean sounded increasingly curious. “Are we likely to encounter more of them?”

  Saul appeared to be searching for something. “They suck out entrails,” he said. “I told you they can assume many forms so we could encounter them anywhere here if some escaped this slaughter and disguised themselves. There must have been some of them with the bunch who ran out of the tunnel before we came in. What I’d really like to know is what or who they were sacrificing before so many of them went on their final trip.”

  The men backed out of the cavern and continued down with the steps growing narrower before they got even rougher and began to climb steeply upward.

  Elin stayed near and breathed a little faster when they turned a corner and the tunnel lightened.

  The hacked-out walls glistened wet and fluorescent yellow. They gave off light that washed a dull glow over the tunnel. Elin swallowed harder. She didn’t like it in here, and from the silence of the two men ahead, it didn’t seem they were thrilled with their surroundings either.

  Sean checked behind him repeatedly and she knew he was convinced she was there—and worried out of his mind because he might have no control over what happened to her.

  “Stay with me,” he whispered, looking past her, searching. “But don’t…stay right here and wait.”

  They had arrived at another hollowed-out cave where more creatures were heaped up and very dead. These differed from the other group in that they had large feet and ears, but Saul told Sean they were simply more Verbols who took a slightly different form from the first batch.

  Elin remained in Sean’s footsteps on the way into the cave, and when he climbed out again.

  “Saul.” Sean pulled the vampire to face him. “We have no definite plans. We want to learn the reason why The One is causing us trouble on Whidbey and stop him. But we haven’t discussed how we will fight him if it comes to that. Or how we will respond if we’re attacked and seriously outnumbered.”

  “If you can think of a way to answer those questions, I’m all ears.”

  Sean shook his head slowly. “In other words we keep going and hope we’ll know what to do if we have to do it?”

  “That’s about how I see it,” Saul said. He raised a hand. “There is more I know. Details I saw no point in mentioning unless we actually got here. We must be ready for the worst, Sean. That creature up there thinks he sees a way to get what he wants. He works on it day and night. But his body is alive and must be fed. It’s worse than you can imagine.”

  “I doubt it,” Sean said, stopping, obviously waiting for Saul to tell him everything.

  Trembl
ing, Elin crouched against the slimy wall again.

  Saul stepped backward to stand beside Sean. “You can’t persuade The One of anything or get any sense out of him. I’d say he was mad but I don’t think he is. But he’s vicious. With his bare hands he tears open living bodies and eats…He eats the organs.”

  “From any creature?” Sean asked.

  “Humans,” Saul said. “He was careful I didn’t see any prisoners, but chains and manacles hung from the walls. I believe he chains his captives to the wall where they can watch when he feeds.

  “The mountain spews thick vapor sometimes, not like an eruption, it just bubbles up from a hole inside the cave, and subsides again. He catches parts of it and works with it, screaming all the time that he’s being tricked. And he talks about making his enemies suffer and about his Bloodstone. His Bloodstone is almost perfect, or so he says, and nothing will escape it when he’s finished. His aim is to have the stone respond to his desires, to change the will of those he wants to serve him. It will, or so he believes, serve two purposes: to bring others under his control, or to kill them if they resist.

  “He wants to have a big Bloodstone, but when he tries to form more than small amounts of what he takes from the crater, it crumbles once it’s dry. Little metal pots of red, steaming vapor are stacked up and he keeps filling more from the vent. One at a time is what he keeps muttering and he says it’s too slow. But he also says he’ll get his island in the end. At first all I could think was that he’d already got it so I didn’t understand.”

  Sean stared at Saul and said, “He means Whidbey, not this island. There’s something there he wants or needs. I’d put my money on need.” He looked upward, then around as if he was searching for Elin. “Why haven’t you tried to interfere with his plans before?”

  “I waited. That’s my way. I prefer to see what develops and to be certain how I will deal with a problem. Until meeting Aldo, and then being involved with you, I was still collecting information and making decisions.

  “Now is the time. You are the key I needed, and whatever you decide, I’ll do,” Saul said.