Catacombs (The Sekhmet Bounty Series Book 2) (5 page)

What kind of necromancer was squeamish around a body? I was being practical. We had limited supplies as it was. Collecting what we could along the way was a must. “He doesn’t need it and we’re on a mission to avenge him. I think he’d understand. I know I would.”

She sighed, but didn’t comment further.

The poor guy didn’t have a single useful thing on him, although a helmet with a headlamp lay next to him, relatively unharmed. I flipped the switch and the light came on bright and strong. “You want this?”

Her face scrunched up. “Damn it. Yes, actually, I do.” She took it from me and wiped the blood away with her sleeve before she plopped it on her head.

His slightly damp clothes kept me from smiling at the fact she looked like a kid playing dress-up with the too-big helmet. “Can you swim?”

“Yeah, I guess. It isn’t like I do it often. The whole touching thing makes being uncovered really uncomfortable. Why?”

“Just checking. I don’t…so…” If I needed to be rescued, it was up to her. Then again, being rescued by a necromancer might actually ensure the fact I wasn’t going to die. “Can you do a spell that would surround a person in a bubble of air, so they can just float through water, breathing and dry?”

Her upper lip curled and her black eyebrows pulled together. “No. You should have asked before we came. Maybe the coven could have come up with a way to help.”

It was worth a shot. “The coven should really look into that. I bet there’d be a big market among non-swimmers for that sort of useful magic.” Who would want a love potion when you could breathe underwater?

Frost shook her head. “Why is all of this happening now? Isn’t it weird that it went from no deaths to fifteen?” Frost echoed my earlier thoughts. “Someone doesn’t just start offing people and displaying the bodies for no reason. There had to be a trigger. Something either pissed him off or…”

Dollars to donuts that trigger was none other than the council. I pulled an energy bar out of my bag and took a bite, chewing slowly as we followed the twisty, rough tunnels deeper into the earth and further away from the catacombs. “Best I can come up with is something is putting the humans in his path.”

She shook her head. “Why?”

The council wanted a reason to get rid of Shezmu. In some way, he wasn’t following their plan or playing their game, and now they were going to snuff him out, using me. But why me? Why not just do it themselves? They were all stronger than I was. They were probably capable of taking on a god.

“What aren’t you telling me? I don’t like feeling you know a lot more about this than you’re saying.”

I shot her a glance out of the corner of my eye. Her shoulders were hunched forward, her hands jammed into her pockets. The tunnels were cavelike. The damp, moldy smells and cool temperatures made them feel alien and not like part of our world at all. They weren’t freezing, but weren’t warm either. It was actually perfect for me, but Frost looked miserable—something that would only intensify if we got soaked. “You want to survive this mission, just remember whatever you think you know probably isn’t right. That’s been my experience with missions like this. Trust your gut. If something feels off, it probably is.”

“I know that.” She threw her arms up. “You do realize I’m a bounty hunter just like you? I’ve brought in at least a hundred bounties. I know how to investigate. Stop treating me like I don’t and tell me what the hell is happening.”

“We’re stopping a murderer. That’s what happening. Treat it like any other case.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Frost grumbled, marking an X on the wall.

A high-pitched scream came from down the tunnel and we both took off, running toward it.

“It didn’t sound this far away,” Frost said, slowing down.

It was hard to tell how far anything was down here with all the stone and echoing. Any noise sounded both on top of you and miles away. The darkness only added to the disorientation. But she was right that we had gone a long way. “Could it have come from the other direction? Maybe someone else found the body.”

“That’s possible.”

“This place.” I shook my head. I hadn’t felt right since I was given this assignment. Everything was off, but I couldn’t say what. All of my feelings were so much closer to the surface than they should have been. It was like my internal balance was somehow askew.

“It feels weird, doesn’t it? The sensation has a magic base, but not a magic I can place. Maybe it’s Shezmu.”

I considered what she said. As a witch, she was better at recognizing magic than I was. Could it be as simple as a spell? If so, then what else was the spell going to do? “I don’t know. I just want this case to be over. I have a bad feeling about it.”

We walked in silence a few more feet, then the voices were back. The exact same ones I heard earlier. “Light,” I whispered.

Frost clicked off her helmet.

I stopped completely and squatted down, focusing on the sound. I closed my eyes and slowed my breath. Two voices, at least, still muffled and far enough away I couldn’t tell if they were coming or going. “Do you hear them?” I whispered to Frost.

“I’m not deaf,” she replied in the same tone.

If a human ear could hear them, they were closer than I thought. “Stay close. Don’t use the light.”

“But I can’t see anything,” she said.

I couldn’t see any better than she could, but my other senses would kick in. I reached back and grabbed her sleeve. I didn’t have a single piece of clothing loose enough for her to hold on to, which was the point. When you didn’t know what you’d be up against, the last thing you needed was loose clothing that could be grabbed or snagged against something. Movable, protective comfort was always the goal.

“Let go of me,” Frost said, trying to pull away.

“You have two choices. You can hold my hand and we can find out who else is here, or I’ll leave you here in the darkness alone.”

She didn’t answer, but slapped her leather-gloved hand into mine. I went slowly. With no natural light at all, the tunnel was impenetrable. The darkness felt vast, though logically I knew it was the same as before. One foot in front of the other, we moved forward. I closed my eyes because struggling to see was useless and dulling my other senses.

With my eyes closed, my hearing sharpened. A growl to my left made my ear twitch, and my heart sped up. It wasn’t possible. I had only ever heard a growl like that once in my life. It wasn’t a dog or a wolf. It was the distinct sound of a loup garou. The growl was more guttural and desperate than that of an animal. It was a cry for help, fueled by the rage of knowing no one could save you. The image of its snarling face hovering over mine, teeth gnashing, played on repeat in my head. Just like New Orleans.

Frost didn’t react, though. She was still behind me. Darkness was a bitch like that. It seeped into your brain and made you see and feel things that weren’t there. It breathed life into your worst fears and awoke nightmares. It was a manipulator.

Years of careful practice allowed me to tamp down the fear that was born of survival instinct until I hardly even noticed it on most missions. However, as we moved through the darkness, it was trying to claw to life inside of me. Logic was the only defense. I forced my legs forward, steady and smooth. My mother had taught me that. Right after my father died, I had horrible night terrors where Shezmu was tearing me apart and chasing me around a maze. She worked with me every night until we finally bested them. It was the first and last time I remember her ever being more than our leader. Logic eventually beat the nightmares. When I didn’t give in to the fear, it passed all on its own. It had been more years than I cared to count since I had felt like that. In fact, I had nearly forgotten I ever felt that—until now. Now it was back worse than ever.

The murmuring voices were still in the distance, so I picked up our pace, dragging Frost along. At least, I was pretty sure I was headed toward them.

“Femi,” a voice whispered in my ear. And then from the other side. “
Femi
.”

A feathery touch grazed my arm, making my skin ripple. I let go of the wall and brushed it off. Putting my arm in front of me, I moved it left and right, feeling for people. The same touch went down the back of my neck then across my lower back.
Ignore it. Just ignore it,
I chanted mentally as I went. Nothing was there. Only Frost was behind me, and she wouldn’t touch me. I pressed forward, completely blind, trying to focus on the sound of my steps for changes.

Visions of the loup garou were replaced with something infinitely more horrifying. In these new imaginings, each step was taking me closer to a ledge I couldn’t see, where I would step over and fall into a deep pool and drown. Phantom hands poked and prodded and pushed us along. Urging me to go over that edge. The body had been damp. My chest tightened. Each new step became its own suffocating challenge to move forward. I started tapping the heel of my boot on the limestone floor in front of me before every step, just to be sure the ground was solid.

Frost didn’t utter a word, but I could tell she was going through her own struggle. Her hand tightened periodically around my fingers as she jerked and flinched her way forward. Silent as death.

We walked for what felt like hours, but the voices never got closer or further away. They always sounded exactly the same distance away. Water dumped over me in a chilling wave. It cascaded from my head to my feet like I had been hit with a wave. I sputtered, unable to breathe, blinking away the wetness from my eyes. Another wave hit me as I tried to take a breath. I let go of Frost and shielded my face as I flipped on the flashlight, shaking the darkness from my skin. My breathing was fast and shallow as I made tiny gasps for air.

I ran my hand over my arms and clothes. I wasn’t wet and neither was the tunnel. There was no water at all. Frost had her eyes closed as she pressed into the wall, and her shoulders heaved up and down. I turned in a circle with the flashlight, looking for something, anything that was attacking us. Nothing was there. Everything looked the same as it had before. Exactly the same.

I reached out and touched the edge of Frost’s X. We hadn’t moved at all.

“Frost, open your eyes. It’s over.”

She pried one eye then the other open, looking around her, even paler than normal. I pointed at the wall. She glanced up at the X. “How is that…” Frost shook her head and touched the wall. “Did we go in a circle?”

I shook my head. There had been no turns, at least not that I could tell. We hadn’t moved. Every step we took was an illusion. This entire place was a mindfuck, but to what end? Would it drive us to Shezmu, or did Shezmu know we were here and was trying to get rid of us? “The voices aren’t moving either, but they come and go, always too far away to be heard clearly. Something is messing with us.”

“Maybe Shezmu is trapped in here too. Maybe this is a web and he’s the spider. That could be what changed.”

“Now that’s interesting. So how large would this web be? How far does it extend?” This theory would explain the general magical feeling of the tunnels. It would also be a reason why Shezmu was here and targeting humans: he didn’t have another choice. But who trapped him here and why?

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It could be as big as the person who made it wanted it to be.”

“Can you break it?”

Frost slipped off her backpack. “Actually, I think I can. At least I’ll try.”

“Good. Prepare your spell. I want to try something.” I flattened myself against the stone wall, then sucked in a deep breath and pushed off, running as hard and fast as I could forward. The tunnel bobbed up and down in front of me, my hair blew back, and those damn hands returned, scraping over me. But nothing ever changed and I never made it past the X on the wall. Finally I stopped, winded. I couldn’t break through whatever it was.

Frost barely looked up from the circle she was carefully drawing with her chalk.

“What would the web do?” I asked. “Like, what’s the point of it?”

She glanced up. “To trap. Someone wanders into your web then they can’t get out. It could stick them in one place until the spider comes, or it could lead them to wherever the person who made it wants people to go.”

“So to Shezmu?”

She looked back at her drawing on the floor. “Probably. I should stop drawing this, shouldn’t I?”

I nodded. “Let’s try the other direction first. The humans found Shezmu somehow. Maybe the web is designed to lead people to him and prevent them from getting away. If we let it take us to him then break the spell, no one else will stumble upon him and we won’t have to spend days down here trying to find the right path.”

She nodded. “It’s a hell of a spell. Subtle and clever. Almost undetectable. This sort of magic is light years ahead of what I can do, just know that. I think I can break it, but I won’t make any promises. We might have to get the whole coven in for that.”

“Those assholes,” I said under my breath. Shezmu wasn’t magical. The council, on the other hand, had plenty of magic and more than enough contacts to make this spell happen. It had to be them. Who else could pull off something like this? They’d led those people to Shezmu, but for what? What did they want from him? Better yet, what did they want from me?

Her head popped up and interest filled her eyes. “Who? Do you know who’s doing this?”

I stretched my neck to one side then the other. Then I smoothed my hands over my skin where the phantoms had touched me, trying to erase the sensation from my memory. “Maybe. But I don’t have any proof. One thing is certain, though: it just made our entire trip that much easier.” I stared down the hall into the darkness. “Keep marking the wall and leave your light on. I don’t care if someone sees us. We need to know what we’re walking into, and the illusions have a harder time taking hold when we can see.”

I headed back in the opposite direction. For the sake of fairness, it was possible the council had trapped Shezmu here to keep him from hitting the surface, and there was no pathway to hell or anything they wanted from him. Of course, that didn’t fit into my evil organization theory, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. Even as terrible as they were, surely they’d managed to do one or two not-so-evil things over the years. It still didn’t explain why they sent me to deal with him. Leilah was infinitely more qualified.

After a long while of walking in silence as I stewed over the council, Frost cleared her throat. I waited for the questions I was sure were coming.

“You’ve killed people, right?”

That wasn’t at all what I expected her to ask. I had assumed all this time walking she was focusing on what I wasn’t telling her—that was what I would have done. “Um, yeah. Few people in our line of work haven’t. It comes with the job.” I definitely hadn’t killed as many as she had, but I also wasn’t a necromancer. Frost wasn’t the person I’d thought she was before we came here. I didn’t have to spend years with her to know that she was a fairly decent human being who cared about life, even if she had no control over taking it. Which actually meant she lived in a fairly horrible position that was possible to escape.

“Were things…touching your face back there? Like the people you’ve killed?” Frost wrapped her arms around herself.

A flood of sympathy for her filled me. I couldn’t imagine what she went through day to day with just her own guilt. Adding these illusions to the equation had to only make it worse. Especially if her greatest fear was the lives that she took, which made mine pale in comparison. I doubted whatever was touching us were the spirits of the dead, but Frost didn’t seem to be of a mind to listen to anything else. The illusions had convinced her. “Not just my face—they touched any and all exposed skin on my body. It’s probably supposed to scare people and make them turn around—but you and I are more stubborn than most. I think the further we went, the more the magic fought against us. It probably feeds on our fear. It doesn’t have anything to do with your past. Only what scares you.”

Frost pulled her braid over her shoulder and tugged on it, mouth pinched. “I know what I felt. It was the people I killed. It’s not the first time I’ve felt them.”

I shook my head. “I really don’t think it was. Whatever is doing this is plucking at our emotions. It is looking for weakness. For me there was a loup garou at first in the darkness, and then water. Water is what I’m most afraid of.”

Frost looked at her feet. “You’re sure it was an illusion?”

I nodded. “Completely. That’s why we need to leave the lights on. It will keep our imagination from running away from us.” Her shoulders lifted as she took a deep breath. “When did you find out you couldn’t be touched? Did it come later or were you born like this?”

“From birth. As you can imagine, I had the happiest of childhoods.” Her voice was dry and devoid of emotion. A tone I knew well, but usually it came from me. No one had ever been able to touch Frost. Had she been born in the Abyss, at least there were a few undead races that could have helped her, but being born into the human world, she would have been a monster.