MudMan (The Golem Chronicles Book 1) (26 page)

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, you can dish it but you can’t take—”

“No seriously, shut up for a second.” She shifted right, hand tracing through the air as though brushing away unseen cobwebs.

Chuck shuffled back a step, lips pressed into a tight line. “Levi never really said what you are,” he said after a time. “You some kinda psychic, right? Like that Sookie Stackhouse from
True Blood
? ’Cause if you’re some kinda psychic mind-reader, I just want to apologize for all those things I been thinking about … well …” He cleared his throat and looked away.

“First, gross. Second, shut up and come here.” She reached over and pulled him toward the tunnel on the right. “Give me your hand.” Without waiting for him to agree, she took the hand clutching the flashlight and thrust it up into the air. “Do you feel that?”

“I’ll feel whatever you want, sweetheart.”

“No, you pervy asshole, stop and actually feel.”

This time he paused, then shook his head. “Naw, still got nothing. You sure this isn’t some kinda psychic thing?”

“If you don’t start pulling your weight, Chuck, I swear I’ll go on without you,” Ryder replied. “You have that lighter in your pack?”

“Yeah, just give me a minute.” He slung the bag from his shoulder and dropped down to the ground, setting his gun and flashlight on the grimy floor so he could dig through one of the outside pockets. After a handful of seconds, he pulled out a black Zippo with a tacky jade four-leaf clover on either side.

She snatched the lighter from his hand, not waiting for whatever asinine comment was to follow, and turned back to the passageway. She fumbled the top open and flicked the flint wheel,
click, click, click
. After a couple of tries a wavering flame flickered to life, dancing and bobbing, blown to the left by a barely-there breeze.

“Holy shit, is that a draft?” he asked, eyes tracking the movement of the tiny fire.

“Yep,” Ryder replied with a smirk, dropping her hand. “That’s a draft—a tiny one, maybe—but a draft. And a draft means an exit. We just need to follow that and we’ll get out of this place.”

He flashed her a radiant smile, his white teeth gleaming purple in the orb light. “I love you, Sally Ryder. Smart is the new sexy, you know.” He slung his pack back into place with a grunt and retrieved his light and pistol from the floor. She snapped the Zippo closed with a flick of her wrist and stowed it in her jeans. Then, since she had the breathing room, she slid the compact revolver—a dark metal thing called a Chief's Special—from her coat pocket, emptied out the spent brass, and popped home fresh rounds.

“Now why don’t you lead the way,” Chuck said as he settled his gear into place, adjusting the shoulder straps. “Like they say, brains before beauty.”

Guy really was a worthless jackass.

She fished her flashlight from one coat pocket, then, with a roll of her eyes, shoved her way past the worst tour guide on the planet. She clicked on the SureFire and swept the beam across the tunnel as she moved deeper into the murk. The temple was creepy to the max, like a dark alley in the worst part of the worst city in existence—assuming whatever lurked down that alleyway was inhuman, predatory, and amped up on Miracle-Gro.

She kept moving, though, because to stay still was tantamount to a death sentence. And she meant to live. She did, however, clutch the snub-nosed revolver a little tighter. The gun felt heavy, but the weight was a comfort in her hand.

She wasn’t great with a pistol, but neither was she unfamiliar. Her father had owned a gun like this, a cheap piece he’d picked up at a pawnshop for a hundred bucks. Well, he hadn’t bought it, not with his record. The gun had been in her mom’s name, since she had a clean record. At least on paper. That was their deal: better for one of them to be clean—easier to get an apartment or a job without a rap sheet—so Dad was always the fall guy. Always. The drug convictions. The robbery charges. The breaking and entering rap. Dad took it all and did the time so Mom’s name could be on the lease.

He’d taught her to handle the weapon, her dad. One of the few good memories she had of him. They’d been living in Detroit at the time, and he took her out of the city—down near Chelsea—with a box of ammo and a couple of empty milk jugs. He filled those plastic cartons up with sand and gravel and propped them up on an old log, which sat at the base of a tiny hill covered with sparse wild grass. Then they’d shot.

“A pistol like this doesn’t have a safety,”
he told her, “
but you really have to tug the trigger to fire. Or you can cock the hammer back, like in the westerns.”
He thumbed back the hammer with a
click
.
“If you thumb it back, half the work’s already done. Then, all it takes is a little squeeze.”
He flashed her a wink and a cocky, easy grin, then held out the gun, arm slightly bent, one eye closed as he peered along the top edge of the weapon. He eased the trigger back, not yanking or pulling, but a slow, steady squeeze. The gun barked in his hand and kicked up a hair. A moment later one of the milk cartons rocked, a puckered hole spilling out a trickle of sand, like a wound spilling dirty blood.

Yeah, she knew how to shoot. How to defend herself—not that the gun had saved her parents or her brother. Not against Yraeta and the Kings. Butchers.

Sometimes she fantasized about heading over to a pawnshop, just like her dad, picking up a Chief’s Special, and paying Yraeta and his boys a visit. She and Jamie used to talk about doing it at night—that had been back in foster care. Only a fantasy, though, an impossibility. A kid’s pipe dream. Like becoming an astronaut or the President. Maybe once upon a time it would’ve been possible to kill Yraeta, but not now. That sack of shit had moved up in the world after doing in her family—now, he was an untouchable crime kingpin with cops and judges in his pocket and a small army of gun-wielding thugs surrounding him.

She didn’t have time to waste on thoughts of Yraeta, so she shoved those hurtful memories back down in the lockbox of other painful memories she kept buried in the back of her skull. If she wanted to live through this, and she very much did, she needed to be present and focused: a solider on the battlefield, a surgeon with razor in hand.

After a few minutes of walking they came to another intersection, this one a “T” with passages running off left and right. She tucked the pistol into her baggy jacket pocket—the Carhartt monstrosity Levi had provided wasn’t her style, but she had to admit it was pragmatic and comfy—and swiveled the beam of her light down each hall.

The left-hand path looked much like the one they’d just come from: more stone walls, carved with ancient murals and runes, the whole scene lit by the spectral purple orbs. The right path, on the other hand, screamed,
Stay out or die a gruesome death
. That path ran straight for only a few yards before curving left and disappearing from view. And right at the arch of the curve lay a tangle of foliage, completely covering the walls and ceiling, though leaving the floor mostly bare.

She sighed, knowing how this was likely to shake out, and retrieved the lighter from her pocket. She held her breath, not daring to so much as exhale, while she raised the Zippo and flicked it to life, searching for the vital draft, which would serve as their guide. It took a few pounding heartbeats to locate the thin trickle of wind. The right. Straight into the terrifying path running into the heart of the deadly vegetation.

Of course
that
would be the way. Because why did she ever deserve a break?

She shook her head, shut the lighter, and reluctantly hooked a thumb toward the death-trap-in-waiting.

Chuck’s flashlight beam wheeled that way, lingering on the bend and the vines, which already seemed to be moving and slithering in anticipation—though, admittedly, it could’ve been a trick of the sweeping flashlight beam and Ryder’s overactive imagination.

“Yeahhhh,” Chuck said, drawing the word out. “I don’t wanna go down there.” He pressed his lips together in a grimace and swung his head to and fro. “Naw, breeze or no, I say we stick to the parts that don’t look like the inside of the Little Shop of Horrors. ’Cause here’s the thing—I don’t wanna die, but I especially don’t wanna get capped by a houseplant. No better way to ruin your street cred then getting’ iced by a ficus.”

“Well, bad news, homeboy, that’s where the breeze is coming from, so that’s the way we’re going.”

“Maybe that’s the way
you’re
going, but I happen to be a certified guide of Outworld and shit, and I say we go this way.” He turned and pointed toward the left-hand path, his flashlight beam following along in an arch.

He fell silent as his light splashed over the thing creeping toward them on silent, arachnoid feet. “Aw shit,” he muttered.

TWENTY:

Ancient History

With his back pressed against the stony wall, Levi inched forward, his battle-axe hand raised high, while he flattened and distended his other hand into a shield, covering the majority of his thick frame and legs. He paused at the edge of the wall, drawing in a few deep breaths—
in
, hold,
out
, pause—before stepping into view. Most of his bulk remained hidden behind his massive shield-arm, but he had no problem seeing over the top edge of the impromptu barricade.

The room was octagonal, with two hallways jutting off in opposite directions. Stonework—thankfully devoid of any troublesome foliage—was inscribed with pictographs and runes, including yet another portrait of the ruby-eyed wyrm god. The sole prisoner inhabiting this otherworldly jail. Of greater concern than the artwork, however, was the man cowering against the far wall.

“Stop right there,” he demanded, shaking like a leaf in a strong gale.

Levi heeded the command, taking a moment to assess this newcomer: Lanky, gaunt, scholarly, sporting a now-tattered mountaineer’s jacket and thick khaki pants with bulging cargo pockets on either leg. Levi recognized him from the holographic display he’d seen back at the entry checkpoint—Professor Owen Wilkie. Physically, the man wasn’t impressive, but Levi was hesitant to go any closer. Regardless of his appearance, he was a mage—a wielder of the deep power, a master of the
Vis
, the energy undergirding Creation—and they were dangerous.

Drifting around the supernatural community, Levi had heard plenty of horror stories about what happened to creatures that crossed the Guild of the Staff. Step wrong with their kind and it wouldn’t be long before a Guild Judge—or worse, a member of the Fist—showed up on your doorstep with a death warrant in hand. There were, of course, many creatures of Outworld who could go toe-to-toe with the magi—old demons, High Lords of the Endless Wood, forgotten Principalities and dark godlings—but Levi wasn’t among them. Some things, some people, were better left alone.

Moreover, this man was frazzled, terrified, and weighed down by exhaustion. A frazzled, terrified, exhausted man could do crazy, dangerous things—and with the Vis behind him, who knew what he could be capable of?

Truth be told, though, Levi was more concerned about what he might do to himself—he was holding a knife to his throat, pressing down until the skin dimpled.

“Don’t come any closer,” Wilkie said, voice uneven, trembling. “You need me. I’m the only one who understands the cipher, and it’s all up here, committed to memory.” He tapped at his temple with his free hand. “Without me you’ll never figure the ritual out. So you need me. And I refuse to be tortured—I won’t endure what you put Simon through. I won’t. I’ll end it first. I swear to God.”

Though Levi wasn’t a great student of the human condition, he saw this was a man who’d been pushed to his uttermost limit—his suicidal threat wasn’t bluster. One wrong move and he’d slide that blade across his neck.

“Don’t know who you think I am,” Levi said as friendly as he could manage, which wasn’t much. “Whoever’s after you? It’s not me.” He let the shield disappear and dismissed the battle-axe, his hands reverting to normal. He shuffled a little further inside, raising both hands, showing he was unarmed and meant no harm.

“What’d you take me for?” Wilkie demanded, eyes wide and wild, hand quivering as he readjusted his grip on the blade. “Who else would be out here? If you aren’t with
them
then who are you? What are you?”

“It’s complicated,” Levi replied, shuffling closer. He needed this man alive—he was the only hope Levi had of getting answers. “But I need your help. I think something bad is going to happen, and I think you have the answers I need to stop whatever that is.”

“I’ve been hiding here for three days.” His lips curled in a sneer. “I haven’t eaten or bathed. I’ve barely slept. And every single minute I fear I will be discovered and murdered. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. So convince me, or I’ll jab this knife into my carotid artery—it won’t even have to be that deep—and in less than a minute I’ll be moving on from this world. So, if you want any help, I’d work on convincing me.”

Levi didn’t know where to start. Ever since running across Ryder he’d been forced from one awkward and uncomfortable situation to another. Confronting the shaman in the Deep Downs, executing that innocent flesh golem in the Kobock temple, trekking through Outworld with a Rube, now forced to explain himself to a mage with the Guild. A mage who could likely end his existence with a thought. How had his life become so complicated, so uncertain?

Once this business was all said and done with, he planned on going back to his nice, boring routines. Monday, prison ministry. Tuesday, the food pantry. Wednesday, small-group Bible study. Thursday, AA meetings. Friday, Levi taught a beginner’s pottery class at the Y. He’d never been so excited for monotony. But he wasn’t done with this business yet. No, he had a half-crazed mage to talk down off the ledge.

His first inclination was to lie. Lying may have been a sin, but it was a familiar one: well-trodden ground, where he knew all the ups and downs, ruts and pitfalls. Except he couldn’t possibly lie his way out of this. He couldn’t begin to think of a deception that would do the trick. Not to mention he wasn’t just trying to pull one over on some Rube like George from church. This was a
mage
. Magi were supposed to know the truth of things. Rumor had it they could tell if someone was lying through some trick of their magic.