Chapter 38
Viggo watched until the darkness swallowed them before looking at Solomon and Fairbridge.
“Let’s go.”
They moved through the monastery like shadows, every sense straining for danger. Though they occasionally heard dim voices in the distance, they didn’t see anyone.
The building was a labyrinth of twisting passages and forgotten chambers, some still bearing the remnants of religious devotion; faded icons, dusty altars, the skeletal remains of devotional candles.
Others had been transformed into something far darker.
Viggo passed doorways that reeked of blood and Noctis Bloom, rooms where arcane symbols had been carved into every surface, their lines still glistening a dark crimson from whatever terrible ritual had been performed within what was once a sanctified space.
They found an opening leading underground and headed down stone steps.
Torches flickered in iron sconces, casting dancing shadows that made Viggo’s nerves sing with tension. All it would take was one of Winchester’s henchmen to cross their path and the alarm would be raised.
The walls soon grew slick with moisture and age, the air colder and more forbidding. Fairbridge’s shoulders knotted when they reached the second level.
Viggo shot a tense glance at him. “Dark magic?”
The spy nodded. “The place reeks of it.”
Viggo soon picked up on the foul smell Fairbridge had detected, the stench thick enough to taste. Solomon wrinkled his nose.
“This whole building feels sick,” the thrall muttered.
Viggo couldn’t argue with that. The walls seemed to pulse around them, as if the stone itself had been infected by the dark magic practised within its walls. He could feel it pressing against his skin, a constant wrongness that made his teeth ache.
They reached a staircase that spiralled down to the lowest level of the monastery.
Faint voices echoed up toward them.
Fairbridge and Solomon reached for their knives. They headed cautiously down the stairs, Viggo in the lead. At the bottom was a corridor that branched left and right. Viggo hugged the wall with his back and peered out into the passage.
Light from a handful of flame torches danced against the stone walls on the left, illuminating a corridor that dead-ended after some forty feet. The voices were coming from a gap in a door halfway down it. Raucous laughter spilled out from the room beyond.
It sounded like a group of men playing a card game.
The passage to the right was swamped in darkness.
Viggo slipped silently into it, Fairbridge and Solomon on his heels.
The men’s voices faded behind them as the corridor turned.
Iron doors appeared, lining the walls at regular intervals.
Viggo realised they were looking at cells. Dozens of them, stretching into the gloom.
“The monastic prison,” Solomon breathed, hope thickening his voice.
Viggo moved to the nearest door and peered through the small barred window set into its surface. Empty. The next cell was the same. And the next.
“Over here,” Fairbridge called out in a low voice.
Viggo and Solomon joined him. The Brute’s stomach knotted. Solomon cursed under his breath.
Inside the cell were crates that looked identical to the ones Viggo and Evander had found in Brassard’s basement.
They were stacked almost to the ceiling.
One of the boxes near the door was partially open, revealing a glass and brass Magical Conduit device nestled inside a container packed with ice.
The next room was similarly packed with crates.
A faint sound stopped them cold as they moved to the third.
A whimper. It came from farther down the corridor.
They rushed towards it. Viggo felt his heart stutter.
Figures were visible through the bars, slumped against the walls of a larger cell.
Some dozen men and women in tattered clothing, their faces gaunt, their eyes hollow.
Several bore visible injuries; cuts, bruises, the unmistakable marks of magical torture.
Others simply sat motionless, staring at nothing.
Viggo knew he was looking at some of the missing mages and researchers on Schmidt’s list.
But there was no sign of Ginny or Shaw among them.
A woman at the back caught his eye. She was younger than the rest—mid-twenties perhaps—with dark hair matted with filth and a face that might have been pretty before whatever horrors she’d endured. She was curled into herself, arms wrapped around her knees, rocking slightly.
But it was her clothing that caught Viggo’s attention. Beneath the grime and tears, he could make out the remnants of a fine dress. The kind worn by nobility or wealthy academics.
Viggo startled when she lifted her head and looked straight at him.
She blinked, then spoke in German, her voice shaking.
Fairbridge replied. “We are here to help,” the spy said gently. “What’s your name?”
The woman swallowed and licked her cracked lips.
“Lina. Lina Velghe,” she rasped.
Fairbridge froze.
Viggo’s breath caught. Solomon swore softly.
“Princess Elo?se’s friend?” Viggo said.
Lina’s eyes rounded. “Yes,” she whispered.
“She’s been looking for you,” Viggo said. “She never stopped looking.”
Tears welled and spilled down Lina’s dirt-streaked cheeks. She pushed herself unsteadily to her feet.
Viggo examined the lock on the door. It was made from heavy iron and reinforced with runes. His magic immunity would make short work of the enchantments, but breaking down the door might alert the guards in the room behind them to their presence.
A few of the prisoners began to stir as Lina approached the cell door, fear bubbling into murmurs and half-formed words. They began speaking all at once, in several languages.
Fairbridge raised his hands. “Please. You must stay quiet.”
The men and women didn’t listen, panic overcoming common sense.
Viggo’s scalp prickled.
Amber glowed in Fairbridge’s eyes, his magic dancing across Viggo’s skin in a faint, warm breeze.
The prisoners sagged into silence, muscles loosening, breath evening out.
Lina stared from her companions to Fairbridge.
“You’re an Enchanter,” she breathed.
Fairbridge nodded curtly. “I apologise. I needed them calm.”
“I understand,” Lina murmured.
“We’re searching for two women who were brought here tonight,” Solomon told Lina tightly. “One of them wore a green gown.”
Lina bobbed her head. “I saw them. They were down here briefly before they were taken back upstairs.” She clenched her jaw. “Those animals have a special room set up, in one of the prayer cells. It’s where they like to torture people.”
Fury darkened Solomon’s face. He made to move toward the stairs.
Viggo grabbed his arm and stopped him.
“You can’t just rush up there!” the Brute snapped. He turned to Lina, urgency hammering through him. “I’m sorry. We need to rescue our friends. They are in grave danger. We will come back for you, I swear it.”
To his surprise, Lina shook her head vehemently.
“No, you need to stop him before you come to our aid. He’s about to open the convergence.”
Viggo’s blood ran cold.
“The convergence?” Fairbridge frowned. “You mean the place where the Crimson Codex was supposedly hidden?”
“But the Codex was broken into seven fragments and hidden in different locations across the continent,” Viggo said sharply, his chest tight. “We presumed the convergence was a lie. A distraction.”
“The convergence exists,” Lina said urgently, gripping the bars of the window with white knuckles. “And there were eight fragments.”
Viggo went very still.
“We were brought here to decipher the arcane texts and fragments they already had,” Lina continued, voice trembling.
“To help them unseal the convergence where the eighth and largest fragment was hidden. The main body of the Crimson Codex. The final key was the Das Blutbuch. And tonight, we helped Mordecai Winchester crack it.” Her eyes filled with terror.
“Which means he could tear that hidden space open at any moment now!”
A tremor suddenly shook the floor and walls around them, causing Lina to gasp. Dust spiralled down from the ceiling as the quake intensified.
Every instinct Viggo possessed told him that something terrible was about to happen.
“Change of plans.” He seized the lock and crushed it, heedless of the magic runes that flared against his palm. “We have to get them out, now!” He urged Lina to move back from the door and kicked it. Once. Twice.
It burst open on the third strike, crashing inward in a spray of splinters.
Footsteps thundered toward them as he herded Lina and the subdued prisoners out of the holding cell, the monastery shuddering violently around them.
“Viggo,” Solomon warned.
Wind magic detonated around Fairbridge as five guards rounded the corner—two of them dark mages, shadows already coiling around their hands.
Viggo narrowed his eyes.