Chapter 33
ELLE
Eventually, the sexual antics of the party grow redundant, and the four of us look for something else to do. Sabrina gets a mischievous glint in her eyes and leads us into the stairwell through a different side exit.
“My dad used to tell stories about the tunnels beneath the school,” she tells us.
“Said if you followed them long enough, you’d reach one of the caverns where Death’s Teeth holds its gatherings, and I heard they might be having one to celebrate the arrival of spring. Wanna see what they’re all about?”
I hesitate. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”
“You wanted lore, right? What better way to get it than to head right into the belly of the beast?”
Even though my brain is saying not to listen, my curiosity wins out. As long as we can peek in and not be noticed, it shouldn’t be a big deal.
Right?
The spiral stairs seem to go on forever; we wind around and around until I start to feel dizzy, bracing myself against the wall when we’ve reached the bottom level.
It’s even darker down here, and the walls are damp. Textured. They stretch into long earthen halls that my heartbeat echoes down.
We’re no longer in the Apollodorus basement but underneath it.
Dread pricks at my skin. “I’m not sure about this.”
Sabrina’s mouth flattens. “What’s with the weird expressions? You asked for something fun to do.”
“We asked for fun,” Percy says, scrubbing a hand over his blond hair. “Not to be led to our deaths.”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be such a baby. It’s just a little tunnel.”
“Spoken like someone without claustrophobia,” Lexington mutters.
“God, you all are so annoying.” She lifts her phone toward the tunnel, illuminating the immediate area. “Don’t come then. Makes no difference to me.”
“What happens if we get caught?” Percy asks. “This is a Death’s Teeth meeting we’re talking about.”
Lexington nods, holding his phone up high. “Yeah, even if the rumors aren’t true, we’ll definitely get into trouble for trespassing.”
“Oh my God, shut up.” Sabrina reaches back, taking my hand. “You don’t hear Elle whining, do you?”
“You guys just became friends, so don’t start pulling the Elle card now,” Lexington whisper-yells at her.
“Plus, she’s an Anderson,” Percy replies quietly as we delve deeper into the cave. “Whatever monsters live down here are probably her familiars.”
I flip him off. “Stop believing everything your parents tell you.”
“Well, you kind of terrify me, so I’m just assuming you might actually be cursed.”
Lexington sighs, shoving him forward as Sabrina keeps dragging us along. The air in the tunnel is ice-cold and thick, the ground uneven and the walls narrow. Water drips distantly, and I wonder if that’s from old piping or an extension of Lake Lerna.
Reaching into my coat pocket, I take out my phone, but the screen won’t swipe because of how cold my fingers are. Sniffling, I let Sabrina guide me until we hear somber music filtering through the tunnels from somewhere.
The four of us freeze for a second.
Lexington’s swallow is audible.
“You know the Apollodorus used to be a church?” Sabrina asks as we continue. “Early on, not long after the whole plague incident shook Fury Hill, some residents took over the building. Dedicated it to their god.”
“Their god,” I say, my shoulders tightening. “Not God?”
“Nope. Fury Hill’s founders didn’t subscribe to that monotheistic belief. They found god in their existences, the makeup of the world, and the cycles they observed within. Their god wasn’t omnipotent or all-knowing but an inevitability. It was inescapable, and it was all around them.”
“Death,” I finish, my voice barely a whisper.
The music grows louder, rattling the cave walls.
“Exactly.” Sabrina nods, squeezing my hand.
“So when you say church, you mean crypt. The Apollodorus was a crypt.” I squint in the dark at the walls around us. It’s hard to make out the shape of the texture, but something tells me they’re not just rock and sediment.
“Avernia was a triage center when tuberculosis ravaged the townspeople. They couldn’t keep up with the dead, so they dedicated buildings to their mass burials. Some of them never made it aboveground again though.”
I pause, turning to face her. “Some of them. You mean the people who died in the Tenarus cave? The founding patriarchs, right?”
“All of them except Cronus Anderson. Legend has it that when he decided to make the Apollodorus into a library, he had the matriarchs bring the bodies of the townspeople through this very tunnel.”
A chill slithers down my spine. “So these are the catacombs.”
“Where some say…” Sabrina trails off, covers her flashlight, and dives into the shadows. I brace myself, and seconds later, she pops up behind Percy, grabbing his shoulders as she shouts “—his ghost appears!”
Percy’s scream echoes down the tunnel, and Lexington barks out a laugh despite everything. Sabrina cackles, doubling over as her hyena noises assault my ears.
“I fucking hate you, and now I really don’t want to be here,” Percy says.
“Ugh, you’re such a baby,” Sabrina tells him, poking his stomach. I’ve never seen her act playful with anyone before, and I find it unnerving. The way he careens his body out of reach makes me think he feels the same.
Or maybe he just doesn’t want to interact with her at the moment, considering Lexington said she broke his heart earlier.
“Look, Lex, I don’t know about you, but I’m going back up.” Percy holds a hand out, beckoning his best friend. “You coming?”
“We can’t just leave them down here by themselves.”
“I think Elle and I are more than capable of walking through some tunnels alone,” Sabrina says.
“Yeah? Who’s gonna keep you from getting bludgeoned if you run into a Death’s Teeth member down here?” Percy snaps, grabbing her wrist.
He tries to drag her in the opposite direction, but she digs her heels into the ground, slowing him. “They don’t bludgeon people,” she insists, clawing at his fingers.
“Do you have firsthand knowledge of that?”
“Well, no, but—”
The music from before falls silent, and a harsh thudding noise takes its place. The ground vibrates beneath our feet, and we turn to look down the dark tunnel, peering into nothingness.
A rat scurries past, making me jump.
“Okay, maybe Percy has a point,” Lexington says.
“Come on, Elle. You’re not a chicken, right? I can see it in your eyes that you want to go to the meeting.”
I glare at her. “Stop reading into my gaze so much.”
“Why? Will you almost kiss me again?”
The music picks back up, caressing our ears and drowning out all reason.
Scoffing, I shoulder past her and turn, concentrating on the austere tune as it crescendos. “I only threatened to kiss you earlier to get you to shut up. Don’t flatter yourself.”
She makes an unintelligible sound behind me but then skips to catch up. “Just think about how cool it’d be to see Death’s Teeth in their natural element. You’d basically be solving a campus-wide, centuries-old mystery. Maybe then you’d be able to clear your family name—”
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”
An overly familiar voice materializes like a phantom before us, and I skid to a complete stop before I can run into the tall, gangly form of Jean-Louis Dupont. Two bigger, stockier masked figures flank his sides like bodyguards.
He’s in a tailored suit, but his withered hand clutches a gold mask.
A mask like the ones I saw eight years ago. Like the one Sutton had in the forest weeks prior.
“You four know you shouldn’t be here. This area is prohibited.”
“O-oh, sorry, s-sir.” Sabrina backs up a step, trying to pull me with her, but I don’t move. “We must have taken a wrong turn, but we’ll head back and get out of your hair.”
He stares at her, his glacial gaze chilling.
My feet stay rooted in place.
“Lexington. Perciville.” Jean-Louis looks at them over our heads, his expression unreadable. “Please see yourselves out of Tartarus.”
Tartarus? I glance around, frowning at the fact that I can’t see anything still.
If this is their underworld, we’re in trouble.
“I don’t think I can leave without my friends,” Lexington says.
“You always did like playing the Good Samaritan role,” Jean-Louis replies in a droll voice. “Don’t worry, son. I’m just going to give them the tour they seek. If you want, you can stay here and wait for them.”
“How did you know we were down here?” I ask.
Jean-Louis lifts a bony finger, pointing up. A tiny red dot blinks at us from the cave ceiling.
Cameras.
They were watching us from the moment we came down. Maybe even before.
He grabs my and Sabrina’s shoulders, surprisingly strong for a man who looks so ill. Sharp fingernails dig through layers of fabric, and I glance behind me at Percy and Lexington, who stand in place, staring at us.
“Jean-Louis—”
“I’ll bring them back,” he calls out, his voice bouncing off the cave walls as he shoves us forward.
The masked figures from before bar the boys from following, pinning them back against the wall with brute force.
“Just testing out a theory.” When I try to slide out from Jean-Louis’s touch, he grips harder.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Ms. Noelle.
Play nice, and I’ll bring you back to your friends soon enough. ”
Sabrina shoots me a look as if to ask how I know this man, but I don’t say anything. Better we cooperate for the time being rather than cause problems.
He can’t actually hurt us. Not with Lexington and Percy waiting, having seen him lead us out.
There’s no conviction in that thought, though, because I already know better. He could kill us and have the crimes erased with the snap of his fingers.
I swallow over a lump in my throat as we’re led deeper into the cave, the ground shifting downward. We pass beneath a narrow archway, and suddenly there are pockets of light illuminating the area.
Jean-Louis slips his mask into place, and fear coats my skin, making my teeth chatter.
We enter a massive cavern, larger than anything the town archives I’ve read mentioned. They scarcely talked about the caves at all, presumably out of respect for the dead.
Or because they weren’t allowed.
From our vantage point at the top, the cavern snakes down with different levels lining the walls in a spiral fashion, culminating at the ground.
Hooded figures sit in seats carved from the stone itself, populating the layers like an arena.
Standing water in some areas gives the air a musty quality, and I frown against the stench.
At the bottom of the cavern is a square stage with rope railings and crimson stains smeared across the rock.
In front of that, a table made of white, oblong objects, the joints fastened together with—
“Are those skulls?” Sabrina whispers.
Torches illuminate the area, with several propped against a far wall, where a three-headed beast is spray-painted in black.
“And other bones,” Jean-Louis says matter-of-factly.
A moment later, two hooded, masked figures appear at the entrance we just came through.
“Mors vincit omnia, Elder,” they greet in tandem, handing us our own disguises. “Are these your offerings?”
My stomach churns. His what?
Jean-Louis nods, silent, forcing the mask onto my face.
For a brief moment, I’m shrouded in total darkness as he situates the eyeholes correctly. One of the other figures does the same to Sabrina, then turns to me as if to assess my preparedness.
They meet my gaze, and I swear I’ve seen theirs somewhere before, but they turn away before I can get a good enough look.
A shiver coasts over my spine, notching in the vertebrae with its claws.
They gesture with their hands for us to follow them. Sabrina’s breathing is heavy as we comply, because what the fuck other choice do we have?
We’re led down a curved staircase carved into the side of the cavern, Jean-Louis hot on our heels. Once we’ve reached the bottom, the sea of masks faces us, and Jean-Louis shoves us forward into a sudden bright spotlight coming from a level above us.
“Enjoy the Pit, ladies. Death welcomes you.”