Chapter 31 #2
“We go left here—” The words died on Miles’s lips as they came upon the fork. Except it wasn’t a fork anymore. Five identical passageways twisted away from them, leading in all different directions.
“I—I don’t understand.” Miles pointed his beam down each one, making sure it wasn’t an optical illusion. “It wasn’t like this the other day.”
“What does that mean?” Emily asked. “How could it have changed?”
“It’s trying to stop us from getting to the tomb.”
That wheezing sound came again, in shorter bursts from all directions, like they were being cackled at. The shadows around them shifted, furling and unfurling.
Anger sparked in Miles’s veins. “We’ll try them all if we have to.”
Except the first tunnel hit another fork. When Miles shone his light down the right branch, he could see three more tunnels. They backtracked and tried the next, but the same thing was waiting for them.
This place had morphed into a twisted maze. They had no chance of finding their way through.
“Damn it,” Miles muttered, raking a hand through his hair. They’d have to pick one and start wandering. He’d seen enough horror movies to know they shouldn’t split up, so dividing and conquering was out of the question.
Emily tugged at his backpack, startling him. “What’re you doing?”
“That creepy jar Nadia gave you.” She got the zipper open, fishing around inside. “It’ll guide you when you’re lost, right?”
Miles was a first-class idiot.
She yanked it free, passing it over to him. Her flashlight illuminated the fleshy organ inside, bits swirling in the cloudy water.
Bram leaned in to get a better look. “What is that?”
“Something gross that’s hopefully going to save us.” Miles waited, but nothing happened. He gave it a little shake, liquid sloshing, but still nothing.
Emily squinted at it. “How do you make it work?”
“I have no idea. Nadia didn’t say.” In retrospect, he should’ve asked. “Uh, hey, magical fox heart… we’re kinda lost right now. Do you wanna do your thing and point us in the right direction?”
The heart bobbed, sinking slightly.
“Go down one of the tunnels and see if it tells you it’s the right way,” Emily suggested.
Miles did as she instructed. There was no reaction from the jar in the first two tunnels. He didn’t know if that was a good or a bad sign.
“It’s a dud,” he declared, stepping into the center one. “Nadia did say—”
In the jar, the heart started to beat. Small, quick little movements, the flesh pulsing in and out. Thump, thump, thump.
“That’s so nasty.” He could feel the reverberation against the glass. “I guess this is the way.”
The rasping laughter of the tunnels turned into a low, threatening hiss. It wasn’t pleased at being thwarted. The air went eerily still, and Emily’s charm bracelet emitted a faint glow.
Bram’s voice broke through the silence. “Something is moving down there.”
Beyond the reach of the flashlight beams, a shape writhed in the darkness, twisting and turning, folding in on itself. Shadows bled from the wall, feeding into the mass, helping it grow. Like the one that’d come for Gabriel, it had no distinct shape, no body or face.
Emily gave a squeak of distress as she stumbled. Bram grabbed Miles’s sleeve like a lifeline.
They had nowhere to go. If they bolted down another tunnel, they’d either have to take the one-in-four chance of it leading to the mausoleum hatch or stop long enough for the jar to do its thing. And the exit behind them was warded shut.
“Back up,” Miles commanded as the mass started coming down the tunnel, feelers venturing ahead to stroke along the stone walls. He dropped his flashlight, fumbling with the knife on his belt, his aching shoulder making his fingers sluggish and—
With an unearthly yowl, Balthazar launched himself out of Bram’s arms. He hit the ground, fur puffed up, spitting and growling at the approaching shadows.
“No!” The cat would be swallowed up right in front of them. Miles rushed forward to scoop him up. Before he could take more than a step, an electric charge crackled through the air and Balthazar exploded.
Not kaboom like a bomb, but Miles didn’t have any other word for it.
One moment, he was staring at a black cat with a death wish; the next, his little body erupted with a whoosh.
In its place was one of the hellhound guardian monsters that had tried to kill him and Gabriel their first time down here.
He was even bigger than the first, pure black, built thick and corded with muscle.
When he turned to look at them, Miles saw a spark in his sunken sockets.
Ghostly silver mist seeped from between gleaming razor teeth.
Holy shit.
With a howl that froze Miles’s blood to icy sludge, a sound that had haunted his nightmares, new-Balthazar threw himself at the shadow mass. They collided, and Balthazar chomped down with that powerful pit bull jaw.
A piercing shriek filled the tunnel. Miles ducked down, holding Bram against him and covering his ears.
He watched as Balthazar slashed with obsidian claws and ripped chunks from the darkness, flinging them away where they dissolved and vanished.
Tentacles thrashed and whipped, but if they were hurting him, the pain only spurred him on.
There was a clear winner in this fight, and the shadows knew it. Miles’s ears popped from the shift in pressure as the mass vanished, sucked back into the depths of the tunnels. Balthazar panted, sides heaving and tongue lolling out of his demonic slash of a mouth.
Bram slipped free of Miles’s hold, running forward. “No, Bram, wait—”
Balthazar did his transformation thing—inwards this time, like one of those massive tents that folded up to fit in a duffle bag—and he was a black cat again. He leaped into Bram’s arms, kneading his claws into his sweater with a smug look.
Emily swayed, gaping at the cat in disbelief. “What— what—?”
“I told you he’d protect us,” Bram told them, sounding disappointed that they hadn’t taken him seriously. “He’s really good at it.”
That was an understatement.
“Uh, Bram, what—how—?” Miles didn’t know where to start.
All kids made themselves a protector, but it wasn’t supposed to be real.
Jenna had a teddy bear when she was younger that she said kept ghosts from hiding under her bed, but Miles would’ve noticed if it transformed into a vicious beast. “Where did Balthazar come from?”
“I told you before, I found him in the wine cellar. Next to where you opened the tunnel.” Purring rumbled from Balthazar, his tail flicking playfully as Bram scratched his chin. “His other form was kind of scary, so I asked him to change.”
“And he… listened to you?”
“Of course. He does whatever I say,” Bram informed them matter-of-factly. “But we made a deal that I’ll never make him do anything he doesn’t want to, unless he’s being bad. He likes being a cat best, so he only changes back when he needs to.”
A guardian, the entry in the grimoire had said.
“That’s… really cool,” Emily got out. “Thanks for saving us, Balthazar. You kicked ass.”
Bram beamed at her, Balthazar blinking lazily in his arms.
Miles wasn’t going to complain about having an attack dog on their side, especially not one as powerful as Balthazar.
Letting the cat take point with a jaunty little swagger to his step, they followed the third tunnel down to the next fork. The heart started beating away in its jar, guiding them down the second path. Miles barely restrained the urge to giggle hysterically at how absurd this whole thing was.
Two more tunnels, two more turns, and they started making their way down a familiar slope. Anticipation tightened its chokehold as Miles spotted the first scarlet poppies.
When they reached the stone door, it was closed.
“No, come on!” Miles ran his hands over the tree, pushed at the trunk. It should’ve been left open for them, like the tunnel entrance. Gabriel had just come through here. He was right there on the other side. “I don’t know how it opens,” he told Emily, hearing the dismay in his own voice.
Bram took the flashlight from Miles’s hand without a word, studying the slab. “It looks like our family tree.”
“Yeah, Gabriel thought the same thing, but your crest is more”—Miles gestured to the sparse branches—“full on the top.”
“Not our crest, our family tree. The one hanging in the library.”
Miles couldn’t recall seeing one when he’d been in there, but he hadn’t been looking.
“It’s got the same branches,” Bram continued.
He traced up the trunk with his flashlight to where it split in two.
“This would be Florence Hawthorne, my great-great-grandmother, and her sister.” Only one of the branches broke off into more.
“Then Great-Grandmother Marjorie with Great-Grandfather Eugene, and Great-Uncle Barnaby.” He listed more names, steadily following the limbs.
Cordelia Hawthorne, Regina Hawthorne, Rupert Hawthorne. Aldrich, William, Felicity. Until—
“And this is Edmund, Gabriel, and me,” Bram finished, pointing at the uppermost three branches. The beam of his flashlight caught on something glistening and dark.
Miles ran his finger along the middle groove. When he pulled away, the tip of his finger was smeared with fresh blood. He didn’t need Bram to confirm whose branch it was.
Emily grimaced at the crimson smear, then reached her own hand up to feel the line to the left of Gabriel’s. “Edmund’s has it too. It’s sticky, though.”
“That’s because it’s been there longer.” Pieces were clicking together in Miles’s brain.
“That’s how you get in. Hawthorne blood on the right branch, like a lock and key.
” He followed the others. Felicity’s branch was dark with old blood, then Regina, Marjorie, Florence.
The only row that had more than one darkened like Edmund’s and Gabriel’s was Marjorie’s.
“Who’s this again?” he prompted Bram, gesturing to the branch beside Marjorie’s.
He cocked his head, thinking. “That would be… Great-Uncle Barnaby. He died in an accident before I was born.”
Barnaby and Edmund. Both hurt under mysterious circumstances, both with a sibling who’d entered the tomb as well. Both punished.
There was a pattern, the eldest child of each generation brought here, but Miles didn’t know what for. But he knew how to get inside.
“I’m sorry to ask,” he told Bram, “but we need your blood.”
He offered his tiny finger without any hesitation. Emily swatted Miles out of the way, conjuring one of those mini thread and needle kits from her jacket pocket. Bram flinched when she poked him. She murmured an apology, Balthazar watching her menacingly until Bram assured him it was fine.
Miles had to lift him up so he could reach his branch, smearing the welling drop of blood along his groove.
The pointed star above the tree glowed red. Silent as a ghost, the door to the tomb slid open.