CHAPTER 15 #2
Rayna glanced at us. When no one objected, she stepped forward. “Twelve. Our answer is twelve.”
Septimus winced. “So close. Unfortunately, that is not the right answer. There are eleven letters in the words ‘the alphabet’.”
We gawked at him. Surely he couldn’t be serious…
I opened my mouth to protest, but the lights in the room began flickering, dimming to a harsh maroon. Lana’s pale hair turned stark red in the glow. And when I looked back for Septimus, he had disappeared. Caleb wrenched on the doorknob, heaving and pulling, but it did not budge. We were locked in.
A soft hissing resonated from the corner of the room.
The metal grate near the ceiling began rumbling, and I could not pull my gaze away as dark, wispy tendrils snuck through the gaps.
Transfixed, I stared as more black smoke snaked through, twisting and undulating into a thing of nightmares: a gaunt, pulled face with no eyes and only a gaping, sucking mouth.
Six clawed fingers each as long as my hand, with taloned nails, dark as onyx.
And a body that seemed to be woven of gossamer shadow.
Its mouth snapped open to reveal a black hole circled by rows of razor-sharp teeth.
When it spoke in a grating, guttural voice, the sound stirred the ancient darkness inside of me.
“It has been a long time since I have delighted in such a banquet. I long to taste the marrow of mortal bones once more.”
It hurtled toward us, a creature of claws and teeth. I didn’t think. I ran. But the entire room had been obstructed by the obstacle course, and there wasn’t much space to run freely. I dodged and twisted around beams, not daring to look behind me as I hurried across the first part of the course.
A wide net had been cast along the floor ahead, which had required us to dive beneath and crawl our way across. I sprinted over it now, slipping and sliding against the polished wooden floor. My foot caught in one of the holes and I flailed forward.
A scream wrenched through the air, and I made the mistake of looking back.
A woman from the first group was on her back, legs kicking out as the ghoul pounced on her.
Its claws, which had seemed almost incorporeal previously, solidified as they raked down the woman’s side.
Blood gushed onto the floor around her. The ghoul lowered its head, teeth protruding as its mouth gaped larger and larger.
Out of the corner of my eye, Lana’s wrist flicked expertly. A dagger whizzed through the air. The silver blade rotated once, then twice, before plunging right through the ghoul and clattering to the floor. It was as if it had gone through smoke.
The ghoul did not look up or pause in its assault.
Its teeth continued to extend, and it began tearing at the woman’s flesh.
Her screams ricocheted along the walls, piercing and bloodcurdling.
Moric, near the edge of the room, doubled over, retching.
Only bile came out but the sight of it was enough to trigger my own gag reflex.
I didn’t know what was more nauseating, the woman’s screams or the harsh silence when they ceased. Lana’s dagger had done nothing to the ghoul. How were we meant to kill something that a weapon had no effect against?
Unless we weren’t meant to kill it. Maybe it had been sent here to just kill us all.
Fear gripped my heart. I couldn’t think like that.
Kilian had told me to stay alive. He wouldn’t have told me that if there was no way to do so.
My brain kicked into overdrive, thoughts whirring as I recalled everything we had read about ghouls.
They had been found predominantly in barns and attics.
Samuel Bayfield had found one in a well in the dead of night. Why?
The maroon lights flickered up ahead. They had dimmed them before the ghoul entered. They needed it to be dark. That was it! It must not like light.
The sparring room was windowless. I turned to the only person I knew would have some form of light on them.
“Rayna!” I shouted. “Rayna, your lighter!”
At my words, the ghoul’s head snapped up, the hollow sockets where its eyes should have been swiveling in my direction. I stumbled backward into the rope that dangled from the ceiling. The ghoul drifted away from its kill, the woman’s body a butchered corpse I could not stomach looking at.
Its head cocked in my direction as it floated toward me, unhurried. It knew I had nowhere to go. The gauzy ends of its body trailed along the floor, dragging a smear of blood in its wake.
“Lirah, catch!” Rayna yelled.
I watched as her lighter arced through the air. I held out a hand, catching it fluidly. Still, the ghoul approached.
It grew closer with each breath, and my body shook with apprehension. But I gritted my teeth, thumb poised above the striker.
The ghoul’s mouth was a gaping maw, teeth clotted with blood and stringy flesh. It was ten feet away. Then five. I could smell the death and decay clinging to it. I swallowed against the urge to vomit. The air rustled as its folds swayed in midair, a blood-slicked claw stretching out to greet me.
Not yet.
I didn’t want to give it a chance to escape. I needed it just a little closer before I lit it on fire.
Someone called my name, but I didn’t dare break focus. The ghoul met me, its ghastly face hovering inches from mine. A dark nail traced lightly along my cheekbone, and it breathed deeply, its mouth sucking at the air. In a raspy, guttural voice, it said, “You smell deliciously… familiar.”
The nail dug against my cheek, swiping down with such alarming swiftness that I felt the warm blood trickling along my jaw before the sharp sting of the cut. The ghoul drew its claw to its mouth, a black tongue darting out to lick at the blood gathered there.
“And your blood is perfectly aged.”
I remembered the lighter in my hand and struck the wheel. Nothing happened. I struck it again, but only air fizzled. I let loose a scream of frustration as the ghoul drifted back a few feet.
Wait. Where was it going? With each passing second it floated away from me and my chance of destroying it diminished.
“Not all blood is meant to be consumed,” the ghoul said, turning its attention to its next target. Moric cowered near the wall, scrunching into a ball as the ghoul inched closer.
I didn’t understand. Why was it not attacking me? What was it talking about? But there was no time to unravel those riddles now. I had hesitated far too long, and now Moric was in danger.
I struck and struck at the lighter, but it was no use. I tossed it to the ground, my hands ripping through my hair.
The ghoul slunk to the corner of the room, its feathery ends rustling like dry leaves as it prowled toward Moric, its mouth snapping open wide enough to swallow a person whole.
My insides clenched. I wouldn’t be able to bear it if the ghoul laid one scaly claw on Moric. He and Lana had become more than friends to me. They were family.
The lighter was a dead end.
But… that was not all the light we had.
My gaze snapped to Lana. Lana, who had emitted a strange, golden light in the tunnel network during the first Trial, having drawn it from her link to Septimus.
“Lana!” I yelled. “It hates the light. Use your magic!”
“No fucking pressure,” she called back, scrunching her eyes in concentration.
A second passed, and then another. Nothing was happening. The ghoul had almost reached Moric.
The faintest glow shone across Lana’s skin, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
I closed my eyes, focused on steadying my shallow breaths, tried emptying my mind. And for the first time, I purposefully reached for the link.
Lirah, a faint voice on the other end. What do you need?
Light. I need light.
My fingers tingled, a spark jolting through me like I had just been shocked by something metallic.
Current zapped through me, scorching my flesh and boiling my blood. From my splayed fingers, lightning erupted.
Blue streaks slammed around me, branching out in every direction and illuminating the room, charring the ground as each strike landed with vicious speed.
And between the veins of electricity, I could see that Lana was glowing, brilliant and golden.
Her light formed a protective bubble over her and all the other candidates.
It didn’t touch me, though. Bands of shadow lashed out, swirling in an amorphous cocoon and protecting me from the lightning showering the room.
The ghoul hissed, and through the shadows I watched it crumple in on itself.
Its wispy body shifted, shrinking as the ghoul slammed against the wall, its claws raking out to shield its face, the pits of its eyes and mouth.
It scurried up the wall, slinking back toward the grate, where it slid through the holes, nothing more than vapor and air.
I gasped as the magic flowing through me ceased abruptly, stumbling back a few steps from its sudden absence.
Orblights flooded the room, the shadows surrounding me vanished and Lana’s light winked out. She swayed and Rayna’s arms jutted out to catch her before she could fall.
I ran a hand across my forehead, wiping at the sweat the sizzling current had left behind, and blinked against the harsh white light as the door to the sparring room swung open and Septimus and Echon walked in.
They surveyed the room, the charred ground, the mutilated remains of the woman whose name I did not even know.
“You’re free to go,” Septimus said. I did not miss how his eyes scanned Lana. “If you’re injured, the med hall is open. To all who remain, congratulations on passing the second Trial.”
But I didn’t feel triumphant as I walked toward the door.
My brain felt like it was on autopilot, unable to process the events of the last hour.
The skin on my fingertips were burned and tender, and my cheek throbbed from the slice through it, but I would not go to the med hall.
Not tonight. I did not want these wounds to heal. I did not want to forget.
There would be no celebrations tonight.