Chapter 4 #2
The corridor narrows and then opens into a wider chamber lit by a single bare bulb hanging from a wire.
There’s a rope suspended from the ceiling over a pit.
The pit is maybe four metres across, and I can’t see the bottom.
I don’t want to see the bottom. I can hear the hiss of many slithering creatures who shall not be named, and it freaks me the fuck out.
Seventy-eight. Seventy-nine. Eighty.
I grab the rope without breaking stride, wrap my legs around it, and swing. The momentum carries me halfway across before I feel the rope is fraying. Presumably not naturally. It’s been cut, partially severed near the top, so it’ll hold long enough to get you over the centre and then snap.
I feel the first strand give.
I pump my legs, building momentum, and at the apex of the swing, I let go. For a horrifying second, I’m airborne over nothing except the thing I fear most. A writhing in a mass of scales and coils that I refuse to acknowledge because if I do, I will freeze mid-air and die.
My hands hit the far edge. Stone scrapes my palms raw as I claw for purchase, fingers digging into a gap between flagstones.
My body slams against the wall of the pit, and for one gut-dropping second, my legs dangle over nothing while the sound of a hundred bodies sliding over each other rises up from below like a whisper from hell.
Tears prick my eyes as my blood spikes in that horrible way where you know you are fucked.
I haul. Every muscle in my arms, my core, my back fires at once. I get one elbow over the edge, then the other, and drag myself up and over, rolling away from the pit until my back hits solid ground and I’m staring at the ceiling, gasping and blinking back hot tears.
Ninety-six. Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight.
Behind me, the big bastard has stopped at the other side of the pit and then moves back into the shadows.
I’m on my feet and stumbling-running before I hit one-twenty. The corridor ahead is straight, until it isn’t. A fork. Left or right.
“Always left,” I croak and lunge through the left tunnel. The tunnel widens after ten metres into a low-ceilinged chamber with a dirt floor. There’s a ladder bolted to the far wall, rising up into a shaft of dim light. An exit.
One-twenty-two. One-twenty-three.
I don’t slow down. I hit the ladder and climb, hand over hand, the rungs cold and gritty under my shredded palms. The shaft is tight, barely enough room for my body, and the walls press in on all sides as I ascend.
My torn palms sting with every grip, my muscles are screaming, my head is pounding.
My lungs feel like someone is squeezing them. But I keep going.
One-forty. One-forty-one.
Light above me. Not candlelight—moonlight. I can smell the air change, damp stone giving way to wet grass and cold wind. Three more rungs. Two. One.
I erupt from the earth like a creature clawing its way back from the dead, hauling myself through a square opening in the earth behind the Old Chapel.
The night air hits my wet skin, and I shudder violently, dropping to my hands and knees on the grass before I curl up in the foetal position, trying to catch my breath.
“Nicely done,” the man from the chapel says with a slow clap, which is insulting rather than congratulatory.
“Fuck you,” I gasp as another robed person stops in front of me and holds their hand out to help me.
Rings. Three silver rings.
I grimace at it and then up at the face of Roisin from Criminal Law. “Bitch,” I rasp as she smirks at me.
“Get up,” she says, not unkindly. “You’re not done.”
I take her hand because pride is a luxury I can’t afford when my arms feel like they’ve been pulled from their sockets and reattached with elastic bands. She hauls me to my feet with surprising strength, and I sway for a second before locking my knees.
“Not done?” I repeat, wiping mud and blood from my palms onto my leggings. “What else? Do I have to wrestle a bear? Solve a Rubik’s cube while on fire?”
Roisin’s smirk deepens beneath her hood. “Something like that.”
She turns and walks back towards the chapel entrance, clearly expecting me to follow. I do, because what else am I going to do—lie in the grass and cry about it? I want to. Every cell in my body wants to. But Callaghan’s don’t cry in public. We cry in showers, like civilised people.
The six robed figures are back in position behind the draped table when I re-enter the chapel.
My eyes adjust to the candlelight, and I notice details I missed before.
There are symbols carved into the stone floor around the circle, half-hidden by centuries of grime.
They’re not decorative. They’re deliberately interconnected spirals and angular lines that look Celtic but older, more primal, like someone carved them with intent and blood under their fingernails.
The central figure steps forward. He pulls back his hood, and I recognise him immediately.
Professor Gallagher. Criminal Law. The man who dismantled legal precedent like a mechanic and called me ethically bankrupt six hours ago.
His white hair catches the candlelight, and those mild blue eyes are anything but mild in this setting.
Here, they’re ancient. Knowing. The kind of eyes that have watched people break and catalogued exactly how they did it.
“Seven seconds to spare,” he says. “You cut it close.”
I don’t know if that’s good or bad. His tone gives me nothing to work with. I swipe a hand across my face, smearing blood and dirt, and stand straighter despite the fact that my legs are trembling so hard my kneecaps are practically vibrating.
“Have a seat, Ms Callaghan. Gather your wits.”
I sit down on the chair that is produced and lean my hands on my elbows, wondering why I’m still here pandering to these arseholes. I should get up and walk out.
But something in my blood tells me to stop. This was Dad’s legacy. I’m here to burn these fuckers to the ground if I find out they had anything to do with his murder.
So, I breathe in and exhale slowly, more determined than ever.