Chapter 46
“Magic is a curious thing. Entity doesn’t address it much, and that alone piques my interest. An entire world of possible enchantments, wards, and protections, and we’re supposed to believe Entity doesn’t pay it any mind? I find that hard to believe.”
Journals of Warden Michael Keane
An acrid smell burned his sinuses and jerked him into consciousness before his body was ready. Nic’s head swam, the world blurry and unsteady as his eyes fought to stay open. The smell was so potent, he tried to roll to the side and escape it.
Possibly dry heave. Hopefully not vomit.
Although the smell of vomit would probably be negligible considering the stink around him.
Turning his head only made it worse. He was hit with a smell that was so pungent it made him gag and jerk his face the other way.
Nic blinked against the tears and tried to see where he was.
The blur sharpened and made the mineshaft a bit more visible.
He blinked a few more times and realized he was missing his glasses.
Nic tried to lift a hand to wipe the tears from his eyes, but they met resistance down by his hips.
“Don’t move.” The cruel voice of Agnes came from somewhere over his head. “Not that you can do much anyway, might as well make it easier on yourself.” She was right. His ankles and wrists were bound to whatever surface he was lying on.
Nic tried to breathe. He was completely defenseless without sight; he needed a plan B.
He ached everywhere.
His head pulsed with the rhythm of what was probably a low-grade concussion.
His eyes and throat burned from the smell, his wrists felt raw from whatever was tying them down, and his knees throbbed.
When had he hurt his knees? He lifted his head up to see if he could spot Alexys, but something struck the top of his head.
It was soft enough to have probably been a hand, but it made his headache sing.
“I said don’t move,” Agnes snapped.
Nic squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. “I’m not, you’ve already ensured against that.”
The woman didn’t answer.
He didn’t care. The silence was better than listening to her voice.
Nic turned his head to the side, relieved to discover the smell was no longer vomit-inducing. Kudos to the human body and its incredible adaptability. His cheek pressed against the stone, and he was met with an even worse sensation: the source of the smell.
The stone Nic was lying on—what he thought was a stone—was covered in a thick layer of old blood. The sticky, reeking mess seeped slowly into his shirt and skin and stuck to his cheek. It was thick as molasses and dripped down to the floor below.
Nic tried to fight against his roiling stomach. The nausea was truly endless.
“Put her over there.”
His eyes snapped open.
Someone dragged Alexys across the cavern, into Nic’s field of vision, and dumped her in a heap on the ground.
Nic couldn’t tell if she was alive. With or without his glasses, Alexys’s slumped position made it nearly impossible to tell if she was breathing.
He knew, logically, that the cultists would have discarded her with the other corpses if she was dead, but that didn’t stop his heart from attempting to rip its way out of his ribcage.
He jerked his wrists against his bindings which earned him another firm smack to the head. Nic flinched, headache pounding. “Shouldn’t you be nicer to me? Wouldn’t want to kill me before the sacrifice,” Nic spat. “That has to go against some sort of standard practice of magic.”
Agnes growled above him. “Quiet! You talk too much.”
“I have a lot to say.”
She scoffed and disappeared from view.
His gaze immediately went back to Alexys. She still hadn’t moved.
“She’s alive, you don’t have to look so worried,” mocked another voice off to his right. “For now.” Someone snickered and the sound echoed off the walls.
Nic bit the inside of his cheek to keep the retorts at bay. He tried to think of anything he could to get them out of this situation. First, he’d need to free himself, otherwise he had no way of saving Alexys.
Even as his brain rattled away, he knew that their odds of survival were slim to none.
Worse still, no one knew they were there, not really.
They were supposed to be several hours away, where Alexys was conducting her in-field evaluation.
Even if Zach reported him missing, it’d be too late.
And the chances of them tracking them here?
Virtually impossible. Any trace of them would be long gone, their corpses disposed of.
Whatever was left of their corpses, that is.
Nic should have reported the situation the moment it happened. He should have blocked Alexys’s evaluation, reported Elliot. He could have saved them all had he not been so glory hungry. So selfish.
Guilt washed over him, but he didn’t have time to wallow. If there was any possibility of saving Alexys, he had to at least try. There had to be something he was missing, some clue or some random bit of knowledge he’d stowed away.
“Fetch the dagger,” one of the men called out. “We don’t have all night.”
Nic tried to focus on the situation at hand, despite his headache and blurry vision. There had to be a way out. It was simply another puzzle to solve. He’d survived every cryptid they’d encountered, and he wasn’t about to offer himself up easy to these deranged cultists.
He took a deep breath. Nic knew enough to know that if there was a ritual, there were rules. Magic wasn’t as strict in the Appalachian Mountains as it was in other places. Those mountains where the ground itself was imbued with unknown powers.
But human sacrifice wasn’t usually an area of magic that allowed for mistakes, not from the little reading he’d done.
Especially sacrifices that relied on a lunar calendar and what Nic assumed was a ritual dagger.
If Elliot had been killed on Friday, which, given the timeline of everything was very likely, that meant he was killed on the full moon.
That implied a monthly ritual and rendered any new deaths obsolete.
So, why was he strapped to a blood-soaked altar?
Removal of witnesses, extra strength for the spell, or a multi-sacrifice ritual?
He could take his pick of reasons, but Nic was willing to bet his guess on a single, full-moon sacrifice was correct, and that meant there was room for negotiating.
He didn’t need to know the specifics; he only needed to convince them to let Alexys go.
She was unconscious. She barely saw the cultists and probably had no idea who they were.
Her horrible sense of direction and inability to navigate the outdoors meant she could probably never locate the mine again, and it would take days for her to get back to the office and report it.
There was a chance, a slim one, but still a chance, that their captors could let her go and never have to worry about repercussions.
Nic swallowed against the dread clogging his throat and tried to muster up the courage to face his decision. It should be an easy one, saving her. He certainly didn’t want to die, but he’d already bartered with her life, with Elliot’s, it was the price he’d have to pay to ensure her survival.
He ate up the sight of her, committed every feature to memory.
The possibilities of what could have been would haunt him, he was sure of it.
Until one of the cultists put that dagger in his chest, that is, but Nic would wonder at what they might have been until then.
If he hadn’t been so stubborn, so arrogant, so closed off. What then?
His chest ached with possibility.
Had he taken her for granted? He’d kept so many people at arm’s length, content with building a career and chasing his monsters, and let the Archives become walls between himself and everything else.
He’d seen Alexys for years, but had he ever really seen her?
If he’d paid just a little more attention, given her even the slightest chance, maybe she would’ve been more receptive to his help, and they wouldn’t …
Alexys stirred, and Nic’s heart jolted.
He had to get her out.