Chapter 31
Reva
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
My feet follow the sound of Kit’s heartbeat as though it’s a siren’s song, so engrossed in stumbling along after it, my foot slips and I wrench my ankle as I try to prevent myself from going sprawling.
Aster wraps an arm around my waist as a gust of wind sends more dust-coloured sand straight into my eyes and hair, and I hear Jack cursing up a storm beside us. The heartbeat feels like it’s getting louder, so it seems like we’re going in the right direction.
“Turn right here,” Aster says.
We turn onto an identical desolate street.
No, not quite identical.
“What is that?” Jack murmurs.
There are two shapes midway along the street, outside what looks like it used to be a shop. My eyes are still smarting with the dust, so it takes a moment to realise what they are.
People.
“There shouldn’t be people here, right?”
The thump, thump, thump grows louder with every step closer until it rattles my teeth.
“They’re not people,” Jack mutters. “When you think this place couldn’t get any creepier, two doll people appear.”
“Is that what they are?”
They’re... I’m not sure what they are, but they’re certainly not alive.
One is dressed in a tattered pair of trousers and a shirt that gapes at the neck, showing greyish skin stretched over protruding bones, while the other has a ratty nest of hair trailing over their shoulder and is wearing an equally tatty dress.
“Are they... dead?”
“They don’t look alive to me,” Jack replies, not bothering to keep his voice down.
As if to contradict him, their heads both snap toward us, and they peer at us with bare sockets in place of eyes.
Aster sniffs the air and shakes his head, tugging at my hand to try to stop me from getting any closer, but Jack is staring at the figures with intense focus.
“I think they might be golems,” Jack says. “They’re not alive, but it feels like they’re channeling someone’s magic.
“What do you think they’re for?”
“Dark magic fuckery,” Jack says. “I can feel it wafting off them.” He glances over at me. “You think it’s a coincidence they're on either side of that door?”
I cock my head to the side. “You think they’re guards?”
Aster slips on the spectacles once again and gives a slow nod. “It looks like Kit is this way. Do we think they’re going to attack us if we try to go between them?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Before I have the chance to argue that going any closer seems a really shortsighted way of testing things out, Jack’s charging onward. I’m expecting the golems to attack, or at least block the entry to the door, to do something to show they’re guarding the door like Jack suggested.
In unison, they both take a step forward and—
Suck in air through their noses. Sniffing.
Sniffing Jack.
They then jerkily bend at the waist, their movements stilted and unnatural as though they are marionettes on an invisible string.
“Are they... bowing?”
It’s disturbing, whatever they’re doing. My skin fizzles with unease, and I grip Aster’s hand tightly.
“I don’t like this,” he says.
“Me neither.”
But Jack’s continuing on through the door between the two creepy guards without a backward glance.
“Idiot,” I mutter.
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
Then again, Kit’s here. He might even be just through that door, so there’s no way we can stop now.
Something in my expression must tell Aster exactly what I’m thinking. He nods, giving me a bracing smile and clutching my hand even tighter. Together, we step in front of the guards. Again, they sniff the air and instead of bowing, gesture to the doorway, like they’re inviting us inside.
“Creepy fucking doll people,” I mutter once we’re safely past them and inside the old shop.
Inside, it’s dark, and there’s clutter piled all over the floor. Dismantled shelves hang off the walls, and there’s a glass counter against the back wall that’s clouded with age and disuse. But there’s no sign of Jack’s route through the building.
No sign of him at all.
“Jack?” I call.
We carefully pick our way through the debris to reach a door right behind the counter.
“Jack must have gone through here,” I say. “What’s he doing and why didn’t he wait for us?”
Aster just shakes his head as we stumble further forward through the door.
I blink hard. The walls look strange through here, like melted candle wax, and I rub my eyes, trying to clear my vision.
When I open my eyes again, the walls look normal, but there’s a staircase in front of me that wasn’t there a moment ago.
I take a tentative step forward, expecting to step down, but my foot meets the solid floor.
“What is going on?”
I’m still holding Aster’s hand, and it’s only because of that I don’t fall flat on my face.
He peers around with his brow furrowed. “There’s magic here. I can feel it.”
“What kind of magic?” I ask. “The kind that absorbs people into the walls?”
Where else could Jack have gone? He was only a few seconds in front of us, so how does it seem like he’s disappeared entirely?
“I think it’s a glamour. Distorting reality.”
Well, that does make more sense than the walls having eaten Jack.
Aster frowns, drawing me closer and tracing words against the skin on my forearm. “I can try to break the glamour, if you’ll speak the words for me?”
“Maybe you should save your magic,” I say.
Who knows what else we’ll be coming up against. But then I take another step and almost go tumbling down the set of stairs disguised as a solid floor.
Yet again, Aster’s the only thing tethering me to solid ground, and I plop down on the top step, letting out a defeated sigh.
“All right, let’s try breaking the glamour. We might find Jack right in front, but we just can’t see or hear him.”
“I’ve never tried this before,” Aster says, taking a seat beside me. “I suppose I can’t make it worse. Now, close your eyes and repeat after me.” He licks his lips, leaning forward to press his forehead against mine. “Noch Leyna.”
I dutifully shut my eyes and repeat the word, my hand warming in Aster’s as a tingle travels from my palm along my wrist, traveling along my chest until it reaches my lips.
“You can open them again.”
Blinking, I then squint my eyes open as light floods in.
The lights overhead are glaring and overly bright, burning my retinas. In front of us is a steep, spiral staircase leading down, and a wave of vertigo hits me. If I’d kept going and fallen down, I’d have broken my damn neck.
“Do you think Jack’s all right?” I ask as we descend, going as quickly as we can without risking losing our footing.
We’re both panting, and my legs are shuddering with the strain by the time we reach the bottom. Down here, there’s a single white door, and I raise an eyebrow at Aster, squaring my shoulders before pushing it open.
“I’m not looking forward to climbing them back up,” I mutter, earning me a soft smile from Aster. The door opens easily, and we step through.
Thump, thump.
The heartbeat is loud enough to feel right into the deepest parts of my chest until it hits my spine.
“I think he’s close,” I tell Aster as we approach another set of doors.
We step through and—
Nothing.
The heartbeat cuts off, and the silence is so thick it feels like I’ve suddenly gone deaf. We’re now in a narrow, white hallway lined with glaring white lights and metal doors with a single grille at eye-level.
I risk a quick peek inside, and my gut twists as I see exactly what I’ve been hoping and dreading in equal measure.
Inside are small cells with a single cot and an odd-looking machine I don’t recognise. There’s a dark stain on the floor and another on the walls that turns my stomach.
“Looks like we've found the labs.”