7. Chapter 7 - Matt
Matt did not move.
For one suspended moment, the circular chamber seemed to hold its breath around him.
His flashlight remained fixed on the chained figure at the center of the platform while dust drifted through the beam in pale, uneven threads.
The ancient symbols carved into the walls circled the room in layered rings, all of them leading back toward the thing bound in the center.
The figure’s eyes stayed open. Silver and unmistakably aware, they remained fixed directly on him.
Theron shifted beside him, and the sound was small enough that Matt almost missed it. The claws at Theron’s sides flexed once against the stone, scraping faintly as his entire body tightened with a tension Matt could feel without looking away from the platform.
“You know him,” Matt said.
Theron’s answer did not come right away. His breathing had roughened again, the low growl in his chest carrying something Matt hadn’t heard before.
“The First King was my ancestor,” Theron said. “The First Hands swore themselves to him before the corruption came. When it finally consumed the king, it consumed them too. They were sealed beneath the mountain together.”
Matt gave him a skeptical look. “That feels like an important distinction.”
“It is.” The chained figure smiled.
The expression moved across its face, as if the muscles had forgotten how to shape anything human and were remembering badly.
Dust cracked along its cheek as its head lifted a fraction higher.
The chains secured around its wrists and throat shifted with a soft metallic scrape that echoed through the chamber.
“Still correcting people,” the figure rasped.
His voice dragged through the room like stone over bone, ruined by disuse yet still intelligent enough to make Matt’s skin tighten.
“You always did care about precision.”
Theron’s growl deepened.
The pale smile lingered.
“You always hated when people forgot who I was.”
He looked directly at Matt.
“I was the King’s First Hand.”
Silence settled over the chamber.
“I stayed beside him long after everyone else understood what he was becoming.”
Matt kept the pistol aimed at the platform. “That is somehow worse.”
“No,” the Hand murmured. “But it will be.”
Theron stepped in front of him.
The automatic motion was worse than any dramatic display, protective and possessive enough that Matt noticed the instinct behind it.
So did the King's Hand on the platform. Its silver eyes shifted from Theron to Matt, and the smile sharpened. “Oh,” it whispered. “That explains the noise.”
Matt steadied the pistol. “I’m going to need everyone in this room to stop saying ominous things without context.”
The Hand's gaze stayed on him. “You hear him.”
Matt went still.
Theron's shoulders tightened. “Do not speak to him.”
“Too late,” he said softly. “He came listening.”
The words settled under Matt’s skin with uncomfortable precision.
He had been listening since the briefing room, since the thermal image, since the first distorted audio recording had dragged something awake beneath his ribs.
The pull had not started in the tunnel. It had been waiting for him long before he reached this chamber.
A distant crash rolled through the tunnels behind them before Matt could respond. Stone cracked somewhere beyond the chamber entrance, followed by several shrill clicking cries that echoed through the passage with frantic, hungry excitement.
Theron turned toward the sound at once.
The King's Hand closed its eyes briefly, almost as if savoring the noise. “They found the lower passage.”
Matt looked toward the entrance. “The hungry ones?”
“Not all of them,” Theron said.
“That is an answer I violently dislike.”
The first shape appeared at the edge of the corridor.
It clung to the wall just outside the chamber entrance, thin limbs bent at impossible angles while pale eyes reflected the flashlight beam.
Its skin looked stretched too tightly over bone, mottled with dark veins and old wounds that had healed wrong.
Its mouth opened, and the clicking sound that came from its throat set Matt’s teeth on edge.
Then another shape appeared above it. And another behind that. Theron moved before Matt could fire.
He crossed the chamber in a blur of black fur and violent control, hitting the first creature hard enough to tear it from the wall and slam it into the stone floor. The impact cracked across the room while the other creatures shrieked and surged forward.
Matt fired twice.
The shots echoed brutally inside the circular chamber. One creature jerked backward as the bullets struck its shoulder and throat, but it did not fall. It only twisted toward him with sudden, awful interest. “Fantastic,” Matt muttered. “Bullets are suggestions now.”
The wounded creature launched itself from the wall. Theron intercepted it midair.
He caught the thing by the torso and drove it sideways into one of the carved pillars surrounding the platform.
Stone fractured beneath the impact. The creature screamed and clawed at him wildly, but Theron’s growl ripped through the chamber with enough force that the others recoiled for half a second.
Only half a second. Then they came all at once.
Matt backed toward the platform, firing as the creatures flooded into the chamber in jerking bursts of speed.
The flashlight beam swung wildly across pale bodies, clawed hands, open mouths, and silver-veined eyes.
Every shot bought space, not safety. The creatures moved too quickly, using the walls and columns like the chamber had been built for them.
Theron fought like something that had been surviving them for years.
He did not waste motion. He broke limbs, used the stone itself as a weapon, and kept forcing the creatures away from Matt even when it opened fresh wounds across his own body. Blood darkened the fur along his ribs, but he never slowed.
Matt noticed that too. Even in the middle of gunfire and shrieking, even with adrenaline burning through his system, he noticed the way Theron kept putting himself between Matt and anything that moved.
A creature dropped from above. Matt saw it too late. Theron did not.
He slammed into Matt from the side, driving him out of the creature’s path as claws tore through the air where Matt’s throat had been a second earlier. They hit the floor hard together, and Matt felt the impact jar through Theron’s wounded side.
Theron snarled, but the sound broke halfway through with enough pain behind it that Matt felt the reaction instantly.
Instinct surged hard beneath his skin, and for the first time since entering the catacombs, it pulled him forward without fear.
It was rage.
Matt rolled onto his back, raised the pistol with both hands, and fired three shots into the creature crawling toward Theron. The first bullet snapped its head back. The second tore through its open mouth. The third finally dropped it against the stone with a wet, twitching collapse.
For half a second, Theron stared at him. Matt breathed hard. “You’re welcome.”
Theron’s eyes narrowed, but the look did not hold. Something uncertain moved behind them, wary and unreadable.
The King's Hand laughed from the platform.
The sound cut through the chamber sharply enough that both Matt and Theron turned toward it.
“Yes,” it rasped. “There it is.”
The chamber tightened around them as the symbols carved into the walls began to glow.
Faint silver light spread through the rings encircling the chamber, crawling along ancient grooves buried beneath dust and mineral buildup. The chains attached to the platform tightened with a violent metallic snap, dragging the bound figure upright as its smile widened.
Theron went still. Matt saw fear flash through his face before rage buried it. “Run,” Theron said.
Matt looked at him. “What?”
Theron turned toward him fully, and the command in his voice cracked beneath something almost human.
“Matt. Run.”
The silver light spread rapidly across the chamber walls.
Ancient symbols flared brighter beneath layers of dust as energy pulsed through grooves carved deep into the stone.
The chains surrounding the platform snapped taut one after another with violent metallic cracks, dragging the bound figure upright as the entire chamber began to vibrate beneath Matt’s boots.
The remaining creatures recoiled instantly.
Shrill clicking cries echoed through the room while the pale creatures scrambled backward toward the tunnels with sudden panic overtaking their earlier aggression. One of them slammed hard into a wall in its desperation to escape before disappearing into the darkness beyond the chamber entrance.
Theron did not move.
Every muscle in his body had locked rigid as he stared toward the platform with an expression Matt had not seen before.
Whatever was happening had shaken Theron.
Matt had not believed that was possible.
Matt looked between him and the King's Hand. “Okay,” he said carefully over the growing hum vibrating through the chamber, “I’m getting the impression this is significantly worse than everything else we’ve encountered tonight.”
The King's Hand smiled wider. “You should have left,” it rasped.
Then the first chain broke. The sound cracked through the chamber like a gunshot.
One of the restraints wrapped around the Hand’s left arm snapped apart violently as rusted metal whipped across the platform hard enough to carve sparks from the surrounding stone.
The chamber shook harder afterward, and several sections of the ceiling groaned overhead as dust and fragments of rock rained downward.
Theron moved instantly.
He crossed the chamber in a blur of motion and slammed both hands against one of the outer symbol rings carved into the floor. The moment his claws touched the markings, the silver glow brightened violently beneath him.
Matt stared. “Please tell me you know what you’re doing.”
Theron’s growl vibrated low in his chest as he pressed harder against the glowing symbols. “The wards are failing.”
Another chain snapped.