Chapter 13
A tingle of excitement went through Taurus at the sight of the big bronze door.
Yeah, he’d encountered many mythical things during his tenor as a Zodiac Warrior, but discovering a Greek myth?
So fucking cool. He just hoped it wouldn’t be an old dusty place without anything fun—AKA monsters to fight.
While Olivia claimed he’d have to do battle, the rockfall, combined with the age of this place, had him wondering how anything could have survived. Few things lived eternally, and he didn’t know of anything except maybe the Astraeus that didn’t require food to thrive.
Guess they’d soon find out.
“How do we open it?” Circe asked, inspecting the door that lacked a handle.
“Good question.” The diary hadn’t made mention of any special trigger or lock. So the first thing he tried? Knocking.
Rap. Rap. Rap.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed.
“Seeing if anyone is home.”
“Shouldn’t avoiding confrontation be our goal?” she countered.
“Sounds boring.”
“I like boring,” Circe muttered.
“Let’s see if it’s pressure activated.” Taurus placed his hands on the door and gave it a firm shove. It resisted for a second before it swung open. “Well, that was easy.”
“Too easy.” A suspicious mutter by Circe, who nonetheless peered with curiosity around him as he shone the flashlight within.
The stone-carved tunnel went for several paces before bending enough he couldn’t see. Empty, and yet he didn’t let his guard down.
“I’ll take the lead,” Taurus stated as he dropped his pack, choosing to remove only a few items, which he cinched to his utility belt.
“Aren’t you bringing our supplies?”
“I don’t need much, and the pack will just get in the way if there’s a fight.”
“Should I leave mine, too?”
“You going to turn warrior astronomer on me?”
“No!”
“Then keep it,” he replied with a smile. “Chances are Tower packed yours with snacks.”
“As if I could eat.”
“A monster fight or two will leave us with an appetite.”
“That is such a guy thing to say,” she muttered.
“Time to head inside, honey. I’ll take the lead so you don’t have to deal with any nasty surprises, but be sure to follow directly in my footsteps. Don’t touch anything, either.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know if we should expect booby traps. Just because our diary friend didn’t mention any doesn’t mean we won’t encounter some.”
“This just keeps getting better and better,” she grumbled.
“Don’t worry. Compared to some missions I’ve done, this will be a piece of cake. Let’s go find those plans.” He stepped into the tunnel and didn’t need to look to know Circe followed at his heels.
Two strides in and the door shut with a thud, leading to her huffing a panicked, “Are we locked in?”
“Doubtful. Remember, our diary writer managed to get in and out.” Could be he’d left something in the doorframe to wedge it, though. In retrospect, Taurus probably should have used his pack as a doorstop. Oops.
“And if you’re wrong?”
He reached for the power within, the one linking him to his constellation before replying.
“If shit goes sideways, I can starbeam us out. Here, you take the flashlight so I can don the sexist thing you’ve ever seen.
” A headlamp that fitted over his lush mane of hair and shone a beam from his forehead.
Circe bit her lip. “Now that’s a look.”
“No mocking,” he chided teasingly. “This keeps my hands free for battle.”
“I really wish you’d stop talking like a fight is a foregone conclusion. Maybe nothing will notice us and we can snag the plans and escape.”
“Oh, honey. We both know that’s not going to happen. There are creatures in here.”
“How can you tell?
“Call it my Zodiac sense for danger. We are not alone.”
“In that case, shouldn’t we be quiet?”
“Nope.”
“But won’t that alert these creatures you sense?”
“Yup.”
She abruptly halted, and so did he, half turning to see her crinkled brow. “Isn’t that a bad thing?”
“Not if it brings them rushing. I’d much rather face a foe barreling at us than sneak around and startle one out of hiding.”
“What if you don’t hear it coming?”
“I’ll still know. We have more than one sense. Air currents will change. Scent might intensify. If you’re in tune with your surroundings, you immediately notice when something changes or is amiss.”
“Guess you’re the expert.”
They resumed walking, and he didn’t need to put his hand on a wall because the path had no forks.
No side tunnels. No decision to make on a direction.
Just one long, winding hall. While he could see several paces ahead, the slight curve meant each step could bring a surprise, meaning he remained braced for a possible ambush.
Ten minutes into their journey and he couldn’t help a bit of disappointment, as nothing pounced.
“There’s no dust,” Circe remarked.
“Maybe the minotaur likes to keep his maze clean.”
She snorted. “That seems doubtful. Isn’t he supposed to be dead?”
“True legends never die.” In the case of the Zodiac Warriors, they got replaced. And quickly, too. A warrior expired or quit and usually, within a day or so, the Astraeus had already chosen their next champion. Kind of cold, but then again, what could you expect from celestial beings?
Their first indication that the Labyrinth did have inhabitants came in the form of webbing crisscrossing thickly across the passage.
“Let me hack us a path through so we’re not covered in sticky strands.” He pulled his sword, but a hand on his arm paused his slashing.
“Hold on a second. Have you looked at those webs?” Circe asked.
“Kind of hard to miss them.”
“I mean the size. This wasn’t built by a tiny house spider.”
“No shit. Although, given the width and height of this hallway, it definitely won’t be as large as the one Pisces dispatched in that South American jungle.”
“You were supposed to laugh at me and tell me giant spiders don’t exist.”
“That would be lying.”
“I wouldn’t have minded. I hate arachnids. Actually, make that all bugs.” She shuddered.
“Don’t worry, honey. I’ll be your bug slayer. Now you stay here while I go handle whatever built that web.”
He advanced on it and poked the strands stretched across the hallway with his sword tip.
The whole thing vibrated. If the spider hadn’t abandoned it, his poke would bring it scurrying.
He sliced through the middle, severing the sticky threads so that they collapsed against the wall, opening a path that showed yet more webbing.
Gross, sticky shit. It clung to his blade, and the loose pieces that brushed his clothing stuck as well.
A few paces in, he came across a cocoon standing upright against the wall.
While he had a feeling he knew what it contained, he still cut through the tightly wound shell to reveal a desiccated body, one caught sometime in the seventies he’d wager, given the mustache and polyester, wide-collared shirt.
Fun decade, even if he never did participate in the disco craze.
“Did you find something?” Circe whispered.
“Just a body.”
“Just!”
He kept forgetting how new this kind of adventuring was to Circe. “Long dead. Don’t worry.”
“I will worry since it obviously got killed by the spider.”
“More like trapped and then drained dry, which won’t happen to us.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because.”
“Not an answer.”
“How’s I’m too awesome to be taken out by a bug?”
“More like your arrogance will be your downfall.”
“Then a good thing I’ve got you in my life now to keep me from being too cocky.”
Silence. He glanced back to see her looking contemplative. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Let’s get this done.” She advanced to the edge of the section he’d cleared.
He forged ahead, the webbing not diminishing despite how much he hacked, but odder, no sign of the spider. Maybe it croaked and they were the first to cut a path through the mess left behind.
Another cocoon appeared, shorter and squat, obviously not of a full-sized adult. Given Circe’s reaction to the last body, he left it alone and stepped past it.
Only a prickling at his nape gave warning. He whirled in time to see the spider emerging from the nest made to look like a prey’s cocoon. Its forelegs jabbed forward to stab. Taurus’ quick reflexes had him severing a limb, which led to an atrocious squeal and a squirt of foul-smelling ichor.
“Oh. My. God,” Circe huffed, her eyes wide. She stood taller than the squat spider and had her light shining on its bulbous body. His own head gear refracted off the arachnid’s multi-faceted gaze.
“Should have had Tower pack some Raid,” he joked.
Mandibles clacked as the spider feinted in his direction. Taurus leaned away, but before he could swipe his blade, the arachnid spat out webbing, and he barely managed to block the glob from hitting him in the face.
Fast fucker. Taurus partially crouched and watched the spider stand on its seven legs, its clackers opening and shutting as it decided its next move.
“Kill it,” Circe whispered.
He planned to, what he didn’t count on was a second one dropping suddenly from the ceiling.
It landed on his head and wrapped legs across his face and eyes.
Circe screamed, “Taurus!”
Oh, how sweet, she was worried. She shouldn’t be, though, because he grabbed hold and easily yanked it from his noggin and flung it.
Unfortunately, that turned out to be in Circe’s direction. She shrieked as it landed and scrambled to its eight hairy legs. Taurus didn’t have time to dodge to her rescue since the seven-legged arachnid went on the attack.
Circe held off her own spider by swinging her pack, screaming. So long as she made noise, she was fine. He had to deal with his problem first.
Slash. Cut. Swipe. It hit the floor in pieces in time for him to whirl and handle the pair that raced at him from behind. As the two spiders launched their attack, rustling of the webbing indicated they’d brought friends. How many were there?
Cut. Stab. He retreated as he fought the wave of arachnids. If they swarmed him, he might survive, but Circe wouldn’t.
Time for a new plan.
He whirled and sprinted for Circe, yelling, “Retreat.”
She stopped bashing the very dead spider and, without a word, spun and ran.
An arachnid went scuttling past him overhead, and when it launched itself at her back, Taurus threw a knife, spearing it in the bulbous belly.
It hit the floor with a splat just as Circe went past the slight bend, putting her out of sight.
With her safe—he hoped—he turned to face the arachnid wave with their clacking mandibles.
Only one thing to do with that kind of infestation.
He pulled out his Zippo, struck it, and lit the nearest dangling cobweb.
It ignited immediately, and even better, the fire he started hungrily began spreading.
The flames raced up the walls and ceiling, and as the heat began to build, along with smoke, the spiders hissed and squealed, trying to escape the inferno.
They might have succeeded had they come to where he stood in the hallway, a section free of flammable webs, but instead, they retreated into their sticky and flammable burrow.
Taurus was whistling—to give warning of his approach—as he rounded the bend to find Circe crouched with the knife he’d given her held out in front. Wide-eyed, but unharmed.
“Problem taken care of,” he stated.
“I smell smoke.”
He jerked his thumb. “Because I lit the arachnid nest on fire.”
Of all the things to make her smile… She beamed. “Excellent idea.” Followed by a more worried, “Do we need to worry about getting cooked alive?”
“Pure stone.” He tapped the wall.
“Exactly, which means no ventilation. We’ll choke from lack of oxygen.”
His lips pursed because while he could handle tainted air, she couldn’t. “Get close.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to dazzle you with my awesome presence.”
Her brow arched. “What’s the real reason?”
“I’m going to encase us in a protective bubble until the air clears.”
“Clears how?” asked even as she moved close and coughed.
Before answering, he tugged at the link with his Astraeus and shaped his need. While he couldn’t see it, he smelt the difference as a cocoon surrounded them with fresh, breathable air. Good to know he hadn’t lost contact with his stars.
“The door to the maze is wide open, and will act as a chimney, expelling the smoke. Once the flames run out of fuel, it should only be a few minutes before we’re on our way again. Time for us to have a drink of water and relax.”
He dropped to the floor and took the bottle she handed over, swishing the first mouthful before swallowing a few times.
“Do you think those were the monsters that scared off the guy who wrote the diary?” she asked joining him on the floor.
“Maybe. Although spiders are pretty common in these kinds of places.”
“Old caves?”
“Ancient, cursed sites.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to you so casually dropping remarks like that,” she replied with a shake of her head.
“Before you know it, you won’t even blink an eye.”
“You speak as if I’ll be sticking around.”
“Is it too soon to say I hope you will?”
Her lips curved. “Guess that depends on if the world doesn’t end in a few weeks.”
“In that case, I better make sure it doesn’t.” Noticing the smoke no longer appeared to be thickly streaming past their protective shell, he stood. “I’m gonna take a peek and see how the tunnel is doing.”
A glance around the bend showed a few red embers here and there, and a strong charred smell, but the path appeared to be clear.
“We’re good to go,” he announced.
Circe appeared, pale but determined. “Let’s do this.”
The burned spider section went a good sixty or so paces and while he didn’t count the smoldering carcasses, Circe did.
“Twenty-nine. Wow. How did they thrive? They can’t have had a steady food source in here.”
A claim that turned out untrue, as their next monstrous encounter ended up being rats. Big ones, but not as many as he’d have expected, most likely culled by the spiders.
They also came across random bones. Some of them rat. Some of them unidentifiable, but no denying the many human skulls littering the halls.
“Looks like our diary writer wasn’t the only one to find this place,” Circe murmured. She nudged a rusted metal helm. “Although these all look old.”
“There was likely a time when warriors, and the foolish, sought to conquer the Labyrinth either for clout or in search of treasure.”
“Losing their lives in the process,” she murmured.
“Don’t worry. We won’t end up like them.”
“How can you be sure? You said Sage and Olivia saw you in the maze, but as far as I know, they never mentioned you making it out alive.”
“No, but I don’t need a vision to know we survive.”
“Because the world is depending on us.”
“Bah. More like I refuse to die until I’ve had at least one more chance to peel your clothes and worship that honey-sweet body of yours.”
“Taurus!” she exclaimed. “This isn’t really the place for that.”
“No, hence why you’re still dressed, but the moment we’re back in Tower…” He winked, and she blushed.
“You’re incorrigible.” Said with a pleased smile.
No, he was a man possibly falling in love.