Great.
I had not noticed these ghouls either, of course, when I’d arrived with the fae. They too had been beyond the scope of my limited vision. Though I would have been a fool not to expect this. I didn’t have any clue how many ghosts the ghouls kept imprisoned in their realm in total, but I would’ve guessed in the thousands. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got dozens of escape attempts a day. Marcilla had indicated that the ghouls preferred not to chain ghosts because it ruined the fun of keeping a pet, so The Underworld needed guards to keep watch, day and night… If there was such a thing as day in this forsaken place.
My eyes averted from the swirling base of the vortex to the solid stone ceiling.
Surely, I could just pass through that. We were underground, as the name of this realm made obvious. I was a ghost. If I could just keep passing through the earth, surely I would reach the surface. I just had to sink into the ceiling without the guards noticing me.
Remaining close to the shadows of the craggy walls, I drifted upward, higher and higher. Every moment that passed, I kept expecting one of them to catch my movement from the corner of their eye, so I went slowly. Painfully slowly. Anticipation brewed within me as I reached within several feet of the roof. I sped up a little, wishing I could just vanish out of this place already. But when I reached the top of the ceiling, it was like a barrier. I could not pass through. No matter how much I pushed and willed myself to sink into it, it was impossible.
After shooting another glance at the guards to make sure that they were still preoccupied, I attempted to pass through the ceiling yet again, in a different spot this time. Then again, and again, at various intervals. Dammit. I didn’t know how, but just like that coffin—and Julie’s box—they’d managed to make these ceilings impervious to ghosts. I found myself wondering whether the Elder box had originally been the possession of a ghoul, rather than the warlock Julie had claimed it was a gift from.
I steeled myself against the failure. It became obvious to me now that the only exit was that swirling tunnel of water.
But… how do I reach it?
Glancing from the ghouls to the vortex, I guessed that I hardly had anything to lose… but everything to gain if I managed to lose myself in the rough waters before they could pull me back.
I closed in on the ceiling again, but this time, instead of attempting to pass through it, I flattened myself against it at a hundred-and-eighty-degree angle—my front facing the twinkling lake beneath.
Slowly but surely, I summoned the courage to glide closer and closer to the base of the whirlpool. As I arrived within several feet above them, they were still absorbed in their freakish conversation.
Fixing my focus on the surging waters, and shoving aside my fear of the ghouls beneath, I knew that I would only have one shot at this.
I can do this. I can do this.
But as it turned out, I couldn’t.
I didn’t even reach the entrance. Far from it. The moment I lunged to close the final short distance between myself and the vortex, the ghouls spotted me and whirled on me with such speed that I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d noticed me in the room all along. All ten of them barricaded me, blocking my way, and I knew then that the game was over. There was no point in continuing this attempt. I had to abandon the mission.
Now my only focus became escaping the ghouls’ grasp. As one of them launched at me, I whirled around and zoomed back to the passage of water. Entering the tunnel and speeding with all that I had along the canal, I heard a harrowing moan close behind me.
I cannot get caught. I cannot get caught.
Emerging in the second cavern that held the main door, I didn’t even dare look behind me as I whizzed across the last of the water and sank through the wood. Faster. Faster. I passed along the dark corridor and then through chamber after chamber of the luminescent ponds. The ghoul hadn’t caught up with me yet, although I was under no illusion that I’d lost him yet. Far from it. I still heard and sensed his presence. But it was at least some comfort to realize that my speed seemed to be a match for his. Even if I could not see ghouls, I could still flee from them. Though, as I sped further and further from the exit, “fleeing” hardly seemed like the appropriate term. Fleeing deeper into their clutches, maybe.
I was traveling so fast, my surroundings were a blur by now. I was vaguely aware that I was still trailing through chambers filled with pools—due to the dim pale light that whizzed by—but soon, even that familiar surrounding disappeared. All became darker, much darker. I must have traveled miles and miles by now. How big is their lair?
After what felt like ten more minutes had passed, the eerie noises the ghoul had been making disappeared. I dared slow down a little after I passed through what felt like the hundredth stone wall. And then I even dared to stop completely.
I found myself gazing around a large chamber, lit by torches. Its floors and walls were bare, with no signs even of the morbid decorations I had become accustomed to seeing in every room. There was, however, what appeared to be a towering cage at the opposite end of the room. I couldn’t immediately see what it contained, as it was cast in shadow, and I didn’t have time to stand and stare. I moved to a corner on my left, partly submerged in the wall in case the ghoul was still hot on my heels. As I waited in tense silence, still expecting the ghoul to burst through the wall at any moment, I tried to scrutinize the cage more closely. A hulking figure stirred. It extended… a tail? A long, thick, silver-scaled tail. As my eyes traced a large, oblong head, I realized that it was a dragon.
How on earth could these ghouls have caught a dragon? And where would they have found it?
As the dragon settled, lowering its head again and apparently drifting back into slumber, I turned my thoughts back to the ghoul. He could be invisible of course, but I couldn’t shake the hope that perhaps, as I’d sped through corridor after corridor, chamber after chamber, I’d managed to lose him after all. At least for now. Maybe he didn’t even care. I was away from the exit, back within the depths of The Underworld. He’d think I would get caught sooner or later anyway, and dumped back in my pond.
Staying close to the edges of the room, I left the chamber containing the dragon and passed through to the next. Here, I was surprised to find an entire room lined with cages, albeit much smaller ones than the dragons’. In the flickering light of the torches, I realized that they were filled with mostly earth animals—and domesticated ones at that. Dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, even a few donkeys. I wondered how many of these were stray, and how many they had kidnapped from homes. Then there were also some wilder creatures: foxes, squirrels and pigeons.
I wondered what fate lay in store for these poor animals. I recalled everything that my parents had experienced of ghouls. The way they killed and ate their victims’ guts. Perhaps all the living creatures here in these cells were being kept for food, unlike the ghosts who were simply for pleasure.
Thankfully, I saw no humans… yet. It was quite possible that they would be kept somewhere else, and that was a sight that I really did not want to see.
My suspicion was confirmed as the next chamber I passed into appeared to be some kind of gruesome butchery room. The tables were covered with knives and stained with blood. And in the far corner was the dissected carcass of a horse.
My stomach would have churned if I’d had one.
Fixing my eyes ahead on the wall opposite, I kept moving. I had almost reached it when I froze. I heard the sound of ghouls tittering, coming from the other side of the wall. Then the sound of a door creaking open. Ghouls were approaching. My first instinct was to sink into the floor, rather than head back from where I’d just come—where I might come across the wandering guard who’d been chasing me before.
Big mistake.
As I emerged through the ceiling of the room below, it was to see that it was occupied by a ghoul. What appeared to be—from her withered breasts—a female ghoul. I’d carelessly flung myself too low into the room and her beady eyes s
hot up at me. A freakish grin split her face, and she lurched for me. I was forced back into the butchery room, but now two ghouls had already entered.
I whizzed upward through the ceiling of the chamber, praying I wouldn’t encounter yet another ghoul-infested room. I was already being chased by three now. Thankfully, it was empty. I hurtled with supernatural speed again, barely paying attention to where I was going. I zigzagged left and right, moved up several floors and then down several more—attempting to travel through the thick stone walls as much as I could, rather than in the open chambers. But in my hurry, I couldn’t always be so calculated. I found that the higher I went, the more crowded the rooms appeared to be, and by the time I figured out that the safest place for me would be downward, I must have already rounded up at least a dozen ghouls behind me in the chase. I was sure that the old werewolf’s words were true. They seemed to enjoy the chase. It was like a game for them.
A game I cannot let them win.
I focused on shooting downward, level after level, even as I tried to travel diagonally, rather than a straight line. I figured that would get them off my tail faster. And eventually, I succeeded… at least, as far as I could tell. By the time I gathered courage enough to stop, I’d gotten so thoroughly lost in the depths of The Underworld, I didn’t want to think how long it would take me to find my way back to the exit. I realized that I was back in a familiar setting, although many, many miles deeper. Ponds surrounded me on either side, except these ponds weren’t nearly as luminous as the ones above. They emitted only a faint, dull aura, like the light of a dying glowworm. These ponds didn’t swarm, either.
Moving closer to the nearest pool to me, I could make out the forms of ghosts deep beneath the surface. They appeared to be piled together and lying at the bottom of the pond. I couldn’t spot the slightest bit of movement from any of them. Still anxious that some of the ghouls had kept up the chase, I figured that down there would be a good place to wait until I’d recovered my nerves and figured out what to do next. I sank into the pool, my eyes raking over the comatose ghosts. Some of them were curled up in a fetal position, while others just floated on their backs, faces panned upward, with blank, vacant expressions. It was freaky to see that some even had their eyes open, just staring listlessly up at the surface. None gave any signs that they had noticed me. It really was as though they were dead.
I was beginning to have second thoughts about stopping in this creepy pool, wondering whether I should just keep moving after all… but no. After that harrowing hunt, I wasn’t willing to just keep moving blindly through the walls anymore. I needed at least a few minutes to recover, gather my wits about me and come up with some kind of strategy. I was certainly safer down here—where I could merge in among the other ghosts—than out in the open.
At least I had some new information about this place now. First, I could pass through the main door, and second, the entrance to the whirlpool—which I suspected was the only exit from this place—was guarded by ghouls, but… there was an exit nonetheless. I just had to figure out how to pass through it without getting caught. That seemed to be the impossible task before all of us ghosts, and what everyone had apparently failed at thus far.
The exit would no doubt be guarded by ghouls twenty-four hours a day. And with dozens of those things around the relatively small exit at any one time, I could see why it was so difficult. A part of me wondered why they didn’t just close the exit off. But I supposed, if what Marcilla told me was true, there was a lot of traffic coming in and out of this place, with the fae and the ghouls embarking on their own grim excursions…
I drifted further downward, looking for a spot to settle. The floor was uneven, sloping downward from the edges and dipping at its lowest point in the center—where all the ghosts were bundled. I chose a nearby corner to rest. Down here I felt more secure, less noticeable beneath the casual perusal of a ghoul.
As I began to furiously brainstorm my next move, I spotted something curious in the elevated corner opposite mine. It was the outline of another ghost. I found it odd that, although slouched and still, he was sitting, rather than lying like the rest of them. I narrowed my eyes to try to see clearly through the gloom. It appeared to be a man. And even more curiously, it looked like he was staring right at me. He was the first ghost in this pond to register my existence. As I scrutinized the man… I noticed something even more odd about his appearance. Despite my need to stay as inconspicuous as possible, I couldn’t help but leave my corner and move closer. I wanted—no, I needed—to get a closer look at his face.
It was bizarrely familiar and yet I was also certain that I had never met this man in my life.
As I arrived within six feet of him, I froze, gaping. I could no longer believe that my eyes were deceiving me. Even in the dim light, I could make out his features well enough to see that he was almost a spitting image of my father. But this man’s features were sharper than my father’s, his jaw narrower, his build less bulky.
I was wrong that I had never seen this man before.
I had, in an old photograph.
I felt as though I’d lost my mind as the name spilled from my mouth:
“Lucas?”
Jeramiah
Coming to, I had a dull ache in my head. My throat felt horribly parched. It was agony just to swallow. My heavy eyelids slowly lifted open and gradually my vision came into focus. Propping myself up against my elbows, I realized in a panic that I had chains around my hands and ankles. And I was in some kind of dungeon. A pitch-black dungeon. In one corner there was a rickety wooden stool—the only piece of furniture in the room—and beneath me there was… straw. Straw which, strangely, was just as disconcerting as the manacles that bound me. It gave the feel of some kind of medieval prison.
What the hell is this place?
My breathing coming fast and uneven, I hauled myself into a sitting position. Then I tried to stand but I was too tall, my chains too short. I was forced to slouch, even as I strained against my restraints. They were stuck fast to the stone wall.
“Hey!” I rasped, wincing as my throat burned. “Hey! Where am I?”
My voice echoed eerily off the bare walls. I broke out in a cold sweat, fear coursing through me.
Damn it!
I was about to yell again when I caught the distant sound of footsteps approaching outside. I froze, my heart pounding. The heavy footsteps drew nearer and nearer until they stopped outside the door. Keys clinked and scraped against metal. A bolt was drawn, and then the heavy oaken door creaked open with agonizing slowness. A warm glow spilled into the dungeon from the corridor, and inside stepped the same man who had kidnapped me. Only this time, he wore no mask.
Derek Novak.
Fear turned to fury.
“You!” I hissed.
Derek eyed me with infuriating calmness. He walked over to me, stopping just far enough away from me that I could not reach out and swipe him.
I let out a growl. I couldn’t stand the thought of Derek Novak making a victim out of me. I would rather be staked immediately. Since I was unable to reach him, the only act of defiance I could manage was to spit at him, but he dodged, my saliva missing its mark.
“You do not like darkness?” he asked, his voice deep and rumbling.
“What?” I snapped.
“I’m quite positive that you heard my question.”
“No, I don’t like darkness!” I replied, hating that I was having to play along with his game. I might’ve been a creature of night, but no vampire liked to be stuck in a room completely devoid of light.
“Then you will want to step into the light, will you not?” He gestured toward the inviting glow of the corridor.
“Just get to the point,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Very well,” he replied. “Once you have agreed to stop living in darkness, I will let you into the light.”
“You’re the one who put me here—!”
Derek bulldozed over me. “Once you agree to accep
t the truth about your father and stop blaming myself and my family for wrongs we didn’t commit, I will set you free.”
Every inch of my skin prickled at his words. How dare he do this to me. How dare he!
I cursed at him, stringing together as many swear words as I knew.
At this, Derek merely nodded and even smiled slightly. “Not ready yet?” he asked. He shrugged his shoulders. “Okay.”
With that, he turned his back on me. Sweeping out of the door, he closed it behind him, plunging me back into darkness.
Ben
The first signs of true life showed in the ghost as I spoke his name. Slowly, he leaned closer toward me, his jaded blue eyes narrowing. His face, gaunt and worn, twisted as he scrutinized me.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice faint. Though as washed out as his tone was, it was uncanny how much it resembled my father’s.
“Benjamin,” I replied, still stammering with shock. “Benjamin Novak.”
His dead eyes sparked with alarm, and then he began shaking his head, forcefully for one I’d presumed to be so lifeless.
“No!” he gasped. “Not again! Not again!”
His hands shot up around his head and he scrunched his eyes tightly shut. His face contorted as though in some kind of agony, he moved back into his corner, where he curled up and hid his head behind his knees.
“Not again!” he whimpered. “Don’t do this to me!”
What is he talking about?
The man must’ve lost his mind.
How long had he been down here? He had died before my sister and I were even conceived. That meant he’d left his body almost nineteen years ago. The nature of his death had been sudden and unexpected—with my grandfather taking him down with a bullet. I guessed that was cause enough to become a ghost. But had he really been trapped in The Underworld all that time? I recalled Marcilla’s words, how all of these ponds were ordered chronologically—the older the recruit, the deeper they were in The Underworld. We were deep. Very deep.