Ash slammed his foot into the first zombie’s chest; the ribcage folded inward with a brittle crack, but the thing didn’t even flinch. Another grabbed him from the side, its hands cold and dry, flesh splitting under its own strength. Ash punched it in the face and hurled it down the corridor. The body smashed into brick, slid down in a heap—and still rose again.
Desperate, he reached within, the force behind his glare growing white-hot. The air rippled, the passage filling with invisible current as he flung them back with his mind, a dozen at once. But it made no difference. The cadavers reeled, twisted, found their feet again. They didn’t feel pain. They didn’t stop.
“Get back!” His voice was a ragged snarl.
Fingers clamped on his arms, his shoulders, his legs, cold, relentless. He tore one away, broke another’s neck, but for each he repelled, two more closed in. His power faltered under the sheer multitude of bodies. Their limbs tangled around him, pulling, dragging, pressing until he was as helpless as a fly in a cobweb.
“No!”
His cry dissolved into the murk, swallowed by the rustle of the walking corpses. He kicked, fought, yelled, but the dead didn’t care. They surged over him in a single heaving wave, grasping hands, disfigured faces. Their weight forced him to stillness, the world narrowing to pressure and darkness. The floor gave way beneath him, and the swarm pulled him down.
“Get off me!”
They dragged him through the tunnels, his feet scraping against the stone, water splashing up in cold arcs as he struggled uselessly in their grip. The deceased moved with grim purpose, their strength inhuman and tireless, hauling him back through the labyrinth he’d tried to flee. He could hear nothing but their shuffling, the faint groan of joints that should not move, and the hollow rhythm of his heart hammering in his ears.
The chamber yawned open before them: the circle, the leaky pipes, the sickly light of candles flickering along the walls. The zombies lurched forward and hurled him across the threshold, dragging him until his back hit the center of the blood-drawn seal. Ash landed hard, the breath punched from his lungs. His curses tore across the room, but faltered as he saw Gordon waiting by the cross.
He stood motionless by the wooden cross, half-illuminated by the flame’s tremor, something small and silver cradled in his hands. The light carved harsh angles into his face, stretching it gaunt and too tight, his eyes bulging and glassy as if the pupils no longer belonged to him. He stared at the ruined doorway—nothing but a splintered frame now—then turned that fever-bright gaze on Ash.
“Did you really think you could escape?” His tone was gentle, soothing, the softness of it worse than anger. “There’s nowhere to run. Every passage is sealed—my patrols see to that.”
He took a step toward Ash, then another, movements unhurried, almost drifting. The silver caught the candlelight; up close, Ash saw it was a container, not a knife. “The dead make such faithful guards. No rest. No fear. No pity.”
A faint smile flickered across his mouth, small and remote, as if he were reciting someone else’s dream. “I told you: the Book taught me much about flesh.”
Ash glared up at him, hatred burning through the fatigue. He would have spit in Gordon’s face if his mouth hadn’t gone dry as dust.
“Clever, though,” Gordon murmured, gliding to a crouch beside the sigil. His fingers traced the crimson rim, whole again, restored and unbroken. “Using the water to break it. But improvisation can only take you so far.”
He set the small container under the drip, covering the circle’s edge. The next drop struck its lid with a hollowplink, a single sharp note that carried through the chamber like a drum.
Ash lunged, but the corpses held him fast, their rotting nails digging into his shoulders, their stench rancid against his neck. “You won’t get away with this,” he hissed.
Gordon straightened, head tilting slightly, that eerie smile flickering again. “I hope you’re not counting on your werewolf lover to come charging in. Yes, I know about him, too. And if he does…” He trailed off, chuckling under his breath, the sound thin, papery. “Well. Let’s just say I’ve arranged a welcome he won’t walk away from.”
When Ash didn’t respond, Gordon smoothed the sleeve of his shirt, composure unbroken. “Try not to strain yourself again, hm? We have work tomorrow. I’ll need you intact.”
He moved toward the shattered doorway, each step lengthening his shadow across the stone. “Come,” he murmured, almost tenderly, as if speaking to pets.
The corpses responded at once. They released Ash in perfect unison, bones shifting beneath festering flesh as they rose. Gordon didn’t look back as he walked out, his gait calm and deliberate, shoes brushing softly over stone.
The dead followed him in a slow, obedient procession, one after another, their heads bowed as they passed into the tunnels. The candlelight caught the desiccated dullness of their skin, thehollow grooves of their faces. Their retreating steps rolled off the walls in a monotone, wrong rhythm.
When the last of them vanished into the dark, the echoes thinned and died away, leaving nothing behind but the dripping and the faint tremor of Ash’s breathing.
Then silence. Heavy, absolute.
Ash slumped where they’d left him, chest heaving, muscles drained. His hair clung to his face, sweat mixing with grime and water. The drip above kept falling, steady, mocking—useless now. There would be no second chance. No escape.
For a long moment, he stayed that way, trembling, his breath catching in shallow gasps. The rage that had driven him this far guttered out, leaving only the hollow afterburn of despair. The weight of it folded over him like a pall, until his vision blurred, stinging his eyes, and his body went slack against the stone. For the first time since this nightmare began, Ash felt something colder than anger or fear settle in his marrow: an empty, hopeless impotence.
He closed his eyes, shaking.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
(2:15 p.m.)
It was easy to lose all sense of time in a subterranean maze that refused to end. Rick had been running for what felt like hours, yet each turn only revealed another passage, leading him deeper into Calgrave’s diseased heart.
