I reached down between my legs and felt around for the survival kit I stashed on my thigh. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding as my fingers closed around the candle in its tiny holder and the lighter. It took me four tries with my trembling hands to get the candle to light. When the flame flared up, it did little to penetrate the gloom of my prison. Far above my head, I could just make out a pinprick of light from the moon. The hole they’d thrown me into was so high that the moonlight didn’t even penetrate into the cave. No way would I be able to climb back out that way.
I set the candle down on the rock beside me and focused on standing up. Every movement caused fresh pain to shoot up my leg. I touched my hands to the red mark on my calf and nearly threw up. My stockings had melted against my skin.Yup, definitely a burn.
I turned over and slowly, slowly, pulled myself to my feet. The pain seared up my spine and exploded in my head, fighting with the god’s visions for top billing. My eyes watered, and I had to stop to take several shaky breaths. Based on my estimation of the distance, it would take me well over an hour to get back to the school from my current location, provided I could even make it out of the cave. But that was with two functioning legs, which I definitely did not possess. Walking on the burn was going to take much longer, if I could even do it.
Courtney had broken the rules, but she’d also all but ensured I’d fail the initiation.
No.
The tears burned my cheeks. I wiped them away.Courtney doesn’t get to win that easily. I will make it back to the school on time, even if I lose my leg in the process.
I’m going to be god-food at the end of this year, anyway. This isn’t about me – it’s about protecting Greg and Andre.
In the darkness, my fingers sought another burn – the scar from a fire that had hurt me much deeper than Courtney ever could.
I can do this.
First, I thought over what little I knew about first aid. The fact that the burn hurt was a good sign – it likely meant it wasn’t as serious as it could have been. I took off my shoes and peeled the stockings off in a wave of pain so intense I had to roll over and throw up. That done, I slid down to the pool of water and plunged my leg under the surface, hoping like hell there wasn’t anything living in there.
While my leg soaked, I tried to force out the god’s pain screaming between my ears. I pulled out the small first aid kit Ayaz had insisted I bring. I took one of the clear dressings and peeled off the backing. I pulled my leg out, patted the area dry with my balled-up stockings, then applied the dressing and shoved my boot back on. It still smarted like hell but that was all I could do until I got back to school.
IfI get back to school.
Gritting my teeth and holding the candle in my hand, I made my way slowly around the cavern. With every step, my leg screamed. By the time I finished a circuit, my face was slick with sweat and tears, but at least I knew what I was dealing with.
The rocks formed a series of steps leading down toward a tunnel on the other side of a small pool of black water. Toward the top of the steps on the opposite side of the cavern were two further caves, both leading off in different directions. Out of the corner of my eye I caught the sickly phosphorescence of those otherworldly veins – not as many as in the caves nearer the school, but they were definitely present. I held the light up to the walls, searching for a sigil. Ayaz had taught me that Parris had drawn sigils in many of the caves to seal his rituals and as maps of the property and the cave networks. All I faced was bare rock.
If I could find one of his sigils, I could tell which path to take. Instead, I had to pull out some old-fashioned MacGyver shit.
As we’d walked to my current location, I’d noted the terrain had sloped downward. My guess was that we’d headed west down the peninsula, in the direction of Arkham. I pulled a compass out of my bra and held it against my chest, trying to line up the arrow. It spun wildly, refusing to settle on one direction.
Great. Just great.Something in the cave – some magnetic rock, most likely – was fucking with the needle. I needed another way to choose which direction to take.
Trying to ignore the god’s protests and the glint of the veins, I hobbled down to the edge of the pool again and held up the candle, as near the entrance to the tunnel as I could reach. The light didn’t even flicker. Instead, the darkness seemed to swallow it. An oppressive presence slid from the entrance. Good. I didn’t want to go that way.
I clambered up to the next entrance and did the same thing. The flame bent over. I’d found a breeze. Ayaz had told me any breeze was likely coming from the surface. I leaned inside the cave and swung my candle around. The cave seemed to head in a general upwards direction. I slapped my palm against the damp wall, leaving a deep impression of my hand in the mud and silt that I could use to find my way back if required. I hoped it wasn’t required.
I stepped into the cave and scrambled between the rocks as fast as I could move with the candle in one hand and my leg howling with pain. Every few feet I slapped my hand into the wall.
After an indeterminate amount of scrambling, the cave ended in another, smaller cavern. The sides were steep rock, curving outward. The breeze came from another hole in the roof. I might have been able to climb up there with two good legs, but in my current state it was impossible. Courtney was counting on that.
I groaned in frustration, kicking a small stone down into a small puddle, splashing cold water over my already freezing legs. But there was nothing I could do. I backtracked to the first cavern and tried my candle on the third tunnel. The flame bent again, although not as far as it had before. It was my only choice, so I gritted my teeth against the pain and forced myself onward.
By now I was so cold that except for the faint pulse of pain from the burn I could barely feel my legs. My teeth clattered together; my mind swam with nausea and a sickening sense that something was behind me. As the sensation crawled up my spine, I spun around, casting my light around the tunnel, but I could see nothing.
The sensation of being watched continued as I struggled up an incline, dragging my injured leg over craggy rocks. My heart pounded in my ears, and underneath it, a terrifying wet sound, like someone trying to breathe with water in their lungs. At first, I thought I was imagining it, but the wheezing gargle grew louder until I could no longer ignore it. I sped up, my leg screaming as I put too much weight on it in my mad scramble to escape. But the wet breathing kept following me, closer and closer…
The tunnel opened out, the ground evening out into a slick, smooth surface with a water trench hollowed out along the center. I swept my candle around the space. On the far wall, I noticed a pattern of dark lines inside a circle on the wall, too regular and even to be natural.
A sigil!
I lurched myself up the slope. My boots slipped on the slick surface. Behind me, a dark presence loomed from the shadows.It’s right there. It’s almost got me.
I cried out as I slid backward. My nails scraped the rocky wall. I rested far too much weight on my burned leg and propelled myself up, screaming as I scrambled a few feet before my foot slid out from beneath me again and I landed flat on my face.
Inside my head, the god screamed.
My candle flew from my hand. It flickered once against the rock before going out, leaving me alone in the cloying darkness withsomethingbreathing wet, fetid air against the back of my neck.
