He could hear Lisette crying as she continued forward with a speed that probably skinned her knees and shredded her palms. Patrick’s weren’t much better. But he could breathe again, and soon they were both hunched over and running down a jagged tunnel. Then the ceiling angled upward and they were running upright, cutting through the dark.
The drekavacs never stopped screaming.
The damage to Patrick’s shields made his nerves burn, but he kept them up as Lisette scrambled her way through twisting tunnels by memory alone. The dry floor beneath their feet began to turn damp, then muddy, the tunnel they were heading into partially flooded.
Lisette barreled into the water with a trembling cry, running toward a corridor Patrick hoped they wouldn’t die in. Water splashed over his chest as he followed in her wake, the tunnel rising ahead to a dry path that led to a rectangle opening carved into stone. Patrick reached out and grabbed Lisette by the arm. Her scream was nearly as loud as the drekavacs, and she swung around to hit him before she saw his face and remembered he was there.
“Sorry,” Patrick said, pulling her to the side. “Let me go first. Stay close.”
He raised a shield between them and the entrance, pouring raw magic into a mageglobe that he sent hurtling through the opening. It wasn’t giving off enough light to push back the darkness entirely, but the glimpses Patrick got when they entered made him wish he could pretend he never saw what was hidden in the Salle du Drapeau.
Bone cracked beneath their boots, no matter where they stepped. The smell of bodies left to rot in a damp grave filled the air, making Patrick gag. Lisette moaned, her breath coming shallow and panicky.
Witchlights spilled from Patrick’s fingertips, the bright white illumination glittering like stars as the sparks rose into the air. The space had a high ceiling, and a tricolor flag was painted on the large far wall, giving the room its name.
Against that wall was an altar made out of bones stacked on top of each other, layers of femurs rising between three layers of skulls. The skulls that made the topmost layer had all been smashed open on the top, dark from old blood, the altar covered in it. Stretched out on top was a man whose throat had been carved open all the way to his navel, his guts spilling out down the altar.
Around them, filling the rest of the space, were piles and piles of bodies not yet eroded into bones.
Sacrifices.
“Fuck,” Patrick breathed out, staring at Peklabog’s altar.
He didn’t think much of Lisette moving behind him—not until the rounded joint of a femur slammed against the side of his head and the witchlights high above smeared through the dark like shooting stars.
21
Patrick’s concentration broke,but at least it wasn’t his skull.
His shields far down the tunnels collapsed, and he knew what was coming. The witchlights all around them sputtered and nearly died from the pain in his head, blackness eating at the edges of his vision.
“I pray to our god in the Orthodox Church of the Dead, and you’ll be our next sacrifice,” Lisette bit out.
Lisette no longer looked fearful, only murderous as she swung the femur bone down like an axe. Patrick rolled out of its way and kicked out hard with his foot, catching her in the knee. The crunch was bone getting broken and jammed into an angle the joint was never meant to go. Lisette screamed in agony, dropping the femur and falling to the ground with a sob.
Patrick got an elbow underneath him, yanked his dagger free, and retracted his shield to cover only himself. It left Lisette beyond the safety it provided as the drekavacs hurled themselves into the Salle du Drapeau.
“Je vénère votre Dieu!” Lisette yelled, holding out one arm toward them in a pleading manner.
The drekavacs never stopped coming. Lisette never stopped screaming until one ripped out her throat with its teeth.
There went any hope of getting answers.
The rest of the demonic zombies threw themselves on his shield, clawing and biting at his magic. Their screams made Patrick’s ears ring as he struggled to hold up his shields through the throbbing ache in his skull and the nausea twisting up his stomach.
The soulbond pulled tight in his chest, but Patrick paid it no mind, forcing himself to focus on the problem at hand. Something wet trickled down the side of his face, but he ignored it. Shoving himself to his knees, Patrick flipped the dagger around in his hand, readjusting his grip.
His shields were thin, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. But they stayed up, powered by external magic when his own kept slipping away from him like his thoughts.
Head wounds were a fuckingbitchto deal with.
Patrick lunged, stabbing the closest drekavac straight through his shield, tearing into its torso. The scream it let out was furious for a single second before what magic animated it bled away beneath heavenly white fire. Patrick yanked his dagger free and withdrew his arm back behind his shield before it could get bitten off by sharp teeth.
“This will not do.”
The raspy voice came from behind him, dry like bone. Patrick froze, breathing harshly through the pain in his head. He conjured up a mageglobe, filling it with raw magic despite the way it made the nerves in the back of his eyes burn.
The drekavacs wrenched themselves away from his shield, skittering backward, low to the ground, all the while screaming furiously. The shadows were pushed away by a dull light flickering to life behind him. Patrick slowly twisted around, still holding his dagger, and watched the altarmove.
