They kept walking until the water receded, but the smell stuck in Patrick’s nose. He kept his shields up, leaning into his magic and the damage in his soul that let him track the demons and monsters that called the shadows home.
The taint of hell was thick around them, making Patrick grind his teeth. They passed junctions that split off into dark tunnels his magic had no interest in following. Lisette sometimes looked over her shoulder at him for clarification, and he’d motion which way they needed to go. The saturation of black magic and hellish taint was strongest in a particular direction, and when Lisette would’ve turned right at one junction sometime later, Patrick tapped her on the shoulder and pointed left.
“Can we go that way?” he asked.
Lisette frowned, her headlamp casting strange shadows on her face. She swung her waterproof backpack around and opened it up, pulling out a thick stack of folded-up, plastic-lined paper. She swiftly flipped her way through it, finally stopping on a square filled with silvery-gray lines that were washed out by her headlamp. Beneath them were lines of various colors depicting areas and notes in French that Patrick couldn’t read.
“We are here,oui?” Lisette tapped a faded junction with a fingertip before following the line leftward. “We can go this way, but it is tight.”
Patrick studied the section of the map depicting the underground network, tracing a route that shot off in the direction his magic was tugging him toward. The problem was he didn’t know what he was looking for.
If Ilya was using the Catacombs as a place for his people to pray to their god, then he’d need room for his sermons and their moments of worship; space for an altar and all that entailed. He tried not to think of Santa Muerte and her altar draped in marigold beneath New York City. The similarities drawn out of need were difficult to ignore though.
Patrick tapped at a large square that seemed a viable spot and hopefully still where his magic was taking him. He wouldn’t know until they got farther into the tunnels. The hellish taint was everywhere, and even the water in the extra bottle Lisette had brought for him wasn’t enough to wash the foul taste away.
“What’s this?”
Lisette looked at where he pointed and hummed softly. “The Salle du Drapeau. It is a large chamber, one where parties are sometimes held.”
“Can you get us there?”
Lisette folded up the map. “Oui. It is a long way though. No easy exits.”
She sounded a little uncertain, and a little scared. So far they hadn’t come across anything out of the ordinary, or anyone else for that matter. Not having an exit strategy wasn’t great, but Patrick couldn’t walk away from this.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he promised.
Lisette gave him a brittle smile before tucking the map into her backpack. She settled its weight on her shoulders before turning down the leftward tunnel and started walking.
They walked for hours.
Hunched over, upright, sometimes even crawling—they kept moving. The cold and the dark surrounded them, headlamp and witchlights providing the only illumination. From time to time Patrick thought he heard movement in the tunnels they left behind, and they’d wait while he scanned the area using his magic, coming up empty of a threat each time.
It didn’t make him feel better.
However many hours later, they came upon a set of old stone stairs and descended deeper between levels. Patrick’s ears popped on the way down, the air getting colder and the hellish taint getting stronger.
Lisette slowed at one point, pointing at a tiny space Patrick thought was a shadow until it revealed itself to be a narrow passage in the wall, only a couple of feet wide.
“We’ll go through here to the Bone Well,” she said.
What dead were buried below had been mostly hidden behind the limestone walls they’d passed through, bones few and far between in the tunnels. That changed once Patrick dragged himself through the narrow passage, finding himself in a space on the other side where a tall wall was filled to the edges with bones.
The witchlights floated upward, revealing numerous skulls, ribs, spines, arms and leg bones embedded in the wall itself, the structure bulging from the mass grave. The space was thick with bodies slowly pushing free of their resting place.
As Patrick pulled himself out of the hole, his hands brushed against fallen bone gathered on the floor. He straightened slowly, breathing musty air and tasting dust on his tongue, trying not to think about where that dust came from.
Lisette tugged on his arm. “This way.”
They kept walking, the passageways filled with bones and a trail of hellish taint that only grew stronger the closer they got to its origination point.
Then the noises started.
And Patrick’s magic sparked a warning.
Scratches on stone, the echo of quick footsteps, and the sound of heavy, monstrous breathing drifted their way. Lisette froze, face draining of all color as her breath came in rapid puffs. Patrick touched her arm, conjuring up a small mageglobe, the pale blue light casting them in an eerie glow where they were half-hunched in a tunnel.
“How much further to the Salle du Drapeau?” he asked. Lisette didn’t answer, and the feel of hell pressed closer through Patrick’s magic. “Lisette!”
