Chapter 10

Oh god, it smelled. Seraph put her arm over her nose and mouth. This was even worse than getting chased through the woods by a bear. On the bright side, the sewer was, well, brighter than Seraph had pictured. Apparently the designers had not opted for the ‘dank and poorly lit death trap’ look that was so popular with Hollywood. Bright florescent lights were spaced so that no area was shadowed, and LEDs were placed at the openings of the smaller tubes that poured into the main water way. A low guard rail stood between the water and the walkway, even on the mini-bridges that crossed every so often. The floor was free of broken tiles and absolutely no live wires hung from the ceiling.

Seraph flicked her flashlight off. If it weren’t for the choking smell, the terrible lurking monsters, and the omnipresent aura of dread that permeated every pore of this hellish pit it wouldn’t be such a bad place.

Her palm sweated around the handle of the axe. It was surprisingly warm down here as well, and her fleece jacket was uncomfortable in the heat. Still, she was reluctant to take it off, wanting the extra layer between her and what was coming. She could only imagine how this place got in the summer.

It was also quiet. Seraph stood for long moments just looking and listening. The rush and drip of running water faded from her awareness leaving a sullen silence that rang in the air. Even the sound of her boots on the concrete was muted as she took her first steps.

The pull was slightly off from straight forward. It was likely that the emblems were in a room right off of this hallway. She knew she was lucky in that she didn’t have a layout for this place, and a single wrong turn could leave her hopelessly lost. As she walked the weight of the need to act lifted slightly. Even as the oppressive atmosphere of the sewer became more claustrophobic, Seraph began breathing easier. She hadn’t noticed just how bad the steadily worsening sense of compulsion had become until she was free of it. With the freedom came the realization that what she was doing was stupid.

Perhaps less what she was doing, and more how she was doing it. She knew there were monsters down here. Everyone knew that there were monsters down here. Not to mention that she had encountered one pissy shapeshifter on this... quest already and she would bet money that some nasty was hanging around the Emblems too. While one didn’t make a pattern, it would be stupid to just assume that this item wouldn’t be under guard as well. There was no way she would make it out of here without having to run or fight. There wasn’t a lot of space to run, and she wasn’t equipped to fight. At least, not to fight most of the things she would find down here.

The smartest thing right now would be to turn back. She could come tomorrow night if she needed to. She shouldn’t be here with only a wood axe and a crowbar.

But she couldn’t go back.

As much as Seraph knew she should, as much as she understood how much more she should have prepared before coming here, she couldn’t leave. She could not turn around any more than she could walk through walls. Once the voice had her here it wasn’t going to just let her go.

The overhead lights flickered, grabbing Seraph's attention. The light panels all looked like typical florescent lights, except the one right above her. Between the two main bulbs was a third that flashed red. As she watched, it stopped flashing and just glowed a steady, unsettling crimson. A small splash that was quiet even in the prevailing hush drew Seraph's attention away from the odd lighting. Almost against her will, she stepped to the rail and looked down.

Staring out of the murky water were the eyes of a dead horse. It floated in the foul water strangely unmoved by the current. The filth of the sewer had stained what once might have been a white coat. Its mane twisted independent of the water’s flow, the hairs writhing like snakes and tangled with debris. Seraph imagined this is how Death’s horse would look. There really wasn’t any way that a horse could come down here by accident, and Seraph could think of no reason to bring one down here on purpose. Despite being completely submerged the horse was untouched by injury and decay, looking almost alive in its watery grave. Which meant that what she was looking at probably wasn’t really a horse.

Seraph backed away from the edge of the water and the horse followed. Its head soundlessly broke the surface of the water and its eyes began to glow with a sickly, malevolent light. Behind it another head surfaced, then another, and another still. The water way filled with a herd of the monsters, all of them focused on her. Turning, Seraph sprinted down the walkway as she heard the first horse leap free of the water and over the guard rail to give chase. It screamed, a terrible noise that drove nails thought Seraph’s brain, making her wonder if her ears might start bleeding.

Okay, this was worse than getting chased through the woods by a bear.

The walkway branched– she could take one of the bridges over the horse-monster infested water, or she could turn a corner. She turned the corner at full speed. Ten feet ahead of her the walkway ended in front of an access panel. Screeching to a halt before she slammed headlong into the wall, Seraph mentally cursed. Screw these damn sewers, screw the monster horses, and screw prophetically named dead ends!

Red lights flickered on over her head. Seraph snarled and set herself to fight. Would the axe be enough? Some monsters were picky about how they die. She pivoted on her left foot, swinging her body around. Did she need silver? Holy items? Magic? She gripped the handle like a baseball bat. Would a simple axe kill it? She supposed she was going to find out.

The first of them was so close she could almost feel its fetid breath. Seraph shouted defiantly at the thing as she slammed the axe across its face, catching it under its eye and smashing it into the wall. It kicked as it died. Another monster was in the water to her right, but she couldn’t get the axe free. It was stuck tight in the first horse’s head.

The creature in the water lunged up under the guardrail from the water. It opened its mouth wide, showing off huge sharp teeth that didn’t belong in a normal horse’s mouth. Seraph struggled with the axe, desperately working it loose of what ever was holding it.

The horse darted forward just as she pulled it free. She jerked back letting the monster bite the air where she used to be. It turned its head towards her just as she raised the axe. Its spiteful eyes locked onto hers. Seraph brought the axe down right into the center of its forehead, killing it.

Another of the damn things burst from the water to climb onto the walkway behind the body of the first monster. And the axe was stuck again. Seraph desperately pulled, but the damn thing was just caught. She had never used an axe to kill something before, but should it have really been this hard? She stomped on the creatures face and bracing herself she was able to yank the axe free. The third monster finished pulling itself up to the walkway and Seraph set herself to fight– and stumbled. Her foot was stuck to the face of the horse monster.

Seraph slipped. The dead weight of the monster she was glued to was sinking back into the water and pulling her with it. Their strange shrieking cry ripped through her head, hurting her. The stabbing pain almost made Seraph drop her axe and clap her hands to her ears. She clenched her teeth until they felt like they would crack and kept her eyes on the monster. It charged.

The dead horse under her foot shifted again, dragging Seraph off her feet. She landed hard on her side just as the third creature attacked. Its vicious teeth snapped right above her head. Seraph slashed up, catching the thing in its neck. It was a solid hit, but not a killing blow. The horse screamed again and reared back, ripping the axe right out of Seraph’s hands.

Shit.

Seraph threw herself back as the monster kicked and collapsed onto the corpse of the first one. It thrashed as it bled to death, almost hitting her with its massive hooves. Great gouts of blood splashed all over the wall and the corpse, while the creature was visibly getting weaker. She struggled to free herself- why was the damn, stupid thing gluey? She finally kicked free of her boot just in time to see yet another horse coming out of the water right next to her.

The axe gone, Seraph pulled the crowbar from her belt as she struggled to her knees. Filthy water splashed over the walkway and her. The horse was still pulling itself out of the water, its front legs on the walkway and its back in the water. Seraph shouted and lashed out, swinging the crowbar across its face. The crowbar didn’t stick– it slammed into the creature’s head, knocking it aside. The horse screamed again, a harsh cry of pain and surprise. A blistering, sizzling, bright red burn flowered across the monster’s skin. It looked like it hurt.

Seraph blinked and the monster slipped back under the water. She scrambled to her feet with her back against the wall, still clutching her crowbar. The only sound she could hear was her own panting. The walkway was empty, so was the water. There were more creatures- she had seen at least a dozen in the waterway before. Where they coming up with a new attack plan? Seraph glanced up- nothing. She didn’t think they had a way to stick to the ceiling, but when you find yourself in a horror movie cliché it didn’t hurt to check. What the hell were they doing?

Movement brought her attention back to the water. One of the monsters held its head just out of the water to stare at her. Seraph’s grip tightened on her weapon as she prepared for an attack.

None came. The horse turned away from her and slipped back underwater. After about a foot Seraph couldn’t see it anymore, but the ripple it made in the water told her that it was leaving. Other ripples followed it. Seraph stood tense and ready, not quite believing that it was over.

The red lights flickered again then turned off, leaving everything slightly green. Seraph finally relaxed.

A splash sent her right back into fight mode. It was just the body of the monster that had attacked her from the side finally slipping the rest of the way into the water. Seraph swallowed her heart back down into her chest and stepped to the railing to look down. The body was gone. And so was her boot.

Well that was that then. Seraph slowly limped back to where her axe was embedded in the now dead monster and worked it free. This had been fun, but she had a job to do. Even if the job sucked and she didn't want to do it.

Unfortunately, it looked like she was trapped. The dead end walkway was blocked with the bodies of the monsters and Seraph on the wrong side. The bodies weren't crammed so tight that they should have been a barrier– there were only two of them– normally Seraph could have climbed right over them with no problem. But the monsters were still gluey and she wasn't about to go scrambling over them only to get trapped. She could just imagine getting stuck so bad she would have to wait for the sewer workers to come rescue her.

Yeah, she wasn't doing that.

Seraph walked back over to the guardrail. She couldn't see anything in the water. Well, she couldn't anything that was going to jump out at her. A glance assured her that the red lights weren't coming on any time soon. With a sigh Seraph stuck the crowbar back in her belt. It wasn't like she had a lot of options, and it was as safe as it was going to get. It was easy enough to get over the bar. She wasn’t worried that it was going to be difficult to strafe past the corpses. It was just that the way her luck was running she was going to get half way before the lights turned red and something jumped out to bite her in the ass.

Seraph quickly sidestepped past the monsters, balancing with her free hand on the rail. Once she was past them and back on the right side of the bar Seraph finally started to relax. That had been pretty bad, but she came through mostly unhurt. Now she just needed to get the emblems and get out. How many more monsters could there be?

No! Bad thought! Seraph started jogging down the hallway. She needed to hurry before she started doing something really stupid. Like wondering out loud if things could get any worse.

She felt something that wasn't sweat trickle down her back. Great, she must have pulled some stitches during the fight. Now that the adrenalin was wearing off, Seraph could feel little warning pin-pricks of pain. She pushed it from her mind– she would have time to hurt tomorrow.

A rat ran out of a small crack in the wall and darted ahead of her. It occurred to Seraph that this was the first rat she had seen since coming down here. She wondered if there were too many large predators down here for a large rat population.

A few minutes and several rats later, Seraph was rethinking her theory. Maybe the rats just knew better than to hang around crazy ass horse monsters.

Seraph continued running along with the rats for another few yards until she came to a door. The pull had been drifting more off center for a bit and it was now tugging at her through one of the non-descript doors that sporadically dotted the walkways. This one looked a little abandoned. Most of the others had electronic keypads while this one sported only a simple lock right in the handle. The paint was peeling and there was a good sized hole in the bottom of it.

It concerned Seraph a little that all the rats were racing through the hole into the unknown room. Maybe the rats weren't the safety barometer that she had hoped– they might even be part of a worse problem. Too bad Seraph couldn't think of any rat themed monsters. When she got out of here, she was buying a field guide and memorizing it.

Seraph twisted the handle hard, breaking the lock. The room turned out to be an empty storage closet. It was unlit, leaving the far left wall completely in shadow. Rats rushed around her feet and towards the darkness. Seraph turned on the flashlight and followed. She tried not to step on the rats, but they were everywhere and they didn't seem to be inclined to move for her. As she got closer her flashlight revealed that the wall wasn't shadowed so much as it was gone. A tunnel of what looked like natural rock lead away from the small room. It sloped down and curved so that she could not see where it ended, but Seraph was not worried that she would have to follow it into the depths of the earth. What she wanted was close now.

The tunnel twisted around in a u-turn so she was heading back behind the storage closet. As it went back the ceiling drastically lowered, until Seraph wondered if she was going to end up crawling with the rats. Luckily before that could happen, the tunnel ended in a large hole. It was a little smaller than a manhole and Seraph could see the bottom. She did not want to jump into a mystery hole, but it wasn’t as if she had a lot of options at this point. At least it wasn't a long drop. If the rats could do it, she could. More importantly, she was pretty sure she could get back out.

Seraph hit hard and swallowed a curse. She had forgotten about her lost boot and had landed awkwardly. Testing her weight on her ankle she decided that she hadn't twisted it, but she probably shouldn't do that again.

"Welcome to my hall, tall one," rasped a high-pitched voice behind her.

Seraph turned to face voice. Sitting on a throne of tiny bones was gremlin. He was small– maybe a foot tall– and a rat lay at his feet like a large dog. He looked unhealthy, even for a gremlin. His oversized ears dropped from his bald head and his watery yellow eyes blinked against the shine of her flashlight. Pale skin was stretched thin over his spindly limbs which were all cord and bone. There was not one bit of fat on him, not even the small belly that people get when all their muscle atrophies away.

More importantly, he had the emblems. The Horn of Summer was mounted on the back of the throne and the Arrow of Winter was held like a spear in the gremlin's small fist. He grinned at her, showing off his mouth full of sharp yellow teeth.

"Well, tall one?" he hissed. "What business brings you before the Rat Lord?"

[← Chapter 9]            [Chapter 11 →]
Author's Comments