Chapter 11

"Are you the Rat Lord?" Seraph asked uncertainly.

"I am. And just who are you, to stand armed as you address me?" he asked, glaring up at her.

"Oh... um, sorry?" Maybe towering over the guy was a little rude. Seraph knelt down, bringing her head to about his level and placed her axe on the ground next to her.

"Better." The Rat Lord stroked his hairless chin as if he had a goatee while he regarded her with narrowed eyes. "How are you called, tall one?"

"Seraph."

"Well met." He tried to throw out the pleasantry off handedly, like it was an often used response, but something in the way he acted made it unsettling.

"Why are you called the Rat Lord?"

The gremlin smiled with a mouth filled with needle teeth. He pulled himself up as far as his bent spine would allow and rapped the end of the arrow on the ground. The rats stopped milling around and turned to stare at him.

"The rats are beholden to me. They do as I command."

As one, the rats turned to stare Seraph. A knot of fear settled in her stomach even as she kept her face impassive. A single rat, or even a single dozen rats, wouldn't have posed any kind of threat to her, but she could see at least four dozen in the glow of her flashlight alone and she could hear even more in the darkness surrounding her.

"They do as I command," the Rat Lord repeated. "They are my hands and eyes in the outside world. They are my hounds in the outside world." He looked deliberately off to the side, into the shadows. Seraph couldn't help herself– she looked.

Bones.

Piles of bones picked clean of soft tissue and arranged against the wall. Most of the bones were animal or monstrous, but human bones clearly held their place in the mounds. It was possible that the rats only brought back bodies that they had found, a sewer worker that had died in the line of duty, a homeless person that had died forgotten in the streets, or a body savaged from a graveyard. Possible... but there were a lot of bones.

Seraph turned back to the Rat Lord. He was watching her closely, looking for signs of weakness and fear. She kept her expression politely blank, as if she were standing at attention.

"I see your rats are very skilled," she said evenly.

The Rat Lord looked surprised but pleased. "Yes, they are." He sat back in his chair and stroked the head of one of the rats that sat at his feet while he regarded her. "Why have you come here?" he asked finally.

Seraph put the bodies from her mind– they were beyond her help. She had to focus on what she had come here for.

"Well, honestly, I'm here for those." Seraph gestured at the Emblems.

"Ah, of course." He said thoughtfully as he stroked the arrow. "What other possession of mine would be of interest to one such as you?"

"You're taking this well."

"I did not say that you could have them."

Well, damn.

"That puts us in an awkward position."

"Indeed," he said. "What do you want with them? You have not the smell of magik about you," he sniffed the air as he spoke. "Not that any human could use fey magik to its full potential."

"They're fairy?"

The Rat Lord just looked at her.

"Okay, yes, I figured out the first thing I retrieved was fairy related, but that doesn't mean everything I'm going to be sent after will be. I just don't know anything about what the hell is going on. It would be nice to have a little... insight about what's happening to me." Seraph let out a frustrated sigh and glared at the Rat Lord. "A voice in my head told me to come get them."

"You are in an unenviable position," the Rat Lord snickered.

"Yeah, no kidding."

"More is the pity for you," he said. "I will not give you what is mine. My life would be cut short for it, in more ways than one. The great dark one from whom I took my prizes would find me. And it would not be pleased."

"More ways than one?"

"They give me the endless life of the Highborn. I have had them for millennia." He lend back in his chair, sitting as arrogantly as a two foot tall gremlin is able. "So you see why I will not just give them away."

"I could just take them."

"You could try," he snarled.

"If you're hiding, you're doing a bad job of it. It was easy to find you. Your front door is huge..." Seraph eyed him, "for someone your size."

"The entrance to my domain changes as it will, in its appearance and its location," the Rat Lord said with a wave of his hand.

It took a moment for the implications of that to sink in. "It moves? Shit!" Seraph jumped up. She would not be trapped down here, she needed those Emblems.

"It has not moved since you've come," he said hastily.

"That just puts a time limit on getting the Emblems." She didn't have time for this.

"Sit you down tall one, I will not be robbed by the likes of you."

"I don't want to hurt you, but I don't see both of us walking away from this happy. I think I'll take my chances."

"Wait!" he screamed.

Against her better judgment, Seraph hesitated.

"Why not have a contest for them?"

"Like what?" Seraph asked.

"Riddles," he said, settling again.

"Riddles?" Seraph couldn't believe her ears. "Really? Riddles? What are you, Gollum?"

"I do not know 'Gollum'."

"He's a character in an alternative-history book." Seraph paused. "And a movie."

"Movie?"

"Yeah, Lord of the Rings."

"I do not know these things."

"You don't know what a movie is? You must not get out much."

"I have not left my domain since I came to power. My rats bring me what I need."

"You haven't left this place for a thousand years?" Seraph was astonished. She would have been bored out of her mind. Who would want that kind of immortality? "You speak modern English pretty good for a shut in," she observed.

"I do not speak your English at all," he returned. "It is one of the many powers of the Emblems that we speak now. And one of the many powers that you, human, will not be able to use."

"Well I... wait," Seraph shook her head. "This is off track. I want the Emblems."

"Yes, and you must play a game of Riddles first. If you win, I shall give you the Emblems. But should you lose, I get your life."

"What!" Seraph shouted.

"You came down here to steal from me," the Rat Lord snarled. "What reason do I have to offer you this chance if I get nothing? Your corpse will feed my people for a long time."

While she was still apprehensive about the entrance moving on her, a moment to think about it had calmed most of her concerns. If she became lost in the sewers she could always find a manhole and make her way back on surface streets. "What kind of riddles?"

"Any riddle."

"Any riddle at all?"

"Yes, yes." The Rat Lord hissed. "But! Once asked, the other may only speak the answer."

"Fine."

"Your oath, tall one."

"My what?"

"Your oath. Swear that you will abide by the terms of our agreement."

"Alright, I swear." A chill raced up Seraph's spine and wrapped around her throat, freezing her in place for a brief moment. The Rat Lord smiled a wicked little smile and Seraph had the feeling that she had walked into a trap. It was magic, of some sort, Seraph would have bet her life on it.

"Very good. I will go first," he said smugly.

Seraph narrowed her eyes but said nothing.

"There are four brothers in this world that were all born together. The first runs and never wearies. The second eats and is never full. The third drinks and is always thirsty. The fourth sings a song that is never good."

Okay, running. Probably not an animal... what else ran... water. So, a river? Does the mouth of a river 'eat'? No, it must be something else. Fire? Oh, that's easy. "The elements?"

The rat lord hissed at her. "Yes."

"Alright, my turn." Seraph thought for a moment. "How can you fit five elephants in a compact car?"

"What?" The baffled look on his face almost made her laugh out loud. "What is a car?"

"I'm sorry," Seraph said "That's not the right answer."

There was a moment of pregnant silence as understanding slowly sunk in. The Rat Lord's face twisted as with rage as the nature of her trick became stupidly clear to him. He snarled and launched himself at her.

Seraph threw up her arm in front of her face just in time to keep the Rat Lord from her throat. He caught onto her forearm with claws and teeth, hanging from her while his feet kicked the air. His ragged teeth ripped into her skin and he shook his head tearing bits of her arm right out. The rats all started screaming and running, the floor of the hall becoming a chaotic writhing furry mass. She reached for her axe but small snapping teeth kept her from it.

She surged to her feet and, snarling, Seraph grabbed the Rat Lord by the back of his head and ripped him off of her. Tiny claws dug into her jeans as the rats climbed up her legs. He thrashed and spat at her. With a quick movement of her wrist, she swung his body around by his head quickly and cleanly breaking his wretched little neck.

Seraph stared down at the small body in her hands, feeling strangely ambivalent. She really hadn't wanted to hurt him, even if he didn't feel the same about her, but she had been prepared to do what was necessary. Seraph dropped the body of the Rat Lord to the ground.

Like the Crown, the Emblems felt warm in her hands. Seraph tucked them into her backpack. Blood dripped from the bite on her arm, but she didn't take the time to wrap it. At some point this room was going to move and she wanted to be gone when it did. Picking up her axe, Seraph left.

The rats had fled as soon as their lord had died. Luckily they seemed to be using some other exit so she wasn't crawling through them on her way out. The tunnel seemed unchanged but Seraph didn't fully relax until she walked out into the same storage room. A soft sound like a sigh came from behind her. The tunnel mouth was gone. Either she had got out just in time, or the room had closed because she removed the Emblems. Seraph decided it really didn't matter either way– she had what she came for.

There was nothing waiting on the other side of the door and the red lights were off, so Seraph started down the hallway at a trot. Her arm throbbed in time with her back but Seraph continued to ignore them. She would have time to deal with her injuries when she was safely out of this damn place. She started running.

It came from behind her. The red lights came on one after the other until the entire hallway glowed crimson. A horrible, suffocating oppression filled the corridor­ she could almost taste the dread.

Seraph didn't stop, she just ran faster. She didn't need to see it to know it was bad. There was a crash from behind and then the light above her shattered, throwing down broken glass. Seraph flung up her arms to protect her head from the sharp rain. Single lights exploded up and down the hallway with the sound of gunfire.

Now she looked behind her.

Not all of the lights had gone out, most still shone on valiantly. Their light should have been enough to show her what was coming. It showed her nothing.

A solid, living darkness filled the entire hall. It rolled and moved and shifted in place. It hurt Seraph to look at. She wanted to see a form, something physical, in that blank space- but the darkness defied her ability to comprehend it. It was not a thing, like the bear or horses or gremlin had been. No, it was more like a taint that the light refused to touch. Wisps of shadow floated out towards her like smoke in water. A cold dread choked Seraph, chasing her thoughts from her head and freezing her in place. She had never felt a fear like this before. It crippled her.

Seraph stared for an endless second. Suddenly the smoky tendrils sucked back into the main mass and the whole thing surged forward. The movement shocked Seraph out of her paralysis. She ran.

The remaining lights exploded in a wave from behind her, leaving only a dim glow far down the hallway for her to run for. She couldn't hear it chasing her, but she could feel it against her back. Her lungs burned and her thighs ached. Even when she was at the height of her physical fitness, she never enjoyed sprinting. After the last two months of near inactivity, she was not at her height.

Seraph had not turned off her flashlight and its light bobbed and jerked ahead of her, doing little to help her see but offering more comfort than the forgotten axe in her hand. She passed the hall with the dead monsters and kept running.

The ladder was right in front of her. She leapt, catching on to it halfway up. She dropped the axe. Blood ran down her back, mixing with her sweat. She hauled herself up the rungs and shoved against the man hold cover. It lifted, and she flung her pack through the opening and crawled after it. The cover fell back against her shoulders and pressed along her back as she pulled herself out of the sewers by her fingers. The cover was heavy and sent waves of agony through her, beating the injuries on her back, weighing down against her knees and calves, almost cutting off her feet. Then she was out.

Something slammed into the cover.

The blacktop cracked and the cover jumped up. It fell and spun on its rim before slipping back into place. Silence.

Seraph stared but nothing else happened. Whatever had been down there had been stopped dead by the magic guarding the sewer. Thank God for the department of water and sewage. Those were some really great spells. Seraph lay on the ground until she could breath again before picking her bruised body up and dragging it to the truck. Half way she stopped, turned around, and picked up her backpack, then got into her car. As she drove she idly wondered how she was going to explain herself at the hospital.

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