Chapter 197

Chapter 197

Either he cut the rope on his own, or something cut it for him.

I was already moving before the realization fully registered. Even a half-second hesitation could be the difference between life and death. I needed to get in there. Now. Updated from novelbIn.(c)om

Reading my intent, Halima placed herself between me and the ripple. Her face was drawn and pale but her mouth was set. Our orders were explicit.

Get out of my way. I growled.

Below her, her small bush-with-legs summon looked back and forth between us, collateral caught in the crossfire of a detonating team dynamic. Talia squared off with it, and the bush-thing cowered.

Halima, dont Keith tried.

The Ceaseless Knight She cutoff, hand gripping her hilt tighter as I ignored her and attempted to walk around, and she shuffled in front of me.

Move! I reached out to shove Halima out of the way. Instead of engaging, she danced backward, taking a much more serious stance.

Interesting. Not like Keith. Much more experienced, despite the social naivety. She was fully prepared for this to come to blows.

Go back to the entrance. I tried again.

Not without you.

I threw back my head and laughed, then fixed her with an icy stare. Okay. Fine. We can do this the hard way. But you better be ready to kill me.

It doesnt have to come to that Halima started.

Yes, it does. For your sake

I took another step forward. Halima wasnt much shorter than me, but when you were standing within spitting distance of another person the inches really added up. She didnt budge, but the fire in her eyes grew uncertain.

Because if your little obstruction here costs me the time I need to save Nick? I wont report it to Hastur. Or Sunny. Or Aaron. I wont report it at all. In retrospect, youll realize what a massive fucking blunder you made. And youll wonder why there were no consequences. In the meantime, everything around youyour every dream, desireanything you care about will fail. Everything you touch, turned to ruin.

Youre posturing. Yes, you might be further along and have a special class, but youre just another User. Halima said. It sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

I leaned forward, looking straight ahead, and whispered just loud enough for her to hear. If you really believe that, why dont you head over to region six. Ask them if fucking with me was worth it.

I breathed out.

Dirt scattered as the face rotated forcefully, parallel protrusions of its mouth parting to reveal flat, horse-like teeth. Still mostly covered in dirt, the mouth snapped several times, its teeth clicking together in a hollow snap.

There was a chorus of snaps that followed from either side, as several surrounding faces replied in kind.

Talia tensed beside me, but after the short echo of chattering, the faces fell dormant again.

Something odd about that response. Felt instinctual, like something an animal or insect would do.

I flicked a piece of moist dirt towards the mouth. Watched it bounce off the creatures cheek. The direct hit elicited no reaction. After a few seconds, a split tongue emerged from its mouth, cleaning the surface of its face in a practiced, clocklike motion, knocking the dirt free.

I replayed the events in my head, coming to an inevitable conclusion. Whatever these things were, they triggered on sound.

I stood slowly, panning the subterranean until I found what I was looking for. A cluster of holes, each big enough to house a small body. As Id noted earlier, Nick wasnt built for stealth. His armor would have given him away immediately if he was moving. Talia fell in line behind me as we tread carefully, following the trail of holes, noting scuffled footprints in the mud.

We passed by a thick trunk of inverted oak and found the source of the trail.

There were a dozen of them, maybe more. Now that I had a better look, their pale skin looked far closer to the mandrakes wed killed on the surface than a humans. Still-their anatomy wasnt far off, though it gave the feel of something prehistoric. They had giant hands and feet, and a vicious curve in their spines that gave them the look of something that was always hunched over. And like that first face in the dirt, they had no eyes or indents for them, everything from their forehead to their noses a smooth line of flesh.

Cavefiend.

Several held Nick down. Given the two dead cave fiends, bleeding black blood into the dirt beside him, they werent taking any chances. Nick was on his back, each arm and leg pinned in place by several cave-fiends, an endless number of pallid hands and fingers with too many knuckles keeping him flat against the ground.

One dug its fingers into his throat, keeping him from calling out. Another cave fiend, larger than the rest, stood over Nick. It was trying to pry his mouth open. I solved the mystery of why with a glance at the circle of rope hanging on the cavefiends filthy belt, and the small pieces of pink flesh that hung from that rope like macabre ornaments.

Trophies that looked very much like tongues.

I wasnt able to save Jinny. It was a failure I still carried with me. Her death happened too quickly, the wound too decisive. But this was different. These motherfuckers had made a critical error. Instead of killing their prey immediately, they intended to toy with it instead.

The feeling of helplessness disappeared, consumed by something raw, something visceral.

Something feral.

I snapped.