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Misty turns back to me, an amusing contrast in her parka, against the ominous unknown. Before I can gather my thoughts and reel in a breath, she bounds into the crevasse. This is it, maybe it is the entrance to the lab. I dash straight into its mouth. The walls are slick with moisture and soft moss. Above us is a crisscross of fallen trees, forming natural bridges. Wind curls around us, carrying ahead.

Misty slows to a trot. Beyond, the sounds of whispers fill the atmosphere, similar to the day we’d explored the East Wing. With very real twists, turns and the slow trickle of water from the sea, the possibility of us both being trapped here becomes real with each footstep forward.

Marisa.

The hissing whisper surrounds me like sound in a vacuum—distorted then childlike. That’s when I see it ahead. The crevasse leads into a natural clearing surrounded by steep rock, carving a private entrance for the cove. The story was right. There is a cove. It’s not accessible to the passing eye and if you didn’t have a nosy dog, or knowledge of where the cove’s entrance is located, there would be no easy way to find it. Above the opening are natural outcroppings of gray rocks that house dangerously angled plants and broken trees. If a heavy wind passes through, all could tumble straight into this clearing.

“Is this what you were leading me to?”

Misty huffs and paws at the ground. It isn’t really a cove, not by definition and I imagine when the tide is high, water would be carried through the crevasse, blocking any passage this way. A breath lodges in my chest. I don’t move, nor press forward. Misty starts for the entrance, looking back at me and then ahead as if telling me to follow her. I study the space before I move. One foot at a time. It opens to walls filled with scribbling writings. On the curved ceiling is another painting that matches the one in the Great Room.

We keep pressing forward, a warm feeling thrumming along my spine.

The tunnel slants downward until we meet an intersection of sorts. With the now, heavy winds at my back, I follow Misty as she leads me down the tunnel to the left veering off into the darkness with the sight only an animal could have.

“Where are we going girl?” She huffs again. Along this passageway are small tracks likely traced by the incessant footsteps of whoever treaded here. Up ahead, the sound of a metal clanking echoes, startling me to a stop. Up ahead fluorescent lighting flickers on and off. Bypassing my dog, I stride forward, entering a domed chamber with circular stairs leading to another door above. At the top, the door opens and slams shut with every swell of wind.

If there’s any truth to what Christian is looking for, and what Kieran keeps dodging. It might be in these labs. I straighten my shoulders and climb the stairs making sure Misty sticks to my side, meeting an ajar rusted industrial door. Peering around the opening shows me a pristine lab, a stark contrast to the gritty system surrounding it.

Misty squeezes through the opening, giving me the green light to proceed. Crisp stainless steel counters gleam under the glow of buzzing lights, coupled with a red glow emitting from testing equipment.

Around the lab were all glass doors, leading to various offshoots. At one end, there was an open steel door, the sound of gurgling liquid emitting from behind it.

Misty sniffs at the neatly organized shelves, stacked with gleaming vials and rows of instruments arranged in fine precision. This doesn’t feel right but I keep silent, not wanting to disturb my very own specimen I’d landed upon.

My gaze traces the various worktables landing on the only messy area in the entire lab—strewn with papers, books and used equipment. In the middle is a tape recorder. Around it are cassette tapes organized with neat labels: ‘Attempt #1 (Failed)’, ‘Attempt#2 (Failed)’, ‘Attempt #3 (Success)’ and continuing from there in increasing numbers.

I flip open the lid to the dated recorder seeing there’s a tape already in the divot. This one is labeled differently, ‘Attempt, C.V. (June 1985)’.

I press play.

There is static, then a loud clearing of the throat then a gravelly voice emerges from the speakers.

“I can’t believe I’ve done it. My son—My son, my poor son, he will live. At what costs?” The recording cuts off to the sound of a loud wail. Silence follows with intermittent crackles. The voice comes on again. “I have traveled to the Limina, seen those shallow hearts of men wandering as lost souls through a dismal life. I have seen the monstrous creatures that wander through the open skies of nothing but ash and brimstone. I have seen the Devil himself, a mighty being, prone to shift states of being.” The voice has this anachronistic cadence. Then a pause, and more static. “I had my assistance—you see, she injected me! Injected me with the venom of a serpent! Oh—but that wasn’t the best of it. It was the feeling. I’d tested this on so many people, folks without family and what not, but they’d always had the same reaction to the anti-venom or I didn’t time it well enough for them to return from the dead. No one would miss them.” The tape is cut off by a screech, one that could shatter eardrums and it cuts off.

Misty growls beside me. “It’s okay, just some creepy tapes.” There are so many remaining tapes with dates, numbers of attempts and then—the handwriting changes and numbers change to names. Unease prickles at my neck as I study the metal door ahead of me, slightly ajar as if waiting for me to enter its maw.

I turn back to the table and spot a tape that sticks out to me labeled ‘Sara’. Sara Wren? I remove the other recording and place this one in the divot. A voice I’d easily recognize sails out from the speakers, methodical and lifeless. “Components of the ritual: Offerings of pure intentions, blood of the lost souls, and of the impure. His instructions specifically say to place the offerings of pure intention, which of course is the fur of her dog and the stupid journal, within the burial site. I’ve decided to lay her in the cavern for now. The concoction should keep her between life and death for a few hours. The only question that Victor Lazarus leaves me with is: will the Immorcantem reserves be enough for this? How will I get back and forth?”

The tape cuts off, but quickly I find the second recording and press play.

“Storing the bodies in the cavern did not work out. Her casket is now a reinforced chamber of glass disposed at the bottom of Lazarus lake. My brother will now have no choice but to heed to my whims. I can’t wait to hear what he thinks...” There’s a shuffle of movement. “Here, what do you think? It’s been one month in the below. Do you think he will remember?” The sound that follows, crumbles my heart into pieces. It’s muffled shouting, coupled with the clank of chains against wood. It’s hollow. Kieran’s voice comes back to the microphone. “I’ve come up with the concoction of snake venom and Immorcantem to keep my main subject on the brink of death, long enough for me to revive him. Soul traveling. I should write a fucking book.”

This bastard has the audacity to be joyful. The tapes almost end up crushed beneath my feet, but I need evidence. I couldn’t steal them though, that would raise suspicions. I’d have to come back.

A noise echoes below in the chamber. Multiple voices. Misty’s ear perks toward the sound. I hurry to scramble the tapes into the container, looking around for a place to hide. The steel door before me is the only place that is dark and safe from being potentially found. I throw us into the room and push it closed.

Inside, darkness swallows us, only a small amount of red tinged light washes over our shapes. The towers—long cylindrical chambers that gurgles intermittently—house human-like specimens suspended in viscous liquid. The ripples and machinations of the chamber are loud enough to drown the male voices entering the lab. My stomach churns as the door to the room we were hiding in, slowly creaks open allowing the blinding fluorescent light to creep in.

“I want to make sure they’re still here.” Kieran’s tone is commanding.

Misty and I squeeze further into the crook behind the door. Both shadows then fill the doorway. Please don’t turn the lights on. I’ve had too many close calls and I’m running out of luck.

Instead, they stand there watching the specimens bob unnaturally in their chambers. The bodies are tethered by a series of tubes, all connected to a small chamber above the cylinder that collects a dark coagulated liquid. It’s blood. A dark rich blood.

“I take it that the Immorcantem is dwindling?” The unknown man questions.

“We need another hunt,” Kieran responds.