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Chapter fifteen
TORY
Weststaredatme for a moment longer, and the silence hung heavily in the air. Finally, he blinked.
“Right, yes. Surrounded... again. Okay... Okay. We’re going to move ahead, same configuration as last time. Lady Victoria, can you walk a bit farther? If I remember correctly, there are some rooms farther ahead, and once we get to a more defensible position than the tunnels, we can get you fed and healed.”
Healed, that sounded good, and my mouth watered at the thought of feeding from one of them again. I looked up at West and nodded. “I can walk, but I don’t know how fast I can go.”
“Just do your best. Davenport, take up the rear. Wesley, stick close to her in case she needs help. Zayn, you’re with me.”
We headed off down the tunnel. After a hundred metres or so, the tunnel bent away around a corner, and I pulled up with a gasp as we rounded the bend. Dark, rotting bodies lay everywhere. They were the hatay West and Zayn had fought while we had waited for them. Black pools of fluid seeped out over the floor, and through the disgust, I felt a quick flash of anger that they were desecrating my home. I blinked at the thought, and it was gone as soon as it had passed through my mind. I supposed if I was truly this goddess, then this had been my home. I stepped carefully over the bodies, one hand on the wall to steady me, the other pressing Jack’s shirt to my side. I glanced back at him, admiring the view of his slim, toned body. Whatever had happened with West, that growing desire hadn’t quite faded. I realised the more blood I lost, the more I thirsted for it, like my body was driving me to do what would heal it. As crazy as the whole situation seemed, I realised I needed to trust it and go with it.
I looked down at the hatay, trying to bring my thoughts back to the present. I paused for a moment, attempting to catch my breath. I was struggling now, and even though we hadn’t travelled far, I felt weary. The bodies at my feet were all different. A couple were humanoid like the last, but the others looked like deformed creatures, like a child had pulled apart models of animals and stuck them all back together again incorrectly. There were lizard-like creatures with human hands and feet, and one that looked like a large dog, but with a mouth that took up most of its head, full of rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth. The fear started to rise again, knowing more of these things were after us, surrounding us. Wesley saw me pause and came back a couple of steps.
“You okay?”
“I... Er... Yes, I’m okay.”
He saw through me instantly and held out his hand. It wasn’t to drag me or hold me up, just for some simple comfort and reassurance, and I took it. His hand was warm compared to the cool air of the tunnels, and I realised I was shivering. We walked hand in hand through the bodies. The stench of the rot was rising through the air, and I gagged a couple of times before we reached the end of the passageway. An archway rose before us, its ancient wooden door rotted and hanging from its hinges at an odd angle.
The new tunnel was narrower, and thankfully free of hatay, though the stench seemed to get stronger as we moved down it.
“Here!” West exclaimed suddenly. He’d stopped at a door that stood almost closed. West took hold of the edge, shaking it a little to make sure it was sturdy. Raising his guns, he kicked the door wider and stepped into the room. “Fuck!”
He stepped back out again, turned, and was violently sick a few steps from the door.
“What in Duat?” Zayn muttered, stepping forward to the doorframe. He immediately pulled his scarf up over his mouth and nose, muttering something in Arabic.
Morbidly curious at what could have made West react that way, I moved slowly up to the doorway and looked through. Taking my hand from Wesley’s and clapping it over my nose and mouth, I stared in horror at what lay beyond. The room wasn’t huge, but it had once been a bedroom, maybe for a priest or another worker from the temple. We passed a few on our way, and this looked similar. This one, however, was occupied. Bodies were piled high inside the room, all in various states of decay, and the stench was unbearable. My eyes watered, and I looked up at West who had come and stood behind us.
“What—who are these people?” I asked. “What happened here? Are they mummies?”
Zayn shook his head. “These are fresh corpses. They have been here a few weeks at most. Look.” He gestured to the floor where a rucksack lay, its contents spilled out on the floor. Among them was a mobile phone with a cracked screen, a bottle of sunblock, and an empty water bottle.
“West, look at their chests,” Wesley murmured. West nodded and stepped back. Zayn did too, pulling the door shut on the carnage that lay beyond.
“What’s wrong with their chests?” I asked Wesley, but it was Zayn who answered. “Their chests have been opened, their ribs pulled apart, and their hearts have been removed. There’s not much blood on the floor or the walls, so I’m assuming it didn’t happen there.”
“That’s what the bloodstains were,” West stated grimly.
“Why would someone rip their hearts out?” I queried, steadying myself on the nearest wall as a wave of nausea rolled through me.
Wesley leaned against the wall next to me. “The hatay feed on souls and divine flesh. It’s how they survive. For you and for us, they would devour us completely, but for humans, the only thing that would give them any sustenance is the heart. It’s where the soul resides,” he explained.
I frowned. “But what if someone has a heart transplant? Does their soul get taken out of their body early? What happens to it?”
“Well, funny you should ask. I made a study of that in a previous life when the first transplant was conducted, and I have a theory that the soul senses when the heart is dying, and I think it sinks into the surrounding flesh, meaning that when a transplant occurs, it can sink into the new one.”
“But what about—”
“Enough,” West interrupted firmly. “This is neither the time nor place for this. We need to find somewhere to hole up as soon as we can, and I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer it wasn’t here.”
“How did they get in?” Jack questioned suddenly.
West turned to him. “I don’t know, but we’ll find the way out.”
“Not where, how. That’s a lot of bodies, but they are all only a few weeks old. So we’re expected to believe a new entrance just opened up and thirty or so tourists magically discovered it and fell in?”
