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The overwhelming desire to feel his arms around me welled up in my chest. That was something else I’d learned to do without: physical touch, the comfort of an embrace, the intimacy of holding another’s hand. Over the last few years, the only times I’d let myself get physically close to another was if we intended to fuck. Sex was vulnerable enough, but allowing myself the intimacy of simple physical contact was far more intense.
I took a deep breath and turned left up the trail. The last place I should have been looking for comfort was in the arms of a demon.
The trees hung low over the path, their roots coiled out of the ground, and I had to move carefully to avoid tripping. As cold raindrops began to fall, the forest grew silent. As if it had taken a breath and held it, the air was tense. I kept an eye out beneath the trees, watching carefully for any unusual signs of movement. The Eldbeasts didn’t usually come out during the day, but there were other things that could come hunting us.
Something crunched under my foot and I paused. Crushed on the forest floor was a trinket, made of twigs bound together into a triangle with twine. I picked it up, turning over the broken pieces in my hand. Tiny fish bones had been interwoven in the twine, and little notches were cut into the branches.
“My grandpa used to make these,” I said. “He’d hang them around the porch and the barn. Said they’d protect the horses.”
“They’re about as useful as burning a candle to cover the smell of a corpse,” Zane said.
I dropped the trinket and kept moving, but I soon noticed more of them in the trees. Just a few here and there, at first. But soon, there were dozens, dangling down from the low boughs overhead, and Zane had to duck beneath them. They swayed in the breeze, the sound of the twigs knocking against each other strangely eerie in the quiet forest.
The trail flattened, and I stopped abruptly. “There,” I said. “There it is.”
The White Pine shaft was ahead. Set into the hillside, the old boards that framed it were stained with age and burned with markings: odd runes, not unlike the scars on my chest. A faded sign was pounded into the ground beside it, readingCaution: Open Mine Shaft. The opening was boarded up, but the boards nailed across it were clearly newer than the frame: they were pale and rough, with no rust on the nails.
It had been opened recently, likely when they threw Marcus’s body down.
Sickening dread wrapped its hands around my throat as we got closer. Cold air seeped from between the boards, icy enough to bring goose bumps to my skin. It smelled like wet stones, like ocean brine and mold. Zane began to break the boards, and as he did, another smell rushed in my nose.
It was sickly sweet, instantly tugging at my gag reflex. The smell of rotting flesh.
Zane peered down into the dark, his lip curled. “Can’t say I’ve ever wanted to be this close to a God. This place is…” He snorted. “Well, frankly this place is vile.”
Vilewas putting it mildly.
As the rain fell harder, I prepared my climbing gear. The shaft had been destroyed by the mine’s flooding, the path down mostly eroded. What remained was a short, steep, muddy slope that abruptly fell into the water below. I could remember sliding in the mud, trying to find traction, digging my fingers into the dirt but still slipping down, down —
I shook my head. No thoughts, just actions. No emotions, just survival.
“Juniper.”
“What?” I raised my head, but Zane frowned at me. I insisted, “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
I moved faster. I couldn’t let my courage be shaken now. I tied my rope to a large stone outside the shaft and ensured my harness was secure. I avoided looking down into the dark, and tried not to contemplate what it would be like to rappel down. I clipped my light onto my jacket, tested the rope one last time, and said, “When we find him, you’ll have to carry him. I’m not strong enough.”
Zane nodded, stretching his arms over his head. “Right-o.” He leaned into the shaft, looked down into the dark with an expression of resigned distaste. He inhaled deeply, and said, “Ah, the sweet scent of putrefaction.”
Then he leaped down, disappearing into the dark.
“Don’t think,” I murmured. “Just don’t think.” I held tight to the rope, keeping it taut as I backed toward the shaft. If I looked too closely at the old wooden frame, I’d find my own nail marks in the wood. If I thought about it too long, I’d hear my own screams echoing in the trees.
My throat was so tight, my tongue like dry cotton. My feet found the edge and I was balancing on it, the darkness at my back. The darkness of my nightmares.
I eased back over the edge, and down.
I let the rope out slowly as I moved. Just one step at a time. The darkness closed in quickly, my light illuminating the smooth, muddy slope in front of me. I found the drop-off at the end, and with a slow, shaking breath, I rappelled down the rest of the way.
I landed in a few inches of water. Most of the cavern was filled with it. I unhooked my harness, leaving the rope to dangle there until I returned. Zane had already made his way across the water and was inspecting the branching shafts that led away from the cavern. He didn’t have any cheerful, sarcastic greeting for me, and his silence heightened my nerves.
I gave my rope one last tug to reassure myself it was still secure. But as I did, I noticed something sticking out of the dirt wall it dangled against. I frowned as I plucked it from the mud. Thin...almost translucent...the color of bone…
A fingernail.
I dropped it instantly, nauseated. The air was heavy, the crushing weight of the earth around me making my skull prickle with claustrophobia. I waded across the water, lifting my guns to keep them dry. The water didn’t feel as cold as I’d thought it would, but that didn’t make it any better. Its lukewarm temperature felt oddly sinister.
