The Weight of Souls

31 The greatest of the Lords of Death

It was only a whisper but it sliced through the silence like a knife. My heart leaped into my throat and I froze.

“Taylor, are you in here?”

I swallowed. It didn't sound like the voice of a monster. Carefully I peered around the back of what appeared to be a butcher, complete with apron and cleaver in hand.

“Justin! What are you doing here?” Abandoning caution, I hurled myself past the ghastly regiments of creepily silent murderers and flung my aching body into his arms.

He wrapped himself around me and I felt his lips on my hair. When I looked up though, he was staring over my shoulder. “Is that James?” he murmured.

I nodded into his shoulder then turned. “Tamsin’s there too.”

He stiffened. “Did you know this would happen to them?”

“How could I?” I pushed my hair back with an impatient hand. “No one’s ever come out of the Darkness.” I paused and looked back at him. “How are you here?”

“I followed you.” Finally Justin tore his eyes from his old friend. “The thing that took you – the Darkness – it was disappearing, shrinking, just like a portal. I wasn't going to lose you.” His fingers tightened on my arms. “So I jumped inside. I fell a long way then landed in some sort of room, alone. I've been looking for you since. I don't know how long, it felt like days. There's no way to tell time.”

“I can't believe you followed me. That was crazy.”

“I told you, I don't want to lose you. Anyway, it was my fault you were Marked and ended up here. You think I'd let you face this, whatever it is, alone?”

I shook my head. “How is it your fault?”

His eyes flickered to James once more. “I should never have done that dare. I should have gone to the police, or told Dad about V, instead I thought I could get out with my reputation intact and they killed me. Then I touched you. So it's my fault.”

I turned his chin until our eyes met. “It isn't your fault, it's theirs.” I tilted my head towards his murderers. “You can't blame yourself for this.”

Justin's face twisted with pain. “I don't know how you can forgive me, but I'm glad.” He closed his eyes. “I just wish I had managed to close the club down.”

I squeezed him tightly. “James won't be in charge anymore; that's something.”

“Someone else will be.”

“Think about it, maybe the old network could cover up your death, write it up as an accident, but what about James, Tamsin and Harley? Their disappearances won't look good.”

“They'll have them down as runaways.”

“Perhaps. Or someone might look a bit more closely at things in the school.”

Justin nodded. “It might be enough.”

“And Pete's still out there. He might shut it down.”

Justin stepped away from me. “Why didn't you just Mark him? You wouldn't be here.”

“He's my oldest friend.” I hung my head. “I couldn't.”

“You’re not close any more.” Justin frowned.

“That's not the point. He said he joined V because he had nothing left, because I'd been a bad friend. If I'd been more honest with him and told him about our curse, he might have stayed out of it. I’ve lost Hannah now too, because I didn't trust her to believe me. I mean, Hannah, who is convinced that vampires and aliens exist. She’d have believed me if anyone would. I was so determined to suffer alone, and my friends paid for it. So maybe I deserve to be here.” I shuddered as I looked around again.

Justin clenched his fists. “That's bull, Tay. You don't deserve to be here.” He followed my gaze around the room. “Do you have any idea where we are?”

I nodded. “I've been thinking about it. I know it sounds mad, but I believe this is Nefertiti's tomb. After my ancestor returned to his family, it was swallowed up by the desert and has never been found. I think I landed in the room where Anubis destroyed the expedition.” I pointed at the lantern I had discarded. “That might even be the lantern they fought over.”

Justin closed his hand over my whitened knuckles. “Are you OK?”

I tried on a half smile. It felt uncomfortably tight. “It's selfish, but I'm better now you're here. I didn't even know you could jump into the Darkness, I thought it had to take you.”

“I don't suppose anyone has ever tried before. I'm the only one stupid enough.” His smile matched mine. Then he turned back to James. “They haven't moved. They look like zombies.”

I licked my lips. “Something’s happened to them all, they’re frozen.”

“Can we help them?” Justin took a half step towards Tamsin.

I shook my head. “I've already examined James; if he'd have been able to move, he would have.”

Justin nodded. “Alright. But whatever it is could still happen to you. We have to get out of here.”

I gripped the lantern tighter. “No one has ever come out of the Darkness. You’d think they’d have tried before they got stuck.” I pointed to the figures of James, Harley and Tamsin and my mouth was dry as bone. “I don’t even know if there’s a way out through these tunnels.”

“There has to be.” His eyes raked the tunnels. “Your power brought us here, maybe it'll get us home. Which way do you want to go?”

“It isn’t a power; it’s a curse.”

“Which way, Tay?”

I stared round at the hundreds of tunnels that spilled their darkness into the massive cavern. Some of them were above our heads, some below ground level and cut off by rough stone. They looked like laughing mouths, mocking our desire to escape with baying humour. I prayed one of the tunnels would leap out at me, that there would be a sign of some sort.

There wasn’t.

“There are so many. They all look the same.”

“Except that one.” Justin pointed to a round hole at knee level just off to my right.

I squinted at it. “I don’t see anything different.” I frowned up at him. “What do you mean?”

“Are you serious?” His eyebrows climbed into his tangled fringe. “You can’t see the light?”

“Light?” I clutched him tighter. “You can see a light?”

“Well, yeah. I wondered why you didn’t want to go that way.”

“You can see a light, but I can’t?”

He shuffled his feet.

“Alright.” I gave him some room. “You lead.”

Justin took a single step towards the hole and, as if switched on, the entire army moved: every head, all ten thousand, turned with a susurration that made me clap my hands over my ears.

A small cry escaped my lips and Justin leaped back to my side. But the army weren’t looking at us. Every one of them was gazing fixedly at a large passage on the other side of the cavern.

Carefully Justin pulled me towards him. “We shouldn't be here.” He guided me sideways towards the hole. “We need to go.”

He gave me a shove and I broke into a run. He was right. There was no way I wanted to see what was coming into the cavern.

The words of my ancestor came back to me. Oh-Fa thought he had faced the greatest of the Lords of Death. A jackal-headed monster who traded him treasure for his soul.

And now he was coming for mine.

Behind us there was a ten thousand-throated sigh but I didn’t turn. Instead, I tossed the dead lantern to one side and, with Justin at my heels, hurled myself full length into a hole that glowed with a light I couldn’t see.

The tunnel wasn’t wide enough to stand, so we had to crawl, banging our knees and shoulders. A little way in the roof lifted from my head. Carefully I crouched then stood, all the time expecting a crack on the skull that never came.

Catching my hand in his, Justin took the lead. “You still can’t see the light?”

“No,” I gasped. As far as I was aware, we were standing in the pitch dark; this tunnel no different from the one I’d arrived through. “Keep going.”

Justin drew ahead and I followed the drag of his hand, sprinting full out to keep up with his longer stride.

Then I heard a growl. It shivered through my skin and my veins trembled with the tenor of it. Immediately Justin dived left and almost wrenched my arm out of its socket. My gasp of pain cancelled my cry of fear and I fell quickly silent.

But the silence was eerie. The only noise we made was the pounding of our feet against stone; my lungs weren’t heaving, no blood roared in my ears, I wasn’t even panting. Only the burning of my calves told me I couldn’t keep the pace up forever.

Then the silence broke inside my head.

Retribution, vengeance, justice, death.

I fingers tightened on Justin’s. “Can you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Oh God.” Inside my head the voice pounded, replacing my vanished heartbeat with its own rhythm.

Retribution, vengeance, justice, death.

“It wasn’t me, I didn’t kill him,” I cried out loud and Justin swiftly pulled me into a new passage. Almost before I could regain my balance, he turned again. Then he shoved me against a wall, pressed the length of his torso to mine and held his hand over my mouth. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

“He’s in my head.” I sobbed. “He thinks I’m one of his killers. He’s coming to make me part of his army.”

Retribution, vengeance, justice, death.

My body hummed with the beat and my legs weakened. “That’s how he does it. He gets in your head. You really can’t hear him?”

Justin shook his head. “Maybe it only works on the living.”

“But I’ve got no heartbeat.” I pushed Justin’s hand to my chest. “No breath.” I raised myself so he could feel the lack of air on his cheek.

Justin nodded against my head. “So you’re suspended – like them.” He nodded back towards the cavern. “Passage through the Darkness must have done it, maybe this is another dimension or something, a place where time moves differently. You’re still alive, but one heartbeat could take a hundred years.”

Retribution, vengeance, justice, death.

I wrapped my arms tightly around him. “That voice – I already feel like I can’t run any more. If he catches me, I’ll be just like James and the others.”

I fell silent and listened desperately for the sound of clawed feet on stone.

Eventually I pressed my lips to Justin’s ear. “Do you think he’s gone? Can it work out where we’re going?”

I felt him shake his head. “I don’t know.”

Retribution, vengeance, justice, death.

I leaned my head against his blazer. “Let’s keep going, before I can’t move at all.”

“Sure?”

I tried to smile through the darkness, believing that he could see me. “We must have lost him. We’ve got to have some luck.”

Justin touched my cheek then pulled away again. “This way.”

It felt like we had been walking into blackness forever and the voice had grown faint, allowing the strength back into my limbs. That was when it struck me. “Justin, do you realise what this means?” I felt rather than saw his head turn towards me; his eyes touch my flesh with the lightest caress. “I can’t see the light, but you can. You’re dead and you’re going towards the light. You said you didn’t see it. You were worried that it wouldn’t be there for you, but here it is.”

He said nothing in reply, but if he’d had a heartbeat I was sure it would have skipped.

My legs were aching when Justin pulled me to a stop one last time. “We’re at the end.”

I squinted. “I still can’t see anything.”

Justin squeezed my hand. “This is the exit.” He caught my fingers and held them up pulling my hand forward.

“There’s nothing there.” I frowned.

“Feel with your toes.”

I inched my feet forward and the ground disappeared. I leaped back. “I’m not stepping off that.”

“You’ll have to trust me.” Justin’s voice held a slight smile. “You did before.”

My knees quivered. “Are you sure about this?”

“Course I am.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “We’ll step off together. Ready?”

“You’re already dead.”

“You’ll be fine.” He kissed me and this time his lips weren’t cold. My fingers started to wind round his neck, but he ended the kiss before I could finish the embrace. “I-I think I might have loved you,” he murmured.

With a gentle pressure he pushed me forward. I could have wriggled free and run back into the darkness. But I trusted him. I faced the front and let Justin propel me over the edge.