Chapter 17

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

The darkness that consumed me was not endless like I had thought, because I landed like a sack of bricks down a stone slope.

The crash banged my shoulder and elbow, but the corpse creature took the brunt of the impact and scattered into pieces. I slid down something that felt like a slide made of smooth stone, the adjoining walls just as slick and featureless as I tried to grab onto something. When I finally reached the bottom, I landed hip-first on more solid, cold stone, surrounded by darkness.

The only light in the endless void was the glowing eyes of a newly formed, but still rather fragile skull. The soft purple light of its eyes was fading like a dying candle, the glow only strong enough to show the grit of dirt across the ground.

I tried to look up at where I had fallen from for any signs of how far I had dropped, hoping to see a casket-shaped hole with Zane and Barnaby staring down, but there was nothing. The only thing staring back at me was more darkness, not even the faint outline of a seam.

“Zane!” I called up, panic starting to boil hot in my chest at the lack of echo. The space was small, narrow, like a grave or a cage. I stood up and reached out on either side of me, my fingers touching stone with my elbows still bent. I had maybe a foot on either side of me, and a ceiling that was only a few inches from my head.

Very narrow.

Very small.

My heartbeat was a war drum through my chest, my panting breath hung in the confined nothingness before me. Prickling fear crawled over my hairline and turned into acid in my belly, memories of fangs biting into my neck caused me to rub at my skin to force the ache away.

I fished into my pockets for my phone, ripping it free to try and summon any sort of light. The screen refused to light up, the plastic casing dented from where I’d landed on it.

Busted. Dead.

Nothing but a shattered piece of expensive garbage now.

I took a few steps to the only light source there, the fading, re-dying eyes of the mummified head.

I picked the thing up and hated how badly my hands shook, the light jumping in my grip.

“Where are we?” I demanded. “Tell me how to get out of here.”

It said nothing, not understanding me.

“Where are we, you bastard!” I felt my heart freeze as the light dimmed more. “No. No! Don’t you fucking dare die now! Tell me how to get out! Out!”

It looked at me with its haunting, deathly eyes, the pupils milky white centers in glowing jewels.

And it chuckled at a joke I couldn’t hear before the magic faded, and the skull turned to dust in my hands.

I tried not to let the final plunge into darkness make me scream, but I had to vent the frustration somehow. Old fears came out to play, nightmares breathing threats into my ears as I forced myself forward. My knees wobbled for a few steps, my breath just as unsteady, and the need to cover my neck almost paralyzing.

I felt around the stone, desperate to find anything. My fingers touched a groove in the stone, a carved-out indention that ran horizontal to the ground at shoulder level. It was my guide forward, something to hold on to while I kept my other hand clamped on the side of my neck.

There was nothing ahead of me, the total lack of light made my eyes strobe with white sparks in my peripherals as it tried to make sense of the vacuum. The smell of dry dirt clung to the back of my throat, my footsteps cannon fire in the silence. I could hear how panicked I was, my breath shaking so violently it made my eyes start to sting.

I never wanted to feel this way again. I had vowed to myself years ago I’d never feel this again, that I would die before I became that scared little kid curled up in the darkness.

I knew something would come for me. Something would get me down there, alone, in the dark, where no one could help me. Something would come crawling like it had before, something would hurt me. I cursed at myself for shaking, I hated that my cheeks were wet with tears as I marched on unsteady feet.

The fear I felt, the certainty I had that at any moment, any second, I’d feel hands grab me, teeth puncture me, made my mind race to sounds that weren’t there. I heard footsteps, panting, whispers; I smelled blood mixed with filth and carnage just out of arm’s length.

More darkness. More nothingness. And my chest started to wring itself out in crippling panic. I had nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep me grounded and alert. My head started to swim, and I suffocated on my inability to take a breath.

I was going to die down there.

I was going to die.

Again.

Again.

Darkness beyond the darkness cloaked me, the dancing white lights of my eyes trying to focus dropped away. I felt the void coming for me as my brain starved for breath, my chest gripped by icy claws that refused to let me inhale. The phantom sounds of scurrying vampires in the shadows turned into encroaching footsteps, and I heard death calling to me.

Not death.

Something else.

Something shadowy and familiar, a noise I had heard before while I lay dying.

In the void, I saw the shadow I had met before, standing like a beacon. I remembered then, as my heartbeat started to slow, my mind fogged with the complacent chill of dying, that I had met that shadow after seeing the Goddess. It had stroked my brow and brought me back, it had kissed me while my soul swam through the endless abyss.

It was speaking to me now, eyes glowing, coming for me.

I had never felt more relieved.

I ran toward the shadow with the glowing eyes, grabbing it with both hands as it scooped me up into its embrace. I held it tight, the shadow that had pulled me from the void, kept me safe, kept me from plunging too far into the darkness, my lungs finally unfreezing so I could gulp down air.

The fog around me eased, my heart thundered, and I inhaled a full breath with arms thrown around me.

I felt its heartbeat, strong and fast, and I thought how strange it was that a shadow from the void had a heartbeat. I thought it was charming.

When I breathed in grave flowers and earthy rainwater, I thought I was going insane.

“Zane?” I looked up at the red embers in the dark that watched me. I saw his brows lower, gaze searching mine.

“Who did you think it was?”

I blinked at him, my head starting to hurt. I felt his hands smooth over my scalp, searching for injuries.

“Did you hit your head? Are you hurt?”

“It was you,” I whispered, mesmerized by how familiar it felt to feel his fingers brush over my forehead. “You were the shadow that guided me through the void.”

“That’s my purpose, hunter.” Zane gave my shoulders and arms a quick pat-down for any bones sticking out. “Though I didn’t know I was a shadow when you’re in the void.”

“I’m so confused right now.” I dared to shut my eyes for a second to rub at them, but kept one hand gripping his jacket to make sure he didn’t vanish. “I’m terrified you’re not real.”

“I’m real. You’re okay.”

“How did you find me?” I asked, trying to scrub the tears away from my vision. When he pulled me into another hug, I didn’t fight it. My ego was left back at the crypt, staying behind once I fell into the darkness.

Zane held me close, hand resting at the base of my skull while I clung to him.

“I can always find you,” he promised me. “Always.”

I nodded into his shoulder. Somehow, he knew I was thanking him. I could feel it.

“I want out of here,” I whispered. “Please get me the fuck out of here.”

“I will. There’s a doorway up ahead, we’ll head that way and navigate our way through.”

“You can see?”

“Yes.” His brows lifted, like it was a weird question to ask. “Vampires can see in the dark, hunter.”

“Oh. Right.” I rubbed at my forehead. “I knew that.”

Zane chuckled, which made me follow him more out of relief than any actual humor-related reason. I was still trying to climb out of the pit of fear that I had been in just moments previously, fresh from a panic attack and still a little shaky. My poor brain was fumbling with reconnecting wiring that was fried from terror, childhood trauma and unpacking that Zane had been my shadowy guide?—

“Wait a fucking second.” I pulled back from his hug and stared up at him. “Did we make out?”

A flashlight beam shone right in my face as Barnaby raced down the hallway, panting from sprinting full force through the underground tunnel.

“Gods and Saints, Dallas Wilde, you scared the living soul from my body!” Barnaby managed around his gasping, light still annoyingly in my face. “Didn’t you hear us calling for you?!”

“Hey, Barns.” I winced, blocking my vision from his flashlight. “You mind lowering your interrogation light, please?”

“I thought you were dead! Or at least lost. Gods.” He put his hand to his chest and lowered his beam. “I see you’re in one piece, which is fortunate. That gives me permission to kick you in the ass the moment we’re out of here. You did not mention we’d be crawling through an underground maze for this key.”

“Didn’t know that was part of the plan.” I eased away from Zane and pointed back the way Barnaby came. “How the hell did you get down here? I thought it sealed up behind me after I dropped.”

“Oh, it did.” Barnaby aimed the light at Zane’s chest. “This one ripped the damn trap door off its hinges and ran after you, leaving me behind. I had to traverse this alone.”

I looked at Zane, who pushed Barnaby’s flashlight down so it stopped shining in his face.

“Ah.” I ignored the little warm butterflies in my chest at knowing Zane destroyed a Goddess’s altar for me. “Can we get back out that way?”

“No, it’s too slick to climb back through. It’s a steep slope from the mausoleum to the bottom.” Barnaby scanned the walls with his light. “We have to keep pressing ahead.”

“Great.”

“There’s a doorway down the hallway,” Zane told Barnaby. “Can you lead the way with your flashlight?”

“Hold on a second.” Barnaby traced the groove in the wall with his light, swinging the beam across to examine a matching groove on the other side. “I think this is something.”

“Barns, I don’t want to be an asshole, but I really want to get out of here,” I told him as gently as I could. “I don’t like being in dark, narrow places.”

“I think this might fix one of those problems.” The light in his hand switched places as he patted himself down on either side, finally extracting a tiny compact with a floral print of penises across the top. Barnaby popped it open to reveal a small, round mirror on the inside.

“What are you doing?” Zane asked.

“Why do you have a pocket penis mirror?” I asked.

“I’m testing a theory, and because I like it.” Barnaby positioned his flashlight at an angle, moving his mirror to reflect the light off its surface. “When I was reading about the Silent Steps, the researchers discussed that while they were building the now decommissioned temple of the Goddess, the building was lit using a very old form of magic. They didn’t want to use fire, you see, because it would throw off too much heat and they worried it would ruin the tapestries.”

I watched the fussy incubus aim the reflected flashlight beam across the wall, running it along the carved-out groove.

“What sort of magic?”

“Very old, fae magic,” he said as a line of silver fire trailed down the groove like liquid, illuminating one side all the way down to the archway ahead of us. The light traveled like mercury, sliding ahead before defying gravity by looping up and over the stone archway, following the groove to the other side. It raced past us, lighting the way we had come.

In a blink, the darkness was gone, and a heatless, ancient fire burned with the splendor of fiery glass on either side of us.

“A trick of the light,” Barnaby said with a smile.

Zane was smirking, clearly impressed, and he gave Barnaby a brotherly clap on the shoulder for a job well done.

It was my turn to praise him by admitting, “Alright, Barns. That was kinda badass.”

“You can thank the ancient fae and historians for that trick.” Barnaby clicked off his flashlight and tucked it into his bag, then pocketed his little penis mirror. “I’m just very good at following directions.”

“How long will it burn?” I asked.

“According to the book, we have a few hours, then it’ll go dark.”

“Let’s keep moving,” Zane urged us forward. “I’d rather not test the time limit on fae fire.”

We followed the lit pathway through the archway, the connecting room shrouded in darkness. Barnaby repeated the trick of the light on some braziers next to the door, which caused a chain reaction across the room similar to the hallway. Instead of just trailing down a thin stream of silver light, it crawled up to bring several torches to life three stories up.

As more light came into being, we realized quickly that we weren’t in a small cavern underground, but a massive, stacked crypt with centuries of skeletons tucked into alcoves. We stood in the middle of a pillar-shaped grave, rounded walls lined with the upright bodies of what I could only assume were necromancers. Tattered robes and worn-away clothing hung from their forms, jaws kept in place by a black ribbon that circled their heads. By each of their feet, a ceramic vase sat in obedient silence, painted with thick, horizontal stripes with inverted triangles drawn through the bottom.

There had to have been two hundred skeletons staring down, watching us with eyeless stares of judgment.

That was enough to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, but the finishing touch to the creepiness was what was waiting at the farthest wall.

I had seen that statue of the Goddess before, the resemblance from Omar’s museum back in St. Athesall almost a one for one of the real thing. In the center of the crypt was the black statue of the mother of death, her features stunning instead of worn away and faded with weathering. I could see the fine lines of her eyelashes, each strand of her hair around the bony crown, the sharpness of her scythe blade against her chest.

She watched us with unseeing eyes, arm outstretched to command her army, which looked to be all around us. Even the matching, painted vases containing all of her Thralls’ ashes were placed just right, waiting to be summoned back to life.

At the base of her impressive altar was something that wasn’t part of Omar’s reconstruction. No doubt he didn’t know about its existence, or thought it was just a legend. An ornate stone base sat at her feet with small platforms raised along the top. Five skulls sat facing forward, a tapestry draped over the stone where their heads rested.

Each skull had its own banner and a circlet made from carved ivory latticed with prayers.

“I am not a fan of this place,” I told my little adventuring party. “This is a lot of necromancers just waiting to pop back to life.”

“Can they do that?” Barnaby scanned each floor of standing corpses. “Can they just…wake back up on their own?”

“I fucking hope not.” I put my hand on my knife and wished like hell I’d figured out how to get more life magic before falling down there. “That would suck.”

“This is the necromancy council,” Zane told us, his voice soft with awe. “There hasn’t been a Thrall born in the past century who has seen this place.”

“Consider this your birthday present then.” I tilted my chin up at the standing audience all around us. “Those little containers next to their feet. Are those…?”

“Their Thralls, yes. Either their favorite, or the one with them when they died.”

“And the bigger ones?” Barnaby dared to try and peek into one, touching the covering over the top.

“Barns, don’t touch it!” My voice echoed up the tall chamber, a little more dramatic than I intended. “That’s the Goddess’s Thralls. I don’t think anything can come back to life, but let’s not fuck with our luck today.”

“She had a lot of Thralls, it seems.” Barnaby forced his hands into his pockets to keep from touching anything else.

“Perks of being a goddess. You can make more playthings whenever you want.” I kept my knife in hand as I approached the skulls near the base of the altar. Their toothy grins seemed almost mocking. “These are the five council heads, aren’t they?”

“They are,” Zane confirmed, following beside me. “Each one spoke for the Goddess in their time. They would pass judgment and set laws, guide necromancers to follow the tenants of the Goddess.”

“Fancy.” I eyed the fabric under each skull, recognizing that they listed out a word I couldn’t read. “Hey, Barns? You know what these say?”

“Their names,” Zane answered instead. “I don’t know which is which, but if I remember correctly their names are Nex, Mors, Leti, Pereo and…ah. Damn. I can’t remember the last one.”

In the chilly stillness of the crypt, standing before the heads of the necromancy council, under the vacant eyes of the Goddess, surrounded by the loyal acolytes of their cult, snickering started echoing up the walls. One voice, then two, goading little chuckles trailed up and swirled in the air around us.

I stepped back, gripping my knife, Zane curling his fists beside me. Barnaby held his bag strap tight with both hands and stuck behind us, trying to find the source of the noise.

The laughter was joined by another giggle, before a long, annoyed sigh undercut the mocking sounds of merriment.

“It’s Funus,” a voice announced, irritation dripping from each word. “My name is Funus.”

It didn’t take us long to figure out where the voice had been coming from after Funus made his name known, because the other skulls on the altar began laughing their non-existent asses off. Three out of five skulls had their jaws bouncing from laughter, only the two at the farthest left side remained stoney. One of which was Funus, who rolled glowing, yellow orbs that sat in his eye sockets.

“It’s not that funny, you simpletons,” Funus growled.

“Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve been able to laugh,” a woman’s voice came from one of the skulls on the right, her eyes glowing icy blue. “It’s even better that it gets to be at Funus’s expense.”

“Hundreds of years waiting for a new disciple and this is how it kicks off? What a state we’re in,” Funus complained.

“Oh relax, old friend,” said another male voice, eyes orange. “You’d be laughing too if it was one of us he forgot.”

Funus grumbled in defense that he absolutely would not have, but it didn’t sound very sincere.

“Alright, everyone, that’s enough,” a fatherly voice soothed, pink eyes swiveling to his neighboring skulls. “Let’s get back into character.”

“Don’t be shy, young lad, step up.” The only other skull that hadn’t laughed with the group watched us with green eyes, her voice matronly and commanding. “You’re in the presence of the council of the Goddess. Speak your name.”

“I’m Dallas Wilde,” I told the council, sheathing my knife and placing it back into my pocket. “I’m going to assume you’re not going to try and kill us while we’re here?”

“Not much we can do in this state, my boy,” the pink-eyed skull said with a warm chuckle. “Unless you stick your fingers in Leti’s mouth.”

Leti chattered his jaw, orange eyes amused.

“Step up, child, step up. When did these new disciples get so timid?” the green-eyed woman chided.

I glanced at Zane, who shrugged, and we approached the altar with Barnaby inching along with us.

“He’s not timid, Mors. He’s cautious.” The other female voice with the blue eyes gave us each a long once-over. “A warrior from the looks of it. How devastatingly interesting.”

“Oh, Pereo, for the love of the Goddess,” Mors scolded. “I don’t see how you can flirt without a damn pelvis.”

“Sweet Mors, there are more things I can do without the hindrances of a pelvis. Some of us have imagination.”

“I can see the red-eyed creature beside you is your Thrall, disciple Dallas Wilde, but who else do you bring with you?” Leti asked, causing everyone’s gaze to land on Barnaby.

“This is Barnaby. He’s a friend.”

A long beat of quiet stretched, their eyes moving from Barnaby to me, then to each other in confused judgment.

“A historian, translator, and collector of fine artifacts,” Barnaby added with a small bow.

“And those things,” I tacked on. “He’s the one that solved the mural in the tomb above us.”

“A historian!” Funus swung his yellow gaze to Barnaby. “Goddess, I have so many questions about how things ended up. I haven’t been able to read any news since well…dying, which is rather inconvenient. And that was a good two hundred years ago.”

“It’s more like four now, I’m afraid,” Barnaby corrected. “You’ve been dead for some time now.”

“Four! Well, that is disappointing. What ever happened with that uppity little prince that tried to claim the territory to the east?”

Barnaby’s eyes lit up at the question, but before he could verbally pounce, his thunder was stolen.

“They’ve clearly come here with a mission in mind, Funus. They don’t have time for you to prattle on about the politics of the mortal world.” Mors rolled her green eyes. “Nex, could you please get us back to the matter at hand?”

“You’ll have to excuse Funus,” the pink-eyed skull, Nex, said apologetically. “He doesn’t get a chance to hear about current affairs these days. Speak, child. What brings you to the council of the Goddess?”

“I’ve come seeking the Goddess’s key,” I told the undead council. “We know it’s somewhere here within the crypt.”

“Key?” Nex mused. “What an interesting request.”

“Do you know anything about a key, Leti?” Pereo moved her eyes to her neighbor.

“Can’t say I do.”

“Are you sure it’s a ‘key,’ young man?” Mors quizzed. “We’ve no key here at the council.”

“Everything we’ve read and researched says that the Goddess’s key is down here. It’s an artifact that houses some of the Goddess’s power.” I watched the skulls glance at each other, impossible to tell if they were being shady since they had no facial expressions to read.

“I think something must have gotten tangled up linguistically,” Funus said. “It isn’t a “key” in the literal sense.”

“Ssh, Funus,” Leti hushed. “They’re supposed to figure it out on their own.”

“They’ve figured out how to get down here and seek the council, the first group to do so in a few hundred years, Leti,” Funus shot back. “They’re so close, it’s driving me mad.”

“And what would you need this artifact for exactly?” Nex asked, the eyes of the council upon us.

“Do not lie to us, child,” Mors warned. “We are the eyes of the Goddess.”

The line of question was most definitely a trap, or a test, to make sure I was worthy of grabbing the key—whatever it may be. All my years battling and defeating necromancers had taught me that the majority of them were self-centered, ego-inflated maniacs with the deeply rooted drive to destroy life. They turned innocent people into vampires, wreaked havoc on towns, and tore apart lives.

All of them were evil bastards, each and every single one.

I knew that the council must be more of the same, only much more powerful and ancient. They wouldn’t be reasoned with or understand mercy, which meant I would need to trick them somehow, or start hurling skulls to get my point across.

“Hunter,” Zane spoke, pulling my attention away from the judgment of the glaring skulls. “Remember what I told you about Sandros?”

“Yeah?”

Zane nodded to the council. “He followed their teachings devoutly.”

That was a nice curve ball to throw at me in the middle of trying to navigate a high-pressure test from a gathering of powerful heads. It left me staring at him like a confused badger ready to bite someone, and I felt like going feral while my mind raced.

“Your Thrall is trying to guide you, young disciple,” Nex said. “He speaks true.”

“I thought his name was Dallas’?” Pereo whispered loudly to Leti.

“Tell them the truth,” Zane told me, red eyes bright in the mirror light all around us. “They’ll understand.”

I wasn’t so sure the council of the Goddess was going to be keen on the idea that I wanted their holy artifact in order to destroy it. It kinda seemed like their entire existence revolved around not only guiding newbie necromancers and being creepy in a hidden tomb, but also protecting a very sacred piece of their deity.

It seemed like a shit idea to lay all that out in the hopes that the necromancy council of the Death Goddess were the type to see reason.

Zane hadn’t let me down yet, not about anything important. Sure, he let a vampire bite me a few days ago, and he thought it was hilarious when his stupid cat threw up in my shoes. But he had raced through the dark for me. He had saved me more than once.

He was a good bodyguard, a better friend.

I trusted him.

I pulled a strong breath in to make me feel bigger than I was.

“I want to destroy it,” I told them. “I came here to find the artifact and make sure no one else can find it and wield it. There are forces at play here, people who are after it that have no plans of doing anything remotely good with it. No one should have the ultimate power over death.”

Five sets of eyes moved back and forth between themselves, the silence deafening as we awaited their answer.

“Bold of you to come here just to ask for destruction,” Mors finally spoke. “You stand before the council, promising to defile the blessing of our Goddess.”

“Not defile,” I confirmed. “Just make sure it doesn’t end up in the wrong hands.”

“And it’s safe in your hands?” Nex offered.

“God, no,” I said with a laugh. “I don’t want it. I don’t even want to be a necromancer. This shit was an accident. I hunt vampires for a living and offed this guy’s necromancer.” I jerked a thumb to Zane. “I ended up with his powers and this bozo.”

“Oh, my Goddess,” Zane mumbled, shutting his eyes like I was giving him a migraine.

“What?? You said to be honest!”

“About the artifact, you jackass.”

“You didn’t fucking specify!”

“Hold on a moment,” Nex chimed in, his father voice on full display. “You…hunt vampires and kill necromancers?”

“Yeah, well. Kinda.” I rubbed at the prickling feeling that I messed up that trailed down the back of my neck. “Just the asshole ones that torment people. I mainly freelance as a regular assassin and fish trainer now.”

“A what?” Funus asked, eyes floating to Barnaby.

“He claims he can train fish to do tricks. I haven’t seen it personally,” Barnaby whispered, like an unhelpful twit.

“Is this some sort of…joke? Or test?” Pereo asked, desperately unsure of the situation.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot here.” I rubbed at my eyes, the sinking feeling I had overshared made me feel exhausted. “May I approach the bench?”

“What bench?” Mors whispered, everyone now fully confused. I stepped over to the council’s altar, all sets of eyes glued to me.

I continued, “I was telling the truth about what I am and why I’m here, because I don’t have any reason to hide that from you. I hunt down those who use the Goddess and her teachings to hurt people. I don’t know what it was like when you were mortal, what the religion was for you back then, but now it’s vicious. They…hurt people. They steal kids and feed them to mindless vampires they raise from the dead. They destroy lives and corrupt corpses. It has to stop. I need to stop it.”

Mors’s eyes filled with sorrow. “I see the darkness in your soul. I see the hurt in your eyes.”

“How awful,” Leti whispered. “Have we really become such monsters?”

“Hurting children? Raising vampires from the dead?” Pereo sounded like she wanted to weep, but didn’t have the means to do so.

“The state of things,” Funus mourned.

“Dallas Wilde,” Nex summoned, pink eyes searching me. “Come close to me. Place your hand upon my skull.”

“What are you after, Nex?” Mors’s eyes rotated his way.

“Answers.” Nex gazed up at me as I approached.

“If I touch you, are you going to curse me or turn me into a ghoul or something?” I asked. “Because I have so much shit to do, Nex.”

“I do not trick, mortal. I only guide.”

My palm came to rest at the top of his skull, the bone cold against my skin. He had been dead so long that there was nothing left of his mortal form, no hair or leathery skin to show any signs of what he must have looked like. All that remained was bone and magic.

Nex’s pink vision vanished into a darkness I knew as windows to the void, endless nothingness that lasted forever through his sockets. I felt it ripple, felt my chest knock like the stick rotated clockwise before getting stuck again.

I heard a whisper I wasn’t sure was real, and I gasped a breath as Nex’s eyes flared back into a pink with an intensity that bordered on neon.

“Child,” he said, watching me with awe. “You have quite the journey ahead of you.”

“What did you see, Nex?” Mors asked quickly, bordering on frantic. “What did she say?”

It was my turn to sound a little frantic. “She?”

“Yes.” Nex’s eyes softened. “The Goddess has been watching you, Dallas Wilde.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Council.” Nex moved his eyes left to right, making sure his fellow members were paying attention. “We are to guide her blade through the path.”

“Are you certain , Nex?” Mors prodded. “Without a doubt?”

“I am certain.”

“The blade,” Pereo breathed. “I always hoped I’d see it. That’s the reason I joined the council, you know.”

“And they said being dead in a crypt for hundreds of years would be boring!” Leti gave a hoot of laughter.

“I would kill to be able to write again,” Funus complained. “This needs to be documented for history and I so miss the smell of ink.”

“Can someone fill me in on what’s going on?” I interrupted the excitement. “Does the blade have something to do with the key we’re looking for?”

“Very much so, disciple.” Nex watched me carefully. “We’ll make sure you get what it is you seek.”

Relief filled my chest for the first time in I didn’t know how long. Finally, something was working out as planned. We had been bossed around by a terrifying health guru, sent on a mission that made us trek through a creepy cemetery, gone through a black hole of hell, and ended up face to face with the undead council. And for once, it wasn’t a trap, a dead end or something that caused one of us to walk away with holes punched through us.

I’d call that I win. One we damn well deserved.

“That is, of course,” Mors spoke up, popping my feel-good bubble. “If you can pass the trial.”