Chapter 4
Mythos
"What do you mean by that?" Said the caterpillar sternly, "explain yourself!"
"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid sir," said Alice "because I'm not myself, you see."
"I don't see." said the Caterpillar.
...
"I saw your missing person's board. Almost all of them are women…there has to come a point where you have to admit you might have missed something."
That's what Luz had told him.
Hunter blinked hard as he took a sip of his coffee and opened another manila folder. The woman that was smiling at him in her photo had gone missing almost a year ago to this day. She had long brown hair and green eyes and black glasses with square frames.
Have you seen me?
Amelia Aguilar
Hunter remembered her, she was a 32-year-old sea kayaker from Seattle and a middle school music teacher. She had come to see the USS Alert. He had even talked to her one night when he was at Raymond's.
The case file was depressingly thin and judging by Mac's notes, had been marked as a cold case only a month after she had disappeared with the cause of death being ruled as lost as sea.
Have you seen me?
Hailey Bray
A sixty-year-old woman from Philadelphia, and a professor of music theory at Yale, she had been on sabbatical when she came to Bonesburrow to visit before moving to the island only a month after her visit and becoming a private music teacher. She lived in her home for less than a year before she went missing.
Hunter picked up the last case file in the stack, his heart skipping a beat when he saw the picture of a blonde-haired woman in a green wool sweater sitting underneath a Christmas tree with an infant in her lap, who was dressed up to look like a little snowman.
The name only confirmed what he saw.
Have you seen me?
Claire Eurig
When he was fifteen, his uncle had told him that one night his mother didn't come by to pick him up from daycare after she got off work. They searched the whole island for her, but after almost three months, the search was called off and the police purposed that she left the island of her own volition.
His uncle had said she always wanted to become a musician, how she used to travel up and down the length of the Rocky Mountains, stopping in small towns that were just outside national parks and playing her guitar in any bar that would take her in for the night.
That's how she met his father. The two got married in a small chapel in southern Utah before heading east until they arrived on the Boiling Isle, where they had him.
His uncle explained that not long after he was born, his father walked out him and his mother one summer night, never to return. In response, she picked up a second job working at Blight Manor, caring for their newborn baby girl. A job she held until she disappeared.
Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose as he pushed his coffee away from him, the bright red letters above her picture-filled him with guilt as Luz's words came back to him once again.
Have you seen me?
What else had he missed?
…
Abagail Sutter had drowned on dry land.
That revelation had stayed with Luz all night and well into the next morning.
Her mother had been quick to clarify that this wasn't the same as dry drowning, which was another matter altogether. Abagail had been submerged in water long enough to suffocate.
All through the night, Luz had been debating whether or not to reveal this to Willow.
She knew she deserved answers, but the more she learned about this case, about this town, the more worried she became. How did the police miss this? How did the coroner miss this?
With every new piece of information, she felt like she knew less and less about what was really going on in Bonesburrow, and she was beginning to wonder if anyone on the island could really be trusted.
Even herself.
The dull pain in the center of her head was a constant presence now, pressing against the walls of her skull like it was trying to force it to expand.
As Luz reached out to her nightstand to grab some more painkillers, she heard a knock at the door and sat up.
"Come in." She called before the door creaked open.
"Hey, Luz," Willow said as she walked in, holding Lilith's book close to her chest.
"Heya." She replied wearily.
"You don't look so good." The green-haired girl said as she leaned against the wall.
"I'm fine. Just got a bad headache. What's up?" Luz asked.
"So, I was going through this book, and I saw something familiar." Her friend began, opening the massive tome and flipping through the pages.
"Look at this." She said as she turned the book around so Luz could see several old photos of various statues, clay pots, and murals carved into chunks of stone.
"This is Sumerian art. The only reason I recognize it is because of the statues and stonework in the city museum." She explained as Luz raised an eyebrow.
"You guys have Sumerian artifacts here?"
Willow nodded.
"Yeah, the mayor and the Blights have been pulling artifacts up from the ship called The Titan. It sank during World War One. It was a ship transporting artifacts from Syria and Iraq to the States."
"Here's the kicker though. While Eda was looking for this song Raine was talking about, she went to the city museum and found out about a series of underground tunnels that ran under the entire city. Whatever she was looking for, it might be down there." She continued.
"Plus, her last entry was about how she was going out to investigate one of the possible entrances she had found so if we find out where she went-"
Luz quickly got to her feet.
"We'll find her. You got any friends who work at the museum?"
Her friend grinned at her.
"Actually yes, come on let's go."
The two hustled out of the hotel and into the cool morning air, the fishing boats had long since left for the day and the town's many shops and restaurants were now open for the day and filled with customers, while the streets remained remarkably calm.
As the pair crossed through the park in the heart of the city, Luz spied a girl with teal-colored hair sitting on a park bench by the fisherman statue with an open book in her lap and ran over to her. She was wearing the same outfit Luz had seen her in on the day they met.
"Amity!" She chirped, making the girl look up from her reading.
"Hey, Luz!" She said smiling slightly, closing her book as her friend sat down.
"Did you have fun last night with your family?"
Amity pursed her lips before nodding.
"It's always nice to head out on the water. It's really peaceful."
"I bet, although I'm sure having a yacht helps." Her friend teased, playfully bumping into her.
"Say I have a friend who's coming with me to the museum. Would you want to join us?"
" Luz said gesturing to Willow, who was standing in the shade of a nearby tree cleaning her glasses. Amity looked at her and then at Luz, guilt in her eyes as she checked her watch.
"I'd love to, but my break is almost over."
"Oh right, sorry. I forgot you work." Luz said sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head.
"It's ok." Her friend replied as she stood up before quickly adding. "We're still on for tonight though?"
Luz smiled at her.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world."
Amity blushed before saying her farewells and walking back towards the library, only when she was out of sight did Willow walk over.
"You know her?" She asked.
"Yeah. I met her when I first got here." Luz asked, tilting her head.
"I know you told me you guys used to be friends, what happened?"
Willow blinked hard.
"I wish I knew…after we graduated high school, we still met at Raymond's every Thursday, but Abagail and I noticed that Amity was starting to pull away from us. Her parents were putting more responsibility on her, which we all were expecting, but we still thought she would have time to hang out. Then she stopped coming to Raymond's and then she started ignoring our calls. I'd walk past her at the grocery store, and she would look at me like I was a stranger."
The green-haired girl sniffled, taking her glasses off.
"I knew that as we grew up, things would change, that we wouldn't be able to see each other as much as we used to, and we wouldn't be able to talk on the phone for hours every night, but I really thought we would be friends for the rest of our lives, and it really sucks that we're not. I'm sure I said something or did something that upset her."
The tears were flowing freely down her cheeks now.
"That's what I always do, but I just knew what it was I did to break everything so I can try and fix it because…I really just want my best friend back."
She buried her face in her hands as Luz wrapped her arms around her, rubbing her back while Amity looked on from behind a nearby tree, heartbroken by her friend's words as she slid against the trunk and down onto to her knees, barely able to suppress her sobbing.
…
The city museum's atrium was indeed home to a strange skeleton, unlike anything Luz had ever seen. Its upper body was that of a whale, but then things got confusing. It had almost humanoid arms and serpent-like lower half as well as a moderately sized dorsal fin. Beneath the strange creature was a tile mosaic of the island as viewed from the air at the time of the museum's construction.
"Willow!" A voice called as a young man ran over from the information desk, crashing into the green-haired girl and wrapping her in a bear hug. He had curly black hair and wore dark jeans, black high tops, and a dark blue sweater with white accents on sleeves.
"Hey, Gus." She said with a smile, hugging him back as he looked over to Luz.
"Who's your friend?"
The pair exchanged a glance as Luz took a step forward and introduced herself.
"I'm visiting from the mainland; I'm doing a paper on the history of Bonesburrow for school. Willow says you're something of an expert." She explained.
Gus's puffed out his chest and put his hands on his hips like he was a superhero.
"Did she now?" He asked, turning to look at his friend who just playfully rolled her eyes.
"Well, all the other experts were busy, so I figured you'd do." She teased.
Gus clutched his chest and staggered back.
"Your words wound me, friend." He gasped as a shrill voice called out from the office space behind the info desk.
"Porter! Get down The Titan exhibit, one of the projectors is broken again."
Gus visibly deflated.
"Can you guys bear with me for a bit?"
"It's ok Gus, mind if we tag along?" Willow asked.
"Not at all." Her friend replied as they followed him deeper into the museum, passing small exhibits about the island's geographic history and layout, as well as Bonesburrow founding before arriving at giant exhibit hall that was basked in dark blue light that flickered above them as if they were trapped beneath the waves…except for one spot, which was basked in the bright white light of an LED bulb and made the space look less like the seafloor and more like a call center, a setting Luz was far too familiar with once upon a time.
"The same one as last time, what is going on with you?" Gus muttered as he opened a nearby service closet and grabbed a bright red ladder before setting it up underneath the malfunctioning projector. "Feel free to poke around, this shouldn't take long." He told the girls as he opened a panel on the underside of the machine and stuck his head inside.
Luz and Willow left him to his work and wandered over to a scale model of the Titan as it was when it left port on her final voyage, which sat on a huge pedestal near the entrance of the hall, and directly across from it was another model of equal size depicting the wreckage of the ship as it existed today.
"We came here a bunch as kids." Willow began as they started walking through the rest of the exhibit, which detailed the events leading up to the ship's sinking. "Every other field trip we took was to this museum."
"Why was the ship even attacked anyway?" Luz asked as they stopped in front of a mural showing a submerged U-Boat sending out a pair of torpedoes towards the unsuspecting cargo ship.
"No one really knows. The U-Boat was destroyed a few days after The Titan was sunk so no one was ever able to understand what made the captain fire on a lone cargo vessel. I mean there are some conspiracy theories I guess but even the staff at the museum can't even seem to agree on a hypothesis."
"Conspiracy theories huh?" Luz asked with a chuckle.
"Yup, my senior paper was me debunking most of them. Although there was one I couldn't crack. The story goes that the captain of the U-Boat was a member of the Thule Society. A group of occultists that were based in Germany and that they wanted to sink the Titan and claim its cargo for themselves with a team of divers that would be launched from another larger U-Boat."
Luz blinked a few times, eyebrows raised.
"That's…quite the theory."
Willow nodded.
"Yeah, I was able to find that although the captain had an interest in the occult and there was a U-Boat in the naval registry that was retrofitted to deploy divers, there's no record of anything like the Thule Society existing before the end of the war and there's no evidence that anyone with an interest in the occult was ever in a position of authority within the upper elements of the navy's command structure to order the Titan's sinking. So, I had to mark the theory as inconclusive, but between you and me, I think they sank the Titan just because they could."
"Occam's razor," Luz said with a shrug as they started walking again, the exhibit showing how the wreck was discovered and the artifacts that had been pulled from the debris field, ranging from the crew's personal effects to the various Sumerian artifacts like daggers, small statues of lions with the heads of men and pottery fragments.
It was here where Luz found an old newspaper clipping with a young woman that looked a lot like Amity in a grey coverall sitting in a small glass case, as she walked over and looked at it, her eyebrows furrowed.
The woman had her teal chair done up in a bun and stood next to a man in a duster jacket with wild brown hair, who was gesturing to a safe covered in mud, rust, and barnacles. On the other side of the safe was a man with salt and pepper hair and a fine three-piece suit who was smiling at the cameraman and giving him a thumbs up. Below the picture there was a caption that read:
Odalia and Alador Blight, alongside Mayor Belos, successfully bring back several priceless artifacts from the wreck of the HMS Titan after multiple three-hour dives to the site of the wreck. The HMS Titan was sunk by a German U-Boat in June of 1917 while returning from the Mediterranean, its cargo lost the depths for nearly a hundred years.
Then Luz looked past the small newspaper clipping and towards the far end of the room where a massive chunk of stone stood, almost 20 feet across, its corners jagged and broken after it had been pulled from the wall of whatever temple it had once resided in, the regal features of some of the figures spoiled only by the occasional bullet hole but even then, the image was clear:
A group of half man-half fish creatures holding various musical instruments surrounded a black Ziggurat with an obelisk emerging from its peak. At the base of the ancient structure was a bearded man with a tall hat, raising his arms to the sky, his lower consumed by a writhing mass of tentacles reached up to the sky as a colossal figure serpentine figure loomed over the whole scene, having wrapped itself around the Ziggurat and the obelisk at its summit, one of its clawed hands gripping the obelisk while the other reached up towards the sky, almost with a longing for the unseen.
Luz stared in awe at the stonework, she shuttered as the same song she heard the previous night echoed in her head, as the notes settled in her brain, they found their way into her blood, scratching against her veins until she felt a hand land on her shoulder.
"Hey, are you ok?" Willow asked.
The music stopped and Luz pulled her gaze away from the stonework with great effort to look at her friend. It was only now that she had walked clear across the rest of the exhibit hall before coming to rest at the base of the stone slab.
"I'm ok." She said quickly. "This just caught my eye and pulled me in."
"I can't blame you there, it's probably my favorite thing in here," Willow replied as Gus walked up to them.
"Alright, that's all fixed. Now we can head to the archives. You ready Luz?"
She looked at the stone slab one last time before nodding.
"Yeah, let's go."
…
Luz's fingers sifted through a large file cabinet, while Willow scanned through a set of atlases that chronicled the growth of Bonesburrow over the years.
The city archives were comprised of a massive circular room filled with four banks of wooden file cabinets that reached up to the ceiling, separated by four bookshelves, each home to a specific subject and how it related to the Boiling Isle from natural history books to the restored shipping manifest of The Titan.
"So your paper is about these tunnels?" Gus asked as he pulled a leatherbound book from the shelf, "that may or may not exist?"
"That's right," Luz replied as she closed one drawer of the file cabinet and pulled open another one with a sigh, taking a second to improvise a thesis statement.
"I'm researching trends of ideas that are presented as fact when they are actually false and how those ideas spread like some people consider it a fact that you only use ten percent of your brain when that's patently false."
"Gotcha," Gus said as he sat down at the table with his book and yawned when the door behind him opened, revealing an older man in a three-piece suit, his long white hair was tied up in a bun.
"Ah good afternoon, Mr. Porter."
Gus turned around and waved.
"Hello, sir!"
"What brings you and your friends to the archives this fine afternoon?" The man asked as he strode confidently into the center of the room.
"I'm helping my friend with a paper she is writing for her social studies class. She's investigating the myth of the Bonesburrow tunnels." Gus explained before gesturing to the Luz.
"Luz this is Mayor Belos. He's the head of the Bonesburrow Historical Society. He helped plan and fund many of the dives that brought all the Titan artifacts to the surface."
Belos raised his hands.
"I must say the Blights were the ones who did most of the funding and planning. I just had a dream and they helped me bring it to life." He insisted as he sat down.
"Tell me, Luz, would you consider yourself a historian at heart? Or is this purely a pragmatic academic venture?"
Luz pursed her lips.
"Well, I think history can be really interesting, but I honestly prefer fiction to real-life most days."
Belos tilted his head.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah." She replied sheepishly. "For me, reading is an escape. It lets me go to places I've never been and become someone I could never be. Going off on adventures, saving the day, falling in love. Stuff like that. So, for a girl growing up in a little town in Connecticut, the last thing I wanted to read about was people making the same mistakes over and over again."
Belos chuckled.
"Well, I appreciate your honesty and I can understand the frustration one might feel when reading about history, especially when you see others failing to learn from it."
The older man stood up and surveyed the room, scanning the bookshelves before looking at Luz.
"You said you were looking for reports on tunnels built beneath Bonesburrow, correct?"
"That's right." She said with a nod as he walked over and pulled small black and gold novella from one of the shelves, thumbing through it as he walked back to the table.
"During Prohibition, there were rumors that this island was home a smuggler's den, built on top of the ruins of an old British colony that was abandoned after a series of misfortunes that ended when a landslide buried the whole town. Supposedly the caverns that were created by the landslide were used by the smugglers to stockpile booze they smuggled in from Canada. There are rumors they even managed to build a speakeasy down there." Belos explained as he set the book down and pointed at an old map of the island, buried in the yellowing pages of the old book.
"I will admit I searched for these ruins with my brother when I was a young boy, but we could never find them. Perhaps you will succeed where we failed."
"This will be a huge help Mr. Belos, thank you!" Luz said as she fished her phone out of her pocket and took several pictures of the map as the man smiled at her.
"You're very welcome." He said before looking over to Gus. "I leave this aspiring historian in your capable hands, Mr. Porter. We may convert her yet."
Luz and her companions chuckled at that before he left the three to their studies.
"Did you get what you need Luz?" Gus asked as he started tidying his little corner of the desk.
"Oh yeah, I have all that I need to go looking for these tunnels now." She said, springing to her feet and walking over to the bookshelf to put the little black book away, only for the room to turn cold as she started to extend her arm.
From out of the bookshelf came an ivory hand with numerous twitching fingers, grabbing her wrist and pulling her right up against the bookshelf as ice seemed to perforate her veins. As Luz grunted and tried to free herself, she opened her mouth to call for help but found her voice wasn't working. Then, in the gap between two books, she saw the white head of a humanoid figure staring at her, watching her.
At least she assumed it was staring. Its head sat in the center of a large mass of chitin that resembled a collar or the opening to a turtle's shell. The head itself was smooth, almost featureless save for the four holes that ran in a line across what could generously be called the watcher's face. In addition to the holes, two deep creases ran down its face, creases that seemed to rise and expand ever so slightly as seconds crawled by, revealing a dark red membrane filled with small amber-colored beads. Not dissimilar to the head of a lotus seed pod.
As Luz studied the creature, she felt the cold that was running up her arm seep into her heart, making her feel weak and heavy, like she was sinking into the ground.
With one final yank of her arm, she pulled her arm away from the creature's grasp and stumbled backward with a gasp.
"Careful Luz!" Willow said as she sprang to her feet to steady her.
Luz wiped the sweat from her forehead the coldness of her arm quickened her heart rate.
"Are you ok?" Gus asked, walking over as Luz looked back at the clock.
The needles hadn't moved an inch.
Had she imagined it all? Like the shotgun?
It was still two minutes to five.
Luz blinked, looked at the clock again.
Shit! It was almost five!
Seeing a chance to put some distance between herself and the sinking feeling in her gut, she looked to her friends.
"I gotta get going guys, but let's pick this up tomorrow, ok?"
Willow raised an eyebrow before shrugging as she sat down.
"Uh ok, I think I'll stay here a bit longer and look through some more of these maps. I'll call you later if I find anything.
"Sounds good, thanks, Willow! Good meeting you Gus!" Luz said as she started walking towards the exit, summoning every ounce of willpower she had not to run out of the room.
…
Luz jogged down the museum steps to see her favorite teal haired waiting for her on a nearby park bench. As Luz approached, she noticed Amity was picking at the remains of her black nail polish as she stood up, meeting Luz's gaze, but not doing anything to close the distance between them.
"Hey, you!" Luz beamed, extending her arms only to lower them as her friend took a step back, shaking her head.
"Amity? What's wrong?" She asked, only now noticing her red-rimmed eyes.
"Luz, there's something I have to tell you…we can't…we can't hang out anymore."
Luz's brain temporarily short-circuited.
"I-I don't understand…" She managed, feeling tears race down her cheek. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No no it's not you, I swear. It's me." Amity said quickly.
Luz felt her heart shatter.
She had heard this speech before.
"It's just-" Amity took a shaky breath before taking a step forward and lowered her voice "-bad things happen to the people I care about. Really bad things. If something happened to you, I would never forgive myself…I won't let you become the next Abagail."
Luz's blood ran cold.
"Abagail?"
The golden-eyed girl shut her eyes like she knew she had made a mistake,
"Amity, are you in danger?" Luz asked reaching out to her friend only for her to step away.
"Luz, there's nothing you can do for me." She muttered, looking to the floor.
"That's not answering my question," Luz said firmly, taking a step forward.
"Please don't make this harder than it already is." Amity pleaded, her voice breaking.
"Let me help you." The brown-eyed girl said earnestly.
"You can't help me, Luz. No one can." Amity said, her voice filled with anger and despair as she turned away from her friend.
"Amity-" Luz said, her voice quaking. Her eyes begged her not to leave.
Not to leave her alone like so many others had, even it was clear to everyone around what was going to happen next.
"Goodbye."
"Amity wait!" Luz shouted as her friend ran away from her and jumped into the back of a black town car which sped off as soon as the door closed.
"There, it's done," Amity said quietly.
"It's for the best." Her mother said sweetly, looking at her through the rear-view mirror. "No more distractions. Not when we're so close to everything we've been working for."
"Do you have the safe combination?" Amity asked, trying to hide the fear in her voice.
"Not yet, but we do know where to find it now. It's just a matter of time." Her mother replied as her gaze shifted back to the road.
"Mom…I held up my end of the deal. I expect you to hold up yours."
Her mother's smile was detectable in her tone.
"You have my word. No harm will come to your friend."
Amity's eyes narrowed as her grief was replaced by mounting anger.
That's what you said about Abagail.
…
Luz sat underneath a tree outside the museum, trying to conceal her sobbing as she held her knees up to her chest, her face buried in her folded arms before she sat back against the tree running her hands through her hair, her breath rattling as she exhaled.
"Come on Noceda, pull it together." She whispered as she tried to blink her tears away.
"Luz!" A voice called making her look towards the museum to see Willow running up to her.
"It's Officer Eurig, he called the museum looking for you!" She exclaimed.
"Why what's going on?"
"It's Lilith Clawthorne. She didn't come home from work tonight. Her neighbor called in to report it after her dog went ballistic. Eurig was wondering if you knew where she went."
Luz pulled out her phone and looked at the map she had photographed before scrambling to her feet.
"I think I do…Let's go!"
…
After swinging by the police department to pick up Hunter, the trio tore into the forest, rumbling down a service road as Luz started down at her phone, guiding Willow as best as she could while trying to ignore the fact, she was probably going to get carsick.
"Turn left! Hard left!" Luz told her friend, looking up and pointing.
"There's nothing there!" Willow protested.
"Trust me!"
Willow cut the wheel to the left and sent the jeep off-road and deeper into the forests, weaving between trees and scrambling over small rocks.
"Where are we going?!" Hunter asked.
"To the last place, Eda went before she went missing!"
"You're not making sense. What does this have to do with Lilith?"
"How does it not make sense? She knows something happened to Eda, she's sent me all around the island trying to find out what happened, and now that I'm close to figuring this all out, they're trying to get rid of her! Eda's disappearance, the shotgun in the ceiling, Victor's attack, Raine, and the music! It's all connected!"
"Luz, you sound like a crazy person!"
"I am not crazy! Do not call me that! There's something wrong with this place. Whoever these creeps are they took Eda, the took Lilith, even Amity Blight is danger!"
"Amity Blight? What does she have to do with this?"
"She told me we couldn't spend time with one another anymore, that bad things happened to people she cared about, she said she didn't want me to become the next Abagail."
Willow slammed on the brakes, the tail of the jeep fishtailing as it came to a halt. Once they had stopped, the green-haired girl looked to her friend.
"Abagail?" She asked as Luz took a shaky breath.
"Willow, you were right, Abagail didn't kill herself. She drowned."
"What? How?" Her friend asked.
"I don't know, but I swear to you we will find out who did this to her and make sure they can't hurt anyone ever again. Ok?"
Willow nodded firmly as three beams of light cut through the trees.
"Turn the car off, now!" Luz exclaimed before her friend tore the keys from the ignition.
In the distance, they could see what the headlights had blinded them to. A faint orange haze in the evening mist.
"Who would be all the way out here at this time of night?" Hunter wondered.
"Let's find out," Luz replied, drawing her pistol, and opening the passenger door.
Once they were all out of the car, the trio crept forward through the brush as more beams of light swept away the evening mist.
"Are you sure you heard something Mac?" a voice hissed.
"I'm sure, keep looking," Mac replied as Luz stopped exchanged a glance with Hunter whose brow was furrowed in confusion and worry.
"Let's keep going, stay out of sight," Luz said quickly as they started walking again, the orange glow in the distance growing brighter in the distance.
"He shouldn't be out here," Hunter muttered. "He told me he was going to the mainland to visit his mom."
"When was that?" Luz asked.
"Hours ago, I gave him a ride to the ferry," Hunter replied.
"The ferry? the ferry doesn't run today," Willow told him.
That made him stop in his tracks.
"No no he got on it, I saw it. I've lived here my whole life. I know what the ferry looks like." He protested. "I'm not-"
"Crazy?" Luz finished, making him look down at the floor before a new voice called out from the forest, making them all jump.
"Brothers! Sisters! Our Father's return is nigh!"
Luz motioned for her companions to follow as they crept towards the edge of a forest clearing which was filled with people in black cloaks holding torches, surrounding an older woman with teal-colored hair standing next to Amity, who held a silver Kriss knife in her hand.
At their feet was Lilith, bound and gagged, lying in the center of a circle that had been burned into the rock she rested on, Luz recognized some of the symbols from Eda's book, but others were a mystery to her.
"Stay low," Hunter told the girls as he drew his pistol as the woman next to Amity started speaking again, quieting the muttering crowd with ease.
"Tonight, my daughter will perform one of the final steps required of the ceremony. The taking of innocent life will mark her for our beloved Father, signaling her as worthy to act as his emissary between his court and his humble servants!"
The crowd cheered heartily as Amity lowered herself onto her knees while Lilith struggled to free herself from her bonds, only for two members of the crowd to rush over and hold her down, one straddling her legs while the other pinned her arms above her head.
All she could do now was frantically shake her head as the teal-haired girl slowly raised the dagger over her head with trembling hands as the crowd started a low chant that grew in volume and sharpened in tone, the seemingly empty and meaningless words were quickly filled with hate and anger.
Without thinking, Luz sprang up and ran into the clearing, ignoring her companions' efforts to call her back as she called out to her friend, her voice cutting through the air like lightning.
"Amity don't!" She shouted before firing her gun into the air three times, making the crowd part before her.
"Luz?" Her friend asked, dropping the dagger and getting to her feet, her entire form trembling as the older woman put herself between the two.
"That's far enough detective." She hissed raising her hands, which had two glowing circles of violet energy in front of them.
Luz aimed at the older woman, trying not to think too hard about what she was seeing even as the pain in her head started to build again.
"Drop your weapon." The older woman said as Hunter came into the clearing with Willow right behind him, his gun trained on her.
"Mrs. Blight, you're under arrest." He said as Luz handed Willow her pocketknife to cut Lilith free.
"Officer Eurig." The woman said, clearly disappointed. "Why am I not surprised. Your colleagues warned me you may become a problem."
"Whatever is going on here, it's over," Hunter told her as Willow helped Lilith up while Amity looked on nervously from behind her mother.
"Is that so?" She sneered and tightened her hand into a fist as Luz gasped, feeling a cool wetness fill her chest.
Then she started to suffocate.
Luz dropped her gun and fell to her knees as she coughed up water, trying to clear her lungs but the water that was filling them seemed endless, panic threatening to overwhelm her when she saw Hunter and Willow were doing the same thing.
Suddenly she was 8 years old again and she had fallen into the lake at summer camp. Someone pushed her in. The only person who knew she couldn't swim. The one person she thought she could trust, a friend.
Now, no camp counselor was coming to save her.
She was going to drown.
Amity watched her friends struggle and fall onto her stomachs and sides, legs flailing as they struggled against her mother's spell. Amity put her tremoring hands over her mouth as tears streaked down her cheeks.
"Amity, their guns."
Although it felt like her legs were filled with sand, she managed to pull herself forward, and weakly kick the gun away from Luz before doing the same to Hunter's weapon.
Once she had, Odalia lowered her arms and the three desperately gasped for air before they were each consumed by a coughing fit before Willow looked up at the older woman with rage in her eyes.
"You killed her, didn't you?!" She screamed.
"You took her in when her mother was stuck in a cancer ward on the mainland, you read her bedtime stories, you took her to school, you knew her since she was born! She trusted you and you killed her! How could you!?"
Before the older woman could respond, a howl ripped through the air, making the ground shake, and silencing the mutterings of the crowd.
Odalia raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"Ah, I suppose it is that time of the month again." She said as the Luz and her companions pulled themselves off the ground before Odalia raised her hands again, turning the stone beneath Luz's feet into a grey bubbling slurry that she started to sink into.
"Mom! Please no! You promised!" Amity shouted, falling onto her knees and grabbing onto the hem of her mother's dress as Luz, Willow, Hunter, and Lilith continued to sink into the earth, struggling to free themselves.
"You promised!" She pleaded with tears in her eyes.
"I lied,"Odalia said as she twisted her wrist.
"No!" Amity screamed as she turned to see Luz almost up to her neck in liquified stone.
"Amity!" The brown-eyed girl shouted, desperately reaching out to her friend.
"Luz!" Amity sobbed, diving forward to grab her friend's hand, only for her fingers to slip below the surface as the stone turned back to its solid-state.
…
Luz fell several feet before striking the rocky floor below with a thud before rolling onto her back with a groan.
"Luz, you ok?" Willow asked from somewhere nearby.
"Yeah, 1I'm fine." She lied as she sat up, trying to assess her surroundings before grabbing her gun, which had landed next to her.
"Lilith?"
After a brief delay, there was a response.
"I'm here." She said softly, having pulled herself into the corner of the room.
"Where are we?" Hunter wondered as he stood up, his face illuminated by the flames of the lighter he had pulled from his pocket.
"I think this the outer edges of the Bonesburrow Tunnel Network, from the 20s," Luz replied as she staggered to her feet. "This is what Eda was trying to find when she vanished."
"Weren't these those caves that were created by the landslide from hundreds of years ago?" Hunter asked while Luz fished her phone out of her pocket and turned on her phone's flashlight.
"Allegedly yeah," Willow replied before walking over to a nearby wall, running her hand down its surface as Luz approached to give her more light, only to find the walls of the tunnel looked like they had been carved out by a giant circular bow rake, the closely packed uniform lines showed them that whatever had created these tunnels had done so with incredible ease.
"Landslides don't cut through rock like this though," Luz said before a piping sound echoed through the tunnel-like someone was trying and failing to play the flute.
"What was that?" Lilith asked, finally getting to her feet.
"I don't know, and I don't want to find out," Luz told her as Hunter found his gun and scooped it up.
"Let's see if we can go find your sister."
As the group started walking through the tunnels, they passed small alcoves filled with rotting barrels and crates, paired with the occasional skeleton, bones scattered across the floor or crushed, their once fine clothes ripped to shreds.
"How big do you think this place is?" Hunter asked as a rat scurried past his foot.
"The map we found shows that these tunnels stretch across the entire island," Luz replied.
"What was my sister looking for anyway?" Lilith wondered.
"Raine told me she was looking for this song, they were worried that if the song is played something will wake up."
"Something?" Lilith asked nervously.
"I have a feeling that's why Eda came down here, put a face to the name, you know?" Luz asked as Hunter stopped, looking into a darkened doorway.
"Guys, you hear that?" He asked.
"Hear what?" Luz said, stopping and turning to look at him.
"Water." He replied before walking into the small circular room that lay just off the main path.
It resembled a spa room in a way, stone circular benches ringed around a pool of bubbling water the glowed a faint green. The walls were covered in runes that Luz recognized from Eda's book, runes that surrounded a small mural of a large green blob, flanked on either side of black humanoid figures with bulbous heads, both facing the blob with tools that resembled cattle prods.
"What is this place?" Hunter asked.
Luz blinked several times as she starred at the glyphs, watching them twist like microbes under a microscope until they were words she could comprehend.
La Cárcel
"It's a prison," Luz said softly, looking between the mural and the pit filled with water. "We're in a cell."
"How do you know that?" Hunter asked.
"It's on the wall," Luz told him as if it should have been obvious.
Before Hunter could question her, Willow's anxious voice call to them.
"Guys!"
The two ran out of the cell to see dozens of rats scurrying past Willow and Lilith, traveling in a wide column as they fled an unseen threat in the direction the group just came from as a long low wail echoed through the tunnel-like someone was playing a damaged organ. The call was exploratory, almost questioning before a series of loud thuds started to shake the tunnel-like someone was rolling a fridge end over end with increasing speed.
"We need to move." Luz insisted before turning and running down the tunnel with her companions.
"Keep your eyes open for a way out!" Hunter exclaimed as another low wail echoed through the tunnel, punctuated by a sharp piping noise.
"Edalyn!" Lilith called out, hoping somehow her sister would hear her as a series of piping noises echoed through the air, almost like it trying to mimic her.
Then Lilith stopped dead in her tracks, looking down a fork in the path.
"Edalyn?" She said softly.
"Lilith, what's wrong?" Luz asked.
"Quiet!" She hissed before putting her hands around her mouth "Edalynnn!"
After a brief delay, there was a faint reply.
"Lilyyy!"
Lilith broke out into a sprint, plunging into darkness of another tunnel.
"Hang on, we're coming!" Luz shouted as another roar shook the tunnels, pulling ahead of Lilith as they entered a large rectangular room filled with stone pillars, their footsteps echoing loudly as they slow to a jog as Luz looked around before shouting:
"Eda Clawth-"
A white-haired woman jumped out from behind a nearby pillar clamping her hand of Luz's mouth, gold eyes filled with anger. She wore a tattered black cloak over a raggedy maroon-colored dress and had a bolt action rifle slung over her shoulder.
"Will you be quiet! it's going to find us if you keep-"
Down the hall, something inhaled sharply, its breath catching several times as if it couldn't breathe properly before another wail could be heard, with the noise pitching up at the end.
Then the thuds returned as drew closer, and several flute notes crawled through the air, each louder than the last as the thuds got louder, Luz smelt what was coming before she saw it.
The stench had a sickly rot to it, like decaying fruit or sour milk but it was intermixed with the nose burning sting of bleach or sulfur. The result was an odor that was both nauseating and painful to be near.
"Hide!" Eda snapped as everyone scrambled to get behind one of the room's many stone pillars as the creature flopped around the corner, and as Luz peered around the pillar to get a look at it, her heart jumped into her throat.
Luz, Eda, and Willow found themselves squished behind a singular pillar, while Lilith and Hunter hid behind another.
"What is that thing?" Luz whispered.
"The thing that built this place," Eda replied.
"Really?" Willow asked.
Eda nodded but refused to elaborate, putting a finger to her lips.
The creature reminded her of an amoeba but scaled up to the size of a double-decker bus. Its skin trembled and shuttered with every move as if the creature was a living waterbed. Cloudy orange eyes roamed freely across its dark green skin, eyes that bubbled up from small patches of foam that would appear and disappear without warning as its many tentacles helped pull it across the stone floor, leaving a trail of slick black ink in its wake.
The builder's stench grew even stronger as it made its way into the center of the large room, Luz felt her lungs start to burn as Lilith threw her hands over her mouth barely managing to stifle a coughing fit, causing the creature to stop in its tracks, one of its tentacles snaking over to where Lilith and Hunter were hiding.
Seeing this Luz drew her pistol only for Eda to grab the barrel and shove it toward the ground before shaking her head fervently and pointing down a nearby hallway.
Luz nodded reluctantly before started creeping towards it, motioning for the others to follow while Eda moved behind the creature and softly whistling at it. The builder pivoted, whistling back but did not move away from the center of the room.
Seeing that it was distracted Luz motioned for Lilith and Hunter to move as Eda whistled again and Willow continued ahead. The builder whistled back twice but when Eda hesitated in her response, it started to move back towards where Lilith was, ignoring Eda's attempts to lure it away a third time.
Her eyes wide in panic, Lilith darted from cover, only to slip and fall with a loud thud, and all of the builder's eyes moved to one side of its body focus on her before it raised itself up on its tentacles, its body thinning and stretching into a more cylindrical shape as what Luz could only describe as its head split apart in fourths like a flower in bloom as dagger-like teeth spouted from the auburn skin inside it's newly formed maw as a deep trilling roar sprang from the back of its throat and ripped through the air.
"Run!" Eda screamed as the creature lashed out at the ground with its tentacles, striking at the ground where her sister was as she scrambled away on her hands and knees before Eda ran over and practically dragged her onto her feet.
"Come on Lilly!" She shouted as Luz and Hunter stopped and fired several times at the builder, who wasn't even phased by the bullets, even as one struck one of its many eyes causing it to burst like a water balloon.
"Eda, where's the nearest exit?" Willow asked as they ran.
"Back the way you came!" She replied sharply as they rounded a corner.
"Up ahead! Squeeze through that fissure in the wall!" Hunter shouted, ducking into a side room with a pool of water in its center, motioning for the others to go on ahead while he, Luz, and Eda fired on their pursuer, who seemed reluctant to enter the room, roaring and stabbing at them with its tentacles from the threshold, one strike barely missed Luz's head and hit so hard its fractured the stone like it was glass.
"Go kid, I got your back," Eda said quickly, taking another shot at the creature with her rifle as Luz pulled herself through the narrow space before she heard a scream behind her.
"Eda!?" She called only to feel hot breath on her neck.
"Go go!" She said through grit teeth, spurring Luz on.
As the pair emerged in another side chamber, Eda fell forward, a massive gash in her thigh could be seen, and blood poured down her leg.
"Eda!" Lilith shouted, helping her sit down as Willow tore her belt off and fashioned an improvised tourniquet, while Hunter pulled out his lighter and stepped into the hallway, holding it up in the air and watching the flame flicker.
"Guys! I think I found a way out!" He said as Willow and Lilith helped Eda to her feet, the white-haired woman handing Luz her rifle in the process.
As they emerged into yet another stone corridor, they felt a faint breeze that Hunter detected coming from the far end of the hallway, just past another large rectangular room was a large opening that led out to a small overlook, guarded by steel bars and just past it they could see the twinkle of city lights in the distance.
"Thank god," Lilith said as another roar shook the tunnels.
"I can see the exit! we just have to squeeze through those bars and we're outta here." Willow said, breathing hard before the wall behind them exploded like it had been struck with a missile.
"Shit!" Hunter snarled as he drew his pistol and emptied the clip as their attacker surged forward, howling as it was met with a torrent of ineffective gunfire.
"Hunter, get the others out! I'll distract it!" Luz said as she closed to point-blank range and fired her rifle three times, getting the creature to spin around and cut her in half at the knees with its tentacles only for her to dive out of the way at the last second.
As the detective led the monster in a circuit around the rectangular room, weaving around pillars before double back and forcing her pursuer to turn around, taking potshots when she could as Hunter scooped up Eda and carried her to the gate, helping her squeeze through the bars.
The builder roared at Luz, striking her in the gut with a tentacle, sending her crashing into a stone pillar, knocking the wind out of her, and making her drop her weapon.
"Luz come on!" Hunter shouted as he helped Willow through the bars.
The detective grit her teeth and made a run for it, sliding under a pillar that had been knocked down during the chase before getting to her feet.
Then a low-pitched buzz filled her ears, and she fell onto her face screaming,
In a split second, she felt all her muscles cramp at once while razor blades were run up and down her tendons, writhing in pain as the builder bore down on her
"Luz!" Willow screamed as Hunter sprinted towards her, firing his gun to try and slow the creature, but the builder was faster than him.
He wasn't going to make it.
With tears in her eyes, Luz whimpered as the builder's maw opened, ready to swallow her up before it stopped in its tracks, shifting back into its original form, piping, whistling, and roaring as it threw itself against the walls like a steer trapped in a bullpen.
"Stay away from her!" A familiar voice snapped, her voice shaking with anger as the sound of metal being torn asunder filled her ears.
Luz looked back towards the exit to see a figure in a black cloak approaching, purple circles of light floating beneath her hands, walking through the hole in the bars she had just torn open like a paper bag.
That voice…
The builder shifted back into its hunting form a surging forward and roared again. the blast of air from its foul jaws knocking Luz onto her back while the cloaked figure remained anchored in place with only her hood daring to retreat, revealing her lavender-colored hair and golden eyes.
"Amity?" Luz asked weakly as her friend brought her hands together and drew a large circle in the air with her two index fingers before pushing the glowing construct outward and closing her fists.
A blazing blue star with an eye in its center took shape, making the builder hiss as it reverted to its original form, its tentacles probing for a way past the symbol.
"Back!" Amity commanded, pushing the symbol forward as if threatening a wild animal with a torch. "You are bound to my family; you will heed my command!"
The builder finally relented and hurriedly slinked back into the depths of the catacombs as Amity allowed the spell to disperse, placing her hands in its center and pulling it apart, sending the blue energy flying into the walls and ceiling. Stone sizzled and cracked as the star symbol along with dozens of other small runes were seared into the rock.
Then she rushed to Luz's side.
"Luz! Are you ok?" She asked gently, taking her into her arms.
"I've been better." She admitted. "You…you never told me you could do magic."
Amity smiled gently at her.
"Well, you never asked."
Luz was frowning, her eyes filled with pain, fear, and confusion.
"What else haven't you told me?"
The lavender-haired girl sighed wearily.
"More than I'd like to admit, but that changes now. Come on, let's get somewhere safe. Then I'll tell you everything."
…
A.N- Happy Halloween! Hey, guys sorry for the late update! Mid-terms snuck up on me and revisions and editing took longer than I was expecting, so rather than push this update out to try and keep to the daily schedule I held onto this chapter to give to you as a Halloween treat! As much as I wanted to keep the daily updates coming, I think this was the best call to make sure you all at least had something to read on the holiday.
As for the other updates, I will get them published as quickly as I can.
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and until next time,
See yah!