Beckon

But Jack rolled to the side and brought his shotgun up into her abdomen. His lips parted in a bloody grin.

“Not… so fast….”

Her face twisted into a mask of hate as Jack pulled the trigger. The blast launched her diminutive frame off the ground and out over the pit. She plunged, shrieking, down into the darkness.

“Jack!” Elina’s terrified voice cried from the pit.

“I’m coming.”

The wooden beam was tilted downward after Dwight’s fall. Jack leaned against the altar, gasping for breath. He was stretching out for the rope when a deafening shriek echoed up from the pit. But Jack knew it had no human source; he had heard that sound once before, out in the caverns as he and Ben were escaping.

Elina screamed again.

Jack snapped another flare and dropped it into the pit. Now he could see the hole went down at least twenty feet. Dwight lay in the mud, and Nun’dahbi’s twisted body was sprawled out on the rocks, covered in blood. Elina lay on the ground between them, wrapped tightly in ropes.

She looked up, wide-eyed. “Jack! Get me out of here!”

“I can’t reach the rope!”

“Hurry; something’s down here.”

Jack secured his shotgun and the bag of flares around his back and leaped out for the rope. He felt it in his fingers and clutched it. The log shifted again, and he slid down several feet before managing to stop himself. The rope tore the skin off his palms as he lowered himself farther into the pit.

He reached the bottom and bent over Elina’s quivering body. They had painted her face with what looked like the same type of marks that the warriors had covering their bodies.

“Are you hurt?” He fumbled with the ropes in his bloody hands. “Is anything broken?”

“No… I’m okay,” Elina said. “You’re bleeding.”

Jack shook his head. His wounds throbbed and stung, but he couldn’t afford the luxury of worrying about that now. “I’m okay.”

Jack surveyed the elongated cavern that extended away into darkness. The flare lit the immediate area, and Jack could see numerous tunnels and side passages leading off the main chamber. Large rocks and bones cluttered the floor of the pit. The remnants, he guessed, from an untold number of human sacrifices to the Soul Eater.

Beside them, Dwight groaned.

Elina sat up. “He’s alive?”

Jack moved to check him. “Dwight? Are you okay?”

Dwight groaned again and rolled onto his side. He looked up at the top of the pit and rubbed his head. “What happened?”

“You fell,” Jack said. “You should be dead.”

“Yeah…” Dwight sat up gingerly. “I should’ve been dead a few times in my life.”

Jack was still struggling with Elina’s ropes. “I can’t get them untied. I need to cut them.”

“Hurry.”

Jack turned to retrieve the spear wedged in the rocks beside Nun’dahbi’s limp body when he saw the amulet glimmering in the light of the flare. His eyes widened. He’d lost his pack in the caves earlier and with it, all the evidence he and Rudy had collected. But this medallion would be even better. To come back with an actual N’watu artifact, a piece of their culture…

Momentarily forgetting everything else, Jack crawled over and reached out for the amulet.

A cold, bony grip clamped onto his arm. Nun’dahbi clutched his wrist and lifted her battered head. Blood gurgled though her clenched teeth as she grimaced, hissing with what seemed to be pure vitriol.

Jack let out a yelp. Obviously the perilium made the N’watu as hard to kill as the kiracs.

Just then a second chilling shriek burst out of the darkness at the far end of the cavern, followed by a familiar tapping. Whatever was in the darkness was getting closer. Jack could hear a scraping sound—like something big being dragged across rocks.

Something very big.

“Hurry, Jack!” Elina’s voice came from behind him.

Jack yanked his hand free from Nun’dahbi’s grip. She immediately clutched the amulet in her broken, bloody fingers, still hissing curses at him and struggling to move. Jack picked up the spear instead and returned to Elina.

Dwight stumbled to his feet. “How do we get out of here?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been in this part of the caves.” Jack sliced through the top rope and started on the bands around Elina’s feet. Then the flare died out and darkness folded over them like a wave. Jack could hear Dwight digging through the bag for another one.

He snapped the cap off and ignited it.

Elina screamed.

Shadows fled away, partially revealing the bulk of an enormous, armored beast looming directly over Dwight. It reared up, flexing its huge mandibles. The jaws opened to reveal a hideous mouthful of dripping fangs. It lifted one of its massive, spiked forelegs and stabbed at Dwight, who barely managed to duck out of the way. The pointed claw sank into the ground where he had been standing. Then it swiped sideways and flung him into the rocky wall of the chamber. Dwight fell back to the ground, groaning.

Jack found himself stunned by the sight. This thing—this Soul Eater—was more hideous than he could have imagined. Based on what he’d seen in Dwight’s lab, he had expected the queen to be larger than the other kiracs… but not this big. Its long, bony forelegs looked like gnarled tree branches, and its jagged shell was the size of a large dining room table, ringed with hundreds of spiked protrusions.

Jack reached for his shotgun and fired directly into the beast’s underside. It shrieked again—deafening at this close range. Jack pumped in another shell and fired once more. The Soul Eater lumbered backward, maneuvering its bulk with stilted, jerky movements.

Jack could sense great age in it. A twisted, hulking beast that had been stalking these tunnels perhaps for centuries. The creature swatted at Jack with its other foreleg, sending him tumbling across the rocks. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck.

He looked back to see Elina kick her feet free of the ropes and scramble against the wall of the pit. The giant kirac swiveled its massive body around, clicking its palps as if in search of new prey. Suddenly the beast turned, raised itself off the ground, and lumbered away from Elina. Then Jack saw its new target.

Nun’dahbi was dragging herself with one arm toward the far side of the pit. Her other arm hung limp at her side and both of her legs were contorted, with a bone jutting through the flesh of one calf. Still, she struggled furiously toward one of the side tunnels. Jack spotted the amulet still in her grasp.

But the Soul Eater stalked hard after her, raising its foreleg and impaling Nun’dahbi through the back. She let out a horrifying scream and flailed her arm as the beast quickly pulled her writhing body under its bulk and sank its fangs into her neck. Nun’dahbi’s cries were cut mercifully short as the Soul Eater sucked out what little life was left in her.

While the beast was occupied, Jack scrambled to his feet and rushed over to Elina. “Are you okay?” His voice was a hoarse whisper.

“I’m okay; I’m okay,” Elina whispered back. “How do we get out of here?”

For a moment Jack thought they might be able to use the rope to climb out, but they’d never get up fast enough and would only be an easier target. He shrugged, keeping an eye on the giant kirac. He was quickly running out of time and his thoughts were scattered. But he couldn’t let fear overwhelm him. This creature could probably smell fear from a mile away.

Just then the queen kirac lifted itself from its food and turned toward him.

Jack pulled Dwight to his feet and pointed toward one of the side passages. “Through there!”

Dwight nodded groggily as Jack pushed Elina down and into the tunnel first, then Dwight, and then…

Another high-pitched roar thundered through the chamber as the Soul Eater lumbered toward them.

Jack scooped up his gun and the bag of flares and dove into the dark tunnel, bashing his knees against the rocks as he scrambled forward. “Move, move!”