Weapons at the ready, we headed out of the chapel. We’d just turned down a corridor when I heard a weak voice calling from a lower level. “Is someone there? We’re jailed down here.”
With effort, Joules produced another javelin. “Prisoners?”
“Or a trap.”
Still, we followed the sound to a narrow stairwell. Pitch-black darkness greeted us. Naturellement. Even with the light from our cams, we wouldn’t be able to see down there.
I fetched one of the Pentacles’ lanterns along the corridor.
Joules blinked at me. “You want to go down into a dark dungeon? With a devil-worshippin’ lantern? Did you never watch horror flicks? I say we chalk this entire night up to experience and get ourselves out of Fort Dodgy here.”
Evie said, “I agree. Jack, you have to leave now.”
“Not until I figure out what’s goan on.”
“Hello? Anybody there?” the voice called.
I raised my brows. “That was a woman.”
Joules straightened his scrawny shoulders. “So it’s a good thing the cavalry’s here.”
I gazed skyward, then descended the steps.
19
The Empress
Watching and listening as Jack risked his life against the Pentacles had proved more intense than being there—because I’d been helpless to save him.
Now the lantern light made his camera feed even harder to see. I hit mute on the comm control and faced Aric. “Tell them not to go down there.”
Aric raised his brows as he watched the monitor. “They won’t listen to me, certainly not like Joules listened to you when he took your advice earlier.”
I flushed with guilt. “I don’t know what that was.” I’d just had a jarring cramp in my belly, and my back had been in knots, and the red witch’s aggression had come over me. “I spoke before I thought.” That wasn’t all; when Aric had moved to escort me out, I’d used my vines to inform him I wasn’t going anywhere. They still slithered around the study.
“If I believed I could stop Jack, I would. But now he has no intel and no hostage. He will be even more determined to justify their journey there.” Aric lifted his gaze to survey my face. “I can’t force you to leave this room, but I’m asking you to. You need to go rest.”
“Rest?” Stress made my cramps worse, and perspiration trickled down my back. “When they’re heading into a murky dungeon?” God, could it be any darker in there? I heard Jack’s footfalls on wet brick. Eerie echoes competed with the continual ping of dripping water. “You have to be joking.”
Sounding disappointed in me, Aric said, “We lost a valuable chance to learn more about the Pentacles—and the game—but Jack might uncover information from a prisoner.”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” I unmuted the mic and told Jack and Joules, “Be careful, please.”
“Ouais. We’re just goan to take a look-see. No worrying about ole Jack.”
The Hunter
Half-dressed men huddled for warmth on the filthy ground in the first cell. At least two dozen—all with telltale signs of frostbite and starvation.
Most looked hopeless. Some crazed. They were too weak to speak; chapped lips stuck together. No water or facilities for them.
“Cajun, look at the ones in the back.”
I raised my lantern. A few had weeping red eyes and twisted bodies. Bonebreak fever.
The plague was here. No saving these people.
Joules yanked his balaclava over his mouth and nose. “Oi, we’re right fecked now!”
I drew my own bandanna over my face. “We got to go, Tower. Allons-y.” We turned toward the exit. I’d always heard the sickness spread through the blood. Maybe the air.
No wonder Zara and Richter hadn’t come here. Plague victims didn’t have a lot of luck to harvest. Bet Richter wouldn’t want to burn them either.
Had this entire journey been a fool’s errand?
Just as we made the stairs, that woman’s voice called from a cell in the back. “Come to me, Cajun.”
A dreamlike sensation descended over me. Had she heard Joules call me Cajun, or had she recognized my voice? Something about her seemed familiar.
Evie: “What’s happening? Do they have bonebreak? Jack, get out of there.”
The woman faintly said, “The numbers are for you. It’s all for you.”
What numbers? Unable to help myself, I turned back toward her cell. The draw was more than just my need to help an imprisoned woman.
Evie muttered urgently, “Do not go back there.” She was out of breath. “Jackson Deveaux, have you lost your mind?”
I didn’t want to worry my girl, but I had to see the last cell. “I’ll be fine, bébé. Prend-lé aisé.”
“Joules, why does he sound drunk? Is there some kind of mind control?”
The Tower yanked on my arm. “We’re leavin’. Exit’s that way.”
“Go. I’ll follow in a minute.” I shoved him away and slipped deeper into the jail.
“Apologies, Empress,” Joules said on the comm. “Me happy arse is headin’ out of the plague prison.” He stomped up the stairs.
Domīnija told me, “Mortal, you are behaving like a madman. Reverse course, now.”
“Jack, what is wrong with you?” Evie cried, “Kentarch, teleport him out of there.”
Domīnija: “Chariot, do not go near Jack until he’s quarantined. This is not your mission.”
Kentarch hesitated, then said only, “Copy.”
“Nooo!” Evie yelled. “Go get him!”
I murmured, “Sorry, Evangeline,” then switched off the comm.
The last cell came into view. A middle-aged woman lay slumped against a wall. She wore tattered clothes that swallowed her emaciated frame. Her matted hair was a mass of knots. Her eyes wept blood, and her fingers were bent at unnatural angles. She wouldn’t last the night. The hour.
“Who are you?”
“Call me Kos. You’re the one . . . I’ve been looking for. The Cajun.”
Uh-huh. “How long ago did you get sick, Kos?” How long should my quarantine be?
“No idea. Been rotting . . . in this cell for months and months.”
Before she caught the plague? “Why would they put a woman down here?” In our current evil reality, women didn’t get thrown in prisons to rot.
“Because they feared me and my powers.”
“Heh.” Another one round the bend. Not surprising at this point in the apocalypse.
What was I even doing here? This woman couldn’t be saved. I needed to leave, to go reassure Evie and start my quarantine.
“The Pentacles gave me my own cell . . . as a professional courtesy,” she said, sneering the word. “Did you kill fourteen of them? Each one has a tattoo on his throat.”
“We did. Anyone else around here we should be worried about?” Another suit?
She shook her head. “Their followers scattered when plague reached the fort.”
“Do you know what the Pentacles’ powers were?”