Labyrinth: The Keeper Chronicles, a prequel (5 page)

He searched every face he passed and looked into every car, praying for a glimpse of her, but the bad feeling in his gut just worsened. Home was his last chance, though he didn’t hold out much hope. Rebekah had been scared. She wouldn’t have pulled a prank like this, not with the threats she’d received. It just didn’t make sense. Jason pulled in the parking lot and slammed the car into park. He ran through the apartment, throwing open the door to the bathroom and his bedroom just in case she'd hit her head or fallen asleep.

“No, no, no.” Jason clicked his cell phone on and dialed the regional office.

A woman picked up. “Thanks for calling –”

Jason didn’t give her time to finish. “I need to speak with Detective Nolan. It’s an emergency.”

“If this is an emergency, you should hang up and dial 9-1-1.”

“I don’t need 9-1-1. I need Detective Nolan. Now. I think someone else has been taken.”

A hesitation. “Hold please.”

Finally.

After a brief moment, the line clicked. “Nolan.”

“Detective, this is Keeper Riggs. Rebekah’s been taken.”

“Taken? When?”

Jason paced a small circle around the living room as he explained. “Maybe a half hour ago. Maybe less. I was on my way across campus to get her after her final exam when she texted that her and a friend were going to the cafeteria. By the time I got there, I received another text saying they’d gone to the Rec Center. I didn’t think much of it at the time since I had her phone on my GPS, but when I went to the Rec Center to wait the phone was in another girl’s purse. Whoever took Rebekah must have stashed it there after texting me and ran off. She could be anywhere by now.”

“Did she give a name for her friend?” the detective asked.

“No, but it might have been someone from her class.” He hurried back to his bedroom and pulled open the top drawer. “She had Survey of American History today.”

Jason could almost hear the detective nodding. “Good. That gives us a place to start. I’ll tell Elder Xou. Can you handle Rebekah’s mother?”

“She’s going to want to look for her daughter.”

“I know. But it’s critical that we find Rebekah and the killer first. This is an open and very public police investigation. If there’s even a whiff of demons or magic, we’re going to have problems. The world is watching us right now.”

“I understand…”

Detective Nolan interrupted Jason. “I don’t think you do. There have already been inquiries by the Trenton Group.”

“Oh.” The Trenton Group. Demons and monsters may frighten normal humans, but the lawyers at the Trenton Group were what went bump in the night for most Keepers. Specializing in protecting and defending the interests of various magical minorities over the years, the Trenton Group had their slimy tentacles into every industry, government, and business in the several worlds as they mediated between the magical and the mundane.

If a troll wanted to raise taxes for using one of their bridges, they called the Trenton Group.

When the dwarves wanted to turn their homeland into a national park to protect it from development, they called the Trenton Group.

When a son of the orc clans wanted to play for the NFL, he called the Trenton Group.

When an elf entered the blood rage and slaughtered an entire mining town and wanted to disguise it as a tunnel collapse, he called the Trenton Group.

“Just keep Mrs. Lorek clear of the hunt for her daughter,” the detective said and hung up the phone.

“Duty above all,” he muttered to the dead phone.

Jason thought he’d have an easier time trying to find the ticklish spot on a Cerebus’ belly than keeping Rebekah’s mother at bay.

*              *              *

Rebekah groaned and tried to shield her eyes from the light, but her hands wouldn’t move more than an inch. Something metal gouged into her wrists, burning as she twisted and shook her arms to free them from behind her back.

“Where am I?” she asked, the words scratching and clawing out of her throat. She licked her lips and tried again. “Hello? Emily?”

No one answered. Hands trembling, she pulled at her restraints, eyes brimming with tears.

Keep calm. There has to be a way out of here.

Rebekah blinked and the room started to come into focus, images resolving in throbbing pulses that timed to the migraine splitting her head. Yellowed wallpaper peeled down the wall in long sheets like skin flaking off after a sunburn and sunlight poured through an opening in the roof to splash across the far corner. What looked like half of an old dresser and the back of a chair were covered in cobwebs to her right, mixing in with the grass that had pushed up between the floorboards.

She shivered and scooted back against what felt like a metal bar as something clawed against the wood just out of her line of sight.

Please don’t be a rat. I hate rats.

“Did you hear something?”

Rebekah froze.

A woman's voice answered. Em? “I'm sure it's nothing. Come back to bed.”

The second speaker, a male, answered. “Just a minute. I'll take a quick bite and be out. A nibble. You'll hardly know I'm gone.”

“Save some appetite for the ritual tomorrow.”

Footsteps sounded outside in the hall, and the doorknob rattled a moment later. Slacking in her bonds, Rebekah let her head slump down against her chest and pretended to be unconscious as the door opened.

Her heart raced.
A quick bite? What the hell does that mean?

Footsteps like grenades exploded their way towards her, the floorboards groaning at the weight of whoever clomped across them. He inhaled noisily, the exaggerated sound reminiscent of the sound a food critic might make before slicing off the first cut of meat.

“Awake, are we little one,” the man rumbled, his voice half growl. His laugh sounded more like a snort. “I can smell your fear from across the house, succulent and ripe as the flesh of a newborn. You couldn't hide from me. No one hides from me.”

Rebekah opened her eyes a crack.

Two horns curved out and up from his forehead, ending in dagger-like points that nearly brushed the ceiling. Breath steamed from his monstrous black snout, and his eyes shone red like embers in a fire. His dark hair was curly and damp from sweat, sticking to his head and chest. Rebekah couldn't breathe, fear squeezing her chest in a vice. 

He—it—leaned down until she could see the fine writing curving around and up his horns. His snout twitched as he inhaled, and then he licked the side of her face. Where his tongue touched her skin burned. “You taste delicious, little one. I'm going to take my time with you.”

Rebekah screamed.

Jason took a deep breath and reminded himself that strangling a fellow Keeper was one of the four crimes punishable by death. “Keeper Lorek, I don't think you understand what's at stake here. You can't just start interrogating students. That's not how things work.”

Rebekah's mother glared at him, her brown eyes devoid of warmth. For a small woman, her presence filled the room. As did her anger. “I don't think you understand. I am going to find my daughter, with or without you.”

“Detective Nolan...”

“...doesn't have jurisdiction in this case. I don't care what Elder Xou says.” She pushed past him and opened the door of his apartment.

He tried another tactic. “A locator spell would be more effective.”

She paused and looked over her shoulder at him. “Do you know any witches who can perform the spell?”

“Me.”

“Really?” The surprise in her voice was almost offensive. “Isn't that kinda…”

“It runs in my family's bloodline.” He pulled Rebekah's phone out of his pocket and set it on the table. “We don't advertise it though, if you know what I mean.”

“Why not? There are plenty of Keeper families with magical inheritances.” Rebekah's mom re-entered the apartment, closing the door behind herself. The edge of threat had left her tone.

Ignoring her question, he walked over to his cupboard and grabbed some ingredients: salt, a map of the county, a jar of nuts, some thyme, and a vial of holy water. He spread the map out across the table, then surrounded the outside with a thick ring of salt—both to hold the edges down and serve as a barrier for the limits of the spell. In the movies, rituals like this had to have rings of salt, but that was just a misnomer. It didn't matter what shape the salt took; as long as the chain remained unbroken, the spell would be confined inside. Off to one side he placed the phone, the sprig of thyme on top, and he mounded the nuts into a heap in the center.

“Ready?” he asked.

She nodded.

Jason closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, gathering his energy with each breath. It buzzed inside him, dancing around like small bolts of electricity shooting all over his body. He relished the sensation, savoring each second he was able to control the growing maelstrom.

On the third breath, he exhaled the energy onto the phone.

Small tongues of yellow fire danced around the phone, consuming the energy in the thyme and then darting off to the pile of nuts. They scattered after the first shot, peanuts shooting across the map in all directions. As the yellow tongues of flame danced from one nut to the next, it shot into one of four locations on the map. Once they were all in place and the flame settled to a steady glow, Jason poured a little holy water into his palm and flung it onto the map.

The flames sizzled and died with a small compression, like thunder without sound.

Jason breathed in a gulp of air, stumbling back and away from the table with the force of the released magic. As he caught his breath and stabilized himself, Rebekah's mom went over and started inspecting the map.

“Why are there four spots?” she asked, starting to reach for one of the clusters and pulling her hand back at the last second as if rethinking her decision.

“Four people must have touched the phone enough to leave an imprint.” Jason straightened up and crossed over to the table. He pointed at one of the mounds. “We can assume this gathering over the campus is me.”

“And the other three?”

He shrugged. “Well, one probably belongs to the girl whose backpack the phone had been slipped into. That leaves the other two as Rebekah and her attacker.”

She nodded thoughtfully, her dark curls swaying. “So the two that are close together, here,” she pointed at where two of the clusters of nuts were near each other, “are probably what we're looking for?”

“More than likely that's the case.” He paused to study the map, looking at the landscape and populations around each of the clusters. The one by itself was out in the woods—a place known as a sort of hook-up spot—whereas the other two were in a suburb just off campus. “If the witch who took her had been wearing gloves or if she used another form of protection…”

“Then she wouldn't have left a trace.”

He walked around to the side of the table. “Right, so we can't rule out this one over here just because it's alone. We'll have to check each spot if we want to be thorough.”

“Okay.” She paced around the table, arms crossed, her right index finger tapping against her elbow. “Okay. I think we should start at this one out in the woods. Seems a more likely location for a coven to practice than the others. More isolated, especially if they’re summoning demons.”

“But that's at least an hour drive from here.” He pointed to one of the closer collections of peanuts just on the outskirts of the campus. “This would be the smarter place to begin. Wouldn't take but a few minutes to clear and then we can circle out from there.”

She shook her head, grabbed the bag of weapons she’d left on the floor, and started toward the door. “No. That's a waste of time. You can go there if you want, but I'm heading out to the woods.”

Growling in frustration, Jason took one more look at the map to memorize it, grabbed his keys, and followed her out to the car.
Stay with her
, Elder Xou had said.
Keep her away from the investigation.
Well, at least disobeying orders wasn’t one of the Four. Otherwise, he’d have been killed a long time ago.

Engaging the engine with a twist of the key, she started the car and pulled out of the parking lot as he fastened his seatbelt. She looked over at him. “If your Elder really wanted me away from the hunt, he’d have banished me back to my territory.”

Jason grunted. By the time this was over, he'd be lucky not to find himself banished. “I’m only here for Rebekah, Mrs. Lorek.”

“Call me Diana.”

“Like Goddess of the Hunt, Diana?” he asked with undisguised surprise. “Founder of the Hunters?”

She nodded. “What can I say, my mother had her own plan for how my life should go. She saw the Hunters as noble. A higher calling. I didn’t agree. We quarreled.”

“Seems like mothers have a lot of ideas about how their daughters should live. I wonder what Rebekah will think when she finds out what you’ve been keeping from her.”

She stiffened and didn’t answer the barb in his comment.

They drove for the next half hour in near silence, speaking only to exchange directions, which was just fine with him. He was already going to be in a world of trouble when this was over and would be lucky if they let him finish his schooling. Education was a privilege. A gift. He had earned it through service growing up and because they probably felt guilty about the way his parents died, but the council could decide at any time that he was no longer worthy of their trust. They were like that sometimes, and him having been the son of the former Elder didn’t help matters. Always he was a threat. The rightful heir. When he graduated and had a few years behind him, he intended to take that rightful seat in a way none of them would see coming.

“Any idea which coven might be behind this?” Diana asked, shattering the silence with her sharp voice. “You’re a witch. Should I be worried they’re friends of yours?”

Crossing his arms, he leaned back in the seat. “There are about a half dozen active covens around the area, and four of those have ties to the school. None are very large – nine members at most – but there are a few witches with real power. These are the ones we’ll have to watch out for if they’re here.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she snapped.

“You’re not need-to-know on this information.”

“Like hell I’m not.”

He tried to keep his voice calm. “Elder Xou has detailed records of all the local covens. If he finds out something useful, he’ll pass it along to me. In the meantime, I’m not inclined to lay out for you all the secrets of this district.”

“So you do have a spine.” She made an approving sound in the back of her throat. “Good to know.”

It was the closest she’d ever come to paying him a compliment.

*              *              *

Rebekah woke to something brushing her face. She smacked it aside, scrabbling back until she saw what it was that had scared her.
Grass. It’s just grass. Calm down.
She took a couple deep breaths, her heart hammering in her chest. Someone had dressed her in a gauzy white dress that reached halfway down her thighs. The edges were trimmed in lace and the straps on her shoulders were thin. She shuddered.

She was outside somewhere, in a woods or a forest, but the colors felt too bright, almost neon, and the edges of her vision swirled and blurred. Red alder trees surrounded her, their egg shaped leaves serrated like knives reaching out to stab her flesh. Pines were sprinkled in here and there, taking more of the lower coverage so that sunlight spotted the ground like the holes in Swiss cheese. A brook burbled somewhere close, the moisture so heavy in the air she could feel it in her lungs. Drowning her. Hundreds of different shrubs and grasses and brush filled the space between the trees, lined in strange rows that towered above her head almost as if they’d been planted into one of those British garden mazes she’d seen on television.

A monstrously large ant crawled across her bare foot, its six legs hairy and tipped with wicked claws. Screaming, she hit it off and backed away through the grass until her back brushed up against something hard. 

Panting, she clawed her way to her feet. “I’ve gotta get out of here.”

She turned around.

A large wooden fence rose behind her, twelve feet high at least, topped with jagged barbed wire. To her left and right, the fence extended as far as she could see through the tall shrubbery.

“No,” she muttered, running her hand up the wood in search of a handhold or foothold or anything she could use to climb her way out. “No, this can’t be happening. Let me out!” The last sentence she screamed. Someone had to be nearby. Someone had to hear her.

“Now why would I want to do that?” a masculine voice threatened from the other side of the wall. “We’re going to have fun together, you and I.”

She touched her cheek where he had licked her and stumbled backwards. It hadn’t been a dream. That thing had been real.
Oh god. I'm going to die.

The thing on the other side of the fence snorted, its breath coming in rapid pants. Was it…excited? Something sailed over the fence and stuck in the ground. He continued. “If you survive my maze till morning, tasty little bird, I’ll let you go free.”

“You’re lying.”

It laughed, a sound like death had a sore throat. “I never lie about food. Or the hunt. When the first light of the morning pierces the land, you will be freed. If you still breathe, that is.” This time a bag flew over the fence. “There. Wouldn’t want you to think I was being unfair.”

“What is it?”

“Water. Some food.”

Rebekah stumbled over to the grey backpack, her feet tripping up every few steps as the ground shifted under her feet, and unzipped the top. Three water bottles were inside and a handful of different protein and energy bars. There was even a flashlight. Taking out one of the bottles, she twisted off the top and paused as she brought it to her lips. “How do I know these aren’t poisoned?”

The monster scoffed. “Poison is for women and children. I prefer more…tactile methods. When I kill you, tasty little bird, there won’t be this wall between us.” It rushed the fence, claws scraping against the wood as it reached for her.

Rebekah dropped the bottle and ran, pausing only to pick up the knife he’d tossed in the ground first. For all she knew, there had been a door nearby and that thing was just around the corner.

Hunting her.

There had to be a way out. Roots reached up to grab her ankles, but she didn’t get more than a little ways before she reached a dead end. The thick shrubs surrounded her on three sides and extended to twice her height, the only opening back the way she came. Back toward that thing. Twisting sideways, she tried to push through between the branches, but the thick shrubbery was so entangled she could barely get her wrist through much less anything else. A branch snapped out and stung her face.

“Ow.” Her fingertips came away wet with blood when she touched her cheek. She ducked as a second branch reached out for her. Then a third wrapped around her wrist. “What the…get off.” The branch tightened around her arm, squeezing painfully. Rebekah grabbed her the dagger and swiped at the branch, but it dodged to the side, pulling her off balance. Her wrist throbbed with pain as she cut the tough, almost tendon-like wood. It separated with a squeak of what sounded like pain and slithered back into the hedge.

Panting, she stood there a moment and massaged her sore wrist. Thick red welts still circled her wrist from where it had grabbed her. How had a branch been able to wrap like that? How was any of this possible?

As she hurried back the way she had come, two vines crept free of the hedgerow and slithered toward her feet, sharp thorns scratching at the ground and tearing it up as they went. Wind whistled through the labyrinth, calling out to her. Whispering her name.