Labyrinth: The Keeper Chronicles, a prequel (8 page)

Tiny sparks flashed.

Pressing the bulbous end of the battery up against the fabric, she rubbed the wrapper against the tip over and over until one of the sparks jumped over to the cloth and caught. Turning the torch slightly, she lit a second and then third section of the shirt with tiny flames and blew on them to help them take hold. Rebekah dropped the wrapper and battery back into her pack, grabbed the torch, and stood.

The ground shook beneath her feet.

It had found her.

Shit.

Using her body to protect the flames, she blew on the shirt some more until the sparks grew into a larger flame that wrapped all the way around the torch. As the light spread, the blood caking her arms became visible.

“What are you doing, little bird?” the creature asked.

Rebekah jumped, nearly dropping her torch. It had found her. She didn’t have much time.

I hope this is a good idea…
she pressed the torch against the labyrinth wall.

The tall hedge caught quickly, squealing in a high-pitched scream of pain as the flames brightened the night and black smoke billowed to add its own darkness. Switching hands, she lit the hedge on the other side of her, then started walking down the path lighting more sections of shrub on both sides.

“No!”

The bull-man creature crashed through the burning shrub back where she’d started the fire. The thing tore at the earth behind her, the sounds of its snarling and raging pounding through her chest like the strumming of a bass guitar.

“You’re ruining everything!” it screamed.

Rebekah ran down the maze, lighting as much on fire as she could along the way and hoping that it took before the cloth burned completely of the makeshift torch, which would happen any second now from the looks of it. Someone would have to see the fire if she got it going hot enough.

She just hoped she was still alive when they did.

Her legs burned with each step; hours of running and fear had stolen the last of her strength, and now she was moving on empty. She took two paths to the left, then one to the right, then another to the left, yet still the thing was gaining on her. If she could distract it somehow or draw it off her scent, she might be able to hide again.

As she turned another corner, the final shreds of cloth began to char off, and she stopped to use the end of the torch to poke the remaining flames into the hedge.

That's when she saw it.

Down the maze from her, lit by the flickering glare of the fire, was smoky outline of a person and something else. Something…unnatural. They moved toward her slowly, drifting the way a breeze will twist and curl and shimmy across a sandy beach.

Rebekah backed away, but the fire behind her had grown too hot and the creature's shouts were growing nearer.

It's me, Beks. It's Jason.

She shook her head. “No. I don't know what you are, but you're not him. You can't be. He's alive.”

I won't hurt you, I promise. I came to protect you.

The flames scorched her back. She was trapped.

The ground began to tremble beneath her feet.

Heart racing, she looked from the creature to the ghosts.
So this is how I'm going to die,
she thought.

Jason's wraithlike form rushed her.

I'm sorry,
he said,
this will only hurt for a second.

Rebekah screamed.

Jason entered her body with a rush, then spun and ducked, barely avoiding the Minotaur's clawed hand. Ignoring the fire, he ran backward away from the demon and turned as soon as he found the first intersection. She'd been smart lighting the maze, but he knew something she hadn't: she'd been near one of the outer walls when she started the fire, and she'd ran in such a way as to trap herself in. If the fire continued to spread, he'd run out of room to flee before the others could find them.

He'd just have to kill the demon himself.

Normally, that wasn't a big deal. Jason killed demons all the time, even second-orders like this Minotaur. That was when he'd had the strength and endurance and healing powers of his Keeper heritage. Not anymore. Operating Rebekah's body should have been as easy as working his own, but her body had a delay with every thought, making his movement of her clumsy. She hadn't been awakened, so where he was expecting strength similar to his he found only the body of a normal human instead.

And that normal human was more precious to him than his own life.

He'd just have to find a way to save her without hurting her, and from the way his vision swayed and flashed, she'd been drugged with some kind of hallucinogen.

He liked a challenge, right?

“Your fear smells…different.”

Jason slid to a stop. The Minotaur had somehow gone around him and gotten out in front, blocking his exit. From the aerial overview he’d gotten of the maze, it would be easy enough. It really wasn’t that big at all, just some tall shifting hedges that would reposition to give the illusion of depth. Of course, the tall wall and barbed wire surrounding the entire thing had been real enough. The only way out from where he’d found her was through the creature or back toward the fire.

“I'm not afraid of you.” Jason crossed Rebekah's arms in a mock challenge. He needed to stall. The labyrinth hand only been a mile from the house; the satyrs should be there soon.

The Minotaur cocked his head to the side and sniffed through his bull nose. “No, you're not. You're afraid…for her. Not yourself, but her. Interesting.” It stepped forward and bent down until it was eye level with Jason. “When did
you
get in there, little Keeper?”

He cleared his throat. “That doesn't matter. What matters is that the full force of this region is bearing down on this location as we speak.” Jason stepped forward till he could smell the demon’s sulfur breath. “If you leave now, you have a chance to run. Maybe you'll escape? Maybe not? You'll at least have the chance. If you stay here, if you continue to threaten Rebekah, you will die. I'll make sure of it.”

The demon laughed, a sound like happiness shattering or babies dying. “You humans and your fear of death. We aren't afraid to die. We welcome it. Should you kill me now, I'll simply return to the eternal fires and my brothers. The memory of her succulent fear will sustain me as I fight my way back through the barriers separating our world from yours. And when I return, I will kill again.” The demon leaned forward. “No matter how your kind fights and dies protecting these chattel,” he spat the last word like a curse, “it's nothing more than a dam of rocks and sticks trying to contain an ocean.”

“Contain this.” Jason rammed the burnt tip of the stick Rebekah had used as torch into the demon's throat. It gurgled and stumbled backward, falling into a burning hedge.

Jason didn't wait around to see if it had died.

Orienting himself as best he could given the aerial view he'd gotten when flying over the labyrinth in spectral form, Jason wove through the maze and toward what he hoped was one of the outer gates if the hedges hadn’t shifted much. The Minotaur had only been distracted for a moment, and its steps trembling through the ground in pursuit. Even though it couldn't see him, he knew minotaurs had an excellent sense of smell and would be able to find him that way.

Her body shook as he ran, trembling from exhaustion and lack of sleep. She wouldn't be able to stand much more.

The wail of sirens broke through the crackle and pop of the blaze around him. He closed her eyes and said a silent prayer. They'd seen the fire and were coming for her. All he had to do was keep her alive until they arrived.

Filled with renewed hope, he ran faster, the jerking motion of her body settling into something like a trot as he fled from the Minotaur, guiding himself by the position of the moon. If the other Keepers were going to come in, they'd do it through there.

You know, if it wasn't on fire.             

Jason barely managed to stop in time to keep Rebekah's body from running straight into a line of burning hedge. He turned to the left and hurried down the row, but it ended in fire. There wasn't any escape, not unless he was willing to risk giving her second or third degree burns, which he wasn't. Not until he didn't have a choice.

“Your fear is deepening. Ripening.” The Minotaur walked through the burning, hedge, flames curling up and around his body as if giving him a caress. A wave of heat blasted Jason in the face, and he stumbled back a step. The demon didn't stop. “And your friends are too far away to help you. You love this girl, don’t you?”

Did he? No. Not yet. But he thought he might one day.

Demons, especially first and second order ones, were difficult to kill. Able to survive maiming and wounds that would otherwise kill normal humans, demons could only reliably be dispatched back to the Red by removing their heads, stopping their hearts if they had them, or injuring what passed for a brain.

He had to find a way to sever a minotaur’s head with his bare hands using the strength of a human woman.

Oh, and if she died while he was in possession of her body, her departing spirit would latch onto his and take it with her to whatever waited next.

They were both fucked.

The demon stopped a foot away and grinned. “All my favorite meals have been sacrificed by those who loved them most.”

Shrugging, he crossed his arms and ignored the flames that tried to leap off the demon and onto what remained of Rebekah's clothing. “I’m surprised that a demon of your rank would allow himself to be chained to a human witch. Seems…beneath you.” He cocked her head to the side and winked. “You could do better.”

“You seek to stall me, human, in the hopes that your Keeper friends will save this girl.” The Minotaur reached out faster than Jason could react with Rebekah's body and grabbed them by the throat. Jason clawed and punched and pulled at the demon's hand as it slowly lifted him off his feet. “There is no hope. No one can save you now.”

Jason could have left then. He could have fled Rebekah's doomed body and returned to his own before she pulled him to the next life with her, but he didn't. Maybe he really did love her. Maybe the thought of returning Rebekah to consciousness just to experience her own death seemed unusually cruel. Maybe he was more afraid of what her mom would do to him if he didn't give his life to protect her daughter. Maybe he was just a masochist.

Whatever the case, he stayed and fought with all the strength left in her fragile body, kicking and hitting and trying to pull those massive claws out from around her neck.

The Minotaur laughed and squeezed even tighter.

His vision darkened until he could only see flashes of light, see bits of silhouettes in front of the firelight. Dimly, as though hearing with someone else's ears, he heard a discordant sound. It wasn't an explosion exactly or a bomb but more like a concussion of sound. Like hearing soundwaves instead of the sounds themselves.

This was it. He was dying.

Jason closed Rebekah's eyes.

He flew backwards away from the demon, landing on his back further down the maze. The impact forced what little air he had left to explode from him in a gasp, and he panted to catch it again. 

A face appeared through the darkness above his.

“Thank you,” Rebekah's mom said, “but get the hell out of my daughter's body.”

Jason fled.

He returned to his body to find Elder Xou looking down at him. The steaming remains of the Satyr had melted through the floorboards, and the others were long gone. The Elder crossed his arms. “You've been called before the Council. Prepare your affairs and present yourself for judgment.”

Jason closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the floor.

Rebekah sat up and scooted back on the bed, hitting her head on something hard. The bright lights overhead were painful, but when she pulled her arm to shield her eyes, something sharp tugged at her arm.

“It's okay, you're safe. I'm here.”

“Mom?” Rebekah let her mom guide her arm back down and looked around. Somehow, she'd gotten to a hospital. A machine in the corner had numbers and wiggly lines that made no sense to her, and a clear bag of some kind of fluid was hooked to her arm through a needle in the back of her hand. That was the pinch she had felt. Her mom sat in what looked like an uncomfortable recliner with a pair of blankets fallen around her feet. “What happened? How did I get here?”

Her mom spoke in the same soft, calming voice she used when Rebekah had a nightmare as a kid. “Detective Nolan found you out in the woods near the old Lynn place. He called an ambulance and they brought you here.”

The image of a man's face with a giant bull's nose and wicked horns flashed in her mind. Rebekah jerked back as if shocked and looked around, but there was no monster nearby. “I…mom, I think I'm crazy.” She shivered and rubbed her arms for a moment. “I saw…I saw…”

“Shh, princess. It's okay. I won't let anything happen to you.”

The bull-snouted monster’s face flashed in Rebekah’s mind and she shuddered. “But that, that thing…”

“Wasn’t real. You’re perfectly safe now. Nothing can happen to you here.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. Why don't you tell me what you remember?” her mom asked, taking Rebekah's hand in hers.

Rebekah took a few deep breaths and waited for the hair on her arms to lay flat before she began. Out in the hall, someone talked about the weather and a young woman laughed. The squeaky wheels of a cart or stand of some kind screeched down the hall. In the room behind her, the television blared a gameshow. “It's all kind of hazy. There was this maze I was lost in, and the walls of the maze were alive and had these vines that reached out and cut me. The monster was chasing me. It looked like a bull but also a man. He had big horns. He chased me around the maze. I kept getting lost and it was dark and hard to see. I…it didn't seem real. I knew I wasn't asleep but at the same time I couldn't believe what I was looking at. Does that make any sense at all?”

“The doctors say they found enough LSD and mushrooms in your systems to cause violent hallucinations.” Her mom looked at the door but no one was there. “Do you remember eating or drinking anything?”

“Water. The…thing gave me a couple bottles of water. Could that have been it?”

Light shone through the slats on the blinds, lighting her mom's face in golden streaks. Her eyes were bloodshot with purple rings around the bottom, and her hair looked like it hadn't been washed in days. Her smile was tired. “Maybe. Honestly, I don't care. I'm just glad you're alive. You were unconscious when the police found you. The doctors want to keep you here for a few more days to make sure there's no long-term effects from the drugs, but then you can come home. Your dad will be here tonight, and we can drive back together when you're ready.”

“What about my things in the dorm?”

Her mom smoothed back her hair. “Don't worry about that; we'll take care of it for you. All you need to do for now is rest.”

Rest. That sounded like a good idea. Except what if she saw that thing when she closed her eyes? “So…none of that was real? Not the labyrinth or the monster or even one point I thought I saw Jason—all of that was the drugs?”

“I'm afraid so, princess.” Her mom’s voice hardened. “You were given almost a lethal dose by that sick girl.”

The beeping on the monitor intensified. “Emily? Did they catch her?”

“She killed herself,” her mom answered.

Letting her head rest back against the pillow, Rebekah curled up on her side facing her mom and the window. For a while she said nothing, just lay there with her mom and listened to the reassuring sounds of the machinery. She was alive. Somehow. She rubbed the thick welts on her wrist. “Did Jason stop by?”

An unreadable expression crossed her mom's face. “No, princess, he didn't. I'm sorry.”

Her entire body hurt from the ordeal, but somehow those six words were the more painful than anything else. "I saw him there, in whatever that was. He saved me." She swallowed and blinked back the tears that formed in her eyes. “Maybe he'll stop by tomorrow.”

“Maybe,” her mom said with a sad shake of the head. Then under her breath, “but I don’t think it likely.”

*              *              *

Jason stood, hands chained behind his back, feet shackled together, and waited. Rebekah was alive. Her mom and told him that much when he stopped by the hospital. Whatever happened to him now, he'd at least saved her. That was enough.

Elder Xou sat at the head of a conference table. Seated to his left and right were six leaders of key Keeper families in the region as well as Detective Nolan, their liaison with the police force, and Grothick, leader of the Satyrs. The end of the table was occupied by a team of lawyers from the Trenton Group. An agenda printed on expensive white paper sat in front of each person, a glass of ice water positioned perfectly to the top right corner. If it weren't for the fact that armed Keepers stood watch around the edges of the room with whatever knives, swords, axes, maces, or butcher's knives they preferred close at hand, a casual observer might have thought them negotiating a contract.

It was more like a hostile takeover.

The Trenton Group lawyer buttoned the front of her expensive jacket and spoke. “We convene this Council meeting to adjudicate on the legality of Keeper Jason Riggs executing of the final clause of the Satyr-Keeper Agreement of 1857. First, we'll hear from the leader of the Satyrs. Grothick, what say you?”

The Satyr rose and removed his hat. “The language of the Agreement binds us to the Keepers providing certain terms are kept by both parties and can only be voided by the redemption of an extreme favor by the Keepers of the region. Nothing in the language specified that the Keeper with whom the exchange was made had to be a member of the Council or seek its approval. The Agreement was binding and, having been fulfilled, must be honored. We are free.”

“Thank you,” the lawyer said. It wasn't often that Trenton Group sharks were women, but his one was. She couldn't have been more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old and the diamond necklace at her throat probably cost more money than he would see in a lifetime. Lawyers. “Elder Xou, what say you?”

“No disagreement.”

Jason blinked.
Did I really just hear that?

The lawyer crossed her arms. “If there's no dispute, there's no need for mediation. Our fee is still due.” She started to gather up her papers.

Elder Xou cleared his throat. “Mrs. Van Novak, there's no disagreement that what Keeper Riggs did was keeping in the spirit of the Agreement, and we don't dispute that. We called this meeting to discuss the terms of the second agreement entered into between Keeper Riggs and the Satyr. He had no right or authority to commit the Keepers of this region or any other to finding and aiding the Satyr Chuthick upon his return to this world. And, without the drafting of a second Agreement between ourselves and the Satyr, there is nothing to stop us from killing them before they leave this room.”

Grothick pounded his fist on the table. “No. Unacceptable. His words bind your actions, Keeper. If you try to take action against us, you’ll lose.”

“Actually,” Mrs. Van Novak ignored the demon's threat, glancing down at her notes for a second and then back up, “he does not have that authority. Only an Elder can bind a region to a contract, and only a unanimous vote of The Nine can bind all Keepers. In this, the law is with the Keepers.” The Satyr started to stand, but the lawyer gestured for him to sit down. Surprisingly, the demon complied. “Please, Mr. Grothick, calm yourself. For offering a contract without proper authority, you, as the injured party, are allowed to suggest a suitable punishment to be agreed upon, or not, by the Elder.”

Jason held his breath. If the Satyr wanted, he could ask for Jason's death.

The Satyr knew this. The goat-man strummed his fingers on the table, the fur around his ears twitching. He was enjoying this. Great.

Grothick smiled. “Keeper Riggs should be made to keep his promise to me himself.”

That's a lot better than I thought.

“And the only way he'd have the access necessary to do this is as a Hunter. That is the punishment we Satyrs seek.”

“What say you, Elder Xou?” the lawyer asked.

Elder Xou didn't wait a beat. “Agreed.”

Jason's heart sank. A Hunter? The Satyrs might as well have called for his head then and there. No one sane survived more than a year or two as a Hunter.

The lawyer nodded. “Then it is agreed. I'll draw up the paperwork for your signature. In the meantime, the sentence is to be carried out immediately. My team will see Keeper Riggs transferred to the Isle of Dreams for training. Now, would either party like to discuss the drafting of a new contract so as to avoid ending the day with bloodshed?”

“Yes.” Elder Xou tented his fingers on the table. This had been exactly the outcome the old bastard had wanted. "I'm confident we can arrive at a mutually beneficial arrangement."

Two of the Trenton Group’s goons grabbed Jason's chains and led him out the side door and down the hall toward the exit. He passed the Keepers who served as guards, their faces carefully blank, and wondered who would take his tower. It'd been under his family's protection for nearly a hundred years, and now he'd likely never lay eyes on its light again.

“I don't suppose I can talk you into letting me go?” Jason joked, then grunted as one of the men elbowed him hard in the stomach. “Guess not.”

Well,
Jason thought as they shoved him into the back of a black, windowless van,
I never thought I was going to live to a ripe old age.

Thirty would have been nice though.