Page 126 of Changeling
“Anything, Walt?”
“I’m sorry, Nathan. I found the opening, but it was only a small hole from the many years and cave-ins. You will not be able to fit through.”
“Shit, no go,” Nathan said to Alex.
Another roar sought after them, closer than before. Nathan recognized now why that sound chilled him more than anything ever had—it wasn’t only Sasha’s voice. It was Jim’s too.
Seeing no other option, Nathan pulled the gun from his jacket again. “Walt, find where they are so we can take a path away from them. We have to head back.”
Walter nodded and was gone.
Another roar sounded as they headed the way they had come from. It was too risky to go all the way to the smaller cavern and take a different path. Nathan moved instead for one of the crumbled walls. The worst was in knowing that their hardhatlights gave them away, but without them they wouldn’t be able to see where they were going.
Feeling along the wall but keeping his eyes forward, Nathan felt the rock give a little on his left into a crumbled opening, making it large enough to slip through.
“You cannot continue back to the other cavern, Nathan,” Walter said as he reappeared. “Jim is almost here.”
Nathan ushered Alex through the opening without another word. It was a difficult squeeze but the passage itself wasn’t as narrow as Nathan had feared. It seemed darker, though, and he felt the slow decline that told him they were heading deeper into the earth.
Just as he was starting to think this hadn’t been the best idea, the passage opened up into the largest cavern they had yet come to. It was half a basketball court, maybe larger, and there was only one continuing passageway out of it. Nathan took the chance to look at the map.
“Shit,” he cursed, keeping his voice a whisper. He looked up at Alex close beside him and shook his head. “Not on the map. We’ll just have to hope we’re heading a way that leads us out somewhere. Walt, scout ahead again, okay?”
Nathan shoved the map back in his pocket as Walter faded once more. He held the gun at the ready as he moved for the passageway across the cavern. It was another wider corridor that seemed to curve off almost immediately; Nathan couldn’t really see inside even after his light was shining right on it.
“Nathan, wait!” Walter appeared again, just off to the side of the entrance into their planned corridor.
It was dark enough in the cavern that Nathan didn’t need Walter’s warning. He could see the lights flashing inside his jacket from the pheromone detector he’d forgotten about. It wasn’t supposed to pick up on Sasha…
With a great crunch, a clawed hand smashed into the cave wall from around the curve of the passageway. Horrifyingly slow, the rest of the figure appeared as if it were climbing out of the rock itself, out of the very fissures of the earth like a hellbeast.
Nathan stared, clinging tightly to Alex.
The incubus could barely fit his way out of the passageway into the cavern he was so large. He didn’t look the way he should. His coloring was the same, his hair longer and wild as always, but his red eyes glowed with a dreadful light. His horns were larger, sharper. His fangs were not merely on his eyeteeth but the ones next to them seemed slightly pointed too, and the same pattern repeated on his lower teeth. Though more subtle than the length of his original fangs, these new additions made him that much more fearsome for his potential bite. His claws were larger and sharper too. He was taller, by another inch or two maybe, because of his now frighteningly monstrous raptor feet.
But most impressive were his wings. They were massive. At first pinched by the tight space, when Sasha stepped out into the cavern, his wings shot out from his back with such force that Nathan felt literally pushed.
Sasha looked exactly as he had in Nathan’s nightmares.
Then Sasha’s tongue darted out over his lips and he grinned wide to show off his fierce new fangs. “Nathan…” he said like a low rumble. “Poor Nathan. Should have run faster.”
“Go!” Nathan called, but even as they turned and he made to push Alex back toward the opening they had come through, the way out proved to be just as blocked.
Jim stepped out of the other passageway with leisurely steps.
Neither Jim nor Sasha was wearing their hardhat—not that Sasha would have been able to fit it over his large horns—but it didn’t seem that either of them needed the extra light. Jim’s eyes shone with power just like Sasha’s, slit amber and menacing. Something else about him was different though, justnot as visible as Sasha’s more impressive appearance. The power emanating from Jim made him appear somehow larger, god-like and glowing.
“You even had a map,” Jim scoffed, leaning frustratingly casual against the rock wall just inside the cavern, “and this is the best you could do?” He was grinning, dimples galore, like he did only when he was completely content. “Though I suppose we did have a bit of an advantage.” He broke into an easy laugh.
His laughter seemed so offhandedly cruel for how carefree it was. It was even worse when Sasha joined him, who in his even more monstrous form sounded halfway to a growl. The combination was exactly what they had been hearing in those warning roars. All Nathan could do was reach out for Alex and pull her in close against him. He could feel the weight of the gun in his hand but didn’t think he could use it.
“Looking good, Sash!” Jim called to the incubus. “How do you feel?”
Sasha flexed claws that for the first time in so long made Nathan feel afraid. “Like nothing can touch me. Like I want to stretch my wings…and really let loose.” He laughed again.
Nathan shivered when Jim joined in, having to grip Alex’s arm that much tighter to keep from visibly shaking. He felt her clutch his wrist as he slowly tried to back them up towards one of the walls so they could keep Sasha and Jim in their sights at the same time. Nathan could see Walter near Sasha’s form, looking confused and horrified.
“I don’t know what to make of this, Nathan,” the Spirit Guide said. “They are…like nothing I have ever known.”
