Page 123 of Changeling
Nathan consulted the map Iain had given him and suggested left before putting the book away again. The corridor widened after a while so they were able to pair up, Jim still in the leadwith Nathan, and Alex and Sasha behind them. It made it easier to see ahead of them with their combined light, and after a few minutes they could definitely see what looked like an opening.
“Are you all right?” Nathan heard Alex whisper behind him, which made him immediately turn and look at Sasha. The incubus was holding a hand to his head and squinting his eyes like he had a headache. Nathan had never known Sasha to get headaches.
A groan made Nathan look back to his brother. Jim was holding his head the same way even though he hadn’t stopped walking towards the clearing ahead.
“It’s nothing,” Jim said.
“Let’s keep going,” Sasha echoed.
Nathan started to get a familiar chill up his spine. He didn’t feel strange, and Alex seemed fine, too. That didn’t make sense though. This place was supposed to lure humans.
Something was up ahead in that open part of the caves—there had to be. Nathan pulled his gun. “Jim,” he whispered, slipping up close to speak right next to Jim’s ear, “sense anything you can pin-point yet?”
Jim’s steps started to falter and he held his head more tightly. “Too much…interference from…whatever’s really down here. But there’s something. I know there’s something else. Get ready.”
Quickly, Nathan passed that warning back to the others, worried since being so close to the source was affecting Jim and Sasha so strongly. It seemed like they were in pain but neither of them was willing to stop.
Soon the opening was upon them. It wasn’t until they had almost reached the mouth of it that Nathan realized it wasn’t only their lights illuminating the area but a light from within as well. Someone was in there.
“Nathan!”
Jim’s call came too late. Before Nathan could think to act, Jim had already been propelled into the cave wall by an unseen force and the lights on their hardhats flickered.
“Jim!” he called, but Jim was up a second later and charged into the room. “Wait!” Nathan followed after him, hearing the running feet of the others behind him even as their lights flickered further and went out.
Nathan knew he was right at the mouth where Jim had run in, but he couldn’t see anything. He felt Alex bump into him from behind, recognizing her smaller frame. The next second, Nathan and Alex were pushed roughly aside against the opening’s wall as Sasha dove past them, apparently knowing something they didn’t. Nathan only got the briefest glimpse of flashing red eyes that told him what was happening. He still couldn’t see more than an inch in front of his face.
“Stay here!” Nathan called to Alex.
She protested loudly after him but he didn’t have time to sit in the dark and wait. He only took a few steps and started pounding on his hardhat to get the light to come back. Nothing happened.
“Jim!” Nathan called, hearing signs of struggle that seemed too far away. He hadn’t gotten enough of a glimpse inside the cavern to know how large it was, but his voice echoed back at him. Jim and Sasha could be anywhere.
Then, as if on cue, Jim signaled to him, shooting off a spark of electricity into the air and lighting up an area several yards away for just a moment. It was all the time Nathan needed to see that Sasha, half transformed, and Jim were fighting off what appeared to be a possessed woman. But only one woman. With the amount of missing people and how suddenly the attack had come, Nathan had expected to be swarmed.
He ran ahead, judging the amount of space he had from that one moment of visuals. He stopped and called again, “Jim!” and again Jim shot lightning into the air.
This time Nathan’s eyes caught sight of something else. A shotgun. Jim had dropped it and the gun was lying only a few feet in front of Nathan. It was better than a handgun at close range, and Jim and Sasha seemed too disoriented to easily defeat this thing.
Nathan dove for the shotgun, feeling it in his hands just as the lightning fizzled out again. Distantly, he heard Alex calling after them.
“Jim!” he yelled one last time. It took a moment longer, enough that Nathan was holding his breath when sparks finally flew, but it was all he needed.
Sasha, with his monstrous claws, pushed at the possessed woman just enough to give Nathan a clear shot, and he took it. The shotgun went off with a deafening resonance throughout the cave and struck the woman somewhere in her midsection. She didn’t call out, just spasmed and fell down dead in the dark.
Immediately, all of the lights on their hardhats flickered back on, Sasha and Jim’s hats lying on the floor from their struggle. But in that same moment, the sound of the gunshot echoing down the corridor they had come from turned suddenly into dangerous, daunting rumblings. The aftershock created an avalanche of rock that began falling down near the entrance and around them in the cavern as well.
Alex scrambled away from her spot by the opening and met the boys in the center of the room, all of them quickly huddling together to shield themselves from the falling rocks. Sasha unfurled his wings with a great whoosh of air and blanketed them over the top of the group. Nathan heard the incubus hiss as debris struck him but already the rumbling was starting to stabilize. A few breathless moments more and it was back to being deathly quiet.
They sat for several minutes, waiting out any possible aftereffects. Slowly, Sasha brought his wings down again and allowed them to fade back into his glamour.
“Shit,” Alex hissed, moving in a sudden dash towards where they had come from. The entire way was blocked now, by how much fallen rock they couldn’t be sure.
Nathan took stock of their surroundings now that they had light again. This seemed to be the central point to the caving system because there were several other passageways that led off different directions, just as the map had shown. That gave him hope that they would be able to find some other way out.
Nathan looked over at Jim and Sasha who appeared out of breath but only slightly beaten. Then he remembered the woman. Even in the dark with just a few spaced out sparks of light, Nathan had seen her black eyes, not normal human or dark fae slit, but black—a Shadow Immortal.
He looked at her now, still and lifeless on the ground a few yards away. Moving to her carefully and crouching down, Nathan turned her body over to get a look at her. She was older, late 50s maybe, and dressed like she had just been inside enjoying a good read before the cave called to her.
