Bella arched an imperious eyebrow. "Perhaps you weren't listening to our conversation, Beck. None of us could raise a shield much less maintain it right now."
The hum of wings drew our attention to the middle tunnel. A hummingbird emerged and puffed into a cloud of red smoke.
I glanced at Bella. "And the verdict is?"
"Not that tunnel."
I jumped to my feet, unable to relax with the threat still lingering behind us. I felt reasonably certain three well-trained Templars could hold off just about anything short of a giant nuclear robot. These tunnels were fairly narrow and constrained, however, so the creature stalking us couldn't be too large. That didn't make it any less dangerous.
Another minute of eternity passed until the second bird appeared from the right-hand tunnel and vanished in a haze of red smoke. The predator back down the tunnel somewhere roared again, reminding us we didn't have all day to sit around waiting on Bella's hummingbirds.
"The left-hand tunnel it is," I said, rising to my feet.
Bella gripped my wrist. "We should wait. There may be more forks ahead."
"How do those stupid birds know the tunnels are bad?" Beck asked. He leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the room and stared down the right-hand passage, his hand fidgeting with a sword.
Bella took a deep breath and pushed to her feet. Looked at her wand. "I suppose I still have enough."
"Enough of what?" Beck asked.
The red mist from the first bird still hovered where it had appeared. Bella rotated her wand through it until it whirled in a vortex of red smoke. An image appeared in the center. Everyone crowded around. The image showed the route from the perspective of the bird as it zipped at hyper-speed down the winding tunnel. I could hardly keep up with the twisting and turning, but it was obvious the passage went on for at least a mile or two before turning into a slick slide leading straight to hell via a terrifying fall into pitch black.
Beck grimaced. "Holy crap."
Bella showed us the feedback from the second bird. Its tunnel stopped at a wall of rock. But the bird swooped down and hovered to expose a line in the floor. It slammed its tiny body against the line and the dead end vanished, leaving only a void beneath.
"Very cunning," Bella said, though her face had gone a bit pale. "A magical barrier that feels solid until you trip the trap and it vanishes."
I could picture everyone's legs spinning in mid-air like cartoon characters before dropping like rocks, our screams fading into the depths.
Beck gulped, his face even paler than Bella's. She looked drained. Exhausted.
He was about to speak when the third hummingbird emerged from the left tunnel and dissolved into a green mist.
"Green for go?" I asked.
Bella smiled and nodded.
Beck didn't seem convinced. "Uh, you sure that green bird found a safe way?"
"My seeker spell has never failed me before," she said.
"How many times have you been lost in tunnels underneath a cursed city?" Beck asked, disbelief on his face.
"Only once. But the spell works for more than just tunnels. It plots safe routes through all sorts of dangerous terrain."
"I guess if it ever did fail, you wouldn't be around to tell anyone."
She chuckled wryly. "Indeed."
Curtis groaned and pushed to his feet. "I, for one, am beyond exhausted from carrying Pokito." He ran a hand through his carrot-colored hair and gave us expectant looks.
The small Asian man still hadn't snapped out of his blank-eyed trance.
"Beck, you mind helping out?" I asked.
"What do I look like to you, a babysitter?" He snorted.
"Well, if you're not strong enough—"
"Yeah, buddy. Reverse psychology isn't gonna work. You don't want me burdened down with that guy. If that thing following us attacks, you'll want me ready and primed to go. I might be the only thing standing between you and mealtime for a monster."
"My knight in shining armor," Fausta said, an amused grin on her face. She braced both fists on her hips and tilted them. "Whatever would we do without you?"
Elyssa seemed to overcome whatever aversion she had for the Italian girl and nodded. "You just let the pros handle that monster, Beck. Mr. Pokey needs you."
Fausta snorted with laughter, barely stifling it with her hand.
Another roar from behind us seemed to settle the matter.
Beck glared at them. "You know what? I'll carry him and still save your asses when the monster catches up." He slung the little man over his shoulder like a sack of beans and stormed down the left tunnel.
Bella and the two girls set off after him while Alejandro, Curtis, and I took up the rear. We hadn't gone more than twenty feet when the entire tunnel rumbled, rocking back and forth. It threw us around like lace thongs in a strip club. The rock splintered and cracked beneath our feet. Behind us, the ceiling collapsed in a blanket of rubble.
"Run!" I screamed above the roar of crumbling rock. "Run!"
Chapter 29
We ran.
A problem quickly became apparent. Curtis panted and wheezed, stumbling along and barely keeping his feet. He had no supernatural speed or strength. Alejandro was young and quick, but nothing compared to those of us blessed with demonic or vampiric speed. And the crumbling tunnel was catching up to them. I did the only thing I could. Without pausing in my sprint, I slung Curtis, staff and all, over a shoulder, and grabbed Alejandro around the waist, picking him up and racing for all I was worth after the girls.
Curtis shouted something. I could feel his back arch as he craned his neck to look behind us. The creak and groan of tortured rock drowned out his words. I looked back. What I saw set fire to my stride: Parietal eyes the size of boulders gleamed red like burning rubies above a long, narrow muzzle filled with jagged, black teeth, obsidian shards set in a tunnel to oblivion.
"It's a leyworm!" Curtis screamed frantically into my ear.
I almost tripped as the ground went out from beneath me. Leapt a small gap. Poured on the speed. "A leyworm?" Yet another denizen of the Overworld out to kill me.
"They're giant reptiles. Attracted to powerful ley lines." Curtis gasped as I jumped over a fallen rock. He caught his breath. "Feed off them. They can tunnel through solid rock."
"Reptiles? Like a snake?"
"No, more like an—oof!" He caught his breath. "A dragon."
He had to be kidding me. A dragon? "Is it the same monster that's been following us?"
I felt his lungs inflate against my shoulders. "No. This is something else." He didn't sound exhausted anymore. In fact, he sounded pretty alert. Terror has a way of doing that. "No idea why it's after us."
The passage split into five more ahead. Bella pointed at the second from the right where a bright green slash marked it. We followed. So did the giant worm, snake, dragon, or whatever the thing really was. I looked back. Its mouth scooped up loose rubble like a vacuum where it vanished into the glowing maw. A pulsating light emanated from deep down the corridor of its throat.
Good god, I hoped that thing couldn't spew fire.
Curtis kept talking, spouting facts about leyworms, though I could hardly hear half of it over the din and roar of the creature or the cacophony of falling rock.
I looked forward just in time to see Bella jabbing a finger at one of two tunnels just ahead. As before, a green slash marked the way. I angled for it, barely keeping my feet as a chunk of rock broke loose and rolled directly into my path, nearly blocking the tunnel. I sucked in a breath, somehow squeezing past with my two passengers. I heard a thump and a yelp. Curtis's educational lecture on leyworms abruptly stopped. His head bounced against my back.
"Whoops," I mumbled. I hadn't been quite as precise as I'd hoped and probably knocked the poor man senseless against the rock. Alejandro, for his part, seemed unharmed. But holding him tucked under my arm was cumbersome. Another close scrape like that, and we might not make it. "I'm putting you over my shoulder," I said.
Slinging him over my shoulder from his position was a hell of a lot harder to do while running than I thought it'd be. Somehow, I did it without throwing him over like a pinch of salt and into the worm's mouth. I figured Lina, should we live to see her again, would be grateful for that.
As we cleared the next tunnel, we burst into a massive chamber ringed with dark tunnel entrances on all sides. Bella sprinted ahead, obviously uncertain which one we needed to take. I quickly saw why. Glowing green slashes marked the air in front of almost every tunnel. Were they all safe? Or had someone tampered with them?
The group raced to the center of the room. Elyssa abruptly stopped and held out her hands. "The rumbling. It stopped."
I looked back. She was right. The worm or whatever had been chasing us was gone.
"Where the hell did it go?" Beck asked, pivoting on his feet as if it might burst from beneath us at any minute.
"Far away I hope," Elyssa said.
"They're all marked!" Bella said, breathing heavily, her face red with exertion and possibly anger as she looked at the passageways around the room. "I have no idea which way to go."
"Someone please remind me to get better underwear next time," I said, panting.
"Eew, what did you do?" Fausta said with a grimace.
"Not what you think." I blew out a breath. "But I have the mother of all wedgies and it hurts."
"You carried them all this way?" Elyssa said, looking querulously at my passengers.
I gave her a What can you do? shrug and, sensing we might possibly safe for at least the next few seconds, put Alejandro on his feet and lowered Curtis to the ground so I could pry my underwear out of my own crevice. The ginger sorcerer's head was thankfully still intact, albeit bleeding from a bump. His pointy Gandalf hat, however, was long gone. It was a miracle I hadn't tripped over the ridiculous robes he wore.
"Thanks," Alejandro said, gripping my shoulder and giving me a quick bro hug. "You saved us."