Working out sucks. My human form is not particularly fit. I can run for long enough, but I have weak, wobbly arms and there are no muscles in my back or stomach to “write home about” either. I never thought I needed to be particularly powerful. Kit Sutton always takes meticulous care of her physique, with the declared goal of attracting mates. I don’t believe I need to voice my opinion on that. Knowing Elijah Carter on the other hand has changed my mind on these matters. I want my mortal form to become a little more fortified.
Still, maybe I shouldn’t have asked Eli about it directly.
That’s where my mind went when I was lying flat on the floor of his apartment with him towering above me. We were listening to a song meant to conduct the intervals of push-ups I was doing while he was focused on correcting my apparently lacking form. After thirteen push-ups, I found myself incapable of further movement.
“Don’t you hear what she’s singing?” Elijah asked. “Bring Sally up…”
“Sally’s not coming up again,” I muttered, my arms slack on either side of my torso.
“Yes, she is! Get that ass off the floor, you look like a dead frog.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can! Get up!”
“Turn off drill sergeant mode. I want normal Eli.”
“Normal Eli is gone. This is your life now,” he replied darkly.
We went back and forth on the issue for a while until I finished up the workout song. He was content with my effort and finally allowed me to rest my arms. We sat down to talk and watch TV. Elijah Carter ran what one may have called a “tight ship” at his apartment. It was small but clean and tidy to a fault, so it didn’t feel cramped whatsoever. He kept it in midnight blues and dark purples, and nearly all the surfaces were soft to the touch. Fuzzy rugs, a bunch of plush pillows on his couch as well as the blanket he threw over my head.
Normally, we’d have far more fun spending time together, but there was a shadow hanging over us that day. We were expecting a call from Mary Markov. After everything that had happened with the sea god, I’d contacted her again and she said she’d reach out to me with a plan soon. Elijah Carter and I knew we’d both be called to action. We had acted as a team when we’d first encountered Jewel, and that’s something we share—in a suboptimal way. He already assured me that I could count on his assistance, no matter what would come up. Then again, there’s not really much else he can do, considering he likely doesn’t want the world to end.
Sitting beside him on the couch, I regarded his profile. There was a muscle in his cheek that kept jumping every now and then. He was fidgeting with the remote, turning it over in his hand again and again. There was a softness to his eyes that betrayed the power of his frame. It was in the area around his mouth, as well. There was something going on there, not quite a dimple and not quite not a dimple. It subtracted from the strictness of his features in a way that hadn’t caught my attention before. I believe whatever it was played a major part in his expression whenever he was being sarcastic.
That aside, I could tell he knew I was staring at him and choosing not to say anything. I wondered why. Nearly thirty seconds, that lasted.
“What are we looking at?” he finally asked.
“I noticed something interesting about your face and wanted to memorize it. Did I make you uncomfortable?”
“I’m used to it from you.” He tipped his head back. A long sigh came from deep within his chest.
“Do you regret befriending me?” I inquired. “Because of the cult and the apocalypse and all.”
“Nah. Why would I? World was gonna end whether or not we’d be friends.”
“But you wouldn’t have had anything to do with it. If you hadn’t taken me along on that job, Jewel would have never seen me. You would have gotten paid and gone home none the wiser.”
“I’d rather know. We can try and stop it this way. Don’t guilt-trip yourself, Shirley.” He stretched, reaching over to grab a can of diet soda from the TV table.
“What happened at that highschool?”
The second the word “highschool” had left my lips, Eli started choking on his drink, spraying soda everywhere as he huffed and sputtered. “I swear to God,” he growled, fixing me with a rather cold stare.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” he muttered, regaining his composure. “I guess I did promise you that story, I just… damn. You’re good at catching people off guard.” He shuddered. “You and Blondie both. It’s perfect. I never ever want to meet any kids you might have.”
I patted his arm reassuringly. “It’s physically impossible for us to breed.”
“Good to know,” he said slowly, drawing out each word. “Alright.” He took several deep breaths, clearly steadying himself. “So back when I was on the force, I was stationed in a different town. A bigger one, with an ivy-league school in it.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Means it’s full of classist hoity-toity dumbasses who think they’re better than everyone. Anyways, we literally got a call at the station with this creepy modified voice saying they were gonna blow up the school. Now, I assumed we were gonna do everything to protect those kids. You know, call off the classes, send them all home, guard the perimeter… all of that. Instead, my boss, who was super close with the principal, contacted him and got orders—yes, orders to lay low. We were sent up to the schoolhouse that day to watch out for, and I quote, anything out of the ordinary, but that was it. All because the guys in charge there weren’t taking it seriously and didn’t want to deal with the, and I quote again, drama.” He threw me a meaningful glance.
“I think I see where this is going,” I mumbled.
“You’d have to be blind not to. Or, you know, my chief.” He shook his head, raking a hand through his short hair. “So we went up there, just a couple of us, to—”
My phone rang. Elijah cursed, shaking his head when I threw him an apologetic glance. “It’s fine. Take it.”
That was a good decision, as it turned out to be Mary Markov calling. With a slightly unsteady finger, I tapped the screen to put her on speaker. Her voice was bell-bright, clear and surprisingly excited. “Miss Shirley, I must apologize. All this time, I’ve overlooked the most important link we had to the cultist. We’ve just been sitting on it like a bunch of clueless idiots.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The catacombs. The shaft the cultist used to flee that night in the woods.”
“I thought your agents would take care of that.”
“Well, um… we did. We closed it off. No further investigations were conducted in that area, but we’re about to change that.”
“Let me guess, it’s gonna be us,” Elijah threw in.
“Oh yes,” Mary replied eagerly. “No need for concern, you’ll both be compensated accordingly. I take it Mr Carter is accompanying you.”
“Yes. Anyways, I suppose we’d best get started asap.”
“I’m glad you’re so agreeable.” The newsreader sounded relieved. “I’ll meet you there. I’ll have staff standing by in case of an emergency.”
“Prepared for all eventualities, are we,” Eli muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm. “They wait forever and now they’re rushing in. Leave it to the spindly branches of the government to muck things up.”
Mary Markov said her goodbyes, pointedly ignoring him. Elijah Carter and I got on our way and found ourselves at the agreed spot not long after. On the way, I’d recounted to him once again what Frankie Preston and I had seen in the woods the last time we’d been there. Eli seemed almost a bit excited, the hint of an anxious smile playing at his features. Mary and her guards came along with us to the manhole. The lid had been sealed with heavy-duty locks in three places. They undid them for us and provided us with flashlights, and to my surprise, a firearm for Elijah. He considered it for a moment before accepting. It all felt a bit like a blur as we climbed the steps down the concrete shaft.
We were very grateful for the torches once we were standing in the tunnels. They were damp and dark, an earthy smell hanging in the stale, warm air. The corridor was spacious enough for both of us to stand in side by side, and Eli had to duck his head just a bit.
“I don’t know if I’m intrigued or freaked out,” my friend mumbled, letting the beam of his light travel the round walls. They were old, cracks splitting the concrete in several places. Thin, pale roots, bits of greenish plantlife and spots of soil were visible where the erosion was strongest. “Why does this place even exist? I don’t suppose the Collective’s made this… They haven’t been around for that long, have they?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. It must be big, though. Jewel got away through here.”
“Jewel,” he repeated, weighing the name. “Do you know anything else about them?”
“Nothing beyond what I’ve already told you. They’re like me, though. In a way.”
“Yeah, I know.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “You think they’re down here?”
“I don’t think anybody can be down here for longer than they have to.” I sniffed, wrinkling my nose at the permeating smell. “This is not a home. It’s an escape route.”
“And a dumpster.”
Before I had fully registered what Eli had said, my gaze was already following his pointing finger. There was a small, open side room; a nook the long corridor was branching out into. Propped up against the wall there was a slouched, crumpled form. My heart lunged in my chest and I immediately felt my throat clog up. Still, I couldn’t help myself—my eyes glued to the motionless figure, I slowly walked up to it, step by faltering step.
I felt the familiar warmth of Elijah’s large hand resting on my shoulder as he followed close behind me. Our flashlights illuminated the limp body of a human female. Her skin was leathery and taut over mere bone, the carcass appearing to be trapped within some stage of mummification. Her clothes however looked relatively new and less dirty than I would have expected. The most disturbing part however was the empty space atop her shoulders. Her neck had been severed close to the base, the head missing entirely. My stomach churned as I stared at the mangled, open hole.
“Come on,” Eli said softly beside my ear.
“This unnerves me.”
“I know. Let’s go on, we don’t have to keep looking at it.”
“I think I’m going to be sick. It feels like… I-I can’t turn my head away. My guts are all twisty,” I stammered, blindly reaching for his sleeve as I felt a dizzy spell come on. “How are you so calm?”
“I’ve seen worse.” There was no pride or boastfulness in his voice. He was simply stating a fact. He took several pictures of the body before directing my attention to a spot on the wall I hadn’t taken note of yet. There was some writing there—tiny black letters that formed a curious set of words. We remember Raek-Vi’ir.
“The hell is Raek-Vi’ir?” Eli asked, struggling to pronounce the word.
“I have no idea.”
He let out a sharp breath, shaking his head. I motioned for him to go on, and thus, still decidedly shaken, continued on our way. The sound of our footsteps bounced off the round walls. They were funneled by the length of the corridor to create a dull, eerie echo. I tried not to flinch at the noise every single time. Elijah Carter carried himself in a rigid, almost robotic way. His throat and jaw seemed to work constantly and I could almost feel the tense energy radiating off of him.
After another five minutes of walking, the tunnels formed another one of those small alcoves. Even though I wasn’t surprised anymore, I was still hit with a wave of nausea when I laid eyes on the body resting within it. This one was a male. His clothes were in a heightened state of disrepair, and he was similarly mummified as the first one. Again, the head was missing. I tried to collect my thoughts, making an effort to focus on my surroundings instead of the thrum of blood filling my ears. My eyes were drawn to the writing on the wall, the very same as in the other nook. We remember Raek-Vi’ir. I squinted when I noticed that it was positioned in the same area where the corpse’s head might have rested, had it still been attached to the body.
“How do they preserve the bodies, I wonder?” I quickly turned to Eli, pointedly avoiding the harrowing sight.
“No idea. I heard it’s not that hard though,” he answered. “You’d probably need some chemicals and shit, but I wouldn’t call it rocket science.”
I was about to respond when a frown suddenly creased his features. He leaned forward to inspect the place where the man had been beheaded. I took a step back, not really wanting to look at it any longer. “What is it?”
“It’s…” His voice trailed off. Suddenly, he went ramrod straight again, grabbing me by the arm and moving on down the corridor. “There’s something in there alright, I saw something. We can come back here later, though. Let’s keep going for now, we don’t know how much time we got.”
“Yeah, but what was it?”
“I might be going crazy. I’m not even sure anymore.” Moistening his lower lip with his tongue, he made a small, uneasy sigh-like noise.
“What was it?” I repeated.
“Something shiny.”
It didn’t take long for his impression to be confirmed. We eventually reached a sort of intersection and decided to go right because I argued it was the right way. The tunnel opened up into a wide, spacious room. Before we could take it in in its entirety however, we found ourselves gaping at the wall across from us. It was covered in sparkling, iridescent rocks. They climbed from the corners of the floor all the way up to the ceiling, capturing the beam of our torches and filtering it to send rays of rainbow light flickering across the concrete. It would have been beautiful, had it not been for the carcass spread-eagled in the very center. The crystals seemed to have grown around it, fixing it to the wall. Unlike the others, there was not a scrap of clothing on it. It was impossible to tell if it had once belonged to a man or a woman. The flesh had shrunk from the skeleton entirely and the leathery remains of its skin were pierced by protruding jewel spikes in several places. The carcass was lacking its head, and yet it felt like it was staring back at me, mirroring my dumbstruck, vacant gaze.
“Oh my God, fuck,” I heard myself saying. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
“Shirley, shit—stay with me.” Eli’s voice, strangled but forcefully calm, was right there by the side of my face. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder, trying to keep me steady. I couldn’t hold it in anymore, it was all too much, too much at once. My eyes were burning, my ears were ringing and bile rose in my throat again. I batted Eli’s hand away, doubled over and threw up onto the floor. The contents of my stomach dribbled from my chin, merging with beads of sweat and hot tears as I struggled to stay on my feet. I couldn’t find it within me to lift my head yet. Blinking through the watery fog that clouded my vision, I could make out large, black words written on the rough floor before me. They swam and wriggled in my nausea-induced haze, but I could just about manage to read them.
We’ll return to Raek-Vi’ir.
“Fucking hell,” Elijah hissed. I allowed him to grab my wrist and lead me back out into the tunnel. “We can’t stay here. We’ll tell that Markov-woman what we got and that’s it.”
I wanted to say something in the affirmative, but only gargled, incoherent noises left my throat. We took off running the entire way back. Eli Carter kept on mumbling to himself, unbothered by our rapid pace but clearly caught in his own head. When we passed the first carcass we’d encountered however, he came to a skittering halt, causing me to collide painfully with his back. “What—?” I slurred, but he only motioned for me to stay still. He crouched down and, with frantic, nearing-on manic movements, freed a large camping knife from one of his pockets. In one swift, powerful motion, he drove the blade into the dead woman’s stomach. He dragged it upwards, the sound of tearing skin and fabric making me gag again.
Hooking a finger into the cut, he peeled away the skin to one side, baring the insides of the body. There was no blood, no flesh, no intestines. In the dark, bone-framed hollow, a single pale crystal grew, reflecting the beam of our flashlights in a striking pink sparkle.