The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [141]
Turning the light toward the barrow, Manuel’s eyes bulged and he heard a low, whining moan. Realizing he was the one making the noise, he instantly quieted, though his unease was not so easily dispelled. The side of the barrow and the ground before it was coated with blood, wide splashes of it reaching even the walls of the cemetery. Looking down at himself, Manuel saw he stood in a puddle of the old Papal paint. Monique was no longer smiling.
Taking a few a steps forward and peering closer at the earth, he saw winding smears and furrows where bodies had been dragged around the side of the grassy mound, as well as several shattered lanterns and discarded swords. So there might have been a double cross after all, and enough of one side or the other had survived to drag away the bodies. A chicken mask lay cracked against a tombstone, matted hair stuck to its edge. Looking back to Monique, Manuel saw she was rounding the barrow, and the nerve that had to date saved him on the battlefield loosened his knees. Circling around the far side, he slowed almost to a crawl as he heard the unmistakable sound of muffled digging from within the hillock itself. Monique appeared around the other side of the mound, and together they advanced on a wide tunnel dug straight into the side of the barrow.
Awa felt them set her down, every part of her aching and sore. People were moving around her and whispering, and she wondered if Chloé was still nearby or if the young woman had been taken to some other location. Then the slit in the hood was being uncinched, and even with the dimness of the chamber her eyes burned and wept. She smelled old bones and gravedirt but could not tell if the reek was her own, and then, finally, a familiar voice spoke to her. She froze, shocked beyond her ability to think, and so as her eyes adjusted and the face peering down at her came into focus she could only stare and gasp.
“Paracelsus,” Manuel hissed at the mouth of the barrow tunnel, and from the corner of his eye he saw Monique’s cool features ignite in rage at his breaking the silence. The man heard, however, and looked up from the dark shape on the ground he was kneeling over. The doctor looked far more crazed than he had even at his most incensed and drunk back at his clinic, and he held a shaking red finger to his pale lips. Blood dripped down his hand onto the body beneath him, and the digging sound coming from deeper within the barrow stopped.
“I mean you no harm,” Awa called from the darkness at the rear of the tunnel, and Manuel felt all his fear melt into delight at hearing her voice. She sounded frightened and anxious, terrified, even, but it was her, and they were all here, and everyone was safe.
“Awa!” Monique cried, shoving the pistols back into their holsters and pushing past Manuel. “It’s us, Awa, Mo and Manuel!”
Manuel felt a residual shiver at her sheathing the weapons, but the tunnel was obviously too narrow for more than one person to be back there. Paracelsus gaped at Monique as she neared him, and then snatched her leg with wet, bloody hands, gibbering up at her. Manuel moved in to drag the deranged doctor off of her, which was when the light from his lantern illuminated the figure in the rear of the tunnel. Not. Fucking. Awa.
“I am Awa.” The horror spoke with her voice, the yellow-eyed canine monstrosity spoke with her fucking voice, and before Monique could turn from Paracelsus and see it, it and the bloody pile of corpses it crouched atop, before Manuel could even blink the tears from his eyes, the lantern sputtered once and went out. In the sudden and unbroken blackness they heard Awa say, “Funny! Funny! Funny!”
Then the hyena let out its riotous, horrible laugh, and there in the dark of the barrow Manuel began to scream.
The Hammer Falls
Omorose. The tears leaving Awa’s eyes were no longer only from the faint light searing them after a week