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Chapter 11: Reverberations

Chapter 11: Reverberations

 

CALIDA AND ROBERT MANAGED TO hold a whispered conversation over Daniel’s muffled yells of “Let me go, bastards!” and his mad struggling in the other boy’s grip. Finally they lifted their heads and Robert said, “We’ll be coming with you, just for Daniel’s sake. We don’t know what’s going on, but you two need to clear the air.”

Daniel stopped struggling and dropped his head, brown hair mussed and hiding his eyes. “Will you let me go now?” Robert dropped him and he stumbled.

Amused, Nicholas smiled, as if he was satisfied with something, and tilted his head. “Come on, I’ll show you where the Athenaeum is. The Delegates are based there.” He made as if to touch Amber’s shoulder to lead her away, but she jerked back and walked at Daniel’s side, pushing his hand away from its hovering position over his sword. He was still seething. Shrugging, Nicholas went to one of the walls without an inscription and tapped out a rhythm that only he understood.

The stone split in half and slid back and to the sides with not even a scrape, revealing a dark space that Nicholas would have to bend to get into. He turned to them. “I hope no one’s afraid of the dark?” They shook their heads. “Well then, try not to scream,” he said, and then stepped backwards into the darkness beyond, disappearing.

Even Daniel had to stop scowling for a second to blink in shock. Amber asked, “So, who wants to go first? We need to hurry, people are going to notice, or something.”

“Right.” Calida nodded and stepped in, the darkness swallowing her before Robert could stop her. He went next, then Daniel and finally Amber, who saw the rectangular door to the outside close up as the pieces of wall slid in.

She had assumed that there would be steps of some sort, or maybe a corridor, but never expected to find herself freefalling for the third time in 24 hours. Then the ground started to slant, becoming less like a vertical tunnel and more like a slide. She skidded and slid, feeling the stone underneath her scrape the skin off her knees and jolt her arm. Then she was spat out like a bullet shot from a gun.

Conveniently, Amber landed on her shoulder, but managed to use the momentum to roll to her feet, hissing in pain. It seemed that Nicholas had distributed flashlights that could be strapped to their arms and in the brightness she saw that the others seemed a little more roughed up as well, with even more scratches and scrapes to add to their general chased-by-Demons-all-night appearance. All with the exception of Nicholas, that is. He was completely unscathed – the tunnel walls hadn’t even marred the crooked grin from before.

“Now,” he announced, “just a heads up: the Athenaeum is a very, very secure place, that’s why the Delegates use it as their base. From here, it’s only accessible via navigating a labyrinth. There shouldn’t be any Demons down here, but you can never be sure.” The other three gripped their respective blades. “Hey, your name is Amber, right? You don’t have a weapon?” Nicholas approached her.

“We didn’t have time to get one for her,” Calida offered an excuse.

Nicholas swung his backpack around and dug out two knives, passing them to her. “Just slash and stab, like you’re cutting meat. Cross them over each other to block,” he advised her. She accepted wordlessly.