The Dark Between Dreams | ✔️

Chapter 20 🔻 Deep, Dark Places

It was an arduous trek to the shelter Crow had promised. The entire time, we fought against the storm and trudged through waist-deep sand, with heads bowed and weapons always pointed at the bound prince of monsters leading the way—not that he seemed to care. And, much like the hollow loner, his home was not at all what I expected.

My friends and I forgot about the raging weather when we arrived at the half-buried World War I era submarine jutting from the sand like a breaching whale. Crow must've heard us pause behind because he flashed us a wry grin over his shoulder. "Follow," he insisted. "Storm will only get worse."

He followed the sounds of his cawing crow guides that flew just in front of him. Once we reached the rusted war machine, Crow held out his tied-up hands and felt along the steel hull of the sub until he found a ladder. Before we could utter a single word in protest, our captive climbed up, using his elbows to grasp the rungs, and disappeared up into the swirling black storm above.

"Follow!" was his impatient, echoing command.

Vale, Webb, and I exchanged shrugs. With a huff, Vale engaged her bike's kickstand and laid the dead vehicle to rest alongside the submarine. She led our trio up the ladder where Crow waited at the top of the bridge platform, pacing next to a hatch on the floor. "Door," he said. When none of us made a move for the hatch at our feet, he held up his hands. "What? You expect me to open the hatch like this?"

Webb's grumble of "Crazy old man," was barely audible over the scream of the wind. It took all three of us to twist the hatch and lift it open. Even with my mask, I saw only blackness inside.

"In," Crow insisted, sounding less patient by the second. Crows alighted on the periscope and at the very top of the towering radio antennas—every possible surface around us on the narrow platform—and watched us.

Vale pointed her machete at the hooded man. "You first, Prince."

"Fair enough." Then, without another word, the prince forwent the ladder into the depths completely, and hopped through the hatch. His crows all followed him.

Black sand gathered on the steel platform. The wind felt like it would blow me from the top of the sub at any moment. So, after offering my friends a grin they couldn't see, I escaped the storm and clambered down into the lair of the Prince of Light and Shadows.

Through my lenses, I observed the cramped control room of the old sub. Pipes, gauges, dials, and knobs covered every wall space. I could still hear the wind howl outside. It throttled the ship's metal hide and filled every pipe, making the submarine hum like a colossal church organ. And beyond the bulkhead door door just behind the hooded man, crows called out from the recesses of the sub, happy that their master was home.

"Pardon the darkness," the prince said as Vale and Webb made their descent. The already cramped room got even stuffier. "Have not had company in a long while. Ehm. Where is that lever, again? Right. Thank you." He followed the sound of a yelling crow, feeling along the wall until he found a lever. He pulled it, and every light inside flickered on.

My friends and I took off our masks in the luxlight, while Crow greeted his birds with pets and soft, soothing noises; sounding remarkably like a crow himself.

He never once removed his black hood that was the same color as the sand outside, keeping his eyes hidden from view. What I could see of his tan face was a thin, graying beard along an angular jaw. His tangles of long black locks, streaked with the occasional silver hair, hung in his face and down past his shoulders. He really didn't look as old as I'd imagined. He was maybe only in his mid-thirties when he died.

Like his face, Crow kept most of himself hidden under his cloak. But I caught a glimpse of his left forearm as he stroked one of his birds—namely, the branded mark burned into his flesh. It was some kind of complicated symbol made of intersecting lines and wedge shapes. Nothing I recognized.