“Are you hurt, other than your missing arm? I stopped the bleeding, so you should be okay in that regard. What I mean is, have you been further injured?”

  “Moxey.”

  “I don’t know what that means. I’m going to assume that you’re not.”

  The Exit paused for a moment, and patted himself down, making sure that he was uninjured as well. When he was finished, he leaned close to Henry again.

  “I can’t see. Can you?”

  “They said soft.”

  The Exit frowned. “Who said soft? Who are you talking about?”

  Henry didn’t respond.

  The Exit took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled. “Okay, obviously you can understand me, so listen carefully. We need to get out of this place. The fact that we are still alive does not bode well for us. I don’t know why they’re keeping us here, but it can’t be good. I’m going to attempt something I’ve never tried before. Be prepared to act quick if I tell you to, and do exactly as I say. Clear?”

  Henry mewled.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  The Exit sat cross-legged and closed his eyes. Then he focused inward. The rumbling noise sounded from below again, but he ignored it, paying attention instead to his breathing and the beat of his heart. Moments ticked by. When he opened his eyes again, he saw the Labyrinth overlaid in their prison. The creatures had jailed them in some sort of vault. The walls, floor and ceiling were fashioned from obsidian, and covered in a thin layer of green slime. He and Henry’s clothes were lathered with slime, as well. The chamber was large, but the two of them were seated near the room’s single door. It had no visible handle or lock, and the walls held no windows. The Exit leaned forward and stretched out one arm, touching the door. Then he stood and—still focused—he pressed harder. The door did not budge. He tried it again with both arms, bracing his legs and putting all of his strength behind it. The door remained unmoved.

  The rumbling sound grew louder. The floor began to vibrate again. Then came a new sound—that of marching feet, drawing closer.

  I hope this works, he thought.

  “Henry, give me your hand.”

  He could see the teenager now, thanks to the light, and what he saw shocked him. Clearly the boy’s mind had snapped, as often happened with those who ventured into the Great Deep. But his physical condition was rapidly deteriorating, as well. The stump of his missing arm wasn’t bleeding, but the skin around it looked puffy and swollen. His cheeks were sunken, and there were black circles under his hollow eyes. One of his fingernails had come off, probably from scrabbling at their confinement. It now hung by a strand of cuticle, and the empty spot it had previously occupied was bloody and raw.

  The Exit stuck out his hand. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

  Henry shook his head slowly, and then stuck the injured finger into his nostril.

  Grimacing, the Exit lunged forward and grabbed the boy’s elbow. Henry shrieked. The marching footsteps broke cadence and became a thunderous run. The Exit yanked the terrified teen to his feet and returned his attention to the door. A second doorway appeared, transposed over the physical one. The Exit reached out and opened the second doorway, revealing an empty space where the other door had been. Then he yanked Henry through it.

  They found themselves briefly occupying two physical spaces simultaneously. They were still inside the vault, but they were also in another part of R’lyeh—a well-lit hallway composed of white stone. As they watched, a horde of armed shark men poured into the vault, glancing around in alarm. Then the Exit slammed the door shut, and the vault disappeared. He and Henry stood in the hallway. Alone.

  But he knew that they wouldn’t be for long.

  “They’ll sound an alarm,” he said. “This whole city will be hunting us. Come on.”

  Henry viciously pulled his hand free and slumped against the wall.

  “Moxey.”

  “Damn it, boy. We don’t have time for this.” Frowning, the Exit glared down at him, hands on his hips. Then, after a moment, he began to unfasten his belt. “I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

  He looped his belt around the teen’s wrist, fashioning a makeshift leash. Henry’s panicked state began to subside, so it was an easily accomplished task. Finished, the Exit tugged the other end of the belt. Henry stumbled toward him. Satisfied, the Exit nodded.

  “This way.”

  He led Henry down a long, winding corridor lit by white crystals embedded in the walls. The boy continued to calm down, emotionally, but he was still catatonic. He didn’t speak or react as they ventured deeper into the heart of the city. That suited the Exit just fine. R’lyeh’s bewildering passageways echoed with activity. A host of shark men, sirens, shoggoths, tentacle-heads and other creatures were on the move, and what he and Henry needed now was stealth—something that was much easier to achieve with Henry’s stunned state.

  The Exit slowed his pace when he heard a croaking sound. Henry dutifully did the same.

  The corridor ended, and they emerged onto a rectangular balcony surrounded by an ornate obsidian railing. The Exit crept forward, and bumped into an invisible wall. After a moment, he discovered that while the space appeared to be rectangular, it really had more of a circular shape.

  The croaking grew louder. The Exit sniffed the air and frowned. A foul stench wafted up from below—a pungent odor like rotting fish.

  Guiding Henry along, he crept to the railing and peered over the side. Far below was an open space covered in steaming mud. Weeds sprouted from the ooze, climbing the walls. Bloated, legless frog-like things wallowed in the muck. Their eyes bulged, and long pale tongues lolled from their gaping mouths. Each of the creatures was large enough to swallow him whole.

  Henry shuffled up beside him and glanced down. He made no sound, and his face showed no reaction, but a line of drool dripped from his mouth. He turned to the Exit and smiled.

  A pang of guilt washed over the Exit as he looked into the boy’s dazed eyes. He thought of all those times on all those levels when the media had called him a serial killer. It was ridiculous and infuriating. Serial killers didn’t feel guilt or remorse. He did. They killed their victims for selfish gratification. He killed to save the world. Multiple worlds. And he’d been proven right. His place among the Seven proved it. He was a soldier, fighting a war—and in war, innocents got killed.

  He nodded back at the hallway, and gave the makeshift leash a gentle tug. Henry cast one last glance down into the pit. His smile grew broader.

  “Frogs!”

  The teenager’s joyous shout echoed through the chamber. The odious amphibians below began to quiver and flop. Their croaks turned into a horrific, booming chorus that bounced off the walls and seemed to reverberate throughout the city.

  “Damn it, Henry.”

  The Exit ran, urging the teen to keep up. He wasn’t worried that the frog things could reach them. The beasts had no legs on which to leap. But he was deeply concerned about the commotion they’d caused.

  He retraced their steps. They ran past the crystals embedded in the walls and approached a cross passage. Just as they were about to reach it, four shark men lumbered into view. Two of the monsters were armed with spears. Another clutched a long sword with a coral handle. The fourth carried a simple wand.

  “Stay behind me, Henry.”

  Raising his own weapon, The Exit spread his feet apart and braced his legs, bending slightly at the knees. Then he spat on the floor.

  “Come on, then,” he challenged. “Let’s see what you can do.”

  The shark-man pointed the wand at him, and suddenly, the Exit was surrounded by a bubble of water. The fluid engulfed him, as if he’d been submerged in the ocean outside. He could see through it, as if looking through a haze. The rest of the corridor was dry, but both he and Henry were inside the water.

  And then they were drowning again.

  The Exit fought down his surging panic and tried to focus. He realized that, although the water had filled his lungs, and he was unable to breathe, he wasn’t dying. His pulse throbbed reassuringly in his neck. He could still see and hear, albeit both senses were muted by the bubble. And he could still think. Frowning, he deliberately inhaled. Nothing happened. He next tried to exhale, but the result was the same. Then he tried flexing his arms and moving his weapon, but again, to no avail. An attempt to kick his legs was equally frustrating.

  Okay, he thought, obviously this isn’t actual water. It’s some type of liquid that is keeping us in a sort of state of suspended animation.

  The question then became how to break free.

  Their captors marched them down the corridor. The two with the spears took the lead, walking side by side. The Exit and Henry followed, floating along in their bubbles, hovering a foot or so off the floor. Although he couldn’t turn his head to see them, the Exit assumed that the humanoid with the sword and the one with the wand were directly behind them.

  They want us alive, he surmised. This is the second time they’ve captured us now. If they wanted to kill us, we’d be dead by now. So, what purpose could they have in keeping us alive?

  As if replying to his thoughts, one of the two shark men behind him spoke.

  “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

  The speech was muffled and distorted by both his liquid prison and the captor’s vocal cords, but the Exit recognized the ritualistic phrase, regardless.

  In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.

  He wished that he could talk, so that he could shout the phrase back at them in defiance, and tell them that he, too, had read the Ponape Scripture, a text describing Leviathan under the name Cthulhu. Instead, he could only stew in helpless frustration. His thoughts turned back to Henry, whom he could barely glimpse out of the corner of his eye. He wondered what the teenager’s mental state was now. The boy had already broken before this. To be helpless now, feeling like he was drowning without actually drowning—was it possible such a shock might kill him?

  The white crystal corridor ended. They passed through a crossroads of sorts, where the walls were simultaneously both concave and convex. The Exit’s stomach lurched at the unnatural visuals. The group appeared to march straight ahead, but after a moment, he realized that they had actually turned left, and were heading down a steadily sloping walkway or ramp. Soon, the pathway became submerged. Down they continued, deeper into the murky depths. This entire portion of the metropolis seemed to be underwater. The floor and walls were covered in seaweed, tubeworms, and coral. All three seemed to be thriving, but they were different colors and shapes than anything he’d ever seen on Earth.

  The gloom deepened, and the architecture changed. This area was more crudely fashioned, with ugly, rough-hewn pillars holding up the ceiling, and cracked, pitted blocks made up the walls and floor. The water was murkier, as well. Then, all of that vanished and they plunged into an encompassing darkness. The Exit couldn’t tell if they had stopped moving or were continuing on with their march.

  Despite the dire situation, the Exit was surprised to find himself growing drowsy. He wondered if it was an effect of the liquid he was suspended in, or if it was simply from sheer exhaustion. He tried to remember the last time he had slept, and couldn’t. He’d been knocked unconscious several times recently, but actual sleep? That had been before Amun found him at that rest stop along the highway—long before meeting the other Seven, or their confrontation with Kandara, or the death of Lucifer, or the arrival of the worms. He hadn’t slept since dying and being born again. Did he even need to sleep now? He wondered. Was that something this new, distilled version of himself required?

  His eyelids grew heavier. Just as he was about to drift off, he saw a distant light ahead in the darkness. The Exit immediately grew alert again. His eyes narrowed, watching intently, as the light grew in size. Soon enough, the darkness lessened, returning once more to mere gloom. They were still underwater, but definitely heading up a slope now. Eventually, the water receded, and they were in another dry area of the city.

  Their captors made another turn, and the corridor terminated into a wide arena-like area, much bigger than the previous one that he and Henry had encountered. Unless the bubble was distorting his vision even worse than he realized, the Exit calculated that the area was large enough to have held a dozen football fields.

  He quickly focused on a loathsome, domed citadel in the center of the arena—a shifting, repulsive structure that seemed to squat there like some repugnant toad. The structure itself stood several stories high, and the dome was fashioned out of what looked like either oily brass or dirty gold. The Exit had a feeling the material wasn’t either of these, however. The thick, towering pillars which held it aloft were carved from obsidian. Runes and sigils were etched in them, clearly engraved by hands much larger than a human’s.

  “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh,” the shark man shouted again. “Wgah’nagl fhtagn!”

  “Ia,” his companions answered in unison. “Ia, Cthulhu fhtagn! Ia, ia, Cthulhu fhtagn!”

  The Exit’s heart rate increased. His eyes grew wide as he stared at the citadel. He understood now why they’d been kept alive. And he felt a moment of panicked excitement. Although they didn’t know it, his and Henry’s captors were aiding in their mission. Both he and the teen were about to be delivered to Leviathan himself.

  The citadel drew closer, and the Exit began to tremble—both from fright and anticipation.

  24

  A s they continued their manic descent into the depths of the bewildering city-dimension, Teddy’s eyes grew tired, and his vision blurred. He staggered, and reached his hand out to rest it against a wall. His arm went right through the space instead, and he fell to the floor, hissing with pain.

  “Teddy!” Sarah hurried over to him, and bent down. “Are you okay?”

  Grunting, he nodded. “It’s this place. I went to lean against what looked like a wall, but there was no wall there.”

  Tony helped him to his feet. “Steady, old-timer. You hurt?”

  “Just my pride,” Teddy replied. “And what did I tell you about calling me old-timer?”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re bleeding,” Sarah said.

  Teddy glanced down and saw that she was correct. A bloodstain slowly spread across his pants leg.

  “Hold still,” she said. “Let me take a look.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “I’m going to look, anyway.”

  She rolled his pants leg up and there, just below his knee, was a bad cut. It wasn’t wide, but it was deep, and bleeding steadily. Teddy felt woozy just looking at it.

  “My Lord,” he muttered.

  “Here,” Tony said, helping him back down to the floor. “You’d better sit. You’re looking pale.”

  “It’s this place,” Teddy insisted. “All this weird geometry and these damned angles are playing havoc with my depth perception.”

  LeHorn moved over to them and knelt beside Sarah. “May I take a look?”

  She nodded. “It’s deep. He needs stitches.”

  Tony glanced around at the floor. “What the fuck did he even cut it on? I don’t see anything.”

  “Just because you don’t see it,” LeHorn reminded him, “doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

  “Whew.” Teddy panted. “I’m definitely feeling a little lightheaded.”

  “Close your eyes and lean your head back,” LeHorn told him.

  “Is my head going to go through the wall?”

  “No, not where you’re sitting right now, it won’t.”

  “We need something to stop the bleeding,” Sarah said.

  “I can do that.”

  Despite his dizziness, Teddy watched as LeHorn gently leaned close to the wound and breathed on it three times.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Hush,” LeHorn admonished. Then he lay his hands over the wound. “Pater noster qui es in caelis. Sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum fiat voluntas tua sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris et ne nos inducas in tentationem sed libera nos a malo.”

  He repeated the phrase two more times, and then slowly removed his hands.

  Teddy’s eyes widened. The bleeding had stopped, and his vision had cleared.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “The Roman Missal version of The Lord’s Prayer.” Smiling, LeHorn stood back up. Amazingly, there was no blood on his hands.

  “I just can’t get used to this,” Teddy said. “I mean, I knew it was the Lord’s Prayer. I recognized it, and understood the words, even though you weren’t speaking English. It’s so weird.”

  “I heard it as Latin,” Sarah said. “At least, I think that was Latin? I’ve got to admit, I’m jealous of the rest of you. I wish my mind would automatically translate other languages.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Teddy told her. “It’s more than a little unsettling.”

  “I was raised Roman-Catholic,” Tony said. “I mean, I’m Italian, so no shit. Of course I’m Catholic. But I never saw some shit like that before. Never saw any of the priests stopping blood flow by breathing on the wounds.”

  “It’s not Catholic,” LeHorn said. “It’s pow-wow magic.”

  “It’s amazing, whatever you want to call it,” Sarah said. “How are you feeling now, Teddy?”

  “Right as rain!”

  He tried to stand up, but Tony rushed to restrain him.

  “Get off me, Genova. I’m okay now.”

  “You will be,” LeHorn said, “but Tony has the right idea. This place is messing with all of us. We should rest, for a moment.”

  Frowning, Teddy brushed Tony away and tottered to his feet. “We don’t have time to rest. Henry and the Exit are here somewhere, and every moment we delay, I’m getting sicker to my stomach.”

  “They’re not far,” LeHorn said. “I opened a door near them, remember? But Sarah was right when she said you needed stitches. I stopped the bleeding, but you need to give it a minute. If you bang that leg up again, it will be worse the next time. We rest. Five minutes. Give it some time to clot some more. Then we’ll move on.”

 

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