River of night, p.3
River of Night, page 3
“I guess that’s it.”
Ivan let out a long breath and stared into the darkness. Then he cracked his neck, first to one side, then the other. “Let’s do this thing then.”
What the hell are we doing? Answer: I have no fucking idea.
4
They shone torches down the hole. It had a small opening, just enough to allow someone slim and determined to enter.
“You could go first?” said Anders. "In case I don't fit."
Ivan rolled his eyes. "In your dreams. You're not that buff." However, I am the one with a gun.
Ivan lowered himself into the hole. His feet touched rock about four feet down, and he let go. Cautiously, he shone his torch down further. Steep steps disappeared into darkness.
He made space for Anders, who had a bit of trouble getting his shoulders through the gap. As the light was cut off by Anders’s bulk, Ivan had a sense of oppression, of something alive in the darkness below them. He focused on keeping his breathing steady as Anders kicked and wormed his way down to join him.
They stripped off their soaked oilskins, leaving them in a pile on the first stair. Then they picked their way down the steps, trying not to make any noise.
The darkness, almost a physical presence, pressed close around Ivan. He stifled the urge to brush it away from his face.
He wanted to ask if Anders could feel the same pressure, but the words died in his mouth. Anders was probably only thinking of their rescue mission.
The stairs ended in a tunnel that wound away before them. It was high enough for Ivan to stand up in but narrow. Black rock arched over their heads, glistening in the torchlight.
Ivan stopped, and Anders nearly ran into the back of him. Anders waited a few seconds, then leaned over to whisper hoarsely in Ivan’s ear.
“We need to hurry!”
Ivan took a deep breath. His heart was pounding. Think, Ivan!
“We need a plan,” said Ivan. “Tell me again how many men Karl thought there’d be.”
Anders counted on his fingers. “Karl’s dad Magnus, Michals, Gundersen...there’s at least three of them.”
“And there's just two of us,” said Ivan.
“We have knives.”
“They’ll have knives.”
Anders swallowed.
“They have Amelie!” said Anders. “We have to go.”
“Just...we can’t just go rushing in! We’ll end up dead. She’ll end up dead.”
Anders let out a small explosive puff of breath. “You have a better plan?”
When Ivan didn’t answer, Anders pushed past him and started on down the tunnel.
Ivan gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Frustration was good. Anger was good. It distracted him from the sick hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. Why the hell did I agree to this…
He caught up with Anders and whispered to him. “Screw you too, then. Just go carefully. Surprise is pretty much our only advantage, so let’s not blow it.”
Anders turned his torch down to its lowest setting, barely a glimmer, and Ivan switched his torch off. The pistol stuck in his waistband had warmed up to skin temperature. He could still feel its hard, unyielding shape pushing into the small of his back.
As they crept along, Ivan slowly became aware of something unusual. The earth had a pulse down here. His head had started throbbing in time with it. Is this part of the storm above, or just nerves?
Ivan tried not to squelch his wet shoes on the cool rock as they went down the tunnel. The strange pulse was still there, and it seemed to be quickening. With each pulse, small coloured lights strobed in the corner of Ivan’s vision. What the hell is going on?
Up ahead, a light was growing. Anders switched off his torch completely, and they inched forward. The light wasn't the steady glow of electric torches but the flickering light of a living flame. Now they heard the low humming of male voices in a chant that made the hairs rise on the backs of Ivan’s forearms.
The notes of the chant held a strong discord that whined and twisted unpleasantly. Ivan couldn’t recognise any of the words. It sounded like another language, guttural and harsh.
At the last turn in the tunnel, they hugged the wall, moving very slowly along the rock face, determined not to give away their presence. Ivan felt the tension in the air around his friend. Anders was ready to fight.
But something about the drone of the voices was hypnotising Ivan. The pressure squeezed on his head like a vice.
He pressed his face up against the coolness of the rock wall. The pulse was so strong now the edges of his vision shimmered with it, like a heatwave. This is too weird. Am I having some sort of stroke?
Anders dropped down to peer around the corner at knee height, and Ivan edged his head to look into the lit cavern with one eye.
The tunnel opened into a wide cave where six men dressed in black robes stood in a semi-circle around a raised plinth. Six? That’s way too many…
There were candles lit around the cave, thick, yellow and sooty with use. Rivers of wax dripped and dribbled in frozen stalactites down the rock.
Anders’s sharp intake of breath mirrored Ivan’s shock. The stone plinth in the centre of the room was the length and breadth of a person. And on it lay Amelie.
She wore an old-fashioned white dress, which contrasted oddly with her Nike trainers.
She was just lying there. For a second, Ivan's stomach turned over, thinking she was dead. Then he saw her chest moving as she breathed. She’s alive. But unconscious? Drugged?
Ivan clenched his hands hard. We should have told people we were coming here. This is so stupid. But Anders was right - what the actual fuck! How the hell are we going to rescue Amelie and get out of this alive?
There was a sudden rage of thunder from outside, audible even down there. The storm must be right overhead.
As if that were a signal, the chanting stopped. To Ivan’s horror, the lead chanter looked up, right where he and Anders crouched in the shadows.
His hood tipped back from his head, and he smiled, teeth glinting in the candlelight. Ivan recognised him, and a sick feeling coiled in his stomach.
It was Magnus Hagen, Karl’s father, the man who’d taught Ivan to hunt and sail. When Ivan was a kid, before things had gone wrong, he’d looked up to Magnus more than anyone else.
Ivan shoved his panic down before it clawed away his control. He deliberately slowed his breathing. Ivan. You’re not that kid anymore. You can do this. You can face him. You have to.
Magnus spread his arms wide and reeled off a string of words in a language Ivan didn’t know.
As the robed men responded, Ivan realised maybe Magnus hadn’t seen them. They were in deep shadow, after all. And he was sure they hadn't been heard above the chanting.
The strange pressure pulsed in his head again, and Ivan struggled to see straight.
Magnus let his arms fall by his side. In a sheath on his belt was the polished handle of his hunting knife. Unlike the robes and candles, the knife looked new. Knowing Magnus, its blade would be wickedly sharp.
Ivan let his awareness widen, recording where each robed man was standing and where the candles were. If Anders and I could somehow douse the candles, we could pull Amelie out of there and back up the tunnel. Could we do it in time to get away in the confusion?
He reached down to draw Anders back into the tunnel and tell him his plan when he noticed Anders was gone from his side.
Helplessly, Ivan watched in disbelief as Anders walked forward, straight into the cave.
Ivan felt cold with fright, then hot with anger. IDIOT! I’m going to kill him! I’m actually going to kill him before anyone else does.
Anders looked at Magnus, his face pale but determined.
“It’s over, Magnus. You can’t do this.” Ignoring the robed men ranged in an arc around him, he knelt beside Amelie, cradling her head, trying to rouse her. Ivan drew back into the shadows as Magnus smiled.
“Anders Berg. How unsurprising. What a hero. How inconvenient of you to show up at this crucial moment.”
Ivan watched as hooded men moved to surround Anders, blocking the passage where Ivan crouched. They hadn’t seen Ivan yet, but this was going bad very quickly.
Ivan! Do something!
Ivan tried to shake off the sluggishness that seeped through his limbs, but it was as if a frosted pane of glass stood between him and the world. Like one of those bad dreams where you can only move in slow motion.
The chanting sounded like a prayer or invocation, and Ivan shuddered, that pulse thrumming through his whole body now, so strong he could hardly think.
Magnus said something to the robed man on his left. Ivan couldn’t quite catch the words, but the man nodded and stepped towards Anders. Anders was trying to lift Amelie off the stone plinth, but she was a dead weight, slippery and unresponsive.
Why does Anders always have to be a bloody hero? And why does it feel like I'm already too late to stop what's going to happen?
The pistol dug into Ivan’s back. Slowly, he pulled it out of the waistband of his trousers. It was inevitable. He’d known it from the moment he stowed the pistol in his boat. At least I’ve taken a gun to a knife fight, he thought. And: We’re all going to die.
Anders had one arm under Amelie’s shoulders and was hefting her up, but two robed men were closing in on him now.
“Anders Berg,” said Magnus, and it was chilling how calm he sounded, how normal. “There’s nothing you can do now. Her sacrifice will fuel a greater plan, a greater good. You cannot save her. And I’m afraid you’ve seen too much.” Magnus’s smile was benevolent as he gestured for the two robed men to seize Anders.
They grabbed Anders high up on his arms, forcing him to let go of Amelie. She slid back down onto the plinth, her head hanging at an awkward angle. Anders struggled violently against their grip, but a third man buried his fist hard into Anders’s stomach, and he doubled over, wheezing.
Which is when Magnus looked directly at where Ivan was crouching. His heart raced, thudding in his chest. He sees me!
“Welcome, Ivan,” said Magnus calmly.
Seeing no other option, Ivan stepped out into the flickering candlelight. He kept the gun behind his back and tried to gaze coolly up at Magnus.
The cult leader appeared confident, in control, but Ivan sensed an underlying tension in him. It was the thrum of anticipation, even fear. The small hairs on the back of Ivan’s neck bristled at the pressure building in the air.
“It’s time for us to go, Magnus,” said Ivan. Magnus raised his eyebrows, mocking. His meaning was clear. There are six of us and two of you. The one you’re trying to rescue is unconscious, you don’t have a chance.
Ivan drew his pistol and levelled it straight at Magnus. He hated how he felt right now, stupid, embarrassed. Like a kid with a toy gun.
He tried to channel every action movie he’d seen and deliberately unchecked the safety. The click sounded clear in the silence. Ivan stared straight into Magnus’s dark eyes, willing him to break, to show some sign of backing down.
Instead, Magnus’s eyes gleamed with malice. “Boy,” he said softly. “We both know you’re bluffing. You haven’t got what it takes to pull the trigger. You’re a blank, a nobody, an empty vessel. You’re a follower, not a leader. Always were, always will be.”
Fuck you, Magnus, Ivan thought. But the words weighed inside him with a growing feeling of weakness. I feel like an empty vessel. Deliberately, Ivan blocked the thought. His finger was slick against the trigger. Squeeze, don't pull. Shit…am I really going to do this?
On his left, one of the robed men inched along the cave wall to get behind him. Anders, still hunched over and held by two men, tensed his shoulders, ready to make a move.
There were nine candles in the room, and sixteen bullets in his pistol, and Ivan’s heart was beating so hard it blurred inside his chest, and the pulse in the air had sped up to match it. Ivan felt like a diver before the plunge.
The candle flame reflected off the surface of Magnus’s eye. Ivan heard the rustle of robes on stone as the man behind him prepared to attack. The shadows each of them cast flickered dark on the cavern wall.
And then everything happened at once.
The man behind him sprang, and Ivan ducked to get under him, hitting the man low, so he rolled over Ivan and landed with a crunch against the stone plinth. Anders yanked one man holding his arm towards him, and all three men went down in a flurry of fists, knees and elbows.
Ivan raised his gun again to point at Magnus, whose hand was on his knife hilt. His own finger rested on the trigger of the pistol, ready to pull. Can I do this?
Before he had a chance to find out, another man grabbed Ivan from the side in a crushing bear hug, trying to wrestle the gun out of his hands.
There was a rumble of thunder from the storm above, and at the edge of his awareness, Ivan found something he could use. It came out of the shadows, filling the emptiness inside Ivan, and gave him strength. Time to take the fight to them.
As the man holding him shifted his grip, Ivan stamped down hard on the man’s foot. With a cry, the man’s hold loosened, and Ivan jerked his head backwards. There was a satisfying crunch as the back of Ivan’s head flattened the man’s nose, and the man let go of Ivan altogether.
Ivan staggered forwards, his pistol pointing at Magnus. If I could just get Magnus to listen, for once.
“Stop now, damn you!” Ivan’s cry was cut short as the man he’d just headbutted grabbed him again, hands wrenching at his gun.
There was a loud bang.
The man loosened his hold on Ivan and slumped to the ground.
Ivan stared wide-eyed at the fallen man. His hood had been pushed back in the struggle. It was Michals. The last time Ivan had seen him, Michals had been behind the counter of the greengrocers, serving customers.
His pistol gripped in shaking hands, Ivan backed away. Anders’s mouth hung open in disbelief, then he surged towards the plinth, picking up Amelie and staggering backwards towards the cave exit.
Ivan couldn’t take his eyes away from Michals. He was lying very still, and his eyes were closed like he was sleeping.
It was an accident, a voice in Ivan’s head kept saying. And: He can’t be dead. But I shot him.
A strange rattling sound came from Michals’s chest, and his jaw opened slackly. Something was streaming out of his mouth, a blue ribbon of smoke lit up bright. It looked like a cheesy special effect from an 80s movie and impossible, but Ivan knew Magnus saw it too because the older man started in surprise.
The shock was replaced by a look of triumph on Magnus’s face that Ivan didn’t like. Raising his arms, Magnus shouted out a string of words.
Ivan couldn't understand the words, but as he heard them, his knees slowly buckled and jolted as they hit the rock floor.
Now’s not the time to — and the thought was swallowed up by a rushing sound in his ears. I’m fainting…shit. This is not the time to —
Ivan struggled to stay conscious, but it was no use. Darkness issued from every corner of the cave, overwhelming him. There was a blast of air, and all the candles went out.
What the —
For a moment when Ivan saw nothing but pure black, and then he was both in the cave and outside in the storm above. His eyes saw one reality, and his mind’s eye saw another.
In his mind’s eye, Ivan was standing in the open on top of the tall rock at the centre of the island. Above him, lightning forked down from the sky in fractured instants. In those fragmented moments, Ivan could read the lightning like it was a language he’d always known but somehow forgotten.
Everything is alive. Everything is awake, and listening, and speaking. Holy shit.
The rain hung motionless, and each suspended droplet shone blue with the lightning as, achingly slowly, it inched down from the sky.
Ivan realised the lightning bolt was coming exactly to him. They were going to meet, Ivan and the lightning, on top of the island, and in that moment, he couldn’t tell the difference between the two. His focus contracted to the lightning, only inches away now, glittering fierce and blue, more alive than anything he’d ever seen.
Ivan had a moment to brace himself, and then the lightning arced forward, and struck him right in the chest.
There was a huge ‘Crack BOOM,’ and Ivan was back in the cavern, being pulled away by Anders. It seemed only a few seconds had passed in the real world.
Lit in jagged flashes by Anders' torch, Magnus and the robed men gathered at the other side of the cave, ready to rush them and finish what they’d started.
But now came a roar so loud it hurt his ears, and the same lightning that had arced down from the sky came on through the roof of the cave. There was a crashing of rock as the ceiling fell, then silence and total darkness.
5
Ivan’s panicked breathing was loud in the dark. He reached his hands down, and when he touched rock, his arms buckled, and he kept going until his head rested on the cave floor. It was cool.
A minute or so later, a lucid thought came into the blankness of his mind. I’m still holding the pistol. He flicked the safety on, tucked it back into his waistband, and then pulled his torch out of his pocket.
Amazingly, it still worked when he flicked the switch. What a great advert for MagLite torches. Has fight, shoots man, survives rockfall, light still works. Then, as his ribs ached painfully, Ivan corrected himself. Kills man. Shit.
He shone the light in front of him. Where the cavern had been was a solid wall of tumbled rock. Ivan listened hard but heard nothing from the other side.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said. Behind him, Anders drew in a shaky breath.
Ivan shone his light straight in Anders’s face. His friend was rumpled, with dust streaked through his hair and a rapidly swelling lump on his cheekbone where someone had hit him. He had Amelie cradled in his arms, her bleached pixie hair turned grey with dust. Bloody hero.
