22 – Captivating Captives

Erika had never been to Egypt or anywhere, really. Exotic vacations to far-off countries weren’t exactly within the Walker family budget. She had seen plenty of pictures. Pyramids, statues, obelisks, all carved from that light-brown stone. Erika could easily believe that she had been transported across the world just by looking around her, and yet, it felt off.

First and foremost was the darkness. Like it was some kind of massive cavern. The light from Erika’s phone provided the only real illumination, but there was a thin, narrow crack somewhere high above, letting down what looked like sunlight. It didn’t do much to brighten her surroundings, they were just too spacious. All it let her see was the outline, the silhouette of a squat, ziggurat-like pyramid a short distance ahead.

Between was a long, dry path made from the same light-brown stone, covered partially by a thin layer of sand and dust. A moist, uncomfortable air wafted from the ziggurat, making Erika feel like she was out on a warm, humid day.

The smell of the air wasn’t all that pleasant, like a garbage bag that needed to go out the night before.

It made Erika wrinkle her nose.

“What is this place?” she asked, her voice a whisper despite herself, as if speaking too loud would disturb the air. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around. Erika couldn’t hear anything beyond her footsteps, the mild grunts of pain from her captive, and a light hissing that must have been where that breeze was coming from.

Her captive, whom Erika decided to temporarily dub Postman on account of his attire, smiled back at her.

She didn’t like that smile.

“One of many temples of the Ancients,” he said.

“And you get to it by praying to a statue… which nobody was guarding.”

“There are many entryways. That is merely one of the more convenient ones.”

Erika curled her lip in a disbelieving sneer. He had been alarmed when she threatened to break the statue. If there were a lot of those things, he probably wouldn’t have been half as concerned. Unless, as she had suspected earlier, the statue also served as some kind of magical server hub for the personalities inhabiting the masks.

“Is there anyone else here?” she asked.

“The Fixer,” he said with a slight note of humor in his tone.

Erika was not amused.

“You ask if anyone here is a threat to you,” he said, slightly more serious. “Certainly, the possibility exists. I do not hold a register of all inhabitants, especially as some may come and go as we did.”

That was a better answer, but not much of one. “You’re fairly talkative now.”

“I apologize for earlier. I hadn’t seen you in person, so I didn’t recognize you. We have been seeking one like you for years and centuries, but The Fixer always interfered, always hiding ones like you away.”

“And you’re just leading me to him? All that effort in getting rid of him, getting him… away from me?” Erika frowned at that. She wasn’t saying that she believed anything this guy was saying. Words were easy to say, especially for someone with a gun—or bat—to their head.

Still, it sounded almost like The Fixer had been involved in her life for a lot longer than just a few weeks. That was a disturbing thought. A sudden notion that Leah and The Fixer swapped places on the regular popped into her mind, and somehow neither she nor Carter had noticed until now. If that was true, however, it likely meant good things for getting her mother back.

At least so long as she got The Fixer out of here.

That said, The Fixer was likely someone else that she wouldn’t be able to believe half of what he said. Especially if she held the power to free him. Just as someone would say anything when they had a gun to their head, someone else would say anything when they saw the keys to their freedom.

Postman didn’t respond. He just smiled with that creepy smile he kept putting on.

Erika didn’t bother with any further questioning. If she wasn’t going to get straight answers, there wasn’t any point.

Their short walk brought them to the steps up into the ziggurat. Statues lined either side, depicting seated figures holding a variety of staves, wearing an assortment of odd headwear. None were like the statue back in the museum. They were made from the same brown stone as everything else and looked far older, like something that actually belonged in a museum.

Postman began ascending the steps. After a hesitant glance back, noting that the portal still looked open in the distance, Erika followed. The steps were awkwardly placed, like they had been designed for someone twice as tall with feet twice as big. Still, she managed.

The ziggurat’s entrance yawned before her—a jagged maw of stone teeth. The lintel was carved with glyphs that almost looked like they moved when Erika wasn’t staring directly at them, but any time her light passed over them, they were frozen. The glyphs were set between humanoid faces, mouths open in wide, unnatural screams. At the entrance, the air grew thicker, syrupy with the increased reek of spoiled meat and old trash.

Uneven steps descended further into the pyramid, lined with yet more statues. All the statues, she noted, were missing their faces. At first, she thought they might have been carved that way or perhaps simply eroded by the passage of time. Looking closer, she spotted gaps and gouges that looked more like something ate their faces.

A door barred the way ahead.

Not stone. Not wood. A membrane.

Stretched taut across the archway, veined and translucent, it bulged inward with each draft of that foul wind. Something moved behind it—shapes pressing against the skin from within, forming mouths and heads and arms all reaching outward. Moans and pained noises, muffled by the membrane, grated on Erika’s ears.

“This way,” Postman said, turning away from the membrane down a smaller passage that Erika had been too distracted to notice.

“What the hell was that?” she hissed.

“The Fetid Chambers. Dwelling of the Mother of Maggots. Sealed, currently, and has been for all of my existence.”

Erika blinked, thinking for a moment. This guy had claimed to be thousands of years old, which meant this temple was even older. And it had been sealed all this time.

That was one door she did not want to break.

“This temple is specifically dedicated to THEM,” he continued, “though take solace in knowing that The Fixer is not held within there.” He shuddered.

If even this freak was shuddering, Erika didn’t want to go anywhere near that place. Neither Fetid Chambers nor Mother of Maggots sounded like anything she wanted to get involved with.

Thankfully, the air cleared somewhat, growing less dense in stench as they descended a spiraling stairwell. Either that or Erika was simply growing used to it as she was unable to simply not breathe.

The idea horrified her.

She tried to breathe as little as possible.

The stairwell spiraled deeper, its steps slick with a thin film of something that glistened faintly in Erika’s phone light—not water, but a viscous fluid that clung to her boots like tar. The walls pulsed faintly, as if breathing. Their surfaces were etched with sigils that twisted under her gaze. Some resembled the glyphs and screaming faces from the entrance, but others were new: jagged, angular things that hurt to look at.

Postman halted abruptly at a landing where the stairs ended. Before them stretched a vast chamber, its ceiling lost in shadow, but which felt unnaturally high given that Erika had certainly not gone that far down. Chains dominated the space. They weren’t thin chains that might bind a bike or a human prisoner. They were massive links, each as tall as Erika was, with their girth scaled up to match. They crisscrossed the void like the web of some colossal spider.

At the chamber’s heart, across a narrow bridge of the tar-slick stone, hung a figure.

“Leah,” Erika whispered.

Smaller chains tipped with sharp fishing hooks dug into her flesh, suspending her in the air a short distance above the path. Trails of blood ran down her arms and legs, staining her clothes. A mask of blackened iron was fused with her face, covering her jaw and mouth. One eye, wide and bloodshot, rolled toward Erika. The other was gone, replaced by a hollow socket from which a thin chain spilled like a tear.

“The Fixer,” Postman said, sweeping his arms wide. “Just as promised.”

“Get her down from there,” Erika hissed, swinging her bat off her shoulder, leveling it at Postman. “Now!”

Postman held up his hands, taking a step back. “That’s not something I can do. These chains extend down to the very core—”

“Shut up,” Erika snapped.

She was, in a word, freaking out. Maybe she had been all night. Generally, Erika thought she was fairly good at rolling with the oddities in life. It came with the territory of being something of an oddity herself. Granted, nothing had been as odd as the last few weeks.

Tonight, she expected to find the owner of the mask, maybe at home, work, or out causing more fires. It was supposed to be a simple beat them up, force them to bring her to Leah, and then break Leah out of wherever she was.

In a way, she supposed that was roughly how it went.

This was so much more extreme than she ever could have imagined. Even if she knew that was fake-Leah dangling from those hooks and chains, bleeding and missing an eye, it still looked like her mother. Disgust, horror, and panic coursed through Erika.

Realizing that she was hyperventilating, Erika sucked in a sharp breath, closing her eyes. She didn’t close them as long as she would have liked. Not with Postman standing there. It helped a little. When she started breathing again, it was more normal.

She had to follow the plan.

The Fixer was clearly not in a position to speak, strung up above the ground. Not too high. Erika wouldn’t be able to reach the higher chains without jumping, but…

Erika followed the chains. It was hard to tell once they joined the crisscrossing mass, but she was fairly certain that at least the chain digging through The Fixer’s thigh was connected to the one hooked into her shoulder. If she broke it at the thigh, they would fall at least a little. Maybe enough to reach the other chains. Maybe the other chains were also connected, just in ways that Erika couldn’t see.

She had to try anyway.

Keeping her bat out and ready to strike at Postman—Erika was half tempted to just shove him off the narrow walkway—she slowly started across the chasm. She regretted glimpsing down from the stone bridge the moment she did. Just as the ceiling of the room vanished into shadows, so too did the floor. It was like some bottomless pit in one of Carter’s video games. The only thing she could see below the bridge were those massive chains descending into the darkness. Even they vanished at a certain point.

Ensuring she remained in the very center of the walkway, Erika continued forward. She occasionally glanced back, making sure that Postman wasn’t rushing up to shove her off. The man hadn’t moved since she forced him away from her. He even still had his hands up, only moving enough to watch her as she made her way across the chasm.

The Fixer… Leah… Whatever she was—he was? Whatever the being dangling from chains was, she started moving as Erika approached. With the chains piercing her flesh, she couldn’t move much. It ended up as mere wiggles back and forth, like she was struggling to escape the chains.

“I’ll get you down,” Erika said, not quite sure if she was trying to reassure fake-Leah or bolster her own confidence. If she wasn’t careful, she could hurt Leah more. Or worse, if she broke the wrong chain at the wrong time, Leah could end up swinging out over the void and falling straight into it.

The thick hooks piercing through Leah’s Achilles tendons looked worrying and easy to reach. Erika didn’t want to accidentally injure the tendons themselves—although Postman was just watching for now, they might have to beat a hasty retreat in short order—so she moved a short distance away, focusing on the chains themselves.

A better tool for this would have been something like wire cutters. Although Erika could reach into her pockets and withdraw anything, she had to know exactly what item she wanted. She couldn’t just create some wire cutters from scratch. Erika couldn’t think of any wire cutters she had seen recently, nor any other equivalent tool.

Hopefully her bat would work.

She hefted it up and swung it straight down.

Links of metal broke apart into a shower of tiny fragments, clanking against the narrow walkway before skirting off the edge toward the abyss.

Leah let out a loud grunt of pain, muffled by the iron mask.

“Sorry,” Erika muttered, not daring to look up. The way that the chain dangled from her eye socket made her stomach churn. “Don’t have much of an option here,” she said as she swung again at the chain attached to Leah’s other tendon.

It broke apart just as easily, raining broken links into the abyss.

Leah didn’t grunt in pain this time. Not even a peep.

Erika doubted her mother could have been so stoic. Seeing her like this, she had momentarily forgotten.

This was The Fixer.

Keeping that in mind, deciding to stop being careful, Erika looked up and plotted out her next moves all at once. Thigh chain first, then the opposite arm chain. Those both looked like they connected elsewhere on her body. If Erika broke them fast enough, it should keep her from swinging too much. With a hand on The Fixer’s leg, she could keep her steadier. After that, the chains in the sides of her waist on both sides, the chain through her bicep, and finally the chains hooked into her shoulders.

She could reach most of them without trying. It was just the shoulder chains that looked troublesome.

Erika could worry about that when she got to it. “Brace yourself,” she said. “I’m going to work quickly here.”

The Fixer gave a response. Muffled and muted as it was, Erika couldn’t even begin to guess at what it was.

Erika didn’t hold back. She swung her bat, shattering chain after chain.

The third chain that snapped was accompanied by a deafening, groaning sound of straining metal. One of the massive chains suspended in the chamber began to shift.

Erika froze, bat poised mid-swing at the next chain. The great links of the nearby massive chain trembled like a plucked guitar string, vibrating despite its size. With a shriek of protesting iron, the chain fell. It whipped downward into the abyss, its momentum tearing free from whatever ancient moorings held it in place. Far, far too many links fell below, rushing down and picking up speed. Eventually, a large anchor-like end whipped past, barely missing some of the smaller chains that held The Fixer in place.

The sound of it slamming against a wall somewhere in the shadowy depths sent another tremble through the chamber. Erika’s breath hitched as she tried to maintain her balance. A wet chittering noise climbed the walls of the chamber in the chain’s wake, and she did not want to fall to find out what was down there.

The Fixer began trying to move again, thrashing against the remaining bonds.

That spurred Erika into action. If this place was going to fall apart like that, Erika didn’t want to stick around to see it. One of those massive chains crashing into her, The Fixer, or just the bridge upon which she stood, and it would all be over. They needed to get out of here before then.

She swung her bat, striking the chain speared through The Fixer’s hip, carrying on the same swing to hit one in the forearm as well. Several of the smaller chains sagged, losing their tension and dropping The Fixer far enough down that her feet could reach the floor.

Erika didn’t stop. Not even as another titanic chain began trembling. Another link shattered. Another chain collapsed into the darkness below.

The Fixer sagged completely, dropping to the stone platform on her hands and knees. One last swing severed the final chain. There were still small chains dangling from her, still pierced through her skin—Erika hadn’t wanted to take the chance at harming her further—but she was now unbound.

Erika rushed up, putting her arms around The Fixer to help her to her feet.

The chamber shuddered. The remaining great chains trembled, then—one by one—they tore free from their anchors. The entire room felt like it was at the epicenter of an earthquake, rumbling and shaking as the chains fell into the abyss. The walkway beneath Erika’s feet cracked, the stone splintering like rotten wood.

Postman was already running, fleeing the chamber back to the stairs that had brought them down. There was no time to concern herself with him any longer. Looping The Fixer’s arm over her shoulder, she half-pushed, half-dragged the thing wearing her mother’s skin back to the stairs. The Fixer’s feet didn’t want to work properly, and the trembling, crumbling platform didn’t help.

Every bit of stone that fell away made Erika more and more nervous, but the stairs were right there.

A loud noise behind her made her look back. She immediately regretted it.

Something swept out from the depths of the chamber. It wasn’t a chain. It wasn’t metal at all. A massive red tongue-like thing, dripping with viscous ooze, snapped up from the shadows below. It struck the end of the walkway before falling back into the depths and out of sight.

The end of the walkway followed. As it fell, it started a chain reaction, with more and more of it racing toward Erika.

“Move!” she shouted, shoving The Fixer forward and into the stairwell.

Erika leaped after her, her boots leaving the walkway just as the ground beneath collapsed into the darkness.

She landed right on the threshold, her heels still over the gaping chasm. She swung her arms, trying to grasp onto anything, but the stairwell entry lacked handholds.

The Fixer’s arm lashed out, grasping Erika in the middle of her jacket. With only a slight tug, Erika’s center of balance went forward, and she stepped fully into the stairwell.

“Thanks,” Erika said with a small frown.

She wasn’t sure if The Fixer heard. The cacophony behind her was still going strong. Grinding metal, shattering stone, and the occasional sounds from below didn’t stop just because she reached the stairs. Neither did the tremor in the floor. If the stairwell fell as well…

Better not to think about that. “Let’s get out of here.”

The Fixer regarded her for a moment before reaching up to her iron mask. Her fingers dug into the strange seams where it looked like it had been fused to her face, but prying it off didn’t help. Erika shook her head, grabbing hold of The Fixer to drag her up the stairs.

The trembling continued even as the noise dampened, chasing them the entire way up. By the time they reached the top, Erika felt worn down and exhausted, both from stress and from having to half-carry The Fixer. Adrenaline kept her from feeling much of it, but she knew she would be regretting everything by morning.

There was plenty to regret more immediately, however. The first thing Erika noticed upon reaching the top of the stairs was the smell. That fetid, rotten trash smell that had faintly permeated the area before was out in force, so overwhelming that she couldn’t help but retch. It didn’t take long to figure out where that smell was coming from.

That membrane doorway was gone. The Mother of Maggots? Was that what Postman called it?

Maggots were an understatement. Segmented worms the size of cats slowly crawled along the floor, walls, and even the ceiling, leaving sticky trails of mucus in their wake. One came a bit too close. It reared back, hissing as it revealed a circular maw lined with concentric rings of needle-teeth.

Erika let out a small yelp, swinging her bat. It connected, splattering the creature against the wall, painting it with a bile-yellow slime.

The noise drew attention from a more humanoid figure, lurking in the entry hall. It stood in a stoop, as if suffering from a hunched back. Slowly, it turned toward her.

It looked like a regular man, complete with wavy black hair, thick eyebrows, and a small mustache with a pointed goatee. It wore a simple collared shirt and suit jacket, though both looked about seventy years out of date.

Then it opened its mouth. It started small, just a narrow circle, that quickly widened to a large circular gape that occupied the entirety of its lower face. Multiple rows of inward-facing teeth, matching that maggot Erika splattered against the wall, flexed and pulsed like they were grasping at something in the air. Thick strands of saliva dripped from the meaty opening, trailing off the sharp teeth as it dripped all down his suit.

With a shrill screech, he leaped through the air, diving toward Erika.

She swung her bat again with no hesitation. Just as with the maggot, the man’s head exploded, painting the wall in that same yellow bile. No red blood at all.

“What. The. Fuck,” she hissed, grasping hold of The Fixer again as she started dragging her out as fast as she could go.

Once again, she made the mistake of looking over her shoulder.

That membrane was gone, letting her see straight into the Mother of Maggots’ den.

Hundreds. Maybe thousands of those squirming white maggots, each the size of large cats, crawled over each other. Between them, more people, apparently normal-looking, feasted upon each other with those ring-like maws. Two dozen of them, tangled up like they were in some massive orgy with those maggots crawling over and between them.

With her and The Fixer out in the open, they looked up.

A long pause passed as more and more noticed that their fellows had stopped their feasting. Two dozen monsters stared back, still and unmoving. Only the maggots continued their vile undulations.

One screeched. Then another. And another. Dozens of noises all joined together.

Erika practically threw The Fixer down the steps of the ziggurat. She whirled, swinging her bat straight into one of the pillars beside the entrance. Stone fractured and broke, splitting and collapsing. Large chunks of stone fell. One crushed a maggot-man, squashing it into yellow jelly.

She didn’t stop to watch more, hoping they would have trouble getting through the rubble.

The portal was just ahead. They could reach it.

Except Postman was there at the edge of the portal, kneeling just like he had when he first opened it.

Was he trying to close it?

He was too far for her bat, so she shoved it into The Fixer’s chest, fully expecting her to grasp hold of it.

Erika went for her pistol. She drew it and racked the slide, just like Leslie taught her. Grasping the grip with both hands, she steadied herself and squeezed the trigger.

The kick wasn’t as much as she was expecting. Her grip was firm and tight, and her arms were tense, all to try to keep it from smacking her in the face. It didn’t even come close.

Neither did the bullet. She saw a little puff of stone erupt from the impact, a good ten feet from Postman. The stone fractured, breaking apart just like the column at the ziggurat’s entrance, but it wasn’t anywhere near the right spot.

A second shot wasn’t much closer. The third was too far in the other direction.

“Fuck!” She had a half day of lessons and no practical practice.

Movies made it look so easy.

The Fixer was still moving, limping forward more than running, but she would still reach Postman before Erika made it.

Would it be in time?

Postman looked over his shoulder, mask fully on his face once again. Despite that, she could see the way he grinned.

That grin filled Erika’s stomach with a pit of dread. It would not be in time.

A flash of blinding green light made Erika wince.

When it faded, Postman was on the ground, unmoving. The Fixer stopped moving, holding Erika’s bat up and at the ready to face a new threat.

And The Stalker stood in the frame of the open portal.

Relief ran through Erika’s muscles, almost making her collapse. Almost. Not quite.

Erika rushed forward, catching up to The Fixer. “Come on,” she hissed, grasping her arm as she dragged her forward.

Screeching in the distance behind her made Erika look one more time. Long, gangly limbs of those lamprey vampires were poking through the rubble of the ziggurat. A few were managing to squeeze through completely.

Stepping over Postman’s unconscious form, Erika shoved The Fixer back into the real world and hurried through herself. “Trying to make me owe you another one, are you?” she asked as she passed The Stalker.

“Heard the gunshots. Figured something was going down. As I said, hard to collect if you’re dead,” The Stalker paused, frowning at the portal and the monsters within. “I don’t suppose you know how to close this thing?”

Dozens of those monsters were crawling out of the ruins now. In the darkness of the cavern, they were mostly silhouettes, but that only made their unnatural movements more unsettling. They were scampering down the sides of the ziggurat, rushing the portal.

Looking around the museum, Erika had only one idea.

She wrenched her bat from The Fixer’s grip and swung, cracking its metal against the statue’s legs. It toppled backward off the pedestal as fractures split through it, bringing it to the ground. Moving around it, she hefted her bat up above her head and brought it straight down on the statue’s porcelain mask.

The portal flickered, collapsing inward like a television being turned off, leaving the mural intact. With it, all the screeching, all the grinding of metal against metal, and that low, rumbling wet noise all cut off in an instant.

Erika let out a light, nervous chuckle as she leaned back against the statue’s broken base. “Well,” she said, feeling jittery all over her body. “Add this to the list of things I don’t want to do again.”

Michael walked around the corner, took one look at her, one look at The Fixer, one look at the statue, then turned to The Stalker. “The other two collapsed just like the one you hit with yellow.”

“Shame. The Strategist wanted to interrogate one.” Despite her words, she didn’t sound all that upset. “We should leave.”

“No arguments here,” Erika said. Slowly, she looked over to The Fixer, watching Leah’s face. The iron mask covering half her face made it difficult to read any expressions, but it almost looked like she was nervous. And pained. All that bleeding couldn’t be good for her. Still unsure whether Leah was in there or not, she couldn’t let her die on her.

Where to go? A hospital? There would be so many questions, and Erika had absolutely no answers. The Hunters had some medical knowledge. Enough to treat The Fixer?

She could figure it out once she got back to her truck. She should probably text Anna as well.

For now, Erika grabbed hold of The Fixer, ostensibly to help her walk out of here, but she also didn’t want The Fixer running off before she had her answers.

There would be no more delaying.