To Best the Boys(62)

Rubin peers around, and his forehead pales as if it’s dawned on him where we are. The same way it’s dawning on me too, as my eyes adjust to the shadowed walls.

The crypts lining them are made from the same stone, with the same etchings, same distance apart as the last passage. Except these are open.

And rather than shreds of cloth and crumbling bone, these are filled with ghouls.

Draped in white death robes, their bones and flesh look almost human beneath their closed eyelids. As does their skins’ yellow glow, created by the sulfuric air tainting their permanently decaying bodies that never have rest, only slumber.

I look at Lute and point to their arms. The right one of each is thrust out, like an arrow, aimed toward the opening at the far end of the hall. And on the outstretched hand of the ghoul mounted closest to that doorway dangles a thin chain holding a key.

My throat drops into my gut. This isn’t just a dead king’s dining hall. This is a banqueting lair.

A sudden loud gagging rings out. Rubin is leaning over, losing his face scarf and what little water is left in his stomach. No matter how silent he’s trying to keep it, the sound still echoes through the room, and we all jerk toward him as if to mute the trauma. But then he’s finished and everyone’s slowing mid-movement, trying to let the sound die away as quick as possible without adding anything to it.

We stay paralyzed in place for what seems like an eternity. Standing there. Watching. Waiting.

To see if their eyes will open.

It’s an elongated minute before Vincent finally beckons us to move forward.

Lute and I tug Sam up as high as I’m able, to try to keep his feet from scraping the floor. We step slowly through the hall. Eyes wide on the ghoulish faces. Every tread rooted in the fear of their awakening.

Vincent, Germaine, and Rubin move faster than we can and have soon hurried ahead. We’ve only hit the halfway point by the time they make it to the opening—through which I can see two adjoining rooms. Lute picks up our pace as the three Uppers duck in, except the next instant Vincent reappears and looks our way.

I frown. What’s he?

He lunges to the side, sets his foot on a coffin ledge, and hefts his body high enough to yank the hanging key off the final ghoul. With a crash he falls backward onto the floor, then is up and racing for the door.

Beryll swears, and Seleni tries to shush him, but it doesn’t matter—the ghouls’ eyes flash open, one at a time, like a row of lanterns being lit.

Which is when the moans start up.

So deep, so empty, my bones shake from the wretched sounds.

In one swoop Lute grabs Sam and yanks him across his shoulders, then yells at Beryll to get Seleni and me through the doorway. Suddenly it’s not just the moans filling the room but the wisps of sulfuric mist. They’re coming on so thick, the haze almost obscures the opening.

We rush for the hole in the wall, and the next second we’ve all five plunged through and are racing into the next room. Only to be stopped by a metal wall Rubin is standing in front of, banging his fist on and yelling. “They went up without us. Hurry, help me! They went without us!”

“Where?” Beryll shouts, but Rubin just points at the metal and keeps yelling.

In unison Lute and I drop Sam, then rush to look—to see which lever makes the wall open and close. My hands search the crevices—every indent and space, but I can’t find one. Oh hulls, I can’t find one!

The room starts shaking from the ghouls’ moans.

“They’re coming!” Seleni yells.

I turn to glance through the doorway and see them dropping down one by one from their coffins, in some sort of unified reverie. Of all the—

I lunge for the side wall—the one that’s covered in the same strange, scripted carvings as the tombs—and feel it for any markers. There’s got to be a lever here.

“I thought Germaine said they only wake at night,” Rubin whines.

“Well, apparently they don’t,” I snarl. “Now move.”

The ceiling starts shaking just like the floor, dropping dust and pebbles, and the opening between us and the ghouls’ hall is making a grinding sound. I look over to find Lute kicking at a knob in the wall beside it. “I think it’s to seal the opening.” He groans.

Rubin stares at us. “It’s too late. We’re all going to die.”

“Oh for bloody sake, pull yourself together!” Beryll leaves the metal wall he and Seleni were trying to force up and jumps to help Lute, but the second he does, Rubin lunges for Seleni and pulls her toward the ghouls’ hall.

“Rubin!”

Lute and I both leap to grab him, but Beryll is already there landing a solid punch to Rubin’s jaw. He stumbles and releases Seleni long enough for Beryll to grab her, and then Sam jumps up and screams just before he throws himself full force into Rubin. He slams Rubin to the ground and they slide to where the ghouls have just converged. And for a second, the screeches of Rubin and the undead combine into one.

And then the lever Lute had been kicking at squeals, and the entire wall and ceiling rumble just as the stone around the opening begins to crumble and fall, and a slab suddenly drops into place.

“Sam! Sam!” I scream for him and scramble for the door. “Sam!”

Except it’s no good. He and Rubin are stuck outside with the ghouls while we’re coughing and choking on a roomful of dust and the horror that is spiraling up my throat.