Page 30 of Sightwitch
Why, Sirmaya? I wanted to shriek as I cut down a row of shelves.Why is all of this here?What were these hands? Or the massive beast now scrabbling toward me, its head spinning and spinning?
No time for answers. Just running. My breath seared. My muscles had gone from tired to numb. Everything moved of its own accord. Distant limbs that kept pumping even as my mind was a useless jumble of terror.
Then I saw it, as I reeled onto the main path and a smell like festering flesh roiled over me—Skull-Face needed a bath—I saw the end of Level 11. It was closer than previous levels, and rather than a darkened doorway in the wall, a chapel waited.
Surrounded by brilliant foxfire, it looked exactly like the chapel at the entrance to the Crypts, now so far behind me.
Yet unlike the chapel outside, this one had a door. Twice as tall as me and with no latch or knob.
Doesn’t matter, I decided between one crashing step and the next. I would figure out how to open it when I got there. That was really the only path left to me.
I did not look back, and I did not need to. The sound of the monster’s spinning face clicked louder; the stench of death weighed hea-vier.
And, of course, the chanting call of my name, broken up by syncopated laughter, still followed too near.
The door waved and swam ahead, its edges glowing with a strange blue light. I’d thought that was light from the foxfire, yet the closer I ran, the more I realized it was not a natural light but a magical one.
This door was not going to open without some kind of key.
The bell. That had to be the way in, for there was a small belfry over the chapel, just the like one aboveground.
With my one free hand, I fumbled Hilga’s bell from my belt. The earth shook as the fleshy, grinning Skull-Face clambered close.
Its shadow slithered over me before I even had the Summoning bell free.
The Death Maidens simply laughed and laughed and laughed.
Then the bell was unfastened, and without looking back—yet still sprinting as fast as I could—I clanged it.
Once, twice. Hard, hard. A peal that rippled outward until the chapel bell answered, loud enough to drown out all that chased behind. The sound split my brain, and relief erupted in my chest.
If I kept running, I would make it out of here.
Except that the door was not opening. I was almost to it, yet the blue light still glowed and the carved wood had not budged an inch.
I rang the bell harder; the main bell tolled once more.
Stillnothinghappened.
Three paces from the door, I shoved all my strength and terror into my gait. I slammed against the wood.
It didn’t move.
Harder I pushed, but to no avail. The bells were not working, and now the monsters had reached me.
I whipped around, back pressed to the door. It was so much worse than I’d feared. Skull-Face leaned down. Its skin writhed as if worms crawled underneath, and its smiling mouth parted to show …
Nothing. Nothing at all but darkness.
Slithering beneath the beast’s belly were the Death Maidens, their arms raised and claws grasping.
“Ryber, Ryber, Ryber.”
I dropped the bell. Knife, knife—at least if I had my knife gripped tight, I might be able to do a some damage to these monsters before I left the world forever.
Right as my fingers gripped the hilt, a sound carved through the chaos: a squawk and the flapping of wings.
The Rook shot down, an arrow aimed for Skull-Face’s eyes.
