The Blood Debt Chronicles

The Case of the Missing Mummy

Chapter the Fourteenth or Cat and the Voice in the Darkness

Sweat dripped down the center of Cat’s back. The stink of fear clouded any other scents. The clothes she had been given by the Pickering’s for her role as servant had been ruined by the mephitic[1]vapors of the sewers and the clammy humidity which made her clothes cling to her. She was trying to breathe slow and deep, trying to slow her pulse, trying to make herself less of a target for the snakes.

It wasn’t working. They were closing in on her. Their tongues licked the air with an evil hiss. The sounds of their scales slithering against the slimy stone grated on her ears. Paranoia had heightened her senses. She felt like she could smell the reptilian tang of their flesh. She shivered.

This is it. I’m going to die. The thought crept into her brain and pinned down her fear. Her heart slowed. There was no need to panic because there was nothing to be done. It’s over. The lady will be sad. I wish someone could tell her where I fell. A morose peace settled on her shoulders. I hope someone finds my body so I can be buried on the surface. The sewer was her home, and she loved it, but she didn’t want to be trapped in the dark forever. The freedom of the sewer was the ability to go anywhere, dying in the sewer was the opposite of why she loved it.

Even though, in the cloying darkness of the sewers, she couldn’t see she kept her eyes open. It was better, she believed, to meet death with her eyes open. Her head slowly turned from side to side with every movement of the serpents, her attempt to face her death. She needed to track it, measure it. Know when it was coming.

It was because of this hopeless belief that she saw the putrid green glow rising up from the sewer water in front of her. The light bloomed slowly, seemly over agonizing minutes. It took her a while to notice that she could see in the sewer, she had been trying so hard to imagine where everything was. Slowly, her hands moved up and clamped down on her mouth. Her terror of the snakes was nothing compared to her horror of what was rising up in front of her.

The snakes, as if by enchantment, were focused single mindedly on their target. Their hoods flared, their fangs dripped venom, and they were poised to strike. They were unerring and single minded in their movements.

The glow from the fetid water grew stronger. A pale white, knobby spine broke the surface of the foul water. It was like a corpse rising slowly from the bottom of the river. A naked, glabrous[2]body; one that had likely starved to death after years hidden in darkness had drained all colour from its skin. The green glow came from the creature. From the crown of the corpuscular creature’s head to the end of its tail bone was a three centimeter wide luminescent green strip.

It was clear. It was distinctive. Everyone who crawled the sewers knew what that glow meant. If you live to see the glow, you’re already dead.

It was a ghoul. Ghouls were the boogie men of the lower class. Anyone who walked near a sewer opening feared that a pallid, long nailed hand would grab them. The stories of people disappearing were as frightening as they were true.

The ghoul’s long, spindly hand snapped out of the water and snatched one of the striking cobras out of the air. Cat had eyes only for the ghoul. She didn’t even notice that the creature was attacking the cobras. But she saw the ghoul bite the head of the serpent it had caught. It bit down with sharp tearing teeth and when it opened its mouth, it had fangs; because that was why ghouls were so terrifying. Whatever they ate, they gained power from.

There weren’t just normal creatures down in the sewers either. There were terrifying monsters, mutated things and each one a ghoul ate only made it stronger. Rumor had it that some ghouls could even use magic. Cat had always believed, hoped, that wasn’t true.

Cat was paralyzed with fear. She had never seen a ghoul before, part of why she was still alive. As the ghoul ate the snakes around her, clearly seeking their powerful venom, she was too afraid to run, to save herself. The ghoul’s quick movements allowed it to snatch its prey out of the air before they could strike Cat. The serpents only turned their venom on the pale monster after it had caught them.

“Cat! Run!” The voice was familiar; Lady MacNeal’s voice always reminded her of it: wise, compassionate and feminine. It was the same voice that had saved her the first time she had come into the sewer, frightened and young, having just been chased off after the fire. “Run, Cat! I’ll handle the ghoul!”

Blue sparkling fey lights danced through the air. They pressed around the ghoul and pushed her away. Cat was too terrified to marvel at their beauty or to wonder where they had come from.

She didn’t pause to question how the other had come upon them when Cat had heard no one come, or how the other would stop a ghoul. She turned and ran. Some of the dancing lights sparked and made her racing feet move faster. Her footfalls were heavy on the stone ledge that was her path. She slipped once, falling hard on her knees, but managed to keep herself from tumbling into the muck. She dragged a filthy arm across her eyes and was surprised to find her eyes were wet. Cat tried not to care for people, it was better that way, but the voice… it had cared for her longer than anyone else and the owner was assuredly dead.

Her memories of her time with the voice in the dark were vague and often she thought of them more as a fever dream than reality. The first memory Cat had was of being dressed in warm woolen clothes, sitting on a hard wooden bench and a frighteningly old woman bent over her like miser counting coins. The crone’s back was as hooked as her fingers; but as knobby and frail as the old woman was, her grip was like iron and when she struck Cat with a switch, it burned like fire.

The woman had been speaking to her aggressively; somewhere between angry and excited. Cat was trying to focus on the letters the hag was trying to teach her, but they swam before her eyes. She didn’t understand them, couldn’t focus on them. Then the chalk board she was writing on burst into flames. The board melted, the desk caught fire, and even the chalk she used to write was burning.

The crone was screaming terrible screams. The smell of burnt cloth and burning fat, sweet like cooking pork, clung to the memory. Then Cat remembered running. Fleeing the smoke and the fire and the beating that she knew was waiting for her. Whatever had happened was her fault and she would be terribly punished for it.

She hadn’t meant to go into the sewer the first time. It had been raining, pouring flooding rain , there was so much coal soot in the air that the rain burned her skin and everyone was trying to escape the painful water. People were shoving, throwing elbows, she fell and the water was so strong she was washed down a storm drain.

Something pale and cool to the touch had grabbed her before she fell into the stinking river of filth that ran inside the sewer. The light had been dim, but not pitch black. Something… that should have been odd. The clouds were so thick outside, that day, that noon was as dark as twilight.

The voice, when it first spoke, had been strange. Unintelligible. The words skittered over her mind like the legs of a thousand spiders. “Child.” The word was spoken slowly carefully, as if the speaker was concerned that she wouldn’t understand the words.

Cat had blinked in the darkness and replied, “Yes?”

“Where are your parents, child?” the voice was sad and cautious, “Small morsels like you shouldn’t wander dangerous places like this. Haven’t you ever heard of ghouls?”

Cat began to cry. She had heard of ghouls. In between sniffles she said, “I don’t have any parents and they will be so angry with me.”

The voice pulled Cat against it. Its skin was smooth, soft and cold like a fish against Cat’s cheek. “Children should have someone to look after them. It is a crime for something so small to be so alone.” The voice’s hand touched Cat’s hair gently, almost reverently, “What is your name, child? You have a name you are called by, don’t you?”

Cat never wanted to be called Caterina again. It was a name from a time of bondage and pain. “Cat. My name is Cat. What is your name?”

Cat heard the mirth in the voice as it chuckled. “Cat, Hmm?” The voice became almost musical, the song almost nepenthe[3], “A cat is a fine thing to be. They are really excellent predators. Pound for pound,” the voice mused, “I would say they are one of the greatest predators around.”

The voice had never told Cat its name. For a year or two, Cat had tried to think of a name to call it, but any name she thought of just felt wrong. The voice was what it was; something in the darkness, nameless.

It was the voice that had taught Cat to pretend to be a boy; to dress like one, talk like one, and to act like one. The voice had told her that bad things happened to women and girls on the street; that she would be safer, though not safe, as a boy. Cat had created her world in the dark of the sewers, found her bolt hole with its help, survived so much.

Now her friend was dead. Dead because of me. She choked back a sob.

“Why are you crying, Cat?” The voice whispered near Cat.

Cat whirled around, almost slipping on the slick stones under her. “You’re alive? How?”

The voice laughed throatily, “Cat, I have been in these sewers longer than you have been alive. I know how to handle ghouls.”

Cat was full of questions to ask.

Humor glistened about the edges of the voice’s words, “Cat, you are always so sapid[4]. It is a joy to… interject my opinion into your adventures.”

A slow smirk spread across Cat’s face. As if you only come by when I’m in trouble. Cat was almost certain that the voice was nearby whenever she was in the sewers, though they both preferred for Cat to solve her own problems. “I don’t know how you do it, but you’ve saved my neck countless times. I’d like to help you someday.”

The voice spoke again, this time, it was strained. “Don’t worry about me. I need to go. Your friends are coming for you.” The voice became softer as if drifted away, “If you are still tracking the serpent-man; follow this tunnel till the water dries, the walls will change to sandstone, be careful there are a lot of traps in that area.”

Cat had never seen the voice before; she never managed to have a lamp when the other came around. “Thanks!” She called out softly, before heading down the oubliette[5], after the serpent-man.

[1]Stinking, noxious. Strictly speaking, foul or poisonous exhalations from the earth or other low-level source

[2]Having a surface free from hair

[3]Something that brings forgetfulness of sorrow and suffering

[4]Flavorsome, lively, interesting

[5]A dungeon, often in the form of a deep and narrow well or hole in the ground, designed for the permanent incarceration of those whom it is desired to forget. From the French oublier which means “to forget”