Sanctuary's Fiend
Chapter 16

I brushed aside the leaves and lifted the metal grate.

Cold, damp air wafted out and hit me in the face. It would have felt refreshing compared to the sweltering heat of the sun if it hadn’t been for the cloying sweetness attached to it.

I put down my can of oil, its job of stopping the hinges from screeching complete, and pulled out my pistol. I thumbed the flashlight attachment into the on position and looked down.

The light didn’t reach the bottom of the shaft.

I holstered the pistol at my waist to allow the flashlight to point down, pulled my mask up from around my neck to cover my mouth and nose, and crawled onto the ladder.

After I’d left Tom’s last night, I’d returned to the park and followed the smell. I couldn’t risk losing my only clue. It had led me to this area before the Lyfe had left me. I’d spent the next hour scrambling around and searching, until I’d found this.

I’d come fully prepared. My Glock 17, and a shoulder slung Mossberg 500 tactical pump-action shotgun which would hurt just about anything I found, mortal or otherwise, and a block of C4. Just in case. And my pen, of course.

It went without saying that I had a vial of Lyfe in my tactical vest.

Finally my feet touched firm ground. Well, not very firm. I could tell it was wet and sludge-like from the way my boot slipped as I put weight on it. I looked down and saw a brown slurry.

‘Just dirt, I’m sure,’ I muttered to myself.

I pulled out my pistol again, and held it in front of me. It lit the way, and meant that anything stupid enough to charge me head on would end up very dead, very quick.

The tunnel started out as a metal tube, but that quickly ended. The hole continued as a dangerous looking, unsteady earthworks, with the occasional wooden beam keeping things propped up.

I carried on, moving slowly, making sure I didn’t miss anything. After a minute, the earth wall on my right started to be intermittently replaced with stone. Small stones, not large blocks of it. I didn’t know too much about the area, but I assumed that meant they were very old walls.

I knew from the smell last night that I was searching for a Fiend. I’d faced one before in the catacombs under Paris. Disgusting monsters that oozed death from their pores. They didn’t have venom, but they were so corrupted that their saliva could kill if it mixed in the bloodstream. The only thing they seemed to fear was sunlight. They felt pain, but nothing would bring them down apart from sun, or decapitation and burning. Or the plague sacs in the back of their neck, but those were never the easiest option.

I didn’t know what I was looking for when I needed to replace one on my own though, and short of stumbling across a dead body, or the Fiend itself, I was lost. I didn’t want to take the Lyfe until it was required, but without it I had no clues. Perhaps with it, I’d be able to follow the smell of death again. Right now, the air just had a slight sweetness to it through my mask.

A faint noise came from the other side of the tunnel. I stopped next to one of the walls. Had I really heard something? I scanned the wall with my flashlight but didn’t see anything unusual. I moved closer and pressed my ear to one of the stones. I thought I could hear...

The wall crashed into the side of my head, making me topple to the ground. My gun stayed at the ready despite my falling.

The wall had bent inwards where I had been standing, and a small hole had been knocked out right where my head had been.

I jumped to my feet, and peered through the hole. There was a ray of light in a large room, with silhouettes crashing around. The smell suddenly hit me like a blow to the face.

Pulling the C4 out of my tactical vest pocket, I stuck it to the old wall. I set the detonator and ran down the tunnel, crouching after I was out of the blast radius.

I pulled the vial of Lyfe from my pocket, and finished the mental count of five in my head.

The explosion rocked my entire body, but as soon as I could tell up from down, the Lyfe hit the back of my throat. That same copper and sulphur onslaught hit me, and I charged back towards the now wrecked wall.

In a single fluid movement I breached through the wall, and brought my shotgun up to bear. The flashlight lit the room, and I saw Sanctuary’s Fiend.

It had its back to me, so I didn’t hesitate. I fired two shots. The roar of pain it let out was louder than the explosion. It whirled around, turning on me, and lunged.

I dived out of the way, firing another shot that went just wide of its face. It fell through the hole in the wall, tumbling out into the tunnel, and I rolled back onto my feet. As I swept my eyes around the room, my flashlight picked up something on the floor. With the Fiend out of the room, I gave myself the heartbeat I needed to take in what it was.

A body lay face down and still, in a patch of slick wetness. Poor girl. I must have just missed saving her.

Carefully, I brought my shotgun back to where I knew the Fiend would be attacking from. I could hear it picking itself up. They were resilient, but predictable. I could finish this here and now.

But I also heard a moan.

I glanced back to the body. It was moving. She was trying to look at her own ruined torso.

Rel.

Shit. Not again.

I let my shotgun fall to my side, and sprinted over to her.

There was no time to check anything, as the Fiend burst into the room again.

I scooped Rel up in my arms, my Lyfe infused body handling her as if she weighed nothing, and ran to where the shaft of light was coming from. There had to be a way out. She must have got in somehow, whether by herself or dragged in by the Fiend waiting to torment her. I had to get her to safety.

If there was anything I could do, I’d do it. I refused to bring a lifeless body to her parents.

As I ran up the stairs, I could hear the Fiend gaining on me, but there was no time to look back.

I came up into a small room, with sun streaming in from one side. I took the entire room and the small wall in a single leap, bursting out into the sunlight.

We were in the church’s cemetery.

Of course, I knew a Fiend wouldn’t risk coming out into the sunlight, but I couldn’t stop moving. Rel wouldn’t last long, if she would last at all.

I cast a hurried glance over my shoulder, only to see the Fiend’s eyes glowing from the staircase, and a large claw start to burn in the sunlight.

I ran.