“What am I supposed to do, float up?” Jack said, looking perplexed.
I yanked him up behind us, dragging his spirit like an old tire on a rope.
“That doesn’t feel nice,” he bleated.
Harding didn’t need the boost. He just floated up with a smug look on his face.
Despite everyone’s fitness level and all-around athletic ability, we were all breathing hard in another fifteen minutes. The zombies had fallen back, unable to keep the pace but still coming along slowly. The frigid air, getting colder the higher we climbed, didn’t stop sweat from trickling down my temples and wetting my back and chest. My runners, great for actually running, weren’t as great for the rocky terrain, and I nearly rolled my ankles several times.
The trees thinned, as did the grasses, until we were cutting along a tiny path on the side of the mountain, winding upward. Coarse rock scraped along my left side, and the ground dropped away on my right, revealing the steepest incline I’d seen yet. A puffy white cloud almost looked eye level as it slowly glided by.
A soul bleeped onto my radar, higher still, and pushed back a ways, indicating we needed to cut back into the center of the mountain at some point. It sat idle, a gorgeous, sparkling thing that reminded me of a sunburst on a cloudy day.
“There is goodness in him,” I murmured, trying to ignore Harding as he floated up next to me. And kept floating, hanging out over nothingness as the mountain fell away beside the tiny path.
“Is that right?” Harding said, making me miss whatever Bria had muttered behind me. “And you feel that in a soul, do you?”
“Are you mocking me?”
“Not at all.” Harding once again drowned Bria out. “I’m just trying to get more information.”
“It sounds like you’re mocking me, but yes, I can get that from a soul. A person’s soul doesn’t lie. When their soul is bright and shining and beautiful, there is goodness in them. But if it’s somewhat dull or tarnished, or feels like it needs a good polish, the person is probably a weasel. At least, that’s been my takeaway so far.”
“Interesting.” Harding pursed his lips. “But even good people can do bad things. For example, a good person might think it’s fair to just kill a bunch of trespassers who have ignored the many warnings. He might even decide to eat them.”
“Good and bad are sometimes opposite sides of the same coin, yes. To save yourself or your family, sometimes you have to rip someone’s soul out of their body, stuff it back in, and control them before they have a chance to realize they’re dead, which I have done. War and battle get messy, and so does life after loss. It’s the people that cause this crap that need to get their intestines dragged through their buttholes. Like Demigod Aaron, that lowlife dipshit. I bet his soul is turd brown, but I wouldn’t know, would I, since he is a coward and hides in spirit whenever he comes around.”
“Yikes. That’s an…image,” Harding said with a little grin. “I’m not offended, by the way, in case you were wondering—that lowlife dipshit being my biological father.”
“That just proves my point, the cheating jerk.”
Thane slowed then stopped, looking at the rockface. He took a couple of steps forward before turning to face me, his eyes tight.
It was then I noticed the tall opening in the rock, like two doors stacked on top of each other. Each side of the opening was a clean slice through the solid rock, the edges polished-looking and nearly sharp enough to cut, similar to onyx but dull gray in color. Darkness pooled in the opening, but when I stepped past Thane to get a better look, I saw that the gap acted as a tunnel to the horror show beyond. Adrenaline pooled in my gut, and if we hadn’t been standing precariously on the side of a mountain, I would’ve turned around and sprinted in the opposite direction.
“Been nice knowing ya,” Harding said behind me.
3
Alexis
“What is it?” Donovan called up as Bria pushed into the opening beside me, careful not to bump me lest I go careening off the side.
The short tunnel led to a light-filled, somewhat narrow crevasse in the mountain. The sides were perfectly parallel up until about head height, at which point they gradually flared outward for fifty or so feet. That was where the first shelf was built into the crevasse, a line of large rocks sitting on top like predators waiting to pounce. The walls kept flaring, leading up to another shelf about fifty feet above that, and another beyond it, the last one holding massive boulders that didn’t seem like they would fit into the bottom area. On their way down they would, however, scatter all the smaller rocks beneath them, killing whoever was stupid enough to wait at the bottom.
All the small hairs stood up along my body. I could barely speak, looking at the walkway below certain death. The giant was not trying to hide the obvious danger. In fact, he was putting it clearly on display. Once those rocks came barreling down, they’d hit the ground, bounce around together, and then gush out the tunnel and over the side of the mountain, taking any trespassers with them.
“Good…heavens,” Bria whispered, looking in from behind me. “This is…well thought out. Our giant is a smart man.”
The area beyond the hell walk was masked in shadow, but I could feel the giant’s soul blazing amidst the darkness.
“Can giants feel through the rock?” I asked, trailing my fingers along the cool, smooth stone to either side.
“Level fives can,” Thane replied. “Lexi, that canal in there is a death sentence for you if I change. You’d be trapped in there with me.”
“A canal is an artificial waterway to allow for boats, ships, or irrigation, but we get what you mean,” Jack muttered beyond Bria.
“So that giant doesn’t need to actually have eyes on us to know where we are,” I said to myself. “Can Donovan handle all those rocks without you?” I asked Thane. I stepped aside, moving Bria with me so Thane could get a better look.
“Let me up to see,” Donovan called.
“You try to step around me, chances are you’ll go on a wild ride,” Red said to Donovan. “This path is precarious at best.”
Thane ducked so he could look higher, but after the third shelf of rock, there was nothing but brilliant blue sky. It looked like the giant had lopped off the top crust of mountain. “No, not all that,” he answered. “He can probably handle the first shelf, and after that, it’s smoosh-ville.”
I took a steadying breath, goosebumps now coating my skin, looking beyond him at the path that wound around the edge of the mountain, then back to the path cutting through the stone, a very clear display of the giant’s awesome power. Either way was precarious, and I wasn’t a fool to think one was rigged and the other wasn’t. Hell, if he could cleave a slice down the middle of this beast, he could surely shake things a bit and knock anyone on the sides off. Bria had already indicated as much. If we didn’t want him on our side and in a good mood, I could just grab his spirit box now.
“Okay, so we play by his rules.” I stepped farther into the tunnel. “We’re on his land, after all. That seems fair.”
Thane’s large hand covered my shoulder. “Or we go home and tell Kieran this is suicide. Bria and Red put together a list of people to recruit. If we don’t get this one, we can get another.”