ItCP41

## Chapter 41

**Chapter 41** of **Into the Crooked Place** follows **Karam**.

## **Full Version**

THE CRYPT SMELLED OF death and decay.

The walls were damp with rotting flesh and it was dark enough that even Arjun’s conjured light only illuminated a few steps ahead. The shadows seemed to recoil and then follow them.

Karam and Arjun walked slowly, their footsteps silent. They winced under the weight of the barrel, which was as heavy as all spirits, even with the both of them clutching it.

The charms rattled inside, eager to ignite.

Karam looked down to adjust her grip on the barrel and was once again surprised to see that her hands weren’t there.

She sucked in a breath.

She was never going to get used to this invisibility field. She thought the Crafters would make them unseen to those on the outside, but she didn’t realize they would slowly dissolve her skin and bone until she became air.

Karam hoped Wesley could stall for a little longer.

This was the last barrel left and Karam didn’t want to be halfway through setting it down when the signal came. Even if her blood was coating the charms, she didn’t like to take chances.

Especially on magic.

Especially on explosive magic.

*Just a few more minutes*, she thought.

“This place is endless,” Arjun said in Wrenyi.

Karam nearly jumped at the sound of his voice so close.

She was *really* never going to get used to invisibility.

Arjun was right, though. The crypt seemed to go on forever. They’d spotted the hidden chamber behind a throng of skeleton trees and bushes with swords for thorns. Heavy chains secured the large steel gates and behind them was another door that even the lock picking she had learned from Wesley couldn’t bypass.

It took a lot of Arjun’s magic to burst through.

The crypt looked like it ran directly under the castle as an emergency escape. If they planted the last barrel here, then when the Kingpin or any of his people tried to run, they would be frozen in time, unable to use their magic to fight. Primed for the killing.

They kept walking and after a couple more minutes Karam breathed a sigh of gratitude when her hands reappeared at her sides. They were out of the parameters of the invisibility field.

*Thank the spirits*, she thought.

Karam watched her steps. There were nail marks in the floor. Blood dried into the cobbles like paint. She listened out for Wesley’s signal. Or rather, Saxony’s signal. The sound of her fire puncturing the air and hurtling toward the moon.

Nothing came.

Karam wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

Arjun hoisted the barrel up and Karam was relieved to be able to make out his face.

“How much farther do you think?” he asked.

Karam didn’t know. For all she knew, they could walk for hours and not be where they needed to be. Or they could have gone past the best point already.

“I don’t have blueprints,” she said.

Arjun swiped the sweat from his brow and the light charm in his hand flickered, coating them in darkness for a moment.

The shadows lurched. A howl sounded.

Arjun brought his hand down.

The darkness shrunk back.

“What was that?” he asked.

Karam swallowed. Something shuffled in the shadows and a hungry growl caught her ear.

She placed the barrel down, slowly, and Arjun followed.

“Don’t move,” she said. “And don’t let that light go out.”

She pulled her knives from their hold, the steel shrieking as it was let free.

Arjun reached for his own blade and the light blinked.

The shadows wailed.

“I told you not to move!” Karam said again.

She knew that noise.

*Spirits damn*, she knew it all too well.

Arjun’s eyes searched the darkness, the light charm steady in his hand. “What is it?”

“Conjure another light,” Karam said.

Arjun opened his hand and a small orb appeared in his palm, dim, but enough to chase away the shadows.

Karam smiled in relief, but then a gust of wind blew through the cavern, carrying with it the stench of death.

The charm sputtered and blinked.

There were breaths in the darkness, each pant laden with magic, and in the dim glow where light melted to shadow, a clawed hand reached out.

The creature rose to stand, hunched back, talons as long as arms scraping over the floor. Its spine jutted out, body half-dispersed in smoke so the claws of its webbed feet were detached from the rest of its form. Spit stretched between the jaws that made up its face.

No eyes, for it lived in the darkness. Just a mouth. Just teeth.

*Shadow demon.*

A monster Karam had once seen rip apart nine fighters in a matter of seconds.

This wasn’t an escape tunnel.

It was a cage.

And they had just opened the lock.

“Run!” Karam yelled.

But it was too late.

The shadows were everywhere, closing in on them.

Killing the light one blink at a time.