Part II
Cass snuffed his torch as he saw the very literal light at the end of the tunnel. walking on until he came out nearer to the mountains than he’d started. The sun almost hiding behind them, it’d be dark again before he made any real headway. Not to mention he didn’t feel like dealing with the cold desert in nothing but a pair of trousers and a light jacket. He looked over the darkening plane to the town that he had left earlier.
It was all coming back to him now. Drifting into town, finding something. Something dark, and getting caught up in it. He remembered waking up bound with rope and an aching knot on his head. Being stripped down to nothing but his boots, being led to the edge of town, and being told to run before the dogs get at him. Those horrible black dogs.
He felt around the pockets of the pants and jackets, hoping for some tobacco, but with no luck. Leaning against the doorway to the old mine shaft Cass looked across the desert. Similar shafts entrances dotted the landscape, few and far between, but they were there. He sat and wondered where he had fallen and what had become of the dogs and their master. But not wanting to see them again, he resolved to stay the night in the dim mine.
That is, until he saw the group. Then the dark feeling, the one he couldn’t quite remember and was sure he’d never fully forget, crept up his spine like so many tiny insects. A procession of people in dark robes carrying a woman laid out on a homemade stretcher. Soft drum beats filled the air and the lights of their torches beat away the darkness as procession trekked across the desert toward a mine shaft opening wreathed with fire.
The group of robed people filed into the shaft entrance, first the men carrying the unconscious girl, and then the rest in an orderly fashion. They had barely gone in when Cass memorized the shaft and entered back into the mines, hoping that they were interconnected. He lit his torch once more and plunged himself into the forboding inky darkness.
Dread swept over him the further he went into the darkness. Like he was getting closer and closer to the source of some intense heat. He knew two things from his investigations into magic. One, this torch was now a necessity. Two, there was something very wrong going on here.
Cass walked down darkened corridor after darkened corridor feeling his way toward the direction of the robed people. His internal compass had always been suprisingly strong which helped him pick which direction to go down the winding shafts. He made decent progress as he went, until he came to a passage that led off into three separate directions.
He stopped and thought for a moment, not having any of his usual tools with him he might have to take a direction and backtrack if it became clear he'd taken a wrong turn. He sat thinking for a moment when he heard the sound, the familiar click click that could have been anything from a gun's cocking mechanism to the nails of those awful dogs on the stone floor beneath him. His fingertip brushed the grip of the old revolver as he spun on his heels.
Not a sound, no movement, nothing. His mind playing tricks on him? Either way stopping wasn't doing him any good. He thought as he quickly chose a direction and went down the centermost path. The clicking continued as he walked down the darkened corridor never getting closer or farther away, like an unseen stalker shadowing him in the night. The feeling of dread intensified as he continued onward and a soft hum or chant began echoing off the mine walls.
His sense of direction not letting him down yet was a good sign. He once again saw light at the end of the tunnel and he snuffed out his torch. But, this wasn't the pleasant warm glow of sunlight he saw. This light glowed an orangey red, more like blood than fire. Like a warning to anyone not in the know, and Cass certainly wasn't.
As he exited the tunnel and great room stretched out in front and below him. Cass stood high on a stone outcropping that overlooked the perfect dome room carved in the stone of the old mine. A large group of people in red robes, maybe most of thew towns people, milled about on the perfectly flat carve floor. Each concealing their faces with deep hoods to hide their shame. As Cass looked at the wall of stone he slowly began to figure that no man could carved stone this flat, and if they could it would take a man with more lives than he had.
He finaly spotted the poor girl, tied down, and splayed out on an altar raised at the center of the room. Moments before the tell tale click of a revolver hammer and the low gruff voice came from behind him.
"Don't fuckin move satanist."
