On the throne of skulls, Azoria squirmed. Arms nailed above her head tensed. Toes extended as her feet pulled at the nails holding them together. The harsh seat poked her, but no longer bit. The skulls remained silent; their mouths closed. Hands pulled through nail with a string of half clotted blood hanging like a rope bridge back to the chair. Feet cracked as they pulled through the large nail under the seat. Azoria stretched.

  With a brisk hop she stood next to the throne of skulls and shook her hands. Blood splattered from her closing wounds. She checked stage left, then stage right, before she returned to the half-shattered podium. The spade of her tail dangled above her head. Elbows dug into the podium while her chin rested on bloody palms. Wounds closed as she watched the remaining players, the slaves and the tormented souls.

  The lights of the audience chamber maintained full brilliance. Many of the occupants found it difficult to sleep. The flat granite floor didn’t help. Alfredo tried to sleep sitting up against the wall. At least Ebony didn’t have any problems in that department. Kunchen didn’t seem to mind. Alfredo lifted Ebony’s head and legs to roll her gently. The pressure couldn’t be good for the blood flow. It was Kunchen’s idea though.

  He looked up to the stage. The throne of skulls stood empty. Azoria leaned over the podium. They were all the way across the chamber at the opposite wall, so she looked small. Her eyes reminded him of brake lights in the distance on a sunny day. If he squinted, he could see the hint of her smirk. Alfredo decided to stand. The tour guides were gone, so were the portal chambers they hadn’t been allowed to enter. His hand slid along the wall as he walked. Linh followed him.

  “Are you okay?”

  Alfredo turned, then took a step back. This idol’s hair dripped down her back. Her wet dress left a trail of drops wherever she walked. It smelt stale, like something out of a clogged drainage ditch. He realized he didn’t want to be around her, not anywhere near her. Stubby fingers ran through his jet-black hair.

  “No. I want out of this place. I’m sick of waitin’. A friend is out there sufferin’ alone and I can’t stand not knowing. If she’s dead, I wanna find out and put it past me.”

  A distance away, by Ebony, Kunchen sat cross legged with his hands clasped in prayer. Without opening his eyes or looking to his teammates, he spoke so powerfully that everyone’s attention refocused.

  “The woman is alive. I can sense her spirit. It’s a spirit that refuses to be suppressed. It’s a spirit that’s out of balance. It rages against the cage forced upon it. It rages against the weakness of her body. It rages against the injustices piled upon it. It rages against cruelty. This rage will destroy her. When we are freed from this chamber, I will take us to her. I pray we can reach her before it’s too late. She needs us. Desperately.”

  The old monk returned to his meditation, legs folded, eyes closed, seated on the granite. An electric hiss followed from the ceiling. A few people looked up, but nobody saw anything. Alfredo growled at Linh for following him as he tried to walk away. The feeling of choking on hair accompanied her presence.

  “Can’t yuh keep tuh distance we already stablished here!”

  “Sorry, it’s just, since I woke up here, you’re one of the first people to even acknowledge my existence. You’re the first person to talk to me. You even asked your friend if he could me with my curse.”

  Alfredo grunted and kept walking. Linh watched him without going any further. Her loafers skidded against the smooth floor. When he was a distance from her that he didn’t feel hair in his throat, Alfredo decided to check her information.

  The monk kept guard over Ebony, so he wasn’t worried about the doctor choking in her sleep. Maybe he could find a clue as to how to get rid of her.

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  What was he thinking? This woman was terrifying. She was the well child from that creepy movie. Why would he want the well child on his team? She’d kill them off one by one. Kunchen was right to suggest she couldn’t be helped. What she had become in this word was a huge liability. But he couldn’t afford to enrage her either; she was the well child. Her revenge would be nasty.

  “Phaolo, is that you?”

  Linh put her hands together. She backed away slightly. Droplets fell from her dress. Wet hair clung to her back as if she was caught in a downpour. Phaolo hobbled to her.

  His foot! His arm! What the heck was wrong with them? They looked like somebody sewed back on a dead limb. The man had a limp because his left leg went longer than his right on them threads. The right hand hung lower than his left. The flesh was sewn together loosely. Red strands flowed between living and dead looking blue skin. Alfredo backed away from them both.

  “Linh! I didn’t think I’d find you here. I thought I’d never see you again.”

  Water sprinkled about as she shook her head, “Phaolo stay back. We shouldn’t be too close. You’re hurting me!”

  A dull moan came from underground. For a moment it felt like they were standing on the glass floor of an aquarium instead of a solid sheet of granite. Though Alfredo knew the floor wasn’t completely flat. The slight lines where the granite plates connected were visible if anyone looked carefully enough.

  Phaolo continued his approach, “That’s nonsense! This is all nonsense. In my world, your voice is the most beautiful and perfect thing I ever heard. That’s why I wanted to promote you. I wanted the world to hear what I heard. I don’t care if you get famous. I don’t care if you sell tickets. Nobody else in this damned world has a voice with your heart, your beauty. I love you! I thought you were gone forever, but you’re here. I’m not letting go of you. I’m never letting go!”

  “Please stay back!” she screamed.

  As he approached almost to arm’s length, a roar echoed through the cave that caught the attention of the remaining players. Linh turned ghostly pale. Lips blackened as her skin grew patterns of black inky veins. She screamed toward Phaolo with eyes dark and dead. He fell backwards.

  “I am WELL CHILD!”

  Hair clogged Phaolo’s throat as he pushed himself up. Linh pushed her back to the uneven cave walls. Phaolo’s hands wrapped his neck as he tried to breath. Alfredo took several steps back with his fists raised. A stone smacked his forehead. so he looked up.

  A tube-shaped stone beast burrowed from the ceiling. A piercing shriek shot from the stone opening at the front. Legs of wet black hair in the hundreds extended from cracks in the stone. The beast was more of a structure. Alfredo swore it was a well. It crawled like a centipede. Stone twisted and bulged while the mortar glowed slightly. Sharp needles of hair pierced the wall as the centipede rushed down over Linh to swallow her head first.

  The mouth of the beast slammed against the granite floor as the legs kept pushing it down. The audience chamber shook forcefully enough that people running to gain distance had trouble remaining standing. Phaolo toppled backwards again. The granite around the stone column forming the centipedes’ body became as liquid, like a gray pool of clay instead of granite flooring. The legs of wound hair skittered as the beast pushed itself into the floor. Finally, as the last of the length wiggled, the wood seal covering the back end creaked. The creature burrowed into the soft liquid clay as Phaolo crawled toward it. It sunk away. Liquid stone flowed over the wood seal in ripples before it firmed back to the unforgiving granite.

  Phaolo pounded on the smoothed stone. Dead flesh thumped as a middle eastern man with a thick dark mustache knelt behind him and rubbed his shoulder.

  “I’m very sorry, but this place is called the House of the Lie for a good reason my friend.”

  The blood pounded in Alfredo’s ear as he pressed a hand against it. He took a deep breath. Hands rubbed his eyes. It was just one crazy thing after another with this place.

  From the podium, Azoria giggled.

  “Well… well, well, well, so much for true love.”

  Her laughter filled the chamber. The sound, as always, evenly heard from every angle in the large space as if she laughed directly in front of everyone.

  Her slender fist pounded the podium, “Well, as they say. All’s well that ends well!”

  Phaolo clenched his fists as he faced the podium, “You witch! What have you done to Linh!?”

  Azoria morphed in front of him, arms around his shoulders. A tongue like stone slid across his cheek, “Look at you, barely a day has passed and you’re falling apart. I could say you don’t look so- well!”

  He tried to push her off, but her body felt more like statue encasing him than living flesh. Black fingernails clicked over his shoulders before she leaned back and grabbed them. Phaolo froze watching her smirk. She blew on his lips, her breath oppressively hot and bitterly cold.

  “Stop worrying about Linh. She’s doing very WELL.”

  Phaolo collapsed on fours and wept hysterically as Azoria vanished. The demon lord returned to her podium, where she pounded the cracking wood and laughed. Everyone watched her enjoy herself until the laughing slowly faded.

  “Well, waiting on you losers was painfully boring. All of you are free to go now. Good luck out there. But I do have to ask, why is everybody waiting at the back? The loser exit is underneath my stage.”

  A jagged splintery tunnel opened under Azoria’s podium, just large enough for one person at a time to crawl through. Azoria leaned her chest over the podium and let her legs lift off the stage as she pushed herself up.

  “Well, what are waiting for?! Get lost! You have ten minutes before I fill this chamber with toxic chemicals to clean out your loser stink. Hurry up, go on. What are you waiting for, a timer? This isn’t school.”

  The race back to the stage commenced.