The Tools of the Ghost: An Urban Fantasy Novel - Book One: In the Path of the Ghost by Hemant Nayak

Author:Hemant Nayak [Nayak, Hemant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endless Earth Publishing Mil
Published: 2022-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The walls of the tunnel radiated heat like a brick oven. They passed empty shop windows where chairs and tables had been knocked over in a rush to escape, to run from a fire that never ceased plaguing them. At the end of the tunnel, they stepped into a courtyard where people dressed in clothes from another century fled in every direction, racing up ladders to escape the flames. Kiran’s eyes stung with smoke. Even the cobblestones under her feet felt hot. She inhaled and went into a fit of coughing. If this was an illusion, it was very convincing.

All she could hear were desperate shouts as people fled. “Can you follow the sound through this?” she asked.

The Ghost pointed across the courtyard. “Somewhere there, amongst the madness. There’s too much noise to make sense of anything now. This place is about to die. Everyone here has perished before in flames and will soon perish again. This is a place where death never ends, where no savior ever comes.”

Kiran didn’t say it, but the truth was inescapable. The flames were jumping from building to building, surrounding the courtyard. They would soon be among the dead if they didn’t find a way through this nightmare.

Gonzales grabbed her arm. “Wait. It’s like a movie.”

“This is no movie.” Kiran pulled her arm free. “The fires are getting closer.”

Gonzales shook his head. “No, I mean I’ve seen it before. When I looked down the tunnel earlier. These same people were dying. I’ve seen it in my dreams a million times. This is the dragon. The dragon is coming for me.” His face was covered in sweat.

“Keep it together, my brother.” Reese put a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “There’s no dragon here. We’ve just got to find our way through.”

The glass of a nearby storefront exploded and flames licked the street. A woman screamed in another store, trapped inside by the fire.

“No. These are the ancestors, hermano. They may not be ours, but they die in front of us, victims of the dragon. No puede ser.” Gonzales shrugged off Reese’s hand and took off at a dead sprint.

Her team was going fucking insane.

The Ghost sighed. “He’s dumber than I thought. He cannot touch them. No one can change the fate of the dead.”

Gonzales crashed into a door that was already aflame. The door burst to pieces, and he disappeared inside. Reese took off behind him. Kiran hesitated. If these were the dead, what could they possibly change?

Gonzales tumbled out of the doorway holding a woman in his arms. He hit the ground with the woman atop him, trying to put out the fire eating its way up his pant leg.

Reese threw his jacket over him and beat out the flames. He helped Gonzales to his feet and put out the last of the sparks.

Kiran held out a hand and the woman took it. Her grip was surprisingly real.

The woman was trembling. “Where do we go? Where?” Kiran had no idea what to tell her.

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