King of Dust

Chapter 12

"There's nothing over here but a spare bedroom!"

Yra's voice rang out through the dusty attic of the house like gunfire. The dust shifted and shook, and Astrid took my hand in fright. I gripped it tightly and stood.

"Shall we go see if Urien found anything?" I asked.

"He's got good eyes. He'll point us in the right direction," she replied.

The two of us met Yra in the hall. He gazed around, Urien nowhere to be found, and the three of us froze when giggling and laughter erupted out of the room to Yra's right. Yra, in bewilderment, threw open the door, causing a rusty padlock to fall to the ground, to find what I will call... a sight.

Urien knelt in the inch of dust on the ground, in his hands little wooden figures. To his sides were two children, the same children that had approached us outside of the front of the house, roaring with laughter.

"Children, it's time for dinner!" Urien croaked out in a grating, terrible impersonation of a Starkovian accent. He danced the figures through the air and down the stairs of a dollhouse. In a lighter voice, timbre cracking, he continued, "Oh, loving husband, I have made us a casserole."

The children doubled over in laughter, throwing up dust with their movement and causing the old floorboards to creak. As they shifted in the darkness, the edges of their forms glimmered in light. I took a deep breath to catch their scents and realized very quickly that they were both dead. That would explain it. The children outside may have been an illusion, as Urien suspected, but these ones were real. Just... gone.

Astrid covered her mouth to stifle a giggle and asked, "Having fun in here?"

Urien froze as if struck by lightning and turned slowly, his body creaking to see who was at the door. He coughed awkwardly, stood up as stiffly as an old man, and handed the wooden figures back to the children. His face flushed a plum purple and he brushed dust from his pants. "W-well," he stammered. "This was really fun, but I need to get back to hunting down the monster in the basement."

The faces of the children fell. Rosemarie paled as if she had been dropped from a great height and she rose, her long petticoat disturbing the dust on the ground. "You're leaving so soon?"

"Don't worry," Urien reassured. "We'll be back after we kill the monster. I promise."

Viggo, the little boy, began to wail, and wail, and wail. Great tears welled up and bubbled out of his eyes, leaving dirty streaks down his face from all the dust. His hands balled into fists and his sister moved to comfort him. "Sh, Viggo," she cooed, taking his face in her hands. "It's all right."

"It's n-n-not all right," Viggo sobbed. "T-They're going to l-leave us in here j-just like mummy and d-daddy d-did!"

My heart dropped like a stone into my stomach. I glanced around the room and my gaze met a bricked-up window at the back. I turned to look at the padlock that had fallen to the floor and noticed little claw marks at the door. Those monsters had locked their own children in this room to starve.

Viggo's sobs soon became unbearable, loud violent things, shrill shrieks that forced Astrid to cover her ears. Then, in a puff of smoke and one final yell, he vanished. Rosemarie stood and crossed her arms, a stern resignation on her face. "Good job. Now I have to go find him."

She, too, vanished in a burst of light and Yra gasped, stumbling to grip the door frame. Astrid rushed to his side and propped him up, attempting to keep him from falling. "Are you all right?"

"F-Fine," Yra mumbled and put his hand to his face. "The child must have moved through me. The space around me became very cold."

"I found the way down into the basement," Urien confirmed as he put the dollhouse back to where it had originally sat. "Follow me."