Benediction Denied: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel

BENEDICTION DENIED

A LABYRINTH OF SOULS NOVEL

BY

ELIZABETH ENGSTROM

Smashwords Edition

ShadowSpinners Press

Copyright © 2017 Elizabeth Engstrom

All rights reserved,

including the right to reproduce this book,

or portions thereof, in any form.

Cover art by Josephe Vandel.

Book design by Matthew Lowes.

ShadowSpinners Press

shadowspinnerspress.com

Typeset in

Minion Pro by Robert Slimbach

and IM FELL Double Pica by Igino Marini.

The Fell Types are digitally reproduced

by Igino Marini,

www.iginomarini.com.

Learn more about

the Labyrinth of Souls game at

matthewlowes.com/games

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

ALSO BY ELIZABETH ENGSTROM

When Darkness Loves Us

Black Ambrosia

Nightmare Flower

Lizzie Borden

Lizard Wine

The Alchemy of Love

Suspicions

Black Leather

Candyland

The Northwoods Chronicles

York’s Moon

Something Happened to Grandma

Baggage Check

How to Write a Sizzling Sex Scene

Word by Word (editor, with John Tullius)

Imagination Fully Dilated (co-editor)

Imagination Fully Dilated vol. II (editor)

Dead on Demand (editor)

Pronto! Writings from Rome (editor, with John Tullius)

Ship’s Log: Writings at Sea (editor, with John Tullius)

Lies and Limericks (editor, with John Tullius)

Mota 9: Addiction (editor)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

ALSO BY ELIZABETH ENGSTROM

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO AVAILABLE

This book is dedicated, of course, to my sweet husband, Al Cratty. Thank you for marrying me and making my home life a warm and serene place to be.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It’s hard to imagine that one person could actually write an entire book without a long lifetime of influences. My personality and proclivities have been formed by family, friends, teachers, mentors, and experiences—horrific, sublime, and most everything between. My great thanks to all of the above and more, most particularly the very patient Al Cratty, Wordcrafters in Eugene, the Ghost Story Weekend gang, and Matthew Lowes for the genius of the Labyrinth of Souls.

EDITOR’S PREFACE

Dungeon Solitaire: Labyrinth of Souls is a fantasy game for tarot cards, written by Matthew Lowes and Illustrated by Josephe Vandel. In the game you defeat monsters, disarm traps, open doors, and explore mazes as you delve the depths of a dangerous dungeon. Along the way you collect treasure and magic items, gain skills, and gather companions.

Now ShadowSpinners Press is publishing this and other stand-alone novels inspired by the game. Each Labyrinth of Souls novel features a journey into a unique vision of the underworld.

The Labyrinth of Souls is more than an ancient ruin filled with monsters, trapped treasure, and the lost tombs of bygone kings. It is a manifestation of a mythic underworld, existing at a crossroads between people and cultures, between time and space, between the physical world and the deepest reaches of the psyche. It is a dark mirror held up to human experience, in which you may find your dreams … or your doom. Entrances to this realm can appear in any time period, in any location. There are innumerable reasons why a person may enter, but it is a place antagonistic to those who do, a place where monsters dwell, with obstacles and illusions to waylay adventurers, and whose very walls can be a force of corruption. It is a haunted place, ever at the edge of sanity.

1

ADAM SWAN STRUGGLED UP through dark, painful layers of consciousness. Way in the back of his awareness, he knew that full consciousness would mean full pain. He resisted, wishing desperately to sink into blissful sleep, but he didn’t think his sleep had been all that blissful, and he couldn’t find anything to cling to in order to help him get there.

His head pounded so hard it actually moved with each heartbeat. He not only saw the red pulses behind his closed eyes, but he heard each heart beat thundering through what surely must be a broken skull.

He brought his knees to his chest and cradled his arms over his exploding head.

He was lying on his side. He tried to imagine where he was, how he got there, but he had no room for anything but the pounding, the thundering hammering in his head. There was a very real possibility that the top of his head could blow off with the pressure of each raging beat of his pulse.

He grabbed his head with both hands and squeezed. The dirt beneath him moved, too.

Dirt floor.

What the hell?

He cracked an eye open, bringing with it harsh, jagged waves of pain. Although there was very little light, he saw walls.

At least he was alive.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he moved around to assess the damage. His arms worked. His hands worked. They didn’t seem to be injured. He flexed his shoulders.

It was just his head.

He reached around with a tentative touch and picked off crusty dried blood above his ear. Probing fingers found a lump the size of a lemon.

Slowly, carefully testing, he moved his feet, then his legs. One knee gave him some grief, but nothing like his head.

He squinted his eyes, then opened them just a tiny bit, adjusted his glasses, and looked around.

A dark room. Dirt floor. Indistinct light coming from above. He pushed on his temples, trying to arrest the pain, scooted to a wall and pushed himself up to a sitting position, leaning against the wall. Wooden wall.

He stopped moving and closed his eyes again, seeing red and yellow starbursts of pain emanate from his cracked skull until they seemed to fill the room. The pounding lessened when he was still, quiet, not moving.

After a long moment, he carefully opened his eyes again and looked around, gently moving his head, assessing any damage that might have been done to his neck, trying desperately not to start the shattering waves of pain that threatened to shoot his eyeballs right out of their sockets.

Dirt floor. Small, square room. Door at one end. Vent in the roof, the source of the light. Hot. Steamy. Jungle. Still in the jungle. Still in Congo. Stench of urine. Bucket in the corner, perhaps the source of the stench.

Small table next to the wall.

He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Tried to remember.

Oh!

The memory of saying goodbye to his wife at the airport startled him. He twitched and sent fresh shockwaves through his fragile cranium.

He’d put his family on the plane home. He, a hydraulic engineer with the Justice Corps, would stay another three months to finish the water system he and his local helpers were installing. He’d been here for six months, working in the jungle and he wouldn’t leave until he was certain the system would work the way they had engineered it.

His family—wife and three daughters—had come to visit for the summer.

And then …

And then, as he returned to the village from the airport, along the rutted dirt road, two beat up and muddy pickup trucks blocked the way. He stopped the Jeep and reached for his passport and NGO identification card from the glove compartment.

Two big men with guns stepped out of the jungle, opened the Jeep door, grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him out, papers in hand.

One of them grabbed his ID.

Water man? he asked.

Adam knew about the rebels, of course, criminals that ran guns, made snuff films, trafficked in women, and sold anything illegal they could get their hands on. They seemed to be some kind of paramilitary force, but nobody really knew their mission, except to terrorize the locals. Adam and his crew had had no interaction with them at all. The only way he knew about them was at his initial orientation session, but their impact on his mission had been minimized. Jolmy and some of the village elders occasionally talked of the thugs, but the bad guys seemed to stay away from the village. There was nothing of value for them there.

And now, here they were. Adam struggled not to panic, but to remember what he was told about how to deal with them.

Be polite. Be firm. Answer questions. Don’t antagonize them. Don’t challenge them. Just do what they want and they will leave you alone.

Adam put the most innocent look he knew how to manage on his face. Pardon me? Excuse me?

The big one with the military shirt, big gun and evil eyes grabbed him by the shirt front and pulled him close. Adam smelled his rotten breath and the jungle body odor on his filthy, sweat-stained uniform. You water man, yes?

Adam nodded. Yes, yes. Water man.

Very valuable, the rebel said to the others.

Adam realized where this was going. He held up his hands in protest. No, no, not valuable. Volunteer. No pay.

American. The kidnapper shoved him backwards, someone else tripped him, and Adam hit the dirt.

Another thug climbed into the Jeep.

Hey, no, hey, that’s my Jeep. It belongs—

Adam saw someone else come at him from the side. He looked up just in time to see a black baton come down at his head.

And now this.

So they would try to ransom him. The Justice Corps wouldn’t pay. They had no money. The American government wouldn’t pay. They didn’t negotiate with terrorists. Chrissie’s family had money, but not the kind of money these animals would be demanding.

He’d seen it all in the movies. Soon, if the money to support their rebel government coup—or whatever their organization was about—didn’t come because he wasn’t as valuable as they wanted him to be, he would be more trouble than he was worth. If they didn’t kill him outright, they’d likely just leave him here in this makeshift jail cell to starve.

Or die of a broken skull.

He gritted his teeth and let his fingers gently explore the enormous lump behind his ear. It seemed to be just a knot. He gingerly touched the split in the skin again. Blood had leaked down the back of his neck, but it hadn’t been severe. If his skull hadn’t been fractured, if he had just been knocked out by that baton, then the pain should eventually subside.

He pulled his feet up, then tipped over onto his side, his back to the wall. He would sleep, if he could, and when he awoke, the pain wouldn’t be so bad. He was strong and healthy. He would heal.

He closed his eyes and thought of his wife and girls. They had enjoyed their summer in Congo. They should be getting back to Minneapolis soon, excited and ready for the new school year.

The summer had gone by quickly.

Adam was busy working on the