Her hand flew to her nose as a stench the likes of which she'd never encountered assaulted her senses. Aria made a strangled sound; her eyes were red as she strode forward with her shoulders squared and her jaw clenched. Hannah was still trying to assimilate the smell with every scent she had ever known but the correlation eluded her as she walked toward where the others now stood. There was death down there, she was certain of that much, but there was more than that emanating from the room below.
"What's down there?" she asked as she kept her hand over her nose in an effort to block the scent.
"A dungeon," Jack answered in a constricted voice.
That was the rest of what she smelled, she realized. Human body odor and waste mingled with the overwhelming scent of fear. It clogged her nostrils with its potent scent and even though she tried to block it with her hand, it still permeated through to her.
Braith's gaze was focused on Aria as she stared into the gloomy hole beneath the ground. She took hold of his hand when he reached for her. "Perhaps you should stay up here," he suggested.
Aria shook her head. "No, I can do this."
Hannah continued to stare into the fetid smelling room beneath the floor. The square floorboard that had been covering the hole crashed against the floor behind them when Jack tossed it back. His steely eyes met hers as he focused upon her. "You should probably stay here."
He was probably right, she was almost completely positive she did not want to see what was down there, but she didn't want him down there on his own either. She feared going below, but she feared even more that something would happen to him and she wouldn't be there to possibly stop it. Aria and Braith would be with him but that didn't matter, not to her.
"I'll be fine," she told him.
His nostrils flared as his attention turned back to the bleak recesses below them. Before she could even blink, he leapt into the pit. "Jack," she breathed as she lurched forward.
Braith held her back. "He's fine."
Taking hold of her hand, he pointed to the steps Jack had bypassed. He held onto her hand as he helped her onto the steps. The stench of the dungeon only grew stronger as she descended deeper into its shadowy depths. She was halfway down when Jack grabbed hold of the railings of the stairs on either side of her. She froze as his chest brushed against her back; his mouth was against her ear when he spoke. "Hannah go back, you shouldn't see this."
"Jack..."
"There are some things that can never be unseen, never be forgotten. There are things men can do..."
His words were broken off as Braith dropped into the darkness behind him. Hannah turned in his arms before he could force her to return up the stairs. She wished immediately that she had listened to him as she was confronted with the atrocity that lay within the room before her.
CHAPTER 21
Hannah grabbed hold of Jack's shoulders as Aria landed soundlessly behind Braith. Braith pulled Aria against his side as they moved further into the room. "Jack," Hannah whispered. "Why?"
"There is no answer for the evil that resides within some of us. Go back up," he commanded gruffly.
"It's too late for that, I've already seen."
"That doesn't mean you have to be exposed to it any further."
She wasn't entirely certain her legs would support her all the way up the ladder if she did decide to go back up the stairs. Illumination burst over them from above, she glanced up to find William, Daniel, and Timber peering down at them. Xavier appeared beside them, he shook his head before taking the torch from William. "You should probably stay here," he told them before dropping into the space behind Jack.
The torch only revealed more of the madness and though she yearned to turn away, it was too late and she refused to hide from what lay within this room. She may be the only one that knew who any of these people and vampires were, or had been.
"I have to go with you, Jack. There may be families and friends out there looking for their loved ones. I have to see."
Her voice sounded like she'd just swallowed a red hot poker, but she somehow found the strength to move forward. He relented and took a small step away from her. The stairs squeaked behind her as William began his descent into what she was beginning to consider the bowels of Hell. It seemed as if Calvin had taken all of those pictures of torture depicted in the windows up above and decided to act out each one of them down here.
And he had reveled in it, she realized as she forced herself forward on legs that wobbled. She didn't want to humiliate herself in front of the others but her stomach felt like a hive of hornets was bouncing around just looking for an escape. She pressed her hand against her mouth as she stepped around a decomposing torso and pushed deeper into the room that was easily the size of the master torture chamber above.
"This guy's almost as sadistic as your father was," William muttered behind them.
Jack and Braith's faces were both strained as they glanced back at him but neither said a word. Hannah's hand pressed against her trembling lips, his father had been worse than this? She didn't see how that could be possible when Jack was such a decent man. How did someone even survive growing up around a monster like that? Jack had spoken about his bad relationship with his father, she'd known that it had been awful for him, but to have his father associated with something this bad, or worse, was something she couldn't imagine.
Jack kept his hand on her elbow, his chest pressed against her arm, but even the feel of him couldn't soften the horror of everything she was seeing. She forced herself to look at the faces and opaque eyes of the dead surrounding her as she searched for someone she might be able to return to their loved ones.