NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: The Adventures of the Creeping Bam (BOOK 4: The Hunt)

CHAPTER THREE: ART

There's something so horribly wrong with this place now, it's so different from when we were last here. Ain't just the heavy stink of blood and ... worse in the air all round me, even now as we make our way carefully through the upstairs corridors. Then again, we've encountered more dead since, not so many now but still enough to tell us that Lady Thura's hard-nosed security staff were clearly up to most threats they might've encountered protecting this family ... but unfortunately that don't include this one. Every so-called "body" we've found has been sundered beyond all recognition, almost like whatever did this went even harder on these poor bastards.

No, there's ... something else underneath it all, something genuinely nasty. It's a subtle scent, but I'm picking it up all the same, and it's working my nerves sure as anything else right now. It's so strange, though, like nothing else I ever encountered before, I can't even tell if it's natural or ... something else. I just know it's wrong.

It's oily, some kind of sick, rancid liquid stink, something I can almost feel leaving grease-tracks inside my nostrils every time I inhale. If there were ever times I wished I didn't have such an uncanny sharp sense o' smell, this is one of 'em.

I can tell Shay's caught it too, she looks a good deal more tense than I would've expected her to be just from seeing the wreckage that's been left behind by ... whatever. I can't actually tell if Yeslee's picking up on it the same as we are, but there's no way she couldn't be, I suspect it's purely down to her typical stoicism that she just won't let it show. Certainly there's already enough tension in her as she creeps through the gloom at the front o' the group, her bow held low and already half-drawn, scouting for the rest of us.

Chancing a look back now, I can just see Brung at the rear, hanging back as he keeps looking back on what we already passed. I don't think he's any more worked up than normal, but I still don't know him well enough yet to properly judge. Definitely not with those already inscrutable goblin features.

Kesla's the one I'm most worried about here right now. Not for her nerves, I know full well how tough she is, it's how this whole situation's gotta be proper gnawing at her. I saw how deep the instant connection she formed with Lady Thura was, though I really can't blame her for that either, the Hellcat of Kumehn Valley made a hell of an impression on me. But I swear, it was more'n that for her, and she's been worked up something fierce since it first occurred to us she was even in danger, and her family with her. 'Course for me that's the part's got me concerned here, those kids, I liked 'em all, 'specially little Mara ... or maybe I'm just projecting there given how I just found out I'm a da ...

That thought makes me look over at Darwyn, and not for the first time since we climbed the stairs. My former lover is ... wound pretty tight too. She can't smell that strange underlying stink like I can, but she'd have to be blind and stupid not to get a little freaked out from the gory mess we've been finding. The light from Lady Naru's fancy floating globe of light, as it hovers above us as we make our way through the corridor, has this kinda cold, washing-out effect on the colours, but the blood's still black enough against everything else to recognise. And the scattered viscera really can't be mistaken for anything else, not if you been taught to cut up bodies like we have.

Unable to help myself, I lean in now, mindful to keep my voice low as I can as I whisper: "How you doin'?"

"Honestly?" Her eyes flicker to me for a moment, and while I might've been expecting some reproach or a little of the old defensiveness, instead she just seems anxious. "I am very much wishing I'd stayed downstairs with Zul right now."