THE BACKWOOD CONTRACT

CHAPTER 5

The creature standing before the locked bronze doors did not move with the rhythm of a living person. It swayed, its silhouette shifting like sea-fog caught in a sudden draft, its form coalescing out of wet ash and stagnant ocean water. Dripping trails of dark slime pooled around its missing feet, spreading rapidly across the white marble floor toward where Nora stood.

Nora backed against the lip of the empty sarcophagus, her knuckles white as she squeezed both the silver key and her brass flashlight. The beam of light pierced through the figure’s translucent core, illuminating suspend particles of crushed shell, charcoal, and bits of centuries-old black lace floating within its watery mass.

"Clara?" Nora whispered, her voice trembling in the freezing air.

The entity offered no spoken reply. Instead, it raised a hand—a misshapen, shifting limb composed of compacting ash—and swept it through the air. The heavy, metallic smell of stagnant sea brine rushed forward, hitting Nora like a physical blow. The sudden gust blew out of nowhere, cold enough to freeze the moisture in her nostrils, instantly knocking the flashlight from her grip.

The brass cylinder clattered across the floor, its beam spinning wildly before coming to rest against the far wall, casting long, monstrous shadows across the vaulted ceiling.

Panic surged through Nora’s veins. She shoved the Silver Key deep into her coat pocket, her fingers scrambling blindly along the edge of the stone sarcophagus for anything to defend herself. Her hand closed around a heavy, iron-bound wooden cross that had fallen from the broken casket lid.

The ash-figure lunged forward with impossible speed, sliding across the wet floor without making a sound.

Nora swung the heavy iron-bound cross with all the strength left in her arms. The wood connected with the entity’s shoulder, passing through the wet mass with a sickening, wet splash. The impact sent a wave of icy sludge over Nora’s face and chest, burning her skin like liquid nitrogen. She staggered backward, her heel catching on the edge of the fallen stone lid, and crashed heavily onto the cold floor.

Above her, the entity loomed, its featureless face pressing down toward hers. Two hollow sockets opened in its swirling head, glowing with the same fierce, crimson light that burned on Nora's wrist. The heat from her own arm surged to an agonizing peak, as if the mark were trying to reach out and fuse with the specter above her.

*It isn't attacking,* Nora realized through the blind haze of pain. *It's pulling.*

The crimson mark on her skin pulsed in direct opposition to the entity's core. The sea was not trying to destroy Clara's remains; it was using what was left of her ancestors to reclaim the second key.

"No!" Nora gasped, forcing herself to push back against the crushing weight of the freezing air. She raised her left arm, pressing the glowing gargoyle crest on her forearm directly against the central chest of the ash figure.

A sound like tearing silk echoed through the mausoleum. The entity shuddered violently, the red light inside its chest flaring to a blinding intensity before shattering into a shower of harmless grey dust and salt spray. The heavy water crashed to the floor, splashing over Nora’s boots, leaving nothing behind but the lingering stench of ozone and the deep, ocean chill.

Nora lay on the wet stone, gasping for air, her lungs burning from the cold. The crimson mark on her wrist slowly faded back to a dull, throbbing ache.

She forced herself to her feet, her whole body shaking as she retrieved her flashlight from the corner. She didn't pause to wipe the salt spray from her face. Sweeping the beam around the chamber, she saw that the path to the front doors was clear, but her eyes locked on the back of the crypt.

There sat the fresh mound of dirt where her grandfather, Arthur, had been buried three days prior.

The loose soil over his grave was already churned up, deep furrows carved into the earth as if something had been clawing its way out from deep below—or trying to pull itself down to join him. To reach the third key—the Bone Key—she would have to disturb the fresh earth and face whatever Arthur had prepared to keep his dark secret buried forever.

Nora stepped over the puddle of seawater, her light fixed on the grave, and took her first step toward the back of the vault.