Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 142916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Benedek wasn’t certain he had the time. He had to come up with other ways to defeat Emil. When the snake had first wrapped him up like a mummy, he had expanded his chest and arms to give himself a little wiggle room. He didn’t exhale, which would allow the snake to tighten even more. The snake weighed a good thousand pounds. It was crushing him as it lay in rings around him. It tried to roll toward the expanse of water just a few feet away in the illusion of the rainforest. The last thing he wanted was for the snake to get to the water.
I will get free.
The answer was that same booming sound that reverberated through Benedek’s body. At once the ground shivered. Trembled. Protests were heard in the wind. In the fog. The moth wiggled and stabbed with its proboscis, frantic as Emil felt the response of the earth. He had no idea why the ground rolled and heaved as if alive. He only knew he wasn’t the one controlling it.
Benedek remained perfectly still, expanding his mind. He was used to using physical strength against his opponents. What did Silke do? She went after their brains. If nothing else, he could see the memory of the moment when Emil placed the safeguards on the scales. The tail was vulnerable to pain if he could bring down the safeguards. The eyes were also vulnerable to attack. There was little else on the snake that would render the large creature defenseless.
Fortunately, he’d had centuries of pushing aside pain. It was automatic when he was in a battle with a vampire. He lowered his energy even more as he expanded his mind, reaching for the brain of the snake. Hunger was overwhelming. Emil had amped up the one thing that made the snake aggressive and dangerous. The anaconda was hunting for food, and it had caught Benedek. It wouldn’t want to give him up easily.
The safeguards were woven with a pattern Benedek recognized from the old days. Immediately, he began to bring the weave down. He was hampered by not being able to physically use his hands, but he meticulously did so in his mind. He concentrated on the tail first and then the head. He became aware of the fact that he had to speed things up. He was losing his strength, not breathing, and his hand was all but mangled. The snake couldn’t bite down on him as long as he kept his fist jammed deep in its mouth, but that didn’t stop Emil from tearing it up from the inside.
The ground heaved again, a series of quakes. Loud deep groans echoed through the forest. The booming sounded like the beat of a drum. The way the ground pitched and rolled aided the snake as it tried to get closer to the water.
Benedek instituted a two-pronged attack on his adversary. Utilizing Emil’s illusion, he called jaguars to him, instructing them to bite the tail of the anaconda savagely, to sink their teeth into the eyes. They did so as the ground shook and shivered and the snake rolled and then screamed in pain, loosening the coils around Benedek’s body.
He freed himself but lost his grip on the moth as he was forced to push off the ground to get away from the furious, pain-maddened snake. The moment he rose from the ground, Emil was there, kicking him hard in the chest, slamming one hand to his jaw, nearly breaking every bone in his face. Benedek stumbled backward, going just beyond the kapok tree into a shallow depression in the rock formation making up the gorge wall.
His back hit the rock hard just inside what could have been the opening to a cave. It was definitely shallow, narrow and dark. He took a moment to draw in air and knew it was a mistake. He smelled…death. The fog moved, and at his feet was a collection of white bones. Human bones. Jaguar bones. Emil loomed in front of him, a dark, imposing figure of pure evil. He smirked, showing his stained teeth in a bizarre smile.
“You’re so predictable, Benedek, just like the other hunters will be. So easy to become my prey. Carpathian blood is delicious, and ancient Carpathian blood is even better. You will make me stronger than ever.”
Benedek didn’t waste time talking. He rushed the vampire, using blurring speed, hit a sharp barrier, a web of razor wire. He bounced back, blood dripping from his chest, shoulders and hips and thighs. Pieces of razor wire remained in his flesh.
Emil shifted, his body bloating, morphing into a giant spider. Extremely hairy, he was dark brown and muddy gray with bands of black on his underside and front legs. He had eight eyes, the top two staring malevolently at his prey. The second row, which had four eyes, held triumph. The third row had two more eyes spaced widely apart. Those eyes looked around him.