Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
There’s light ahead, the faintest glow and the familiar outline of the elevator’s accordion grate.
“Running from me, Lord Specter?” She laughs, the sound raking across my ears.
Valen shoves me into the elevator and yanks the grate closed from the outside. “Hit the lever.”
“What about you?” I ask.
“She’s not alone.” His face is in shadow, only his feline eyes glowing slightly. “I won’t risk you.”
“But—”
“Hit the lever, Georgia!” He turns and strips off his coat, tossing it to the ground.
Something flashes to his right, a vampire in the darkness. Valen dodges their blow, then rakes his claws across their neck. Blood sprays onto the grate, the metal reacting with a hiss.
“Georgia, go!” he bellows, then disappears into the midnight black.
Hisses and screams erupt. I can’t fight. If I try to, I’ll die. I know that as surely as Valen knows it. So I do the only thing I can: I turn the lever. The elevator creaks to life, the cable catching and lifting as more screams echo against the black stone. I stare, looking for any sign of Valen. There’s nothing, only the sounds of fighting and sometimes, the sounds of dying.
I’m almost out of the lower level and into the elevator shaft when the carriage shakes. I back into one corner and flatten my hands against the walls. Cold sweat trickles along my spine. Then I scream when something slams against the floor, indenting the metal.
Another hit, then another. There’s someone under me trying to tear their way through. Each hit dents the floor, a bubble forming in the center. The blows are relentless. I’m frozen, watching with utter terror as the next hit sheers off some of the metal and opens a hole. A black-clawed hand reaches through and begins to pull, enlarging the hole, not stopping despite the razor-edge of the torn metal.
I stomp down on the hand, but it grabs my shoe, the claws sinking in. Screaming, I yank my foot free right as the shoe is ripped through the hole, shredded as it goes.
I back away from the grasping hand. The carriage shakes more, the floor bowing in another section. They’re going to get inside, and I can’t stop them.
“Georgia!” David’s voice filters down from somewhere far above.
“David, help!” I scream.
Two bloody hands reach inside and grab the metal, peeling it back as I look for some way out. The blood sizzles, the bubbles a sickly green. I know instinctively I can’t let it touch me.
There’s no access to the roof of the elevator, no way out for me except through the door.
I can’t wait here and hope to reach the top level. They’ll be inside before I get there. Plastered to the wall, I reach across to the lever and hit it. The elevator slows to a stop, a dark hallway halfway visible through the grate. The hits intensify, the entire thing shaking.
Keeping to the wall, I move around and yank the grate open. The landing is above me, smooth black rock underneath. I’ll have to climb up. I eye the lever, wishing it was closer so I could send the carriage back down, but there’s no way I’ll be able to get out fast enough. Indecision is going to get me killed, so I grip the edge of the floor and pull myself up, rolling onto my back once I’m free of the carriage.
The pounding intensifies, the carriage shaking violently. I get to my knees, then my feet, and take off into the dark hallway. The slight bit of light from the elevator shaft quickly evaporates, and I’m forced to slow my pace. My hands out in front of me, I feel my way along, sticking to a wall as I follow it deeper into the dark. I listen for every tiny sound, but my thoughts wander to Valen. He’s outnumbered. Even if David makes it to him, there are still too many Tantun. Something sick twists in my stomach at the thought of him dying. I left him. He told me to run, and I did. Old Georgia would’ve never done it. She would’ve stayed to the bitter end for a friend. But Valen’s not a friend. He’s … I don’t know what he is. He might be dead. I might be on my own. Which would mean I’m dead, too. Just keep going.
The cold stone turns this way and that, the hallway utterly unfamiliar. I could be on the husk level or somewhere worse, if there even is a worse.
A faint hiss reaches me, every hair on my body standing on end, and I speed my pace, yelping when I run into a wall. My panic triples as I feel along it. What if this is a dead end? I slide my hand over the stone until I find a corner. A thimble full of relief is all I get as I take this new corridor, the claustrophobic darkness like a separate being, one that swallows me whole.