Stormwind (The Storm Chronicles Book 3) (21 page)

“Stupid,” Raven muttered, checking her healing arm.

“Those cuts look bad, Ray,” Aspen said. “You’re going to need claret soon.”

“I don’t see any blood banks around, do you?” Raven asked, gathering her clothes and starting to dress.

“Yeah, I do,” Aspen said, pointing at herself. “Hello? Familiar right here. What do you think we’re for?”

Raven looked at Aspen as if she’d just been asked to eat vomit.

“I’m not biting you, Aspen. You know I don’t do that unless it’s the only option, you’re not a snack tray. We’ll get out of here before the thirst gets too bad.”

“Ray…”

“No!” Raven said with a wave of her hand. “Get dressed, we need to get moving.”

Aspen made a face, but did as she was told. Raven was glad dressing ensured Aspen couldn’t see the huge alpha lycan looking down at them from the ledge. It watched them both with cold yellow eyes then looked at the body floating face down in the underground lake. It looked back at Raven and turned away, disappearing into the shadows.

When Aspen was dressed, Raven boosted her up and gave her a push so she could pull herself onto the ledge. Raven then jumped up beside her. They were standing on a four foot wide ledge that encircled the entire room. Skeletons were hung every ten feet, their bones yellow with age. Ahead of them a tunnel led away into darkness, but did not appear to be climbing back toward the surface.

Raven walked around the chamber, examining the skeletons. They all had what she believed were tooth marks on them. By the looks of them they’d been left by canines; large ones.

“Why would lycans keep skeletons of people they’d eaten?” Aspen asked, following Raven.

Raven shook her head and ran a hand over the ragged skull of one of the skeletons. “I’m not sure. Without typing it’s impossible to be certain, but look at the teeth on this guy.”

Aspen looked and frowned. “Double retractable canines. These are vampires?”

“I think so,” Raven replied. “I think these are vampires that were eaten alive.”

“Shouldn’t they have turned to ash when the heart was destroyed?”

“Maybe not. It usually takes decapitation or staking with silver or wood to destroy a vamp,” Raven said. “I use special bullets that contain both to do the job. I have no idea what happens if you eat a vampire alive.”

“Maybe this,” Aspen said, tapping one of the vampires with a purple fingernail.

“Even vampires don’t deserve this,” Raven said. “For all I know these are alive and regenerating, albeit very slowly.”

Feeling sick she turned away, pulled a torch from the wall and led the way into the dark tunnel. This one was similar to the ones above, but older. The walls had marks from the pickaxes that had been used to cut the stone and the pictograms were more primitive. It was clear which were supposed to be vampires and which were lycans, but they were more stick-figure than hieroglyphs.

After several minutes of walking, Raven could see light ahead; another torch was stuck in the wall of what looked like an intersection. She drew the silver knife from her belt and continued with more caution, her eyes searching for any hint of danger.

Just as she stepped into the light, a portcullis of sorts swung down, bloody spikes glistening in the torchlight. Raven managed to catch it with her hand but only just. One of the spikes went through her palm and out through the back of her hand, dripping blood on her wrist. Wincing with pain she held the gate in place with her other hand and pulled the injured one free, then pushed the gate back into its position overhead where it locked in place with a click.

Once it was safe she held her injured hand under the torch light to examine the wound. The hole was ragged and the tendons were torn, but it was already beginning to heal. Unfortunately, she was also beginning to feel the effects of blood loss and using her abilities. She’d used her powers to fight two lycans and was having to heal herself more than usual. Aspen was right, eventually she would need blood.

“Raven, how bad is it?” Aspen asked from behind.

“Bad enough,” Raven replied, ripping off another piece of her top and wrapping it around her palm.

“What are you going to do when you get wounded beyond your ability to heal without blood?” Aspen pressed.

“Worry about it if it happens,” Raven said. “We’re not discussing biting you, okay?”

Aspen threw up her hands in frustration. “You are so damn stubborn. You’re a dhampyr. You need blood. You have a willing donor so what’s the big deal?”

“Asp, you know what the deal is,” Raven said, leaning against the wall. “I hate blood. I only use my powers when I need to and it makes me sick every time I have to drink claret. I’m not going to risk your life unless I absolutely have to.”

“What happens to me if you’re too weak to fight?” Aspen asked. “I can’t carry you and I certainly can’t fight these guys. A couple spells aren’t going to be much good against primal lycans that can bench-press 747’s.”

“It won’t come to that,” Raven said, standing. “I’ll be fine. I can smell fresher air from up ahead, let’s go that way.”

She turned away from Aspen and continued straight, being more careful to look for deadfalls and traps. After a time, the tunnel angled upwards and doubled back on itself in a wide, slow spiral that emptied out in a newer corridor some forty feet above where it started. Raven knelt at the top and ran a finger through a pool of blood. By the smell it had belonged to a vampire, but there was no ash. Whoever had been injured must have continued toward the distant light.

The pair stepped over the drying puddle and continued down the narrow corridor. Here the red stone gave way periodically to native granite, creating a red and grey checkerboard effect that made Raven feel dizzy.

They were almost to an intersection when they could hear the sound of stone grating on stone. Raven turned and saw that a section of wall was sliding toward them. She grabbed Aspen and pushed her down the corridor before running after her, the stone close on her heels. She dove and rolled to safety just as the wall slammed shut, blocking any way back into the tunnels.

Raven rolled over and glared at the piece of wall.

“I bet dad never had to deal with this kind of crap.”

Aspen extended a hand to Raven.

“Yeah, but he probably didn’t have nearly as much fun, either.”

Raven let herself be helped up. When she was standing she looked down at Aspen who was smiling impishly.

“You call this fun?” she asked.

Aspen shrugged.“Would you rather be doing this or pushing paper around a desk somewhere?”

“Okay, maybe it’s more fun than paperwork, but not by much,” Raven conceded.

“What would you rather be doing?” Aspen asked, walking ahead.

“Sipping wine, eating popcorn and watching a Dirty Harry marathon,” Raven replied.

“It’s a date,” Aspen said. “Next time we get kidnapped I’ll bring a DVD player. You bring the corn.”

“Smartass,” Raven muttered.

“I heard that.”

“Still true,” Raven said, following her familiar down the corridor.

THEY HAD CLIMBED ANOTHER THIRTY feet and passed dozens of corpses before giving up on finding the source of the fresh air and taking refuge in a chamber with only one visible entrance. Along the way Raven had collected clothing and a handful of weapons including a recurve longbow from one of the deceased. She now sat next to a fire Aspen had made going through the clothing and seeing if she could make anything useful from the items she’d found on their long walk.

Next to her, Aspen was cooking a half dozen lizards she’d coaxed out of the walls with a spell. The six-lined lizards didn’t look particularly appetizing, but the smell was making Raven even hungrier. The meat and blood would help her to heal and hold off her need for claret that much longer.

While she waited, she used the silver knife to cut several of the spears down to reasonable arrow-size. Fletching she made from feathers scavenged from Aspen’s purple braids and tips she fashioned from the medallion she’d taken from Josef Diarmait, using the hottest part of the fire to melt the silver so she could pour it into cracks in the floor. By the time she was done she had a dozen useable arrows and a double ended dagger, all with silver tips. She’d also eaten her fill of lizard meat and used some of the bones to fashion a needle and stitch her hand the rest of the way. She figured it would be healed in another hour or so.

When they were done recuperating they made a pair of fresh torches and continued heading down the main tunnel, hoping it would eventually lead them to the surface. It wasn’t long before Raven’s sensitive hearing detected a noise like a blade on meat from somewhere ahead. She handed her torch to Aspen and crept forward, drawing the bow as she walked. She passed an empty corridor on her right and edged into another burial chamber at the end of the main hall. A lycan stood in the center among several sarcophagi, hovering over his latest kill. As Raven watched he shifted to human and knelt, using his knife to cut a section of skin from the body at his feet and hang it from his loincloth like a trophy.

Raven stepped into the room, bow drawn.

“Hey, can you tell me how to get to the Sears tower from here? I seem to be lost.”

The lycan whirled in surprise and Raven put an arrow through his left eye socket. He dropped like a stone on top of his prey, landing with a sickening wet thud. Raven drew another arrow and entered the room, looking for any other threats or anything that might be useful. Ash was scattered across the far side of the room; the remains of two vampires recently killed. Raven searched the ash and found that both of the vampires had carried silvered spearheads that she added to her own collection. She also found a quiver of obsidian tipped arrows hung on the wall among several other weapons of ancient Native American design.

Raven slipped her silvered arrows into the quiver and hung it over her shoulder before pulling the lycan’s body off of the dead human. She didn’t recognize him, but then the lycan hadn’t left much to identify. Unlike the others this one had been nearly torn to pieces.

Raven kicked the lycan in disgust and turned away, returning to where Aspen was waiting, her torch held high.

“What happened?” the purple-haired girl asked.

“Another dead lycan, one dead familiar and two dead vamps with no house rings,” Raven replied. “I hadn’t thought about it, but none of the dead vamps have them.”

“Do you have yours?” Aspen asked.

Raven shook her head. “I hardly ever wear it. They took my bracelet, but I still have my necklace.”

“I still have my triquetra, but nothing else,” Aspen said. “I wonder if they took them as trophies?”

“More than likely they took them to make it harder for us to make weapons,” Raven said. “It’s all silver. Come on, that way is a dead end, let’s see where this goes.”

She turned away and shone her torch down the corridor they hadn’t tried. Some distance ahead it opened into a staircase leading up. Drying blood covered the stairs and dripped onto the stone floor in long, slimy lines.

“Marvelous,” Raven said. “I’m really getting sick of this place.”

“That makes two of us,” Aspen said. “Are you going first or shall I?”

“Don’t be a smartass,” Raven said, walking ahead and moving up the stairs.

Aspen grinned. “But I am a smartass. It’s part of why you love me.”

“If you say so, Asp...” Raven said, trailing off.

Raven paused partway up the stairs and closed her eyes against what she was seeing.  The hallway ahead was lined with bodies, dozens of familiars pinned to the wall like so much macabre artwork.

“What’s wrong?” Aspen asked from behind her.

“These bastards are going to pay,” Raven said, her fists beginning to shake.

“Ray, what is it?”

“Humans. Dozens of them, probably from all over the state,” Raven replied. “I think it’s a larder… a place to keep meat while they’re hunting us.

“Gaia… What do we do?” Aspen asked.

“Find the ones responsible and bury them,” Raven answered.

She climbed the rest of the stairs and stepped onto the blood-slick floor, fighting not to be sick at the sight and smell of so much blood. There would be more before the day was out.

Behind her Aspen was muttering a prayer for the dead. Raven listened to the ancient Gaelic and continued walking, repeating the prayer with her friend. By the time they reached the end of the corridor all of the victims had been blessed and any souls that remained released to their reward. With any luck that meant they wouldn’t taste very good when the lycans came for their feast.

At the end of the corridor was an intersection that led left and right. Raven sniffed in each direction and could smell lycans, several of them coming from the left. She switched to her vampire sight and watched the lycans approaching, one on the floor and two on the walls, their polished claws digging into the stone as if it were soft mud.

She waited a beat and threw her torch as hard as she could at the lead wolf. The torch caught him square in the face, spreading tar and flame all over his head and chest. He howled in pain and dropped to the ground, trying to put out the flames. The other two continued their charge, running even faster.