Hungry Earth (Elemental Book 2) (26 page)

“Don’t even think about it, bro,” Darwin interrupted.
“Now let’s smoke this–”

“You need to take this seriously. Hunt and Vincent
can’t go because it would be a disaster if Gale got their powers.”

“But you absorbed John’s power and you were already
powerful before that. If Gale gets your magic, we could be in trouble.”

“That’s why you’re here; we need to outsmart him.”

Darwin opened his mouth to argue and paused. “Oh.
Okay then. I have a plan.”

“Care to share?”

“Nope.”

“You suck, Darwin,” Henry said, throwing our younger
roommates words back at him.

I opened the door and started down the stairs first.
The torches were out, so I pulled three penlights from my pocket and handed one
each to Darwin and Henry. Henry took one but didn’t turn it on, since his night
vision was too good.

Halfway to the second stairwell, I felt something
odd. Neither of my roommates said a word as I opened the door on my near right.
It was one of the vampire bedrooms, but I wasn’t expecting to see a vampire
lying in the bed. I especially wasn’t expecting to see Clara lying in the bed.
Henry grabbed my arm to hold me back and entered first. He approached her
cautiously, glancing around in the dark as if something was going to jump out
as him.

He sniffed her and reached out carefully to feel her
pulse. She shot out of bed with the speed only a vampire could manage. Darwin
dived out of the way while I gripped both sides of the door to try to block her
path, but Henry had already caught her with an arm around her waist before she
could reach me.

“Calm down, Clara!” Henry demanded. She stopped
fighting him. “You’re safe now; the golems are all dissolved.”

“We can’t be down here! We need to get upstairs!”

“Your father is looking for you,” I said. “Henry can
take you back upstairs.” Henry scowled at me, but didn’t argue.

“No, no, I want you to take me,” she said. She pushed
Henry away, but didn’t make a run for the door again.

“Okay, you can go by yourself.” I reached my mind out
for the closest familiar mind upstairs; Maseré. I sensed it just fine, but I
couldn’t establish a connection. Still, I had to try.
“Maseré, if you can
hear me, tell Stephen that I found his daughter and that she’s fine.”

No response.

“No, you need to come with me. It’s not safe for you
down here.”

“We’re wasting time,” Darwin insisted.

“You’re right. Clara, you can come with us or go back
upstairs on your own.” I didn’t give her a chance to argue; I just turned and
started back through the tunnels. Not surprisingly, she followed us.

“What are you looking for?”

“Gale, the bad guy who has been killing everyone, is
down here.”

“What’s he looking for?”

“He was trying to get to Narnia and got lost,” Darwin
said sarcastically.

They fell silent when we reached the stone staircase.
With every step, I felt greater dread, but at least no spikes came out of the
floor this time. Unfortunately, as Henry led us through the tunnels Clara was
nowhere near as quiet as I expected her to be. Although Henry was absolutely
silent, Clara kept tripping over nothing, breathing too loudly, and complaining
about it being too hot. I assumed it was because she hadn’t fully recovered
from being drugged and then nearly killed by a golem.

Henry froze and held up his hand to gesture that we
stop. “There’s something different about the air current in here,” he whispered
almost too low to hear.

Clara sneezed.

“Get down!” I yelled, shoving her down. Darwin and
Henry hit the dirt just in time to avoid the iron spikes that shot out from the
wall. It was a square section of the wall to our right, starting a foot above
the ground and reaching to about a foot below the ceiling, from which hundreds
of inch-thick spikes protruded. The spikes were about five inches apart, and
reached the other side of the tunnel. None of us would have survived that.

The spikes receded slower than they shot out, but I
fisted my hand in Darwin’s hoodie to stop him from getting back up. Henry
watched me silently, waiting for my signal. I sighed, purposefully loudly.

The spikes shock out again. When they began to
recede, Clara cursed, and they shot back out. This time, one of the spikes
caught on Henry’s t-shirt. His silent wince told me it had cut more than cloth.

Before the spikes could withdraw, Darwin made a low,
continuous humming noise. When the spike didn’t go back in, he tried to wiggle
his way to the other side, still humming. If the ground was loose sand instead
of hardened dirt, I could have done it, too, but as it was, I was too big. It
was even more difficult for Henry.

“You’ve got to be joking,” he said, realizing one of
the spikes had gone through his shirt and effectively trapped him from wiggling
another inch.

As soon as the spike disappeared back into the wall,
I put the penlight in my mouth and motioned for everyone to move, but stay low.
Darwin shook his head and put up a finger. “One at a time,” he mouthed. I
nodded and pointed to Henry.

After a moment of hesitation, he stood up and crept
silently into the safe, perpendicular tunnel. I pointed to Clara, but she shook
her head. When I gave her my best glare, she reached back and slipped off her
heels, then stood and made her way as quietly as Henry had been. I indicated
for Darwin to go next. He started to crawl, only to realize he was better off
walking. He made it easily, probably thanks to his wolf genes.

I was the furthest from the safe zone and my boots
had hard soles. I stood, carefully. Mentally, I measured fifteen soft steps.
I
can do fifteen. Fifteen…
I took a step, paused, and took another step.
Ten
…
I looked up and wished I hadn’t.

Henry clamped his hand silently over Clara’s mouth
before she could scream. Fear was evident in her face as she stared right at
me. When I looked down, I realized what she was afraid of, and I couldn’t
really blame her. I made myself take another step forward… and another.
Five…
I can do five…
I lifted my foot, set it down softly…

A roar shook dust from the ceiling.

I leaped, hit the ground, and rolled. It took me a
few seconds after I hit the wall to be sure that I hadn’t been skewered.
No
pain, no blood gushing out into the dirt, no brain matter painting the walls.
It’s a good day.

I picked up the penlight I had dropped. Henry kept
his hand over Clara’s mouth and she was still frozen in terror. I reached down,
panting, and carefully removed the huge black scorpion from her thigh. Henry
let her go and she whimpered loudly.

“What, this little guy?” I asked calmly, relief in my
voice. “This is Becky’s scorpion, Katie.” Clara whimpered louder. “No, she
wouldn’t have hurt you. Her stinger was removed.” As I spoke, I let the
scorpion crawl over the back of my hand. When she tried to crawl up my arm, I
picked her up gently by the tail and set her on the floor. “I bet Becky is
worried sick, but I don’t have anything to take her back in, so Becky will just
have to get a new scorpion.”

“Your friends are weird,” Darwin said.

“Yes, I know.”

“If we took care of the golems, then what made that
roar?” Henry asked.

“If I had to guess, I would say Dejarus.”

“Who?” Darwin asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

We continued on the path. Clara had left her shoes,
so she had something new to complain about. By the time we made it to another
set of steps, we were all sick and tired of her. From my previous encounters
with the woman, I had no idea she was such a brat.

“Are you following a sound, or just heading lower?”
Darwin asked.

“I can smell them. I would find them faster and be
able to avoid the traps better in my shifted form.”

“Then shift.”

His expression was doubtful. “Do you think you can
control my jaguar?”

“I don’t think he wants to kill me.”

“He wants to kill everyone. It is also very likely
that he will abandon you all here and then come back just to eat you when he’s
hungry. He didn’t kill you before because I was able to redirect his attention
on another foe.”

“I thought he didn’t kill me because I’m an alpha.”

“He is not a wolf; he does not desire pleasing his
alpha. He saw you as too strong an opponent; you were not worth the risk of
injury.”

“None of it was because we’re friends?”

“Jaguars can feel affection, even make friends. I
have never seen mine do it. He can barely stand Addison even under the full
moon and would kill her in an instant if we were both in cat form, just because
she is small. Mine is not a normal jaguar.”

“If you don’t shift now, you won’t be able to when
you’re near the amulet.”

“Correct.”

“Then shift. Try to make him go after Gale instead of
us.”

“Felicity and the big guy, not Gale,” Darwin argued.
“Leave Gale to me.”

Henry sighed and started stripping his clothes.
Darwin and I turned our lights away. “Want to tell me the plan now?” I asked.

“Nope,” Darwin said cheerfully. “Not when your power
is mind reading and he has an amulet that gives him your power. I have the plan
locked safely away in file number six-three-three. It has a special lock.”

I thought he was joking at first about the file
number, but then I remembered the first time I had a real look around in his
head and decided he was probably completely serious.

I sighed when Henry gave off an angry growl. I turned
my light on him just as he lunged at Clara. I barely managed to get in between
them in time. “Stop! Back off, Henry! Go find Gale!”

He roared at me and tried to attack Clara again. She
balled her fists in preparation to defend himself.

“Henry, leave her alone!”

The jaguar snarled, advanced on me until his face was
only inches from mine, and roared. It was deafening, but I wouldn’t let myself
flinch. If I gave even a hint of weakness, the jaguar would attack. After
nearly a minute of the most dangerous staring contest I had ever experienced,
he turned and vanished into the dark.

Clara hugged me from behind. “You chased him off!”
she said happily.

“That isn’t a good thing. Henry’s the only one who
can get us in or out.”

“I can do it,” she argued.

“Not a chance. With the traps here, we’re going to
wait for him to come back. Hopefully, he’ll shift back before he gets hungry.”

“We gotta stop telling him to shift,” Darwin said.
“From now on, Henry shifting is the big red button that nobody pushes.”

“You would be the first one to push the big red
button,” I argued.

“Devon, let’s just go back,” Clara said.

I ignored her and studied the tunnel for any clues as
to what direction to go in. The third floor down was even hotter than the
second, and the tunnels were not as refined. “It looks like someone built the
castle on top of a cave and then tunneled down. I imagine that the tower must
be very deep, which begs the question…”

“Who would build a tower that dangerous?” Darwin
finished. “Unless it wasn’t built.”

“I’ve seen the tower in my dreams; it was not
naturally formed.”

“You’ve seen the tower in your dreams?” Clara asked.
Her eyes were wide. “You know where it is then?”

“If he knew–”

I held out my hand and he shut up instantly. “What do
you know about the tower?”

“Just what you told me,” she said.

“I haven’t told you anything about it.”

She was very close and I wasn’t expecting it, so I
didn’t have a chance to stop her before she kissed me. I knew Clara was a
fantastic kisser from the time she kissed me in the motel room. Actually, I expected
all vampires to be. This was equally good.

I shoved her away. It was a great kiss, but it wasn’t
Clara. “Who are you?”

She laughed. “And here I thought you went for
vampires. I told you it wouldn’t be so easy the next time you saw me.”

“Felicity. Where is Clara?”

“Dead, I suspect. What would I care?” Her features
suddenly changed shapes, sizes, and colors until Felicity looked like her
red-headed self. “Tell me where the tower is.”

“I’m not saying a word.”

“You don’t have to, bro, she can read your mind with
the amulet,” Darwin said, playing along.

“She doesn’t have the amulet, her master does.”

She scoffed. “I have no master; Gale is my husband.
I
am the mastermind.
I
was the one who got the amulet in the first
place.”

“You’re the one who bugged Hunt’s and Drake’s
offices?”

“That would be correct. All I had to do was change my
appearance and everyone let me do whatever I wanted.”

“What about your twin?”

“An illusion. Sort of a flesh puppet, which is why
that ugly familiar went for me and not my double; familiars can’t be fooled by
illusions.”

“And your freak-out over the scorpion?” Darwin asked.

“I’ve been playing the part of a lost, simpering
woman since you ‘found’ me in that room. Do you really think I would be afraid
of a little bug? Where I come from, fear is a death sentence, and when I find
that tower, everyone will fear me.”

“Well, good luck finding the tower, because I’m never
going to tell you where it is.”

She reached inside her jacket at the waist and pulled
a sword from… nothing. The handle was like that of a normal sword, but the
blade appeared out of thin air. It was curved; one of the Japanese katana
swords, except the blade was completely black.

“I don’t need you to tell me. Gale can take your
power and kill you. That way, he will be more powerful
and
know where
the tower is. Go.” She pointed the sword in the direction she wanted us to go.
Darwin met my eyes and winked, telling me without words that this played into
his plans. So we let her take us to Gale.