Chapter 7 Hannah #2
I hissed. “Come on, come on.” The words echoed through the cavern until they sounded like someone else whispering right over my shoulder.
Not creepy at all. Definitely not going to haunt my dreams later.
The footsteps came again. Maybe closer. Maybe not.
I couldn’t tell. The crystal twisted everything, turning distance into a suggestion instead of a fact.
My pulse pounded in my ears until it started blending with the echoes and the dripping water and the quiet, steady pull still lingering in my chest.
Then the water behind me exploded.
I spun so fast my boots slipped on the crystal, and the torch snapped up.
Something massive surged from the pool and lunged at me.
A scream ripped out of me, the sound breaking against the crystal walls and coming back in jagged fragments.
The thing that burst from the water looked like a nightmare stitched together from things that should have stayed separate.
Its body was low and broad like an alligator’s, but flatter, wider, with slick gray-green scales that caught the fractured light.
Long whisker-like barbels hung from its jaw, twitching as it moved with a speed something that size had no right to have.
I threw myself sideways and barely got clear before its jaws snapped shut where I’d been standing. The sound cracked through the cavern hard enough to rattle my bones. Air rushed past me as I hit the ground on my already bruised hip, causing pain to flare hot up my side, but I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t.
I scrambled upright, boots slipping as I forced myself to run toward the nearest narrow passage. Not because I trusted it, but because it was there and the thing behind me clearly planned to turn me into a piece of meat.
I looked over my shoulder. The creature hauled more of itself onto the crystal ground with a heavy, wet scrape, its stubby legs clawing for purchase while its tail lashed behind it, spraying icy water across the floor. The torchlight flashed over rows of thin, needle-like teeth.
I faced forward and focused on moving. I was almost to the passage opening when something clipped the back of my boot.
Just enough to catch and yank.
My balance snapped sideways, and I was dragged back a step. Panic slammed into me so fast it burned.
No. Absolutely not. Not today, Satan!
I kicked, and my heel connected with something solid, the impact jarring up my leg. The creature hissed, a wet, ugly sound that vibrated through the crystal, but it didn’t let go.
I threw everything I had into my next kick.
This time, the creature’s grip loosened enough that I could twist and rip my foot free, nearly losing the boot in the process, but I didn’t care.
My hand flew to the dagger at my belt, and I drew the ceremonial blade free in one precise motion, its weight grounding me in a way nothing else had since I’d fallen into this place.
The creature lunged again, but so did I.
I drove the blade into the creature’s snout with a wet thrust that turned my stomach. Dark blood welled around the hilt, hot against my hand, and the creature shrieked.
The sound split into a hundred distorted echoes that bounced through the cavern until I couldn’t tell where it started or ended.
The creature released me, rearing back just enough for me to stumble away as my heart hammered against my ribs.
For one horrible second, I met its eyes.
There was nothing there but primal rage.
I scrambled backward on my hands and feet before forcing myself upright. My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out everything except the immediate, urgent need to not be where that thing was. The torch. Where was the torch?
There.
I lunged, fingers closing around the handle just as the creature snapped its head to the side and flung the dagger from its snout with a wet spray of blood. The weapon clattered somewhere into the darkness, where I was absolutely not going to retrieve it.
Not today. In fact, not ever, so I ran.
In my head, I heard Aunt Maureen tsking and saying, What did you expect? I told you not to ever get near the rowan tree. Now, you’d better hike up your britches and find a way to survive.
Somehow, that encouraged me to run farther, especially since I refused to die to prove that she’d been right and I should’ve listened.
The nearest passage swallowed me whole, and the walls closed in tight enough that my shoulder clipped stone as I pushed through.
The ground slanted downward just enough to make every step feel like a bad decision, and the torchlight bounced wildly, scattering violet and indigo reflections that twisted the shadows into something that looked far too alive for my comfort.
Behind me, the creature snarled.
The sound tore through the tunnel like metal grinding against metal, as if something had broken that shouldn’t have. The crystals grabbed hold of it and multiplied it until it came at me from every direction at once.
Then came the scrape.
Claws against crystal. Heavy. Fast. It was following me.