Bitten 2 (28 page)

The elevator opened onto a small circular room lit by the same artificial torches as the ones in the club upstairs, but somehow the space felt older than the church above. It was hard to tell if the subterranean structure had existed prior to the church, or if it was the knowledge that there were thousands of pounds of dirt overhead that made it feel ancient. The soft
whoosh
of the elevator door sliding shut behind me when I stepped out of the brightly lit box stirred a feeling of apprehension in the pit of my stomach. Again I heard Chrismer’s voice echoing it’s warning in my mind.
It’s not safe.

This is
so
not where I want to die.

Staying close to the elevator in case I needed to make a quick getaway, I surveyed my surroundings. The walls, floor, and domed ceiling looked to be crafted from the same dark stone as the church, though they bore the mark of time in the form of dirt and slimy looking moss. A series of medieval looking banners hung at even intervals around the room, occupying the spaces between seven identical tunnels that led off from the room like the spokes of a giant wheel. The tunnels trailed off into the gloom, and although curiosity would normally have made me eager to explore, I had no intentions of sauntering off into the unknown. Despite the fact that the place felt as desolate as the grave, the choking smell of vamp left no doubt in my mind that there were dozens of the undead lurking down there with me.

Yeah, that isn’t creepy at all,
I snorted as a shudder rippled down my spine.

“Well, I guess that leaves me a fifty-fifty chance of meeting Mr. Sunshine again,” I told myself, turning back to the elevator and hitting the call button. The button lit up for a moment, and then nothing. There was no cheery chime, and more importantly, no door sliding open. My stomach plummeted to somewhere in the vicinity of my ankles. I was sure I’d have heard it if the elevator went back up to Cordova’s office. Jabbing the button again produced the same result—that is to say, none at all.

“Oh, come on!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

AFTER SEVERAL MOMENTS of hammering on the call button didn’t open the door, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to find another way to the garage. My need to get out was made all the more unnerving by the knowledge that my friend from upstairs could find his way down at any moment.

“If I was the way out of a creepy vampire nest, which one would I be?” I murmured, looking at the gaping black mouths surrounding me.

Eenie meenie miney mo...
I thought, studying the tunnels, each one appearing as abandoned and eerie as the one before.

“Well, shit.”

In the end, I decided that the possibility of running across a ravening vamp was better than standing there doing nothing, and opted to try the closest tunnel on the right. Being a were has the occasional advantages, superior vision being one of them, but my were-enhanced sight was better suited for shadowy forests than pitch black underground tunnels. I was nearing the edge of the light that filtered down the tunnel from the circular room when I heard the whisper of scratches on stone behind me.

My heart leapt into my throat at the sound, and every muscle in my body screamed for me to run. But where? Behind me loomed a crazy vamp and ahead was only darkness. Before I had a chance to decide whether to run or stay, the sound shot towards me. Bracing myself, I let out a strangled scream when a fat, furry shape crawled over my foot, continuing along the tunnel as if I wasn’t there.

“Jesus tap dancing Christ!” I swore, listening to the rat scurry on its way, oblivious to the fact that it had almost made me crap my pants.

There’s gotta be a better idea than running around here aimlessly,
I thought as I peered into the darkness, but no brilliant ideas came, only the growing desire to find daylight.

My progress was slow as I inched along the tunnel with one hand sliding along the slimy wall and the other stretched out into the dark in front of me, my anxiety increasing with each step I took further into the unknown. I may as well have had my eyes closed for all I could make out in the inky black.

This has got to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done,
I berated myself, cursing my own stupidity for getting caught up with Cordova and his ilk.
I should have known nothing good would come from getting mixed up with the undead.

Distracting myself with plans of what I would do to Cordova and his Day Servant if I made it out of there alive, I moved forward inch by inch until an unseen obstacle brought me down hard on my knees. It was just a small rock, but in the total darkness that blanketed my eyes, it may as well have been a giant boulder. A hissing breath escaped me as my palms grazed the rough stone of the tunnel’s wall and my phone clattered out of my pocket.

“I’m such an idiot,” I muttered under my breath as my phone flared to life at the impact, filling the tunnel with its cool glow.

Ignoring the tremble in my hands and the sweat trickling down my spine, I wiped the grit and blood from my hands on the thighs of my jeans, before retrieving my phone from where it lay nestled amongst rubble and dust. Armed with my makeshift flashlight, I climbed to my feet, angling the screen’s glow out in front of me. My burgeoning relief at discovering a light source was instantly dashed by the sight ahead. Twenty paces up ahead the tunnel branched off to the left and right with no sign of where either direction led. For all I knew they could have looped back around to the circular room in an endless loop of darkness.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

Frustration brought dampness to my eyes as I approached the intersection at a cautious shuffle to shine the light from my phone in either direction and couldn’t make out any marked difference between them. Waffling between turning left or right, I shone my light into the darkness once more and felt my heart stutter the instant my gaze fell on a pale figure lurching out of the gloom towards me.

It wasn’t the same vamp I’d encountered in Cordova’s office, but that didn’t ease the frantic beating of my heart. From the sharp edges of his cheek bones and shoulders it was easy to see he’d been a young, slender man in life, no older than twenty or so, but undeath had made him cadaverous. The cold light from my phone emphasized the sallow hue of his skin and the dark veins that spread like spider webs beneath. Like his pajama wearing buddy upstairs, he looked as if he’d just awoken, his hair stuck up in messy spikes.

I was in no rush for a repeat of the interaction I’d had in Cordova’s office, but I couldn’t hang around beneath the church all day either. Besides, what were the chances of running into two crazed vamps in one day?

Stupid question, I know.

“Umm... hello?” I called out, the echo of my voice sounding loud as it bounced back at me from the stone walls.

I wasn’t sure if the vamp even heard me at first, the vacant expression on his face unchanging as he continued to move forward in slow, shuffling steps that kicked up small clouds of dust from beneath his bare feet. The vamp was little more than ten feet away when he finally appeared to take notice of me, his milky eyes swinging around to pin me with a chilling stare.

“Ah... hi there,” I stuttered, trying to sound cool and failing miserably.

An inarticulate groan, accompanied by a furrow between his brows, was the only response I received at first, and I allowed myself a moment of relief at the fact that he hadn’t instantly launched himself at my jugular.

Point for team Riley!

All too soon, however, his groan shifted to a grating hiss that sent prickles of alarm down my spine along with a fresh surge of fear tainted sweat.

“Hey buddy, chill out. I’m just looking for the way out,” I said raising my hands.

With the speed of striking cobra, his gaze locked onto the smear of blood on my palms, and his nostrils flared as he drew a deep breath. I got the overwhelming urge to wipe my hands on my jeans again, but figured that any sudden movements weren’t in my best interest. As I contemplated my rather limited options, my new friend took up a soundless chant. His lips moved in a repetitious recitation, but he spoke so low that even with my enhanced hearing I couldn’t make out the words.

Great, I’ve stumbled on the undead version of Rain Man.

“What?” I asked with a hard edge of irritation to my words.

“...helps fang, blood helps...” he muttered in a whisper that sounded like the rustle of centuries old paper.

“I so don’t have time for this crap.”

“Blood helps blood, fang helps fang,” he said again, his voice growing in volume. There was a weight behind his words that made me think there was something important about them. The only problem was that me and my mundane upbringing had no idea what they might mean.

“Yeah, okay sure. Blood, fang, whatever.”

“Blood helps blood, fang helps fang,” he repeated, already sounding like a broken record, while his staring dead eyes gave me a serious case of the heebie-jeebies.

“You said that already. Look, just point me towards the way out, and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Blood helps blood, fang helps fang. You’re not blood, not fang.”

“That’s right, no fangs here,” I replied, opening my mouth and pointing at my obvious lack of fangs.

“Not blood, not fang,” he took up in a low mutter at the same time he began to rock back and forth on his heels.

Daring to take my eyes off of him to cast the light of my phone around once more, searching for something that might point me in the right direction, all I saw were tunnels reaching off into impenetrable darkness.

Haven’t these guys ever heard of sign posts or some shit?
I thought, wishing that an exit sign would
poof!
into existence above my head.

“Not blood, not fang,” my singular-minded companion continued to rant, growing louder, jarring me back to attention.

Turning my gaze back to him I found him regarding me with those creepy milk-white eyes, his head cocked to one side as if I were some kind of puzzle he was trying to figure out. Dread settled heavy and ice cold in my gut as his voice grew in volume and the crease in his brow shifted into an expression of irritation.

“No... not fang, but not an enemy either,” I said, taking a slow step backwards, my boot scraping against dirt and stone.

Big mistake.

The grating noise was loud in the silent tunnel, echoing off the damp covered walls. The vamp flinched at the sudden sound as if he had been struck.

“Not blood! Not fang!” he bellowed, baring yellowed fangs in a hiss that rained spittle in my direction while his eyes flared silver, gleaming like twin mirrors in the darkness.

“Ah, shit.”

They always say that when faced with a predator like a mountain lion you shouldn’t run, but instead should stand your ground and try to make yourself appear as large as possible. I didn’t think that same tactic would work against an enraged vampire, and I didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out. Doing the only thing I could, I turned tail and ran, praying I could outrun him in the unfamiliar subterranean tunnels.

Not bloody likely.

My boot heels pounded on the dirt covered stone, the sharp sound reverberating off the walls to create a dizzying echo that drowned out the pursuit of my would-be assailant. Even with the wolf’s sight I struggled to make out my surroundings in the lurching light cast by the phone clutched in my fist. It was all but impossible to differentiate gaping tunnel entrances from the inky shadows until I was practically on top of them, the unknown lurking within them as terrifying as the relentless footsteps behind me. This was the shit that nightmares were made of, and I had the feeling that if I survived this ordeal I would be sleeping with the light on for a long time.

Picking and choosing tunnels at random, I weaved my way through the seemingly endless network of tunnels, all the while wondering just how far they stretched beneath the city.

I must be near the Capitol Building by now,
I thought as I urged my legs to keep pumping despite the burning ache in my calves and the rasping sound of my labored breaths.

I had no idea how far I’d run by the time I realized that the vamp wasn’t chasing me anymore. Exhausted, I stumbled to a stop. My legs felt as though they were made of Jell-O as I collapsed against the tunnel wall and slid down to my butt. The stone was cold and damp against my back, smelling of decay and mold, but I didn’t care.

As my breaths slowed and the pounding of my heart returned to something approaching normal, I strained to hear any signs of the vamp. Hearing nothing beyond the near constant trickle of water on stone, I let my head rest against the crumbling brick and closed my eyes.

“I’ll just rest for a minute.”

The loud chirp of a cricket startled me out of my momentary respite, accompanied by the odd sensation of something vibrating in my lap. It took me several seconds to realize that it was my cell phone ringing, and for several heartbeats I just stared at it in shock.

How the hell do they have cell service down here?

Hoping that the sound hadn’t carried too far, I hastened to silence the damn thing and nearly dropped it in surprise when I saw Holbrook’s name flash on the screen.