Drowned by Nichola Reilly

Author:Nichola Reilly
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

Ten

Those Who Have Crossed

Tiam straightens. “I don’t think I want to know what that was,” he mutters.

Ghosts. Demons. Instinctively, I move closer to him. “Is there someone else down here?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead he holds the candle out ahead of us, sweeping it slowly in a half circle around him to light the dusty floor ahead of us. Nothing but piles of crates, neatly aligned, all perfectly untouched. I can read the words on some of them: PLASTIC DINNERWARE. PLASTIC TABLECLOTHS. TABLE SUGAR. But I can’t say I know what any of those things are. He holds the light still, and immediately I see what is wrong. There’s a large hole in the TABLE SUGAR box, as big as the head of my shovel, as if someone kicked it in. No, gnawed it away.

Something moves inside the box. Two tiny orbs of red glowing at us. Two devilish eyes. A demon! I swallow as it squeezes its head out of the crate. Its head is easily bigger than my own. It licks its paws—or are they claws?—and begins to make that same whispering noise, but this time it’s wetter and gurgling, and that’s when I see a row of jagged white teeth. It opens its mouth wider, baring them fully, then draws back on its hind feet, black hair on its back bristling, and leaps forward.

Within a second it is on Tiam, and he topples backward under the thing’s weight. It’s almost as long as Tiam, with a white, coiled tail that thrashes wildly in the air as it attacks. Tiam lets out a groan, and I hear the sickly sound of bones cracking as Tiam wraps his hands around the creature’s neck. Tiam’s arm muscles strain as he tries to push it off him. The candle falls to the ground and rolls out of reach, throwing fire in all directions before going out. In the darkness I can feel the thing’s warm oily fur at my ankles, the whiplike tail thrashing my knees. Frantic, I bring the edge of my shovel down again and again on its back until my skin is coated in blood and chunks of mottled fur and my arm feels as if it’s no longer attached to my body. The thing makes a grunting noise, and all is quiet.

Finally I exhale. “Tiam?” I ask in the darkness.

“Here,” comes his voice, muffled. I hear some scratching on the floor and pray it’s him and not that creature. After a moment I hear the scraping of the flint again. Thank goodness. I locate the candle and soon the light is back. Now there are two small round punctures under his collarbone, and blood is trickling down over his chest and pooling over the scribbler nose. He grimaces. “On second thought, I don’t think I want to stay down here.”

“Is anything broken?”

He tries to move his shoulder, which is slanted awkwardly. Then he groans and kicks the mass of fur at his feet. “Probably. What is this thing?”

“I don’t know.

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