Murder of Crows by N Gray

Author:N Gray [Gray, N]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cutman Press

Chapter Fourteen

Everything that happened next materialized in slow motion. River pulled the lever. The townsfolk froze. The light above us flickered again. I held my breath. The lever moved, the water stopped flowing from the jug, and the water inside the fountain drained in the floor beneath. Once all the water had cleared from the bottom of the fountain, the floor shifted down, forming a staircase.

I leaned over the side of the fountain to see, but there was nothing but thick darkness. “Not again,” I grumbled to myself. I was always up for an adventure, but going down into an unknown darkness was not something I looked forward to. Which was counterintuitive since my father was Lord of the Underworld; I should be used to the darkness and seeing monsters and demons, yet whenever I needed to do something dangerous that involved darkness, I retreated just a little. To take my mind off the blackness below, I glanced around.

“It’s like they’re being controlled,” I said, pointing at the people frozen mid-step.

River shook his head. “Nothing makes sense.” He combed his fingers through his hair and I noted more strands of gray had appeared. “Maybe they’re not even human.”

“Hm, maybe.”

River stood beside me, then climbed over the side and stepped onto the first step. “Are you ready to take the next steps?” he asked, pleased with himself.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m coming.” I climbed over and stood beside him.

River removed his flashlight from his backpack, switched it on, and descended the stairs that spiraled against the wall. I wondered whether this was an old well that was converted into a water fountain that someone could switch off to get down there. What exactly was down there was yet to be seen.

I removed my flashlight and turned it on, but the darkness was so thick I could only illuminate about thirty centimeters in front of me and all I saw was more darkness or the black shiny stairs we were traversing down on.

Slowly, we descended into the bowels of the dark fountain where the air was cooler and smelled like wet cement. I shivered, dreading going any farther, but I had to.

“What do you think is down here?” I whispered, and instead of River answering, a wind kicked up, blowing my hair out of my face.

“Maybe it’s the dragon,” River finally answered. “Whatever it is, has to help me.” He sounded more confident about his quest than he did when we first started.

When another breeze blew my hair out of my face, I froze and turned toward the darkness. Squinting into the abyss, I shone my flashlight in the direction the wind had come from and reached for River, but he was too quick and disappeared from my line of sight and into the inky blackness.

“River?” I whispered. I swallowed hard when he didn’t answer, and another wind blew into my face. “Crap,” I mumbled to myself and ran down the stairs, bumping into the back of him. “Why did you stop?” I grumbled, holding onto his arms to keep myself from falling over.

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