Taste of Night by Pettersson Vicki

Author:Pettersson, Vicki [Pettersson, Vicki]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-12-10T05:00:00+00:00

My eyes gradually grew used to the dim underground, and I could make out shapes and symbols along the smooth walls, like the hieroglyphics of a lost tribe long before the written word came into existence. Some characters I knew, others I recognized by sight but still didn’t understand, and more were entirely new to me. Though they made no sense to me, I knew enough of Zodiac mythology to figure they probably told a story the deeper they progressed.

Deeper, it turned out, didn’t mean lower. As my attention returned to my footing, I was surprised to feel the path shift again to the earth’s surface. Into the mountain, I thought, suddenly realizing why Joaquin had chosen this location. I increased my pace, and after one more S-curve the footlights ended. I paused outside a carved entrance covered by velvet curtains so heavy and black, I’d have thought I was about to fall into another void if I hadn’t seen the edges. Taking a deep breath, I drew the curtain aside…and stepped into the most gorgeous room I’d ever laid eyes on.

“Well, look at that.” Ignoring the fact that it was an underground cavern, everything looked like a scene right from Architectural Digest. Well, if AD crammed their “best of” issue into one room, that was. There was no rhyme or reason to the stash; Art Deco chairs with bright orange seat cushions held court next to statues of African kings. A vintage Asian china service was displayed primly on a tortoise-patterned tabletop, while a gold-leafed floor lamp sent soft light blooming across a makeshift vignette of white ceramics and glazed coral. And that was just one corner of the jam-packed room. Elsewhere, Oriental rugs draped the dirt-packed floor in vibrant patterns, and a gigantic bed loomed dead center, where a giant oak headboard and a virtual mound of bedding rose in a luxurious wave of stripes and prints and color. And then I looked up.

The ceiling was made from the desert floor, though centuries of baking in the unrelieved sun couldn’t keep out the shell-backed, shiny-skinned, and multilegged vermin that had survived the ages as well. Snakes and lizards, wasps and worms, and vinegaroons—a particularly foul cross between a spider and scorpion—festooned the ceiling like living chandeliers, macabre creatures twisting in the lamplight, their movements played out on the walls in triple size.

Desert predators, all of them. It didn’t matter how much gilt was in this room. This was still Joaquin’s home. And he, I thought, watching a snake fall headfirst from ceiling to floor, was the largest predator of them all.

I cocked my head, listening to the pressing silence in this underground tomb, realizing that was exactly what this could be. If something went wrong down here, chances were nobody would ever find me. I’d remain deep underground, sealed beneath the hillside, Joaquin’s home marking my grave. But I couldn’t return the way I’d come. Even if I could vault up the pitch-dark incline back onto the platform at the false closet’s back, there were still the dogs to consider.

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