Parasite Unknown: A Dark Fantasy Tale (The Emporium Of Many Things Book 2) by Dan Lown

Author:Dan Lown [Lown, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

I fall through the window and onto my desk in a hail of scrambling limbs, wooden legs squeaking against the floorboards. I spill over the side onto the hardwood floor. My hip takes the brunt of the impact, and so I lie there bracing for the pain, its arrival inevitable. Surely enough fire bleeds from my joint, coiling around my lower spine and snaking up my back. It's a stark contrast to the coldness of the dark room. The temperature has dropped far further than I’d anticipated, reminding me of how a forest regulates its own climate. Only this isn’t natural for my hill. Molten air usually billows from below, the scorchwood absorbing the heat and releasing it slowly throughout the night. And the smell… like rotten vegetation and mould.

Whatever this thing is, it works fast.

I drag myself up to sitting, sword scraping over the floorboards. I draw it close. Waiting patiently, I listen for any sign of my unseen intruder. Only silence answers, followed by a distant thud from another room.

Something is here.

The silver in my hand twitches. I climb to my feet, ready to bite anything that comes within arm's reach. Need to slow down. Could just be the boy hiding. But then what the hell’s all this slime doing here? Is he infected too?

Shadows jump out at me as I drift across the room and slide up against the door frame leading to the hall. Fighting to control my heartbeat from climbing any higher, I slip into the hallway between the shop and back rooms, searching the black spaces for eyes staring back at me. Rotten earth kicks at the back of my throat again, wrinkling my nose. A scattering of loose earth covers the floor underfoot, just like the damn stables.

The war drum beneath my ribs hammers ever louder, drowning out the deathly silence. Pathetic. Can’t even control your own—the thought snags in my mind while I slide up to the shop floor door. Holding my breath, I peer around the wall into the shop floor, losing my trail of irritable thoughts. Every window is covered in the slimy gunk, choking even the light of the silver moon. I cannot see properly, nor hear that which hides from me, yet to light a candle now would leave me a blinded halfwit and an easy meal. Only a fool would offer such an advantage to their enemy. If it is indeed my enemy.

A shadow bursts from alongside the counter on my right. Crashes into my arm. I draw up too slowly to parry. The impact scatters me to the floor, knocking Bertha’s leather strap from my shoulder.

I drag the sword between us, feet scrambling for purchase. The blade catches my attacker on the way down, a spray of gunk and a mind-numbing shriek my reward. The thing darts through the low gap in the counter partition, disappearing into the shadows. In the chaos of the moment, I try to regain my footing, but the ooze squelches underfoot, slick like wet soap.

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