The Wild Ride by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Format: epub
Published: 2010-02-13T07:20:50+00:00

Chapter Four

Nikos didn’t know what he’d been expecting Alexei’s home to look like in this world. Maybe something made of damp, moldy stone with small stained-glass windows filthy from age. Cobwebs. A wooden door with an arched top that creaked ominously on its hinges when opened. A few bats hanging from the ceiling. Mist curling over the floors.

As Alexei unlocked the door to what he called his “apartment,” a completely normal, rectangle-shaped door painted soft green in a corridor surrounded by a line of doors that were exactly the same, directly in the heart of a man-made warren he called a “complex,” Nikos tried not to laugh.

Alexei didn’t miss a thing. Nikos suspected, from what he knew of the man, nothing ever escaped him. “Is something funny?” he inquired as he jiggled his key in an attempt to open the stubborn lock.

No point in lying. “Yes.” Nikos tucked his hands under his arms and leaned his weight on the cream stucco wall opposite Alexei’s door. Soothing pastel paint and, fascinating to Nikos, small rectangles with tiny representations of nature scenes hung at regular intervals. Were they “paintings?” He’d heard stories about artists and thought them to be no more than legends.

Nikos shook his head at them. “No one would believe me if I told them where and how the Nightlings live.”

“If you think this is amazing, you should see some of the places I’ve been. Trust me, everything in my home is all quite tame.”

“And Nightlings really like things so…” He tried to find the right word but couldn’t. “I thought you’d live in dungeons.”

“Come on. The moldering castle look might have come back into vogue in your time, but it’s more than somewhat outdated in my day and age.” Alexei grunted, satisfied, as the lock reluctantly clunked over. “Who would possibly want to live in the festering damp and try in vain to rest themselves on cold, slimy stones when there’s such a thing as centralized heat?”

Nikos snorted with surprised laughter. “You’re still funny.”

“Good man,” Alexei approved. “There, that’s got them all.” He pocketed his keys, turned the doorknob -- plain tarnished brass -- and swung his door open. Standing to a side, he winked at Nikos and made a half-bow, inviting and commanding him to enter.

Nikos bounced on the soles of his feet. Yes! He darted past Alexei, who smacked him on the ass. When he growled and pivoted, eager to play, he stopped.

Dark wasn’t the word one would use to describe Alexei’s apartment. Just plain “dark” suggested that there would some kind of light somewhere. This was not at all the case. Alexei’s home was shrouded in the kind of darkness one found in caves five hundred miles below the earth. This was the dark of the sealed tomb.

The ideas Nikos had discarded about Nightling lairs rushed back in. He rubbed his forearms, knowing that if he were still human he’d be covered in goose bumps. Plain as mud on the outside, a nightmare on the inside.

Except for the fact that it smelled like malt grains and some odd spicy meat.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.