I stared at the map. “If I hadn’t found you, yes. I wouldn’t have had a choice, Wally. I couldn’t leave you all there. You would have done the same for me.”
“Of course we would!” Wally grabbed one of the apple pies.
Damn Frost. She knew me well enough to know this challenge wouldn’t scare me. Not one bit.
I was . . . excited to pit myself against a challenge like this even though I didn’t have to now. Just like I had been excited to face the Culling Trials in a weird, adrenaline junkie sort of way.
“What about the Shadowkiller?” Wally picked at her fries. “He’s still looking for you, isn’t he?”
“Probably.” I closed my eyes. “I’m doing all I can to block out his connection to me, which is why I had to do the same with ours. Apparently, it’s all or nothing.”
Wally leaned forward, her face catching the flashlight and looking even paler. “You mean you weren’t trying to get rid of us?”
I shook my head, shocked she would even think that. “No! I know that we are stronger together, by a long shot. But I couldn’t figure out how to only connect with one of you. I think . . . because Nicholas is my uncle there are some ties to him as well, which I suspect means he can find me if I’m not careful.” I rubbed a hand over my face.
“Uncle Nicholas?”
“That’s the Shadowkiller.” I leaned my head back against the concrete.
“Holy cats,” she whispered Pete’s favorite saying and I found myself smiling.
“Cats on fire,” I whispered back, missing him and the other guys fiercely in that moment, minus Ethan.
She laughed. “I wish they would hurry up.”
I looked at her. “Me too. Are they any closer?”
Wally cocked her head to the side and closed her eyes. “No, they aren’t. Weird. Maybe they stopped to eat?”
How much time had passed? An hour? No, not even that long. The urge to open up the connection between me and the guys was strong, but I had no doubt the second I did, Ash and my uncle would be on me. “Maybe they’re hiding.”
As soon as I said it, I knew it was true. Wally’s eyes went wide. “They aren’t hurt.” She blinked and stared over my shoulder. “Rory . . . he’s . . . someone is looking for them.”
My heart did a terrible flip in my chest. “But they—”
“He is saying they need a distraction.” Her eyes lost the glazed look. “They are calling to me, I have to go.”
“Wait, what?” Calling to her? That sounded like a spell to me. “Is Ethan with them?”
“Yes.” She was on her feet and moving to the door.
Bad idea, this was a bad idea. “Ethan could be somehow hijacking all this. You can’t go. We have to figure out—”
She pushed me back, her power wrapping around me, stealing my air. “You stay. If I’m wrong you can come after us.”
I struggled against the magic, struggled for air. “Wally, wait! It’s not safe!”
Her burgundy magic dropped me and I scrambled up to my feet after her, but she was already out the door, moving faster than I’d ever seen her go. I put my hand between the sliding piece of concrete and the frame to stop it from closing behind her, but it didn’t slow for me.
I yanked my hand out at the last second, then banged a fist on the smooth, hard surface. “Wally!” Damn it, if she didn’t come back, if something happened to them, I was going to be in serious trouble. Stuck in a crypt, buried alive. How the hell did she think I was going to be able to go after them if she didn’t come back?
“Wally!” I yelled her name, the sound bouncing off the walls. Damn it. Again the urge to check on my crew was intense. But I couldn’t do anything unless I found a way out of here first.
The flashlight took that moment to flicker. “Are you kidding me?”
I picked it up from the floor, turned it off, and stashed it in my pack.
The darkness was total and complete, and I just closed my eyes as I slid to the floor.
“You better hurry up, Wally,” I muttered under my breath.
Minutes ticked by, hell, it could have been hours for all I could tell. That kind of darkness seemed to distort time, slowing it down and speeding it up. I slowed my breathing. Despite my worry, the sheer exhaustion overwhelmed me. This was as good a place as any for a nap, and it wasn’t long before I dozed off.
I had no idea how much time had passed when a thump of something heavy sent my hand toward one of the new knives before I was fully awake. I pulled the blade slowly so that no sound rasped off the steel or the sheath.
Opening my eyes, I fully expected there to be nothing to see but black nothingness. I stood and ran my hands over the crypt walls, feeling for something that could have made the thump, even though I knew that nothing was there.
The tips of my fingers slid over an indent, just the slightest of marks in the wall. I paused and let my fingers follow the flow of the lines. Circular, around and around to a central point that depressed under my finger.
Ooops.
A sudden low green glow that ran around the edges of one of the coffin recesses directly across from me was as bright as daylight to my eyes and about as unexpected.
I stood and took a step toward the opening. The green light traveled all along the edges, lighting up the space like a 3-D image. I put the tip of my knife against the part of the green line closest to me and the bottom of the recess sunk, revealing a black opening leading into the bowels of the graveyard. That had to be the thump I’d heard—the cement covering sliding open.
Wind blew up and out of the opening, ruffling my hair and bringing me a smell I couldn’t pinpoint. Acrid, sharp, a little pungent, a little coppery. I wrinkled my nose, wishing Pete was here with that nose of his to identify what I was smelling.
“Come.” The whispered moan of a word sent goose bumps up and down my spine. But no warning. Just that one word traveling on another gust of cool wind.
I stepped back. “Yeah, that’s a hard pass.”
“Come.” This time there was some serious demand in the voice, along with an oomph of power that crawled across my skin. I took another step back, which pretty much put me against the far wall. Not enough room between me and that freaky black hole, and the freakier voice that was getting all pushy.
“Nope, I’m good. You go on by yourself. I’m just going to sit here. Quietly. Doing nothing. Causing no trouble. Not touching anything else.” I pulled my second knife out as my back tingled like sharp little daggers were dancing up and down it.
The green glow intensified. “Come. Now.” Power lashed out around me, and my eyes fuzzed over for a moment. I wobbled but stayed standing, back pressed against the concrete wall for support.
“Still passing.” I shook my head and blinked rapidly to clear my vision. “You know, maybe try the next crypt over? See if they have any takers.”
The clatter of wood against cement, like sticks falling to the ground, came next.
Only it wasn’t wood. I blinked again, not fully sure of what I was seeing at first.
A hoof curled over the edge of the opening—black and solid and attached to a leg bone bare of any flesh—and a critter pulled itself halfway up. Surprise, surprise, it wasn’t a human skull that came out of the glowing darkness. A ram’s head popped up and over the edge, the curling horns sweeping backward, an upside-down Y burned into the front of its skull.