I waved at everyone before stepping into the mine’s entrance. Davina was at my right, Seiji just ahead.
“Please stay close,” he advised as he entered the inky depths of the mine. “I do have an energy shield I can erect at a moment’s notice. It hopefully will work against this monster.”
Aye, hopefully was the key word there. Still, I’d stick close. To guard him, if nothing else.
“In movies it’s always damp and dripping when you go this far underground,” Seiji observed.
“And has a ritual sacrifice at the end,” I agreed.
Davina muttered, “We’re in too dry a land for that. I thought we’d see lots of bones?”
Brandon had passed along what he’d heard this morning, about the tragic accident that had shut the mine down. Likely where her thought came from. “Anyone they couldn’t rescue likely is still trapped behind stone.”
“Ah. Good point.”
“Or they’ve been eaten.” Seiji cast a glance over his shoulder at me. “I know part of your argument for why this isn’t a living beast is there not being any scat. No bones of victims. But it’s very possible we haven’t gone down deep enough to find its lair.”
Deeper? “Should we write on the walls at some point? ‘The ground shakes…drums…drums in the deep. We can’t get out. They are coming.’”
Seiji cracked up and turned, bumping knuckles with me. “Lord of the Rings, nice.”
I loved that he knew the quote. He was a nerd like myself, then? Oh, that was brill, we’d have lots of fun conversations. Made him even more fun to date.
Davina was muttering again. “I’m two thoughts away from pissing myself and these two are over here cracking jokes. Did you decide to share the brain cell this morning?”
“Now, now, Davi, you know we’d only write on the wallsafterwe killed the beastie.”
She rolled her eyes expressively, her head rolling with them. “Obviously.”
I cackled again, pleased my teasing hit the mark.
Also, it was a sign of how much a professional Seiji was that he could crack jokes with me while on a hunt. He’d clearly done this before and had nerves of steel. Oh, he made for a fine hunting partner, he did.
We kept going deeper. We weren’t too deep just yet, only about halfway to the point we’d stopped at before. The tunnels were still relatively wide at this juncture, big enough for them to have rolling carts in, although I had to stoop a bit to keep my head from hitting anything protruding. We’d stopped where we had before because the tunnels got very short, and narrow, and frankly too small to fight in.
I was more than a little worried about battling anything down here. It was why I had my dirks. I didn’t think I’d have enough room to wield a claymore.
Couldn’t say I was too chuffed.
We kept walking.
There was this feeling when you were underground, as if you felt the weight of the earth above your head. You could feel how deep you’d gone, the pressure coming against you from all sides. It was enough to make a claustrophobic person scream and runback to the surface. I wasn’t the least bit claustrophobic but still felt uneasy. Those old-time miners had nerves of steel. They must have had to work here day after day.
Still no dampness, not really, but the air grew heavier, staler, and I started wishing for some sort of wind or breeze, but of course nothing could penetrate down this deep.
We hit the cave-in that had blocked our path before, which meant it was now time to make a decision. There were tunnels to the left or right and both looked identical.
“Flip a coin?” Davina suggested, also looking between the two.
“No,” Seiji murmured, staring hard toward the left. “It’s that way.”
A heavy pause, and then I asked the question I wasn’t sure I wanted an answer to. “Leannan, you seeing something?”
“Oh, I see lots of things.” Seiji sank to his haunches and stared intently at something, some patch of stone. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”
“Deliver us,” Davina sighed in a prayer. “All right, Seiji, go on.”
“So it’s not a demon.”
