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Smoky let out a low growl but said nothing.
I stared at him. “Come on, you know Camille had to tell me.”
With a wry grin, Roz said, “She has you there.”
Smoky led Camille and Morio back away from the archway.
“If there’s trouble,” Camille said, “scream—shout—do whatever you have to in order to let us know. If you disappear and we don’t see you within a few moments, I’m coming in.”
“You are not—” Smoky started, but she brushed away his protests.
“Of course I am, and you can’t stop me.” She ran back over to me and leaned up on tiptoe to kiss my cheek. “Stay safe, Kitten. I love you. Don’t get yourself into trouble.”
As she returned to the dragon’s side, I sucked in a deep lungful of air and let it out slowly, counting from twenty to one to calm the jitters that had taken up residence in my stomach.
“Are we ready to do this?” I asked.
Roz and Zach nodded. Roz, Zach, and I linked arms and then stepped through the arch leading into the giant cavern.
CHAPTER 16
A crackle warned me that we were headed into an energy field, and then, without fuss or muss, we were through. It was totally different than the portals to OW. I whirled and, much to my relief, saw Camille and Smoky standing there, looking anxious. Morio raised his hand to wave.
I waved back. “Can you still see me?”
Camille laughed. “Yes, thank the gods. We’re coming through.” They stepped through the archway, and I heard a tiny sizzle of sparks, but nothing untoward happened, and within a few seconds, we were standing together again.
The cavern was huge. My guess was that we were standing a step or two to the left of Earthside’s realm—not far enough to totally separate us from our mother’s home, but far enough to exist in its own little niche. Even with my keen vision, it was difficult to see the other side of the cave. The murky bottom of the ravine was swathed in a mist too deep to tell how far down it went.
The air here was cooler, more humid than the air in the tunnels, and I noticed the drop in temperature even through my jacket. I borrowed Roz’s flashlight and walked over to one of the cavern walls, where I shone the light against the rock. It was wet, slick with water that trickled drop by drop down the sides, and covered with patches of the viro-mortis slime. This time the slime had a purplish tint, and I cautiously avoided getting anywhere near the carnivorous ectoplasm.
“I think we’re getting closer. If the spirit seal is protected by ghosts or revenants or whatever, there are probably a lot of them or they’re very powerful, because this slime is everywhere. I’m not looking forward to—” A noise stopped me in midsentence.
I stepped away from the wall, and we all listened, on our guard, waiting. After a nerve-racking second, Menolly and Vanzir reappeared from around a corner to our left.
With a short sigh, I let out my breath and relaxed. “Thank heavens. We were just about to come look for you. What did you find?”
Menolly’s eyes were wide and glowing red. “We found the chamber with the spirit seal, but it’s heavily guarded. There’s one shade. Big-time dangerous. But before we can even get to him, we have to wade through at least half a dozen wights.”
Wights. Oh shit. Wights were nasty brutes. One foot in the Netherworld, one foot in the grave, they were truly members of the walking dead. Even vampires gave them a wide berth, because wights were so vicious. They were more like animals than intelligent beings, cunning and voracious in their appetite for flesh and spirit. Unlike shades, which devoured the spirit, or zombies, which ate only the flesh, wights fed off both.
They sucked the spirit out of the very bones and muscle as they consumed their dinner, usually while their victim was still alive. There were wights in Otherworld, usually in the dark volcanic ranges of the Southern Wastes and well north of the towering Nebelvuori Mountains, but they seldom ever came near the populated areas, usually feeding off animals and the scant handful of travelers venturing into the mountain passes.
Camille cleared her throat. “Well, do we know what kills a wight?”
“Dragon’s breath,” Smoky grumbled. “But unless the chamber is as big as this one, I won’t be able to transform, and I doubt they’ll come out and play, even if we ask them nicely.”>Whatever this was, it didn’t smell like any old normal, run-of-the-mill mold. Nope, this was nasty. This was . . . this was . . . sour and fetid and reminded me of the venidemons’ lair, though not quite so bad.
“Man, that’s rancid,” Zach whispered in my ear. “What the hell is it?”
“I dunno, but I’m not looking forward to finding out.” A pebble under my foot set me off balance, and I reached out to balance myself against the wall. As my fingers touched the rock, they met with the ickiest, slimiest mess I’d ever felt. It felt like I’d plunged my hand into a melted banana slug or a pile of snot.
“Gross, gross, gross.” I managed to lower my voice before I sent my dismay echoing down the hallway. I pulled my hand back and frantically tried to assess whether I’d covered it with something dangerous or just nasty.
Zach leaned in as Roz pulled a tiny, pen-sized flashlight out of his pocket and aimed the dim beam at my fingers. They were covered with what looked like some oozing ichor from an old fifties SF flick, the kind of stuff that comes in a can that parents never, ever want to buy their kids because they know it will either end up in the kids’ stomachs or—worse yet—their hair.
Only this stuff smelled worse than skunk juice. Worse than my litter box when I forgot to clean it for a few days. Worse than . . . What the—?
I stopped thinking about how it smelled because the slime started to move on my hand. It began to stretch itself out in a fine film. As it wrapped around my fingers and started to slither down my palm like some freak-ass living glove, I let out a little screech.
