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Animal muskiness.
Something else was down here. I stopped, drawing in a deep breath, trying to place the aroma. It was sharp and distinct, and felt old in a way I couldn't even begin to explain. And it wasn't anything I'd ever come across.
There's something here.
What?
I don't know. It smells animal, but different, if that makes sense.
Could be any manner of demon.
Well, gee, that's comforting.
Amusement drifted down the telepathic line. There's only one way you're going to know what it is.
Says the man who's safe on the other side of the door.
The amusement died. If I could swap places, I would.
I know. I shuffled on. The slope continued its gentle downward arc, and the odd assortment of smells neither increased nor decreased. After a minute or so, the tunnel began to widen, and I was able to stand.
I dusted the dirt from my hands and knees, then looked around. The room was small and on the square side of round, and, like the tunnel, shored up by wood. There didn't appear to be anything hiding in corner shadows, despite the animallike odors haunting the air.
Talk to me, Riley.
I've reached the cellar. I took a step, and the sound echoed on the wooden floor. A chill scampered across my skin, though I wasn't entirely sure why. My gaze caught a white candle sitting in an alcove to my left, and beside it sat a box of matches. I mentioned them to Quinn, and added, Is it safe to light?
Riley, you're a dhampire with infrared sight. You don't need candlelight.
It's a psychological thing. I thinly this place would feel better with a little regular light.
Do it, then.
I placed one of the bottles near the wall, out of the way, then tucked the other under my arm and grabbed the handily placed box of matches to light the wick. Yellow light flared softly across the darkness, lending weight to the corner shadows but somehow offsetting the odd chill.
There doesn't appear to be anything here.
Check the floor.
I glanced down. Up until now, part of me had been hoping that Quinn was wrong, that magic wouldn't play a part of this whole setup. But, as usual, my hopes were dashed.
There's wax remains of five blacky candles standing at each of the points of a pentagram that appears drawn onto the floorboards by ash of something like that. Around this, we have fist-sized blacky stones forming a circle.
The black stones are warding stones. They're stronger than regular protection circles, but perform the same basic functions.
I studied the nearest stones for a minute, noting the way the black surface seemed to swallow rather than reflect the candlelight. Will the holy water or salt have any effect on them?
On them? No. And depending on the type of spell used, they may even prevent you from putrefying the pentagram and making it unusable.
How?
They form a physical barrier. Place your hand near the stones to see what I mean - but be careful.
I stepped closer to the nearest two stones and raised a hand. Electricity buzzed across my fingertips like little angry flies. As I got closer, mini flickers of red lashed the air, like lightning about to strike. I stopped my hand a whisker away from the barrier, watching the almost angry light show, letting the energy of it flow across my skin. It felt foul. Evil, even.
Not surprising given the pentagram it protected was being used to call creatures from the dimension of hell itself.
I dropped my hand, shaking it a little to get some warmth back into my fingers and to lose the feel of the power. As I stepped back, something stirred in the shadow-filled corner to my right and the odd mustiness sharpened abruptly.
