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"Then let's do it."
They moved quickly down the right-hand tunnel. The air became thick and chilled and slapped wetly across her skin. Water splashed into the silence, growing ever louder the closer they got to the source. The rough-hewn walls gave way to natural rock, and the beams supporting the roof became few and far between.
The tunnel opened into a cavern. Her footsteps seemed to echo, lending the cavern a feeling of vastness. Michael stopped, and his anger boiled through the link.
"What?” she said, even as she looked up.
And saw what he saw.
It wasn't water dripping.
It was blood.
Chapter Ten
Nikki could only stare, wondering if she'd stepped into some macabre version of the Twilight Zone . A woman hung from the ceiling. She was naked. Her torso was unmarked and her skin had a bluish tint and was covered with goose bumps. She was hanging upside down, her feet tied and somehow roped to the ceiling. Her arms were free, hanging limply past her ears. Her wrists bore several small cuts, but the blood dripped rather than pulsed down the woman's fingers. Some of the cuts had scabbed over, some hadn't, indicating, perhaps, that the wounds were being monitored and opened when necessary. The woman's eyes were wide open, but unfocused, almost dreamy-looking, and barely audible moans pushed past her bloodless lips.
They weren't moans of pain, but rather pleasure.
Nikki swallowed, forcing her gaze away from the obvious bliss on the woman's pale face and studied the thing covering half of her body. It was almost slug-like in form, and it stretched from breast to groin, where its body joined with the woman's. It was moving, squirming, in what looked like ecstasy, its actions matching the woman's pleasured groans.
"What is that ?” Though Nikki kept her voice soft, the words seemed to echo harshly around the cavern, again hinting it was larger than it looked.
The slug creature obviously wasn't bothered by the fact it was no longer alone. If its movements were anything to go by, the prospect of being watched seemed to excite it. She swallowed back bile and pulled her gaze away from the bizarre sight.
"I have no idea what that is,” Michael said, voice flat and cold. But there was something in the way he said it that made her look at him sharply. He shook his head almost imperceptibly and walked further into the cavern. She followed, trying to quell her desire to ask him what he knew. Trying to ignore the strange sounds of lust coming from above them. The woman's blood dripped into the middle of a star etched into the cavern's hard rock floor. While the blood glistened wetly, there were deeper, older patches that suggested similar sacrifices had been performed here.
Around the star was a protecting circle of stones. These were a burnished black, just like the ones that ringed the town, but they were much smaller.
Nikki put out a hand. Energy crackled through the air, a buzz that got steadily angrier as her fingers drew close to the unseen wall that protected the star. Flickers of blue cut through the air, lightning-like wisps that lashed out at her hand. It felt foul, somehow. Depraved, even. She clenched her fingers and dropped her hand back to her side. Michael looked up at the woman again. “I think we've found one source of Dunleavy's energy. Whether this sacrifice feeds his demented soul, his dark gods, or the circle you say rings this town, is anyone's guess."
She nodded, keeping her gaze on the stones rather than the happenings above them. “We can't leave her here."
"She won't live, even if we do manage to get her down."
"I don't care.” Facing death was one thing. Doing so while forced to endure the ministrations of something not even remotely human was another.
She walked past him, closer to the ring. The stones reacted, seeming to glow deep within their black hearts. Sparks crawled across her skin, an unpleasant sensation that made the tiny hairs over her body stand on end. Rubbing her arms, she swept her gaze around the circle, trying to remember everything Camille and Seline had told her.
There was always a key. Always one stone that could unlock or destroy. All she had to do was find that stone. Not easy to do when they all looked the damn same.
Her gaze came to rest on the stone on the north edge of the circle. It was a little smaller, a little less obvious, than the rest.
She walked around to it. There could be no finesse about this. She didn't know enough about magic to dismantle the power of the stones. And brute force certainly couldn't dismantle a circle of this size any more than it could a circle the size of the one that ringed the town. But she'd bet this circle was set up to protect the star and its sacrifice against someone who knew something about the ways of magic, not someone armed with little more than a silver knife.
Silver was the one thing immune to magic. The only thing that could cut through a magic barrier such as this with the ease of a knife through butter.
She flicked the knife into her palm and knelt, studying the stone. Wisps of blue arced through the air, their foul energy scorching her forehead.
"Do you know what you're doing?” Michael asked, from the other side of the circle. She met his gaze. “You'd better hope so."
The thing above them let loose a strange sort of squeal. Nikki's gaze jerked upwards. The slug had disengaged itself and was slithering around the woman's legs, heading for the ceiling. Nikki hefted her knife, in half a mind to throw it, but at that moment, the thing reached the roof and disappeared into a fissure.
"I'd take that as a sign,” Michael commented blandly.
"Maybe it's just had enough sex, and the retreat is its version of rolling over and going to sleep." A smile tugged the corners of his mouth. “I still prefer that you don't do this."
"You know of any other way to get that woman down?"
