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I wiped my hands on my pants. “Okay.” I took even, measured steps, half expecting the vampires to charge as I walked around the altar.
As I made it closer to the door on the other side of the room, I started to breathe a little easier. If there was a booby trap, we hadn’t set it off yet. We had a ways to go before getting out of here, but maybe Lucas and I didn’t meet the mages’ criteria for enemies.
Lucas had to help me push the carved wooden doors open. They weighed a ton, and once they got moving, there was no stopping them. I winced as they slammed into the walls, and then glanced back at the room, but as far as I could tell, none of the vampires had moved.
I sent Lucas a wide-eyed look, but he just shrugged. “Seems okay,” he said.
It did seem okay. So far, so good. I focused on moving forward, even when all instincts told me to turn and run. I didn’t like vampires—not one bit—and the smell was only getting worse.
I glanced over at Lucas and he gave me a small nod as we started walking down the hallway.
“Any clue what you’re looking for?” Lucas whispered to me.
“Not really,” I whispered back. “As least I’m not sure. I figure whatever I need will glow a lot. Or something.”
The hallway was lined with rows of vampires two and three deep. All frozen.
“How did the white mages capture so many of them? There’s got to be hundreds,” I said. Under other circumstances, I might’ve been able to analyze the magic, but even if I wasn’t totally exhausted, I had no intention of casting a thing in here unless the worst happened.
“I don’t know. The magic that’s holding them must be strong. I wonder if we could replicate that.” He paused. “Although, why keep them around when we can kill them and be rid of them for good?”
No kidding. “Right? They’re not exactly the type I’d want guarding my house. They’d just as soon eat me as protect me.”
“Plus, the smell is horrible.”
“It’s bad for me. Must be even worse for you.”
He grunted. “Nearly unbearable.”
Poor guy. We kept moving forward, at a steady even pace. I held my hands out, ready to cast a protection ward just in case we triggered some vampire release lever.
The hallway ended in a set of downward stairs. Crystals—the same kind from the mines—lit along the stairwell as it twisted down. I was slightly dizzy by the time we reached the bottom. There was another long hallway leading back the other direction. At the end was another set of huge doors. Whatever was behind those doors was directly underneath the altar upstairs.
Things of extreme importance were typically placed under altars—for protection but also because whatever magic was performed on the altar would drift down and imbue the object with residual magic. The longer the object rested under the altar, the stronger it got.
That told me that what I wanted had to be behind those doors.
The smell of dirt and dust was stronger here, but there were no vampires stationed along the hall. Instead there were bones—thousands of them—piled to the ceiling. All of them gave off a slight glow.
They were separated by bone type. The little ones by the base of the stairwell had to be toes. At the end, surrounding the doorway, were skulls.
I rolled my shoulders to ease the tension in them. It was probably weird, but I felt a little more relaxed around the bones. They wouldn’t suddenly start moving and trying eat me. At least, I didn’t think they would.
I glanced back at Lucas. “This is a crypt.”
“Yes. It used to be pretty typical for the temples and churches in the area.”
This could actually be perfect. “One of my cousin’s books said that the bones of the ancients could be used in defense against demons. This could be exactly what we’re looking for.”
“So, we can just grab some of these and get out of here? Great. Let’s do it.” He moved to grab the closest fibula, but I managed to stop him before he touched it.
“Wait. It can’t be just any ancient. It has to be someone really holy. A saint.” I licked my lips as I took in the bones. “They should be glowing more.”
“I thought all of these mages were saints.”
“I guess not. To be sainted, the body would have to preserved. There would still be flesh on the bones. Dried flesh, but still.” I looked at the bones assembled into neat, categorized piles. “These all are dried bones. No flesh. They wouldn’t have taken them apart if they were saints.”
Lucas made a face. “Sometimes you witches are disturbing.”
