THE DOORS RATTLED with a hard THUD! that brought me out of my head. A series of wet slaps and metallic scratches followed the loud noise as the people on the other side tried to get through.
Daniel eyed the doors suspiciously. “Are those going to hold?”
The Man in Black shrugged. “We should continue on our way.”
The magick inside me tugged, drawing me forward to follow it. We were in a dim room with enough light to see, but not enough to see well. It was narrow and bare, almost a hallway. The walls were tiled in pale greenish limestone, the cracks between them filled with some kind of dark grout that showed black in the low light. Shapes and sigils twisted across the surface, finger-painted by lunatics. They worked around clumps of luminescent fungi spilling out of damp cracks in bulbous loam and fanned ridges like dully pulsating lamps spaced along our path. The floor was uneven under my feet, rolling slightly up and down. Thick moisture gathered in crevices and shallow pools, giving the air a musty, salty, fishy smell.
I walked carefully, knife out, ready to cut anything that might leap from the shadows.
The hallway twisted and turned, narrowing into a true tunnel. Openings appeared randomly, pitch-black gaps in the wall that blew cold, damp air across the path as we passed as if we were inside the lung of a sleeping creature. Each step increased the tension along my spine in a slowly tightening ratchet. The magick inside me pulsed harder and harder, faster and faster, like a second heartbeat that crashed and lurched inside my stomach as we moved down the hallway. A slow ache crawled across my temples.
It was maddening.
I looked over my shoulder, checking to make sure Daniel and the Man in Black were still behind me. They were, Daniel watching me closely, brows drawn together. He smiled as our gazes met, making his dimple appear. It made me feel better.
Then my eyes slid past him.
The Man in Black loomed behind him, filling the space, his Semitic features pulled into a tight sneer. Black eyes glittered in the caves of their sockets as he scowled at me. The coat fluttered around him, soaking into the gloom of the tunnel, barely a flicker to differentiate it from the shadows. The look on his face had turned predatory. Feral. It was the look a restless lion gives to a rabbit.
He winked at me.
I stumbled, my fingers tight on the handle of the knife, the ancient hardwood making me aware of each raised line that formed my Mark. Daniel’s hand shot out, latching onto my arm, jerking me short. The knife moved before I caught myself and stopped it.
He pointed past me. “Careful.”
Eyes following his finger, I turned and looked. The floor dropped away into a set of stairs that led down into the gloom.
“Thanks,” I said. “I could’ve broken my neck.”
“I wouldn’t want that. I don’t mind if you’re head over heels for me, but not literally.”
I smiled but didn’t answer. Turning back, I looked at the stairs. The magick inside me called.
Down.
I took a deep breath and a first step and headed down the damned stairs.