I hesitated, but really, short of dragging her free of her circle – not something I was convinced I could do given the strength of the barrier she’d raised – I had no other option but to proceed.
I dropped to my hands and knees, took a deep breath that didn’t do a whole lot to bolster my courage, and went in.
Nothing jumped out at me.
I rose and drew Amaya. Light flared down her sides, shifting the shadows and gleaming off the metal stair rails. I walked over and peered down. All I could see was deeper shadows.
Something, Amaya said.
I frowned. Meaning what? That there’s something or someone waiting down there for us?
Magic, she said. Some kind.
Great. Not.
I briefly thought about retreating, but that really wasn’t an option. Not if I wanted to find the keys and save Mirri. Ilianna might yet be able to unravel the cord, but I wasn’t about to bet Mirri’s life on it. I gripped Amaya a little tighter and cautiously headed down. My footsteps echoed on the metal, and the sound reverberated across the thick silence. I bit my lip, my nerves crawling, as each step took me farther into the bowels of the earth and whatever it was Amaya had sensed.
My foot had barely touched the bottom step when I heard it. A low rumbly sound that had the hair on the back of my neck rising.
I paused, listening. The sound was not repeated, but something definitely was down here.
Amaya?
Magic ahead.
Maybe it was, but magic didn’t make low rumbly noises. Not any sort of magic I knew, anyway. I raised Amaya and let her light fan out across the shadows. The room was long and cavernous but it wasn’t a cavern, rather an actual, concrete-lined storeroom that was filled to the brim with dusty, somewhat rusty metal shelving. Meaning it, like the stairs, was part of the building rather than something our sorcerers had created. I guess that made sense; why build something when it was easier to protect what was already here?
But did the fact the shelves all appeared empty mean there was nothing here to find?
Something, Amaya repeated. Magic. Life.
What sort of life. Demon?
No. Living.
Which really didn’t clarify things. I bit my lip, then stepped onto the concrete.
And found more of that trouble Azriel had mentioned cannoning straight at me.
Chapter 10
The creature came out of nowhere, a skinny mass of filthy matted hair and gleaming canines. I raised Amaya instinctively, realized what was actually attacking us, and flipped my sword around midswing. The hilt smashed across the dog’s head and sent him flying. He hit the left wall and slithered down to the floor. He didn’t move.
I took a deep, somewhat quivery breath and cautiously walked over. The dog’s eyes were closed, and there was a slight trickle of blood coming from a wound just above its right eye. Thankfully he was still breathing. Beside the fact I didn’t want any more blood on my hands than necessary, the last thing I wanted was to kill a dog that was only doing what it had been trained to do. Although given the condition the poor mutt was in, maybe killing him would have been a kindness. He was literally skin, bone, and matted brown hair. Obviously, he wasn’t fed all that often. Maybe that was what the shifter had come here to do. Or maybe they didn’t bother, and simply got a new guard dog whenever the old one died. Lauren seemed the type to do something like that – although maybe that was just my hatred of her showing.
I turned, my gaze skimming the room. There didn’t seem to be anything in this room beyond shadows and the shelving.
Where’s the magic, Amaya?
Back.
Which I couldn’t see. I walked on carefully, gaze constantly moving and my sword held at the ready. Nothing else jumped out at us. Eventually, we neared the rear wall. It looked solid and I had no sense of magic of any kind.
Is, Amaya said. Left.
I raised a hand and skimmed it along the wall. After several seconds, energy skittered across my fingertips. Its feel was dark, and oddly dirty. I resisted the urge to jerk my hand away from its touch and kept on walking, trying to discover the full extent. The patch of magic was about six feet high and four feet wide. If it wasn’t a door, I’d eat my hat. If I’d been wearing a hat, that is.
The last time we’d discovered a concealed door had been in the pit Jak and I had fallen into when we’d first raided this warehouse. Maybe this entrance led into the same tunnels as that one had, or maybe it led to somewhere else entirely. The only way I was going to find the answer was to discover another way to open it.