Dangerous Creatures (Book 3, Pure Series) (42 page)

              The shadows in the tiny cave room grew long, and Sebastian's tall thin form reappeared before me. He kneeled down beside me and stared at me steadily, and even though I didn't want to, I felt compelled to look at him. As I looked into his eyes, I felt my own vision grow hazy.

              I slipped into unconsciousness, and when I awoke, I was once again lying on the stone slab out in the main chamber, with the Hunter's wife beside me and the wide shaft that led up to the surface above me. As far as I could tell, I hadn't been out for very long—it had been just long enough for me to be unchained from the rock and then re-chained to the stone stab without my seeing how it had been done.

              I gave my chains an experimental rattle. I was bound just as tightly as I had been in the other room.

              I looked around the chamber and saw that the Hunter was sitting with his head bowed as he had done the day before. Sebastian and Sachiko were nowhere to be seen—but I knew that that didn't mean that they weren't close by.

              I glanced over at the Hunter's wife, who was once again staring at me with her beautiful, sightless eyes. Her snowy skirt still fell over the stone slab where she lay, and her slender arm still extended over her head with her forefinger pointing outward, as though she were pointing the way to eternity.

              I knew she hadn't moved in centuries, and I thought it was strange that she should have fallen that way at her death—it seemed a very unusual position for someone who had died of a vampire attack. I wondered what she could have been pointing to.

              I glanced over my head. From where I was lying, I could see both of us reflected in the diamond-shaped mirror in the opposite wall. It looked as if the Hunter's wife were pointing at our reflection.

              The position was so purposeful from this angle that it seemed unlikely that it was an accident. I began to wonder then, if the Hunter's wife had truly been dead when she'd been brought to this place. Perhaps a tiny spark of life had remained to her—perhaps there had been just enough for her to make one last effort to save her husband.

              Terrance had said that the Hunter had slipped his chains at the last moment and had escaped the full force of the weapon.

              Maybe the Hunter's wife had showed him how.

              I glanced over at the Hunter himself, and he was still sitting with his head bowed just as he had been a few moments before. He couldn't read my mind, of course, but I was sure he could hear that my heart rate had sped up—and that would surely give him a hint that I was up to something. But if he was aware of my agitation, he gave no sign of it.

              I tried to slow my heart and calm my breathing, and as calmly and casually as I could, I looked over my head again at the mirror on the opposite wall. I stared at the reflection of the two of us in the mirror, and I strained my eyes to see something significant.

              But I couldn't see anything in the mirror's reflection except for the two of us, and when I looked past my feet to the other side of the room, all I could see was another intricately carved wall with another diamond-shaped mirror set into it. I imagined that if I were standing, the two mirrors would reflect each other. But I couldn't see anything significant in that aside from the fact that the Sìdh seemed to like mirrors. There were even tiny mirrors on the cuffs of the chains that bound me.

              I quickly glanced down at the cuffs that covered my wrists. As I had noticed before, on the back of each cuff, just under the back of my hand, was a small, reflective diamond shape.

              I glanced back overhead. What if the Hunter's wife hadn't been pointing to the reflection in the mirror? What if she'd been pointing to the mirror itself?

              I twisted my hands, trying to move the cuffs so that my fingers could reach the small diamonds on the back. But no matter how I twisted and turned, I couldn't move the cuffs—they stuck fast to the back of my wrists.

              I remembered now what Sebastian had said—the key was in a place I couldn't reach. And he was right—the key was the tiny mirrors, and there was no way I could reach them without one of my hands being free. And both of my hands were held in the grip of an unbreakable metal.

              Yet, the Hunter had found a way to free himself without breaking the chains.

              I remembered now the groove that I had caught my jacket in—it had been cut into the rock and repaired. I looked for the groove now and found it just beyond my reach. The groove had been made by someone with longer arms than mine who had also worn these chains.

              I realized then that the Hunter hadn't broken the chains—he'd broken the rock. He'd broken the rock just enough to allow him to reach over to the other side, use the diamond key, and free his other captured wrist. Then it had been a simple matter to free himself completely.

              Breaking the rock must have taken enormous strength, and though the deep groove he'd created was still there, it was too far away for me to be able to use it.

              In my excitement, I very nearly called out for Sachiko, but I stopped myself just in time. The Hunter was too close, and he would surely stop her. I had to wait until he was distracted.

              The shadows in the cave chamber continued to grow, and the glow around the Hunter's wife grew brighter as the light from the shaft overhead faded. Far too soon, the light that filtered into the cave burned a dull red and then began to deepen into darkness.

              Sunset was upon us.

              Sebastian seemed to materialize out of the shadows, and I suddenly saw him standing just beyond the pool that lapped against the rocky island on which I was chained. And for just a moment, I thought I saw Sachiko's bright eye flash behind him in the darkness.

              But the Hunter himself did not move, and I wondered what he was waiting for—it was sunset on Walpurgis Night.

              The last rays of the sun soon died away, leaving us in darkness except for the glow around the Hunter's wife.

              And still the Hunter did not move.

              The only sound I could hear in the chamber was the water lapping against the rock. And then I began to hear another sound.

              It was soft at first, indistinct and formless—it might have been the sighing of the wind. And then it grew louder—I could hear voices whispering in the cave, but I couldn't hear the words—and I couldn't tell where the whispering was coming from. I glanced over at the Hunter, but he still hadn't moved, and Sebastian was still standing on the other side of the pool. Neither one of them was making any sound.

              The whispering continued, and soon more voices joined in. The whispering grew and grew until it seemed to fill the entire chamber. Then, as quickly as it had come, the whispering stopped, and the cave was silent once more.

              A few more moments passed, and then the carvings on the wall began to glow softly—so softly that I wasn't entirely sure that my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. But then the glow in the carvings began to intensify—it looked like little silver lights shining out from behind the wall. As I watched, startled, the pale lights that emanated from the carvings began to slip out from the wall into the chamber itself.

              Soon the cave was full of slender, silver wisps of light that hung in the air all around us. It was then that the Hunter looked up.

              He stood and held one heavy hand up to the air, and several of the tiny lights moved toward him. At the same time, I heard a noise coming from the tunnel that led out of the cave.

              The Hunter didn't seem to have heard the sound—he continued to stare at the lights and walked closer to them until there was a crowd of them around him. But Sebastian turned toward the sound and disappeared into the tunnel.

              I heard another sound then, this time coming from the shaft above me. As I glanced up, I thought I saw a shadow move across the patch of stars above me.

              There was more whispering then, and I looked over to see the Hunter speaking softly to the lights. One of the lights detached itself from the others and wound itself delicately around his large hand. As I watched, the Hunter's face changed, and a look of rapture settled over his rough features.

              With the light wrapped around his hand, he began to walk toward me. He jumped over the water and onto the rocky island where I lay with an unexpected lightness, and as he moved toward me, I could see why Sachiko hadn't been able to get to the Star of Morning—it was tied to the Hunter's side.

              As the Hunter reached the middle of the island, the silver light slipped off his hand and went to hover over his wife, twisting and turning gently in the air above her.

              The Hunter came to stand beside me then, and he looked down at me with an expression that was not unkind.

              "Her name," he said, "was Sofya."

              Then he reached for the emerald that hung around his neck.

              "Sachiko!" I screamed. "The key to the chains is in the diamond on the cuff! Sachiko, touch the diamond!"

              But it wasn't Sachiko who answered me.

              "I'm sorry, Katie," I heard a voice say.

              I turned to see Terrance lying on the cave floor just beyond the pool of water. There was a small box with two buttons in his hand, and suddenly I understood the significance of the half-empty box I had seen back at his hideout—Terrance had rigged the entire cave with C-4.

              He pressed one of the buttons on the box, and I heard a roar tear through the cave chamber. An explosion shook the entire cave, and the Hunter was knocked off his feet. Rubble rained down from above, and I turned my head, trying to protect my eyes.

              A second explosion rocked the cave, and the slab I was lying on fell on its side, throwing me to the hard stone floor. I tried to get up through all the shaking, but my chains held fast to the stone slab.

              There was yet another explosion, and a piece of the ceiling broke off and landed across my stone slab, hemming me in.

              After that, there was silence.

              Suddenly, the heavy stone that lay across me was lifted off me, and I could see the Hunter raising the big slab of ceiling high and then throwing it to the side.

              He then reached down and easily righted the slab I was chained to, and soon I was back in my former position. Neither my stone slab, nor my chains had been damaged.

              The air around me was full of dust and debris, but as far as I could see, the cave chamber was largely intact. Sections of the ceiling and parts of the carved walls had fallen in, but the island of rock and its pool—and the part of the ceiling that supported the shaft—were undamaged. And the Hunter's wife still stared straight ahead, completely untouched, and the silver lights still hung suspended in the air of the chamber, shining softly.

              I looked over to the spot where I had last seen Terrance, and it was now completely covered in rubble. Terrance had been buried.

              The Hunter, seemingly unruffled, resumed his place at my side, and gently brushed the hair from my eyes. Then he reached for the emerald around his neck and took it off. He held it over my heart and began to whisper something I couldn't quite hear.

              The silver light that hung in the air over the Hunter's wife began to wind gracefully once more, and I felt a strange sensation come over me. Everything in my body seemed to freeze, and my breathing slowed involuntarily.

              I felt strangely light-headed then, and I seemed to feel myself floating.

              Suddenly, there was a rush of air, and something hurtled past me. I heard the Hunter give a strangled cry, and I seemed to come back to myself. I looked up to see the Hunter standing with his hands empty—someone had snatched the emerald away from him.

              In the next instant, the Hunter blurred and vanished from my side.

              As soon as he had disappeared, someone sprang down the shaft and landed on the rocky island between me and the Hunter's wife.

              "William!" I cried. "William, you're alive!"

              He hurried over to me and pressed on the mirrored spots on the cuffs at my wrists. They sprang open at a touch.

              "Sachiko's got the emerald," William said. "She'll lead him on a chase. It should be long enough for us to get you out of here."

              "The Hunter's got the Star of Morning," I said as I jumped off the stone slab. "This whole cave is a trap, and the sword is the key."

              I looked over the stone floor and spotted a rectangular slot lined with mirrors between the two stone slabs.

              "The sword goes in here," I said. "We have to get the Hunter up onto this island and insert the key. That will turn on the trap and start the weapon. The Hunter will be incinerated. He got free the first time this trap was triggered. We can't let that happen again."