Dracula: Hearts of Fire (Dracula Heart's) (31 page)

    “I think it’s you,” said the tree.

    “Oh.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

   
C
ONSTERNATION WAS PAINTED ON JENNY’S CUTE FACE.
She
was being overrun by snakes
, having her back to the wall she had run out of available space in which to retreat
.
She could hear water dripping somewhere, why her senses would pick up on that when she was in such peril was beyond her. One of the king cobra’s struck the sole of her right foot and replicated. Because her knowledge of spell
s was limited, and striking the serpents
only created more of them
, worsening the situation, she really didn’t know what to do.
Her heart was racing and her right hand was shaking slightly.
Each narrowly missed strike by the snakes was starting to add up.
What if the wizard Caius was evil? But why would her father
have sent he
r to him unless he hadn’t known. He could have changed over the centuries.
It was all a guessing game at this point.

    It was a peculiar thing at the moment, but she missed her mother. She missed her laugh and her kind words. Jenny wanted to be home on the comfort on her living room sofa with her mother singing in the kitchen. She missed her hugs even though at times she pretended that she
didn’t want them. It was so important to enjoy life because one never knew when they were going to face deadly snakes.

    “Get away!” She attempted to enter their minds in order to control them but to her dismay discovered that they didn’t have any.
They weren’t life forms in any true sense.
It was realized that they were not genuine snakes, but a product of magic, however that didn’t make
them any less dangerous. She
thought that it
might actually make
them more dangerous
, a thing that acted w
ith no mind or instincts, perhaps
controlled by an unknow
n entity. Jenny could detect
real poison in them
and the smell of it was
unpleasant
.

   
Because t
he girl wizard had limited life experience and no form
al training in the art of magic, b
attling a vampire was one thing, but going up against a high-level wizard that may have had centuries to perfect his craft was something else.
It was unfair is what it was but a myriad of things in life were unfair.
She had no options that she could see. No way to jump over them and run; they appeared to b
e as fast as she was
.
If she died here her m
other would want to kill her father
, of that she was certain.

    Jenny commenced to go through the motions of making another ball of energy
. The proximity of the walls might
do as much damage to her as it would the snakes.
She had no way of knowing how the
spell would react
and that worried
her. What if she
accidentally turn herself into a snake, although that certainly seemed improbable, she was aware of Zacharia’s situation, which she would have thought was impossible.
There was of course another risk; if it didn’t kill them it might actually
fill the cave with ten thousand cobras?
Problem was that she could think of no other possible solution. Jenny would rather face three normal vampires at once than battle magical snakes.

    “Ah!” she screamed as one of the cobras struck the
end of her sleeve. It couldn’t have been any closer. With the ball of energy formed she launched it against the far wall, which wasn’t very far at all. The blinding light and concussion rendered Jenny unconscious
, and continued to echo as she lay motionless
. The smell of sulphur and saltwater saturated the air.
After several seconds Jenny stirred, opening her pretty green eyes
; her vision was blurry and shaky.
She was also a little dizzy.
She had been too close to the energy
ball
.
When she managed to focus she saw that all the snakes were gone except one, and it was huge. It was fifty feet long and the girth of a large tree. As soon as she stood it launched itself at her, and the power of it striking the wall took a chunk out of it
, and then another chunk
. She considered forming another ball of energy but th
en dismissed it; she certainly didn’t want
it to be any bigger
.

    The snakes tongue was huge and threatening. Jenny could see that it was preparing to strike once again. She grabbed her sword and cut its belly open; it didn’t heal and it didn’t replicate. Things were looking up and she could not afford to give it time to recover. The anger on its face looked
like a human emotion
, a combination of pain and disgust
. Jenny
jumped up and cut its head off and she watched as it fell lifeless. It turned to dust as if sand had been released from inside a bag
, with only its outer skin remaining
.

   
After kicking at the remains of the snake, t
he 12-year-old went over to the chest and turned the gol
d key in the lock opening it
. It was empty except for a single coc
kroach that ran around inside
. She thought the key was heavier than it should have been; it looked as though it could have been made of solid gold and so she pocketed it.
If nothing else it would be a nice keepsake.
She made her way to the door on the left a
nd discovered just past it
a square hole in the floor. There was no other way to go and so she considered jumping down, but it was so dark in there. She couldn’t tell if she would drop ten feet or a hundred.

    Jenny dropped down and landed safely. She then heard rock grinding on solid rock as the ceiling appeared to
be
get
ting
further away from her. She then
realized that the floor was actually descending. There was a flicker of light in the distance, a torch burning in a hollow in the wall. She ended up facing a puzzle etched into the wall, and it was so familiar. Of course, it was from one of her dreams. Nine squares as in her dream. She deduced that three in a row would probably open a door, but what would happen if she pressed the wrong three? She didn’t think it would be anything good. In her dream she had pressed the top right square, and so she pressed it
, but that gave her three separate ways to go
.

    Jenny then felt stupid. She had not examined the chamber for potential clues.
It was important to get it right the first time because there might not be a second. It was difficult for her to see in the darkness and then it wasn’t. Her eyes adjusted and she could see as if the sun had come up.
Jenny
could now see that the walls and the ceiling were full of holes. Press the wrong combination and she imagined that arrows or something magical would be released by the thousands
, and there would be no way to avoid them, even with her exceptional spee
d. It was a clever device
.
Hieroglyphics on the ceiling but nothing that she could make out; he
r
instincts told her that it was simply a diversion. If the ceiling was a diversion then
the opposite would be
the floor? Jenny looked down and it took her a minute or two to realize that she was standing on nine hu
ge blocks just like the puzzle, and the three on the right that were parallel were a bit darker than the rest. Was it the solution? She thought it must be.
It felt a little like being trapped inside a video game but with no way to start over.

    “I hope this is it.” She pressed the stones into the wall accordingly.
When she pressed the
third one
a huge slab of granite fell in with a huge crash, displacing dust and loudly echoing off the
walls, permitting her entry into the next chamber.
The sound of it falling into the next chamber had been deafening and had made her jump.

    “What the heck is going on in here?
If this was a movie it would be called The Temple of Dust.
”

    Two large gentlemen dressed in Egyptian garb, both wearing pleated see-through linen robes were arguing. They both wore colorful beads around their necks.
Wosret and Hebe
ny pushed
one another.
It was a heated argument with angry faces.

    “I told you she would make it this far!” Wosret pushed Hebeny hard, almost knocking him over
.

    “Well, she won’t make it past this one!” said Hebeny.

    “Yes she will!”

    “No she won’t!”

    “I told you she would make it this far!” Worset pushed Hebeny hard, almost knocking him over.

    “What the?”

    It was then that Jenny realized that the two gentlemen weren’t real; they were on a magical loop. She walked up to them and her hand went right through Worset. Even from a foot away they looked so real, amazing.  She ignored the two Egyptians and explored the room,
but the
problem was there wasn’t much to see.
It was a
huge chamber made of white granite
with nothing in it
. She felt around the base
of the wall for another hint
but didn’t find anything. The
first few times the magical entities went through their so-called act it was interesting. Then they became annoying
and not long after that the two were aggravating
.