Ruby Shadows (3 page)

“
Let’s trade bedrooms for tonight,” I told her.

She shook her head.
“Oh no, Gwendolyn, honey—I don’t want to kick you out of your own
bed.”

“
Don’t be silly.” I hugged her. “I don’t mind the damp and my
room is snug and dry. You know you can’t sleep in that other room
when it’s raining. I don’t know why you don’t just trade with me
for good.”

Grams harrumphed. “I
like
my room. Been sleeping there since we bought this place. I
hate to let a little weather kick me out.”

“
Grams, you’re as stubborn as a mule.” I kissed her cheek
affectionately. “Come on, let’s go to bed. You in my room and me in
yours.”

“
You’re a good girl, Gwendolyn.” She patted my cheek gently
and looked into my eyes. “You really are.”

I had to
suppress the urge to look away guiltily. If Grams knew what I had
really been up to—dabbling in black magic, calling up demons from
the pit, snatching souls from the very lip of the Abyss—she
wouldn’t be so quick to say I was good. But I had managed to keep
all that from her so far and I intended to continue to keep it a
secret for as long as I could. Hopefully forever.

“
Love you, Grams,” I told her. “Come on, let’s get some
sleep.”

“
Sounds good to me.” She sighed. “Let me just get my C-pap
machine so I can sleep easy.”

“
You mean your Darth Vader mask?” I made a face. The bulky
contraption helped Grams with her sleep apnea but it certainly
wasn’t the prettiest thing to look at. The noise it made and the
way it fit over her face really reminded me of the Star Wars
baddie.

“
Very funny, young lady.” Grams shook a finger at me. “See if
you can sleep without help when you get to be my age. Then we’ll
talk.”

“
Yeah, yeah…” I waved off her mock severity. “Okay, get your
machine and I’ll see you in the morning.”

She headed off to
get it, still harrumphing, and I went to my own room to get a
t-shirt to wear to bed. Some nights I preferred PJs but it had been
really hot in Tampa lately and our little AC unit could only do so
much. So I would be sleeping light tonight.

I
just hoped I would be sleeping sound as well. If I had another one
of those freaky dreams… I shuttered and pushed the thought
away.
I’m going to
be fine and get a good night’s sleep, I told myself.

I had never been
more wrong in my life.

Chapter Two

Gwendolyn

A creaking sound
woke me up in the middle of the night.

I
sat bolt upright in the blackness, my eyes wide open, my heart
pounding.
I’d been
having the dream again—about the headless thing coming to get me.
If I closed my eyes I could still see those gaping jaws and the
long yellow teeth, hungry for my flesh.

Or no, not my
flesh—my soul—I suddenly realized. For the thing in my dream, the
physical part of me—my body—would be nothing but an appetizer. It
was the immortal part the headless thing was after and it would
stop at nothing to get it.

Stop this foolishness,
I lectured myself uneasily.
It’s just a dream and that creaking sound
was probably just the house settling.

It
was a plausible enough explanation. Grams’ little bungalow had been
built back in the nineteen twenties. It had been modernized with
central heat and air because you can’t live in Tampa without AC—not
unless you don’t mind dying of heat stroke—but it was still old and
old houses make noises.
Besides, I reminded myself uneasily, Grams had white
magic wards all around the house, protecting every door and window.
Even if the creaking sound was something awful coming for me, it
would never be able to pass through her charms to get at
me.

The thought calmed
my nerves somewhat and I was just settling back in the bed and
pulling the covers up to my chin when I heard the creaking again.
This time it was coming from right underneath the bed.

I
gasped and sat up again.
Something’s not right. What’s going on?
Wards around the house or
no wards, my heart was suddenly pounding and I wanted to run. I was
sleeping in just my t-shirt and panties and I was just about to
swing my bare legs over the side of the bed and make a dash for it
when I had a horrible mental image. What if the thing with no head
grabbed me by the ankles and yanked me under the bed?

I pulled my
legs back up abruptly, feeling sick with fear. What was happening?
Every sense I had—both physical and supernatural—was on high alert.
This creaking wasn’t simply the house settling—I was under attack.
But who—?

Before I could
finish the question, there was another creak—a horribly loud one
this time—and the entire bed shifted.

That was it. I was getting up
out
of there. I stood up on the bed, intending to take a flying
leap for the door of the bedroom. But just as I was poised to jump,
there was a fourth creak that was more like a roar. The bed shook
violently and suddenly I found myself falling. Or rather, the
entire bed was falling.

I didn’t understand
what had happened at first. All I knew was that I was suddenly flat
on my back and the room had just gotten a whole lot darker.

I scrambled to my
feet and stood on my tiptoes, trying to see what had happened. From
the faint light coming from behind the window shade, I could tell
that everything had shifted. For some reason, the floor was now at
eye-level. I could see Grams’ furry house shoes, which I had bought
her last Christmas to keep her feet warm, right in front of me.
They had been by the side of the bed earlier but now I would have
to reach up to grab one.

I brushed against a
wall which hadn’t been there before and the smell of fresh dirt hit
my nose. A clod of soil broke off and fell onto the clean white
sheets, scattering filth all over.

My first thought was
that Grams would have my hide—she’s very big on cleanliness,
especially when it comes to not sleeping in a dirty bed. The second
thought was, how in the hell had a dirt wall suddenly grown up
between me and the bedroom around me. And why had everything
shifted?

“
Grams?” I shouted
without much hope. “Grams, can you hear me?” The crash the bed
had made would have woken anyone else but that damn C-pap machine
she wore at night made so much noise it drowned out everything
else. She often said the second coming could happen and she
wouldn’t notice it over the sound it made.

I
called
again but I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t appear. I would have
to get myself out of this mess.

The moon must have come out from behind a cloud outside
because suddenly the light in the room got brighter. I looked
around and finally understood. Grams’ big four poster bed with its
homemade quilts and too-soft pillows had somehow sunk down through
the solid oak flooring.
It was like a sink hole had opened just beneath it
which probably explained the wood creaking just before it
happened.

Just then I felt the bed shifting under me again. I screamed
and grabbed desperately for the lip of the ho
le I was in. Then the bed disappeared
entirely, sucked away down into the ever deepening hole. I was left
hanging there by my hands with my feet swinging down into the
darkness.

Oh my God, I have to
get out of here! Have to get away from this room before the hole
gets bigger or something else happens.

What that something
else might be, I didn’t want to imagine. I felt sick with fear but
I forced myself to get going.

I
gripped the broken boards, ignoring the pain
as splinters dug into my fingertips
and tried to dig into the dirt wall with the tips of my toes. It
was surprisingly hard, though, and wouldn’t give much. So much for
that.

Next
I tried
heaving myself up with my hands but it wasn’t easy. I did my fair
share of cardio at the gym but I never hit the weights the way I
knew I should. Now I might pay for my poor upper body strength with
my life.

“
Come…on…Gwendolyn,” I grunted to myself as I heaved upwards.
“Get…your ass…moving.” Nothing like a little positive self-talk to
motivate you, right?

I
was doing pretty well and had managed to haul myself up until I had
my elbows on the lip of the crumbling hole. I was about to swing
one leg up and out and get the hell away from the sink hole that
had suddenly and magically appeared under Gram’
s bed when that something else I’d
been trying not to think about or imagine happened.

Something grabbed my
ankle.

Something long and slimy—it felt like a tentacle…no, a
tentacle would be cold and clammy but this was horribly hot. It was
a
tongue,
I suddenly realized. And
I could just imagine the mouth a tongue like that would come out
of—it would be vast and black and full of sharp yellow
teeth.

I screamed
breathlessly for Grams as I scrambled to get away. Still she didn’t
come, but whatever was holding me eased its grip just a little
bit—as though maybe it had been scared by my shout.

I
pulled harder, feeling the hot, slimy thing slip slowly away from
my ankle. I was going to make it—I
had
to make it out of the pit. Grimly, I pulled upward, my heart
pounding, my head spinning. I was so scared I felt lightheaded—like
I might faint at any moment. But if I did that, I might as well be
signing my own death warrant. I held on to conciseness as tightly
as I held on to the lip of the hole.

In
the back of my panicked brain I was thinking that I ought to say a
spell or work a charm but the magic I do is so much more than
words. Most of it is wrapped up in ritual and incantation. It’s
kind of hard to work a protection spell which requires all kinds of
paraphernalia when you’re hanging on for dear life and trying not
to fall into the jaws of a waiting monster. I
did
mutter a prayer to the Goddess for protection
but I doubt she heard me. After all, I hadn’t exactly been working
the whitest magic lately.

I was making
progress, feeling the thing slip away inch by inch as I clawed my
way out of the hole…

And then, as though
it had just been toying with me, the slimy tongue-tentacle
tightened its grip and gave a mighty heave, like a fisherman
reeling in a big one.

Oh
my God!
I was
dragged backwards, my fingernails full of splinters as I clawed
desperately to get out of the hole.
No…no, no, no!
I was in full panic mode now, my heart pounding
out of my chest, my body locked into a flight-or-fight response. I
screamed for Grams again but of course she didn’t come. She was
probably still peacefully asleep and when she woke up, she’d come
into her room and see a massive hole going down and down and
nothing else because I’d already be digesting in the belly of the
beast. First it would eat my body…and then my soul.

“
NO!”
I
screamed, kicking out at the thing. Which didn’t help a damn bit—it
just tightened its hold on me and pulled harder. Clearly it had
just been toying with me before but now playtime was over and I was
about to be lunch. Or a midnight snack—whichever.

Your mind goes through weird thoughts at a time like this and
all mine came up with was this:
I can’t go now, not like this. I can’t…I can’t. I
don’t want to die a virgin!

The minute the
thought popped into my head I knew exactly what I had to do—who I
had to call. I had sworn never to see him again but this was
definitely an extenuating circumstance. I just hoped he wasn’t too
pissed at me to answer.

“
Laish!” I gasped aloud, still kicking at the ever tightening
tongue-tacle. “Laish, please—I know I said to leave me alone but
please—I’m in trouble. Please, hellllll…”

The last word
was a scream because the thing below me gave one last mighty yank
on my ankle and I lost my tenuous grip on the lip of the hole. With
a shriek, I went plummeting down into the hole, heading straight
into its gaping mouth.

Chapter Three

Laish

I
stared in
irritation out of the window of the mansion I kept as a place to
stay in the Mortal Realm. It was a vast stone structure located on
Siesta Key, just outside of Sarasota, Florida. There was a view of
my private beach with its pristine white sands. They were some of
the most beautiful this realm had to offer and I ought to know—I’d
been sitting here for hours, staring at them. The sunset had been
particularly breathtaking that evening—all purples and oranges and
golds with a fair bit of fiery red at the end which reminded me of
my other, more permanent residence.

Which is where I ought to be now,
I thought, drumming my fingers on the
windowsill.
I
should sever all ties from this place and attend to other
business.
And yet,
here I still was.

The question was why?
The little witch had banished me from her presence
over a month ago—so why was I still here?

I
stood and
began to pace, my fine leather shoes whispering quietly over the
rare oriental carpet. It was over five hundred years old and the
humans thought it quite an antique. To someone like me, a being
older than time itself, the idea was laughable.