Suffocate In Spirit - Shadows of the Night 4

Chapter 17

Hi!

I'm back. I had a great vacation and am ready to do this! I had problems with the internet today, but finally I got broadband again, wohoo! So here's the next chapter - I hope you like it :-)

Lara

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Chapter 17

"You breached the terms of our agreement! Don't ever come to me again, Varner," Fabrice hissed. "If you do, I will kill you."

The air around Fabrice stirred. Motion that stretched and dwarfed the laws of physics. Vamp speed. He was gone within a heartbeat. The basement, meanwhile, came to life – a behemoth of sound and movement that raised its ugly head. My mother's pendant flared hot against my skin as a shudder rippled through my core. I stilled. My hand went up to my throat, fingering the penchant.

As if it's trying to tell me to take flight.

Andy grabbed my arm. "We've got to get out of here. Now!"

I nodded. There was only one way out: the door Fabrice led us through what had to have been less than fifteen minutes ago. We crept along the wall and up to the entrance. The main room was a mess of spilled glasses and abandoned seats, ashtrays with cigars still smoking. I caught a scrap of movement at the corner of my eye, saw the back of what had to be one of the witches I glimpsed earlier. She disappeared into a secret door at the back wall.

Right in that moment a cacophony of sounds exploded, slicing and dicing their way through the dark halls of the basement. Someone was charging down the stairs.

Adrenaline detonated in my system, racing through my veins like deadly poison. We dashed up to the hidden door and slipped through, trailing the witch's footsteps. Andy wrenched the door closed from the inside and grabbed my hand, pushing me to go faster.

Darkness engulfed us like a dark veil come to life, making it hard to follow wherever this corridor was going to lead us to. The noise of our footsteps got lost in the sound of destruction from behind. Things crashed to the ground, tables were overturned. Then small explosions followed by the sound of glass shattering.

We half ran, half stumbled along the corridor – blind and uncoordinated. The darkness felt like it had substance, like layers of cloth that offered more resistance the more we tried to push through and peel back. Just when I thought I caught a glimpse of something, something other than blinding darkness, it happened: An explosion, deafening and more forceful, more destructive than the rest. The sound waves tore through the corridor, followed by a breeze that made the hair on my neck and arms stand on end.

Crap. They found the hidden door.

Andy shoved me forward and past him without a hint of a warning. I felt his magic flare to life instants before the corridor lit up. A vortex of fire exploded out of Andy's hand, making shadows and light ripple over his face, instants before he sent it towards where we came from.

The fire settled and halted, the flames attaching themselves to the corners of the corridor, eating away at the air until they formed an impenetrable wall. He shoved me forward, forced me into the washed-out darkness in front of us wordlessly, our shadows like oblong puddles shifting in front of us. We stumbled forward and I glimpsed more yellowish-red light when the first screams reached our ears.

Apparently the rogues just walked into Andy's net of flames. It would detain them. The only question was: how long?

The corridor wound to the left, and we were greeted by the first hints of cold, fresh air. We hurried up an old set of stairs, our feet clanking on metal. Instants later we stumbled out into the open.