Lair of Beasts [Book I in the Curse Of Blood Saga]

Chapter XXIX - The Ghost and The Gray

I knelt onto the hard stone and pulled the chain off over my head so that I could stuff the blade hastily into the keyhole. However, It did not fit! Or rather, it would not turn no matter that I kept trying hopelessly to force the key over, for it seemed that there was some sort of obstruction jammed within the hole.

"No!" I wailed fatalistically, hurling the blasted key away in a paroxysm of terror, fury and keening devastation. 

The shroud of that last bleak emotion enveloped me utterly. As a last resort, for what else could I do, I banged my fists onto the ancient wood and then latched my throbbing fingers around the handle, preparing to yank it open with every once of my dwindling might, albeit with a pessimism that lay heavy in my stomach.

But miraculously, and unexpectedly, the door swung up.

The ease with which I had whipped it open was so unanticipated that I stumbled back violently and landed on my backside, thereby winding myself properly in the process. I scrambled onto all fours, pulling myself along the floor with my ravaged fingertips, so that by the time I bore my weight on my feet, I was already running toward the exit in the ground.

The door had opened up into a square chasm and I looked hurriedly down into its obscure depth, but could not fathom where its descending staircase lead except that it disappeared ominously into the dark. I cared not. I would that I was anywhere but here, and to that end I needed to move. 

I soon realized that my key had not fit into the hole correctly because there had already been a key placed within the lock — on the opposite side of the door! Some one had been through here recently, but...

Surely those things could not unlock doors? But then who the devil would willingly enter here?! Did you not do just that, Aria? My own inner voice was accusatory and remorselessly harsh as I took one last look inside the black pit, my useless key forgotten in the darkness whither I'd sacrificed it.

I turned to leave, then stopped abruptly and quickly peered back down again. My brow furrowed uneasily. I thought I had seen something flickering in the darkness yonder, but as I strained my eyes into the depths, glimpsing aught, I realized it must have been my overactive and overtaxed imagination. Naught stirred the shadows below. With one last nervous glance within, I turned and sprinted over to where Thomas was pulling himself into a sitting position.

He gripped his head with white fingers, his nails caked with blood and grit.

"Where are we?" he groaned and then all at once he recalled our dire predicament, for his face turned green and his eyes darted madly around the room in trepidation.

"They are not here!" I breathed. There was no need to clarify, for he knew well of whom — or what — I spoke. "Get up, Thomas! We must leave..."

He required no more urging and leapt up instantly, only to fall back down when the blood rushed from his head. I did not wait for him to try again, but began hauling him by his arm urgently.

The eerie moan at the entrance to the hall abruptly ceased my steps and I whirled around, my gaze caught instantly by the feral eyes of a hell-born, crouching horror. The ears were flattened to its silvered head, its wet maw gaping partially, and the keen eyes flickered luridly in the dim lamplight — a bright, demonic malachite that withered my bones and sent me audibly, and painfully, to my knees.

I had unwittingly attracted all of its attention by dropping to the ground for it locked unwaveringly onto me, Thomas had meanwhile been forgotten. It remained hunkered into a preternatural stillness, not even a twitch of the eyelids, emitting a series of low, menacing snorts that I was not altogether sure were warning in nature or just the sound of its excited breathing. I hoped neither. The sound of it was sinister and chilling.