Page 127 of Grave Beginnings
The warped architecture twisted doorways into eerie, gaping mouths. The walls rose and fell in impossible, jagged angles, as if they’d been made of glass, shattered, and reformed from the shards. A steep slope to the floor canted the entire building in one direction, and a sickly, purple gray haze wafted through the hall like smoke.
Angel vibrated with tension and cast his gaze in both directions. Both of us listened hard for any sound, but the silence coated us in a deafening sense of unease. Was my headset still working?
“Hello?” I said, listening hard for the low hum of the radio.
Nothing.
The thick air made it feel like I was breathing through water. Crackling energy filled every molecule of the atmosphere, and I couldn’t shake the sensation of ants crawling on my skin, telling me we were being watched.
“Spidey senses tingling,” I muttered. “Which way?” I asked Angel. “Does this happen a lot? Two unexpected trips through the Veil in the first week working for the SED…”
He chuffed twice.
“I’ll take that as a no,” I said. Angel shifted his weight beside me, his muscles rippling with tension. I gripped his collar, wondering what to do now.
“Can anyone hear me?” I asked, hoping for a reply in my headset.
Silence.
The display of the visor gave me wriggles of broken code. “Headset is toast,” I said to Angel. “Any idea where we are?”
He chuffed again, nudging me forward, his nose sniffing at the floor and air as we moved. Purple and black smoke twisted around us, nauseating tendrils that flickered in and out of my vision. I followed Angel’s lead, trying to ignore the rolling wave of dread creeping up my spine.
“I don’t know if the tech is still recording me, but I see lots of purple and black smoke around us. Magic, maybe?”
Angel glanced my way, but couldn’t exactly tell me if he saw it or not.
The hallway of doorways yawned with openings on either side, revealing only shadows. I gripped my taser with my free hand, clutching Angel’s collar tighter, feeling his warmth as atenuous lifeline. Each doorway loomed like a mouth, wide and ominous, the jagged frames giving off an unsettling sense of hunger. The thick air clung like fog. Angel’s ears twitched, his head lifting slightly as he sniffed again.
“You smell something?” I whispered, my voice barely audible, as my pulse thrummed in my throat. We kept to the middle of the hall, as if stepping closer to the doorways would invite something to leap out and snatch us. The feeling of being watched wrapped itself around my senses, growing heavier with every step. “Maybe Ezra is here somewhere?”
Angel chuffed once.
“That a yes? You smell him?” I let Angel guide me down the hall, both of us keeping to the center, though the further we went, the more it felt like we were in some horror movie. Nothing changed, nor did it seem like we got any further.
“Let’s play.” A chilling giggle echoed down the hall, freezing me mid-step. My blood ran cold. Angel's ears pinned back, his lips curling to reveal sharp teeth. I wasn’t imagining it, or the only one hearing it this time.
I swallowed hard, scanning the shadows for the source of the sound. “You heard that too, right?”
Angel growled low, his body coiling spring-like, ready to pounce. His gaze darted toward one of the open doorways. I stared into the darkness, and for a half second, thought I caught movement, and maybe blond curls? Was it the kid again? Zombie, or something else? Not Ezra, that was for sure.
Against every instinct screaming at me to back the hell up, I leaned closer. My pulse thrummed loudly in my ears, hammering in my throat. I was desperate to clarify the eerie laugh that still echoed in my skull, and prayed it was all my imagination and not some supernatural beastie looking to gnaw on a brand-new SV. I gripped my taser, pointing it at the doorway, ready to shoot as I so rarely was.
A cold gust swept over my skin, chilling me to the bone. Mybreath hitched in my throat as I squinted into the gloom. A black mass of twisted shapes lunged at me.
I jerked back with a strangled shout and half tripped over Angel who was plastered to the backs of my legs. The taser flew out of my grasp, and my fingers slipped from his collar as I fell backward, tumbling through another open doorway I wasn’t certain had been there moments before.
The ground jolted out from beneath me, and I fell in a nauseating blur for a half second before I landed with a bone-jarring thud. My head snapped back. My helmet struck the floor hard enough to send stars bursting into my vision.
I lay there for a moment, dazed and breathless, the room swimming in and out of focus. Spots of white light popped in front of my eyes, half blinding me as I tried to gather my bearings, the weight of disorientation settling deep into my bones.
The writhing smoke thinned, but a nauseating pulse of wrongness clung to the air. My stomach roiled with queasiness, and my helmet visor was nothing but static blurring the readout. I sucked in a breath, forcing myself to sit up. The faint sound of wings fluttered through the room. Wings?
Squinting against the dull, flickering lights overhead, I scanned the small space. Angel was gone, leaving a cold pit of dread in my gut. I prayed he was safe, and tried to get a sense for where he might be. If we had some supernatural tie like all the romance novels predicted, then it couldn’t penetrate through the Veil, because I got no sense of his direction.
A row of lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly glow on everything. Small cages hung there, rather than bulbs, each holding a dimming ball of light that flickered like embers caught in the wind. Fairies? They looked too small to be anything else, their delicate wings illuminated but unmoving in the tiny space.
Giant tubes lined one wall, filled with some sort of liquid and bodies. One of them was all-too familiar.