Her throat tightened, and she swallowed hard.
Thin clouds of black whispered in and out of the glowering trees, tangling like tendrils of hair above the mausoleum. Circling.
Victoria stopped and felt someone behind her. She turned. It was Sebastian, who was looking up over the mausoleum just as she had. Her heart thudding, she grasped his arm as she waited for the others to draw near.
When they came closer, Victoria sought Max’s gaze in the meandering light. His face held the same arrested expression as hers. “What is it?” she asked, looking at him, but speaking to them all.
Max shook his head, his lips pinched. Sebastian moved closer to her, murmuring, “Whatever it is, it’s not vampire.”
Victoria looked at Brim, whose face was wary. With terse words, she sent him and Michalas around the mausoleum in one direction, and she, Max, and Sebastian went the other way in search of an entrance.
They found it, well cloaked by two overgrown cedars. The door was set half below ground level, accessed by four rough, narrow steps.
Victoria glanced up at the swirling black mass above them. It seemed nebulous, for it hadn’t changed, nor did it seem threatening. But it moved and writhed, barely visible in the shadows of the trees, hovering like an eerie warning over the roof, beneath and among the tree branches.
She shivered. She’d met many demonic and undead threats in her two years as a Venator, but this was particularly disturbing-partly because it was unknown, but also because it was apparent that whatever it was, it had something to do with Wayren.
A shadow appeared close by and had Victoria reaching for her sword, but it was only Brim and Michalas, completing their circuit of the mausoleum.
She noticed that Brim, too, had a hand on the sword at his belt.
Everything was strangely quiet. Tense, and quiet.
Victoria lifted her foot to take the first step down toward the mausoleum door, but Sebastian curled his fingers around her arm and slipped in front of her. She allowed him to without annoyance, for she knew he made the gesture not because she was a woman, but because he loved her. Victoria followed him.
The small alcove at the bottom of the stairs was only large enough for one person to stand, and so of necessity, she remained on the bottom stair, her head level with his as he looked at the door. She watched as his damaged hand, the left one, felt along the solid wood bound by metal, and then heard the soft clunk as he found the iron latch. Victoria felt a shift behind her and realized Max was standing on the step above, towering over them both from his vantage point.
More dull clanks, and a soft creak, and then Sebastian had the latch loosened. The door opened without the reluctant groans of the iron hasp of the gate, indicating that this latch had been used more frequently.
Sebastian glanced up at her as if to ensure everyone was ready, and then returned his attention to the door, pushing gently against it with a widespread hand.
The heavy, metal-bound planks moved reluctantly, and it was so quiet that the faint scrape of wood over the gritty stone floor was audible. Shadows moved above Victoria, changing the faint illumination, and she assumed it was because Brim and Michalas had drawn closer as well.
Then, she realized with sudden horror that the shifting darkness wasn’t from the others gathering closer. She looked up, eyes wide, as the air began to move. She felt it against her cheek, a rising breeze.
The mass of dark clouds above now writhed faster and harder, curling above them, swirling and twisting, sinking like a vortex. It happened so quickly, all at once they were engulfed by the spinning air, the black fog, as it cloaked them in cloying darkness.
Victoria couldn’t see, but she felt Max behind her, grabbing her shoulders from above, her long, thick braid flailing like a whip, and Sebastian suddenly warm and solid in front of her. If anyone spoke or shouted, the sound was snatched up in the whirlwind and destroyed, for all she could hear was a roaring in her ears. The air, cold suddenly, smelled ancient-ancient and deathly, like rotting bones and aged flesh. The chill was unbearable, biting and sharp, stinging her face and skin through the fabric of her clothing.
Black filled her eyes and ears, buffeted against her, pushing and battling her trousers like wind against sails. Something screamed high and long in her ear-or perhaps in her mind. She felt Max hovering over her, touched Sebastian, kept her fingers around the useless sword.
Suddenly, the wind whipped hard enough to rip a tree branch from above, and it crashed down onto the group of them. The branch tumbled away, leaving Victoria scratched and her head aching though she’d not borne the brunt of its weight.
The demonic cloud surged again, louder and darker now. Victoria pushed at Sebastian, shoving him toward the open door even as Max tried to pull her back. She shouted, but couldn’t even hear herself, and so she shoved Sebastian with all of her strength, leaping after him.
Helped by the black gale force, they tumbled down through the door into the mausoleum.
Four
Victoria slammed into Sebastian when they hit the ground, then tumbled onto the rough, cold floor. The wind whipped above her, but the roaring in her ears had eased.
She staggered to her feet, hand on her sword, trying to make out details in the furious, dark world. For a moment, she had an impression of dim illumination, and perhaps the outline of shapes near the floor. Something warm touched her-an oasis in the fury-and she grabbed Sebastian’s hand. His grip closed around her hand, strong and solid, anchoring her, as someone-Max?-crashed to the ground behind them.
And then suddenly, the horrible fog seemed to scream in rising desperation, whipping and buffeting even stronger and harder, filling her ears and nose and needling her skin… and then all at once, it stopped.
Everything became still.
The door was closed. Had Max done it?
Victoria released her grip on Sebastian and looked around, still mistrustful of the sudden peace. The faint gleam of illumination she’d discerned became a small blue-tinged glow in the far corner of the small chamber. It cast a pearl gray frost over the bare stone walls, blackened by mold and age. A large ash-colored crypt rose low in the center of the room.
“Max?” she said, more to try out her voice in the sudden silence than anything else.
“Brim and Michalas are still out there,” he said by way of reply. His voice was low and taut in the quiet.
She wondered if the closing of the door had subdued the curdling fog, or if it merely waited outside, battling harder against Brim and Michalas.
“Victoria.” Sebastian had moved away from her, and now crouched near the corner where the dull bluish light shone.
The urgency in his voice had her hurrying past the waist-high crypt to join him, hand on her sword. He stood as she drew closer, revealing that the glow seeped from beneath the wall, and appeared to be curling into the darkness of the chamber. Tendrils of the eerie bluish light coiled up, snaking around Sebastian’s boots and legs, writhing up against the wall… then dissipated as if losing strength.
Victoria’s and Sebastian’s eyes met, that odd glow giving his tanned skin a peculiar pallor. She read the worry in his gaze, and knew it echoed her own.
“A door,” she said. But what was behind it? Another hurricane of fury? Wayren?
Max moved up to join them, his face stark and taut. “Let’s get it open.”
Without further discussion, the two men turned to the wall, feeling along with their hands in search of a crevice or gap in the doorframe, while Victoria moved farther away, searching for some other opening.
A hiss of satisfaction in the silence drew her back over to Max. “Here-Vioget, push… there.”
And then a portion of the wall moved slightly, one side canting inward, and the one nearest Victoria edging out. She braced herself, waiting for an angry burst of foggy blue light. The hair on the back of her neck rose as more coils slipped through the crack, draining into the room through the narrow aperture. Silent, like insidious
