Cold Blooded

“Trolls?”

Gads! I didn’t want to fight a troll.

He shook his head. “No, Trows. The Queen employs them … to keep intruders out and … us in.”

“You mean like fairies?” I replied, flipping quickly through my mind for my limited knowledge of a Trow. If I was right, I had a vague recollection of them from old books I used to page through in my father’s library when I was a kid.

“Much worse than fairies … evil … small … mixed with troll … lives in water.”

Water. That’s right. New Orleans was at sea level. I’d been so stupid. I felt like slapping myself between the eyes. Of course we weren’t in a basement. Down meant water.

I ran my hand around the wooden trapdoor, searching for a way to pry it open. I found it in the form of an old iron ring and pulled. The old wood hatch creaked as it bowed, caught by matted earth around the edges. I yanked harder, careful not to rip the iron ring off completely.

It finally swung fully open.

The smell was horrific.

I gagged, covering my mouth. “You have to be kidding me!” I coughed through my closed fingers. “It smells like death lives down there.” Eudoxia was going to get an extra sock in the jaw for making me go through this. “Maybe I should just tear the main door off its hinges and we can all go free right now? That sounds like a much better option.” I let go of the trapdoor and made a motion to stand.

“No!” Yuri’s voice held a strong note. The first I’d heard from him. I looked over at him. He was totally healed, still cradling his bride. “If you do that, the vampires will swarm. An alarm will sound and we will all be punished. Down is the only way.”

Damn. He was right. Swarming vampires would not be ideal at the moment. I couldn’t free anyone with a horde of vampires after me. I reluctantly knelt by the hole and pulled the hatch up again and glanced down into the putrid darkness.

This time I heard movement. “What’s the trick to defeating a Trow? And once I do, how do I know where to go?”

Alana stirred, moaning. Yuri petted her hair as he spoke. “There is only one way. Once you reach the end, there will be a gate.” His voice cracked, but it was almost back to normal. He cleared his throat, his heavy Russian accent still pronounced. “You will need to break the ward. Once you do, you will have only seconds to pass through or you will be trapped inside the gate forever.” His eyes danced with adventure. Yuri was definitely on the mend. “Remember … it must be done quickly.”

“How come you’ve never broken out?” I asked from my position crouched over the opening, studying the darkness below. “You obviously know what’s down there.” Being trapped here for that many years would teach you a thing or two. I was surprised he hadn’t been driven to escape, if anything for the sake of his bride’s sanity.

“Breaking the ward will take everything you have, and much more power than I have ever possessed,” he confessed. “Though I have tried to disastrous results. Mending the ravages of the Trows is no small thing. Keep them from biting you if you can.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are they poisonous?”

“No,” he answered. “But their teeth are jagged and honed to tear the meat off your bones. Move swiftly. And once you breach the gate, you will not have time to tarry. The ward will try to hold you if it can.”

“Anything else?” I asked. “Run faster than the Trows and make sure I bolt through the ward.”

He nodded, satisfied.

His improved demeanor was nice to witness, but he still looked like a ghoul. If he really was Ivan the Terrible’s brother, he was the true blood tsar to the Russian throne. If Russia still had one.

I eyed the hole again.

My wolf had not stopped growling since I’d opened the trapdoor and exposed the hideous smell. We have no choice. We have to get through whatever is down there in order to find Naomi. Once we break through the ward, I hope to locate her quickly, and when we do, let’s hope she hasn’t been hurt too badly. There’s no more time left to discuss this. My wolf paced in my mind. She was as agitated as I’d ever seen her. Knowingly jumping into danger wasn’t on the list of things that made her the happiest. Time to go.

“Wish me luck.” I saluted Yuri once before leaping through the trapdoor, falling about twenty feet and landing with a huge splash in three feet of rancid water.

The smell threatened to overtake me.

My calves were buried in thick sludge. Good grief. I can see why Yuri doesn’t venture down here very often. My wolf snarled, keeping her nose in the air, scenting for danger. How can you smell through this muck? We have to try to do what Tyler does. Once we categorize a scent, we have to parcel it away in our minds. I’m categorizing this as “putrescence from the vamp crypt.” I focused on the essence of the smell and tried to fit it into an empty space in my mind. It finally slid into place, but only after I opened myself up to the myriad other smells lingering in this hole. Did you see that? I concentrated on the dirt smell, not the water smell, and it went away. Let’s keep doing that. Is there anything nice down here? Like a bed of roses? Of course there weren’t any flowers, but a girl could dream.

I wrapped my hands around one of my thighs and yanked my foot out of the muck. It made a huge slurping noise as it came loose. My shoe managed to stay on, but just barely. Well, if the Trows didn’t know we were here before, they do now. Can you see anything? It was pitch-black. My eyes began to take in grainy shapes, pulling in a fraction of light from someplace.

There were scurrying sounds behind me.

I took off, moving as quickly as I could, and considering the wretched, sloppy terrain it was impressive I could actually maneuver through it so fast. As I ran, my splashes echoed loudly in the tunnel. The Trows would be on us soon.

From the pictures I remembered as a girl, Trows were hideous little creatures with trollish features, wicked nails, and long jagged teeth. They were always depicted emerging out of a murky stream next to an English cottage, presumably to terrorize small English children. Many of the creepiest animal-like creatures were native to Europe. America had birthed a few nasty ones, like the windigos—the Native American flesh-eating bogeyman— but Europe had a run on the creepy-crawlies. They had gremlins, goblins, drakes, ogres, and brownies to name a few. Eudoxia likely had the Trows brought over from Europe. She apparently preferred to import her terror.

More than one splash echoed behind us.

Can you get a sense of how many are coming? Soon the splashes became too numerous to count. Dammit. My wolf was so focused on the path ahead of us, all she had time to do was to snap her jaws. We have to try and outrun them, give us more juice. A rush of adrenaline hit me and I started to sprint faster. A few strides later a loud keening sound rent the air to my left. I wrenched my head just in time to see something jump on my back. It was much smaller than I’d anticipated, about the size of a large house cat, but its claws were sharp. They cut deeply into my back. I’m going to smash it against the wall, but we can’t stop moving. It’s not very big—

Its teeth sank into the base of my shoulder.

“Motherfuc—” I collided with the side of the tunnel as hard as I could at a dead run. The tunnel walls were only hollowed-out earth, but I’d hit it with enough strength to knock it off me. I think I squashed it. There was no time to look back. Yuri had said their bites weren’t poisonous. I didn’t feel anything suspicious. I was just pissed off it had bitten me before I could shake it off. I guess their only real tactic is to tear you to pieces one bite at a time. This was exactly what I’d been cautioning Danny and Tyler about on our last journey. An army of anything could bring even the most powerful supernatural to their knees. If there are too many, it’s going to be a huge problem. They’re going to swarm us if they get the chance.

We just couldn’t give them the opportunity.

I kept running, increasing my pace as much as I could, using every available body part to aid me.

My legs went higher with each stride, which allowed me to move through the water quicker. I was in my Lycan form, but I needed more power. Hit us with more adrenaline. As my wolf fortified us, a flicker came from my peripheral vision. Another Trow leapt at me from the shallow embankment. As it flew