Was I suffocating? “Don’t go there,” the rational half of my brain spoke up.
“Great, now we’re going to go crazy down here,” the irrational other half chimed in.
I stared down at the Hellhole with its thick steel grate and the rudimentary lock, which consisted of a bent bar of steel sealed into a cement base with another rusted bar jammed through it. In the candlelight, I could see only a few of the iron rungs driven into the cement that led down into the hole. It was too dark to see the old miner’s carbide lamp sitting eight or so feet down at the bottom, but I had a feeling it was still there, waiting for someone to pick it up and explore deeper with it.
Fuck. How in the hell was I going to get out of this?
Where was Doc? And Cornelius? Had Jane showed up in her office yet?
Maybe I needed to go out the same way I came in.
I sat down in the same spot in which I’d woken. Placing the candleholder on the floor next to me, I closed my eyes, focusing on the flame inside my mind again.
Come on, Doc, get me out of here.
What if he wasn’t able to see me? What if I was down here alone? What if …
Stop!
I could do this. I could find my way back. I just needed to focus.
The candle flame flickered in my mind, a spark flying off into the darkness. Several deep breaths later, I heard the swishing sound again of a sheet dragging across the floor. All of a sudden, a screeching sound pierced the darkness, making my shoulders pinch up close to my earlobes. When it ended, something clanked.
Focus, Violet.
Was that Doc’s voice? Or was my mind playing tricks on me?
Something smelled bad. I sniffed, gagging on a fetid stench, worse than the curdled milk and roadkill from before. When I coughed, the candle flame went out in my mind, leaving me in an inky blackness.
I opened my eyes and covered my nose.
The scene hadn’t changed. I was still in the room under Calamity Jane Realty, sitting next to the Hellhole with the candle flickering next to me, dammit.
However, one thing was different this time around—something that had my heart beating in triple time.
The steel bar that had been used to lock the heavy steel grate covering the Hellhole had been pulled free and now lay on the cobblestone floor in front of me. That must have been the screeching sound I’d heard when my eyes were closed.
But the thing that had my chest constricting so much that I couldn’t breathe was the flipped-open iron grate that no longer covered the Hellhole.
I scrambled backward, crab style, afraid of what might come out of the hole and grab me. My hand bumped something when I moved back that clunked as it fell over.
I looked down. The old carbide miner’s lamp lay on its side next to me. I lifted it, frowning. Why was it in my hand now instead of at the bottom of that hole?
Shit. Someone had opened the Hellhole.
Someone who wanted me to go down inside of it.
Chapter Thirteen
My thighs weren’t prepared for whatever was down in that Hellhole. I had little doubt that running would be involved, and right now they were trembling so much that standing would be an achievement. Nor were my lungs ready, for that matter, especially with how tight they felt at the moment. As for my heart … hell, from the rapid-fire banging in my head, the chicken-shit organ was hiding somewhere between my ears.
So that left me with one option—sit here on the cobblestone floor until I woke up from this nightmare.
I thought about closing my eyes and focusing on the stupid candle flame again, but after this last debacle, I was afraid to try that because of what I might see when I opened them. With my luck, I’d end up down in the dang Hellhole with the grate sealed shut over my head.
I tried to hear over the hammering of my heart, but the basement was so quiet. It was like I was stuck underwater minus the gasping for air part. I pinched the back of my hand as a test, praying this was only an illusion.
The pain felt normal, dang it.
So, if the pinching pain was the same as when I was not stuck wherever I was at the moment, then maybe the muffled sound effect down here was just a product of my panic. I tried to test that theory by snapping my fingers, but my hand was too dusty. I wiped my fingers off on my shirt and tried again. This time the “snap” was there and sounded the same as always, not subdued at all.
A similar snapping sound came from the Hellhole.
I froze, waiting for another sound to follow the first.
Nothing but silence emanated from the hole.
After a nine-months-pregnant pause, I held out my hand and snapped again.
Another snap came from down in the Hellhole.
Could it be an echo? The length of time had been about the same in between my snap and the following one each time.
I snapped twice this time, and then I counted in the silence: one, two, three, fo …
One snap came up.
Only one.
Uh-oh.
I eased to my feet, crouched and ready to run absolutely nowhere since I was trapped down here, but being on my feet made me feel more in control.
I wished I had my mace. Or a crowbar. Heck, any sort of weapon right now would be … I stared down at the rusted rod of steel that had been used to keep the grate closed but now lay free on the cobblestone floor. It was only about a foot long, maybe a few inches more, but it was better than the small piece of black tourmaline in my pocket that Cornelius had given me. So much for that stone repelling
