Lara shook her head, twisting and turning, spinning in a circle to see everything-everywhere. «Apparitions. Shadows. We shouldn't be here. Through there,» she gestured toward another narrow
tube, «is his laboratory.»
«We need to take a look at it,» Vikirnoff said, moving toward it.
«Stop!» Desperation was in her voice. «Don't take another step. Don't breathe hard.»
The others looked warily around the room. Water dripped, a steady plop into the puddle forming at the base of the wall beside a wide column. Lara turned toward the sound. Another loud drop hit a second puddle, this one closer to her, right near the tallest pillar. She stared into the water as rings expanded outward toward the edges of the small pool of water.
«Elements. Water. He's all around us. He's everywhere.»
Nicolas glanced at her, alarmed by her rambling. «Lara!» He said her name sharply to snap her out of it. «He isn't here.»
«You don't understand,» Lara said. «He's here. He locks himself into things, into elements. He can travel that way. You don't know him.»
Nicolas moved cautiously to wrap his arm around her. He was worried about her and it showed on his face. «Lara, monsters always appear larger and much more indestructible when you are a child. He may have been here recently…»
«I smell his tobacco.»
Natalya inhaled, shook her head and shrugged. «If he is, Lara, he's hiding from us.»
The men were cautious as they made their way across the open floor. Natalya and Lara followed, both watching above and around them. The water dripped monotonously. As they approached the archway leading to the next series of open caverns, they could see just inside the entrance. Water sprayed from the ceiling, the droplets falling into a series of pools. Each pool was a bit lower than the first and each was a different color.
Tiny frogs croaked, the notes mournful. A dark red stain dripped down from the ice and dropped into one of the pools, staining it a deep crimson. Several of the frogs stuck to the side of the wall, long tongues dipping in the blood, licking at it as it ran down. Although there was no breeze, each pool of water rippled slightly, as if something lived in them. The scent of blood and bodily fluids was heavy in the air.
«This is it,» Lara said. «This is what you've been looking for, Nicolas. He mutates them here. He's experimenting with extremophiles and this is where he tests and corrupts them for his own purpose. We've found his laboratory.»
Chapter 18
Standing at the entrance of the laboratory, watching the light spray of icy water come down from the ceiling to feed the pools, Nicolas felt his gut tighten. If Lara was right, and Xavier was experimenting with
microbes, then it was the mage who had virtually brought the Carpathian people to near extinction and none of them had ever suspected the extent of his true treachery all those centuries ago. As if sensing his need, Lara slipped her hand into his. He closed his fingers tightly around hers and drew in a deep, shuddering breath.
«Without you, Lara, he might have succeeded.»
Vikirnoff looked over their shoulders. «Is that spray natural?»
Steam curled over several of the pools, as if they were somehow warm and the icy spray created a foggy condensation. Droplets froze on the walls and congealed in the trail of blood.
«It appears so,» Lara said, «but you can't trust anything in these chambers to be what it appears.»
She held out her hands, palms out. The spray from the ceiling was so fine, it appeared more mist than anything else. «It's ice,» she said, «tiny particles of ice.»
«There has to be a purpose for it,» Natalya added. She also put her palms out to test the «feel» of the spray. «Are you getting anything?»
Lara frowned. «Yes, I feel Xavier's hand in this. There appears to be subtle influence in the mist, but I can't tell what it is yet. Why can't you feel it?»
«I can in the outer chambers, but it was difficult,» Natalya said. «But in this room, I wouldn't have even been able to tell you Xavier had been here.» She looked around. «And I have to say, this is creepy, like in those spooky old movies where the mad scientist conjures up mutated zombies. These are all vats with extremely disgusting gunk bubbling in them.»
Nicolas stepped into the room, waited until the mist touched his face and arms before signaling the others inside. «It's cold, but I expected that.»
«The room isn't cold,» Lara pointed out. «In fact, that pool over there is steaming. I'll bet it's fed by an underground volcano. Xavier's tapped into something hot.»
«Wouldn't that kill anything he's trying to grow in here?» Natalya asked.
«Extremophiles are called just that because they live in extreme conditions.» Lara looked around the room. «And it looks to me as if he's testing every condition. Hot. Cold. Acid. Blood. Salt. Minerals. You name it, he has it in here. This is his breeding program.»
«Why all the frogs?» Vikirnoff asked.
Lara approached the little creatures, ignoring Nicolas's restraining hand. Again she placed her hand just inches from them. «They're male. All of them.»
Nicolas's jaw tightened. «This is where it started then. He found a way for the microbe to force male offspring and suppress female.»
Lara indicated the first pool. «See those stalks with that gelatinous mass, the tiny black specks wiggling inside? I'm betting those are all male. He's still working at perfecting his methods, I see.»
Things can always be improved.The hated voice whispered in her ear and Lara spun around, eyes wide with terror, expecting to see the mage standing behind her with his smug expression and his hate-filled silvery eyes.
She drew in a deep breath and pressed a hand to her thudding heart. He had always said that when he injected something into Razvan's body. The memory poured into her mind, the image vivid and sharp. Razvan fighting, sweating blood, her mother crying while Razvan writhed and convulsed on the ice floor. Bile rose. She was going to be sick.
Nicolas pressed his hand against her stomach, his mind merging with hers.I am here. He cannot harm you, Lara. You are not the little helpless child anymore . He poured strength and love into her mind.
«I'm sorry. I can do this. We have to do this. I want to find my aunts.» Lara lifted her chin and managed a faint smile. «Be careful in here. I don't trust anything.» Her chest felt heavy and she pressed her hand against it hard as she took another nervous look around. He was there. Maybe not physically, but Xavier permeated the room. His evil nature seemed permanently pressed into the layers of ice.
She took another deep breath to steady herself and forced her body closer to the tanks. One was filled with fluid and when she sniffed it, she drew back horrified. «I think this is amniotic fluid. Where would he get that?» The one beside it was blood. The blood coming from above ran steadily into the pool. Dense clusters of organisms floated in both pools.
«Where's that blood coming from?»
Nicolas stepped closer and sniffed it. «That is from the deer the bats took down earlier, but look at the other trails, Lara. This one has two separate blood trails. They are older, but the blood is Carpathian.»
Natalya waved them to the corner wall. «This is Razvan's blood. It's not as old as those trails and it also goes into that pool.»
«How old do you think Razvan's blood trail is, Natalya?» Vikirnoff asked.
She shook her head. «Not very old. A day or two. Just like in that chamber, his blood is congealed, frozen even, but it isn't old.»
«Then he's been here recently, which means Xavier has been here. Right under our noses,» Nicolas said. «He's been conducting experiments and sending his little microbe army after us this entire time. How could he hide from us?»
«He's had centuries to perfect his methods, and he appears to be sharing them with vampires,» Vikirnoff pointed out.
There was a small silence while all around the ice seemed alive, creaking and groaning. Lara looked around her. «The deeper the ice cave, the more unstable the ice, unless g
uarded by magic. Ice caves never stay the same, not like this one. Water can pour in from a melt above, creating a very strong waterfall, and then a few days later, when it's cold again, that can be completely frozen. And it moves. The walls move on you. You measure them to make certain they aren't closing on you. This ice is very stable in spite of the fact that we are hundreds of feet down. The walls move when he wants them to move. He's been here.»
Her lungs burned. She realized she was breathing shallowly. She detested this place and she wanted out.
«Lara,» Nicolas said, «can these two other blood trails be your aunts? I do not recognize the scent, other than knowing it is Dragonseeker.»
Natalya hurried over, pressing both hands to her chest tightly. «I did not know them. I thought them long dead.»
Lara felt sluggish, reluctant to move. «If that's their blood, we should be able to track it back to them. He kept them weak and sick because he was afraid of them, but he wanted their blood and he drained it from them often.»
Nicolas whipped his head around to look at her. «Lara! What is wrong with you?» He looked from her to the other two. «Something is wrong. None of us are breathing right.»
Lara tried to clear her foggy brain. «A natural hazard. He would use the elements and it would be simple.» She lifted her face to look at the ceiling and spray hit her. «Nicolas, we have to get out of here. Warm up your lungs. He's freezing our lungs using the ice crystals. The particles are so tiny and we inhale them.»
Nicolas yanked her out of the laboratory and into the next chamber. It was free of the icy spray. Vikirnoff and Natalya followed them out. Nicolas turned to her, his hands pressing on either side of her body, spreading warmth through her lungs and chest. Pins and needles ran along her skin, but the terrible pressure was gone.
«We were lucky,» she said. «Ice particles in the lungs can kill you very fast. And suffocation is a lousy way to go.» She rubbed Nicolas's arm. «Can you track the blood trail of my aunts?»
«They are above us and toward our left. We go in that direction.»
Nicolas took the lead, choosing a wider tunnel leading upward. The ice was banded tightly with white and blue thin stripes. Crackles and grumblings and the ever-present trickling of water were constant companions. The weight of ice and rock pressed down heavily on them. As they hurried, the floor became more and more uneven, as if the earth had pushed chunks of ice upward. They took to the air, skimming over the surface, following the twisting tunnel upward.
Several other galleries opened, but other than glancing inside, the four continued upward. They'd been inside Xavier's lair for sometime: They needed to find Tatijana and Branislava and get out. The shower of ice was constant, small pieces breaking off and raining down on them, so it was necessary to keep a shield above them. As the floor sloped up, icicles began to vibrate. Water dripped faster. One wall began to web into tiny cracks. Water trickled out.
«I detest this place,» Vikirnoff said. «We should just get out of here.»
Natalya scowled at him. «I'm not going to leave without finding my aunts' bodies. You saw the blood. What if they're still alive?»
Nicolas muttered something foul under his breath. «They are not alive. After all this time, it would be impossible. This is a fool's errand and you are going to get us killed.»
Vikirnoff whirled around, baring his teeth. «This was not Natalya's idea.Your lifemate dragged us here.»
Nicolas responded with aggression, his black eyes smoldering with red flames, with the need for action. «Do not use that tone when speaking of my lifemate.»
Lara frowned as she stepped between the two men. With the ice spiders weaving luminescent threads to light the way, the silky strings cast shadows not only along the blue and white ice, but over both men's faces, and they seemed dark and sinister in the shimmering glow. Along the wall, the shadows seemed to move of their own accord, growing and extending, reshaping with each movement within the tunnel.
Lara lifted her hands palm out and sang to her spiders.Tiny spiders of crystalline ice, spinning threads to make us light, throw and cast your finespun threads, digging deeper into what we dread. Enter the ice, search it well, reveal to me what's hidden by spell .
Dark streaks appeared along the ice wall and crisscrossed the tunnel itself. She drew in her breath. «He's controlling emotions. It's Xavier. Don't speak. Don't think. Keep your mind blank while I find a way to counter this.»
Again she lifted her hands and wove a counterspell.That which has been cast to control and be hidden, can be undone by the song of a maiden .
Within the icy walls, a face and form of a young girl began to take shape, and then a perfectly formed ice sculpture of a young girl emerged. She appeared to be reaching down into the ice. As she bent over, she began to sing and the notes appeared like a cold wind, blowing across the walls and up across the tube itself, coating the dark streaks with ropes of ice so that each streak froze solid. Her notes pitched higher and higher until the frequency shattered the ice ropes and they fell, harmless to the floor. The maiden climbed back into the ice and disappeared.
Nicolas grinned at Vikirnoff. «That's my woman.»
Natalya smiled at her, pride on her face. «You really know your stuff.»
«The aunts taught me everything. It's all them.» Technically, they were her great-aunts and Natalya's aunts, but Lara would never think of them any other way. «I have to find them.»
«We will,sivamet , we all want to find them and bring them home,» Nicolas assured.
Still the shadows on the walls continued to grow and lengthen. The male Carpathians put the women between them, deadly snarls on their faces. The danger in the tunnel was palpable. The shadows swirled on the blue-white walls, pushing through the layers of ice so that smoke drifted out.
Natalya gasped. She gripped Lara's wrist. «I know what this is.»
Both looked at one another, horror on their faces. «Shadow warriors,» they whispered together.
Nicolas drew in his breath and looked up and down the long tunnel. They were in the middle of the tube and all along the walls, in front and behind them, smoke began to push through the cracks in the ice. «Not even the most seasoned hunter can hope to escape the shadow guardians,» he said. «We have to get to the next chamber before they emerge from the wall. If we are caught in between them, we die here.»
«Movement attracts them,» Natalya pointed out.
«I would have to say they already know we are here,» Nicolas replied.
«If we can get to a safer place and give Natalya some time,» Vikirnoff said, «then she can perhaps deal with them, but it takes time.»
«I could because I had mage blood running in me, I think,» Natalya said. «I'm not as certain I could control them now.»
«I have mage blood,» Lara said.
«Talk later! Run now!» Nicolas caught Lara's wrist and, without waiting for an argument, put on a burst of preternatural speed.
Vikirnoff and Natalya stayed right on their heels, all four blurred they moved so fast, but the action caused a reaction from the whirling shadows. The dark smoke poured even faster from the ice wall and began to form into life-sized apparitions of swirling smoke, shadow and substance.
They barely made it to the entrance to the next chamber before the shadow warriors were after them, gliding silently through the twisting ice tube, swords raised high. The smoke swirled and shifted, often revealing an armor-clad warrior, face obscured completely, but sword gleaming and polished.
Nicolas kept moving to the opposite side of the chamber, heading for the left entrance, but several warriors spread out quickly through the room, cutting off that escape route. The only choice they had was a narrow right passage, still leading up, but away from the direction they wanted to go.
Shadow warriors were made of whatever elements were available, molecules and water. Once the most skilled and honored fighters of their time, their spirits were ripped from them and forced into service by the dark mage. They were already dea
d, insubstantial and nearly impossible to defeat in battle.
The warriors fanned out and the Carpathians retreated farther into the narrow corridor of ice. The men kept the women firmly behind them, walking backward, facing the enemy.
«They'll have to face us one at a time,» Nicolas said with some satisfaction.
Natalya tried to stem the flow of shadows into the room. She halted and raised her arms.
Hear me now, dark ones, torn from your resting place. I call on earth, wind, fire, water and spirit.
The warriors should have put down their swords and waited for commands, but instead, they rushed toward the two women, the smoke going from gray to black.
«That's not working so well without the mage blood,» Natalya said. «Run!»
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