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Chapter Five
Ow.
No, really, owwww! If anything hurt more than a mostly-shattered head knitting itself back together, I hadn’t felt it yet. I puked three times inside my mouth before I had enough coherence to try spitting it out, and then I was frustrated and furious when I couldn’t move enough to do that.
Damn that spell!No wonder some vampires had been so afraid of magic that they’d convinced the ruling council to outlaw it for thousands of years. I was normally strong enough to bench press a car, and now I couldn’t so much as spit.
But, spitless or no, and collapsed in an underwater cave or no, I was still alive. Thank you, freaky power-absorbing abilities. I couldn’t have done this without you.
Something hard hit me, interrupting my gratitude. Great, was it the final vampire? I thought I’d twisted that blade and killed her, but maybe I hadn’t. Everything had gone black before I could be sure she was dead.
Another hard thump, and then I felt a leg. A warm one.
Not the vampire then. Our species was room temperature, and in this cold water, we’d feel downright chilly. Whoever this leg belonged to was human.
Was it the boy? I’d told him to run, dammit. Or was it the final chanting witch? I hadn’t heard her during those last moments before I passed out, but that didn’t mean it was because she’d left the cave. More likely, it was because I couldn’t hear anything beyond my skull being beaten in.
If it was her, she could be trying to finish me off. Normally, a human wouldn’t stand a chance against a vampire, but in my condition, she’d have reason to feel confident.
Whoever it was yanked on my arm. I tried to shake off the mental fog that made me feel like cotton had replaced my brain.
Focus, Cat! You probably have to mind-smash one more knife!
She yanked harder, and my head cleared the surface. The first thing I saw was mahogany-colored hair plastered to a familiar face before that face broke into a smile.
“Thank God, I found you!”
I was shocked. What was Denise doing here? The water was so high, she barely had any room to breathe.
“Are you hurt? Why aren’t you moving?” she asked me.
I couldn’t answer, of course. I could only stare at her.
“What’s wrong with you?” Now she sounded scared.
She should be. I found that I could move my eyes, and I glanced at the ceiling, the water level only inches below it, and back at her.
Get it, Denise? You’re the one in danger!
“Yeah, I know,” she muttered, and then relief suffused her features. “If you can manage to show your annoyance despite not being able to move or speak, then you’re still in there. Good. I was afraid you might be dead.”
She’d been married to a vampire for years; didn’t she remember that we shriveled back to our true age when we bit the dust? Some vamps looked like old-school mummies after they died. Then again, I hadn’t been changed into a full vampire that long ago, so I guess Denise had had reason to be unsure.
“Gotta get out of here, but I don’t have your vision, and the torches are all out,” she said, more to herself than me.
She was right. It was almost pitch-black in here, and with the cave’s bends and turns now hidden underwater, it would be easy to get lost. And trapped. At least the part of Denise that wasn’t human protected her from all but one form of death, and drowning wasn’t it.
Still, drowning and coming back only to drown again and again would be horrible until low tide came and took the water away. Besides, who’s to say the two witches who’d escaped wouldn’t be back with reinforcements before then?
“Do your eyes still work?” Denise suddenly asked.
What did she mean by…? Oh, right.
I let out the green glow in my gaze. An emerald light instantly illuminated a couple feet of the cave. Denise gave the light a critical look, and then hefted me over her shoulders.
“Ugh, you’re really heavy.”
There goes your Hanukkah present,I thought irreverently.
