Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Not to my knowledge. He switched to the path that included Gaia. What room is directly above us?
That is the only “cold” room down here. The freezers are kept there. It’s a huge room. Xavier and his brother require a great deal of blood for their experiments. It is kept there frozen.
It appears as if the freezers had a meltdown, Afanasiv pointed out.
Must have been that earthquake. Gaia sounded complacent. Those demons shouldn’t have been practicing those low notes the evil one wanted them to perfect.
Afanasiv took the lead. He started ascending up the steep slope, very conscious of each step the Lycans would take behind him. It was nearly a blackout in the passage. Very little light seeped in. He had an advantage in that he didn’t need his physical vision to see. Gaia didn’t either. The Lycans had good night vision as a rule, but this wasn’t about night vision. This was a false darkness.
Off on the right side and low to the ground was a pinpoint of light running about a foot long. Directly above that was a similar pinpoint of light running about a foot long. A door built into the wall and camouflaged with dirt and rock.
Let me take a look before any of you move. He didn’t wait for a protest; he slipped under that crack to find himself in a wide area dug out to resemble a room of sorts.
Three demons sat in chairs sipping at homemade brew and chomping on old bones. They each held playing cards in their hands. The cards were smeared with grease and dirt. Old blood stained them, but the demons didn’t seem to notice. They tipped their chairs back and continued with their conversation.
“She won’t stop until everyone is dead,” purple shirt groused. “I’ve never seen her so driven before. Lucifer shouldn’t have laughed at her.”
Polka-dot shirt nodded solemnly. “He’s going to find himself with a spear through his heart if he doesn’t watch out.”
“And she’s got those creepy mages working for her,” pink shirt added. “She’s taking over down here, and no one’s noticed, least of all him.”
“Because he doesn’t think she’s a threat to him,” purple shirt said. “Why does she want that Skyler girl so much? The mage wants her as well. What is it with everyone and the girl? Maybe we should get in on that and get to her first.” He threw two cards on the table and added two new ones to his hand.
“She’d skin us alive,” polka-dot said. “Are you crazy? She’s done that before, you know.”
Pink shirt tilted her head. “Why does she want that girl?”
Polka-dot shirt sighed. “Quit cheating. You can’t just take new cards whenever you want them. You didn’t hear this from me. It’s who her mother was. Her father is Dragonseeker, right? Razvan is really her birth father. And he’s Dragonseeker. But her mother . . .”
“Human,” pink shirt said with a little sniff of disdain. “They don’t even taste all that good.”
“Do you want me to tell you or not?” polka-dot demanded.
Afanasiv wanted to know. He thought a gag might be appropriate to put over pink shirt’s mouth. He waited.
“Her mother came from a big-deal mage family. I heard the whispers after Xavier was sent here. The mother also had some big affinity to Mother Earth and all that mumbo-jumbo crap Lilith likes to talk about. You know how she is about being one with the earth. She could heal the earth and had all kinds of power over it.”
Purple shirt snorted. “Bullshit. No one can do half the things Lilith says they can.”
“She believes it, and that means it’s real to her. So we’d better believe it, as well.” Polka-dot gave a casual shrug and stabbed an overripe peach with his knife and lifted it to his mouth. The juice ran down his arm and dripped onto the table. “Seems that this particular woman, Skyler, has all these superpowers because of her blood. See, she’s Dragonseeker, but she’s also got this Mother Earth thing going on, too. Everyone thinks her mother was strictly human, but she wasn’t. She was mage, and her family was even more powerful than Xavier’s.” He grinned, revealing three gold teeth and a mouthful of peach.
Pink shirt rolled her eyes. “That’s not telling us anything. Why wouldn’t all Carpathians know Skyler was mage? What’s the big deal? They all seem to be one with the earth. Even Gaia is. She can do all sorts of things with dirt.”
“Sheesh, how the hell would I know what that means,” polka-dot asked. “I don’t care one way or another. I’m just telling you what I’ve overheard. I don’t think Skyler even knows why her mother is such a big deal.”
Purple shirt threw his cards down right in the middle of the peach juice. “I hate being cooped up in here. I should be out there finding this bitch Skyler. There’s no reason for me to be pulling this kind of duty when I have seniority.”