Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Somehow breaking the killer’s mesmerizing gaze, Sky looked down and saw that a tendril of the black ooze had crept down the hilt of her dagger and was making its way across her hand like the curious tentacles of a frellian ink-squid.
With a gasp, she let go of the dagger and shook her hand rapidly, like someone trying to get rid of a stinging insect. The black goo flew off to splatter against the stone wall, but she could still feel the burning where it had touched her skin—especially the place where she’d cut herself with the blade earlier.
Inside me, she thought inanely. He…it…that thing is inside me now!
But there was no time to waste examining her hand. Her dagger slid out of the killer’s throat and thunked harmlessly on the stone floor. The small wound the blade had made in his throat closed seamlessly, like water filling the small ripple a dropped stone makes in its surface.
The killer’s smile widened, showing more teeth than Sky would have thought possible. The silver armor—Lunk’or’s armor—had melted into a nondescript black suit. He raised his hands and she saw that every one of his fingers was tipped with a long, sharp blade.
“Are you ready to have some fun, Special Agent Sky’lar?” he rasped. “Because I’ve been watching you and I think the two of us could have quite a lot of fun together. What do you say?”
Sky opened her mouth and screamed,
“RUN!” at the top of her voice.
She turned, expecting every moment to feel those blades pierce her, and rushed at the three Serpentine women still frozen on the cloud bed.
“Now—now, we have to get out!” she screamed in their faces.
“Oh! Oh, my!” the High Priestess exclaimed, looking completely bewildered.
Thankfully, Neen’ya kept her head.
“This way!”
She grabbed the High Priestess with one hand and Soon’ya with the other and hustled them both off the bed. She rushed for one of the tapestries hung on the back wall and began feeling under it, though Sky couldn’t tell what she was doing.
“Hurry—hurry!” she urged, casting a glance behind her.
The killer was still there—he was making his way across the stone floor to them, grinning that impossible grin, so wide it made Sky wonder if the corners of his mouth might not meet in the back of his head and cause the top of it to fall off. But she was sure if that happened, he would just remake himself—clearly he could take any form he wanted to.
He was taking his time, getting to them. Sky had a horrible feeling this was part of the fun for him—this slow-motion chase.
“It doesn’t matter where you go, ladies,” he grated, seeing Sky looking at him. “Wherever you go, there I’ll be. I can get through any door—any crack or crevice. You can’t stop me. I’ll have you—all of you—in the end.”
“Got it!” Sky heard Neen’ya’s muffled voice. “Come on—hurry!”
She ducked under the tapestry, though it was terribly hard to take her eyes from that white, grinning face and those long, silver knife-blade fingers—and found herself in a narrow stone tunnel.
“Where are we?” she hissed at Neen’ya, as she shut the door behind her, leaving them in darkness. Better darkness than the killer, though. “Does this door lock?”
“Yes—automatically when you close it,” Neen’ya answered.
“Oh, girls—what is going on here? Who was that person?” The High Priestess sounded both frightened and outraged in the darkened tunnel.
“That was the killer I was trying to warn you about,” Sky told her. “Neen’ya—where does this tunnel lead? We have to get out of here—out of the Shrine!”
“It leads deeper into the Shrine, I’m afraid,” Neen’ya said, sounding apologetic in the darkness.
Sky swore under her breath. Then, she made a decision.
“Well, it’s better than being trapped in the room with him. Come on—we need to put as many doors between us and him as we can!”
But even as they made their way through the tunnel as quickly as they could, she remembered the killer saying that he could make his way through any door, any crack, any crevice, that he would have them all in the end…
“But he didn’t have Mirabella, did he?” whispered a feminine voice in her ear—the same voice that had woken her and had told her to trust her instincts. “She saved herself—she found a place the killer could not enter. You must do the same, Daughter!”
Suddenly Sky knew where they had to go. As they stumbled out into a larger corridor and then turned right into one of the main areas of the Shrine, she grabbed for Neen’ya’s arm.
“The special room—the Chamber of The Book Which Writes Itself,” she exclaimed. “Where is it from here? We have to get there—quickly!”
FIFTY
TORIN
Torin heard someone shout, “RUN!” in a voice that might have been Sky’s but it was so high and terrified he wasn’t sure. It echoed against the stone walls and he barely knew where it was coming from. But he still felt the Goddess guiding him.