Christine Feehan - Dark Secret

"Why do I feel as if we are entering the devil's lair?" Rafael asked. He pitched his voice low.

"Because we are," Vikirnoff answered. "What is that noise?"

Rafael glanced at the ancient hunter. "It sounds like miners."

They rounded the corner and saw a dozen men working with pickaxes on the walls of the shaft. Several lanterns hung from the overhead beam, casting a dim yellow light over the workers below. As Vikirnoff and Rafael watched, two men manipulated a heavy, ore-filled car into place on the rickety rails. No one seemed to notice the presence of the two Carpathians.

The two hunters looked at one another. "It has to be an illusion," Vikirnoff said.

None of the miners turned at the sound of his voice. The men continued to work industriously, the sound of the picks hitting rock ringing through the shaft.

"They are wearing modern clothes," Rafael pointed out. He studied the scene in front of them, looking for the hidden trap he knew had to be there.

"It could be he is slowing us down, making the point we cannot trust our own senses."

"How did he set them in motion?" Rafael wanted to know. "If his illusion can tear into the rock, it can just as easily tear into us."

The pickaxes continued to ring out against the rock in a steady rhythm. Vikirnoff tapped his hand against his leg, following the pattern. "Do you hear that? Maybe something in the beat?"

Rafael crouched down, studying the scene from every angle. "Could be. He is tricking more than one sense. Sight, smell, hearing. He has done a superb job." There was admiration in his voice. "Look at the ground. There are no footprints in the dirt. They do not leave any evidence of their existence. See where the picks hit the rock?"

"The scene repeats itself as if it's looped," Vikirnoff said. "If we disturb it, by entering into it, would that trigger a trap, or dispel the scene?"

"He would not have gone to this trouble without some kind of a trap." Rafael rubbed his chin. "Unless it is a delaying tactic."

"If it is, it is a darned good one. You stay clear just in case I trigger an attack." Vikirnoff approached the miners with caution. None of them looked up. No one spoke. They continued with their work as if he wasn't walking in their midst. He glanced at Rafael. "Any ideas?"

"Take the pickax out of one of their hands and see if that disrupts the scene," Rafael suggested.

Vikirnoff stepped up beside a miner and easily pulled the tool from the man's hands. There was a brief moment of eerie silence as the ringing of the picks abruptly stopped. Immediately the tools fell to the ground and the men dissolved into skeletons, the bones sprawling all over the floor of the mine-shaft. Scraps of clothing lay rotting and the smell of decomposing bodies immediately filled the already foul air.

"Well, now we know for certain what happened to the missing people from the town and outlying ranches," Rafael said grimly. "This is definitely Kirja's lair." He stepped past the grotesque scene, careful not to disturb the bones.

They moved down the tunnel in total darkness. Almost at once there was a rustle behind them followed by the rattle of bone clicking against bone. The hunters whirled around to face the army of skeletons rising from the floor, bones reassembling to form warriors wielding the pickaxes with menacing intent, the eyeless skulls staring straight ahead.

"The sound of the picks on the rocks had to be the trigger," Rafael said in disgust at himself. "If we had not disturbed the scene, the trap would not have been sprung." He moved away from Vikirnoff to give them both fighting room.

It was a disturbing thing to see the dead rise up to defend the very creature that had brutally murdered them. It seemed so wrong, so obscene, that Rafael actually winced when he gathered his power into a ball of energy and sent it careening into the midst of the skeleton army. The explosion rocked the mines, cracked rotten timbers, splintered beams overhead, and sent dirt and rocks falling on the dead.

Vikirnoff and Rafael hurried away from the avalanche of debris. The three remaining skeletons that had not been caught in the force of the explosion rushed the hunters, brandishing their pickaxes. Their bones clacked and scraped in a gruesome manner and their mouths widened into a horrible gape. All the while the eyes stared straight ahead, pitiless holes in the empty skulls. Lights sprang up along the walls, lanterns swinging as if set in motion by an unseen hand. A wind rushed through the tunnels, awakening the guardians of the undead.

"Not good," Rafael murmured.

A terrible wailing came from somewhere just ahead of them, the sound swelling in volume until it was a symphony of screams. Dark shadows slipped through the cracks in the rock and dirt forming the walls of the tunnels. Vikirnoff turned to face the skeletons and Rafael took up a position at his back, facing the shadows. The Carpathians waited, back to back, for the attack.

It came in a rush of wind and bones. Dark shadows crept over the beams and rock, wailing loudly as they came with outstretched arms and clawed fingers, grasping for the hunters. Rafael answered with a burst of shattering white-hot light. The shadows screamed in fear and horror, retreating from the brilliance into the deeper recesses of the mine.

Vikirnoff smashed several lanterns over the heads of the skeletons, dousing them with flames. The pickaxes lay harmlessly in the dirt, but the burning bones continued forward, determined to kill the hunters. "Mist," he ordered.

Rafael shifted simultaneously with Vikirnoff so that the skeletons rushed past into the brilliant light. The bones disintegrated, exploding into splintered fragments. The flames flickered and died. There was another eerie silence.

The hunters moved further through the tunnel, proceeding with caution, shifting back to Carpathian form in order to utilize all of their senses. Rafael reached out with every sense he had, gathering information, allowing his brain to assimilate every smell and sound that came back to him. "We are running out of time. If we do not find him soon, we will have no choice but to seek rest and we cannot do so in these mines. It is his lair and it is well guarded."

"He is counting on that fact. All he has to do is keep us from finding his resting place until the sun is high," Vikirnoff agreed. "I have never fought a vampire with such safeguards."

"He has had centuries to perfect his skills." Rafael turned his head, listening to the rustles coming from behind them. "Do you hear that?"

"The skeletons are trying to re-form for another attack."

They were in a maze of tunnels and for a moment remained motionless, trying to get a feel for Kirja's resting place. "He is also very good at leaving no trace of his existence," Rafael added. He indicated the fungus growing on the walls of one of the tunnels. "That would be my best guess. That fungus is not growing anywhere else and I would venture it is another safeguard."

Vikirnoff peered closely at the strange warted growth. "I do not like the look of this, and there are millions of centipedes covering the floor. The timbers are rotted almost completely through. I say we do not touch anything as we go down this tunnel."

Rafael took one look at the carpet of centipedes. He swore in the ancient language. "Kirja is well aware we are close. I can feel him now. He cannot hide his hatred of me. He takes my hunting him far too personally."

Vikirnoff raised his eyebrow. "I cannot imagine why."

Rafael flashed a brief grin. "He knows my aversion to centipedes. A childish thing, but of course he would use it."

The eyebrow rose higher. "We are of the earth. How could a creature such as a centipede bother one such as you? You have dominion over such things."

"I had four brothers, Vikirnoff," Rafael pointed out. His form shimmered, became transparent, and shifted to that of a very small bat.