Page 505 of Shadowblood Souls
“Thank you—thank you so much!”
I turn my back on my guys—and grope through their mingling energies for the one power that could save us all.
Dominic’s voice rasps out. “You don’t have to do this, Riva.”
He might even mean that, not just be helping to sell my story. But I do have to.
I do, or we all die here while Balthazar sneers at our downfall.
I say nothing, just trudge up the tunnel.
Most of the rocks fell directly on the section where Balthazar caught us, but a few stray stones lie on the increasingly darkenedpath. As I push myself up the steep slant, my calves burning, I nearly trip over one I didn’t see.
“I’m coming, Dad,” I call out to keep him focused on me. “Just can’t see much in here.”
He won’t shake loose any more projectiles with that “fail safe” of his until I’m out of the passage, right? He wouldn’t want to risk cracking openmyhead—not his daughter’s, not when she’s finally accepting his mercy.
Once I’m out, he’ll bury the guys like he’s promised.
So I need to take care of this problem before I leave the tunnel.
The light behind me fades completely with a curve in the passage. I run my fingers along the walls, feeling my way.
And aim the penetrating sight I stole from Zian through the layer of stone at my left.
I’m not attempting to burn through anything right now, only to use the incisive vision that lets him see through solid surfaces. After a few attempts, I catch a glimmer of light a few feet through the rock.
There’s another passage parallel to this one. I glimpse it in brief flashes—carved stairs in contrast with the uneven floor I’m stumbling along, occasional light fixtures mounted on the ceiling.
An escape route rather than a secret passage, meant for a man with higher standards than he offered his shadowkind collaborators.
And somewhere along that passage, I’ll find the madman himself.
It’s so dark in my tunnel that I don’t see the door Zian tore through, only feel a slightly more forceful draught of air when I get near it. I cast my gaze toward the wall again and have to clamp down on my jolt of surprise.
There’s a whole control room of sorts at the start of the other tunnel, presumably behind the locked door we saw. Screens and electronic consoles gleam along the stone walls.
And by one of those consoles, peering at a screen I can’t make out, stands Balthazar, intent as the grizzled lion he’s always reminded me of. His hands are braced over a keypad.
The vision flickers away in my surprise and my lack of practice with the X-ray vision. I pause as if to briefly catch my breath.
Leaning one hand against the stone surface, I pull my scream into the back of my head. I have to launch my attack fast, before Balthazar catches on that I can use my power on him even while he’s theoretically beyond my view?—
But as I lift my gaze to the wall to focus it on the man who’s my father and my tormenter, a tickle of frantic, aggressive pheromones reaches my nose.
Two facts click into place in my head in the split-second I register the tang.
They can’t be coming from Balthazar, because the chemicals his body gives off could never penetrate this stone. Someone must be just beyond the broken door to this tunnel.
And that someone has nothing good in mind for the person they must be waiting to ambush…
Me.
My head jerks around just as a gaunt body hurtles through the ragged opening.
Matteo still has the benefit of a little surprise. I might have started to catch on, but I had no time to really brace myself.
“She’s doing something!” he calls out in a thin voice as he jams a gun to the underside of my chin. He’s got a plastic contraption fixed over his eyes—some kind of goggles to help him see in the dark? “She’s got a trick?—”
