Page 65 of As Darkness Fall
In the sky, there was no sun, but also no stars. It was just…a sandy white ceiling. It could be ten feet above us or a thousand miles. There was no way to tell. It was pretty, in its own way.
On our right, various stone structures rose from the ground. Not houses, but more like formations. Giant rocks of various shades of white. I couldn’t tell what they were, but they were all different; that much was obvious. Some were squat and wide, others taller and narrower. Some in a circle, others long rectangles. There was even one dome-like structure nearer the center. All of them bright.
“This isn’t that spooky,” I said quietly to no one in particular as we milled around, waiting for Aaron to lead us on.
“What did you expect?” Jaxton replied from next to me in an equally low voice that wouldn’t carry.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “But on Earth, where I’m from, vampires have a bit of a reputation, you know. You’re supposed to be creepy creatures of the night and all that. So, I guess I expected it would be more along those lines. Dark and foreboding?”
“Just wait,” Fred said dryly from nearby.
I only had time to give him a look of confusion before Aaron silenced us all and pointed. He took us in a direction that passed by the giant stone structures but didn’t go through them.
We walked, and I kept at least one or two team members between Vir, who watched our left flank, and me. He had a glare on his face that promised violence to anyone who pissed him off, and I didn’t want to know what it was all about. I figured he was harboring a grudge against Aaron for taking my hand earlier. Part of me wanted to call him out, say that he got his own licks in by copping a feel when he snatched me up just seconds after, but I didn’t have the energy. The two of them were becoming annoying in their claims over me.
Maybe I should just pick neither of them, I thought to myself, looking at Fred out of the corner of my eye. He was a mystery, a conundrum that I had yet to puzzle out. A member of Aaron’s team, yes, but he seemed to be more than that as well. Would I ever find out what? Probably not.
Looking away, I surveyed the landscape as we walked, trying to catalog the differences between here and Earth. It wasn’t long before I noted something else about this place.
There was nothing alive around us. Just nothing at all. No animals skittered out of our way. No birds took off into the sky to announce our presence. No bushes broke up the monotony of the stone landscape. No trees swayed in the wind.
I frowned.
There was nowindeither. Not even a breeze. For the Realm of the Undead, it sure felt more like the realm of the dead.
We passed by the last of the rock structures, and then we descended into a gorge, following the path down until walls rose high on both sides of us, blocking the view of the landscape. I frowned, feeling uncomfortable about it.
Despite my irritation at him, I moved up to walk next to Vir as we made our way through the deep cut in the earth. The sides continued to close up around us.
“Does he really know how to get there?” I asked, speaking my words so quietly that only Vir should be able to hear.
The shifter god nodded.
“Is it far?” I wanted to know.
“Why?” Fred asked from beside me, his usual flippancy gone. “Starting to get spooked?”
I glared at him, not realizing he’d come up next to me. “Maybe,” I said. “It’s odd here. With nothing at all. Not even wind. Is there truly nothing here but us?”
“Be glad it’s that way,” Aaron said sharply from up ahead, declining to elaborate any more than that.
I glared at his back as we hurried along, the pace picking up. I had so many questions about this place, our destination. And about Aaron. I didn’t ask them, though. Even Fred seemed on edge. Not that I could see a reason why.
There was no reason to be spooked. There was literallynothinghere.
The canyon ahead of us abruptly came to an end, spitting us out on a tiny ledge that sat high up in the mountains. How did I know?
It was easy. Before us, and thousands of feet below, a giant city complex was spread out. I thought back to the cliff that had towered over us when we’d first arrived, trying to put that into context against the distance to the city below.
Conclusion: we were really fricking high up.
And I was perfectly okay with it. Because we were in the land of the vampires. And we’d just come to a city. Where I would be the only living thing, surrounded by a likely teeming mass of bloodsuckers.
Gulp.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“What is this place?” I asked as we moved out after a few moments of staring.
