Page 77 of Mongrel
The smell hits the air as Janos dives for the third guard. Before the man can unsheathe his sword, Janos has swiped his blade across his throat.
Our advantage lasts only seconds, and a loud cry of alarm from the fourth shatters the silence. I punch him too late to stop the scream. Bowie steps in to finish him off.
I’m stunned by the violence, though I knew it was coming. Four men conquered without having landed a single blow. They stood no chance against vampires.
Bowie wipes his blade and tucks it into his belt, unfazed. I’ve never seen this side of him. His eyes meet mine.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
A slurping noise jolts me from my stupor. Janos feeds off a dying man. I cringe.
Bowie takes my elbow and leads me past the carnage. “Talk to me.”
“It’s fine,” I lie. Blood lingers so strong in my nostrils that I itch to blow my nose. “I’m fine.”
“Come.” Bowie tugs me farther down the gray hall. Wall sconces light the way. Bowie is too kind to call my bluff. “We must flee in case anyone heard the scream. Can you do that?”
I nod, peering ahead. There’s a staircase. My instinct says we should head down, but I fear the enemy will be heading up. “Is there another way?”
“There must be many. A servant’s passage perhaps? We’ll find it.”
Janos catches up, and the three of us race ahead, then turn off down another hall.
Bowie checks doors as we go.
I hear footsteps. “Hurry!”
“This way,” says Bowie. We flee through a door down a narrow passage to another set of stairs, Janos silently closing the door behind us.
Relief lasts only seconds as a man yells, “Alert the garrison! The prisoners have escaped!”
“Hellfire.” Bowie races downward, me on his heels.
“We need to split up now.” Janos flings open every door we pass. “Make it harder for them to tail us.”
“We’ll never find Cecily with the guards tearing through the castle,” says Bowie.
I disagree. Maybe we can’t findallthe girls, but we must get Cecily. “I can find her.”
“Change of plans,” says Janos as we continue toward ground level. “Andras, sniff out Cecily and bring her to the stables. I’ll find Deseo and a place to hide. Go!”
Janos vanishes through a door leaving Bowie and me alone.
“Do you smell her?” asks Bowie.
“No, but that’s good, isn’t it? She hasn’t been to Báthory’s rooms or dragged through this passage.”
“All right, this way. We’ll find the great hall and start there. If you smell her before that, let me know.”
Bowie sprints off as if he knows where he’s going. Maybe he does. He’s probably been in dozens of castles. Certainly they’d share commonalities.
As I follow, my mind drifts to the scene outside Báthory’s chambers. Bowie calmly silences guards with his dagger. For a man who refuses to feed from others, he managed to kill easy enough.
I know this is different. Lives are at stake. His niece. Innocent girls. Yet I found the act shocking.
My muscles flex with tension as we dart from the endless staircase down a wide corridor. My lungs are tight. My senses heightened. I wish I could tear off this hat so I could hear properly. My ears twitch uselessly from where they’re flattened to my skull.
This hall is lit, a public space, and risky. I concentrate on sniffing, hoping for a whiff of mint, willing it to lead us to Cecily.
