Page 60 of Vicious
That was all I knew with absolutecertainty.
Poh dragged Crispin forward, and like fools intent on winning an impossible war, we opened the door and followed the trail ofblood.
17
With my heartpulsing like a siren, I pawed at my corset where my ice picks should’ve been. I was defenseless without a weapon and useless as a ghost magnet since I couldn’t invite any more spirits inside. At least I had my chains, though I’d learned on Mayvel just how easily those could be yanked from myscalp.
We followed the trail of death down a hallway past several closed doors, the noise of the seemingly disinterested crowd of space travelers fading behind us. I mapped our progress in the periodic table map in my mind since we’d likely need to make a quick getaway, if we happened to survive. Poh scanned the names on the plaques beside the doors while I threw glances over my shoulder to see if anyone followed us. The floor dipped down steadily, leading us to the bowels of a haunted spacestation.
Around the next corner, we slid to a stop. I gasped. Blinked. Tried to plug my head into what I’d half expected, but never wanted tosee.
Blood painted the entire length of the hallway, had even splashed onto the ceiling. Mangled piles I didn’t keep my gaze on too long lay slumped along thewalls.
“Holy fuck,” Pohwhispered.
Crispin deposited what he’d eaten on the floor, his hand braced on the wall and smearing the blood-covered paint whiteagain.
A male’s shouts erupted from somewhere farther along the maze of hallways, scraping sharp needles up my back. The sound knocked Poh back a few steps, and she whipped her head around to connect her panicked gaze withmine.
“He’s dead,” Crispin said, his voice almost a whimper. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and straightened, his lightning eyes brimming tears. “Whoever you’re looking for is already dead. We need to go. We need toget—”
“No. We can’t. We walked into a trap, Crispin. I’m…I’m sorry.” I took a steadying breath that did nothing to calm my nerves and slogged through the muck toward the nearest door on the left. If we’d gone farther down the hallway, I was pretty sure we’d find more of the same. “Look for aweapon.”
At the touch of a button on the side panel, the door popped open. I glanced behind me to be sure Poh and Crispin followed. Poh snatched Crispin’s shoulder and skated him forward, ensuring safety in forcednumbers.
Frosted glass cubicles and larger offices took up the wide space, spotless compared to the hallway except our bloodied footprints on the iron-colored floor behind us. The air was colder in here, pinching my lungs with every inhale. We fused ourselves together as we searched offices and desks for signs of life or something that could be used as a weapon. Crispin found a golf club, which he clung to in front of his body and murmured what sounded like a prayer into itsmetal.
As we moved, the lights on the high ceiling flickered. I stuck one of my chains in my mouth, but it hardly gave off a zip of energy. Hopefully it was sufficient to attract enough electromagnetic energy to shield me. With the violent deaths that had happened here, there were likely a large number of malicious ghosts who would find me if my chain wasn’t enough. For good measure, I poked another one insidetoo.
We headed right down a narrow path between cubicles and offices but stopped when the lights overhead shrank like dying stars until there was barely aspark.
We froze, huddled together. I sucked harder on my chains, my blood raging between myears.
To our right down another narrow path that led toward the hallway, a dark, massive shape loomed outside a frosted glass door. Saelis. A scream welled in my chest and hung there,petrified.
Poh dragged me backward behind a cubicle wall and down to all fours, but not Crispin, who shrugged out of her grasp. He rocked back on his heels, his mouth hanging open, his hands jerking at his sides as he stared at an office chair. It rolled and rocked out of a cubicle in front of us into the aisle, seemingly byitself.
As the frosted glass door creaked open, the chair crashed to a stop against another cubiclewall.
Poh made a mad grab for Crispin, but he backed away. A stream of urine darkened his pants down one leg to splash the top of his shoe. He spun and lunged for the direction we’d just come, taking the golf club withhim.
A terrible screech sounded from the direction of the open door, followed by heavy thuds that vibrated the floor under my hands andknees.
Poh hauled me backward past another cubicle and in and around its wall. We pressed our backs against it, her hand never leaving my shoulder to cast me with her invisibility, andwaited.
The Saelis thundered into the center of the room where we’d just been, less than five feet away from us. I crushed my hands to my mouth and stilled everything but my deafening heartbeat. Out of the corner of my eye, Poh squeezed her eyes shut as a slight tremble shook through herframe.
The Saelis’s claws clicked across the floor as it moved deeper into the room. We could sneak behind his back and escape through the doorway where it had come from. Where there could possibly be more Saelis. Or we could stay hereforever.
I flashed a look at Poh and jerked my thumb behind us. Poh slowly peeled herself away from the cubicle wall, her body coiled to move. Fast. She zipped her gaze around the wall then nodded at me, her hand on myshoulder.
My six senses ratcheted up to high alert. I slinked after her, each touch of my tiptoes as soft as I could make them. I bit down hard on my lip, keeping my head level so my chains wouldn’t clink. Poh led the way out of the cubicle, ducked into a low squat. I followed, glancing around for Crispin or the Saelis. I didn’t see eitherone.
Down the narrow path to the right, the door the Saelis had come through opened once more. Poh spun around with a wince and waved me back in the direction we’d justcome.
Clicks sounded from the doorway. Answering clicks echoed from across the room. Two Saelises. Their footsteps pounded the floor, drawing closer to each other. Andus.
Poh hauled me backward toward another cubicle. Inside of it, someone sat drooped in the seat, facing away from us. A female, with a gaping hole in her skull and blood plastering her curly long hair to the back of the seat. Her head shifted, and her chair began to slowly turn around as if she’d sensed mypresence.
