Page 67 of Blood Illusions

Justice leaned closer again. “Don’t listen to them. I promise I’ll get you out alive.”

His determined voice should have calmed my fears, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he made the same promise to my dad.

“Put your bow and arrow down and take this.”

I couldn’t see what was in his hand in the dark stairwell, and I wasn’t looking at him. I was staring up at the vampires guarding our only means of escape. “What is it?”

“A flashlight and a shotgun. Use the gun for now. You can’t fire an arrow if you can’t see anything.”

My hand trembled as I slid my bow onto my shoulder, carefully placing the arrow back into its quiver. With a deep breath, I switched on the flashlight and gripped the shotgun in my other hand.

“Are you a good shot?”

I smirked. “Not as good as my brother, but I could shoot the wings off a fly at thirty yards. And look damn good doing it.” My voice sounded more confident than the quiver in my belly.

He chuckled. “I bet you would.”

We descended into the depths of the catacombs, following a narrow and winding stairwell. As we went deeper, the all-consuming darkness swallowed the faint glow from our flashlights. The air grew colder and staler with each step, and I couldn’t shake the feeling we were still being watched.

Every now and then, we heard hisses and cries echoing behind us. The sound echoed off the stone walls. We were safe for now, the line of salt creating a protective barrier, but we couldn’t let our guard down. There may have been another way into St. Marinus Abbey by the Lake that we weren’t aware of. The abbey was known for its secrets, with rumors of hidden passageways known only to the vampires. Thanks to my throbbing tattoo, I felt their presence all around us, preparing to attack.

The soft pad of footsteps followed closely behind us, echoing off the walls and sending shivers down my spine. Every time we stopped to catch our breath, the sound would stop, too, leaving me with a sense of unease.

I desperately scanned the dimly lit spiral staircase with my flashlight, half-expecting to see Gollum from The Lord of the Rings staring back at me. But there was only the empty stairwell, cold and damp, as we descended deeper into its depths.

My heart raced as I considered the possibility that we were not alone in this abandoned building. Maybe it wasn’t the vampires. Maybe we weren’t alone. Maybe Maci the shadow dragon was stalking us. Still, Justice and I pushed on until we finally reached the bottom of the stairs, our nerves on edge and our senses heightened.

With my hand shaking, I moved the flashlight across the stone walls and gasped. The catacombs opened into a vast, cavernous space, far larger than I had anticipated. The beam of my flashlight only captured fragments of our surroundings, a sea of shadows punctuated by the occasional glint of moisture on the ancient stones.

In the center of the room stood an altar, its surface covered in dust and cobwebs. Strange symbols were etched into the stone, their meaning lost to time. Scattered around it were various artifacts. A chalice, a dagger with a handle that looked like bone, and a scattering of old books, their pages yellowed and curled.

Yet, it was the ceiling that truly took my breath away. It was a mosaic of sorts, a macabre tapestry made of bones and skulls arranged in a pattern that seemed to hold a sinister significance. In the dim light of my flashlight, it looked like the ceiling was moving, the shadows creating an illusion of life in the lifeless.

The footsteps that had followed us down the staircase seemed to have ceased, leaving only the sound of our own breathing and the occasional drip of water from the catacombs’ ceiling. I felt Justice’s presence behind me, tense and alert.

“This place,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “Seems like even the devil would think twice about decorating his den like this.”

Justice glanced at me with concern and determination. “Maybe, but remember why we’re here. We’ll get through this, find your father, and put an end to whatever’s happening. Stay close and stay sharp.”

Shivers ran down my back to my ankles. “Exploring this house of horrors solo? Yeah, that’s not exactly topping my to-do list.”

At that moment, I knew we were standing in the heart of something ancient and terrible, where secrets were kept and horrors were hidden. The sense of being watched intensified, and I couldn’t shake off the feeling we were not, in fact, alone in the dark.

Somewhere down in the funhouse from hell, my dad was a prisoner.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Justice and I crept toward the gruesome stone altar. My flashlight revealed what looked like rust stains, but it wasn’t rust. It was definitely blood.

And it glowed.

Blood wasn’t the only thing on the altar. On closer inspection, the bloodstains were a ritualistic pattern, almost like a foreign language. My gut tightened. I’d seen these symbols before.

Justice picked up the bone chalice and sniffed. “Doesn’t look like our hosts have been using this.”

“No, they probably practice their voodoo upstairs.”

“Or somewhere else we haven’t discovered.”

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