Blood Prophecy Read Online Free PDF Page B

one smacked into my ankle.
    I dug out frantically, like an animal, refusing to look away from that sliver of weak light. I could almost reach the door. The more earth I shoved away, the more took its place. I spat it out of my mouth, blinked it from my eyelashes, shook it out of my ears. My nails tore to the quick, bleeding and stinging as they finally raked against the wooden planks of the castle’s tunnel entrance. I wiggled and shifted around so I could kick it with my heel until it finally groaned open.
    I stumbled into the castle, bringing clods of earth and pebbles with me. I pushed my dirt-tangled hair out of my face and leaped to my feet, looking for guards. When I realized I was alone, I slumped against the wall, muscles in my arms and legs aching.
    I was inside.
    I indulged in a weary grin before straightening up again to get my bearings. It was dark and dusty down here, with rows of irondoors. I’d come out right by the dungeons. I thought I heard weeping but all I could see was darkness and mildew.
    “Hello?” I whispered.
    The weeping stopped so abruptly I reached for a weapon I didn’t have.
    Which was when I realized I had no weapons.
    Crap.
    Too late to turn back now, and nowhere to go besides.
    I crept forward, straining to see inside the dank cells. Unlit torches lined the stone walls and soiled hay lay in heaps in the corner. A single candle flickered, stuck to the ground by melted wax. “Anyone there?”
    A girl with long blond hair to her knees wearing a ragged dress crouched near the bars of a cell. She looked about seven years old and there was an iron chain clamped around her ankle. Her mouth moved as if she was trying to speak, but no sound came out. I swallowed and glanced into the next cell. A knight in tarnished armor glared at me. Next to him was an old woman cackling to herself and next to her, a woman with bite scars, a vampire so pale she was translucent. Her fangs were extended, her eyes like pale purple violets covered in frost.
    “You’re a fool,” she said.
    I didn’t argue with her.
    The last cell held a Hel-Blar, snarling and spitting through the bars. I stayed well out of reach, wrinkling my nose at the stench.
    If Viola wanted them locked away in her subconscious, or wherever this was, then I wanted them free. And if I was lucky, she’d beso busy dealing with their mass exodus that I could sneak through the castle and find out what else she was hiding. Because whatever it was I was looking for, it wasn’t these sad bodies. They were important enough for her to lock them away but not important enough to guard. What I needed was somewhere else entirely.
    I bent to pick up one of the rocks that had tumbled out of the tunnel with me and smashed it onto one of the locks. The clang reverberated through the hall. I glanced over my shoulder at the spiral stone steps but when no one came thundering down to investigate, I smashed at the lock again. The rust eating through the iron worked in my favor.
    The vampire woman was the first to leap out of her cell, then the old woman and the lady. The knight eyed me suspiciously, even as his gate swung open. The little girl’s cell wasn’t even locked but she wouldn’t come out. I left the Hel-Blar where she was.
    I was still holding the rock defensively, waiting to see who would move first. The vampire streaked up the stairs so quickly I barely saw her move. The knight pulled his sword from him scabbard and I stumbled back.
    “I am a man of honor,” he informed me coldly.
    “Good, go kill a dragon or something,” I suggested. “Like right now.”
    He nodded curtly. I released the breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding. It startled me. I could breathe here, I could stand in sunlight, but I still had fangs. Viola’s head made no sense.
    I waited until the others had cleared out, all except the Hel-Blar and the little girl who was still huddled with her head under herarms, before inching up the steps. I kept close to the wall,