Sentinel Read Online Free PDF

pricks of light glinting in the shadows cast by a hood.
    Above, an elemental purr disturbed the heavens. The winds stirred, moaning about the graves to mock the long-silenced voices of their occupants.
    The cloaked form approached a mausoleum and produced an intricate key. It was slotted into a corroded lock, then twisted with a grating protest of metal. With a final thunk the lock complied.
    Pausing in the open doorway, the figure raised pale hands and the hood was cast back with a sigh. A mass of lustrous red hair slithered over cloak-clad shoulders.
    The storm fell silent.
    Porcelain skin gleamed. Blood-red lips were full with defiance.
    Malika .
    She swung the door shut and bent to examine the interior of the crypt.
    “Charming, still,” she murmured mellifluously.
    In this dank place, the walls were infested with unnatural, spiny weeds. They clutched jealously at every stone, having prospered despite the lack of nourishing sunlight.
    Malika glided over to a sarcophagus, the tomb’s sole resident.
    The tip of her tongue dabbed her lips and when she pressed her hands to the cold surface a delicious shiver travelled through her.
    “The power has dwindled none,” she whispered. “Even when such time has passed.”
    The colour rose in her cheeks as she studied the symbols carved into the rough surface – a dead language long forgotten. Its mere presence soothed. It was only now, scrutinising these words after so many years, that she realised what had been missing. They reminded her of times long past; back when she had not stalked the shadows alone.
    Now was the time to change that. Summoning her strength, she prised open the sarcophagus. The cover-stone skated sideways, hinged at one end.
    Malika peered down.
    This was no ordinary grave. No rotted cadaver dreamed here.
    The sarcophagus was bottomless. A flight of steps plunged down into darkness. Malika breathed in the pungent stink that came roving from below. It was the scent of death and decay, of years of torment and agony. Before she could stop it, a delighted laugh spilled from her throat.
    The shadows recoiled.
    “How could I forget?” she murmured in caramel tones. “Forgive me my absence, I have returned now, at the waking of the world’s darkest era.”
    Like a ghost, Malika swept over the side of the sarcophagus. The darkness below was solid like a shapeless, living thing, but to her eyes there was no dark. Her cat-like eyes picked out the stairs all the way to the bottom and her footsteps rang out as she descended.
    There came no answering sounds; she had not expected any. It had been many decades since her last visit and she had sealed the mausoleum herself. That had been during the Second World War, when the earth had rocked as bombs were sent to scar the face of the world. She had revelled in that time, watching with glee as the petty humans fought, maimed and killed each other. Blood had flowed and she had soaked up the chaos eagerly from the sidelines.
    The stone steps came to an end.
    She hissed a foreign-sounding word and her command struck out like a whip. Fire erupted in an iron bowl held aloft by stone. There came another eruption. And another. And another, until the cavernous area below the graveyard was at last revealed to her, bathed in angry orange flickers.
    It was vast, stretching further than even she could see. Pillars like trees, spreading upwards into a dark canopy of shadow.
    Malika stepped into the hallowed chamber, moving resolutely. Water trickled down the columns, and at last she came to what she had been seeking; that which her heart ached to behold.
    An immense stone effigy towered over her. It bore the face of a monster – fang-filled jaws snarled, beady eyes stared and horns curved up out of a bulging forehead to disappear into the stone wall.
    Malika’s breast heaved as she studied the carving. She raised her trembling hands and untied the cloak that smothered her form.
    It came away at her shoulders, rippling to the