I peered inside. The tunnel was big enough to crawl into on all fours and shored up with wood, but the smell of dirt and mustiness hung heavily in the air. It was also long, dark, and scary looking. I switched to infrared, but it didn't help any. The tunnel curled to the left as it headed downward, and while infrared could see past walls, it couldn't pierce earth.
What do you smell?
The sudden question made me jump a little.
Dampness. I hesitated, sorting through the more tenuous scents coming up from the tunnel. Blood. Sulfur.
Sulfur is demon scent. How strong is it?
Not very.
If it's an old scent, it's probably from past summonings. He hesitated. Still, proceed with caution, and keep the salt and water handy.
just what the hell am I supposed to do with them?
Holy water burns when it hits them. The salt can act as a barrier they can't cross if you use it to create a circle around yourself.
If I have time.
If you have the time.
I blew out a breath, grabbed the bottles of holy water, doing up the loose top so it didn't spill before climbing into the tunnel.
Though there was plenty of room, progress was slow. Between tasting the air, sliding the water ahead of me, and trying to see where the tunnel was actually going, speed wasn't going to happen.
The gentle slope curved around to the left, then right, and the smell of dampness, blood, and sulfur increased. And with it came something else. Muskiness.
Animal muskiness.
Something else was down here. I stopped, drawing in a deep breath, trying to place the aroma. It was sharp and distinct, and felt old in a way I couldn't even begin to explain. And it wasn't anything I'd ever come across.
There's something here.
What?
I don't know. It smells animal, but different, if that makes sense.
Could be any manner of demon.
Well, gee, that's comforting.
Amusement drifted down the telepathic line. There's only one way you're going to know what it is.
Says the man who's safe on the other side of the door.
The amusement died. If I could swap places, I would.
I know. I shuffled on. The slope continued its gentle downward arc, and the odd assortment of smells neither increased nor decreased. After a minute or so, the tunnel began to widen, and I was able to stand.
I dusted the dirt from my hands and knees, then looked around. The room was small and on the square side of round, and, like the tunnel, shored up by wood. There didn't appear to be anything hiding in corner shadows, despite the animallike odors haunting the air.
Talk to me, Riley.
I've reached the cellar. I took a step, and the sound echoed on the wooden floor. A chill scampered across my skin, though I wasn't entirely sure why. My gaze caught a white candle sitting in an alcove to my left, and beside it sat a box of matches. I mentioned them to Quinn, and added, Is it safe to light?
Riley, you're a dhampire with infrared sight. You don't need candlelight.
It's a psychological thing. I thinly this place would feel better with a little regular light.
Do it, then.
I placed one of the bottles near the wall, out of the way, then tucked the other under my arm and grabbed the handily placed box of matches to light the wick. Yellow light flared softly across the darkness, lending weight to the corner shadows but somehow offsetting the odd chill.
There doesn't appear to be anything here.
Check the floor.
I glanced down. Up until now, part of me had been hoping that Quinn was wrong, that magic wouldn't play a part of this whole setup. But, as usual, my hopes were dashed.
There's wax remains of five blacky candles standing at each of the points of a pentagram that appears drawn onto the floorboards by ash of something like that. Around this, we have fist-sized blacky stones forming a circle.
The black stones are warding stones. They're stronger than regular protection circles, but perform the same basic functions.
I studied the nearest stones for a minute, noting the way the black surface seemed to swallow rather than reflect the candlelight. Will the holy water or salt have any effect on them?
On them? No. And depending on the type of spell used, they may even prevent you from putrefying the pentagram and making it unusable.
How?
They form a physical barrier. Place your hand near the stones to see what I mean—but be careful.
I stepped closer to the nearest two stones and raised a hand. Electricity buzzed across my fingertips like little angry flies. As I got closer, mini flickers of red lashed the air, like lightning about to strike. I stopped my hand a whisker away from the barrier, watching the almost angry light show, letting the energy of it flow across my skin. It felt foul. Evil, even.
Not surprising given the pentagram it protected was being used to call creatures from the dimension of hell itself.
I dropped my hand, shaking it a little to get some warmth back into my fingers and to lose the feel of the power. As I stepped back, something stirred in the shadow-filled corner to my right and the odd mustiness sharpened abruptly.
A low rumble ran across the silence, making the small hairs on my neck stand on end. I reached for the knife, but my fingers had barely closed around the hilt when the shadows found shape.
And what a shape.
It was big and black, with yellow eyes that gleamed with unnatural fire in the pale candlelight and teeth as long as my forearm.
It wasn't a demon.
It was a hellhound.
Chapter Nine
Houston, we have a problem. I was gripping the knife so hard my knuckles positively ached, but I hadn't yet drawn the blade from the sheath. I had a bad feeling that if I moved, if I so much as twitched, the thing in the corner with the fearsome-looking teeth would attack.
And those teeth looked strong enough to bite me in half.
There's a demon? Quinn's tension suddenly flooded the link between us, until I wasn't sure where his ended and mine began.
If a hellhound is classed as a demon, then yeah, one of them.
A hellhound is a stronger class of demon, and won't be stopped by the salt. It can, however, be burned by holy water.
I awkwardly began to undo the lid of the water bottle one-handed. As shields went, it didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence. Particularly when the creature lowered its head and snarled again. The sound rolled around the room, and if I'd been in wolf form, hackles would have risen. This thing might be a demon, but it was a doggy demon, and my wolf soul just didn't take to being threatened by anything canine.
Which is why I mostly kept my wolf in check. Sometimes she had absolutely no sense.
Do I need to slice its head off to kill it, or will any old well-placed stab work?
Slowly, carefully, I began to draw the knife from the sheath. The rumbling growl got louder, the threat in the creature's eyes sharper.
I'm afraid you'll have to take its head off.
Crap. That meant getting closer to those needle-sharp, feet-long teeth than anyone with any sort of sense would want to.
The knife finally inched clear of the sheath. The hellhound's growl reverberated again, a low sound of warning and anger. Tension crawled through my limbs and sweat broke out across my brow. With the knife at the ready, I continued my awkward attempt to undo the water bottle.