They had arrived back in the third-floor hallway.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“There are secret passages in my home.” Dorran’s smile was bitter, and his lips continued to tremble. Whether it was from repressed anger or shock, Clare wasn’t sure. “I’ve lived here my whole life, and I never knew. Apparently, trust is considered a luxury in this family.”
Clare wished she could say something to help, but her tongue was dry. The first time she’d seen one of the strangers, she’d been standing at the window at the end of the hallway. She could have sworn she’d seen a figure lurking in the darkness. But a second later, it had vanished. They were now standing where it had stood, at one of the support pillars. The door had been moulded to blend in with the pillar’s edges. Clare could have walked past it a thousand times and never noticed the hairline cracks.
When she looked back through the opening, she could see the secret passageway continuing, dipping into stairs shortly ahead. That answered the question of how the hollow ones had been moving through the house without being seen. But it raised another question: how far did the pathways go? She dreaded finding out the answer to that, but she could guess some of their destinations.
The cellar.
Dorran twisted to the right, towards their bedroom door. Clare followed his gaze and felt her heart skip a beat. The tall creature hovered near the stairs. Its arms hung limp at its sides. Its slack jaw twitched into an expression that might have been a smile or a grimace. It took a staggering step closer, its bowed head scraping across the plaster as it moved.
“Careful,” Dorran said. “Get behind me.”
The creature’s arms swung like pendulums as it rocked nearer, saliva dripping from its open maw. Dorran took a step forward, feet braced and crowbar raised.
Something moved beside him. Pale limbs glistened in the concealed doorway. Fingers, mottled and eight inches long each, reached out, aiming for Dorran’s head.
“No!” Clare lunged, bringing her poker down on the grasping hands as they snagged Dorran’s collar. Bones crackled. The lamp swung precariously as Clare desperately shoved Dorran out of reach of the hands.
Dorran reacted quickly, twisting towards her, but the hands were faster. Clare swung at them but missed. Fingers tangled in her hair and yanked her so sharply that she could barely gasp. They dragged her through the doorway and into the darkness inside the walls. More bony hands wrapped around her arm and tightened on her ankle. They wrenched her in opposite directions, and Clare fell, flinching as she hit the floor hard. The lamp shattered. Its flame exploded upwards as the oil spilled, but almost immediately, something large flopped over it, extinguishing the light.
Dorran was halfway through the opening, weapon raised and teeth bared. That was a mistake. The tall woman was on him in that split second of inattention, dragging him back and forcing him onto the hallway’s carpet. Clare tried to yell, but cold fingers pressed over her face, stifling her.
Then the door slid closed, and Clare’s world was enveloped in blackness. The smoke from the broken lamp blended into the rancid stench and what smelled like burning flesh. Clare fought blindly, swinging her poker at the creatures holding her. One blow hit its mark, thudding into flesh and bone, but the creature didn’t loosen its hold. Clare kicked. Her foot passed through empty air. Something heavy pressed into her back, forcing her over so that she was facedown on the floor. All around her, she heard scrabbling, scratching noises. Then Dorran yelled. It was faint, insulated by the thick walls. He sounded like he was in pain. Clare reached to where the door had been, but something sharp crushed her outstretched hand into the floor. She tried to scream, but with the hand over her mouth and her lungs starved of oxygen, all she could manage was a whine.
The creatures were chattering. The soft, animalistic noise grew in volume. She could feel a presence approaching her, but she was blind in the darkness. She writhed, trying to throw them off, and managed to get one arm free. Two more hands grasped it and yanked it down at her side.
The chattering swelled, turning into something that sounded like a chaotic chant, and Clare squeezed her eyes closed. Something hard and heavy smacked into the back of her head, and her vision exploded into a swirl of darkness and dancing red dots.
The pain was intense, like molten lava being poured over the back of her skull and into her eyes. She no longer felt certain of which way was up, and her limbs refused to move properly. The clammy fingers pinched as they dragged her along the hallway then down the stairs, each step jarring the pain in her head and making her twitch. Consciousness faded in and out, and with it came nausea. She wanted to scream, to make them stop, but innately, she knew that noise would bring another blow. Instead, she gritted her teeth and tried, as much as she could, to be aware of where she was being taken.
They dropped down a sharp step, and Clare’s head smacked into the floor. The pain intensified until it was unbearable. More sparks danced across her eyes then faded out.
When she opened her lids again, she was lying on her side on something hard and freezing cold. She knew she must have passed out, but she didn’t know for how long. She was blind. A horrible fear rose that the monsters might have clawed out her eyes, and it took effort to suppress the panic. Her eyes hurt, but not enough to be missing.
She wasn’t alone. Noises coursed around her. Quiet enough to be whispers, the clacking of dozens of nails across stone and phlegmy, rasping breaths bled together into a terrible symphony.
Fear choked her. She fought to push it down, to keep it under control, to keep her mind working. She lay perfectly still in an effort to avoid attracting attention. With her eyes useless, she had to rely on her other senses. The stench from the hallway was stronger than it had been before. It wasn’t helping her nausea. Only the panic clenching her stomach kept it at bay.
By the scope of the sounds, she knew she must be surrounded by the creatures. She didn’t understand why she was still alive. She’d assumed they were mindless, that all they cared about was eating, that they would have consumed her the first chance they had.
Moving very carefully, trying not to make any noise, Clare extended a hand to feel the surface she was lying on. From what she could tell, it was a rough slab of rock. Uneven edges jabbed into her, and the section below her cheek was cold enough to make her face ache. It was helping the headache, though, which was a small mercy.
She no longer had her fire poker. Both her jacket and boots were gone, leaving her arms and feet cold. Clare tried to mentally run through her body, assessing for damage. She didn’t think any bones were broken. Everything hurt, from her head to the bruises across her side and back. Something solid pinched the skin around her ankle. When Clare tried to move her foot, a chain link clinked.
Her fear crept up to a new level. She had a shackle around her foot. If this was the creatures’ doing, she had vastly underestimated them, their motives, and their intelligence.
Dorran…
Amongst the rough breathing of the bodies moving around her, Clare tried to pick up on any sign that she had human company. If Dorran was there, he was staying perfectly silent. Clare closed her eyes against the repressive dark and tried not to hyperventilate.