didn't speak, afraid we'd wake the sleeping goddess. Not that she was quiet. That horrible groaning, sucking sound that I'd heard before when I'd been out at the compound echoed off the walls of the cavern, which got wider the deeper we climbed. It also got hotter. It had been warm near the surface with a breeze that soon turned into a windstorm that tore at our clothes and made sweat pop out on my forehead. I wished I could tear off my scarf and wipe it away, but I was too busy hurrying to keep up with the long strides of the men.
Suddenly Ray stopped and I bumped into his damp back. I realized he must have left his pack at the top of the hole just as I had.
"What?" I whispered but it carried in the chamber, as loud as a shout.
"The wind stopped and look at that glow. I think we're here." Ray turned and I saw fear in his eyes. "Stay. Don't freakin' move."
There was a red glow that made it difficult but not impossible to see, and it was coming from a huge cavern that had opened at the bottom of the steps. We crept across the floor toward a golden platform with a wide set of stairs leading up to it. Jerry stopped at the bottom and glanced back at us. He used hand signals to get the men to spread out, shoulder to shoulder. Ray kept me behind him.
We were on the third step when a sigh and movement on the top of the platform froze us in place.
"Ah, what have we here? Dinner?" Suddenly a beautiful woman stood at the top of the steps, her body wrapped in a sheer golden robe. And what a body. It was perfection. She tossed a mass of flame red hair back over her shoulders and put one sandaled foot on the step as if to come toward us.
"Where's Simon? I am starving." She held out a hand covered in glittering jewels. "I think you are here with bad intentions. Naughty boys." She smiled and there was the glimpse of evil I'd braced myself for. "Mmm. I do so love a vampire threesome." She wrinkled her perfect nose. "I'll have the shifter for dessert." She waved her hand and I realized she'd frozen Jerry, Rafe and Ray in place. Simon's trick. She yawned, though, as if the effort took a lot out of her. So we had depleted her energy.
"No! Please." I heard my plea echo around the huge chamber.
"So you are the infamous Gloriana St. Clair. The one Lucifer has been so interested in." She laughed and my body trembled and quaked. It was all I could do to stay on my feet. "Oh, yes, hell is all abuzz about his latest intrigue."
"I am no one. Nothing." I moved around my men, touching Jerry. His eyes were the only things he could move.
"So I thought." She looked me over. "But Lucifer doesn't waste time on nothing, does he? It makes me wonder." She moved closer and raked my face with a golden nail, lifting it to her nose to sniff the blood she'd drawn. "Hmm. Interesting. I'd never have suspected." She staggered back toward her platform.
"What? What is special about me? I'm just an ordinary woman from London, turned vampire." I swung my sword at her head. "Here to kill you." It moved through air, hitting nothing.
Suddenly the beautiful woman was gone and there was only a moving mass against the far wall. Groans filled the chamber and I felt a pull, like I was being drawn toward that wiggling, writhing creature.
"Never ordinary, Gloriana. But it is not my job to answer that question. Kill me? How amusing." Suddenly the three-headed monster Simon had described reared her hideous heads and hissed.
I backed away, bumping into Jerry, who was suddenly no longer paralyzed; none of the men were. Had she decided to play with us? Enjoy the sport of taking them down one at a time?
Jerry shoved me behind him, then moved right, Rafe left, exchanging hand signals. Ray took the center. All of them were straining as the thing must be sucking at them too. Suddenly Ray went down to his knees, skidding toward the awful blob that rose up and had not one but three faces. One of them smiled and opened a mouth large enough to take Ray in whole.
"No!" I ran forward and slashed at it with my sword, drawing blood as