Hawk - James Patterson Page 0,99

servants. I imagined them crowding it during the long winters, the fire producing more smoke than heat.

Hm. I kneeled to look at it better. Yeah. It was tiny. Squinting, I lay on my back, slid into the hearth and looked up. And saw—maybe saw—a tiny bit of light, very, very far away. Could that could be sky? Maybe. Maybe not. I was underground, and the mansion went on for another three stories above me. That would be a long freaking chimney. And one hell of a tight climb.

But I was desperate. The jerks who’d locked me in had promised that someone would be back to get me soon. I assumed it wouldn’t be to give me tea and cookies.

Oh, my god, tea and cookies would be so, so good right now. So would a little bit of medical attention, I thought grimly.

Getting stuck in a too-narrow chimney would be bad—they’d only have to shoot up or shoot down and I’d be a goner. Or worse, I could get stuck and die slow.

I measured the opening with my hands. There wasn’t a lot of space, but whoever was coming back for me might have something worse in mind. And it wouldn’t take them long to figure out where I had gone, either. I needed to move, now. Taking a breath, I scooched into the hearth and tried to stand.

“Achoo, achoo, achoo!” Just standing up I had knocked so much soot off the chimney walls that I was black from my head down to my hips, which was where I was stuck. I mean, I could still probably get back out, if I wanted to. My shoulders were scraping each side of the chimney, knocking loose more grimy soot. I wasn’t sure if I could climb higher, or not. I was starting to feel… terrified.

I had to try. And I had to do it now. I sank down to gather my muscles and gave a big jump upward! Automatically my wings tried to snap out… and became feathery chimney brushes, sending a storm of soot into my eyes as I ascended. But not far.

Now I was about three meters up, braced in a small chimney with my hands on one side and my feet on the other, my wings pressed tight against my sides. My injured wing was bleeding again, the dark drops falling down below letting anyone who showed up know exactly where I’d gone. My ribs hurt so much that I would have cried, if I was the crying type. But crying wasn’t going to get me out of this. Only upward motion would.

I reached forward, feeling for a fingerhold. Right above me, the chimney narrowed, probably to make a hearth for a fireplace on the first floor. I bet it was a much bigger fireplace, one for the family, not the servants. If I could climb out, I might be able to find a window. And if I found one of those, I could fly to freedom. But if there was a hearth, why didn’t I see any light?

Carefully, dislodging approximately fifty kilos of soot with every movement, I crept upward. Soon my eyes were level with the hearth, but… this one had been bricked in. Of freaking course. That’s why there wasn’t any light. The Pater family had probably updated the whole damn mansion. For all I knew the fireplaces were just for show, and not actually connected to the chimney.

Soon I worked out a system of moving hand-hand, then foot-foot, and made it up to the hearth on the second floor, which had been partially closed in and replaced with a gas heater. I heard people talking and eagerly listened, but it was a couple of servants, anxious about the crowds they could see off in the distance. I wanted to scream, Clean the goddamn chimneys once in a while, will ya, goddamnit? But I didn’t. If I got caught again, locked up again, I didn’t know what I’d do.

I kept climbing. Ideally, I would have been able to jump four stories high, popping out of the top as fresh as a just-picked apple, but I couldn’t. My legs had nothing to push off of, and were exhausted anyway. Flying upward also would have been great, but my wings were almost four meters across. I couldn’t spread them, and I didn’t know if my injured wing would support me, either.

Third-floor hearth, also bricked in. Freaking awesome.

But now there was definitely light above me. My muscles were shaking