The Leveller - Julia Durango Page 0,24

next.

I push the button and step into the room, crossbow cocked and ready.

A face begins to appear on the white wall in front of me. It’s a pretty woman’s face, pleasant and smiling and all-American, like the kind you see in TV commercials for Oil of Olay.

“Checkpoint complete,” she says in a soothing, robotic voice. “Checkpoint complete.”

Praise the Lord and pass the life hearts! Wyn Salvador actually included save points in this horrid little game. I will not have to face those stinking sharks again, let alone all the other creatures. I’m so happy I could cry. I smile back at the nice checkpoint lady. Maybe she’ll take me to Wyn.

Only now her face doesn’t look as pleasant as it did a second ago. Her eyes are turning red and her hair is turning white. Her teeth begin to . . . sharpen? . . . transforming her pleasant smile into a creepy, evil grin, as if she is now selling one-way bus tickets on the highway to hell.

I instinctively raise my crossbow, though she is no more than a projection.

The lights go out. I drown in the pitch darkness.

Panic freezes me to the spot until something in my brain kicks into gear.

“Inventory,” I yell, and quickly access the night-vision goggles Dad had insisted I carry. “He’s feeding on phobias, Nixy, and fear of the dark is a huge one,” Dad had said on the plane just a few hours earlier, though it now felt like forever ago. “Remember how you used to turn on not one but three night-lights in your bedroom?”

I didn’t say so to him, but sometimes I still sleep with three night-lights. After today I’m going to need four.

“It’s just a game, it’s just a game,” I repeat to myself as I slip the goggles over my head. Half of me can’t wait to put them on so I can see what the hell I’m up against. The other half doesn’t want to know.

“Fy fæn!” I yell, and jump right out of my skin.

The hag is directly in front of me, her demonic face inches from mine. An icy coldness seeps from her body like a thick fog. I feel like I’ve just stepped into a deep freeze.

“RUN!” she screams, her hideous voice stabbing my ears like a dagger.

She doesn’t need to tell me twice. I take off.

The door to the room is open and I run back into the maze, which is now steeped in darkness. The night-vision goggles turn everything a ghoulish green. I run wildly, terrified of what I might find ahead of me, but even more horrified by what’s behind me. I risk a quick peek back and wish I hadn’t. The woman is flying behind me like a ghostly white witch, her teeth bared in that horrible grin. Her long bony arms stretch out before her, and her hands, which look more like sharp talons, try to grab me. She starts to cackle then, louder and louder until the cackle turns into a high-pitched shriek that makes my head feel like it might explode.

I run left and right and this way and that, completely lost, completely out of my wits. I can’t think straight, can’t do anything but try to outrun her outstretched claws, her hideous shrieking. I make another left and hit a dead end.

I feel her icy hands scrape across my back. Her talons cut through cloth and bone and a searing cold permeates my chest, freezing and burning all at once.

She’s ripping my heart out, my mind screams as I slip into unconsciousness.

Yep. Dead end.

Literally.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

WHEN I WAKE UP, I’M BACK IN THE WHITE ROOM WITH OIL OF OLAY LADY smiling at me from the wall. Damn. No rest for the wicked. I reposition my goggles, aim my crossbow straight ahead, and wait for the lights to go out.

A second later, all is dark. Leering banshee straight ahead.

I aim an arrow right at her horrible mouth. THWACK!

It goes right through her.

“RUN!” she screams.

Oh God.

I run. I can’t help it. I can’t bear the thought of those icy hands reaching into my body again. I shouldn’t be able to feel them. Why can I feel them? I’m not sure I even care at this point. I try to keep my hand along the right wall, always going right, but the inky green darkness confuses me, the night-vision goggles mess with my peripheral vision.

Think, think, think, Nixy.

I try to remember what’s left in my inventory as I