Scholar of Magic (Art of the Adept #3) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,168

an almost perfect place for vampires to hide. His heart rate doubled in the span of seconds. Damn it, stay calm, he told himself. His pounding heart ignored him.

He’d already used his sleep spell and he’d meant to replace it, but now he wondered if another sleep spell was really the right choice. Taking several steps back up the stairs, he constructed an Ethelgren’s Illumination without debating it further. His fear of vampires was far greater than his fear of soldiers.

Better prepared, he slowly descended. There was no door at the bottom, just an opening into a large room interspersed with heavy stone pillars to support the building above. As he looked around, he realized that the size of the area was deceptive. There were crates stacked up here and there, along with dusty pieces of furniture and other items that were no longer in use. The effect of all that was to give the impression of walls, when in fact it was merely an interruption of his line of sight. As he moved farther in it was apparent that the basement was fully as large as the floor above, and it was a single room.

The stone pillars that supported the multilevel building above were massive, approximately ten feet in width and scattered no more than twenty feet apart. Between those and the sheer amount of stuff stored between them, the open basement was more of a labyrinth.

“How the hell am I going to find it in all this junk?” he muttered quietly. It could be in a box, or a display case, or buried under any number of things. The sheer size of the area he needed to search was daunting. If I ever need to protect something important, I’m going to hide it in a place like this. Locks can’t stop me, but this has me completely flummoxed.

He decided to work outward until he reached one of the outer walls, then make a rough circuit of the entire area. After that he would cut across a few times. He probably wouldn’t find the relic, but if it was in something obvious, he might get lucky. If not, he would at least have a mental image of the layout and the various regions of junk to be searched.

There were also the soldiers to consider. They’ll do the upper floors, knowing they won’t find anything, just to be thorough. Once those are done, they’ll cordon off the lower level and make a serious search of the basement. He didn’t actually know any of that for sure, but it seemed like the wisest course. Either way, they would likely be coming down before he found what he was looking for, so he would need to figure out where he would hide.

Inside something was a bad idea, whereas standing against a blank wall was probably the best. An empty section of wall wouldn’t be searched, and the chameleon spell would work best there. Moving forward, he began inspecting the area around him, with an eye for both the relic and an empty section of wall.

He almost forgot his fear of finding vampires. Almost.

Looking up, he saw something odd protruding from the low ceiling. In the gray on gray of his current vision, it took a moment to sort out what he was seeing. It looked something like a pile of rags, or it would have if it had been lying on the ground, but this was the ceiling.

Then it moved, and he saw a hand. His mouth went dry. Fuck!

It was a mass of vampires, huddled together on the ceiling, clinging there by their fingertips, as though gravity wasn’t really a concern. Will froze in place, his eyes glued to the enemy above. Are they asleep? He was alone, so it seemed improbable that they would have feared to attack him.

Then he saw a face; its eyes blinked slowly as it watched him. They were perfectly aware of his presence. They don’t know I can see them in the dark, he realized. And they’re probably thinking I’ll leave. If they kill me it would give away their hiding place, in the middle of the day, so they couldn’t relocate to someplace safer.

They weren’t afraid; they were smart.

That didn’t help his