Sinister Magic: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #1) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,94

the alchemist and her assistant like a chainsaw downing saplings. For a second, I gaped in horror as their heads thudded to the stone floor, their bodies following soon after.

When a dozen voices cried out with curses and orders to get the human, I jumped to my feet. Before grabbing the girl, I dug out my grenades as quickly as I could. I pulled the tabs and threw them at the dark elves advancing toward me like a tidal wave.

Then I slung the girl over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry and ran across the dais toward the door. I grabbed the dragon’s artifact on the way past, ducking when the twang of crossbow bolts reached my ear. Quarrels skipped off the bone statue in all directions, one piercing my side. I gasped, wobbling with pain, but caught my balance and ran on, using the platter as a partial shield.

The first grenade went off with a resounding boom that shook the chamber every bit as much as the magical attacks had. Maybe more. The others went off in a chain reaction that hurled me against the wall again. I glimpsed the balcony tumbling down with Zav still standing on the railing. A huge cloud of dust hid his landing from my view, but I heard the great crash, and his roar of fury. Or was that pain?

There was nothing I could do to help from so far away. With the floor shaking under me, I grabbed my charm necklace from the floor by the headless dark elf. I rushed through the back exit and into the tunnel as massive cracks emanated from the chamber’s ceiling.

Huge slabs of brick and stone tumbled down, and I caught a whiff of fresh night air as I raced away. Everything was quaking now, like the largest earthquake Seattle had ever seen.

As I raced toward the only way out I knew about, I feared there was no way I could make it before the entire tunnel system collapsed.

23

Bricks pounded down all around me as I ran through the quaking tunnel, with the girl whose name I didn’t know draped over my shoulder, my necklace back around my neck, and the dragon’s artifact under my arm. Had Zav survived falling into the middle of those dark elves with half the ceiling tumbling onto him? I had no idea.

I passed all the intersections I’d run through on the way in without encountering anything but dead dark elves. No, make that unconscious dark elves. One groaned when I stepped on his arm as I ran past.

Zav hadn’t come to kill anyone, it seemed. Except those two dark elves who’d been about to kill me. I owed him one now, and I hated that. If he made it out of that rockfall in the chamber, I hoped he wouldn’t mention it, but I was sure he would. While calling me vermin and a mongrel.

The first of the two hatchways came into view. As I jumped through, the girl squirmed on my shoulder. I felt her weight keenly. The boost of energy I’d gotten from the manticore concoction was wearing off.

“Almost there,” I panted, exhausted but too terrified to slow down.

Rubble littered the tunnel floor, and I’d heard more than one massive crash behind us. Any minute, we might run into—

I skidded to a halt. The way ahead was caved in. Completely caved in.

I swore and lowered the girl, needing a break and to figure out how to get away. I’d already used all my grenades.

The girl couldn’t stand with that weird webbing wrapped all around her, so I propped her against the wall.

“We’re going to have to find another way out.” I needed to cut that webbing off her, but it looked like a chore, so I touched my cat figurine, wanting Sindari to watch my back.

The charm was oddly cool to the touch, as if Sindari were far more distant than usual. That dark elf better not have done something to him.

“Sindari,” I whispered, “come back to Earth.”

The mist was slow to form, as if it was trying to coalesce but something held it back. While I waited, I tried to cut off the webbing with my knife. It looked like fabric, but it was more like armor. I switched to Chopper, hoping the magical blade would have more luck.

The girl’s eyes had been glazed, as if she was in shock, but when I brushed her with the hilt of the weapon, she tried to hop away. It