Slaying Monsters for the Feeble - Annette Marie Page 0,39

I suppressed another shiver.

“They have left this spot,” Zylas whispered. “We will go now.”

I nodded, distracted by the fact I was still straddling his waist.

“I will carry you,” he said. “You must hold on.”

“What—”

He nudged me off him. My knees splashed into the water and the cold burned. I’d forgotten how frigid it was. How hypothermic had I been before Zylas warmed me up? He’d probably saved my life with that alone.

Crouched in the flowing water, he caught my wrist and pulled me against his back. I gripped his shoulders, gulped hard, then wrapped my legs tightly around his waist. Scooting forward, he ducked low under the pipe’s curved ceiling and cautiously approached the opening.

I squinted in the dim light. Without my glasses, the main channel was unpleasantly blurry, but I could tell the water had risen. The frothing current splashed onto the concrete platform and violent streams poured from the connecting pipelines.

Zylas squeezed my thigh in warning and I tightened my legs around him, sliding one hand under his leather shoulder strap for a better grip.

He sprang out of the pipe and landed on the platform in a crouch. I clamped myself around him as he sped down the platform and cut through an icy torrent from another pipe. Water drenched my clothes all over again.

We came out the other side. The platform stretched on and Zylas broke into a smooth trot past small light bulbs hanging from rusted nails. Now that I wasn’t hypothermic, I knew why the sight had unnerved me. The lighting was a rudimentary addition to the channel’s original construction. I should’ve realized the lights meant people—or rather, vampires—had taken up residence down here.

Zylas zoomed past pipes and tunnels, large and small, each one disgorging runoff into the main channel. At a seemingly random point, he slowed, turned, and sprang into a tunnel as large as the one Zora had led us down earlier.

“How do you know which way to go?” I muttered.

“This one smells like blood.”

He sloshed through the thigh-deep water, fighting the current. His foot slipped and he lurched, grabbing the wall for balance. I gripped him more tightly. If I fell, I’d be swept right back into the main channel.

He waded upstream, the tunnel growing darker and darker as we left the lights behind. Ahead was an opening—another offshoot. Zylas hopped into it and ducked so neither of us hit our heads. Only the smallest trickle of water ran out and the walls were dry. More small bulbs hung from a long wire, casting a soft glow across the grimy walls.

Voices echoed down the tunnel.

Zylas prowled closer. The tunnel ran at a slight curve, hindering our view, and he drew to a stop. He sniffed at the air, then tapped my leg. Unclamping my limbs, I slid off his back. He started forward and I followed two steps behind.

Around the curve, I glimpsed moving shadows. People with dark clothing, thin builds, and no sign of gear or weapons. Vampires.

Gaze locked on the enemy, Zylas reached back and nudged my hip. I stopped. He took three more stalking steps, then coiled his body. His fingers curled, claws unsheathing.

“—can’t get a signal.” The vampire’s gravelly voice reached us. His silhouette held up a small object. “If we don’t report the—”

Zylas launched into a charge. The vampires didn’t see him until he was almost on top of them, and only then did crimson magic rush up his arms in glowing veins. Six-inch scarlet talons formed at the ends of his fingers.

I knew he wanted me to wait, but I bolted after him. As he slammed into the vampire trio, claws tearing and the creatures shouting, I homed in on the one who’d spoken. Zylas rammed his talons into the vampire’s heart, killing the fae spirit inside him, and the small object the man was holding spun through the air.

I ran forward, hands outstretched. The object bounced off my fingertips and flipped end over end. I snatched it out of the air.

Wow, I’d caught it? And without my glasses too.

The last vampire crumpled under Zylas’s claws, and he turned to me with a questioning look. I uncurled my fingers. A small flip phone rested on my palm.

The vampires’ other belongings were scattered around us—heaps of tattered fabric, garbage bags of who knew what, a disgusting amount of trash, and for some bizarre reason, a rusty shopping cart. Farther into the tunnel, a tarp formed a tent-like shelter, and sleeping bags were bundled in the corner. This