Dark Demon (19 page)

"Okay, this has gone way beyond spooky," Natalya said. "And I am
so
not putting my feet on the ground if there's a chance that hairy-armed, ice-pick-for-fingernails creature is anywhere near here." She looked around her, peered at the ground and rocks. "There has to be an entrance here. Why would it be so well-guarded if we aren't in the right spot?"

"The entrance is here," Vikirnoff agreed, keeping his eye on the moving soil. Small plants wiggled like worms as the thing beneath the ground disturbed them in its passing. "Do you see those rocks right there? The small ones? Do they look right to you?"

Natalya almost fell off the boulder as she leaned over the side. Vikirnoff steadied her with one hand at her waist. "They're set in a pattern, but…" Her voice drifted off.

"It's not quite right," he finished for her.

"Watch that thing," she pointed towards the shifting ground. "I think the rocks need to be put in a different order. More like this…" She reached down, still balanced on the boulder and nudged a rock out of the lineup to exchange with another three spaces over. She frowned in frustration, shook her head and leapt off the boulder to crouch down beside the smaller rocks. "This is it, Vikirnoff, the way to the entrance. I just have to rearrange the rocks into the right order."

Vikirnoff hunkered down beside her, close, where his body could shield hers, if necessary. He kept a wary eye on the churning, thickening mist, as well as continually scanning the ground.

"I've got it!" Natalya dropped the last rock in place with evident satisfaction.

The ground beside her hand erupted like a small geyser. A foul-smelling eel-like creature with spiked teeth bored straight at her fingers, emitting a high-pitched scream. Vikirnoff caught the serpent by the back of the neck, dragging the struggling body away from Natalya. The teeth snapped repeatedly, the body twisting frantically to get at her.

"Look out!" Vikirnoff warned as the ground around Natalya burst open in half a dozen places, the serpentine heads rocketing out of the holes straight at her from every direction. "Jump!" He flung the snake away from him and lifted his hands toward the sky. Lightning arced through the swirling mist, lighting the edges in fiery red tones.

Natalya didn't even care that his tone held both compulsion and command. She somersaulted onto the boulder and glared at the writhing creatures. "I detest snakes. Really, really detest them."

Lightning sizzled and cracked, a great whip slamming to earth, scorching the ground in a small circle. At once a stench rose, the foul creatures turned to ash. The blackened spiked teeth wiggled, as if alive, then disintegrated.

Natalya pressed her hand to her mouth and choked back a cry of alarm. "That was just gross. Totally disgusting. Never let those things near me again."

Vikirnoff studied her for a moment before realizing she was serious. He caught her in his arms and pulled her off the boulder. "You are shaking." Holding her close to the warmth of his body, he tightened his arms around her in an effort to bring her comfort. "You were not really afraid of those creatures, were you?"

"I
loathe
snakes." Natalya leaned in close, trying to get her knees to stiffen up. "I've always had an unreasonable fear of them."

"You kill vampires and destroy shadow warriors. You never even flinched when you faced either adversary." He caught her chin in his hand and bent his head to hers. "You are going to intrigue me for all time."

She put a hand on his chest with the idea of pushing him away. "And drive you to drink. Don't let's forget I annoy you." She couldn't afford to be distracted. And Vikirnoff was very distracting. "And we're in
deadly peril
. I refuse to be a too-stupid-to-live teenager necking while the snakes return."

He hadn't budged an inch, his skin touching hers, body heat warming her. "I had forgotten." His smile was slow and sexy and took her breath somewhere other than her lungs. "Completely."

She looked up at him with a small frown. "We're in the middle of a siege here. Those things were going after
me
this time, not you."

"I noticed. Why would that be, do you think?" He dropped his hands reluctantly and surveyed the crack in the boulder that was significantly wider. "We will have to do a little maneuvering to slip through."

Natalya recovered her pack and checked her weapons, avoiding looking at the blackened remains of the serpents. "I'm the one under compulsion. Maybe someone brought me here to kill me."

"Too much trouble, Natalya. Why not make it easy and kill you when you are asleep somewhere? Why lead you to the mountains, to this particular cave?" Vikirnoff stuck his head in the crack. "This is very narrow, but it widens a bit once past this section." He thinned his body and crawled inside the jagged crack.

Natalya glanced at the sky as the wind rose in a shriek of rage, of protest. Clouds boiled angrily and inside their depths she could see dark figures moving. Smoky. Gray. Transparent. She closed her eyes briefly and sent up a silent prayer the clouds were not spawning shadow warriors for her to fight again. She'd been very lucky in sending the warrior back to realm of the dead, but it didn't mean it would happen again. She knew in the realm of magick spells could be altered easily.

"Hand me your pack." Vikirnoff reached back for it.

"I'll carry it. I prefer to have everything I need close." Natalya followed him into the cave. It was so narrow, the sides scraped her back as she slipped through the opening and made her way into the slightly larger hall. Although the tunnel was wider, she had to stoop, then crawl, as she followed Vikirnoff deeper into the cavern.

Behind them the rocks rolled out of the pattern and scattered around the cave entrance. The jagged crack slammed closed with a grinding of rock, leaving them trapped inside the mountain. Natalya treated Vikirnoff to a litany of curses.

"Can you see?"

"I have excellent vision in the dark," she replied. The ceiling dropped lower and lower until she had no choice but to move forward on her stomach. "Those snakes had just better stay outside." She was so thankful he was there with her. Her nerve endings still prickled with awareness of the spiked teeth coming so close to her hand.

"We will be all right," he assured.

"I didn't say anything," she objected.

"Your heart is pounding. Listen to the rhythm of mine and match the beat."

Natalya did so, allowing her heart to settle into a more natural rhythm. "You didn't tell me what you found in my memories. I dislike not being in control and I can't overcome the compulsion to come to this cave. Believe me, I've tried. I'm a firm believer in avoiding trouble if at all possible and this place is definitely trouble, but I couldn't stop myself from coming here. That really disturbs me."

"I have to agree, I do not like it either, but I feel the need very strong in you. It is why I did not forbid you to do this."

She ground her teeth together. "If I were you, I'd choose my words very carefully. I'm behind you with a knife in my hand. If you plan on spending any time at all around me, strike words like 'forbid' and 'allow' from your vocabulary."

"Those words offend you in some way?"

"You know very well they do and you probably use them on purpose just to get a rise out of me."

"It works very well."

"Well, stop. I'm being serious. We're crawling through this mountain with mutant snakes with big teeth coming through the ground at us, so how about a truce."

"I can feel cool air," he reported. "It has to be coming from a subterranean chamber."

"Is it cold enough to freeze snakes?"

"I will not
allow
a snake to attack you again. Should one try I
will forbid
it to do so." There was laughter in his voice.

She felt a tug on her heart. She'd never heard him really laugh before. "Ha ha, you're suddenly a comedian, and not a very good one at that." She could listen to his voice forever when he sounded like that. She cleared her throat. "Are you going to tell me what you found in my memories? Or was it too awful?"

Vikirnoff heard the small note of fear. "The memories of your grandfather are very confusing, Natalya. I cannot tell if they are dreams, or actual memories any more than you can. There is little doubt someone has tampered with your memories, but I cannot tell why or how. Any trail of Xavier is dull, veiled or ended abruptly in a dark void. I found little of your childhood with your brother. In fact all of your younger years are fragments of memories. I do not know what it means, but we will find out." He projected confidence into his voice, knowing she had been disturbed by her lack of recollections for some time. "What happens when you try to remember things?"

"I feel upset, nervous, you know, and that's just not like me. I get an instant headache and my stomach hurts." She knew it was a planted reaction, she had known all along, but it was good to be able to confirm it with someone. More than that, there was comfort in being able to discuss her fears with someone else.

Vikirnoff paused and glanced back at her. "You have obviously been suspicious that your grandfather has been alive for some time and you believe that he has something to do with your memory loss." He chose his words carefully. "If he has deceived you and tampered with your memory, why do you persist in believing the Carpathian people are just as evil as the vampire?"

"I've been told all my life Carpathians would murder me just for bearing the symbol of the dragon."

"
Who
told you?" Vikirnoff persisted. "You say all of your life, yet your memories are fragmented. Is it possible the warning is something that was planted in you as well?" He kept his voice as neutral as possible.

"I am certain my father is the one to tell me this first."

"But you do not know, Natalya. The symbol on your body is of a very old and revered
Carpathian
lineage. No Carpathian would harm a Dragonseeker." Vikirnoff ducked his head and made his body smaller and more compact. "This tunnel has sharp angles making it difficult to maneuver," he warned. "Watch your head."

Natalya pulled her head out of the way of a low hanging rock. "They wouldn't? Then why would a hunter
murder
my brother?"

"It had to be a vampire posing as a hunter. No Carpathian would harm someone bearing the mark of the Dragonseeker," he reiterated hoping if he said it enough times she would at least begin to entertain the idea that the warning could have been planted.

He whistled softly as the hall opened into a larger chamber. "This opens up into a much larger gallery. You'll be able to stand up straight." He turned back to help her. The drip of water from every wall was constant. Almost with the rhythm of a heartbeat, as if the caverns were alive. Vikirnoff felt uneasy, feeling the weight of eyes on them, yet scanning, he could find no danger to them. Something guarded the caves, yet he could not ferret out the unseen sentinel with his increasingly powerful probing.

"My memories," she said again as she studied the finger-like formations surrounding a large abyss that yawned open in the middle of the chamber. "That looks a long way down." She lifted her gaze to his face with some dismay. "We're going down there, aren't we?"

"You are the leader of the expedition," he pointed out. "What direction does your tuning fork indicate?"

She heaved a sigh. "Down. We have to go down. Into that." She pointed to the black hole below them. It was icy cold and she shivered. "I need to know now, Vikirnoff, what else did you find?" If Vikirnoff had recovered valuable information that in some way was damaging to her family, she could always remove his memory of it.

"You believe you can erase
my
memories?"

The distaste in his voice was a severe chastisement. Natalya hadn't meant for him to catch that thought, and it really bothered her that she couldn't always feel him merged with her. "I don't mean it like that."

"How else if not disrespect? You want my help. You are willing to use me, but you have every intention of tampering with
my
memories."

"I shared my misgivings with you. I haven't shared that with anyone else." Natalya sighed. "In all honesty, Vikirnoff, I don't know what to think anymore. I feel like someone has been running around messing with my head and now you're there, too. Why can't I block you out if I'm so powerful and strong? Why am I so vulnerable to invasion?"

There was real fear in her voice and he didn't blame her. She was powerful and she should have been totally protected, but something had left her mind open to attack. In spite of the fact that he was angry with her, his heart went out to her. "Have vampires ever been able to draw you to them?"

She shook her head. "No." She frowned. "Wait. I've noticed I've had a much more difficult time with their voices, hearing their real voice and seeing past the illusion they wear recently."

"About the same time the compulsion to find the caves began?"

She looked confused. "I don't know. My head is beginning to ache again and I'm freezing." She rubbed her arms in an effort to get warm. "You don't even appear cold."