Page 26 of The Reveal
After I die what feels like a thousand times, I finally reach the door at the end of the alley. The eyes I can feel on my back are more like daggers now, but I don’t dare turn around. I test the big steel door with significant dents in it, expecting it to be locked, but it swings open easily.
I’m honestly not sure if that’s better or worse.
I walk inside and freeze, because I’m out of the alley and I like that steel at my back, but I’m not sure where I find myself is any better.
I’m in a large, empty room that sprawls the length and width of the building. There’s a bit of light coming in from the windows, which have steel bars over them just like mine do at home. Well. These are nicer than mine. Probably not sourced from scrapyards.
I can see the river below, glinting in what little sunlight is left, and it makes me feel like I’m spinning again. The river looks too normal, and yet here I am in a martial arts school that’s actually a vampire stronghold—
But that feels a little too much like hysteria. I pinch the inside of my wrist, hard, until I gulp in more air. I force myself to take stock of where I am, especially as my eyes adjust.
There appears to be nothing in the room where I’m standing. What looks like some exercise equipment. A series of doors, all shut tight, against the far wall.
It’s empty, but I don’t feel alone.
As I stand there with my back against the steel door, I suddenly hear what sounds like a muffled command and then a great sound of stamping up above. If I cringe a little as I look up, expecting a vampire horde to descend upon me through the ceiling, well. There’s no one around to see me.
I swallow, though my throat is dry. The light is gloomy now, but I can see the only staircase across the cavernous room, and I make my way to the lowest step.
Then I slowly, reluctantly, begin to climb.
The noise gets louder, but it’s rhythmic and strange. I want to run away more than I’ve ever wanted to do anything, but I don’t. I remind myself that Ican’t.
Ariel Skinner not only knows who I am, he knows where I live.
I pass the landing and order myself to keep going when I pause. I take the second flight, admittedly more slowly, and when I get to the top I emerge into something I don’t understand at all.
The first thing I see is a throng of astonishingly good-looking people, dancing.
No, not dancing,I immediately revise in my head.
What they’re doing looks violent. And dangerous. They’re all doing the same thing, they’re just doing it at an incredible speed.
An arm in the air, a complicated exchange of arms and feet. A stamp. A kick.
Like they’re mapping out fighting styles in the air.
I look past them to the single man standing before them, arms crossed and legs wide, and I know at once it’s him.
Ariel Skinner. King of the vampires.
The first thing I notice about him is his stillness.
It feels like an intense invitation.
Like a hand around my throat, but worse.More, somehow.
The second thing is the greatwallopof his presence when he looks right at me.
I don’t know how else to process it. I feel it like a blow. Like the veryfactof him slams into me and sends me staggering back, and I realize that it really does when I have to reach out and grab the railing beside me to stay on my feet.
I jerk my eyes away from his, and it feels harder than it ought to. I look instead at the wide expanse of the mirror behind him.
But the only thing reflected is me.
In the mirror, I’m all alone. In this actual room, however, there must be thirty vampires performing for their king, and he is scarier than all of them.
“Scary” isn’t the right word.
