Page 93 of Bite of Passage
“Did you track the necromancer her?”Skarde asked.
“Sure did, and then we noticed you guys over here.”Craig lowered his voice.“Are we working with other vampires now?I thought you worked alone.”
“This is my brother, Cade.”He waved toward Cade.“Cade, these are the?—”
“I know who the humans are.They’re the idiots who like to kill half-turned vamps and follow you around with stars in their eyes.”
“We do not.”Lees pushed his blond hair off his face.
“Wait.You’re Cade?”Craig asked.“As in the Directorate’s punisher?That Cade?”
Cade nodded.
“Wow.Skarde, you could’ve shared the detail that your brother was kickass,” Craig said.
Skarde grunted.
Cade’s lips twitched into a half smile.
“The moat looks like our best option.Let’s go,” Skarde said.
Minutes later, shoes above their heads, the five of them waded through thick swill that reeked of decay.He tried not to analyze the stench.A rotting human hand drifted by.No smelling.Turn your nose off.Get out of this.
The moat had been dug with steep sides.Skarde threw his shoes up over the far side where the underground tunnel system started.He clawed and pulled his way up.His wrist brushed against a plant that stung his flesh.He whispered, “Stinging nettle.”
Offering a hand, he pulled up Cade and the Hunters.
“Ouch.”Cade scratched at his own wrist.
“Warned you.”With little effort, he broke the rusted gates between the moat and the lower drainage tunnels.“That was too easy.”
Inside the tunnel, Skarde pulled on his socks while the others did the same.
“Burns like hell.”Cade rubbed at his nettle burn.“It’s breaking out in a rash.You sure those weren’t bespelled?”
“What are you?Three?Suck it up.”He rolled his eyes.
“You sound like our father.”
“He’s the voice in my head when something sucks.”He laced his boots.“It’s stinging nettle.It’d burn a human for days.I find it only lasts about a half hour since turning.They’re common in moats.”
“Do you do a lot of moat swimming these days?”
Skarde frowned at his brother.“You think this is the first heavily fortified keep I had to infiltrate to kill something that didn’t want to die?”
“I’d say we swim a moat at least every other month,” Craig said, scratching his arm.
Cade said, “That’s why you get paid the big bucks.Stinging nettles and moats filled with human body parts…”
“Why do you think no one else, other than these kids and me, want to do this?Come on.”He stood.
They proceeded down the dark tunnel in silence.When he reached the bend, he peeked around.Not so much as a cockroach twitched, which was weird.“Do you hear that?”
“What?”Cade asked.
“I don’t hear anything,” Lees said.
A low raspy noise rumbled toward them.It was the sound of nails against stone.
