A crack appeared in one of the eggs.

“Uh, Raphael?” I croaked, my eyes wide as I watched it spider across the crystal surface. The figure inside began to twitch, as if struggling against the shell.

Raphael followed my gaze. He, too, seemed stunned. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing.” Yet he stayed remarkably calm. We’d stumbled upon a sphere-shaped cavern with pink water that kept pushing these weird-ass crystal eggs to the surface, and now, said eggs were beginning to crack.

One by one, they all began to break.

“They’re… hatching,” I said, my voice trembling. “Raphael, they’re hatching…”

“We should move back, just in case,” Raphael replied, gripping my wrist firmly as he pulled us both away from the edge of the pink water pool.

“What the hell are these things?” I asked, though I knew he wouldn’t have the answer.

The first egg split open with a spine-tingling crack. Out came a most horrifying creature, still glazed in amniotic fluid. It was big, with four limbs—each of them long and slender, with multiple articulations and ending in long, sharp claws. Its head came with four sets of eyes, each blinking separately from the others, and a broad jaw that held dozens of perfectly sharpened fangs. Beneath the amniotic goo, I could see the sturdy muscles and the short, black fur coat. Whatever this thing was, it seemed to be a cross between a black panther and the aliens from Alien. Spikes covered its ridiculously long tail.

The creature took a moment to awaken and become fully aware of its surroundings, while the other eggs continued to hatch, producing identical copies of the first one. Bile rose up to my throat. Fear made my blood freeze and clot my veins, making it harder for my heart to beat properly.

Then, the creature found Raphael and me on the other side of the pool. It blinked several times with all eight eyes, then bared its too many fangs at us.

“Amelia, I think we should run,” Raphael said dryly. “I think they’re hungry.”

The trouble with unidentified creatures was not knowing what their limits were. Said limits certainly couldn’t be tested in cramped spaces such as this cave or the tunnels—our environment impeded our ability to fight back. The best we could do, given the circumstances, was run as though our asses were on fire.

“No argument there,” I replied.

A split second later, the first creature roared so loud, it sent shivers down my spine. The others joined in, and the echoes spilled out into the tunnel behind us. I got jerked back as Raphael caught my hand and started to run. I quickly regained my footing and ran back through the passage with him.

“Sweet deliverance, we are in so much trouble!” I added, running as fast as my vampire legs could hold me.

We both glanced back, watching the tunnel darken as the creatures came after us. There were dozens of them, each determined to catch us and… well, eat us. We didn’t have any fire to fight them off, either. Maybe this was all deliberate, somehow!

“This is one of those moments I find myself hoping my meat is stringy,” Raphael breathed, then increased his speed without letting go of my hand. He threw back a powerful wind. I followed its trajectory and found myself disappointed. The creatures just dodged the air blast with incredible agility. Some were running on the ceiling or on the walls, making use of all the available space to come after us.

“We need to warn the others,” I shouted.

“We need to survive, first!” Raphael retorted, then threw another gale at them.

This time, however, it was a lot stronger, breaking chunks of the walls off as it swooshed toward the creatures. He’d put more energy into it. He managed to take down just one of the creatures. To my horror, it simply shook it off, then got back up and caught up with the others. And they were fast. Dammit, they were so fast!

Raphael cursed under his breath as the creatures snarled and snapped their fangs in their pursuit of us. He pushed me forward, prompting me to look back at him in sheer terror. “Go!” he said. “I’m bringing the tunnel down! Go, Amelia! Go!”

There was no time to argue. No time to think. There wasn’t even a second left for me to object.

All I could do was obey. So, I ran. Faster. With more urgency in my heels than ever, as I darted through the tunnel and prayed to all the gods that Raphael would join me in safety soon enough. A bloodcurdling rumble traveled through the passage.

I briefly looked over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of Raphael stopping. He turned to face the incoming creatures, then shoved his fists into the black walls, crumbling the stone against his knuckles. The ground started to shake.

It brought the creatures to a standstill, as they tried to figure out what was happening. An earthquake surged through the tunnel, so powerful that I lost my footing and wound up on the hard ground, sliding across the stone and scraping my knees in the process. The collapse thundered through, as the tunnel came down in massive chunks of stone just as the creatures scrambled to get to Raphael before they got caught in the fall.

But Raphael was one step ahead of them. With one last effort, he pushed out another gale-force wind while the stone kept coming down, crushing some of the beasts. He ran back after me, breathlessly scooping me up with one arm. He carried me through the rest of the passageway, then slapped the wall on our right before entering the main tunnel back to the original library cluster.

Behind us, the whole thing broke down.

After the slap, the rest of the tunnel collapsed, as well. Black dust rolled out, filling our lungs and making us both choke as Raphael kept running and carrying me like a light sack of potatoes. I didn’t even get a second to complain about this.

“Did it work?” I asked, then sucked in a breath at the sound of claws scraping against the stone. “Forget I asked.”

“We don’t have much time,” Raphael said. He firmly tightened his hold around my waist and sprinted toward the end of the tunnel. From there, we had at least another mile of tunnel mazes before we reached the library and the rest of our crew.

I pressed the call button on my earpiece, but I couldn’t get through to anyone. “I can’t use the comms line,” I said.

“Telluris?” Raphael asked.

It was my turn to curse, because I couldn’t reach out to Taeral through our soul connections, either. What in the world was going on here? Then it hit us both as we noticed the shimmering black stone around us—we’d seen it before, but we had different lenses now, so to speak, as we realized something.

“The whole tunnel is blocking the comms. There’s something here that’s messing with it and Telluris,” Raphael voiced our conclusion. “As I was saying, we need to warn the others, fast!”

“You can put me down now!”

The sound of approaching creatures made me yelp. “They’re getting through the collapsed tunnel,” Raphael replied, ignoring my request. “Hold on!”

Other than the arm he’d snaked around my waist, there wasn’t much else I could hold on to. But I had to admit, we were moving a little faster like this. Raphael was slightly more agile than me. Perfect and all that. I thought of using my pulverizer weapon, but the creatures were moving too fast. Again, this narrow space we had to work with was a serious problem. It got worse when the ground started shaking again—only I hadn’t seen Raphael slap any other wall.

“Was that you?” I asked, wide-eyed.

Raphael took too long to reply. “Nope.”

“Oh, dear.”

Things had just gone from terrible to much, much worse. We were being chased by the scariest monsters I’d ever come across, and the Hermessi had found us. Our comms didn’t work in the tunnel and neither did our Telluris links. Worst of all, we didn’t know what was doing this. We’d experienced issues with forcefields and spells being used to block the soul connections, not to mention Ta’Zan’s comms blocking towers—but something else was at work here.

Our only option was to reach the crew and get back to the surface before the whole place came down on us, or before we became the creatures’ first dinner. Remembering Raphael’s remark, I highly doubted his meat would be stringy. With all the muscles on him, I was willing to bet he’d be like a rare steak to these monsters.

“Just hold on,” Raphael said, then increased his running speed again. I wondered how much faster he could go. I was already brushing rather violently against the cold air in the tunnel. “I’m not letting them get to you.”

I almost melted a little upon hearing that statement. Then, reality kicked me in the shins.

“Can’t lose the team’s computer, now, can we?” he added.

I deflated like a cheap beach ball, then shook it all off and slipped from his grip. A moment later, we were both running side by side again. I was putting in the extra effort to keep up with him, simply because I refused to be some kind of damsel he could just carry around like a purse. Ha, ha, Raphael with a purse.

“What the hell? I told you I’m faster!” he chastised me.

“And I’ve repeatedly told you to stop underestimating me,” I snarled, then used the adrenaline coursing through me to get ahead of him by a couple of feet.

Behind us, though we couldn’t see them just yet, the monsters were making their way out of the second tunnel jam. Raphael slapped the wall again. Only, this time, nothing happened. “The earth stopped shaking altogether,” he muttered, as we both realized that the tunnel had gone completely still.

“It’s the Earth Hermessi. He’s cut you off from his energy,” I said. “You can’t use your fae abilities while it’s around, I think.”

This kind of selective power outage only made things more difficult for us, but, nevertheless, we had to keep moving. If the creatures or the Hermessi got to us first, it would doom the others too. I couldn’t for the life of me let that happen.