Chapter 16 · A Grave That Breathes

I hit the ground hard enough to taste blood.

Ghost lands beside me in a crouch, breathing fast. Above us the grate we fell through is already sealing shut, Grimm's voice cutting off mid-shout. The dark swallows everything.

No. Not everything.

There's light down here. Red light. It pulses like a heartbeat, slow and wet, coming from the walls themselves. The stone is slick with something that isn't water. When I put my hand out to steady myself the surface feels warm.

"Don't touch it," Ghost snaps.

Too late. My palm sticks for a second before I yank it back. The red glow flares brighter where I touched, spreading out in thin veins like capillaries.

"What the hell is this place?"

Ghost doesn't answer. She's staring down the tunnel ahead of us, and her face has gone white. Not scared-white. Sick-white.

I follow her gaze.

The tunnel opens into a chamber about fifty feet down. The walls there aren't just glowing. They're moving. Pulsing. And in the center of the room, behind a lattice of that same red light shaped into bars, is a woman.

She's standing.

She's looking right at me.

My legs move before my brain catches up.