“Ha, ha, my darling, Olivia! I know everything and everyone. You cannot hide anything from me,” Balthazar said.
Says the guy who doesn’t know where Moon Lee is.I narrowed my eyes, considering.
“I have something to show you,” Balthazar said, abruptly changing topics. He stalked across his lair. Each place where his boot landed sent up a puff of cloying dust.
I coughed as the dust reached my lungs, wondering what toxicity level lay trapped in the ground below.
Balthazar stood next to the opposite wall and swept his arm in a flamboyant gesture. The wall sparkled in a whoosh and then dissolved, revealing an entire gallery of daggers. The blades appeared dull, lifeless, mere metal trapped in this horrible cave.
“These daggers…” Balthazar said, his tone almost reverential. “These blades represent all the time travelers I have killed through the centuries.”
I pulled back my head.How many time travelers has he killed? There must be hundreds of weapons in there.
Another clicking issued forth from beneath the floor. Then, another. And still, more until the room echoed with these awful clicking noises.
I glanced down, watchful for cockroaches.
“You asked me why I haven’t killed you yet when I could crush you in a second,” Balthazar said, plucking one of the knives from its holder. “Life can be so mundane. I yearn for stimulation at times. I love to play with the emotions and reactivity of the human mind. You’re all so weak. But you amuse me, Olivia—you pretend to be so strong. I like to see how far I can push you.”
He cocked his head. “But you’ll be broken, too, just like the others. And then I’ll have to kill you, as well.”
Locking his gaze with mine, willing me to watch him, he lifted the blade to his nose and sniffed.
The dagger shimmered as if awakened.
“Yes, yes,” he said, almost in a rapture.
I was unsure if he spoke to me or the weapon in his grip.
My stomach churned.
He took another whiff of the dagger and shuddered. And then a bulge formed at his crotch as if he was in his lover’s presence.
My lip pulled back in disgust.What’s he up to?
“Did you know that your dagger is your most powerful weapon? This was your mother’s knife,” he said, still daring me to maintain eye contact.
I couldn’t look away.
“And this…” He broke eye contact with me long enough to snatch a vial of crimson liquid from behind where my mother’s knife was stored. “This is her life essence.”
Oh, God.I shook with emotion.He’s got my mother’s blood.
The cockroach clicking grew louder and more insistent.
“Alina’s dagger, combined with a drop of her blood and the utterance of the ancient scripture, will show you everything about your mother. Her life will be revealed. The daggers never lie and only hold the truth.” Balthazar pierced me with a penetrating look.
A cockroach wriggled through a crack. Then, another one popped out, clicking and humming.
Soon the floor was alive with the hard-shelled monsters.
Several of them surrounded me, lifting up to their back legs, trying to reach my feet. Others used their wings to propel themselves onto me. They crawled up my neck and arms, their legs tickling and horrifying me.
They swarmed across Roman’s body.
He jolted awake and let out a roar of disgust. Like me, he twisted and kicked. Since his feet reached the floor, he stomped on a few vile creatures, and the snaps of their shattering bodies added to the clicking noise.
I was immersed in terror, watching Roman, feeling the cockroaches crawl all over me.
