Haakon joined me, his massive frame taking up most of the small space. He knelt down and brushed the palm of his hand over the dirt. "I think there's a trapdoor here."
I stepped back and let him scrape away at the dirt with his hands. Sure enough, there was the outline of a door.
"The vamp's down there," I said. I had no doubt it was true. The pain in my head hadn't gone away.
Haakon nodded. "He didn't cover this door himself. He had to have had help." He didn't say it, but I knew he meant help of the human variety.
"I'm guessing his maker."
Haakon frowned. "Another vamp wouldn't have risked getting caught in daylight."
"I mean his human maker."
He gave me a look that said I'd clearly lost my mind. "What are you talking about?"
"Tell you later. Right now we've got a vamp to dust."
Beneath the trapdoor a rough ladder made of two-by-fours stretched down into the darkness. Unfortunately, it didn't stretch quite as far as I would have liked. The space under the shed floor couldn't have been more than about four feet high. It was hardly more than a crawlspace. Claustrophobia reared its ugly head. What was with me and all this underground nonsense lately? I'd had more than my fill beneath the streets of Paris.
Taking a deep breath, I descended the ladder into the tight space. Before crouching to fit beneath the floor, I slid my knife from the sheath in my boot. I still had my wrist sheaths as backup, but there was no way I'd be able to get a knife out of my boot in that small space. How Haakon was going to fit, I had no idea. I had even less of an idea how I was going to fight a vampire with so little room.
The smell of damp earth tickled my nose. I squatted, placing my left hand flat on the bare earth for balance. That was all it took. Deep within me my Earth power stirred, unfurling like a vine reaching for the sun. Of all my powers, it was the newest and least under control. Without my bidding, it seeped out of my pores, shimmering over my skin like a green mist. All around me plants began to sprout from the dirt, never mind we were underground and away from sunlight.
"What the hell?" I hadn't realized Haakon was so close behind me. "Is that you?"
"Umm…." How to explain this? "Sort of."
"Well, stop it. The last thing we need is to be fighting weeds and a vampire."
I was about to comply when I noticed something. The plants around me shimmered with the same greenish light as my skin. I'd expected it to end in a wall about the same place as the shed wall above us, but it didn't. The shimmer of green continued several feet into the darkness.
"Haakon, this isn't just a hole. I think this is a tunnel."
"Wonderful." He sounded about as thrilled as I felt.
"Come on, big boy. Let's see where this leads."
Leaves and flowers tickled my bare arms and face as I crawled through the near blackness of the tunnel. I'd managed to shove my Earth power back down where it belonged, but the plants themselves—the plants I'd made grow underground—still gave off a strange green luminescence. Thank goodness, because I wasn't sure even my superior night vision could have seen anything down here.
My knees were sore, and my palms stung from sharp rocks liberally scattered in the dirt of the tunnel. It was hot and sticky and far too close for comfort. My heart pounded in my ears, my breath coming in short gasps. I was close to a full-blown panic attack, which was sort of embarrassing to admit, even to myself. Hunters were supposed to be fearless. Clearly my brain hadn't gotten the memo.
I sensed Haakon close behind me. I couldn't imagine how he was doing. He was far bigger than me. It was a wonder he even fit in the tunnel.
Up ahead I saw where the shimmer of green ended in a gaping hole of black. "I think we're close," I whispered. Haakon tapped my boot to let me know he'd heard. I took a deep breath and crawled the last couple of feet.
The darkness was so complete, I couldn't see a thing. There was no green shimmer of light from plants. Even my night vision wasn't working. I cautiously stood up. My head didn't hit anything.
"You can stand up," I whispered. "At least I can."
There was silence for a moment. "Me, too. We didn't angle down, so we must be under a hill."
The hill behind the shed. Clearly someone had taken advantage of that little quirk of the landscape. "You got a light? I didn't exactly come prepared for underground exploration."
"One moment." There was a rustling sound followed by a snap, and then a dim, bluish light filled the space. Haakon held the glow stick high. We were standing inside what looked like a large, underground dome made of carefully placed rocks. And from the ceiling….