Fan Fiction ❯ The Vampire Hunter II: Bloodlines ❯ Chapter 16

Chapter XVI

As Gabrielle came closer to the end of the passage, her senses pricked. The flickering light, the smells, the heat... It all added up to only one thing: fire.

Gabrielle squinted at the roaring blaze that greeted her, as she cautiously walked to the end of the tunnel. The room seemed to be identical to the one behind her, but instead of water, the floor was a sea of flames. She couldn't see far enough through the flames to know how the fire was being generated, but she could smell gas, and there appeared to be several vents cut into the middle of the ceiling to help keep the fire going.

Gabrielle quickly checked the walls to her left and right, but just like the last room, there was no means of climbing them. Unlike last time though, when the passage began to close, she wouldn't be able to jump into the fire to escape being crushed.

Gabrielle tried to think, as she fought down her panic. She had to get to Clark. She couldn't let her fear of fire get in her way. Cynthia's comment that she probably wouldn't make it beyond the third challenge came back to haunt her, and she suddenly felt a strong need to prove her sister wrong.

She took several deep breaths and tried to calm down. If she fell apart now, she'd never get out of there alive. She just had to figure out what she was supposed to do and then do it.

Gabrielle looked over the room again, taking in all the details. Only a hundred meters or so away, she could see the door to the next Gate set in the far wall directly across from her. There was plenty of light from the Lake of Fire, and Gabrielle remembered that in the Book of Gates, it was actually water. It had very little to do with Re's journey through the third hour of the night, but the liquid turned to flames for the damned, hence its name. Gabrielle realized Cynthia was making a comment about Gabrielle's supposed unworthiness, and she shook her head in frustration.

Gabrielle checked the ceiling again, then the walls, as she searched for something, anything, that she could use to climb over or around the fire. But the walls were flat, and unless she suddenly developed some kind of super power that let her defy gravity, walking on the ceiling was out of the question, too.

The vibrations from the gigantic stone slab beginning its descent forced Gabrielle into action. She had to move or she was dead. Though being crushed had never actually been attempted as a form of vampire execution as far as Gabrielle knew, she was pretty sure the effect would be fatal; her heart would be destroyed, which was basically what happened when vampires were staked or burned, and that would be the end of her.

An image of a person on a climbing wall at a gym suddenly came into her head, and Gabrielle knew what she had to do. She would have to make her own handholds. She reached around the side of the exit and slammed her fist deep into the wall. Then she did it again a little further away. She knelt down and made two more holes about shoulder width apart and then quickly grabbed onto the upper holes and slid her feet into the lower ones. She watched as the passage sealed itself, and she was left hanging on a blank wall with an inferno below her.

Any other vampire would have been sweating profuse amounts of blood by now, which would have made hanging onto the wall even more difficult than it already was. But Gabrielle had long ago discovered how to shut down that particular bodily function in order to protect her precious blood. After watching Third Orders convert humans with only a thimbleful of their blood, Gabrielle had realized mere drops of her own powerful blood was all that would be needed to produce the same effect. So, she'd learned to simply enlarge her vascular pathways and increase her circulation to create the same temperature regulation that sweating normally provided.

Gabrielle looked over her shoulder at the fire and then at the clock. She had to get moving.

She pulled back her left arm, as she braced herself with her other hand and feet. She embedded her fist all the way into the wall and then replaced her hand into the closer hole again, as she drew back her left leg and kicked her foot into the stone. She heard her big toe crack and cursed, as the pain shot up her leg. Her body naturally healed the fracture, and the pain faded away. She reminded herself to tighten her foot next time.

Gabrielle carefully reached to hold onto the new upper hole she'd made and then stepped her foot into the new lower one. Then she moved her right foot over to the newly vacated hole and finally brought her right hand over to the hole her left hand had been holding onto. Then she started the process all over again.

The only thing Gabrielle could think about was holding onto the wall and getting to the other side. If she started to think about the fire, her mind froze, and she couldn't move. As it was, she had to work hard to keep from shaking and losing her grip on the handholds she created as she went along.

Whenever her arms or legs started to feel tired, Gabrielle concentrated on healing them, but she could feel herself running on empty, even with the recent infusion of blood from the three vampires she'd killed. It was taking so much energy just to hang onto the wall, but then she had to use quick bursts every few seconds to make new handholds, and then she had to climb from one set of holes to the next. It was exhausting, and Gabrielle wasn't used to the kind of physical stress she was being forced to exert on her body.

A dozen meters from the exit at the end of the room, Gabrielle heard grinding stone and looked to see the passage opening in the middle of the wall. With less than ten minutes to get to the tunnel, Gabrielle put on a final burst of speed.

But just as she was reaching for the next handhold, her left foot slipped as the stone began to crumble under her weight, and she scrambled to hang on. The sudden jolt almost caused her to lose her grip with her other hand, but she used her preternatural speed and strength to keep herself in place while she made a new foothold in less than a second.

Even though she'd managed to secure her hold, Gabrielle clung to the wall in heart pounding silence for a full minute while she tried to regain her wits. She was terrified of letting go again in order to grab onto the hole she'd been reaching for. But eventually, that little voice inside reminded her that Clark was waiting for her, and she carefully started moving again.

She went a little slower, but she tried to make the holes as far apart as she could in order to gain more distance, and she finally climbed into the entrance with only a minute to spare.

Gabrielle took one last look back at the flames she'd barely avoided and then ran down the tunnel towards the next Gate.