Fan Fiction ❯ The Vampire Hunter II: Bloodlines ❯ Chapter 17

Chapter XVII

As Gabrielle entered the fourth hour, she cautiously waited for possible attack. The last challenge, though difficult, hadn't offered an outright assault on her person the way the two previous hours had, so she was worried that the start of this challenge might be to remedy that fact. However, nothing jumped out at her, except for the snakes that covered the floor.

Gabrielle felt several of the serpents attempting to bite her, and she batted them away. They smashed into a wall and didn't move anymore, but the ones that were left kept striking at her legs. So, she quickly moved around the room and killed everything that slithered, either by stomping on their heads, breaking their necks, or tossing them against the walls to crush their bodies.

With that nuisance out of the way, Gabrielle focused her attention on the room itself. At first glance, it seemed to be completely empty and without an exit, but upon closer inspection, Gabrielle found four concealed doors. She pushed open the one on the far right and slid the six-inch slab of stone back against the wall of the tunnel she discovered. It didn't look like it went very far, but Gabrielle walked forward anyway. Maybe there was another hidden door at the other end.

As soon as Gabrielle took her third step, a wall of fire shot up from the floor to block her path. She jumped back in alarm and then tried to compose herself, as she waited to see if the fire would disappear, but it remained. Unless she intended to dig a tunnel around the flames, there was no way for her to pass through.

Gabrielle turned around and went back out to try the next door. She pushed the heavy stone out of the way and warily stepped forward. No flames erupted, so she continued down the hallway until she came to a dead end. After a thorough search, Gabrielle was satisfied that it really didn't go any further, and she returned to the main room.

She went to the next door and opened it to reveal another hallway, but this time, she found another door at the end instead of a blank wall. She pushed it open and found another room similar to the one she'd just left with more doors to try.

In a flash of memory, Gabrielle recalled the Land of Sokar from the Book of Amduat. It was said that it contained the desert of Rosetau, which was teeming with snakes, and the route through the desolate region was supposed to be filled with fire and blocked by many doors. Re had been forced to make his way through the right sequence of doors in order to get to the next Gate.

Gabrielle decided to go back and try the last door from the first room to make sure it too didn't lead to more doors. It was blocked by fire just like the first door, so she returned to the second room to start all over again.

The first door she tried led to a dead end. The second one led to another door, which yielded a third room full of new doors. Gabrielle felt the time ticking away, and she hurriedly tried all the doors, instead of going back to check the unopened doors left in the second room. All five doors were blocked either by fire or by a stone wall.

Gabrielle light-walked back to the second room and tried the third door. It led to a fourth room of doors and Gabrielle cursed. She didn't have time to deal with some kind of twisted labyrinth built for vampires, but there was nothing she could do. She had to find the right path or she was never going to get to Clark, wherever she was. For all Gabrielle knew, she was somewhere in one of these rooms.

With that thought in mind, Gabrielle hurried to try the first door in the new room and was almost burned by the flames that erupted in front of her. She quickly turned around and tried the next door a little more carefully. It was a dead end and so was the third one, but the fourth door led to another door, which brought Gabrielle to a fifth room of doors.

Gabrielle checked all of them, but she was again stymied by more dead ends and walls of fire. She quickly returned to the fourth room and checked the remaining door. It was a dead end, so she went back to the second room from the beginning. There was still one door left there for her to check, and she opened it to find a long twisting passage that finally ended in another door.

Gabrielle pushed the door forward and stepped into the new room. There were two open passageways leading from it, and Gabrielle read the clock centered above the two tunnels. It was four minutes past the hour, and she had only seconds to choose which path to take. She light-walked into the tunnel on the left, since that had apparently been the path she was supposed to take all along.

Fire exploded ahead of her, and Gabrielle shot her arms out into the sides of the tunnel to prevent herself from heading straight into the flames. She stopped just in time and retreated. As she entered the other tunnel, she heard the sound of the slab overhead attempting to block the passage again.