Bright Blaze of Magic (Black Blade, #3)(66)
Victor actually smiled at me, his face creasing with happiness. “Excellent. I was hoping Serena had told you that story. It will make this so much more satisfying.”
My heart dropped and fear spread through my body. “What do you mean?”
He gestured out at the empty warehouse. “Because this is the building where your father died. This warehouse has been in the Draconi Family for years. We’ve housed various businesses in here, shipping and storage companies and the like. Even a butcher at one point. But none of them ever lasted long. Do you know why?”
I shook my head. I had no idea what he was getting at.
“Because of the copper crushers,” Victor said. “This is one of their favorite spots in all of Cloudburst Falls. It’s why the town founders named this area Copper Street. I’m not sure exactly why the crushers like it so much. Maybe because it’s close to the river. Anyway, every couple of months, I would have to send guards down here to clean them out. You know how vicious crushers can be, especially when there’s a whole nest of them. We lost more guards than it was worth to keep the businesses open, so finally, I just let the crushers have the warehouse. Every once in a while, though, I come back here and leave a meal for them. And tonight, Lila, that meal is going to be you.”
Panic shot through my body, and my head snapped from left to right and back again, wondering if the copper crushers were already creeping up on me. For a moment, I didn’t see anything, but slowly, glowing, ruby-red eyes began to appear, like lights winking on, one after another, in the darkest, blackest shadows of the warehouse. A second later, a faint rasp-rasp-rasp sounded, as though something large and heavy were sliding across the floor.
Victor laughed, the sound soft and sinister, chilling me to the bone. He was going to leave me tied up here in the middle of the warehouse. Once he and Blake were gone, the copper crushers would slither across the floor and make a meal out of me, just like he’d said. The oversize snakes would wrap their coils around me and slowly crush me to death—and that’s if they didn’t bite and poison me with their venom first.
Either way, I was dead. I’d thought that nothing could be worse than Victor cutting me up and ripping my magic out of me, but this . . . this was horrifying.
He smiled at me again, pleased by the fear filling my shocked face. Blake curled his hand around his sword and glanced around, as if he was afraid that the crushers would shoot out of the shadows and eat him too.
Victor held up my mom’s Sinclair cuff. “This didn’t do your mother any good. Despite all her friends, her precious Family, even her sight magic, she still died in the end, just like you’re going to.”
He threw the cuff down onto the floor, and it rolled end over end before spinning to a stop a few feet in front of me. Victor stared at me, his golden eyes as bright as any monster’s.
“Enjoy your life, Lila Sterling—what little is left of it.”
Then he turned and strode out of the warehouse, leaving me to the copper crushers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Instead of following his dad out of the warehouse, Blake stayed frozen in place, peering into the shadows, his eyes wide, his hand still on the sword belted to his hip. As cruel as he was, even Blake was shocked by what his dad was going to do to me.
“Blake!” I hissed. “Help me!”
He stared at me, and for the first time, a bit of fear flickered in his eyes. I didn’t know if it was because of the copper crushers lurking in the shadows or if Blake had finally realized that if his dad could do this to me, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it to Blake if he ever displeased Victor. He stared at me and opened his mouth to say something, maybe even that he was sorry, but he never got the chance.
“Blake!” Victor called out in a loud, commanding voice. “Let’s go! Now!”
Blake kept staring at me, and for a moment, I almost thought that he was wavering, that he was actually going to step forward and do something to help me.
“Blake!” I hissed again. “Please!”
“Son!” Victor called out again. “Move it! Right now!”
And just like that, the moment passed. Blake shook his head, then turned and ran out of the warehouse. The door banged shut behind him. A few seconds later, a car cranked to life on the street outside, then drove off.
As soon as the last rumbles had faded away, things began moving and stirring in the shadows in earnest. More and more ruby-red eyes winked open, all staring steadily at me. Dark shapes moved on the floor, and a series of low, ominous clack-clack-clacks sounded as the crushers swayed back and forth, making the rattles on the end of their tails chime together in a dark, deadly chorus.
And slowly, the monsters slithered out into the light.
I’d always thought of copper crushers as a cross between copperheads, rattlesnakes, and pythons—only much, much deadlier—and the first snake I saw only confirmed my opinion. Its eyes were that rich, jewel-toned, ruby red I’d noticed before and burned even brighter than the overhead light, as though two hot coals had been set into its eye sockets. Its skin featured a large diamond pattern and gleamed like polished copper, giving the monster its name.
But the creature’s size and strength were what made it truly dangerous. The first copper crusher I spotted was at least twenty feet long and three feet thick, which made it easily capable of squeezing me to death. Two others were sliding across the floor toward me as well, their long, black tongues flicking out. They could smell my fear and knew that I was going to be an easy dinner for them, unless I found some way to escape. And still more crushers were waiting in the shadows behind these three.