With one arm around Sophie’s waist, he half carried, half dragged her through the inch deep water on the vault floor. With his free hand, he spun the lock. The wheel vibrated beneath his hands as something hit the door again. With a clank the lock disengaged. Muttering a silent prayer and using the door as a shield, Mick yanked it open.
The Karu rushed through the door, bony feet skidding on the metal floor. As it crashed into the opposite wall, Mick slipped around the door with Sophie, dragging it shut behind them. He got the lock just barely re-engaged before the door trembled again with the force of the enraged bear-shifter.
“Smart,” muttered Sophie. She was fading fast. He could hear it in her voice. Water lapped at their ankles now.
“Just hang on. Keep your focus.”
He lifted her into his arms and began to move. He was running blind, his eyes not yet adjusted to the dark. The splashing of his feet covered the noise of any approaching attackers. He relied on speed alone.
Claws raked his flank and back, but still he ran, clutching Sophie tight to his chest. He found the juncture by nearly plowing into it, turning at the last second to take the brunt of the impact with his shoulder. Remembering the demon’s words, he took the right fork. The ground seemed to slope up slightly as he ran and the air smelled slightly less rank, though that might have been from sheer lack of carnage.
Sophie went limp.
Behind them something snapped, like a dam breaking. The sound of an unnatural tide was deafening. Mick poured on the speed, but even he wasn’t fast enough to escape the wall of water that came crashing down the tunnel. It caught them up, tumbling them head over feet, slamming them hard into walls.
He kept a hard grip on Sophie as he struggled against his own panic at not knowing which way was up. The current of the water carried them, and he tried to relax and let it. He bumped up against the roof of the tunnel and rolled, using one hand to drag them along, feeling for some kind of opening. One foot. Another. Sophie floate
d limp in the crook of his other arm. His lungs were burning, and he thought his ears would burst from the pressure.
The demon had lied. Of course it had lied. That’s what demons did. They were going to die down here because he took a calculated risk, and it was the wrong one.
Spots of color danced behind his eyes as his brain started to short out from lack of oxygen.
Something like a giant hand shoved them hard further down the tunnel, and what little air he had burst out of his mouth in a shock of bubbles. He kicked hard, trying to fight, but hit nothing. Air! Air! Bands of pressure squeezed his chest, urging him to breathe.
His hand groped toward the ceiling again . . . and met no resistance. Frantic, he felt again, found an opening about three feet across. He kicked, shifting to bring Sophie close to his chest and began to swim up the shaft. He expected a ceiling or blockage at any moment., but he kept moving up, up, feeling the motion of the water helping them along, moving, speeding them to the top.
He broke the surface with a gasp, getting a mouthful of water as gravity slammed them back into the water. Kicking back to the top he coughed out the fetid water and shifted Sophie’s head up. She didn’t move.
Damn it!
He kicked across the small pond, snarling as they tangled in lily pads. Ripping through the roots, he dragged her onto the bank. Her skin was waxy, streaked with mud. She wasn’t breathing. Mick’s fingers fumbled for a pulse, couldn’t find one.
“Sophie! Goddamn it!”
He tipped her head back, breathing into her mouth. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Another breath. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.
“You are not going to die on me, damn it. You’re not going to die on Liza.”
Breathe. Count.
“I’m not going to lose another one,” he growled.
Her body bucked with a choking cough. Quickly he rolled her onto her side, so she could get the water out of her lungs, then he collapsed on his haunches beside her. When the hacking subsided, she lay gasping, curled in on herself. Mick found his hand stroking her wet hair.
“We made it out?” she asked.
Mick looked around, taking in the iron gates, cobbled streets, and old fashioned atmosphere around them.. “If we didn’t, then Hell looks a whole lot like the Garden District.”
“How?” she coughed.
“I don’t know exactly. You passed out. The water broke through. Felt like something shoved us up the tunnel. Then we came out here.”
Mick thought she was having another coughing fit and laid a hand on her shoulder. Then he realized she was . . . laughing?
“Thanks, Dad. Way to come through in a pinch.”
A grumble of thunder seemed to echo in response.