Dimitri's Point of View in Frostbite (Vampire Academy) (Book 2)

Part 17

Eventually we arrived at the mall. The sun was up now, illuminating our chance to sneak in, but providing us the wonderful opportunity of trapping the Strigoi inside the tunnels.

The mall was packed with people. And occasionally we would get stares, and I couldn’t help but think what a sight we must be. A group of thirteen dressed in all black, but we didn’t worry about being seen. Even if there were humans working for Strigoi watching us. We were the ones trying to find the Strigoi anyway.

We had no specific idea on where the tunnels were located. So when one of the guardians pointed out that it was pointless, I nearly lost my self control.

“They’re here.” I nearly growled. “We’re just not looking hard enough.”

Janine tapped me on the shoulder. At first I thought it was to warn me that I was speaking down to another guardian. But she was looking somewhere else. My eyes followed hers to see a janitor closet just on the far end of the mall.

“Did anyone check that out?” Janine asked, taking a step closer in the direction of the closet.

We all shook our heads, and headed towards it. I went first, with Janine bringing up the back of the group. We may look ridiculous to the other shoppers, but this was a strategy we were taught at a young age.

The strongest and fastest one of the group went first when there was only one entrance. This was incase a Strigoi jumped at us right when we opened the door. The one who was the next in line for strongest and fastest went last, and since Janine appeared to be the weakest one of the group I put her last. The Strigoi could be easily fooled by her height and small size.

When I opened the door I braced myself for anything to pop out. Instead I was faced with a set of stairs going down. My heart skipped a beat. The tunnels.

Rose I’m coming.

The stairs were dirty and smelled pretty nasty as we made our way down, Janine shut the door, closing off whatever light we had. But our enhanced eye sight allowed us to see well in the dark.

We reached the bottom. It wasn’t so much a tunnel as a narrow corridor, lined in grime-caked cement. Ugly fluorescent lights were embedded sporadically along the walls. The passage went off to our left and right boxes of ordinary cleaning and electrical supplies sat around.

I glanced around, putting myself between the guardians and the empty space before us. We waited for the longest time. It was strange. There was nothing, no sign of Strigoi anywhere.

Taking this as a good sign we walked down to the right and found more of the same. We passed some black writing on one of the walls. I stopped and looked at it, It was a list of letters.

D

B

C

O

T

D

V

L

D

Z

S

I

Some had lines and x marks next to them, but for the most part the message was incoherent. Janine noticed my scrutiny.

“What is it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Some sort of list…” a list of Moroi Royals…

My heart beat faster. B for Badica, Z for Zeklos, I for Ivashkov…