Monster Mansion 2 by Dante King (best way to read ebooks .txt) 📗

off her elegant legs and her bare feet. The man was good-looking in a wholesome, hard-working way, with a square jaw, a straight nose, and a slight smile on his face. The woman was looking at the man, an expression of deep self-satisfaction on her not-quite-human face.

“His clothes!” murmured Sarah. The man in the statue was dressed in a shirt and jeans and… could it be? He was wearing sneakers! The pale granite of the statues did not have any color, but the detail was marvelous, and she could even make out the branding on the man’s sneakers and the weave of his jeans.

“She looks like an Eosorean princess, but he looks like some guy from the neighborhood, the kind of guy I’d see every day downtown.”

Then something else struck her. The woman’s face was the same face as had been on the door knocker. And the man’s face was the one she had seen at the window. The woman was the dungeon, Sarah was sure of that, but who could the guy be? She remembered the man’s voice they had heard a few times now on this adventure. Who could he be? What could he have to do with Kyrine the dungeon?

It was weird, but there was no chance of getting an explanation now, so Sarah put her questions aside and focused on the room around the statue.

There was gold everywhere. Gold coins scattered across the floor and piled in the corners, gold bars stacked haphazardly along the walls, and golden jewelry— chains, rings, and amulets— hanging off the hands of the statues and lying on the ground as if they’d been thrown away without anyone caring where they fell.

Entranced by the red glimmer of the gold in the torchlight, she stepped thoughtlessly forward.

The massive guillotine blade above the door came crashing down.

Sarah caught the glint of the blade out of the corner of her eye and dodged, but only by a hair— if it hadn’t been for the boost she’d gained from Todd before heading in, the blade would have had her in half.

“Fucking hell!” Sarah shouted as she flung herself into the room, dropping and rolling then springing to her feet. She turned and saw to her dismay that the guillotine blade was not all that had fallen down over the entrance. The blade formed the bottom of a steel portcullis gate, crisscrossed beams of inch-thick steel that a person might be able to squeeze a hand between, but no more than that. The exit was completely blocked, and there was no way out. No way back to Todd and Josh either.

Now, she was on her own.

She had not planned for this. The plan had been to get back to the central chamber, where she could fight alongside her teammates, benefitting from Todd’s healing spells and Josh’s ranged attacks.

“Shit,” she muttered, gipping her mace.

She was trapped in the statue chamber, and the statues were moving.

The statue of the man and woman was dissolving as if it had been made of sand instead of granite. Their faces melted away, their arms dissolved, and the pile of swirling black dust they became transformed and took on a new shape.

A woman’s throaty, sensual chuckle resonated through the chamber.

In place of the statues, there stood a monster the likes of which Sarah had never seen or heard of before. It was the size of a big dog, but it was lizard-like and hairless. It had a thick neck and a squat, pointed face, and a frilled mane of sharp spines that pointed away from the head and flexed menacingly as the monster glared at her.

Vivid colors striped the creature, bright emerald green and deep teal. It had four short, thick legs with big, dark shining claws on the scaly feet, and a long tail that was tipped with a flap of hard hide like a leaf-shaped knife blade. Even in the dull reflected torchlight of the chamber, Sarah could see that the tail had razor-sharp edges.

The monster opened its jaws and roared menacingly, showing off a mouth full of vicious-looking, razor-sharp teeth.

 “Time to put this new mace to use again,” Sarah said grimly.

Sarah hefted her new weapon and loosened her swords in their sheaths. The monstrous lizard writhed on top of the plinth where the statues had stood a moment before, its long claws gripping the edge of the stone plinth. It roared at her, eyes blazing, and then launched itself through the air toward her.

“Come on then, you scaly bastard!” shouted Sarah. “Let’s see what you’ve got!”

The monster landed full on her, black claws raking down her steel with a horrible screaming noise. It battered at her visor and her shoulders with its teeth, but the smooth steel kept its attacks from doing any damage.

She was not sure how long that would last, though. This creature was strong.

With a grunt of effort, Sarah brought the mace up under the creature’s legs and dislodged them from her armor, sending the monster flying back from her. It landed awkwardly, claws skittering on the stone floor as it tried to get a grip, and Sarah dived in, swinging her mace at its head.

It writhed out of the way just in time, and she caught it a glancing blow on the side of the face. Green blood came from the creature’s mouth and nose, and it screeched in pain.

Pushing her advantage, Sarah stepped up, swinging another mace-blow at the monster. She landed her blow, and the monster grunted as it moved with the impact.

This time, it retaliated, flicking around and using its muscular tail to deliver a set of ringing blows to Sarah’s sword-arm and right side. The bladed edge of the creature’s tail left long, shining scars in the steel of Sarah’s armor.

One of them cut through at a weak point on the elbow joint,