“You’ll never live that down,” said Suttor, lending him his paw and pulling him onto the narrow shoreline.
Duncan plunged into the water, slapping the surface with an impressive belly flop, splashing everyone. “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head free of water.
“I just dried off!” protested Suttor, wiping the water from his whiskers.
“Ignore your brother’s grousing,” said Cole. “We’d never have found a way inside without you.”
Juniper crouched on the shoreline, wringing water from his cloak. “We best get on our way. If Victor did make it inside, we need to find him before he gets himself into trouble.”
“Trouble does seem to find my brother,” said Vincent.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
They traveled down the winding sewer tunnel for about an hour. Oleander stayed at the back of the line. As the fastest swimmer, she could quickly dive in and save any rat who might accidentally fall in and need help. Clover, the least capable swimmer, walked in front of her. Juniper wanted his niece near Oleander, just in case.
Clover glanced over her shoulder and then up at the ceiling as odd, echoing howls swept over their heads and crept up from behind them. “Duncan,” she asked uneasily, “how much farther?”
“There’s an old stone staircase,” he replied, pointing in front of him, “just around the turn a few yards ahead. It leads up into the museum.” He smiled. “I remember that the door opened up to the back of the caveman exhibit. I squeezed under the gap and there was a hairy Topsider foot right in front of me! I thought I was done for until I realized it was just a statue.”
Glancing down at the murky water, Clover stopped short, causing Oleander to jerk back. “Sorry,” she said, squinting through the dark. “I thought I saw something.”
“Don’t fret,” Oleander replied, patting Clover’s shoulder. “Back in the swamp, there’s always something lurking in the water. The snakes have kept their word and stayed out of our territory, but still we’re always on our guard. Luckily we have Dresden and his colony. The bats patrol our grounds regularly.” She looked at the back of Billycan’s head, a ghostly white blur at the front of the line. “I hate to admit it, but he really has changed, hasn’t he?”
“Well,” whispered Clover, “Billycan could have let Hecate and her cohorts kill us all, but he didn’t. If he’s got something else planned for us, he’s surely taking his own sweet time—”
Before Clover could finish, the tunnel swiftly filled with a bloodcurdling scream, followed by a splash. “Oleander!” shouted Clover, whipping around.
She was gone.
“Oleander!” she yelled again into the dark. A choked shriek came from the water, followed by thrashing and then silence.
“Everyone, stay together!” commanded Cole.
Juniper tossed his satchel and cloak to the ground and dived into the water along with Billycan and Vincent. Carn was about to dive in, but Cole blocked his path. “No, Carn. Let them go.”
“I’ve got to help them. It’s Oleander! I can’t leave her to die!”
“Vincent’s a proven swimmer,” Cole reminded him. “He and Victor made it through the Great Flood. Besides, you’re too close to her. Your emotions might very well get in the way, and that could get someone killed.” Carn nodded his head in miserable agreement. He knew Cole was right.
Vincent shouted for Oleander in between dives under the surface. “I can’t find even a trace of her,” he said as he came up for air a third time. “It’s too dark! It’s like she’s vanished!”
“We’ll find her,” said Billycan. He sucked in another deep breath and plunged back into the gloom. Trillium rats had advanced nocturnal vision, but even he could make out little in the gloom. He dived to the bottom of the sewer, clawing through the thick sand, pulling himself through the water. Where was Oleander? She was clever and quick. She didn’t just fall in, something, or someone, had her. But who—or what?
He swam toward the far wall of the sewer, looking for any trace of her. Feeling the cold bricks under his digits, he stumbled upon a narrow break in the wall, something no one would have noticed in the dark. It was a slender entrance, leading into another part of the sewer. She had to be there. He heaved himself up to the surface. “Juniper, Vincent, this way!”
Clutching his dagger between his teeth, Vincent couldn’t help but think of his family as he made his way across the sewer. How strange life had become, he thought as he bulleted toward Billycan, willingly following after the rat who had caused his family’s demise. What an extraordinary plan the Saints had set before them. But where might it end?
Billycan put a claw to his lips as Juniper and Vincent entered through the narrow passageway. He mouthed the word listen and pointed down the tunnel.
Their ears perked at the sound of breathing—deep, heavy pants that sounded not like a rat but something else entirely, something wild and violent, something that might rip your heart out.
With no shoreline to cling to, they slowly waded through the water, making their way closer to the breathing. That was when Vincent smelled it—the scent. He knew that scent! It had changed, there was something strained and desperate about it, something feral . . . but he knew it.
A cutting pain sliced through his leg, tangling his thoughts. Dropping his dagger into the water, he grunted out loud, unable to keep quiet though the pain. Blood clouded the water. He shouted in agony as teeth plunged into his open wound. “It’s got me!” He reached for the creature, pulling at its muzzle, trying to disengage its vise-like grip.
Juniper and Billycan pitched themselves at the creature, ripping at it with teeth and claws, desperately trying to pull it off Vincent. They couldn’t see the assailant, but they could feel it. Its jaw was long and lean, its wet fur thin and wiry, and though it was skeletally thin, its strength challenged their own, hard muscle covering its bones.
Unable to pull the creature off Vincent, Billycan dived underneath it, doing the one thing he knew might loosen its grip. He bared his teeth, forcing them with every ounce of strength deep into the base of the creature’s tail, ripping it out of its socket. The creature flailed, thrashing through the bloodied water as it finally released Vincent’s leg. Its head broke the surface, an agonized wail pouring from its mouth.
Fighting against the pain, Vincent dived to the bottom of the sewer, feeling for his dagger. He found the hilt of it in the sand. Grabbing it, he groaned as he launched himself back up. He reached for the creature as it struggled with Billycan on the surface. He took his dagger and thrust it into its belly.
Juniper grabbed it by its neck, slamming it into the brick wall. “Where is the girl?” he demanded. “What have you done with her?” Again he threw the writhing creature’s head against the wall. “Answer me!”
“What makes you think I’ll tell you, Juniper?” it hissed.
“How do you know my name?” The creature laughed wildly. With a final slam against the wall, it stopped moving long enough for Juniper to catch a glimpse of its face. He gasped. It was a rat—and not just any rat, but one he knew! It was one of the lost Hunters. “Topher?” he said, staring at his bulging eyes. The rat laughed psychotically, his whole body quaking with amusement. Juniper shook him by the shoulders. “Topher, what has happened? Why are you here? Have you been here all this time?”
“Time,” repeated Topher, his eyes darting erratically. “Time, time, time, it means nothing, you know, nothing at all.” He spat out a mouthful of blood—possibly Vincent’s, possibly his own.
“Topher, please, tell me what happened when you left Nightshade.”
“Nightshade, Nightshade, so many moons ago . . . so many moons . . .” muttered Topher.
“Where’s Oleander?” asked Juniper. “What did you do with her?”
“Ohhhh, the pretty, pretty brown rat . . . the one I stole, the one I took.” Topher smiled coyly. “So very pretty she was.”
“Yes, the pretty brown rat,” said Billycan, dragging Vincent o
ver to the wall where a brick had broken, given him something to hang on to. “Where is she?”
“You!” said Topher, his hollow eyes widening. “You’re one of them—from inside—aren’t you?” Topher looked up at the ceiling, as though motioning to the museum over their heads. “You come from inside, like the others!”
“You mean from inside the museum?”
“Of course, from inside. There were many of you . . . you furry white devils.”
Billycan exchanged glances with Juniper. “Topher, is there a lab inside the museum? Is that where you were?”
“Yes! Yes!” replied Topher excitedly, as though he’d just remembered. “How did you know? The lab!”
“Who brought you there?” asked Juniper. “Can you tell me?” Topher’s eyes fluttered, rolling back in his head. He seemed to be growing weaker, his body growing heavier in Juniper’s grasp. He was fading, losing blood fast. “Please think. Who brought you to the lab?”
“We were in an alley.” Topher began to drool. His head swayed back and forth. “We saw food, fresh, beautiful food, meat, cheese, even candy—all there in the alley, of all places, ripe for the picking!”
“And what happened?”
Topher laughed again, but it was a wounded laugh, a laugh that transformed into a slow, mournful whimper. “I don’t know.” Tears streamed down his face. “I don’t know. We were arguing over it, so odd, so very odd to see food like that in an alley. Then they took us.” He looked up. “They took us inside.”
“You mean inside the lab?” asked Juniper. Topher nodded. “Think hard, now. Tell me what happened in the lab.”
Topher’s voice dropped to an anguished whisper. “Unspeakable things . . . dreadful, horrible, unspeakable things.” He let out a ragged breath. “There were needles . . . many, many needles. Many, many rats, dead rats, bodies taken every day, on a trolley.” His eyes rolled back again. “Bleach . . . always, always the smell of bleach.”
The word—bleach—caused something to ignite within Billycan. His body quaked with rage. Vincent watched as his eyes shifted, nearly glowing in the dark. Billycan gnashed his teeth, his rage building. It was all happening again. Silvius was right. The humans, they still wanted something from the rats, and would stop at nothing to find it. All his fears, his pain, the many years of agony in the lab resurfaced—the night when he met his mother, Lenore, the night he attacked the two men in the alley, saving her from their cages. How he longed to be back in that moment, slashing their foul, wrinkled faces all over again, showing them that they had no power over him or his kind. He panted in the water, his blood burning through his veins.
“It’s all right,” Vincent whispered. He set a paw on Billycan’s shoulder. “It’s all right. We’re here now. We can stop them once and for all.”
“Topher, where are the other Hunters?” asked Juniper.
“Oh, dead, dead as doornails,” said Topher indifferently. “All dead, I reason—except for Liam. He escaped with me. He escaped. Liam escaped.”
“Where is Liam now?”
Feebly, Topher motioned down the passageway with his snout. “With the pretty brown rat. The pretty brown . . .” He coughed up more blood, his wandering gaze finally catching Vincent’s. “Your leg . . .” He laughed softly. “Sorry . . . so sorry. I bit you, did I? I think I’m sorry for that, at any rate. Did I bite you? Should I be sorry?” His eyes began to close.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” said Vincent. “You didn’t know.” His throat tightened as he spoke.
Topher’s voice dropped to a barely audible murmur. “No, I didn’t know. Maybe I knew . . . perhaps I knew.” He smiled a peaceful smile. “I’m just . . . not sure. The Saints know . . . they always know.” He let out a long breath and then fell silent.
“We have to leave him here for now,” said Juniper. Trying to keep his composure, he released Topher’s body, letting it sink silently into the water. “Saints be with you, friend. We will be back for you. I swear it.”
“We must find this Liam before it’s too late,” said Billycan.
“Vincent, can you make it?” asked Juniper.
“Don’t worry about me. It’s the same leg that nearly got crushed under Killdeer’s throne—it’s used to pain. His teeth went deep, but he didn’t hit the bone.” He let go of the wall and began to swim down the tunnel. “We’ve got to find her.”
They came to a small shoreline in the narrow tunnel, formed with sand and debris. There were odd piles of objects lining the brick wall. There was a stack of broken green glass from bottles, a mound of dented tin cans, and a heap of mismatched bones.
“This must be where Topher lived,” whispered Billycan, looking down at the chaotic tracks in the sand. “By the looks of it, barely surviving off whatever he could find in the floating trash.”
“But where is Liam?” asked Vincent. “I can’t make out a scent among all this garbage.”
“There’s no time to waste,” said Juniper. “Liam,” he called, “can you hear me? It’s Juniper.” He kicked a tin can against the bricks, trying to make as much noise as possible to draw out the rat. “We know you’re here. We know you have the pretty brown rat. You best come out of the shadows. Whatever you’re feeling right now, whatever anger or confusion you’ve been going through, it’s on account of the injections you and Topher were given in the lab. We’re here to help you . . . to bring you home to Nightshade, where you belong.”
A gasp came from where the sand met the brick wall, and a dark blur of a figure moved behind the pile of glass. Vincent walked toward it slowly, his dagger at the ready. “Come out, Liam. It’s Vincent Nightshade. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you insist on staying hidden.”
As he neared the glass, he noticed some of it was smeared with blood. His heart started to race. “I can hear you breathing back there,” he called out. He took another step and noticed a long tail and two brown feet. With his free paw he waved Billycan and Juniper nearer.
“Bless the Saints,” said Juniper as he saw the pair of lifeless feet. “Liam, what have you done?”
Another gasp came from behind the glass, followed by sobbing.
“Oleander?” said Vincent, finally bringing himself to round the corner and look at the full form of the limp rat on the ground.
Oleander sat behind the glass, rocking on her heels, her body coiled into a small ball. She covered her head with her arms, a broken shard of bloodied glass next to her, one clutched in her paw, and another embedded in the dead rat’s chest.
Vincent crouched next to her. “It’s Vincent, Oleander.” He handed his dagger to Juniper, gently forcing her rigid arms off her head. He opened her paw and took the shard of glass from it. Softly he lifted her head. “It’s all right now. You’re safe.”
“You knew him?” she asked, sniffling. “His name . . . it was Liam?”
“He was one of the lost Hunters,” said Juniper. “He and Topher, the one who snatched you, they escaped the museum. They’d been trapped in the lab.”
“I—I killed him,” said Oleander. “He came at me . . . said I looked like a rat in the lab, one he’d gotten in a quarrel with. I didn’t know who he was, or else I never would have . . .” She glanced down at the bloodied glass sticking out of the sand. “I never killed anyone before. I don’t think I can live with it.”
“He and Topher were given injections in the lab,” said Vincent. “Whatever it was, it turned them mad. You cannot blame yourself. Had you not protected yourself, there’s no telling what he might have done to you. You are lucky to be alive.”
“But still . . . I took his life.”
Billycan crumpled onto the sand, staring at Liam’s wilted, malnourished frame. “He was already dead,” he said. “Whatever life he had, he left it in that lab. If anything, you freed him from a future of agony and confusion. You gave him peace.”
Juniper glanced around, noticing a small stack of metal placards. He reached for one. It read TOSCAN POT, CIRCA 1750. Another read TRILLIU
M CITY MAYOR TANNER HUFFINGTON, 1892. “Where did they get these?” He scratched his head. “Did they steal them from the museum?”
Oleander pointed to the wall where a brick had been removed, revealing a sizable hole. “It’s a tunnel. I think it leads up to the museum. I was trying to escape the other rat . . . Topher, you called him. I was outrunning him, when Liam came upon me halfway up the tunnel and dragged me back down here. The placards were all over the tunnel, stuck into the damp earth.”
“We must get the others,” said Juniper. He gazed up into the black tunnel. “This route might lead us to the lab quicker.”
Limping, Vincent walked over to the pile of tin cans and began rifling through them, ripping off any lids still attached to them.
“What are you doing?” asked Billycan.
Vincent nodded at Liam’s body. He tossed a silver lid to Billycan. “Burying him.”
“I’ll go back and get Topher,” said Juniper. “They should be buried together.”
Vincent and Billycan began to dig.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Museum
NO ONE UTTERED A WORD the long way up the meandering tunnel, which traveled this way and that, clearly formed without logical thought. Pondering the fate of Nightshade’s lost Hunters, they were filled with dread over the horrors that might await them in the lab.
The tunnel led into a large, darkened chamber, an exhibit hall of some sort, with alcoves roped off by gold cords. “ ‘Look, but don’t touch,’ ” said Suttor, reading from a sign. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“This room,” said Oleander, stepping toward one of the roped-off compartments marked TRILLIUM HOUSE 1875, “it reminds me of the parlor in the manor . . . back in the swamp.”
Billycan looked up at the faded settee, recalling the very one he’d sat on in the manor parlor, plotting his own brother’s demise. “Must everything dredge up my memories today?” he muttered wearily. His ears perked. He glanced toward the archway leading to another part of the museum. “Do you hear that?”
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