“Do you think everyone got out of the building?” I asked. Nathaniel was still holding me. Normally I would feel resentful of this, but at the moment I was happy that I wasn’t walking in the alley muck in my bare feet, as he was.
“We have to check,” I said.
“No,” Nathaniel said. “We have to get you away from here as quickly as possible.”
“So you think this is because of me?” I asked.
“No one tried to blow up the building until you were in it,” J.B. said.
“I told you that it wasn’t safe for me to be there,” I said.
“I thought we could get through one night,” J.B. said. “But someone must have seen you go into the building with me.”
“Who, though?” I asked. “And where are they?”
Nathaniel frowned. “You’re right. If this was a plot to drive you out into the open, where you would be vulnerable, then the enemy should be lying in wait. But they are not.”
“Anyone coming after you would have to know that just setting off some charges in a building wouldn’t take you down,” J.B. said. His gaze took on a faraway look, a sure sign that he was thinking hard. “Maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“You’re taking this awfully well,” I said. “Your home is probably going to be destroyed.”
J.B. shrugged. “You’re out of there. Other than that, there wasn’t anything special inside that I cared about.”
“We still have to make sure that everyone is okay,” I said. “Even if this isn’t about me, the chances are good that the explosion was meant for one of us. We can’t let innocents die just because they’re caught in the cross fire.”
“You’re not going back in there,” J.B. said.
“She does not have to,” Nathaniel said.
He held me out to J.B. like I was a baby being passed to a relative. This time I did resent his high-handedness.
“Put me down,” I said.
Nathaniel complied without argument. I shivered as my bare feet touched the concrete. J.B. looked disappointed that he wouldn’t have a chance to carry me around while I wasn’t wearing any pants. I may not have had a lot of dignity at that moment, but I wanted to preserve what little I had. I would stand on my own two feet. Even if I was standing in rat poison and the remains of last week’s garbage.
“Just so you know, you’re not going in that building alone, either,” I said to Nathaniel. “So don’t get any funny ideas about being a hero.”
“I have no such ideas,” Nathaniel said. “I am simply going to scan the building and see if there is anyone alive inside. And it is easier for me to concentrate when I am not holding you.”
“You can do that? Scan the building like an X-ray machine?” I asked. Nathaniel was getting more terrifying by the moment.
He went very still, his blue eyes staring at J.B.’s former abode. Then he floated up to the roof and began descending slowly, methodically scanning each floor.
“My brother can do anything,” Bendith said with obvious pride.
“You could probably do it, too,” Beezle said, landing on my shoulder. “If you just applied yourself.”
“I apply myself,” I muttered.
“Yeah, you apply yourself to breaking and smashing,” Beezle said. “Not even remotely as cool—or as useful—as being able to check if anyone’s alive without going into the building.”
“Breaking and smashing has its place,” I said, stung.
“Not as often as you think it does,” Beezle replied.
“It must not have been a very big charge,” J.B. said. “The building would have collapsed otherwise.”
“I thought it was going to,” I admitted.
“I don’t know why you thought that,” Beezle said. “There’s magic protecting this building.”
J.B.’s eyebrows winged up to his hairline. “There is?”
“Yeah,” Beezle said. “I always check every building Maddy goes in.”
“You do?” I asked. “That’s news to me.”
“Home guardian,” Beezle said.
“Well, you never seem like you’re doing that much at home, so why would I think you were at work when we’re elsewhere?”
“Touché,” Beezle said. “But the fact remains that there is magic protecting this building.”
“I wonder who put it there,” I said.
Beezle shrugged. “J.B.’s mom probably laid it in to keep him safe.”
J.B. snorted. “That would require maternal feeling. My mother lacked that even when she was alive. And if she had put protective spells on my home, she would certainly have found some way to remove them after she thought I’d betrayed her by siding with Maddy so often.”
Beezle shook his head. “These spells have been embedded in the brick. Once done, it would be very difficult to undo.”
“Who would care enough to do that if not your mother?” I asked J.B.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. The fae have never shown much affection toward me in general. Even the members of my own court don’t think much of me. Of course, that’s probably because I spent so much time here instead of there.”
“Well, whoever put those spells there saved the building,” Beezle said. “The explosion probably would have taken the whole thing down otherwise. Right now magic is holding it up.”
Bendith had been completely silent during this exchange. He cast me the occasional sidelong look, though, like he was wondering how to get rid of me.
Nathaniel landed beside me, but his gaze was still focused on the building. He seemed like he was staring into the ground now.
“There is a basement in this structure, yes?” Nathaniel asked.
“Yeah,” J.B. said. “It’s got storage areas and some maintenance stuff.”
“There is no one in the rest of the building. The fireman went through while I was scanning. However, at this moment there are about forty creatures alive in that space,” Nathaniel said, pointing down.
“Creatures?” I asked.
“I cannot tell what they are, but they are definitely not human.”
I looked at the others. “I don’t think we can leave them there without investigating.”
“Why not?” Bendith asked. “They are not humans to be saved. Not that I consider humans worth the effort, but you apparently do.”
“Yeah, I’m unreasonable about saving my own kind,” I said.
“They are not your kind,” Bendith pointed out. “So why do we need to waste our time poking in the business of these creatures?”
“Because it might be forty vampires waiting for a signal to start chowing down on the population,” I said.
“Or it might be demons,” J.B. said.
“Or zombies,” Beezle said.
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“What?” Beezle said. “There could be zombies.”
“The point is that something is in the basement that is not supposed to be, and we’re the only ones who know about it,” I said. “We check it out. Whatever is down there should have heard the explosion and smelled the smoke. Just about everything in the world has a sense of self-preservation when it comes to fire. So why are they still down there?”
“I do not care why they are there. I am not about to put myself in danger for something so foolish,” Bendith said.
“Then stay outside if you’re going to be useless,” I said. I addressed J.B. as I pointed to a metal door on the ground floor. “Is that the maintenance door? Does it lead to the basement?”
He nodded. “It’s usually locked.”
“That’s not a problem for me,” I said. “I’ll just do the Hound thing and then let you guys in.”
I went to the door, and tried not to feel self-conscious about the fact that I was wearing nothing but underpants and a T-shirt, and there were three guys standing behind me looking at my butt.
“You’re going to have to wait here for a second,” I said to Beezle.
He flew off my shoulder, hoveri
ng in the air beside me.
“Be careful,” he said.
“I will,” I said.
“No, you won’t,” Beezle said. “But it makes me feel better to say it.”
I placed my hand on the door and said the words. “I am the Hound of the Hunt, and no walls can bind me.”
The door went fluid, and I slipped inside. It was pitch-black, and that worried me. There should have been a safety light on. The smoke was thicker down here, closer to the source of the explosion.
I fumbled for the handle of the door in the dark. My fingers touched a dead bolt, and I turned it until it opened and then pushed the door open.
Nathaniel and J.B. had approached the door and were standing right on top of it when I swung it outward. Beezle immediately shot inside and took up his usual perch on my shoulder. Bendith stood several feet away with his arms crossed like a sulky child, spotlighted in the glare from the streetlight.
“Bendith,” I called softly. “Will you at least come over here and hold the door open while we’re inside?”
“I do not see why I should,” Bendith said.
“Bendith,” Nathaniel said. He didn’t raise his voice, but there was steel there.
Titania’s son slouched across the alley to the door and leaned against it, resuming his crossed-arm posture. “Happy?”
“Delighted,” I said. I gestured to the other two to enter.
Nathaniel immediately took up a position in front of me, and J.B. behind. I rolled my eyes.
Nathaniel lit a very small ball of nightfire. In its faint light we could see the empty maintenance hallway, and a set of dark stairs leading to the basement. There’s something ominous about steps disappearing into an underground darkness. Everyone knows that there’s nothing good in the basement. The basement is where secrets hide, horrors lurk.
And my own experience had taught me that monsters were definitely waiting for me.
Nathaniel sent the nightfire ahead of us. The little ball of light floated over the steps, showing that there was nothing waiting there for us. We proceeded cautiously down after it.
About halfway down, the smell hit me. My stomach roiled and I gagged.
“Don’t puke,” Beezle whispered. “You’ll definitely attract attention if you puke.”
I covered my nose and mouth. “What is that?”
It smelled sort of rotten, but also had a sharp, ammonia-like tang to it. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think of what. It seemed like I had smelled it recently, but it hadn’t been exactly the same. I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“We definitely know someone smelly is in there,” J.B. said.
I reached for my sword, and realized I didn’t have it. It was lying on top of the pile of clothes I’d discarded next to the bed. I was loaded with magic, but I still felt strangely helpless without the sword.
The aura from the nightfire seemed a small thing, pathetic against the encroaching darkness. We had no hope of sneaking up on whatever was in the basement. The nightfire might as well be a beacon announcing our presence. It still seemed wiser to have light than go without.
Nathaniel reached the bottom step.
14
I READIED MY MAGIC FOR AN ATTACK. WE ALL TOOK AN inward breath as he passed under the doorway and into the room.
Nothing happened. I hurried after him, so that he wouldn’t be alone if some horrible thing came snarling out of the darkness. The smell was overwhelming now. I was worried we were about to stumble onto a pile of dead bodies stored here since the vampire invasion. Nathaniel paused for a moment, directing the nightfire around the room so that we could see all around.
It was a pretty standard-looking storage area. The room was long and rectangular. There was a maintenance supply closet to the right. J.B. quickly checked the door to confirm that it was locked. The rest of the space was filled with floor-to-ceiling cages in two rows on each side. Each space was padlocked and stuffed with items that people didn’t want or need inside their condos. Bikes, kayaks, Christmas decorations—it all seemed safe and normal and not menacing in the least.
“What the hell is that?” J.B. said behind me.
I glanced back at him and saw him pointing toward the floor at the end of the storage rows. Nathaniel turned up the luminescence on the nightfire with a wave of his hand. The shadows receded, and we could all see what J.B. was indicating.
Some kind of green slime coated the floor at the very end of the room. It glistened like a live thing in the blaze from the nightfire.
“Oh, no,” Beezle said. “The last time there was viscous liquid, a bunch of us ended up inside a chrysalis.”
“Shh,” Nathaniel said, and began moving forward cautiously. J.B. and I followed. I wondered whether Bendith was still holding the door open upstairs, or whether he’d gotten bored and decided to wander away.
“But you weren’t in the chrysalis, so what do you care?” I asked softly.
“There are not enough red shirts here for my liking,” Beezle said. “I might end up getting cocooned just because there’s no one else around. I’d climb inside your pocket but you didn’t bother to put any pants on.”
“And thank the gods above and below for that,” J.B. murmured behind me.
“How can you think of sex at a time like this?” I hissed.
“I’m a guy. And you’re not wearing pants,” J.B. said. “It’s kind of hard to concentrate on imminent peril while I’m walking behind you, actually.”
“Will the three of you cease?” Nathaniel said in an undertone. “Why do we not simply dispense with all caution if you are going to bicker so loudly that we cannot hear danger approaching?”
The three of us subsided, chastened.
The path between the storage areas was just wide enough for two people to walk side by side. I moved up so that I was at Nathaniel’s shoulder.
He glanced down at me like he wanted to argue, and I shook my head.
“You’re the one who doesn’t want to bicker,” I whispered.
He gave me a brief smile at that. He was so thin now that his face looked like carved stone in the nightfire glare. There was not an ounce of softness on him anywhere, just muscle and bone and fierce blue eyes.
There was now one storage space between us and the stuff all over the floor. I held up my hand so everyone would stop.
“It’s coming from there,” I said, pointing to the last storage area.
We couldn’t see what was inside because the lockup beside it was stuffed to the gills with junk. But it was very apparent that the slime was leaking from something inside the last space.
I summoned a ball of nightfire to hurl at anything that might pop out at us, and wished I held my sword instead.
The three of us crept closer. I winced as my bare feet touched the goop on the floor. The last storage area came into view.
“That . . . is . . . disgusting,” Beezle said.
“What are they?” I asked.
The space was filled with dozens of hanging sacs roughly the size of footballs. Each one was attached to the cage by a kind of looped tentacle that protruded from the top. They were connected to one another by a long cord, almost like a vein with nodules jutting from it. Each sac was dripping slime, and some of them were wiggling, as though the living creature inside was shifting.
I automatically put my hand to my newly swollen belly, covering it protectively. My baby fluttered beneath my touch.
“Whatever they are, they don’t belong here,” J.B. said.
“Quick, get a form,” Beezle said. “I’m sure you’ll need to file some paperwork on this.”
“Why does everyone think I love paperwork?” J.B. said.
“Because you do,” Beezle and I both said together.
“So how do we kill them?” I asked. “It looks like they’re all connected to that vein. I bet it’s some kind of sustenance for them.”
“We’re just going to kill them without knowing what they are?” J.B. said. “They haven’
t done us any harm.”
“J.B., anything that grows in the basement in a slime-covered chrysalis is not going to make nice with humans,” I said. “We should count ourselves lucky that they’re still inside and not out running around on the street. I don’t think people could handle another panic so soon after the vampire attacks.”
“But it seems wrong to just slaughter something so helpless,” J.B. said.
“Better them than us,” I said.
“Can we at least find out what it is we’re killing before we kill it?” J.B. asked.
“How can we do that?” I said.
“Hang on,” Beezle said, giving the colony a good hard stare. “It looks like some kind of green insect, kind of praying mantis-y, but not exactly the same.”
“Green insect?” I asked, dread filling me. “Nathaniel, can you put that nightfire closer to one of the cocoons? I want to try to see the shape of the creature inside.”
Nathaniel sent the nightfire close to one of the closer sacs. A shape was silhouetted inside the slime-covered membrane. The shape of a Cimice. I knew suddenly why the smell had seemed familiar. The stink of the insects had pervaded the air around the mountain, but it hadn’t seemed so strong then, as the space wasn’t enclosed.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “How did they get here?”
“Who?” J.B. asked.
“The Cimice,” I said. I started to explain about the Cimice, because I hadn’t had a chance to really tell Nathaniel or J.B. about my adventures, but Nathaniel cut me off.
“The gargoyle explained,” Nathaniel said.
He frowned at the colony of eggs, for that was what they were. Tiny little eggs holding tiny little Cimice that would grow into mating pairs. I remembered what Batarian and Sakarian had said about how quickly the creatures bred. They could overrun the city in no time.
“We have to kill them all,” I said.
“Yes,” Nathaniel said. “If they are as dangerous as you say, then we have no choice.”
We both looked at J.B. He nodded with obvious reluctance.
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