Kitty's Big Trouble

by Carrie Vaughn

  Pointing fingers wasn’t going to get us out of here.

  A few paces behind us, Cormac had set down the lantern and by its light was drawing on the floor with a piece of chalk. Along with the amulets and charms, he evidently carried chalk in his pockets now, too.

  I crept closer for a better look; the white lines of the chalk drawing stood out in the semidarkness, almost as if they glowed.

  “Stay back,” he said, and I stopped. He had drawn a quick design, arrows and arcs, a couple of letters. It looked like scribbling.

  “Will that help us find Grace?” I said.

  “I don’t much care about Grace. I’m just trying to find a way out of here.”

  “How long is this going to take?”

  He ignored me and kept working. I started pacing because what else could I do? I looked back and forth down the corridor, wondering what was going to jump out at us. Ben was doing the same thing nearby. Our anxiety sparked across the space to each other, feeding each other. We were caged wolves.

  “Kitty, calm down,” Anastasia said.

  “We’re not safe here.”

  “We killed them. They’re not coming back.”

  “But what else is down here? Another one of those nine-tailed foxes? Or those guys could come back as zombie werewolves. What’ll we do then?”

  “I hadn’t thought of zombie werewolves,” Ben muttered.

  “There’s no such thing as zombie werewolves,” Anastasia said, and if you couldn’t believe an eight-hundred-year-old vampire about something like that, who could you believe?

  “Says you,” Cormac said. I stopped and looked.

  He set one of his silver daggers in the middle of the chalk design, stood back, and waited. After a breath or two, it trembled, all on its own, metal scraping against concrete. Slowly it turned, like a compass needle. The dagger’s tip passed one marking, then another. We gathered closer, watching to see where it rested—and if that would point to the way out. But it never rested. It rotated a full circle, wavered, reversed course and did the same in the opposite direction. Almost as if confused, it turned one way and the other, rattling harder, making more noise as it skittered on the hard floor. It seemed sentient, the way it searched and grew more erratic when it didn’t find its goal.

  Corman finally stepped on it, trapping it. “It’s not working.”

  I paced again. Cormac picked up the knife, dusted it off, and scuffed out the chalk marking with his boot.

  “Now what?” Anastasia said.

  “This was supposed to be your party, why don’t you come up with something?” Ben said.

  “I just wanted the pearl. Chen was supposed to be here, the pearl was supposed to be here, I didn’t count on any of this.” She shook her head, squaring her shoulders and resettling her dignity. “We should wait for Chen. She’ll return to find us.”

  “Not if she’s smart.” I stalked away from them, down the straightaway. “Even if we can’t find the same door there’s got to be another way out of here. We can’t just sit still and be targets.”

  Ben and the others followed a few paces behind. I could sense them, the sound of their footsteps and the odor of their sweat, their anxiety. Anastasia had returned to her usual composure—cool, detached. I couldn’t read her at all.

  Ahead, the corridor branched. I stopped at the intersection and waited for the others to catch up. “Well?” I said. “Left or right?”

  “We could toss a coin,” Ben said.

  “It hardly matters,” Anastasia said.

  “Left,” Cormac said.

  I glanced back at him. “Is this some kind of magical hunch?”

  “Just a hunch,” he said. “The regular kind.”

  “Why not right?”

  “Turn right if you want to, doesn’t make a difference to me,” he said, expressionless as always. He held the lantern low in his hand. The light shadowed his face so it looked like a skull.

  I kind of wanted to keep poking him until he got angry. Just out of curiosity, to see what he would do. Instead, I turned right and kept walking. When I glanced over my shoulder to see if the others followed, Ben smirked at me, the expression he used when he thought I was being irrational. But if it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, right?

  And how had I ended up in the lead?

  These tunnels seemed to go on an awfully long time without turning, breaking, or revealing any features. We were under San Francisco, there ought to be underground cables, water pipes, sewer lines. As long as we’d been walking we should have been under the bay by now. I shouldn’t have felt like I was in the stone dungeon of a medieval castle. I caught a faint whiff of incense. I tried to follow the trace of the scent, thinking it would lead us to a door, a room, anything but the maze of tunnels.

  A break in the stone wall revealed a smooth plywood door. It didn’t have a lock.

  Like other doors we’d encountered, this one also had a sign on it, a vertical length of paper with Chinese characters.

  “What’s it say?” I said, looking back at Anastasia.

  She studied it a moment. “It’s a warning.” As if she hadn’t expected anything different.

  I snorted a short laugh. Of course it was a warning.

  It was a pocket door, the kind that slid sideways into the wall, but it seemed to be spring loaded, or stuck, because I couldn’t get it open. I grabbed the fingerhold carved into one side and shook—it rattled in its frame as if jammed. Maybe I could wrench it loose.

  After figuring out what I thought was the side that opened, I worked my fingers into the gap until I found the edge of the door. The door frame scraped my skin, but I also felt a sense of hope. I could do this, get it open, and get us all out of this place. Standing back and leaning over, I braced my legs and put my weight into pulling back on the door, shaking it hard every now and then to try to loosen it. When it budged a quarter of an inch, I grinned and pulled harder, until it jumped another six inches.

  “Ha!” I announced in victory.

  “Where’s it go?” Ben asked.

  “Dunno.” I put my face to the opening; the hallway appeared to continue on in darkness. Ahead, a faint white light glowed. An emergency light in a room, maybe, or the exterior light over a doorway? A streetlight and freedom?

  I jammed my shoulder into the opening to force it wide enough for me to slip through.

  “Are you sure you should be doing that?” Ben asked, hovering. He put his hand on the wall next to me and peered over my head through the gap. “I can’t see anything in there.”

  Exhaling, I flattened myself as much as I could, pushed against the door, and popped on through. I stumbled away from the gap.

  “There, see?” I said. “No problem—”

  The door slammed shut behind me.

  “Kitty!” Ben shouted through the wood. He banged on it; the sound was muted.

  This side didn’t have any kind of indent to use as a handle. I pushed the door, rattled it, tried to get my fingers into the gap, but this time, the door didn’t budge, didn’t offer a centimeter of purchase.

  “Kitty!”

  “I’m okay, but I can’t see how to open it.”

  The banging against the door became deeper, steadier. Ben was throwing his whole body against it; the vibrations pounded against my hands, which I’d been holding flat against the wood. When the door started to bow toward me, I backed away, expecting him to splinter through it at any moment.

  I stumbled and fell before I realized that the floor behind me suddenly sloped downward. Even then I would have recovered, flailing a bit before regaining my balance, except that after a few feet of sloping, the floor dropped away entirely, and I fell into an open pit. I was too surprised to even scream.

  Chapter 10

  AFTER HITTING THE hard concrete bottom of the shaft, I lay on my back, blinking into darkness. My Wolf’s vision had adjusted to the distant, pale light that still shone and I made out shapes, sensing the closeness of the walls, the stuffiness of the subterra
nean room. The tunnel was a faint, glowing circle above me. That had been a hell of a fall. My heart was racing, my breaths came in gasps, but even Wolf was shocked and quiet.

  When I finally tried to sit up, stabbing pain slashed down my right hip and thigh. I groaned and lay back again. I hoped this didn’t mean what I thought it meant—something was seriously broken. No matter how I tried to catch my breath, I couldn’t seem to slow it or my heart rate down. Panicking, I let out a groan.

  I waited for Ben’s voice calling down to me. It didn’t happen. I couldn’t hear him banging on the door anymore, and I wondered if he managed to break through. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, thumbed it awake—and nothing happened. I’d just charged the thing that afternoon, but it was dead. Like Cormac’s flashlight, like the gun.

  The pain was spreading, a deep throb up and down my right side.

  I’d been shot once, with a non-silver bullet. The pain from that had vanished surprisingly quickly. I’d been cut, clawed, mauled, and slashed more times than I could count in various werewolf battles—all surface wounds that had closed and healed in a matter of minutes, growing healthy pink scabs while I watched. This was different. This was deep, invisible, and it didn’t fade.

  I’d always wondered what happened when a werewolf broke a bone. I assumed the rapid healing still played a part, but I had no idea how long it would take or if it would even heal the way it was supposed to. I couldn’t guess what exactly was broken, or what had shifted around inside. I was afraid to move.

  Gritting my teeth, I let tears fall. I wanted my pack. I wanted my mate. “Ben!” I shouted, hands around my mouth, focusing my voice up the shaft. “Ben! Cormac!”

  Nobody answered. Which meant they hadn’t busted through the door, they weren’t in the corridor, and they had no way of knowing what had happened to me. They had to know that something had happened when I stopped answering their calls, but as far as they could tell, I had just vanished. And as far as I could tell, they’d vanished.

  Maybe they needed help as much as I did. What did I do then? I had to find a way out of here on my own and get back to them.

  I gave myself ten or fifteen minutes, though my sense of time was growing wonky. I felt like I’d been in this bizarre maze for hours and that dawn ought to be approaching. Maybe the time between when Grace had opened the door and now had only been an hour. Between the pervasive dark and my racing heart, I couldn’t tell.

  The pain lessened, but I didn’t know if that meant the break was healing, or that I was succumbing to shock.

  Happy thoughts …

  I braced myself, held my breath, pushed up on my arms. And gasped as a new shock wave of pain hit me. After waiting for that to subside, I tried again, rolling to my good side, getting my left leg under me. Another stabbing pain racked my right leg, and I felt nauseated, and also like I was getting used to it. Just as long as it didn’t get any worse than this, I’d do okay.

  Trying to stand would certainly be interesting. But dammit, the leg had to start healing sometime. Carefully, I bent both legs, and was encouraged when the pain didn’t spike. Even if it didn’t improve. Reaching out, I found a wall and leaned against it. Keeping all my weight on the good leg, I stood. And didn’t pass out.

  I could see the wall in front of my face but not much else. Creeping forward, I leaned on the wall, shuffling, trying to use the right leg without moving it. It hurt, the whole thing throbbed, but I must have been getting used to it, because I managed to make some progress. Progress toward what, I couldn’t tell.

  This seemed to be a room made of brick, wide and round. I didn’t encounter anything like a door, but at one point the wall gave way to a rudimentary staircase, wooden slats built into the brick on a rickety frame—it had no railing. But it did go up, toward the light and escape, I hoped.

  I started climbing, which was harder than walking, but I kept my shoulder to the wall and took it one step at a time. Pondering why anyone would put a big hole in a corridor, have it drop into a room that seemed to be self-contained and serve no useful purpose, and then build a staircase that led right back to the original corridor, gave me something to focus on. It made me angry, since I was beginning to think I was the butt of someone’s practical joke. I’d get to the top of the stairs, and Ben would be waiting for me, and Grace would be there to explain what was going on. Everything was going to be just fine.

  Fighting through the pain left me flushed and sweating. Even if the break was healing and hurt less, I wouldn’t be able to tell.

  Finally, I reached up and touched the edge of the shaft back in the hallway. Just a few more steps brought the rest of me to the top. I slumped over and dragged myself away from the stairs, then lay gasping, whining with every breath like the hurt Wolf I was. My hands and face were scraped and sore from the climb. My hip and leg felt like someone had tried to rip them apart by slowly twisting them in opposite directions. Lying on my back, I looked around.

  I wasn’t in the hallway.

  The room was dim and cramped, like Grace’s video store, but bare. The floor was concrete, the walls painted off-white. I smelled ginseng and restaurant cooking, as if I was back on Grant Avenue in Chinatown. It almost seemed normal, except that I wasn’t supposed to be here. I didn’t think I had gotten so turned around. I’d kept the top of the shaft within sight the whole time. At least I thought I had. But I was somewhere else now. Ben and Cormac would never find me. I’d never find them. Maybe if I howled, Ben would hear me and come running.

  I tried my cell phone again, and hallelujah it worked this time. This meant more than having my lifeline back—it meant I was out of the tunnels, out of the maze, and back in the real world. When I called Ben, though, he didn’t answer. Because he was still in there somewhere. When the voice mail clicked on, I took a deep breath to try to keep my voice steady. “Ben, I need help. I’m hurt. I don’t know where I am. I’ll try to figure that out and call you back. I hope you’re okay.” I took another deep breath to keep from bursting into tears. Time to get moving and figure out where I was. I needed to get outside and find a street sign.

  In the front half of the narrow room, opposite the pit I’d just climbed from, a light was shining from a bare bulb suspended from the low ceiling. There looked to be some kind of apartment here—a minimal kitchen, cupboards built against the wall, a wash basin, table and chairs, even a cot.

  A man was sitting in a chair, leaning back, studying me with an amused grin on a youthful face.

  I rushed to sit up, clamping down hard on the throbbing bursts still racking my hip. I managed to get both feet under me and lurched upright, sticking my arms out for balance. I swayed, but didn’t fall over. So far so good.

  The nearest door was on the other side of the guy in the chair. I wondered if I could inch around him and get away. That would have meant limping, which would have showed weakness. Wolf wanted to stand her ground and challenge him. I agreed with her this time.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  I almost collapsed with relief, because he sounded so friendly, so concerned, so genuine. But Wolf held me steady. I stared at him, waiting, wondering if my leg would hold me if I had to run, if I had to attack him.

  “Do you want to come over and sit down?” he said, gesturing back to the oasis of light. A second chair sat near the card table next to him. He was slender and had a controlled poise—he seemed relaxed, but his muscles were ready to move. I couldn’t smell any kind of emotion off him. Just maleness—jeans and black T-shirt a couple of days old, a meal with ginger and soy sauce lingering. He had a shock of black hair, an easy smile. He carried what looked like a bag over his shoulder, the strap lying across his chest. It reminded me of Grace’s bag.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “You don’t look okay,” the guy said. “You’re covered in blood.”

  “It isn’t mine.”

  “I’m sorry if that doesn’t make me feel any better.” He said it lightly, almost laughing. He didn’t so
und worried, which made me nervous.

  “Can you do me a favor and not call the cops?” Although I maybe should have called an ambulance. My leg was feeling better, I was sure it was. I could convince myself of that. But I didn’t want to have to explain the blood to anyone in a uniform.

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  I still had the feeling the guy was laughing at me. “And why are you avoiding the police, then?”

  He grinned. “You really want to ask that kind of question?”

  Falling from a supernatural underworld into a criminal underworld seemed like an improvement, considering.

  “Where is this?” I said. “Where am I?”

  “You’re safe,” he said. “Trust me.”

  “I don’t even know you.” My voice came out rough, growly.

  “I’m just trying to help. You’re the one who fell into my monster trap.”

  “Wait, monster trap?”

  “Yeah. You never know what’s going to come crawling through some of these doors.”

  He said this with a complete lack of irony and humor. As if he expected monsters to invade as a matter of course, and was only mildly surprised to find a bedraggled blond woman in the pit instead. Or rather, in addition.

  “Does that sort of thing happen a lot? Monsters crawling through the door, I mean,” I said cautiously, testing to see if he was serious or speaking metaphorically. Metaphorical monsters, sure.

  “Not too often. Not anything I can’t handle, at least. But you’re not a monster, right?”

  I stared. How to answer that question? I should have brushed him off. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking too straight. I blurted, “I’m a werewolf.”

  He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Really?”

  Was this guy on something? Whatever it was, could I have some? “Yeah.”

  “Then see, the trap works! You look like you’re about to fall over—why don’t you come over and sit down? I was about to make some soup—are you hungry?”