by Jessa Slade
They followed the echoes. In the corner of the basement, a metal door stood ajar. Pitch-blackness filled the open rectangle. Nim sighed. Of course there was a lower level.
“Looks like a doorway to hell to me,” she muttered.
A light stabbed out through the darkness. “In here.”
Jonah strode ahead. Nim tried to force her Vans to move, but they seemed stuck on the rough concrete floor.
He paused. “You coming?”
“I’ve always made it a policy not to run into dark basements half-dressed, chasing eerie voices.” She held up one hand. “Don’t remind me that I picked the outfit.”
“That’s Sera. She’s not eerie. At least when she’s not mad.”
“And when she is?”
“Then Archer has to deal with her. But since he’s usually the one who makes her mad, that’s his problem. Come on.” He held out his hand.
She didn’t want to take it. And didn’t want to look like she didn’t want to. He might get the wrong impression. Like she didn’t want to touch him. Which she didn’t, but not because she didn’t want to, but because she wanted to touch him too much. No touching. That was the rule, which had been working great.
And here she was, standing in a dark basement, half-dressed, with a bunch of demon-possessed psychos waiting for her. She sucked at following even her own rules.
She put her hand in Jonah’s. His palm rasped across hers, and he led her over the threshold.
As her vision adjusted, the shadows on the other side lightened, like someone had boosted the contrast on a grainy scan. If only she could Photoshop herself out of the picture.
Five people waited, including the big man—Ecco—she’d met earlier and two other men, almost as large. The two women tucked among the men looked small and slight even though one was relatively tall and the other decidedly curvy.
Jonah huffed out a breath. “This is all you brought?”
All? Among them, Nim counted a recurved axe, a hammer big enough to knock a basketball like a golf ball, three long-bladed knives, and Ecco’s multipronged gauntlets. Jonah, with his simple hook, looked seriously underdressed. She knew that feeling well and edged closer to him.
“I sent a second team under Lex’s command, with Haji tracking, to the nearest exit,” Hammer Man said. “But the tenebrae have several hours’ head start, if they finished their butchery around dawn. Likely, this is nothing more than a scouting mission.”
The curvy woman propped her hand on the low-slung hip of her black cargo pants. “And honestly? We didn’t have many talyan to choose from. One whiff of estrogen and you alpha males go racing for your hidey-holes.”
“Hey,” Ecco protested. “I sniffed and didn’t run.”
At Nim’s side, Jonah stood motionless. Whatever had freaked out the others had left him untouched.
Untouched. No wonder their demon resonance had brought them together.
“By the way, hi, I’m Sera,” said the taller woman. “Here’s your flashlight.” In one smooth action, she pulled the light from the back pocket of her black chinos, clicked it on, and pitched it underhand. “Welcome to the bad old boys’ club, Elaine.”
The beam tumbled through the air, glinting off the dizzying array of blades.
Dazzled, Nim reached out to fend it off. To her surprise, the grip slapped into her palm as if her hand had known where to be. “Actually, I go by Nim in all the clubs I work. And while I love a good light show, I could do without the need for second teams and major weaponry.”
“You don’t need the flashlight either,” said the man standing nearest Sera. Archer. Nim recognized his brusque tone from the phone call and clutched the flashlight to her chest. “And if you work anything, it’s your teshuva. Master its vision along with its reflexes.”
“I’m concentrating on the basics,” she said. “Like sucking the juice out of bad guys.”
Ecco straightened. “I think I love you.” His gaze was fastened on her front, where the flashlight shone across her breasts.
Damn thin T-shirt. From now on, sports bra, she decided. In black.
She lowered the flashlight to her side and bumped it against Jonah’s hook. When had he moved around her? At the clack of plastic on metal, he edged away and circled around her again in a protective prowl. It was sweet that he wanted to defend her.
Unless, of course, he was just nervous she was going to embarrass him in front of his people.
The shorter woman stepped forward. Two crescent knives glimmered in her grasp, the blade points just wider than a spread hand, but wickedly pointed. “I’m Jilly. That’s Archer with Sera. Ecco, who you met already.”
The tall, rangy man eased up beside her and canted the hammer over his broad shoulder. “I’m Liam.”
Nim studied him. “I guess that makes you my new boss. Usually I get naked and dance at job interviews.”
Ecco raised his hand, metal-studded gauntlets flashing. “I’ll be the new league leader.”
Jilly cut him a glance bright with violet highlights. “Over Liam’s—and my—dead bodies.”
Ecco blinked. “Is that how we do promotions? I thought we drew straws.” He grinned at Nim. “But if you end up looking for a side job . . .”
Liam rumbled, a low menace in the dark. “You’ll get a chance to dance with the demon, Nim, if we catch up with the tenebrae who butchered your friends.”
His words seemed to ignite the scarcely banked ferocity in the crew. A half dozen pairs of eyes sparked violet, and Nim’s spine prickled as if someone had struck a match down the bones.
They hadn’t been her friends, but she didn’t correct him. Because she felt the same urge for vengeance rising in her. From the tight set of Jonah’s jaw, she wondered how he justified the impulse for violence. If vengeance belonged to the Lord . . . Well, the Lord wasn’t available right now, so please leave a message scrawled in black ichor.
Sera pulled a sheaf of papers from a backpack. “After the river flooded downtown, some of the tunnels were closed down or filled in. Those changes are marked. Sometimes. I doubt the tenebrae drywalled after themselves when they fled this morning, so we should have a clear path to follow.” She passed around the maps. “And here’s a close-up from the security tape Jonah brought us. It’s the man who took Nim’s anklet, the same man who might be leading this tenebrae pack.” She handed that sheet to Archer.
Each talya studied it with predatory interest, eyes flaring brighter, before passing it on. Until it got to Jilly, who gasped. “I think that’s Andre.”
Ecco plucked it from her grasp. “Who? I thought I knew everybody who’s tried to kill me before.”
“He’d gotten kicked out of the homeless-youth shelter where I worked, for dealing solvo. We thought he was dead, or at least soulless. I was out looking for him the night I ran into my first feralis. And met Liam.” Jilly took a step closer to the tall man and he shifted the hammer to make room for her under his arm.
How romantic. Nim cleared her throat. “Why would your kid be leading a bunch of murdering demons?”
“Let’s say we go find out,” Ecco said.
Finding out started with a forty-foot descent via the ladder set into the wall of the elevator shaft. The elevator car was nowhere in evidence. Liam went first, then Archer and Jilly.
As they dropped into the darkness, Sera handed Nim the backpack she’d been carrying. “Since you don’t have any pockets, this might be handy.”
Nim considered a few snarky comments and a few self-deprecating ones. She tucked the map and flashlight in the big main pocket and settled on “Thanks.”
Sera nodded and backed out onto the ladder.
Nim started after her, but Ecco shouldered her aside. “Let me go before you,” he said. “I’ll catch you if you fall. Farther.”
She eyed him. “You want to look up my skirt.”
“Nah, I’ve seen it already. Remember?” He leered at her, then backpedaled as Jonah stepped between them.
Though the big ta
lya topped Jonah by a head and a half, something about the smaller man’s utter stillness made Nim put her hand on his arm. He said nothing.
“What?” Ecco grumbled. “You’ve seen more than me.” He backed up another foot. “Fine, fine. I’ll go last.”
Jonah moved to the ladder.
“Will you be okay on the rungs?” Nim murmured.
“Yes.” His tone was flat. As flat as the pancake he’d be if he lost his grip and plummeted to the bottom of the shaft. She berated herself for asking as he dropped out of sight.
“Even if he fell, his demon probably wouldn’t let him die,” Ecco said. “Unless he smashed his head into a wall or impaled himself on something on the way down.”
Nim looked at him. “Everybody here has a girl except you.”
He grinned. “Go figure.”
“Don’t step on my fingers.” She swung out onto the ladder.
Under her hands, the metal reverberated with the scrape of Jonah’s hook. She concentrated on placing her feet firmly on the slick, rounded rungs. Thank God she’d worn sneakers and not her high-heeled sandals.
The pack bounced against her hip, and she forced herself not to hold her breath. At least the dark meant she didn’t have to look down. Not that she had a fear of heights, but if ever she were going to develop one, now seemed like a good time.
When her foot hit solid concrete, the contact jarred all the way up her spine. She hadn’t realized she’d come to the bottom of the shaft, and the talyan were so quiet she hadn’t known they were gathered close.
Jonah tugged her out of way as Ecco dropped the last few rungs.
Liam gave some hand gesture that made the rest nod. Strippers learned only a few hand gestures, most of them variations on “fuck.” This wasn’t one she knew, but she had a sneaking suspicion—depending on what they encountered in the next few minutes—it could easily become another alternative.
They stepped out of the elevator shaft and into an empty concrete corridor.
The men were able to stand upright in the center of the arched passage, though Ecco’s head would’ve almost hit the trolley wire if it had still been hanging above them. The tracks, a couple feet apart, were perfect for tripping over, especially in the distracting black-light, disco-ball glow of the demon sign smeared across the walls.
She swallowed hard. From the map, she knew the corridor to the right ran toward the club. To the left was the murdering demons’ escape route.
Though none of them had bothered bringing out their flashlights except her, the talyan were already moving down the path to the left.
Of course they were.
Like winter wolves on one of those nature programs that always ended with the voice-over mournfully droning on and on about extinction, they loped down the corridor. Smooth, silent, and coordinated, they avoided as if by instinct the tracks that kept trying to break her other ankle.
“Let the demon choose where your foot falls,” Jonah said.
“Why would I trust it?”
“Because it wants to keep you in one piece.”
That was more than her customers—at least the ones who were still alive—could claim. They liked seeing just a few parts. Still, should she give in to a demon that had stolen a piece of her?
She kept the flashlight on. She remembered what had happened to Obi-Wan when he trusted in the Force and turned off his light saber while Darth Vader was still swinging. The dark side didn’t bother with fair play. But she stopped watching the tracks and concentrated on the man beside her.
She’d be an idiot to trust the Shimmy Shack regulars, and even stupider to trust a demon. But strangely, it was easy to believe in Jonah. “What happens if we catch up with the demons?”
“We destroy the tenebrae and take possession of the horde leader. If it is Andre, as Jilly believes, and he took the anklet, we’ll convince him to give it up.”
“We don’t turn him over to the cops? For justice and whatnot?”
He said nothing. Well, there were different kinds of justice, she’d learned.
The tunnel curved abruptly into pitch-blackness, except for the glow of demon sign. The talyan slowed. All of Nim’s senses screamed to keep moving. Her demon must really want its jewelry.
Archer paced the curve of the tunnel. “Nim, toss me your flashlight.”
“Shouldn’t you master your demon’s vision . . . ?” she started. His gaze flashed violet at her, and she threw the light.
He cast the oval of illumination back and forth across the floor. He paused on a section of track. Between the otherwise clean-swept and tidy rails, a lump of something stuck up.
Nim peered closer, then recoiled, bumping into Jonah. “Is that a foot?”
“Feralis leftovers,” he said. “The downside of a physique cobbled together from disintegrating corpses.”
Archer sent the beam down the corridor, toward Nim and Jonah. She stepped out of the way and realized she’d been standing on a black stain. The beam went behind her and she turned to follow its track. Another black puddle stained the concrete back the way they’d come.
“Ichor,” Jonah said. “The stump was leaking as it traveled that direction.”
“Well, we already guessed they came this way,” Nim said. “And I suppose it’s good news they were falling apart before they even got to the club.” Not that the weakness had helped the victims there.
Sera’s voice was soft, but it carried. “And where are the pieces they left on the way out?”
“Not even any blood trail from after the feast.” Ecco scratched one razor tip of his gauntlet across the wall. Nim gritted her teeth at the blackboard screech. “And if cleanliness is next to godliness, there’s a reason ferales are damned.”
From down the corridor behind them, an answering screech echoed, thin and high. And hungry.
As one, the talyan turned to face the way they’d come.
“Who woulda thought they’d wait around below the club,” Ecco said conversationally.
“Ferales hunted Sera last winter,” Archer said. “Apparently, these want more than the anklet.”
“They waited for me?” Nim wished her voice hadn’t squeaked. No wonder her demon had wanted to keep moving.
“Now we don’t have to chase them,” Jonah said.
“Because they’re about to be chasing us,” Nim shot back. She wished her voice had squeaked this time, because the panic sounded worse.
“Easier to clean up down here,” Archer said. “When we’re done draining them, we can just leave them to rot.”
Nim swallowed hard when everyone else murmured agreement. Liam’s rumble cut through. “According to the map, there’s an open junction just a bit farther along. Let’s fall back and let them bottleneck. Don’t incapacitate them too quickly; we’ll need to draw them into the junction and get around behind them before Andre, if it is him, realizes he’s in trouble and bolts while the ferales keep us occupied.”
They retreated. Nim would’ve urged a little more speed, but the talyan moved with their habitual maddening grace while she was tripping on the tracks again. God, if she didn’t get it together, she was going to leave a foot in the rails too.
“Don’t be frightened,” Jonah said. “At least, don’t be unnecessarily frightened.” She cast him a disbelieving glance, and he lifted one shoulder in apology. “Okay, then. Stay close and keep the screaming and swearing to a minimum. Ecco hates it when anyone screams and swears more than he does.”
“Hey,” Ecco said from close behind them.
Liam rocked to a halt. “Here. No cell reception, shockingly, so we can’t call in the second team. Jilly, Sera, scout ahead and make sure the junction is where the map says it is. I don’t want to get trapped against a locked Com Ed gate.”
Jilly stiffened, and for a second, Nim thought she’d protest. But Sera touched her arm, and with a sharp nod, Jilly led the way into the darkness beyond.
The silent communication tugged sharply at Nim’s chest. Despite years working w
ith other dancers, she’d never had that sort of easy closeness. They’d been too busy screwing one another out of customers.
How nice it would be to have a friend or two at her back, friends with knives aimed outward.
She turned to face down the tunnel. The tension in the four brawny men around her pinged off her skin. “When are they coming?”
“They know we’re here,” Jonah said.
“No, they know you’re here,” she said. “The testosterone is like ozone in here. But it’s me they want.”
“They’ll be cautious because of us.” Liam cocked his head at a whistle from one of the women he’d sent ahead. “Too bad. As you might have deduced from the pieces falling off the ferales, it’s more convenient when they’re overexcited.”
“Then maybe we can hurry them along.” She took a deep breath and let out a shriek fit to melt concrete from the walls.
For a frozen heartbeat, she saw the belling wave of her cry reverberate through the corridor. As the echo faded, the walls trembled with some invisible force.
Jonah sighed.
“Yup, that did get ’em excited.” Ecco took a step forward, straddling half the track. Archer joined him, and the wall of warrior felt almost impenetrable.
Almost.
CHAPTER 9
Jonah tightened his fist. The middle position—neither in the front with the fighters, nor in the rear guard—rankled, even if Nim was unarmed. As was he.
“Sorry about the scream,” she whispered.
“Great idea.” When she stiffened, he clarified, “It was. Your thrall demon knew it instinctively. Fear is an aphrodisiac to the tenebrae.”
“I know all about aphrodisiacs,” she said. “Even without the demon.”
He could swear to that. For a second, he wondered why the tenebrae had responded to her so zealously. Almost as ardently as he himself, which wasn’t exactly a flattering comparison. And why did he have the sneaking suspicion the demons knew the reason?
Since the musing had no immediate survival value, he cast it aside. “Don’t let the fear overwhelm you when the horde overwhelms us. They’ll use that energy against you when you need to use the teshuva’s energy against them.”
