I didn’t want her to cry. I didn’t want to scare her. I was about to tell her to man up, but then, I realized that maybe she was scared because she loved me. Maybe she needed to feel what she was feeling and not repress her fear.

I sought for something that would tell her I loved her. Words alone just weren’t enough at times. And then I knew. “Honey?”

I could imagine her perfect pink lips mouthing the word yes as she spoke softly into the phone.

“I’m wearing the beads. I had Camille braid them into my hair. I love them—they’re perfect. And so are you.” And then before I could stop myself, I choked on my words, and dashed away the threat of a tear, stoically ignoring the looks Smoky and Morio were giving me. Camille didn’t glance over her shoulder, though I knew she was listening.

Nerissa started to cry then and I felt both helpless and a little gratified. “I am not perfect, and neither are you. You don’t listen to me, and you try to protect me when I don’t need protecting. You turn yourself off—you shut down when I cry or get upset. But I still love you, damn it. Even though you put me on a pedestal, which you know I hate, I love you!”

I bit my lip, my fangs descending as I tried to find the right words to defuse the situation. But then I realized I was doing it again. I was shutting down, falling back on logic, sidestepping her emotion.

“I know. I’m sorry. I do that. I really do. I’ll try to do better—but you have to understand how hard this is for me. I spent years cultivating my self-control, and I’m afraid that if I lose that, if so much as a crack appears, I won’t be able to control my predator!” Again I glared at Morio. And Smoky, who was looking over his shoulder at me.

Nerissa paused… I could hear her heart through the phone, it was beating so loud. She cleared her throat. “I never knew that you were afraid of that. I didn’t know… I thought you just were uncomfortable expressing emotion.”

“Only because I’m afraid that if I let myself go, I’ll… really let myself go and then I’ll hurt somebody. And if I hurt you, I’d never, ever forgive myself. Listen, love, I have to go. We’re almost at the Farantino Building. Tell Trillian and Roz what we’re up to, and we’ll talk when I get home.”

She laughed, just a little, but it was enough. “Be careful, you beautiful, sexy vamp you. You’re my wife. And you’re the only woman in the world for me.”

I could hear the relief in her voice. “And you… you’re my heart’s desire. I’ll see you later. Don’t wait up.”

“Right. That’s a good one.” And then she hung up and I leaned back. At least I had cleared the air. Now we could start to work on strengthening our relationship.

But first… first we had to take a walk through Lowestar’s nightmare ritual. And we had to stop a demigod from regaining consciousness. Oh yeah. No pressure. No pressure at all.

Chapter 18

While the building looked dark when we got there, we knew better. I glanced at the car clock. Six thirty-five. Not quite ninety minutes. While we had the plans, and we knew basically where we were going, the trick would be, first, to break into the building without setting off any alarms, and second, to find our way into the temple without alerting any guards. And there were bound to be guards. There was no doubt of that in any of our minds.

We parked in the lot across the street, and as we stepped out, Tanne slipped out of a nearby archway that led into the building there—it was some sort of wholesale distributor.

He held up a wand. “I brought yew, like you asked.”

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” I studied his face. He didn’t have to throw his lot in with ours. “This is going to be dangerous, you know.”

“I have lived with danger all my life. Remember what I do?” He grinned then. “Actually, I’m rather looking forward to a good showdown. I haven’t done much in the way of hunting since I’ve been in the States, and it’s time I got things organized and set up for the Clan to migrate. My sister, Silber, will be moving here soon.”

I nodded. He did seem more alert, more vibrant, than when we’d first met him, and I had a feeling he thrived on adventure. “Well, good. We don’t know if yew will affect Suvika, and hopefully we won’t have to find out. But just in case, I’m glad you brought the wand.”

Camille wanted to see it, of course, but I shook my head. “You two can ooo-and-ahh over magical tools all you want later. Right now, let’s get a move on. Every minute that slips by is a minute closer to the time when Lowestar is scheduled to perform the ritual. We’re at six forty-five, and that gives us a little over an hour. And we still have to brief Tanne, here, on our plans.”

As we ran them down for him, he listened carefully.

“The plans show a tunnel leading from the sewers up into the basement. Prepare yourself for a delightful stench.” Not for the first time, I was grateful that I didn’t have to breathe. Though some smells were strong enough to notice without bothering to inhale.

“I can’t wait for this. Not.” Camille grimaced as we headed for the manhole cover. “I just have no stomach for this kind of thing.”

“You can blast an enemy with death magic and blow their brains out. You can impale the Black Unicorn with his own horn. You can mix up potions using the damndest ingredients, but you can’t stomach a little stench?” I was teasing her, of course, to take the edge off the tension, but she just flashed me one of her “you have to be kidding” glares and I backed off. Sometimes jokes weren’t the ticket.

“Speaking of, I left the horn at home. It’s still recharging.” She flashed me another look, daring me to argue, but I wasn’t about to.

Smoky yanked the manhole cover off with two fingers. The dude was strong. He was big and strong, and I was damned glad he was on my side. Nothing like having an angry dragon breathing down your neck.

Time to establish marching order.

“I’m going first. Smoky—you’re up front right behind me. Then Vanzir, Delilah. Camille, and Morio. Tanne and Shade in the back, please.” As everyone lined up, I cautiously lowered myself into the manhole tunnel. The rungs of the ladder going down were steel rather than iron—which made good sense, considering the propensity for rust in damp quarters.

The sewer tunnel was brick or stone—it was hard to tell in the dark, and with only a flashlight hanging from my belt to shine light down, I wasn’t really taking a close look at the walls. The fit was fine for me, but I was glad I wasn’t Smoky—he managed it, but with his six-four frame, it was a snug squeeze.

As I scrambled down, I didn’t really expect to meet any problems along the way. It wasn’t like Underground Seattle, where creatures routinely made their homes, other than rats and cockroaches. I couldn’t see Lowestar worrying too much about sewer traffic, considering how dank and nasty it was.

The climb wasn’t terribly far, but when I reached the bottom, I realized that the sewer tunnel itself was only around five feet tall, and narrow. Very narrow shoulders lined the sides, while water and debris rushed through the channel in between them. Thank gods, we didn’t have far to go, because—if I didn’t have claustrophobia coming down here—I could easily see how fast I might develop it.

I hurried south, in the direction of the Farantino Building, grimacing as I gave up trying to balance on the thin, slick bricks forming the side ledges and just walked in the muck.

The smell was rank, it filtered into my nose, into my mouth, and I heard Smoky behind me let out a garbled sound as he bent over, trying to fit through the passage. He was bent double, and it occurred to me that—if anything did live down here and wanted a fight—we were in a shitload of trouble. At that moment I stepped in what seemed to be a steaming pile of crap, and I groaned at my unintentional pun.

The temperature was bad—it was like a muggy, clammy day, and I hurried ahead, not wanting the rest of them to be caught here. Breathing would become a problem if we were down here too long, and even though we were all resistant to so many FBH diseases and infections, that didn’t mean we couldn’t suffer from other issues brought on by the sheer amount of bacteria that must be roaming the water, walls, and air.

Camille’s voice echoed from behind. “Fuck… this is bad! Hurry up.”

“I’m pushing through,” I called back. “We don’t have far to go, but be careful. It’s slippery and nasty.” Though truth be told, if somebody started to fall to the side, they’d land against the wall before they landed on the ground. There really wasn’t anyplace to fall.

“This sewer tunnel isn’t used much anymore,” Vanzir said. “I had a long look at the plans. If it was, we’d be in a hell of a lot of hurt right now. This one is old and only a few buildings make use of it.”

“Small favors, huh?” I shuddered as I leaned out to brace myself against the wall and a swarm of roaches fluttered over my hand. Shaking them off, I tried not to shriek. “Roaches coming up—lots of them. Try not to touch the walls too much.”

“Any signs of viro-mortis slime?” Delilah’s question was a good one.

“Stop and I’ll look.” I pulled my flashlight off my belt and shone it toward the walls. A flurry of movement startled me—a murmuration of roaches? Not quite as pretty as starlings. Beneath the roaches, as I glanced along the tunnel, I could see layers of fat built up. Enough to make me gag. For once, I was grateful I couldn’t eat. And then, ahead to the left, yes—some green goo oozing along the wall.

“Affirmative on the viro-mortis slime. Be very careful about where you put your hands. I only see the green kind—which is the less aggressive type—but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some indigo slime hanging out and that would be harder to see.”

I wondered how many sewer workers had been harmed by the stuff—it seldom appeared in areas without high ectoplasmic activity from the Netherworld, or from ghosts in general. But then again, we were near a ghost-ridden area of town, and the spiritual activity here was extremely high. So it was no surprise that viro-mortis slimes were showing up.

Delilah let out a garbled reply. She’d been on the receiving end of their attentions before. The slimes acted a lot like the Blob—growing to encompass the host onto whom they attached themselves, and then they set about devouring—or rather absorbing—the creature. The thought that maybe they’d take care of the cockroach problem soon ran through my head, but I shook it away. Random thoughts could be dangerous, especially when we needed to focus.

Another moment, though, brought me to a ladder heading up. The tunnel continued, but the plans had shown that the first ladder south of where we entered the tunnel should take us up to an old manhole that was there when the building was built. Michael Farantino had simply built over it, agreeing to give city workers access to the tunnel through the basement if need be. Apparently back then, the city planners had been willing to agree, probably for a good-size sum of money, no doubt.

Grateful, I stood up. Even I’d had to bend over in here, and my back groaned a little as I reached up and grabbed the rungs, swinging myself up and onto the ladder. Within another minute, I was at the top, cautiously listening for any sound that might be coming from the basement. Here was where we were taking a big risk—we had no clue if anybody might be on the other side. But given the ritual was set for tonight in the underground levels of the building, my guess was they wouldn’t be guarding a lone manhole cover in the basement.

Carefully, inch my inch, I eased the cover up and to the side, then peeked out. The basement was dark, and I heard no breath, no sound of movement. Relieved, I swung myself up and out of the dank tunnel.

Within minutes we were all standing there, albeit dirty, grimy, and reeking like overripe sardines. Except Smoky, that is. As usual, his duster was sparkling white, his clothes were clean, if a bit damp, and he smelled like his usual musky dragon self. I wanted to smack him. It wasn’t fair.

Camille let out a long sigh, staring at her boots—which were ruined. There was no way to save suede after that little walk through the muck. Delilah didn’t look too happy either. Neither did the others actually. On the bright side, being in a grumpy mood might just make us fight harder and better.

Nobody spoke—we didn’t want to chance giving ourselves away—but we already knew what we were going to do. The broom closet that led to the hidden levels was one floor up, not on the main floor but a subfloor. We headed up to level S-1, taking the stairs rather than the elevator. There was no telling if the elevators had hidden cameras in them, and now was not the time to find out.

Level S-1 had an employee break room and several conference rooms on it. And the maintenance room. But… there to the right of the janitor’s closet was a narrow door. And that was our goal.

It was locked, of course. I just hoped nobody else was running late and would catch us in the act. From everything we knew about rituals—and Camille and Morio had performed a lot of them—most large-scale operations required an extensive setup period. Which meant, we were hoping, that everybody who needed to be downstairs in the temple room was already there.

Tanne motioned us back. He leaned over and began whispering to the lock. Again the incantation sounded like a low trill as he persuaded the lock to release and open. Another moment, and a soft click sounded, and the door sprang ajar. He quietly pushed it all the way open, and we were looking into a small, square room. No stairs. No nothing.

But Morio motioned for me to move to the side, and he stepped into the room, said something—he, too, barely whispered the words—and the outline of a door appeared. There was a handle, but no obvious lock.