“That works for me.” Adelaide got out her phone. “I’ll update Grier and check in on her.”
“Thank you,” Linus said, and he meant it. “Send Cletus if you need to contact us.”
The wraith would be more reliable than cellphones once they got belowground.
“The trail is distinct enough I can follow it,” he said when Clem frowned. “Unless you prefer to lead?”
“Now that you mention it,” Clem said with a smile, “I would.”
Without another word, he crammed himself into the tight space and began wiggling until the tunnel flared wider.
Once he got deep enough to give Linus room to enter without getting kicked in the face, he tossed his bag in then climbed after it, shoving it ahead of him as he crawled forward using his forearms.
Aside from the occasional grunt or sneeze, and the scrape of fabric on metal, they kept their passage quiet until reaching the opening.
“Incoming friendlies,” Clem shouted ahead of them. “Don’t kick, hit, or bite. I will leave your asses here if you do.”
“Clem?” Boaz chuckled low in his throat. “What are you doing here? Uh, you are here, right?”
“Goddess.” Clem shimmied out and dropped into the cistern. “How hard did they hit you?”
Careful not to land on anyone in the compact space, Linus’s heels thumped lightly on impact.
“They rang my bell pretty good.” Boaz indicated the back of his skull. “I still hear ringing, in fact.”
“My darling boy,” his mother exhaled as Linus oriented himself. “I knew you would find us.”
Linus went to her, knelt at her side, and took her hands. “Are you ready to get out of here?”
“Yes,” she said emphatically. “His healing skills leave much to be desired.”
The notion Boaz had enough magic in him to heal period surprised Linus, but he acknowledged in the same breath he tended to underestimate Boaz, and often.
“I’ll do what I can to make transfer painless for you.” He drew sigils on her forehead, her sternum, and lined three down the shin Boaz had set and stabilized. “How does that feel?”
The strain erased from her face, and she dropped back in a boneless heap. “Much better.”
“I’ll be right back.” He stood and went to examine Boaz. “How are you feeling?”
“Neither one of you has to worry about me,” he slurred. “I have things under control.”
Linus shared a worried glance with Clem. “All the same, I would like to treat you.”
“Okay.” Eyes drifting shut, he leaned against the wall. “Do your worst.”
There wasn’t much Linus could do for a head injury, but he granted Boaz temporary energy and clarity of thought. It ought to be enough to get him into a guestroom at Woolworth House before the fog descended again.
“Thanks,” Boaz grunted as he came to attention. “My brain feels much less like soup.”
“Glad to hear it.” He located Clem. “Can you guide Boaz out?”
“On it.” Clem led him to the vent. “Keep hold of my ankle, okay?”
“I’ve seen enough of your flat ass to last me a lifetime.”
“Better you run into my ass than that metal door if it got triggered after we left.”
Grumbling reluctant agreement, he toddled after Clem, and they began their crawl.
“I’m going to use this rope to make a harness.” Linus secured his mother with gentle hands. “I’ll have to back through the vent to ensure I can reach you if you’re in distress.”
“Tell me one thing,” she said drowsily, making him wonder how long she had been awake. “The baby?”
“You haven’t missed the birth.” The gender he would leave to Grier to reveal. “There’s still time.”
“Good,” she murmured. “That’s good.”
After giving her one last quick exam, he checked his ropework twice. “The glamour was yours, I take it?”
“Boaz provided the location.” Her eyes drifted closed. “I didn’t have time to do much more than conceal the entrance.”
An exit door was a risk she wouldn’t have taken, had the pain not clouded her mind. A blank wall was much safer, and it invited less examination. Then again, that might have been the point. She might have decided the risk of giving them away to their enemies was worth a quicker rescue from their allies.
“Had there not been a familiar essence to the work,” he confessed, “I might not have noticed it.”
The weight of the magic, paired with the strain on her body, dragged her under, and he was glad. This was going to be awkward and painful, and it was for the best if she was conscious for as little of it as possible.
As imposing as her personality loomed, she weighed nothing in his arms, and he was reminded of her age as he hauled her thin frame into the vent after him. Their relationship would never be what it could have been, but he could do better. She could too. Maybe, like him, she had to learn how to express her affection, how to be present, how to let go of the past.
He could imagine no better teacher for her than Grier, and no better time than now, with LJ’s birth, for them to get started.
Love for her grandson might unbend his mother, enable them to have the relationship Grier experienced with Maud. That was his unspoken wish for his son, that his mother show LJ he was loved in ways that left the boy certain of his place in her heart. Not aware of his value as a pawn.
“You are not hard on the eyes in reverse.” Adelaide chuckled behind him. “Do you need help?”
“I can manage,” Linus said, flustered, “but thank you.”
All the same, Corbin guided Linus’s feet onto the floor and helped him extract his mother and settle her onto his lap where he began untying the harness.
“You didn’t say nice things about my butt,” Boaz grumped. “All I got was a view of Clem’s pancake ass.”
“Leave me and my butt out of this.” Clem helped Adelaide ease Boaz into a seated position. “It’s not my fault your eyes are still crossed.”
Chuckling, Corbin kept out of their conversation, but the camaraderie between the three was clear.
As was often the case, his mother had been right to draft Corbin into the sentinels. They were providing him with an anchor, a kinship, outside of Grier. One that could last him the whole of his immortality should he choose.
“Hush.” Adelaide sat next to Boaz. “You don’t need to get worked up over nothing.”
“I knew you would save me.” Boaz leaned against her. “You always do.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She didn’t fuss about his weight, just wrapped her arms around him. “You’re half out of your mind.”
“That doesn’t change the facts.” He buried his face in her throat. “I love you, Addie.”
“I know.” She kissed his cheek. “Try telling me when you’re not concussed, you big oaf.”
With Cletus mingling in the center of the room, Linus half wondered if he wasn’t sharing their moment with Grier, which reminded him. “Did you get in touch with Grier?”
“I got in touch with Lethe.” Adelaide flicked the wraith a glance. “Grier seemed up to speed in any case.”
Cletus drifted closer to Linus but otherwise kept his thoughts on the topic of his spy work to himself.
“Hood will be here in a few,” she continued. “There’s enough room in Moby for everyone, right?”
“Yes,” Linus confirmed. “We’ll have to lower the rearmost seat to keep Mother’s leg fully extended.”
“The tapping noise,” Adelaide asked Boaz. “That was you?”
“What tapping noise?” He snuggled closer. “Didn’t hear any tapping noise.”
Linus debated waking his mother, just to be certain, but she had been exhausted. “This is not good.”
“Now that you mention it,” Corbin said, “I haven’t heard it since you two left.”
“I thought that was why it stopped,” Adelaide agreed. “I figured they heard you coming and went quiet.”
A cold place opened in Linus’s chest. “Do you have your pager, Boaz?”
“No.” He twirled a lock of Adelaide’s hair around his finger. “Lost it and my phone at the bunker.”
Corbin jerked his head toward Linus, and Linus nodded confirmation.
“They were bait,” Corbin growled, glancing around them. “The tapping was meant to guide us if we were too dense to figure it out on our own.”
A scratching noise started on the other side of the warded door, fingernails on metal, grating and sharp.
“They weren’t the bait,” he realized, curls of black mist wafting off his skin. “We are.”
“They brought us here to lure them out,” Clem realized. “What the hell do they want with your mom?”
“Any number of things.” He gently set her on the floor. “None of them good.”
“Eloise wants her mother back in a bad way if she’s coming after both of you.” Corbin eyed the door with calculation. “Do you think she’s that unhinged?”
“I killed her sister,” Clem reminded them all. “Her twin.” He grimaced. “Folks tend to take that personally.”
“That would definitely unhinge someone,” Adelaide admitted. “Especially if they weren’t too hinged to begin with.”
“Mother handed down the sentence that landed Rhiannon Marchand in Atramentous,” Linus added. “Grier and I both testified against her. Our evidence is what sealed her fate.”
“Eloise hired vampire thugs,” Boaz murmured, the sigil’s magic spending fast. “Good ones.”
“Did they say or do anything that made you believe they worked for the Marchands?”