When Morgan had instructed me to meet her at the historic depot, I’d known exactly where that was, because I’d been there with my niece. The people of Cheyenne—or at least the nice folks who ran the trolley tours—were crazy about the Depot, because it showcased Cheyenne’s whole reason for existing: the railroads. Cheyenne had been chosen as a major stop on the First Transcontinental Railroad, which was a big deal in this part of the west.
It was cold, but there was no snow or ice on the roads, so I drove the big Jeep pretty recklessly all the way to the state line, doing my best to ignore the remnants. There are always plenty of ghosts on the highways, but I forced myself to blow right through them, absorbing the occasional emotional impact when one of them actually touched me. It was unsettling as hell, and I wished I’d thought to bring my mahogany obsidian, which protected me from psychic attacks. The remnants would still have been visible, but they wouldn’t have been able to get inside my head. I’d never gotten in the practice of carrying the obsidian, though, because it also blocked Sam’s voice. So I gritted my teeth and concentrated on not swerving the Jeep.
As I passed the rock formations and big metal bison silhouette that marked the border to Wyoming, I finally had to slow down. Maven didn’t have any pull with the police in Wyoming. I had, I realized, gotten very used to Maven’s support and protection. Even when I’d gone alone to face Lysander, an insanely powerful conduit, I’d done so with the reassurance that I had Maven’s name behind me. Now I was on my own, and I couldn’t even call my friends for help without causing political problems.
This sucked.
When I was about ten miles outside Cheyenne, driving within the speed limit now, I called Simon’s cell with one of the burner phones.
“Hello?” Simon was talking loudly to be heard over what sounded like hospital noises. Part of me relaxed a little. I hadn’t liked leaving him alone in Nellie’s brothel.
“Hey, it’s me. What did the doctor say?”
“Lex!” Simon sounded relieved too. “Hey. They think it’s just the sprained ankle and broken wrist, but they’re gonna do a scan—hey! I’m talking to—ow!”
There was a small commotion, and then Lily’s voice came on the line. “Lex? What the hell is going on?”
“Lily!” I felt myself smiling like an idiot. It was so good to hear her voice. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay!” She sounded furious. “I feel like crap! A bunch of asshole goons showed up at Si’s place and beat the shit out of Katia, and they held a gun on her until I drank fuckin’ belladonna, and apparently it was all orchestrated by my own fucking sister—”
“Lily,” I broke in. I was approaching the Cheyenne exits. “I’m really glad you’re awake, but Simon has information that I need, and I’m out of time here.”
“Ugh. Fine.” She grumbled, but gave Simon the phone again. He came back on the line and said, “Okay, the tunnels are kind of a weird situation. A bunch of conspiracy-type websites suggest there are tunnels underneath much of downtown, built at the same time as the railroad. They might have just been transportation in the winter, but my guess is that they’re steam tunnels, which used the waste steam from the railroad boilers to heat parts of downtown Cheyenne. Plenty of cities used to do something similar: Milwaukee, DC—”
I cut him off before he could get rolling. “Okay, so what’s the weird part?”
“There’s no official information on the tunnels anywhere online, and I haven’t found a single photograph. A lot of sources suggest the whole existence of tunnels is just a rumor. It’s like they’re ashamed of them or something.”
I frowned. “That’s weird.” Colorado was littered with tunnels, both the legitimate ones built for mining and the illegal ones built for illicit activities. A hundred-some years ago, a brothel like Nellie’s would probably have had an underground entrance, for example, and bored miners had built plenty of secret tunnels during Prohibition to smuggle booze around. There were times when I was shocked that the entire state hadn’t collapsed down a hundred feet.
But in Colorado, all that was celebrated public knowledge. There was a whole industry built around the shady parts of the state’s past, and you could pay to take tours of many of those old tunnels. Some of them were too dangerous to visit, of course, but it struck me as odd that Cheyenne denied the tunnels’ existence altogether.
“Yeah, well, I think there’s something fishy there, like a humans-go-away spell, or some kind of payoff to city officials to keep the tunnels out of the public eye,” Simon went on, his voice lowered. He sounded frustrated. “If I had more time, I could probably come up with some primary sources, but the bottom line is that I can’t get you any maps or anything. Assuming the tunnels are real, you’re going in blind.”
Shit.
“Lex,” he continued, pain in his voice, “maybe this is a bad idea.”
“You think I should just let her kill Katia?”
“Of course not,” he replied with irritation. “But maybe you should just go to the meeting spot at the Depot. Morgan might be willing to negotiate.”
I had to doubt that. Morgan wanted me to use Charlie. If I wasn’t going to do that, and I no longer had Maven’s authority, what was there to negotiate? Even if she really did send Katia to the meeting with a guard, the guard could shoot Katia in the head the moment they realized Charlie wasn’t with me, and take me as a hostage instead.
Trying to sound more confident than I felt, I replied, “I’ll figure it out. Is Quinn with you?”
“No. He called, though. He’s busy finding a new daytime hideout for Maven.”
“Ah. Smart,” was all I said. Sunrise was in an hour and a half. If I failed, or Morgan Pellar found some other way into Colorado, Maven would need to be somewhere Morgan couldn’t find her.
“Oh, one more—” Simon began, but he was cut off by another small commotion in the background. He returned after a moment, his voice pitched even lower. “Lex, I gotta go. Quinn’s guy is here, and so are the police.”
“Okay, bye.”
I hung up the phone, feeling nervous. From the moment Kelly had said the word “tunnels,” I’d pictured myself in something the size of a subway tunnel, holding a map . . . which would somehow point to a single big spacious underground room, which would be Morgan’s obvious hiding place.
But how much room would you really need for a steam tunnel? And if a lot of downtown Cheyenne had these underground tunnels, I might get lost down there forever.
The heat was on in the Jeep, but I found myself shivering. Could I even do this? What if I climbed down into one of the tunnels and just . . . froze? What if I got lost down there?
I didn’t have any answers, but now I was entering the downtown area, and it was 5:27.
Downtown Cheyenne had a big public parking garage where tourists could leave their vehicles all day. I dumped the Jeep there, grabbed the backpack of supplies, and quickly checked my weapons. I had two shredder stakes, the Smith & Wesson revolver with its .357 silver bullets, and a Glock 21 that held ten rounds of .45 ammunition. After a moment of thought, I put the Glock in a pancake holster at my back and dropped the revolver into the Western-style holster on my left hip, where I was strongest. I rarely wore the hip holster in cities—it made me look like a day player in one of those cheesy Wild West shows—but my thigh-length parka hid it easily. It was only twenty degrees out, but I left the coat unzipped. It would still be tricky to draw the Glock from my back, but I figured if I needed a second gun I was probably already in trouble.
Cheyenne’s downtown wasn’t all that big, and the parking garage was only a couple of blocks from the tunnel entrance on Lincolnway. I jogged the two blocks, my breath fogging in front of me as I ran through it. The sky would begin to lighten soon, but for now I was just running from streetlight to streetlight, on the lookout for any kind of movement that would indicate I was being watched.
From the moment I’d talked to Morgan, I had expected a trap—but I didn’t know what kind of trap. There were several times when I thought I saw something—a hint of movement, a glint off a glass window—but I was nearly late to the meeting. I wasn’t stopping unless someone stepped into my path.
At first, the intersection of Central Ave and East Lincolnway seemed completely unremarkable. The northern half had buildings on each side, and the southern half was a small public lawn bordering parking lots. Given the choice, I turned north, toward the buildings. On the northeast corner of the intersection, the building’s twin façades were broken up by a short alley, probably a place for vehicles to park and make deliveries. Along one side of the alley was a rickety-looking wrought iron railing with a narrow gate. When I got closer, I saw that the gate led to a set of concrete stairs. The stairs and the pavement next to them were littered with cigarette butts—probably a favorite smoking spot for the employees.
I switched on my flashlight and shone it down the stairs, exposing a heavy brick door at the very bottom. Even from here I could see a weathered silver padlock the size of my fist secured to the door. Shit. I had a small multitool in the backpack, but why hadn’t I thought to bring a bolt cutter?
I jumped the gate, which was only hip-high, and descended the stairs slowly, leaving the relative safety of the streetlights. When I reached the door at the bottom, I tested the padlock. It was thicker than it had looked from the top of the steps. Even the bolt cutters I had at home wouldn’t cut through that monster.
Anxious now, I felt around the iron metalwork that the bolt secured, hoping I might be able to break it or pry it open with the multitool, but despite its obvious age, it was sturdy. Fighting panic, I ran my gloved fingers over the top of the doorframe and along the seams, hoping for a hidden key. There was nothing.
Which meant I was screwed.
“Shit!” I smacked one fist against the bricks at face level and immediately had to shake out my hand from the pain. Now I had no choice but to go to the meeting and try to kill Morgan’s lackey before he or she could kill Katia. I had raised the dead for nothing.
Something dropped past my ear, and there was a metallic tinkling sound at my feet.
Quick as I could, I pulled the revolver and raised the weapon and the flashlight toward the top of the staircase, then ran the light along the railing. Nothing there.
I dropped the light to my feet and saw a bronze key on a cheap key ring. I squatted down to look closer, not touching it. The key chain was a smiling cartoon animal with a mischievous grin.
A wolf.
I flashed the light up again. “Who’s there?”
A familiar face popped over the railing above my head, smiling down at me. Then another. And then a couple of snouts pointed through the bars, and a big-ass brown wolf appeared above the gate at the top of the stairs, leaning on his front paws.