“Hey, Lex,” Mary said with great satisfaction. “You know, it helps if you have a key.”
Chapter 40
There were five werewolves total, though only Mary and Keith were in human form. It was Keith who pushed the little gate open—not even slowing down as he snapped the thin metal lock holding it closed. A sand-colored wolf with a white undercoat and bright blue eyes trotted past the others and down the stairs, where he reared up to put his front paws on my shoulders, licking my cheek with a warm pink tongue. “Tobias,” I said, laughing a little. “Gross. Get down.”
He dropped to all fours, still doggie-grinning up at me with his tail and ears high. I looked up at Mary, who had come around the railing and started down the stairs, her long legs bare under a hip-length parka. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Got a voice mail from Simon. He said you could use some help.”
That was what Simon had been about to say on the phone—that he’d told Mary I was coming. I eyed her. “You must have already been back in Cheyenne, to get here so fast.”
She blew out a breath, taking the last step. I tilted the flashlight down so I wouldn’t blind anyone. “Yeah, well. I thought about what you said. We all did.” She glanced behind her, up at the rest of the group, then looked at me again. “I’m the alpha,” she said simply. “And if we’re going to be a pack, we needed to come back to Cheyenne.”
I bent and picked up the key, holding it up to show her. “And how do you have this?”
Her face hardened. “Because,” she said with a little heat, “this is our fucking town, and those are our fucking tunnels.” She lifted her chin. “Ryan Dunn discovered them almost twenty years ago, and figured they’d be a good emergency place for werewolves to change if we ever got stuck in Cheyenne during the full moon. Our pack has spent years exploring the tunnels in both forms—not to mention finding creative ways to keep humans away.”
Which was why no one in Cheyenne wanted to talk about them. I nodded. “And when Morgan Pellar killed three of your wolves—”
“She effectively broke up the pack so someone else could come in and take our territory,” Mary said flatly. “We’ve checked all four of our entrances tonight, and they all smell like strange wolves.”
I looked down at the key in my hand. “How did they get in?”
Mary gave me a smile that was all teeth and hostility. “That’s exactly what I’m planning to ask them.”
I wondered if the flashes of movement I’d seen had been the wolves, but it wasn’t really important. “Wait, you’ve been scouting downtown? Did you see anyone at the Depot?”
Keith started to shake his head, but Mary said, “Yes. There are two werewolves waiting on a bench, a male and a female. The female has a blanket over most of her.”
“Crap.” Morgan had sent a decoy to the meeting point in case I didn’t bring Charlie. I took no particular satisfaction from being right. “Okay, well, I’m already late, and it sounds like there’s a lot of ground to cover. We should go in and start searching.”
She shook her head. “That won’t be necessary. We’re pretty sure we know where Morgan is holed up.”
I brightened. “Really?” That would save me so much time.
Mary nodded. “These tunnels are just a grid, with a few old maintenance closets—but at the southeast corner there is a natural offshoot leading toward Holliday Park.”
I tried to pull up my mental map of Cheyenne. “What’s at Holliday Park?”
“What’s beneath Holliday Park,” she corrected. Her smile was grim. “It’s a cave.” She gestured at the key. “Come on, let’s get moving.”
With the werewolves keeping watch, I unlocked the heavy door, pushing hard to swing it open. To my surprise, it was warm inside. Mary was already unzipping her parka. “We’re going to run, so you might want to leave your coat here,” she told me, dropping her own on the floor of the tunnel, just inside the door. Beneath it, she was wearing an athletic tank and short-shorts.
I shrugged out of my coat, exposing the hip holster. Nobody in the tunnels was going to care if I was armed. Keith’s jacket was no more than a windbreaker, but he took it off and dropped it on top of Mary’s coat and mine.
“Why is it so warm? I thought these tunnels weren’t being used.”
She shrugged. “Dunn knew more about how it works, but I think a small amount of heat still leaks into the tunnels from the depot.”
“Okay.” I pointed the flashlight into the tunnel. It was perfectly round, with two huge pipes running along the right side at waist height. The walls were stone or concrete, with metal-caged utility lights every hundred feet or so. Most of the lights seemed to have blown out, and I had no hope of navigating without the flashlight.
I had been expecting lots of moisture, for some reason, but it was dry and silent. “Finn, Tobias, and I will go ahead of you,” Mary said, stepping backward without looking, going deeper into the tunnel. “Alex and Keith will bring up the rear.”
She saw me shifting my weight from one foot to the other and stopped moving. “What?”
“Nothing.” I glanced at the round walls, my chest already tightening, and Mary followed my gaze. I realized the beam of my flashlight was shaking slightly. She marched back to me.
“You’re claustrophobic,” she stated, hands on her hips.
I winced, not bothering to deny it. “I’ll be fine.”
Mary sighed and put a hand on each of my shoulders. “Look at me,” she said, her voice low and calm.
I tore my gaze away from the cramped space and met her eyes. “It’s a tunnel,” she emphasized. “It goes on and on. You will not be trapped.”
I just nodded, because what else could I do? I had to go in, and I had to be okay.
You can do this, Allie, came Sam’s voice in my head. This isn’t the Humvee, or the hole in the desert. There’s plenty of space.
Mary looked at me for another moment, then looked at Tobias, who was sitting next to me. “Tobias, stay with her,” Mary commanded. “If she panics, get my attention.”
Tobias ducked his head in compliance, then shoved his head under my hand. I scratched behind his ears a little absently, taking comfort in his canine presence. I didn’t really understand why Tobias liked me so much, but at the moment I was grateful for it.
“Okay,” Mary said, nodding at Finn, the biggest wolf. My eyes narrowed at him, but it wasn’t exactly the right moment to bring up how someone with mechanical experience had tampered with Dunn’s car. At least he was going up front, where I could keep an eye on him. “Let’s go,” Mary said.
And we began to run.
In either form, I discovered, werewolves are basically made of stamina.
I was in very good shape—and I’d spent a lot of time running while carrying weapons—but I was exhausted and sore and fighting claustrophobia. Running through the tunnels with werewolves, some of whom I wasn’t sure I could trust, felt like slogging through warm water, and I had to push hard to keep up.
To distract myself, I thought about what Mary had told me. I had a hard time picturing Morgan Pellar holed up in a cave. It wasn’t that she was too sophisticated and worldly—she’d grown up on a farm, after all, and like all the Pellars, Morgan had definitely leaned in to the “hippie-Wiccan” vibe. But her whole thing was about power, and hiding in a cave wasn’t a power move. Of all the places in Wyoming, why would she choose this one? And how would she even know about it? From what Simon had told me, the Cheyenne tunnels were now kind of an urban legend.
She didn’t just know about the tunnels. Sam’s voice sounded thoughtful. She had a key.
“Good point,” I panted. Finn and Tobias both overheard me and glanced over their shoulders, but I gave a little headshake to show I was fine.
It occurred to me that Sam had talked to me twice in the last ten minutes, but not at all for hours before that, when I’d been in the middle of some scary stuff. She hadn’t had a single comment about me raising the dead, which seemed . . . troubling. That was the kind of life-altering decision Sam would usually weigh in on. Was she not allowed to talk about it, the way she hadn’t been allowed to help me save John?
I puzzled over that for a while, but we were approaching the southeast corner of the tunnel grid before I figured out any answers. By then I was breathing hard, and my heart felt like it was pounding out of my body. I’d scraped my arm against the pipe twice, creating a small cut that was trickling blood. But at least I hadn’t freaked out . . . yet.
Ahead of me, Mary’s pale, churning legs slowed to a walk and finally stopped. Turning toward me as I caught up, she pointed to a bend in the tunnel just ahead. “Just around that corner, there’s a small sandstone offshoot that opens into the cave,” she whispered. “The cave’s plenty big, so you should be okay, but if she has wolves or bloodsuckers in there they probably already know we’re here.”
I nodded and clicked off my flashlight to keep the light from bouncing around the corner where someone might see it. Then I shoved the light in my pants pocket, trying to keep my hands from shaking.
I kept the revolver with silver bullets in my left hand, which would take care of werewolves, but I had no idea what I was going to do about Morgan. My magic was basically useless against other Old World people.
But Katia was in there, and I was losing time. “I’ll go in first,” I said to Mary. “If Morgan throws me into a wall, try to overpower her. Do not kill her unless absolutely necessary.”
Her eyes narrowed at that, but I didn’t stop to explain. Instead, I turned the corner—and saw them.
The tunnel in front of me was filled with ghosts. They were packed in like sardines, some even seeming to overlap each other. Most were remnants, but a few had the angry, glowing definition of wraiths.
And every single one of them appeared to be on fire.
Chapter 41
As I stood there with my mouth open, they all seemed to catch the scent of my blood at once, turning toward me with curiosity on their pain-twisted features.
“Lex? What’s the matter?” Mary had stepped up beside me, and looked from me to the tunnel in confusion. She couldn’t see them.
The wraiths began to move toward me and I took an instinctive step backward, nearly dropping my revolver. At my side, Tobias pressed his body into mine, baring his teeth at the invisible threat.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I hissed, backing away farther.
“What?”
“Ghosts.” My mouth was instantly dry, and I was having a hard time speaking. “There was a fire down here. Lots of people died.”
“Oh.” Mary looked at the hall again, squinting like that would help. “Is it a problem?”
I almost laughed. “Yes.” The closest wraith, a man about my height, was only a few feet away now, and he stretched out one arm to touch me. It was on fire, and though I could feel no heat, his face was gnarled with agony and anger. I backed up until my spine hit the wall.