As they walked down the hallway, I kept my gaze on them, still too nervous to look at Jason.
“What would that be exactly?” I heard Michael ask.
“What would what be?”
“The Chicago version of the headless horseman?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a fangless vampire? Or—or a werewolf with mange?”
“We can still hear you!” Jason called out. “And werewolves don’t get mange!”
That earned him a huff from Scout. I finally screwed up my courage and looked back at Jason.
He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. But they weren’t royal blue or the blue you’d see in the middle of a rainbow. They were so blue they were nearly turquoise, the color so deep it seemed that he stared out with precious jewels instead of irises.
Currently, those crazy eyes were trained on me. His lips curled, the dimple at the corner of his mouth puckering as he smiled.
My nerves tumbling, I kept things light.
“So you’re trying to kiss an Adept?”
“Very, very diligently,” Jason said. Before I could get out a snarky answer, he was dipping his head. His lips found mine, his mouth soft and warm. He put his hands at my waist and kissed me until I felt a little light-headed, until my heart fluttered in my chest. I’d been kissed before, sure, but I hadn’t been kissed like this. Not by him, since we’d been interrupted when he’d tried to kiss me before. And not like my feet were going to lift off the ground and I was going to float right up to the ceiling.
I almost opened my eyes to make sure that hadn’t happened—I mean, we were Adepts, after all.
Jason sighed and wrapped his arms around my back, and we kissed in the darkness beneath Chicago.
At least until Scout let out a “Holy crap!” that poured through the tunnel.
We separated and ran full out, relieved when we saw Scout and Michael still standing at the edge of the next segment of tunnel.
“What happened?” Jason asked, his gaze scanning the two of them. “Are you okay?”
“There,” Scout said, swinging her flashlight across the tunnel in front of us.
It took me a minute to process exactly what I was seeing. The floor of the tunnel and part of the walls were coated in some kind of clear slime, five or six trails of it from one end of the corridor to the next.
“Wait,” Jason said. “Is that—Is that slime?”
“Appears to be,” Michael said. “It looks like they filmed Aliens in there.”
Jason kneeled down, found a piece of metal on the tunnel floor, and stuck it into the goo. When he raised it again, he pulled up a long, stringy strand of slime.
“Eww,” Scout said. “That is heinous. That’s even worse than the time we fought off that nematode.”
“What’s a nematode?” I asked.
“I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “I think you should have the joy of looking it up on the Internet and seeing the kind of pictures I had to see.”
“So what did this come from?” I asked. “Some kind of animal?”
“Maybe not,” Michael put in. “Maybe there’s a leak somewhere. Some kind of—I don’t know—industrial fluid or something?”
We all looked up. The ceiling of the tunnel looked old and nasty, but not even a little slimy.
“Hmm,” Jason said, then tossed the metal into a corner. “That’s definitely new.”
“What do we do now?”
Scout put her hands on her hips. “Since the exit is in that direction, I guess we should see how far it goes.”
“Lily and I will take the lead,” Jason said, stepping forward into the tunnel. When I snapped to face him, shocked that we’d be going first, his expression was apologetic.
“Firespell,” he explained. “Just in case we need it.”
It was definitely an adjustment to play the lead heroine, but I sucked it up, nodded, and stepped beside him.
With flashlights aimed before us and Michael and Scout behind us, we took one tentative step into the tunnel. And then another. And then another.
“I’m not seeing anything,” Scout said, flashlight beam circling across the ceiling of the tunnel as she searched out whatever had slimed the corridor.
“One tunnel at a time,” Jason said. My hand in his, we took the lead, walking to the end of the corridor.
I was scanning the walls, bouncing my flashlight beam along them, looking for a hint of slime. So when Jason came to a full stop, I almost tripped forward, but he pulled my hand—and me—back.
That was when I saw them—and screamed.There were five of them—half walking, half crawling toward us. They were human-shaped, but a little smaller than your average adult. They were bald, with pointed ears and milky eyes, and their fingers were thin and tipped by long, pointed white nails. They scowled and snorted as they moved toward us. Their na**d skin glistened in the light, a trail of slime on the ground beneath and behind them.
“What—” I began, but Jason shook his head. “Scout, Michael. Stop walking, and move backward. Just a few feet.”
Scout and Michael began to move behind us. With each step they took, we followed suit until the four of us stood in a cluster a dozen feet or so away from the creatures. Still, they lurched in our direction, their movements coordinated like a school of nasty, pasty fish.
I could feel my chest tightening as panic began to take over. Staring down a group of hell-bent teenagers was one thing. This was . . . completely out of my league.
“What the hell are those?” I whispered.
“No clue,” Jason said. “But they don’t exactly look friendly.”
One of them hissed, revealing long fangs amid an entire row of sharp teeth. “Are they some kind of vampire?” Michael asked.
“I’ve never seen a vamp that looked like that,” Scout said.
Maybe it was coincidence, or maybe they were offended by what she’d said. Either way, one of them decided it was time for action. It put its front hands on the ground, then pushed off and leaped toward us.
Okay, not just us—toward me.
But there was someone there to save me.
It started with fur—thick and silver—that sprouted across Jason’s body, replacing his clothes like they were nothing more than an illusion. Then he went down on all fours and stepped in front of me. His nose elongated into a snout, and his hands and feet became long, narrow paws. His tail extended, and the rest of his fur grew in, and by then there was no mistaking what he was—a silvery wolf, bigger than any I’d seen at a zoo.
Every survival instinct I had kicked in, and I had to lock my knees to keep from running away. Jason lifted his head and looked at me for a moment, his head tilted to the side like a dog, his eyes now spring green.I stood frozen in place, my gaze locked on his—on this wolf that suddenly stood before me.
That look only took a second, but that was long enough for hell to break loose.
The creature apparently wasn’t intimidated by Jason’s new form, and it didn’t stop running toward me. It continued its galloping gait, taking air in the last couple of feet and landing with an attack on Jason’s muzzle.
“Jason!” I screamed, but Michael pulled me back. I’m not sure what I would have done, but someone had to do something. Jason was taking an attack meant for me, and I didn’t want him hurt on my behalf.
I looked back at Michael with panic in my eyes. “We have to help him.”
Michael’s answer was nearly instantaneous. “Firespell it.”
I reached down, could feel the quiet hum of energy, and nodded at him. “I think I can knock them down. But you have to get Jason out of the way or I’ll take him out, too.”
Michael nodded. “We’ll get him focused. You get ready to firespell. The timing on this one’s gonna be close. When I give the word, you send it out.”
I nodded, then looked back. Jason and the monster were rolling on the ground, but at least its friends were smart enough to stay back. Jason was getting in nips at the creature’s arms and legs, so the thing’s yips and yelps were probably warning enough to the rest of them. It opened its mouth and screamed, revealing rows of tiny sharp teeth and clawing at Jason’s muzzle as Jason tried to get a grip with his own teeth.
“Jason!” Michael yelled out. “Get clear so Lily can take a shot.”
Jason let out a yip as the thing bit down on one ear and raked its claws across Jason’s back. Jason shook the creature off, but it kept coming, clawing and biting as it attemped to take him down.
“Use the tunnel walls!” Scout yelled out. “Ram him!”
I made myself close my eyes. It was hard to shut out Jason when he needed me, but if I kept watching, I wouldn’t be able to prep the firespell. I blew out a breath, and then began to slowly breathe in again. And as I inhaled, I pulled in as much power as I could, letting it rise through my body from my feet to my hands.
The tunnel shook from impact—I assumed that was the sound of Jason ramming a monster into the wall. I heard a wolfish yip and squeezed my hands into fists to keep from launching myself forward.
I heard scuffling as the power rose. I waited as long as I thought we could risk it, until I held the power—which ached to be loosed into the tunnel—by a thin string of energy.
“Anyone who doesn’t want to end up on the floor needs to be behind me right now!”
More scuffling. As soon as the sounds moved behind me, Michael yelled out, “Now, Lily!”
I opened my eyes—and with a final check to make sure there were no Adepts in front of me—I lifted my hands and pushed them forward, moving all that power toward the monsters that were now only a few inches away.
The firespell moved forward, warping the air as it traveled, a vertical plane of green light and haze that shot out from my hands. It hit the creatures like a shock wave, knocking them all backward, the rest of the energy vibrating the walls of the tunnel as it moved forward.
I probably should have given a little more thought to whether using firespell in a century-old underground tunnel was a good idea. But there was nothing to do about it now.
The five of them lay on the floor, definitely down, but still twitching a little. I hadn’t knocked them out completely.
First things first, though.
My heart still pounding from the exertion, I glanced back. Michael and Scout were crouched together on the floor. Jason sat in front of them, back in human form, blood seeping from a wound at his ear. There were scratches on his face and hands, but he looked pretty good otherwise.
I crouched in front of him. “Are you okay?”
Jason glanced up at me, a twinkle in his turquoise eyes. “Are you kidding me? That’s the most fun I’ve had all night. Well, except for kissing you, of course.”
Not a bad answer from a werewolf, I guess.
3
Jason held out his hands. I stood up, then took his hands and pulled him to his feet.
“You know,” he said, “if you’re open to a little constructive criticism, you cut it a little close there.”
“Maybe next time you should be a little more careful where you fight.”
He rolled his eyes, but he was grinning when he did it.
“Thanks for taking the hit,” I said, pulling off my hoodie and pressing the sleeve to his ear, wiping away some of the blood.
Jason shrugged. “The wolf wanted to fight. And maybe I like rescuing the damsel in distress.”
“Just to clarify, I did rescue you back.”
He slid me a sly glance. “Then that makes us even. For now.”
I grinned back, then checked out Michael and Scout. “You two okay?”
They nodded, then helped each other up.
“Well done,” Michael said, then looked at Jason. “You good?”
Jason nodded.
“You okay, Lils?”
I nodded at Scout, but the relief at putting them down—and keeping us all relatively safe—gave way to exhaustion. I suddenly felt like I was about to get the flu—body aching, drained of energy. I needed warm soup and an equally warm bed. Instead, I still had five twitching slimy things to deal with.
“That’s all I’ve got,” I quietly said. “I can walk out of here, but that’s about the only thing I’m going to be able to do. And we still have a problem.”
We looked back at the creatures.
Jason stepped beside me. “At least they stopped moving closer. That’s something.”
“Since we’ve taken them out, can we please get out of here?” Scout asked.
“We still have to get past them,” Michael pointed out. “And we can’t just leave them here to roam the tunnels. God only knows where they’d end up.”
“Or who they’d attack,” Jason said. “That means we need a plan for part two. We need to get these things out of here, and we need it really quicklike. Scout? Got anything in the hopper?”
“I don’t—I don’t know—”
“You don’t have to kill ’em,” Michael said. “Maybe you can just transport them or something? I mean, since we aren’t sure what they are?”
“What?” Scout said, a thread of panic in her voice. “Because those claws and teeth are for eating carrots? These aren’t happy, fuzzy bunnies we’re talking about.”
I knew that sound in her voice. I’d heard that panic before, when she’d been taken by the Reapers to their sanctuary. I turned around and looked her in the eyes, and saw the terror there. She was panicking again, and God only knew what kinds of things she was remembering.
“You can do this, Scout.”