prepare. This day has so not even been in the neighborhood of what I was expecting.”
“I suppose I should apologize for that,” said Dominic. Tone gone wry, he continued, “I’m not sure what I was trying to prove. Maybe that you weren’t as well hidden as you seemed to think. I still don’t really understand why it’s so important to you. The dancing, I mean. But I’m sorry to have been as much of a disruption as I apparently was.”
“Thanks for that. It won’t get me into Regionals, but … thanks.” The decline was more pronounced in this tunnel. We were moving downward at a faster clip now, probably skirting at least one major transit line in the process. “To take your first question first, we’re going to go as deep as we can, and then I’m going to find the locals. If there’s a dragon down here—and there’s not really much ‘if’ about it, not if Sarah can spot the thing—then anybody who lives close enough to it should be feeling the effects. Whatever those are. So we’re just going to find the bottom, and then we’re going to ask for directions.”
“How civilized.”
“I try.”
“You said that was my first question. What was my second?”
“The dancing.” I smiled wistfully into the darkness. “Why it’s so important to me.”
“It is … odd, you must admit,” he said, sounding a little embarrassed. “Here you already have a purpose in your life, and yet you’re choosing to spend your time—doing something else.”
I could hear all the slurs and accusations of goofing off that my dance career has received in his hastily- swallowed words, and I appreciated them. Not the insults; the fact that he managed to stop himself from saying them out loud. “You remember that whole ‘traitors’ thing?”
“I doubt I could forget.”
“Well, after Dad and Grandma managed to convince the Covenant that we were all dead, we pretty much went into hiding. I don’t know what’s going to happen now that you know we’re still around. Since we can’t exactly quit the family business—there are too many people out there with serious grudges against us, and I’m not talking just cryptids—we have to keep learning how to fight. But we can’t go through standard channels. Not if we want to get as good as we need to be.”
“Why not?” he asked. He sounded honestly puzzled. Maybe we needed to spend more time in the sewers. I was definitely coming to like him better down here.
“Because most martial arts and organized sports publish their rankings once you get to a certain level of competition,” I replied. “My … one of us couldn’t even take fencing in college, because the entire Fencing Club got called out in the local paper.” Alex was
“Oh,” said Dominic. I glanced toward him again, and saw the horror in his face. He’d clearly never stopped to consider what it meant to be hiding from a global organization that monitors the news for signs of cryptid activity. “So you went into ballroom dance because…?”
“It’s a viable way of building some of the same muscle groups as martial arts and gymnastics, but it isn’t monitored the same way. Plus, since it’s not ‘dangerous,’ it’s easier to do under an assumed name.”
“And you liked it?”
“I loved it. I still do.” I couldn’t keep my voice from turning wistful. “When you’re on the stage, nothing else really matters. Nobody’s trying to kill you; nobody wants to see your credentials or needs you to get them the gorgon antivenin. It’s just you, and the music, and knowing how you’re supposed to move. Dancing is all I’ve ever really wanted to do. I’m here partially so I can prove that I can make a career of it, before I get sucked into cryptozoology for keeps. That way, whichever way I go, it’ll be a choice.”
“Assuming you survive the dragon long enough to make choices.”
“There is that.” We kept walking. At our rate of descent, we were going to pass out of bugbear territory before we saw any of the locals. That was fine by me. Bugbears aren’t very helpful when interrupted, and we’d have better results with the hidebehinds or the bogeymen.
“Also assuming I don’t turn you in to the Covenant when I get home.” Dominic shook his head, causing his shadow on the wall to flicker and shift. I gave him a startled look. He smiled. “
“The thought had crossed my mind,” I admitted slowly.
“Given the natural conclusions of that thought, I’d like to propose a truce. I won’t tell anyone you exist, and you won’t attempt to kill me, until after we’ve dealt with the current situation.”
Did I trust him? Well, I was deep beneath the city streets, alone, in a narrow tunnel that left very few avenues of escape, and made gunfire a questionable option at best. I’d already trusted him further than I would have expected. At this point, did trusting him a little further really make that much of a difference?
Probably not. “Deal,” I said, shoulders slumping slightly with relief. I hadn’t been looking forward to trying to kill the man. For one thing, it would leave me with no one to move manhole covers for me. For another, annoying and impossible as he was, it was actually sort of nice to have someone male and human who wasn’t related to me and didn’t look at me like I was crazy when I slipped and used the word “Sasquatch” in casual conversation. Not that we’d had much opportunity for casual conversation—all our conversations so far had been focused on killing each other, killing something else, or trying not to get ourselves or anybody else killed. He just didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d think Bigfoot was a synonym for “bonkers.”
“Excellent,” he said. Behind us, in the darkness, I heard the distinctive scrape of metal against metal. Tone deeply apologetic, Dominic continued, “Now, about dealing with the current situation…”
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I snarled.
We turned to press our backs together, Dominic’s short sword held out in front of him, my halogen light bathing the tunnel walls. I pulled the telescoping baton from my belt, snapping it open and locking it in that position. There was no sign of whomever—or whatever—had drawn the knife, but I could hear the scuffle of claws on concrete, too large and too heavy to belong to the rats.
“What are our escape routes?” Dominic asked tightly.
“Forward and back,” I muttered. More loudly, I said, “Okay, people. If you want to talk, we’re prepared to talk. And if you want to dance…” Again the sound of metal on metal, from a different direction this time. Well. That answered that. “Okay. Let’s dance.”
Thirteen
“Nothing lasts forever. That’s the tragedy and the miracle of existence—that everything is impermanent. Everything changes. All we can do is make the best of the time we have. And go down shooting, naturally.”
THERE WAS A PAUSE AFTER MY LAST bravado-fueled comment, long enough that I was starting to feel a little silly standing in a sewer in a defensive posture, my back pressed up against a member of the Covenant of St. George, waiting to be attacked like a coed in a horror movie. I was about to suggest we start moving again when the walls around us bulged, transmuting from flat stone into lumpy, uneven crags. The crags split away from the walls, becoming a group of roughly-humanoid figures in tattered, mismatched clothing.
I gasped. It was a stupid, girly thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been studying cryptids since before I knew my ABCs. I’ve been specializing in the humanoid cryptids since second grade. But these … whatever they were, it was nothing I’d ever seen before. That realization was almost as chilling as the one that accompanied it.
We were trapped.
The figures continued to separate from the walls around us; I counted at least ten, maybe more, since the
