“Good driving, child,” Mab said. Kane howled his agreement.
“Driving was the easy part,” I said, opening my door. “We’ve still got to sneak into Deadtown.” And we had to do it in broad daylight with a wolf in tow.
There are several unofficial “back doors” that can get you into or out of Deadtown without having to pass through a checkpoint. Dead spots, for example, in the electrified fence that surrounds the area. I knew of one on Deadtown’s north side, but it would be impossible to get there from here on a busy weekday without attracting attention.
Well, we’d have to try. Maybe passersby would think Kane was a very large dog. He jumped from the car and shook himself, then stood, head lifted, sniffing the air. The wolf was large, standing as high as my waist, his back broad, his muscles taut with strength. He exuded a barely restrained power, something primeval, that evoked deep forest and other wild landscapes. There was no way anyone would mistake this fierce, majestic creature for a domesticated puppy.
Yet what choice did we have? I made sure the car was locked up tight and started toward the garage exit.
Something tugged on the back of my shirt. I turned around to see Kane with his jaws clamped on the hem.
“You have a better idea?”
He let go of my sweatshirt and went deeper into the garage. Mab and I exchanged a look, then followed. We descended several levels. When a car drove by, Kane would duck between parked cars. Mab and I just stepped aside and waited for the car to pass.
At the bottom level, near the elevator, Kane stopped and sat beside a metal door, maintenance access for the elevator. He looked at me and yipped. I tried the door. Locked. He yipped again.
In the bottom of the door was a ventilation panel, with horizontal, louvered slats. Kane stood and pressed his nose against it. He looked at me, then touched the panel once more.
I hooked my fingers around some slats and shook. The panel gave a little. I pulled, and it came away in my hand. Kane licked my cheek and jumped through the hole. A moment later, he stuck his head out, staring at us like he wondered what was taking us so long.
I peered past him. I couldn’t see much, just enough to know that Kane’s route into Deadtown was dark and dusty and festooned with spiderwebs. Lovely. I nudged Kane aside and climbed in. The closet-sized room was deeper than I expected. Kane moved inside to make room for Mab, who crawled in a moment later. Together, she and I fitted the panel back into place.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” I said to Kane.
He licked my cheek again and went farther back. In the stripes of light that came through the panel, I could see a low opening in the back wall, maybe a yard square. Kane disappeared into the tunnel.
A pitch-black, narrow, dirty tunnel. Several weeks ago I’d learned, in an abandoned Welsh slate mine, that I didn’t do so great in dark underground spaces. And this tunnel looked too tight to even be called a “space.” I calculated. On the surface, it took a brisk ten-minute walk to get from Government Center to Deadtown. Crawling the same distance through this tunnel would take approximately . . . forever.
An impatient bark echoed from the tunnel. I took a deep breath and crawled inside. Mab followed.
There was no light, but the tunnel felt cleaner than I expected. There was little grit under my palms, as if the floor had been swept. No cobwebs brushed my face. No horrible little creatures with too many legs dropped onto my neck. I let out a startled yelp when I bumped into something—it was Kane, who’d paused to wait for us. After that, I stayed close behind him. No more than a couple of minutes had passed before light flooded the tunnel as Kane nosed aside a curtain and leapt out.
I followed, trying to decide whether I felt more relieved to see or to stand up straight. We were in a cellar, with concrete floors and walls. It looked like some kind of storeroom, with cardboard boxes lined up on shelves and stacked on the floor.
“You must pay the toll to pass,” croaked an ancient-sounding voice.
I turned around. Beside the tunnel we’d exited sat an old man in a folding metal chair. His leathery face was as lined as a road map, and he had a full head of white hair. A shock of that hair fell across his forehead as he sat hunched forward, holding a sharp-looking knife in one hand and a stick in the other. He smoothed the knife along the stick, whittling. A thin curl of wood joined others on the floor.
“We have no money,” I began. “I was abducted and—”
“We’ll pay,” Mab interrupted. “What’s the toll?”
The old man sized us up, his dark eyes glittering. “Ten dollars apiece. Double for the wolf.”
“That’s outrageous,” I sputtered. I was ready to crawl back through the tunnel and take our chances going overland.
The man shrugged, then shaved off another curl of wood. “The authorities don’t take kindly to wolves running around on city streets,” he said in a bored voice. “Especially if a concerned citizen calls in a report.” His eyes peered at me shrewdly from under his white hair.
“We can only go forward, child,” Mab said. She produced a wad of bills and peeled off two twenties. “Here you are,” she said, handing them to the man. “Now please allow us to proceed.”
The old man took the bills, sniffed them, and stuck them in his shirt pocket. Then he got up and shuffled across the room. His movements were slow, but something in them suggested he was faster and stronger than he appeared. I had a feeling that anyone who tried to cheat this toll collector would end up sorry.
He stopped in front of a metal storage cabinet. After fumbling in his pants pocket, he pulled out a key and opened the door.
“Have a pleasant journey,” he said.
Kane led the way again, jumping into the cabinet and into the tunnel beyond. This tunnel was more passable, an underground corridor large enough that Mab and I could walk next to each other. There was even fluorescent lighting.
I’d heard about a network of secret tunnels in and out of Deadtown, but I’d always thought they were a rumor. It surprised me that Kane actually used them.
It also surprised me that Mab was carrying American money. She hadn’t brought her passport with her through the collective unconscious—Jenkins was sending it by mail—so where had she gotten cash? I hadn’t thought to wonder when she’d brought me breakfast and clothes, but the question hit home when I saw that stack of bills she was carrying.
“It’s Mr. Kane’s. He brought it when he picked me up,” she said when I asked her. Kane, who was in front, turned his head back and nodded in agreement. “Of course, I shall pay him back when I’m able.”
Kane snorted and shook his head.
It took us half an hour and two more toll payments to reach Deadtown. We must have zigzagged all over—or under—downtown Boston, but in the cellars and tunnels, it was hard to trace our exact route. Finally, we went up some stairs. I twisted a bulkhead handle and pushed open the steel door—and we were in Deadtown. I recognized the place right away, a small side street near the garage where I rented a space for my Jag. We were only a few minutes from my building.
It was daylight, so the streets were empty. Still, we took the back way, keeping Kane out of sight as much as possible. The citizens of Deadtown wouldn’t panic at the sight of a wolf on the street, but they would notice. And the fewer people who saw Kane out and about in his wolf form, the better.
The tricky part, I thought as we approached my building, would be getting him past Clyde, who took his doorman responsibilities very seriously. Nobody snuck past Clyde’s watchful eye. But then, he was watching for zombies, vampires, and other monsters, along with the occasional norm, not for animals. No one expects to see a four-legged werewolf in all his furry glory when the moon is waning. If I could distract Clyde, maybe Kane could slink past him.
We paused in a doorway half a block from our goal, and I told Mab and Kane my plan: “On the left side of the lobby there’s a seating area. Clyde’s desk is on the right. Mab and I will go in first. Kane, you come in right behind us and hide in the seating area. Keep low. I’ll introduce Mab to Clyde. While we’re talking, try to slip to the elevators.” A partial wall blocked the lobby’s view of the elevators, so he could stay out of sight while he waited for us there.
Nobody had any improvements to suggest, so we walked to my building. We were in luck; Clyde was on the
