“Let’s get another look downstairs.”
The entire group rushed to the basement. Cole’s first observation was just how small it was. The steps were narrow, and the stairway felt more like a tunnel as it led down to a pair of brick walls and single door to the right. The small storage room was almost directly below the living room, just as the others had mentioned.
“Point that camera there,” Paige said as she slapped the wall to her left.
Quentin did, but the only thing that showed on the monitor was a mix of black and dark blue.
“Give me that Tri-Field thingy,” Paige said.
“Actually, it won’t do much good down here with all the wires and—” Quentin stopped short when he saw the glare on Paige’s face. Knowing that glare all too well, Cole wasn’t surprised when Quentin dug out the meter and handed it over right away.
Paige held the meter in her hand and flipped it on. Almost immediately the needle on its face waggled back and forth. It jumped in one direction, fell back, and then jumped again. All the while, it made the staticky high-pitched wailing that they’d heard before.
“It’s the current down here,” Val said from where she stood halfway up the stairs. “There’s just too many wires and stuff in this cramped space.”
Moving the meter up and down along the wall, Paige looked as if she truly knew what she was doing with it. Within seconds more noise emanated from deep behind the brick wall. It rumbled and scraped until the source got close enough to the back side of the bricks for the screech of nails against rock to be added to the delightful audio mix.
Paige smirked, turned the meter off and waited. When the scratching faded, she smirked again. “There’s something behind this wall, and this meter is driving it nuts.”
“Are you sure about that?” Val asked as she hunkered down to crouch on the stairs.
“Yep. All that scratching started when the meters were on, and it got worse when all of them were gathered in that same spot. Do these things give off any noise besides what we can hear?”
Val shrugged. “Just the normal hum most electronics give off.” Looking to Quentin, she added, “Unless there’s some sort of interaction with the electromagnetic field that the detectors have picked up. We’ve never heard of anything that could hear that sort of thing so well before. Not through a brick wall anyway.”
“There are bats and other rodents that hear plenty we don’t,” Quentin offered, “but nothing that burrows like this. I mean…there can’t really be something under here like what we saw on the thermal. Someone would have seen it, right?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Paige said. “Cole, go outside and look at the ground around the house. Whatever it is must come up for air. If it’s as big as it seems, you might be able to see something squirming around beneath the grass.”
Val’s eyes widened. “Oh, is that what the stick’s for? I want to go with you!”
“No!” Cole snapped. “Stay here and take some more readings.” As he stormed up the stairs, he almost ran into Mick. Paige came up right behind him and pointed back down to the basement.
“They caught something on the thermal,” she said to Mick. “Go take a look.”
The haggard expression on his face brightened and he ran toward the basement door.
Once they were alone, Cole asked, “You think some sort of snake is down there?”
“The thing in that video wasn’t a snake,” Paige told him. “It was a bunch of fingers connected to a hand connected to an arm. It was just a lot closer to the bottom of the floor than anyone thought.”
“Ohhhh, yeahh. Good call.”
“Whatever is underground is moving back and forth from the wall. It’s gotta come up for air, and when it does, try to stick it.”
“We’re not here to kill it,” Cole reminded her. “We need its help, remember?”
Gritting her teeth, Paige said, “Then get its attention or try to draw it out. Do you have your earpiece radio?”
“No. I lost that in Indiana.”
She sighed “What about an earpiece for your phone?”
“It’s one of the smallest models made and I had to import it from a special store in Tokyo that only gets —”
“Great,” Paige snapped. “Put it in and keep in contact with me. I’ll go back to the bedroom and try to stir it up. When you see anything, let me know. Mongrels are hit and miss as far as temperament goes. They’re not all exotic naked cat ladies, so don’t do anything stupid.”
Giving her a quick, halfhearted salute, Cole headed out the front door. There were just enough clouds in the sky to keep the moonlight down to a minimum. It didn’t take long to circle around the little house and get to the side with the bedroom where everyone had been gathered.
A small patch of flowers ran along the front, sectioned off from the lawn by inch-high wooden beams set into the ground. The flowers grew in thick patches, clustered together as if competing to live there. He didn’t hear anything, but he could see lights moving behind the little window a foot or so over his head. Before he could get to his phone’s earpiece, something shifted beneath the ground as though a patch of grass had decided to shrug. Cole held his weapon in both hands and cautiously approached the moving earth. When the hands reached up from the ground to grab his ankles, he was barely able to gulp in some air before being pulled under.
Chapter 25
The first thing Cole thought about when he felt the sharp jabs at his ankles were the bear traps that Paige had used to trip up those Half Breeds. In the fraction of a second following that thought, he wondered if he’d stumbled into a hole. Half a second later he kicked around the possibility of quicksand being a hazard native to central Nebraska. By then the dirt had gotten into his mouth and up into his nose.
The sharp jabs worked up along his legs and were now scraping against his chest. When the hard, gouging talons found his shoulder, they were replaced by the touch of long, bony fingers. The claws Paige had spotted on the thermal camera wrapped around his chin and shoved his face upward.
“How many did you bring, Skinner?” The voice was like a wire brush that had been forced into his ear by a set of rough, sandpapery lips.
When Cole tried to speak, more soil filled his mouth. Wet granules hit the back of his throat, speeding up his pulse and commanding the rest of his body to crawl up and out of the ground. His legs were wrapped up tightly, however, and couldn’t even bend. His arms were stretched over his head and barely flexed in response to the frantic pleas coming from his mind. His palms ached with a familiar pain that told him he was still gripping his weapon, the only part of him still above ground.
“Relax,” the hissing voice commanded. “The dirt’s freshly turned, so there’s just enough air to keep you alive for a while. Answer my question, Skinner, or I can drag you a whole lot deeper. How many others did you bring?”
Feeling more dirt trickle in, Cole closed his mouth until there was only the slightest break between his lips. When he spoke again, he did so more from his throat. Those ventriloquist lessons he’d taken as a kid had finally paid off. “Partner nearby.”
“I know you’ve got partners. I can smell the Nymar drug coursing through your veins.” Whatever pressed against Cole’s face was twice as coarse as the earth that surrounded them. When it moved, muscles tensed and joints shifted all along the length of his body. Not only was he surrounded by dirt, but he was also wrapped in the embrace of whatever the hell had dragged him down. When he started to panic and felt his heart crash desperately against his ribs, the hand under his chin forced his face up until the slightest trickle of air arrived from between the chunks of dirt overhead. Pulling himself up with his arms increased the flow a little, but not nearly enough to take a real breath.
“You’re not the one that came here before,” the rough voice said.
Cole was so intent on breathing that he didn’t even try to respond. After a few agonizingly long seconds of silence, he felt the strong, clawed hands grip his shoulders and force him down another inch or two. His arms
