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like them, even for a few moments, it should allow us to pass through them unnoticed, as if we were a normal part of their day.”

Technically, I had told Gard I was familiar with illusion magic, not skilled. Truth be told, it was probably my weakest skill set. Nobody’s good at everything, right? I’m good with the kaboom magic. My actual use of illusion hadn’t passed much beyond the craft’s equivalent of painting a few portraits of fruit bowls.

But I’d just have to hope that what Gard didn’t know wouldn’t get us both killed. Elizabeth didn’t have much time, and I didn’t have many options. Besides, what did we have to lose? If the bid to sneak by failed, we could always fall back on negotiating or slugging it out.

Mouse gave me a sober look.

“Groovy,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

A GOOD ILLUSION is all about imagination. You create a picture in your mind, imagining every detail; imagining so hard that the image in your head becomes nearly tangible, almost real. You have to be able to see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, smell it, to engage all your senses in its (theoretical) reality. If you can do that, if you can really believe in your fake version of reality, then you can pour energy into it and create it in the minds and senses of everyone looking at it.

For the record, it’s also how all the best liars do business—by making their imagined version of things so coherent that they almost believe it themselves.

I’m not a terribly good liar, but I knew the basics of how to make an illusion work, and I had two secret weapons. The first was the tuft of hair from an actual malk, which I could use to aid in the accuracy of my illusion. The second was a buddy of mine, a big grey tomcat named Mister who deigned to share his apartment with Mouse and me. Mister didn’t come with me on cases, being above such trivial matters, but he found me pleasant company when I was at home and not moving around too much, except when he didn’t, in which case he went rambling.

I closed my eyes once I’d drawn my chalk circle, gripped the malk hair in my hand, and started my image on a model of Mister. I’d seen malks a couple of times, and most of them bore the same kinds of battle scars Mister proudly wore. They didn’t look exactly like cats, though. Their heads were shaped differently, and their fur was rougher, stiffer. The paws had one too many digits on them, too, and were wider than a cat’s—but the motion as they moved was precisely the same.

“Noctus ex illuminus,” I murmured once the image was firmly fixed in my thoughts, that of three ugly, lean, battle-marked malks walking through on their own calm business. I sent out the energy that would power the glamour and broke the circle with a slow, careful motion.

“Is it working?” Gard asked quietly.

“Yeah,” I said, focused on the illusion, my eyes still closed. I fumbled about until I found Mouse’s broad back, then rested one hand on his fur. “Stop distracting me. Walk.”

“Very well.” She drew in a short breath, said something, and then there was a snapping sound and a flash of light. “The rune is active,” she said. She put her hand on my shoulder. The malks weren’t using any light sources, and if a group of apparent malks tried to walk through with one, it would kind of spoil the effect we were trying to achieve. So we’d have to make the walk in the dark. “We have perhaps five minutes.”

I grunted, touched my dog, and we all started walking, trusting Mouse to guide our steps. Even though it was dark, I didn’t dare open my eyes. Any distraction from the image in my head would cause it to disintegrate like toilet paper in a hurricane. So I walked, concentrating, and hoped like hell it worked.

I couldn’t spare any brain-time for counting, but we walked for what felt like half an hour, and I was getting set to ask Gard if we were through yet, when an inhuman voice not a foot from my left ear said in plain English, “More of these new claws arrive every day. We are hungry. We should shred the ape and have done.”

I nearly fell on my ass, it startled me so much, but I held on to the image in my head. I’d heard malks speak before, with their odd inflections and unsettling intonations, and the sound only reinforced the image in my head.

A round of both supporting and disparaging comments rose from all around me, all in lazy, malk-inflected English. There were more than twenty of them. There was a small horde.

“Patience,” said another malk. The tone of voice somehow suggested this was a conversation that had repeated itself a million times. “Let the ape think it has cowed us into acting as its door wardens. It hunts in the wizard’s territory. The wizard will come to face it. The Erlking will give us great favor when we bring the wizard’s head.”

Gosh. I felt famous.

“I’m weary of waiting,” said another malk. “Let us kill the ape and its prey and then hunt the wizard down.”

“Patience, hunters. The wizard will come to us,” the first one said. “The ape’s turn will come, after we have brought down the wizard.” There was an unmistakable note of pleasure in its voice. “And his little dog, too.”

Mouse made another subvocal rumble in his chest. I could, just barely, feel it in his back. He kept walking, though, and we passed through the stretch of tunnel occupied by the malks. It was another endless stretch of minutes and several turns before Gard let out her breath between her teeth and said, “There were more than twenty.”

“Yeah, I kind of noticed that.”

“I think we are past them.”

I sighed and released the image I’d been holding in my head, calling forth dim light from my amulet. Or tried to release the image, at any rate. I opened my eyes and blinked several times, but my head was like one of those TVs at the department store, when one image has been burned into it for too long. I looked at Mouse and Gard, and had trouble shaking the picture of the savage, squash-headed malks I’d been imagining around them with such intensity.

“Do you have another of those rune things?” I asked her.

“No,” Gard said.

“We’ll have to get creative on the way out,” I said.

“There’s no need to worry about that yet,” she said, and started walking forward again.

“Sure there is. Once we get the girl, we have to get back with her. Christ, haven’t you read any Joseph Campbell at all?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Grendelkin are difficult opponents. Either we’ll die, or it will. So there’s only a fifty-fifty chance that we’ll need to worry about the malks on the way out. Why waste the effort until we know if it will be necessary?”

“Call me crazy, but I find that if I plan for the big things, like how to get back to the surface, it makes it a little simpler to manage the little things. Like how to keep on breathing.”

She held up a hand and said, “Wait.”

I stopped in my tracks, listening. Mouse came to a halt, snuffling at the air, his ears twitching around like little radar dishes, but he gave no sign that he’d detected lurking danger.

“We’re close to its lair,” she murmured.

I arched an eyebrow. The tunnel looked exactly the same as it had for several moments now. “How do you know?”

“I can feel it,” she said.

“You can do that?”

She started forward. “Yes. It’s how I knew it was moving in the city to begin with.”

I ground my teeth. “It might be nice if you considered sharing that kind of information.”

“It isn’t far,” she said. “We might be in time. Come on.”

I felt my eyebrows go up. Mouse had us both beat when it came to purely physical sensory input, and he’d given no indication of a hostile presence ahead. My own senses were attuned to all kinds of supernatural energies, and I’d kept them focused ever since we’d entered Undertown. I hadn’t sensed any stirring of any kind that would indicate some kind of malevolent presence.

If knowledge is power, then it follows that ignorance is weakness. In my line of work, ignorance can get you killed. Gard hadn’t said anything about any kind of mystic connection between herself and this beastie, but it