Carrie Vaughn - Kitty in the Underworld

“I don’t have any proof,” I said. “It’s just something to think about.” Any uncertainty I could plant in them might be useful. Or might get me killed. Whatever. In the meantime, I had so many more questions. “Do you have any idea how Kumarbis knows—”

A noise, the familiar sound of a wood door scraping on stone, echoed down the tunnel. The three of us lycanthropes started, raising our heads, pricking our ears.

Zora noticed our alertness and brightened. “He’s awake.”

He. Kumarbis, the vampire. Master of this little shindig. Could I get him to sit and talk with me?

The others gathered themselves, straightening, turning away. We were done here, it seemed.

“I’ll go to him,” Sakhmet said. As she passed Enkidu, he held her arm and leaned in. Their kiss was gentle, soft, full of obvious comfort passing between them. My heart ached, seeing it. Where was Ben, how freaked out was he, coming home to find me missing? At least two nights had passed. He’d be home now, never mind how many times he’d tried to call.

The were-lion padded down the tunnel toward the noise, presumably the vampire’s lair, where he slept out his days. To feed him, I realized. He needed blood, and they provided.

Enkidu must have seen the understanding in my expression. “We take turns,” he explained. Which made a twisted kind of sense, but I must have looked sour. Dismayed, even.

“You’ll take your turn soon, when you join us,” Zora said.

I shook my head in denial. Never, not in a billion years.

The magician took hold of the door in order to close it. Desperate, irrational, angry, I leapt forward, grabbed the edge, and held on. I didn’t want them to close it, I didn’t want to be shut in, not anymore. I wanted to keep talking, and I wanted them to listen. I wanted to get out.

If I’d been fighting over the door with just Zora, I’d have won. She was small, weak, and I was a werewolf. I could tear her to pieces. But Enkidu took hold of the door as well and hauled back. I scraped along the floor, trying to anchor the thing with my body. He caught my gaze, glared a challenge, and I snarled back. He wanted to fight, and we could fight this out.

After one last mighty shove, he yanked the door, caught me off balance, and I let go just before it would have slammed on my fingers. Letting out a frustrated growl, I glared at the slab of wood, since I didn’t have anything better to glare at.

On the plus side, I wasn’t any worse off than I was a few minutes ago.

I had to come up with a plan. Any plan. I had to develop telepathy so I could call for help. Or—they had to have my cell phone stashed away somewhere, didn’t they? If I could get out from behind the locked door, find my cell phone, get to a place where I could get a signal—probably out of the mine, which I ought to be able to do if I made it that far. Then call the cavalry. Simple.

Simple as stone.

IF KUMARBIS was awake, night had fallen. Was this the second night I’d been here, or third? I didn’t know, but the number mattered to me. Counting time seemed important. I’d seen the vampire once, then he slept, and now he was awake. Call it the second night, then. I’d been here two full days, at least. Or was it three?

Two.

The tunnel system in the mine must have been complex. The group was living here, they had separate chambers, they’d built doors and created rooms. There was a place to lock me up, a place for the vampire to sleep. The others must have had rooms as well. They had to be storing food and water somewhere, and using something other than unobtrusive corners of various caves as toilets. Assuming I found a way to break out and avoid my captors, how long would it take me to search the place? How did I find my way out? With my nose. I just had to find the draft of fresh air and follow it. I hoped.

First thing I had to do was figure out how to get past the door. Well, that was easy. Plan A: Wait until someone opened it, then start running, see how far I could get. Satisfying, but probably not effective. I wouldn’t have time to look for my phone in that scenario.

Plan B: Win their trust so they’d let me out of the room and leave me alone to go exploring. On further thought, it might even be easy; I’d just have to start pretending to agree with them. Easy, maybe, but the idea left a sour taste in my mouth. I didn’t want them to think they’d convinced me. Brainwashed me. But if it meant getting out of here … I could turn my mind in circles for hours thinking of this. Hunger had become a dull ache, and lack of food was affecting my thinking. The next time Sakhmet appeared, I’d ask for food.

Once again, steps approached, and the door scraped open. I backed away, because I wasn’t ready and didn’t think about charging until it was too late. Next time for sure, right?

The vampire came in, alone. He shut the door behind him and stood, blocking the way, studying me. Him and me, all alone. I buried a growl.

He might be able to pass for human in poor light, but people would look twice at him and maybe wonder what disease he was suffering from. He was stooped, wizened, his spine was hunched, and his joints were gnarled. Leathery wrinkles covered his face; in anyone else I would have called it sun damage. His appearance wasn’t old so much as worn out. Even flush from his recent feeding, he appeared ashen. He’d seen some hard times. Periods of starvation maybe. Lack of blood wouldn’t kill a vampire right away, but it would cause something like decay. This vampire was decayed.

I wouldn’t get any closer to him than I had to. He approached, and I backed away, keeping the same distance between us. Straightening, I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. He could smell my anxiety, but I didn’t have to act scared.

“You are strong,” he said, sounding pleased. “I knew you would be.”

“Then why do you think you can force me to do what you want?”

“When you understand, you won’t need to be forced.”

The mangled coin around his neck kept drawing my eye. I wanted to know more, I had so many questions. “How old are you?” I asked on a whim.

He narrowed his gaze, curled his lip. An expression of disdain. “We brought you here to make you understand. To show you—”

“Understand what? Maybe I could understand if you’d actually explain to me what you’re doing.” I should have just shut up and listened. But I was angry. I didn’t like being lectured at.

“You will understand.”

“Yeah, all you have to do is keep saying that, over and over,” I muttered. We could keep this up all day. “Help me understand. You wear one of Roman’s coins. Why?”

“I took it from him.”

“It means you served him—”

He scowled. “I never served him.” He actually sounded offended.

I took a calming breath and tried again. “How do you know him, then?”

“It’s enough that I know how dangerous he is. We must stop him.”

“I agree,” I said. Kumarbis tilted his head as if startled. He must have thought I just argued on principle. “How are you going to do that?”

“It is not your place to ask, only to join the battle.”

That made me think of Antony, and all the other casualties. Kumarbis wasn’t wrong—this was a war, and maybe he’d been fighting it longer than the rest of us, but that didn’t put him in charge.

“That’s just typical vampire superiority garbage,” I said. “You’re a vampire, I’m a werewolf, so you expect me to line up like a good little foot soldier. It’s crap like that that’s got me fighting Roman in the first place. You want my help, treat me like an ally and not cannon fodder. Too many people have already died fighting Roman.”