Carrie Vaughn - Kitty in the Underworld

Sakhmet spoke soothingly. “No, Zora, it isn’t like that. Please, calm down.”

“Then what are you telling her?”

Enkidu glared. “We are ensuring that your ritual will go smoothly.”

“That isn’t your place. She is like you, an avatar and a conduit, you don’t understand anything beyond that, and you cannot make her understand. That’s for me and Kumarbis. You should wait, that is your part in this.”

“We’ve been waiting too long already,” he muttered.

Zora demanded of them, “What did you tell her? How much damage have you done?”

“You know,” I drawled. “You could talk to me. Direct, like. ’Cause I can hear you and all.”

She looked at me, about as startled as if I had just slapped her with a wet fish. I wasn’t a being to her but a tool, and tools weren’t supposed to talk. What did you do when your tools weren’t particularly happy about being used? She was probably having a bad week, wasn’t she? Not as bad as mine …

In a hurried, flustered movement, she shook herself out and looked at Sakhmet and Enkidu. “We’ll discuss this outside. Come.”

She marched to the end of the tunnel, stopped at the doorway, turned to glare. Enkidu bristled, his werewolf’s gaze returning the challenge, but Zora didn’t seem to notice. These people were all dominant in their own ways, trying to tread lightly, and not particularly succeeding. The cracks showed.

Enkidu finally sighed. “Fine.”

Sakhmet took his hand and squeezed; the gesture seemed to soothe him. To me she said, “We’ll calm Zora down. You should rest, to prepare for tonight. Drink more water.” She was trying to be comforting. Trying to help, I could see that.

Hand in hand, Sakhmet and Enkidu joined Zora, and the argument picked up as they went through the doorway. Zora ranted. “She must stay open to be a true avatar, you don’t understand, you haven’t truly understood, not ever, you’re both mercenary —”

“Zora, will you please calm down,” Sakhmet said in a long-suffering tone.

Their voices traveled down the outside tunnel, echoing until I couldn’t hear them anymore. They were carrying the argument elsewhere, far enough away that I couldn’t eavesdrop. Too bad for me.

I stared after them for a long time, and at the door at the end of the tunnel. My sleepy, angry, anxious brain felt slow, and had to churn through the realization before it clicked. When it did, my heart pounded so hard I went dizzy for a moment.

They’d left the door at the end of the tunnel unlocked.

THEY SHUT the door, but I didn’t hear the bolt slide into place. Oh, please …

Oh so quietly, I pulled on the slab of wood—and it opened. Wincing, I froze. Waited, listened. But no one was coming, they hadn’t heard it. I had to hope that Enkidu and Sakhmet were arguing with Zora so loudly they wouldn’t hear the door scraping on the stone. Inch by inch, I eased the door open, just enough for me to be able to slip through the opening without scraping any skin on the silver-tainted mine wall.

And just like that I was outside.

More of the battery powered camp lanterns sat on the floor of the tunnel at intervals, spaced far apart. They gave off tiny auras of muted white light, so the space was still dim, the far walls and ceiling lost in darkness. But I could make my way well enough. The tunnel beyond the door was exactly like the ones I’d seen so far, nothing holding up the mountain over us but arcing granite, parallel rusted steel tracks curving along the floor, leading away. A historical curiosity. Any ore carts, spikes and hammers, drills, whatever other tools would have been used to dig out the mine and carry out ore had been cleared out long ago. A coating of white and red minerals splotched the walls in places. The place felt like a tomb.

I stood there far too long, studying the hallway, gaining my bearings. I had no idea how far underground I was, or which way to turn. I’d made that mistake before. Sakhmet and the others would be back soon, so whatever I did I had to hurry.

Closing my eyes, settling my racing heart, I tipped up my nose and took a long breath, learning as much as I could from simple air. Then another, to confirm what I thought—hoped—the air was telling me.

A draft, very faint, stirred down the tunnel. I smelled fresh air, coming from my left.

I ran.

The tunnel branched once. I hesitated at the fork, knowing my window was short, which meant I didn’t have time to make a mistake. But the trail of fresh air continued, and I kept going, until the floor sloped up in a gentle grade. I stopped encountering lanterns—but light remained. The spot of sunlight ahead looked like treasure, brilliant and longed-for. Tears filled my eyes, and I rubbed my face.

The mine entrance was small, a curved passage opening out of the hillside like a mouth. A field of bare gravel sloped away from it, and beyond that granite outcroppings and forest. I paused there, my eyes shut, my arm up to shield my face from too-bright sunlight. Gasping for breath, I coughed as my lungs filled with the clean scent of pine trees, snow, and mountain air, so startling after the close smell of the mine. Even better, the air smelled like Colorado. The Rockies, lodgepole pines and Douglas fir and all the rest. Colorado dirt and sky. Home wasn’t that far away.

I was out, I was free. I couldn’t believe it. I huddled by the entrance, shivering. I was barefoot, and my toes nestled into gritty dirt and snow. My eyes took a long time getting used to the light before I could open them fully and figure out where I was. And what to do next.

By the way the sun slanted, it must have been afternoon. Golden light stabbed through the trees of the forest that dotted the mountainside. A recent snow had fallen; clean white blanketed the ground. The slope of the old tailings pile—waste rock from the mine—was visible, a triangle cutting down the hill and bare of trees. I could start walking, but to where? I could be hundreds of miles from anything resembling help, a gas station pay phone or road with any traffic, a town of any size. My werewolf self could walk that far, even barefoot in the snow, no problem. I might be a wreck at the end of it, but I’d recover.

The air must have been cold, but I didn’t feel it. I just felt … confused. If I really did have a chance to stop Roman—if Kumarbis and the others really could stop him, and needed my help—I couldn’t walk away from that. Could I? Antony hadn’t turned away from the chance. Avenge your friend, Sakhmet’s voice whispered to me. I’d never been one for revenge—much. But the idea of stopping Roman, of keeping him from ever hurting anyone again— that was attractive. It seemed a fine way to honor what Antony had given up. Antony must have thought the chance to stop Roman was worth risking his life. Could I do less?

Ben would disagree with me. He would say that trusting strangers and uncertain magic wasn’t any better a plan of retaliation than waiting for better information. We already had allies, I didn’t need to charge into an iffy situation with these guys, guns blazing. But Kumarbis made Roman; if anyone could stop him, he ought to be the one.

Then why hasn’t he before now?

God, I wanted to talk to Ben so badly.

If I could stop Roman, I had to try. If I failed—not just that, but if I died trying, vanished utterly, and Ben never found me and never learned what happened to me—would he ever forgive me? It wasn’t just my life I was offering to sacrifice, I realized.

I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. The thought of giving up Ben was more difficult than the thought of giving up my own life.