Carrie Vaughn - Kitty in the Underworld

I might never get another chance like this.

Maybe I could find where they’d hidden my phone.

I sat on that tailings pile for what must have been a long time, torn between the world outside and the one in the mine. My skin itched, like someone was watching me. The others would find me any second now.

Sunshine made the snow look like scattered crystals. The air was still, not so much as a tree branch creaking. A bird, a crow or a jay or something, was calling in the distance, and the rough sound echoed. I had never smelled air so clean. This must have been what snow-covered mountains at the start of time smelled like. What a beautiful afternoon. At the mouth of the mine, with the world spread out around me, forest and distant mountain peaks and wide open sky, I could believe I was the only living soul in the world.

I should have looked for my phone before racing out of there. Assuming I could get a signal way out here, I could have at least texted Ben: wait for me, forgive me.

Assuming Kumarbis and crew weren’t all actually crazy after all. Go through the first ritual, see if they really knew what they were doing, and if it looked like they were full of it—I’d gotten out here once, I could do it again.

In the end, I couldn’t give up the chance. Not just to stop Roman, but to learn everything I could about him and his plans. I couldn’t walk away from the stories.

Nevertheless, I had a really hard time going back into that tunnel. The darkness became absolute just a few feet in, so that the tunnel seemed like the mouth of some legendary creature, eager to swallow me whole. I took a deep breath to still my pounding heart. Enkidu and the others still hadn’t come after me. I had a little time. Phone, I was looking for my phone, so I could try to find a signal and call Ben to tell him I was alive and about to do something crazy stupid. This wouldn’t surprise him; I’d done crazy stupid before. I usually had my support team backing me up.

But if Ben wasn’t here, he was safe, and that was good. If this worked, I could save Ben, Cormac, the pack, my parents, my family, everybody. I could do this. The risk was worth it. After one last look at the forested hillside, imprinting its smells in my memory, I walked back into the darkness. The stone chill of it tickled my nose.

Stashed somewhere in the mine were my shoes, phone, wedding ring, and other bits and pieces I’d had in my pockets when they grabbed me. A used tissue, maybe. I just had to track the scents. Easier said than done. The days of people traveling back and forth through the tunnels mashed up any scent I could follow. Vampire, lycanthrope, magician, stuff—it smelled like a pervasive mess. I explored, going down tunnels. I’d left the sunlight behind and entered the lanterns’ ghost light when I found a trail that smelled strongly of myself and then a heavy door with bolts and a hinged panel on the bottom. This was the cell they’d first used to hold me. I didn’t want to look inside; I was already far too familiar with it. I couldn’t smell that anyone had been in here recently. I moved on.

They must have storage space somewhere, where they were keeping bottled water, food, who knew what else. They’d probably stashed my stuff there. Another room had to be Kumarbis’s. Probably in the deepest, darkest tunnel, with no chance of sunlight reaching it.

The gang found me first. When running footsteps approached, I decided to hold my ground. Breathing calm into my body, keeping my chin up and face neutral, I waited.

Enkidu arrived, loping out of the dark. “Kitty—Regina Luporum!”

And there was a slip of the tongue. How much of this avatar thing did he believe, really? I wondered what their real names were, all of them. When I didn’t run or flinch—or react at all, really—he slid to a stop.

“What are you doing?” he said, hand on his head, like he wanted to pull out his hair.

“Looking for my phone,” I said. “You want to tell me where you put it?”

He was sweating, his heart was racing. Had I actually scared him by running off? Or was he just really pissed off? A little of both, by the nervous scent of him.

“You—you didn’t leave,” he said.

“Yeah. Made it all the way outside. It’s a beautiful day out.”

“You came back.”

“And I may yet come to regret that,” I said. Never mind, moving forward.

My returning to the tunnel was almost worth it just to see his expression of stark bafflement. He’d probably thought he had a crisis on his hands.

Sakhmet and Zora trotted up the tunnel after him and seemed just as shocked to see me standing still, regarding him calmly.

“I don’t understand you,” Enkidu said.

“Likewise. So, can I have my phone back?”

“No,” he said. He shook his head, as if trying to shed his confusion.

“Oh, well. Never hurts to ask.”

Probably intending to bodily escort me back to the main chamber, he grabbed my arm. I pushed away, showing my teeth, rasping a growl. Because he was also a dominant wolf who couldn’t back down from a fight, he snarled back and lunged. I ducked, shoved into him with my shoulder, knocking him into the wall, and the fight was on. Three days of stress erupted. He turned, and we went after each other, arms out, fingers bent like claws. My Wolf growled with delight. No ambivalence, no decisions. Just claws, teeth, and blood.

“Stop! Stop it, both of you!” Sakhmet shouted.

Enkidu broke away from me, bowed his shoulders, ducked his gaze—the body language of a puppy who knows he’s done something wrong. His beloved had spoken, and he obeyed.

Wolf hesitated, because her instincts said you didn’t attack someone showing all the signs of standing down. I trembled, wanting to strike, knowing I shouldn’t. My breath came in growls. All he had to do was look at me funny and I’d be on him again.

Sakhmet moved into the space between us. She was tall, regal in her skirt and tunic. Her skin shone like mahogany in the faint light. Her movements were fluid, feline. Her stance said I could try to fight her, but she could hold her own against the best of them. Sakhmet, the warrior goddess, the lioness of Egypt.

I didn’t lower my gaze, but I let myself relax. I backed off a step.

“You’re all animals!” Zora muttered. She stood a few paces away—reasonable safe distance—her hands on her hips.

I couldn’t help it; I giggled. Doubled over, tried to stop laughing, but that only brought on hiccups. I was crazy. They were crazy. We were all crazy. I’d go ahead and blame that on Roman, too.

Sakhmet regarded me calmly, maybe even with pity. “Regina Luporum, will you come with me, please?” She held her hand out, careful not to touch me, not to even get close enough to where she might touch me by chance. I stepped forward, and she moved down the tunnel, gently encouraging me.

Eventually we made our careful, suspicious way back to the wide tunnel before the ritual chamber. Sakhmet escorted me through the doorway while the others waited outside.

“Zora would want me to lock the door on you, so you don’t go snooping around. But you came back. I don’t think you’ll leave again, but will see this through to the end. Am I right? Can I trust you, and leave the door unlocked?”

“You all have asked me to trust you,” I said. “It’s only fair.”

“Promise me that you’ll wait here, until we all gather at nightfall.” Her eyes gleamed, and she wore a sly, catlike smile.

The words shouldn’t have pressed down on me. It was my imagination—the ambient silver, itching at my skin. But I couldn’t deny: the idea of making a promise had a physical weight here. Magic saturated the tunnels, the stone. Zora and all her rituals and symbols, Kumarbis and his history, all the stories they’d been telling and plans they’d been making. In this place of magic, a promise meant something. If I made that promise, I couldn’t go back on it, and I couldn’t even say why. They were only words, weren’t they?