Kat Richardson - Underground

“She wants to see your supposed corpse,” I hissed.

“She won’t recognize it, since she hasn’t seen me in years. It’s not a great patch—it may not hold—but for now, the file swap will keep her off me and might convince her bosses to consider me dead. They’ll recall her to Fort Meade for now whether she likes it or not. Fern may not buy it, but she can’t argue that the body doesn’t line up with the file info—Lass was actually a decent match, once they scrub off the filth. She couldn’t tell us apart if I walked up and kissed her.”

“Kiss that icicle and all bets are off.” A shudder of the ghost thrashing ripped across my frame and almost brought me to my knees. I guessed Lass didn’t like being a decoy. I could feel him trying to crack me open and escape and I didn’t think I’d enjoy the process if he did. I gasped from the twisting pain. “We need to get out of here and get rid of Lass.”

We evaded Laguire and escaped from the hospital to a taxi that took us to my condo in West Seattle. The temperature was nearly normal for Seattle in winter, and it wasn’t until we were outside I realized it was Wednesday—I’d been in the hospital overnight. Laguire hadn’t been as fast to respond as I’d thought.

At the condo, the ferret huddled in her nest and refused to have anything to do with me, twitching her head and backing away as if I smelled bad when I offered her a hand. Couldn’t blame her—me smelling of ghosts and monsters, carrying an angry spirit that lashed at me and screamed continually. I had to let Quinton take care of her while I took a shower. Chaos didn’t seem to mind that—being fond of him and his many interesting pockets.

Once I was out of the shower, Quinton tried to put me back to bed.

“You need some rest.”

“Not as much as I need to get rid of Lass,” I countered.

He made a face. “You don’t look good. You shake, you twitch… and you’re not too solid all the time.”

“All the more reason to get this ghost out. We need to find the string Lass mentioned—the leash—and take her pet back to Qamaits.”

“How do you expect to find one piece of string in Pioneer Square—whatever it looks like?”

“Lass will help—if he knows what’s good for him.” Lass writhed and kicked, sending pains through my legs and shouting obscenities in my head.

“You can’t rest even until it’s dark? I could go to the Women in Black vigil and come back for you.”

“There’s no way I could rest. Not without drugs—and anything strong enough to knock Lass out will take me down for another day.” Lass didn’t seem to mind that idea, cooling his ire for a moment in contemplation of a fix. “Besides, if the undergrounders are at the memorial and Solis and the Feds are busy at the hospital, they won’t be in our way in Pioneer Square. If I can find the leash, I think I can control Sisiutl and put paid to this whole sorry mess.” The boiling fury inside me shrieked and struck in terror at the thought. I stumbled and had to sit down. I pretended it was just to put on dry shoes.

Quinton looked resigned and rolled his eyes in mock horror. “Rosa’s going to kill me for missing the vigil.”

“She can’t kill you—you’re already dead,” I teased, but it didn’t come out too well as my voice broke in the middle and I barely restrained Lass’s epithets against Quinton.

“Behave,” I muttered. “I can find other places to put you and they won’t be as pleasant. Cooperate and you get to go. Mess this up and we’ll both be in hell for eternity.”

The raging thing settled down to a mutter of bitter words and the sensation of being dissolved by acid.

Quinton frowned at me. “What?”

“Talking to Lass,” I growled. I checked my bag for the pheasant feather and found it looking ratty but intact.

“You think that’s still useful? It looks pretty sad,” Quinton said.

“Don’t know. Better to have it, just in case…” My limbs burned and my guts felt like I’d been punched repeatedly in the stomach. “Quinton, can you drive?”

He blinked, frowning. “Sure. Why?”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“Drive what? The Rover—”

I cursed the air indigo as I recalled that my truck was a smoking ruin in the MOHAI parking lot.

I wound down in a minute. “Are you sure it’s wrecked?” I asked, foolishly hoping.

“Yeah. It was… flat in the middle and pretty crispy. Sisiutl left some nice tooth marks in it, too.”

“Terrific,” I muttered, hearing Lass’s malicious laugh in my head. As living pond scum, he’d been creepy; as a dead passenger riding in my skull, he was a real bastard.

Both the bus and borrowing my neighbor’s car sounded like bad ideas in my current, twitchy condition. I wasn’t thrilled with the expense of a cab, but it seemed the only reasonable option and it got us back to Pioneer Square with minimal fuss, though the cabby shot disturbed glances at me the whole way. I was sure he’d seen me flicker.

We went to my office building and Quinton stayed downstairs, watching, while I went upstairs to find some rounds for my pistol and reload the magazines. Even with Laguire distracted, we couldn’t assume her friends weren’t still listening and a misplaced voice would destroy Quinton’s cover among the dead. We’d have to sweep for bugs and clear the place, but it would have to wait until Fern Laguire was out of town and we were out of monsters.

We started the search near Sisiutl’s lair—the alley being so overlooked we figured to get in and out without being observed. The snow and ice that had accumulated in the sun-deprived alley was still drifted in the shadows, in spite of the temperature’s rise toward forty. It certainly wasn’t that warm in the tunnel.

Quinton had to help me down, but once I was at the bottom of the stairs, I let the normal slip away and looked for any hot shape of magic that might be the monster’s leash. I saw nothing that seemed right. I also didn’t see Sisiutl.

“C’mon, Lass, where did you drop it?” I asked.

“Not here!” he shrieked in my head, bashing himself around my head in panic.

“The bricks! Get out, get out, get out, get out!”

“If you’re lying I’ll feed you to it.”

“No! No, no!” He was shaking so hard I shook, too, and his dismay drove me back out into the cold gloom of the alley.

Quinton lowered the grate behind me, raising querying eyebrows.

I shook my head, wobbling a little and catching myself on the nearest icy wall.

“He says the bricks.”

“Which part? Occidental’s three blocks long there and it’s two blocks wide—that’s six blocks, and most of it’s exposed at this time of day. And you’re barely staying on your feet.”

I ignored the last and tried to rouse Lass to answer, but he kept his mouth shut for once in a smug silence. I damned his contrary paranoia in harsh whispers and got nothing from him but snorts and giggles. He was enjoying making me scrounge for it—petty revenge for my threats, I assumed; for holding him to earth and the obligation he’d incurred. Fine. I could out-stubborn a junkies ghost any day—I hoped.

I walked out of the alley and around to Pioneer Squares chilly wooden benches in front of the Underground Tour and the neighboring bars. We were passed by a flock of tour guests following Rick, the guide, out to the totem pole. Zip was chatting and smoking with Blue Jay and they waved to us, listing from a few early beers.

I sat on a bench and tried to think. It was easier with Lass being stubbornly silent, but the stinging pressure of his presence made my thoughts shatter and fall away. I tried thinking aloud.

“The bricks. It wouldn’t be the First Avenue side—that lets out the whole three blocks there. There’s no access to the underground at the park end except through the arcade, and that’s public and well-locked at night. Not Oxy Park, then.”