Bummer trotted over to Charlie and took the beef jerky from him, then turned to face down the squirrel people as he chewed. The squirrel people made clicking noises and brandished their weapons. “Not one of us. Not one of us,” chanted Bob.
“Stop that,” Charlie said. “You can’t get a mob chant going, Bob, you’re the only one with a voice box.”
“Oh yeah.” Bob let his chanting trail off. “Well, he’s not one of us,” he added in his defense.
“He is now,” Charlie said. To Bummer he said, “Can you lead us to the Underworld?”
Bummer looked up at Charlie as if he knew exactly what was being asked of him, but if he was going to find the strength to carry on, he was going to need the other half of that beef jerky. Charlie gave it to him and Bummer immediately jumped up to a higher, four-foot pipe, stopped, barked, then took off down the pipe.
“Follow him,” Charlie said.
After an hour following Bummer through the sewers, the pipes gave way to tunnels that got bigger as they moved along. Soon they were moving in caves, with high ceilings and stalactites in the ceiling that glowed in various colors, illuminating their way with a dull, shadowy light. Charlie had read enough about the geology of the area to know that these caves were not natural to the city. He guessed that they were somewhere under the financial district, which was mostly built on Gold Rush landfill, so there would be nothing as old-looking or as solid as these caves.
Bummer kept on, leading them down one fork or another without the slightest hesitation, until suddenly the cave opened up into a massive grotto. The chamber was so large that it simply swallowed up Charlie’s flashlight and headlamp beams, but the ceiling, which was several hundred feet high, was lined with the luminous stalactites that reflected red, green, and purple in a mirror-smooth black lake. In the middle of the lake, probably two hundred yards away, stood a great black sailing ship—tall-masted like a Spanish galleon—red, pulsating light coming from the cabin windows in the rear, a single lantern lighting the deck. Charlie had heard that whole ships had been buried in the debris during the Gold Rush, but they wouldn’t have been left preserved like this. Things had changed, these caves were all the result of the Underworld rising—and he realized that this was just a hint of what was going to happen to the City if the Underworlders took over.
Bummer barked and the sharp report echoed around the grotto, sending a cloud of bats into the air.
Charlie saw movement on the deck of the ship, the blue-black outline of a woman, and he knew that Bummer had led them to the right place. Charlie handed his flashlight to Bob and set his sword-cane on the cave floor. He drew the Desert Eagle from the shoulder holster, checked that there was a round in the chamber, cocked the hammer, then reset the safety and reholstered the pistol.
“We’re going to need a boat,” Charlie said to Bob. “See if you guys can find something we can make a raft from.” The bobcat guy started down the shore with Charlie’s flashlight, scanning the rocks for useful flotsam. Bummer growled, tossed his head like he had ear mites or perhaps to indicate that he thought Charlie was insane, and ran out into the lake. Fifty yards away he was still only in water up to his shoulder.
Charlie looked at the black ship and realized that it was sitting way, way too high out of the water—that, in fact, it was sitting with its hull on the bottom in only about six inches of water.
“Uh, Bob,” Charlie said. “Forget the boat. We’re walking. Everyone quiet.” He unsheathed his sword and sloshed onward. As they approached the ship they could make out details in its construction. The railings were fashioned from leg bones lashed together, the mooring cleats were human pelvises. The lantern on the deck was, in fact, a human skull. Charlie wasn’t exactly sure how his powers as Luminatus were going to manifest themselves, but as they reached the hull of the ship he found himself very much wishing it would happen soon, and that levitation would be one of the powers.
“We’re fucked,” said Bob, looking up at the black hull curving above them.
“We’re not fucked,” Charlie said. “We just need someone to climb up there and throw us a rope.”
There was some milling around amid the squirrel people, then a lone figure stepped out of the little crowd—this one appeared to be a nineteenth-century French dandy with the head of a monitor lizard. His outfit—the ruffles and the coat—actually reminded Charlie of pictures that Lily had shown him of Charles Baudelaire.
“You can do it?” Charlie asked the lizard guy.
He held out his hands and lifted one foot out of the water. Squirrel paws. Charlie lifted the lizard guy as high as he could up to the hull, and the little creature caught ahold in the black wood, then scurried up the side of the ship and over the gunwale.
Minutes passed, and Charlie found himself listening hard for some hint as to what was going on above. When the thick rope splashed down next to him, he leapt two feet in the air and barely contained blasting out a full-blown man-scream.
“Nice,” said Bob.
“You first, then,” Charlie said, testing the rope to see if it would hold his weight. He waited until the bobcat guy was about three feet over his head before he tucked the sword-cane down inside the Lexan plate strapped over his back and started the climb himself. By the time he was three-quarters of the way up the rope, he felt as if his biceps were going to pop like water balloons and he entwined his motocross boot into the rope to rest. As if being granted a second wind by the gods, his biceps relaxed and when he resumed climbing he felt as if he might really be gaining his power as the Luminatus. When he reached the railing, he grabbed one of the bone mooring cleats and swung himself up until he sat straddling the rail.
He swung around and his headlamp caught the black shine in her eyes. She was holding the bobcat guy like an ear of corn, her claw driven through his skull, pinning his jaw shut. There was flesh and goo glowing dull red, running down her face and over her breasts as she tore another bite out of the Beefeater.
“Want some, lover?” she said. “Tastes like ham.”
At the breakfast bar in Charlie’s apartment, Lily said, “Shouldn’t we tell them?”
“They don’t all know about us. About this.” Minty held the date book. “Just Audrey.”
“Then shouldn’t we tell her?”
Minty looked at Audrey, who was sitting on the couch entwined in a sleepy pile with Charlie’s sister and one of the hellhounds, looking very content. “No, I don’t think that would serve any purpose right now.”
“He’s a good guy,” Lily said. She snatched a paper towel off the roll on the counter and dabbed her eyes before her mascara went raccoon on her again.
“I know,” Minty said. “He’s my friend.” As he said it, he felt a tug on his pant leg. He looked down to where Sophie was staring up at him.
“Hey, do you have a car?” she asked.
“Yes, I do, Sophie.”
“Can we go for a ride?”
Without any hesitation, Charlie whipped the sword-cane out of his back and snapped it down on the Morrigan’s wrist. She lost her grip on the bobcat guy, who bolted, screaming, across the deck and over the opposite railing. The Morrigan grabbed the sword-cane and tried to wrench it from Charlie’s grasp. He let her—pulled the sword free, then drove it into her solar plexus so hard that his fist connected with her ribs and the blade came out her back, sinking into the wooden hull of the lifeboat she was reclining against. For a split second his face was an inch from hers.
“Miss me?” she asked.
He rolled away just as she slashed at him. He got his forearm up just in time to deflect the blow away from his face, the thick Lexan plate on his forearm stopping the claws from taking off his hand. She lunged for him, but the sword kept her pinned to the boat. Charlie ran down the deck away from her as she screeched in anger.