Billy said, “Hold up,” all of a sudden, and I stopped dead, clicking my flashlight off, as if its light made us vulnerable. He flashed his own at me, somehow indicating irritation with the motion, but said nothing, and after a couple seconds I heard what had stopped him: water dripping.
More to the point, water echoing, like it had lots of room around it when it plopped to the ground. Below that, there was a dull rumble that reminded me of heavy machinery working in the distance. Frankly, if somebody had heavy machinery down here, I was going to be really irritated, because it meant there was a much more accessible way into the warm earth-scented burrows we’d made our way through. Then again, the temperature hadn’t changed at all, so probably nobody up ahead of us had a Caterpillar making a nice smooth grade to the surface.
Billy tapped my shoulder. I turned and he put his finger over his lips, then gestured me forward before turning his own flashlight off. I put my hand on his chest, holding him in place until my eyes gradually picked up hints of light from well in front of us. I crept forward, hearing Billy’s occasional breath that let me know he was still with me, and after a long few minutes in the dark, we edged our way into the mouth of an underground cavern.
About a million things were wrong with it. First, it existed at all. I didn’t think that was good. It was of respectable size—I probably couldn’t throw a baseball well enough to hit the far wall—and it seemed to me like somebody should have noticed a hole this big beneath Seattle. I was sure people came out with ultrasound machines to look for stuff just like this, but nobody’d ever mentioned it, not even after the earthquake. I tried, briefly, to remember the guy’s name who’d found me in the earthquake’s aftermath. He’d been a geologist. I bet he’d be plenty interested in an enormous, roughly circular pit somewhere under the city.
The second and larger thing wrong was that even with the knotted-down Sight I was using, the whole place was sheeted with magic. It imbued the walls and flowed out of them, drizzling to the floor and wafting like fog across the damp stone. Even the water condensed and dripping from the ceiling was filled with power. Droplets and tiny streams glowed in a not-even-slightly natural way, even given that water, the stuff of life, tended to be rather radiant in the Sight.
This was supercharged, radioactive-bright water, except without the hideous dangerous auras I’d imagine actual radioactivity gave off. The point was, water, stone, the world in general, wasn’t normally so magic-laden that it looked like a touch would explode it.
Which probably explained why my geologist pal hadn’t found the place. It seemed very possible the whole extensive underground network was sufficiently power-ridden that it actually didn’t exist within the mundane world. It was like somebody had opened pockets of another plane into the Middle World.
That somebody, of course, was me. Unfortunately, that was pretty much exactly what I’d done with the coven: ripped a hole between my world and the Lower World, letting demons flood through and wreak a bit of havoc. I knew it’d left scars—and a waterfall—on Seattle’s surface, and all of a sudden I was quite sure of just how far we’d traveled. I sank back half a foot and breathed, “I think we’re under Thunderbird Falls,” to Billy.
I was getting really good at reading people’s unspoken commentary. The look Billy gave me very clearly said does that really fucking matter right now? I shrugged and went back to studying the Things That Were Wrong, going so far as to shut the Sight down briefly so I saw only the normal world.
There were flickering torches set high in the stone. Their smoke wafted up, trapped by water-dripping limestone, and never managed to make an escape: even knowing they were there, I could barely catch the scent of flame and smoke. Their light reflected off damp walls and a low shallow pool at the cavern’s far side, giving the whole place an otherworldly glimmer even without the Sight.
It was, however, just slightly possible that the otherworldly aura was dramatically enhanced by a thirty-foot-tall wicker man in the cave’s center.
He—and it was alarmingly clear it was a he—was raw and fresh-looking, as though the trees used to weave him had only recently been stripped and woven together. He was strong, though: his architect had done a good job supporting his thick, stubby arms. I could tell because cages dangled from the ends of each, like thief cages of old hung at crossroads to warn travelers that the locals meant business when it came to crime.
Except they weren’t peopled with thieves. Both of them had a single person in them, wearing the sort of eclectic, cobbled-together outfits Rita wore. Her missing compatriots, squished into short uncomfortable wicker coops. Nor were they the only two: the wicker man’s sturdy legs each contained another person, as did his torso. His head looked large enough to hold a sixth person, but it was empty, and I wondered if Lynn Schumacher had been intended for that spot.
Worse, I wondered if Morrison would take his place.
There was no immediate sign of my wayward boss, but we were too low to see beyond piles of shredded wood that lay around the wicker man’s feet. I didn’t like that pile. It suggested bonfires, and I had the vague, uncomfortable idea that wicker men often came to fiery endings. I was not about to watch one wicker man and five real men burn to death, regardless of what else happened. My overenthusiastic magic would have to come to heel, or I would—
Distressingly, the only way I could think to finish that idea was or I would risk knocking a hole through to the world above, which would have been just fine if I wasn’t really quite sure we were beneath Lake Washington. I mean, yes, that would be better than exploding a hole in downtown Seattle, but in terms of a dramatic rescue it would be an utter failure. I didn’t want to save these guys from burning to death only to drown them.
Images of shielding them all in bubbles and letting them bob to the surface came to mind, complete with pop-pop-popping sound effects. Great. I had a backup plan, in case everything went stupidly, spectacularly wrong. Too bad I didn’t have a decent primary plan.
Billy elbowed me and nodded toward the firewood ring just as movement caught my eye, too. Tia paced out of the ring like Lady Godiva sans the horse. A moment later Morrison, still very much a wolf, trotted after her, his head nearly level with her ribs. There were worse places for it to be level with, all things considered. Billy widened his eyes at me and I shrugged, as wide-eyed as he was. I didn’t know what had been going on behind the wooden ring. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know. I had a horrible feeling that at some point, I’d find out.
The idea made me exhale just a little too loudly. Morrison’s ears cocked and he looked my way, but Tia didn’t. Apparently werewolves didn’t retain canine senses in human form. I filed that away under “Thank God for small favors” and stayed where I was, stomach clenched as Morrison gave me a long, steady look to make it clear he knew I was there. A flicker of hope danced through me. Maybe he had chased Tia in order to keep an eye on her. Maybe it hadn’t just been wolfy instinct out to get him—and eventually me—into trouble.
Nah. Nothing was ever that easy. I almost smiled, and Morrison caught up to Tia with a couple of loping steps, evidently uninterested in Billy and me. Billy performed a soundless collapse of relief which would have done Charlie Chaplin proud. I wanted to follow suit, but I remained as I was, tense and wide-eyed, for just a few seconds longer while I tried like hell to make out what was supposed to happen in this underground cavern.
A sacrifice, obviously: people didn’t go around randomly constructing wicker men in magic-born, power-filled chambers and then stuffing the wicker men full of expendables just for the fun of it. But if there were werewolf gods, I knew nothing about them, including why they might want sacrifices, or whether this might be an annual thing or just a special occasion.