The scent that was coming under the door was a peculiar one that I’d smelled before. I wasn’t raised on a farm, but I’ve stood in a field of cantaloupes, right at the point when the whole lot was about to turn and go moldy inside. The smell is nearly overpowering — musty, sweet and slightly rotten. I carefully drew my Taurus back-up revolver from my ankle holster and wasn’t at all surprised that Carmine and Lucas produced guns as well. I smeared the polish on the clean, shining mahogany table by using my finger to write: snakes.
There was a polite knock on the door, followed by a woman’s voice. “Room service.”
I raised my brows at Carmine and he shook his head firmly. He didn’t order, and we didn’t order, so it was a trap. He got the hint of me rolling my finger at him and called out “Just a second,” as if he was in the bathroom.
Snakes don’t have the best hearing, so they probably wouldn’t hear if we kept our voices to the barest whisper. “Is there a back way out of here,” I said, “or do we take them on? I’m pretty sure there’s more than one out there.”
Carmine paused longer than I liked, and I leaned so close to his face that he could probably smell cinnamon toothpaste. “Unless you want your kid to grow up without a dad, you’d better start spilling. I can take one of them, maybe two, barehanded, but understand that even one shot will bring the cops.”
A second knock turned his head toward the door and to the shadows that moved across the sunlit carpeting, showing there were at least four feet on the other side. With a tiny, disgusted noise from the back of his throat, he turned and hurried into the separate bedroom. It was a gorgeous room, befitting a hotel of the Fairmont Palliser’s reputation. But I was pretty sure that most rooms didn’t have a bookcase that swung out from the wall when a portion of the baseboard was pressed.
He waved us through just as I heard a cardkey being inserted into the door in the outer room and the tiny high pitched whine as the lock released. He got the wall closed just in time and the thick, flat steel bar that slid into the oak header would make sure that nobody followed us — at least not quickly.
We had to squeeze against the wall to let him pass, then followed him down an old iron staircase that seemed like it might have been attached to the outside of the building once upon a time. I knew Lucas was burning up with curiosity, just like I was. But now wasn’t the time to ask. Not until we were in a more defensible position.
The staircase descended several floors and when the temperature of the walls changed, I was pretty sure we were at the basement level, or below. In a moment, I was proved right. The sounds of metallic thumping and hissing came from behind the wall at the end of the staircase and Carmine put his eye up to what appeared to be a peep hole into the outer area. After a long moment, as I listened to the snakes tearing things apart in the upper room, he slid back a steel bar that was a twin of the one above. The door pushed outward smoothly and we stepped out, into a back corner of the boiler room.
There was something about the boiler room of the Palliser Hotel that set off alarm bells in my mind, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. So, rather than do something as potentially fatal as asking one of the people in the room with me, I went to the ‘intercom’ in my head.
While it’s taken some getting used to, one unique thing about werewolf mates is that they’re telepathically tied to each other. In sticky situations like this, being in instant contact with my wife was often more useful than an extra clip of ammo.
Sue?
Hey, lover. What’s up? Her voice was warm and slightly sleepy. She’s been working a lot of late nights, also for Wolven, and supposedly had the day off. So I’ve been trying to stay out of her head. We’re getting better at shutting out the other person from our day to day thoughts. It had been making both of us a little squirrely.
Palliser Hotel, in Calgary. See if you can find anything online about the basement. I’m remembering something in the back of my head, but since we’re being chased by snakes right now, I don’t want to spend the brainpower to figure it out.
Snakes? Uh-oh. Not good. The word made her nervous enough that the walls were breaking down in our heads. I was starting to see our bedroom overlaid on the machinery. The furnace grate was wearing a burgundy coverlet and the brick walls had drapes.
Whoa, we’re fine. Okay? I’m here with Lucas and Carmine and we’re all armed. I don’t think they even know where we are. We booked it out of the room as soon as I smelled them. But Carmine’s hiding something and I need to know what. I’m going to shut the vault door now, so knock before you come back in.
She took a deep mental breath and calmed. Okay, sorry. I’m just still having nightmares about snakes from the attack last fall. It’ll pass. I’ll find what I can and get back to you.
I felt a bump against my shoulder and turned my head before I turned my gun. Sure, it was only Lucas, but still — Getting sloppy, Giodone.
He must have noticed that I was having trouble focusing, because he stopped and waited for a moment. “You back with us? Getting a vision?”
One of the nice things about Lucas is he’s been around seers his whole life, and he was mated up until he turned back human. “Having Sue do some research on her end while we’re getting out of here.”
He looked at me for a long moment, likely wondering just what I was having her research, but he didn’t say anything in front of Carmine. Instead, he motioned around the room with his Ruger. “Getting anything?”
I had done a quick scan when we stepped through the hidden door, but did another just to be safe. “All clear … although there have been snakes down here pretty recently. No more than a week.”
Carmine frowned, as well he should. The guys who beat the crap out of him were snake shifters. He was damned lucky he wasn’t turning on the moon like me. He’d originally attributed the attack to a South American mafia trying to get back an ancient artifact one of his people stole. Now, it looked like it might be something entirely different. “I just got here a week ago. Think it’s coincidence?”
Lucas and I turned at once and both stared at him. I mean … duh. “You tell me,” I said.
He didn’t respond, but just stared at me, which was weird. Here he’s worried about snakes, who have been in the room recently, and he’s only got my word the room is clear, but he’s not looking around the room, checking out every shadow. That’s very unlike him. He’s even more paranoid than me.
Tony? I’ve got your answer.
Not the warning I asked for, but there isn’t anything critical going on anyway. What’cha got?
There’s a secret tunnel in the boiler room of the Palliser.
Ah! That’s where I remember it. It was in one of those ‘Secrets of’ series of books — strange things about major cities. Okay. Just came down the tunnel. Staircase to the fourth floor, right?
There was a pause. Um … no. That’s not mentioned. This one is an old laundry tunnel that goes under the railroad tracks and veers east for a few blocks. Seems that years ago, the hotel cleaned all the linens a couple blocks away. It’s sealed off in the boiler room, but the tunnel’s still there.
Little pieces were starting to fall together in my head, but it would require a little private detecting later, when nobody was around.