My heart slowed further, the shadows around me deepened, and I sunk in more, pulling the shadows around me like a thick blanket. The vent covering my scent.
If there was ever a moment where I’d doubted I was a Shade, it was wiped out as the shadows closed around me, keeping me safe.
The footsteps moved on, down the tunnel. I waited for a solid two minutes before I couldn’t stand it any longer. I took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows. Moving quickly, I headed back the way we’d come, on the other side of the tunnel. I ran lightly on my toes, keeping my steps even and smooth, and still with a hand on the wall. There was no way that there wasn’t a single ladder in here.
Sweat slid down my spine more from the effort of keeping all the mental stuff in check than the physical exertion of running. I needed an image, something that would mentally put all the bonds that were tied to me in a quiet space, apparently something better than a gunnysack.
The old metal grain silo back on the farm was impossible to get out of if you fell in. Jogging along, I put the gunnysack with the bonds to Ash, my uncle, and my friends, into that grain bin and threw the lid shut, locking it.
I blinked, and the sensation of being chased eased off. Of course, I couldn’t pinpoint Ash now either, but it was the best I could do, all and all, considering.
I picked up speed, the light ahead of me shifting and flickering. A single beam from above as a flashlight flicked around the floor of the tunnel. Someone had to have reported the sinkhole.
“Hey, anyone down there? NYPD, anyone hurt? Hello?”
I had to take this chance. My gut said that if I called out, Ash would hear me, but this was my best shot to get out and I had to take it. No matter my skills, jumping straight up twenty feet wasn’t one of them.
Steeling myself, I whisper-yelled. “I fell!” I called up, “You got a rope?”
A tingle of warning coursed down my spine, and I twisted around to look into the darkness. Ash was coming. I didn’t have to see or hear him to know.
“Hurry!” I yelled up. “There’s . . . a fire down here.” God, I sounded like an idiot. “It’s smoky!” I fake coughed.
“Hold tight, I got one in my trunk!” the cop yelled back.
That tingle intensified. There was no way I would make it out in time.
I turned to face the oncoming gargoyle. I had only one weapon on me—the spinning knife my uncle had made—and I didn’t think it would be enough to slow the House of Unmentionables alumni.
Or would it?
I pulled the circular weapon out of my pocket and hit the ruby in the center. The four curved blades popped out, catching the bit of light from the surface above me. Turning, I faced the southern edge of the tunnel but spoke to the cop. “Please hurry.”
That warning up my spine? Yup, it redoubled, making me want to dance on the spot. The adrenaline spiked inside of me, dulling every ache and pain from the day, stealing some of the exhaustion that would slow me down.
“Young Shade,” Ash’s voice curled out of the darkness, “you cannot run from him forever. Eventually, you will be broken by this path you are on if you do not come with me now.”
“But I sure as shit on my muck boots am going to try.” My eyes searched the shadows in the tunnel looking for that one glimmer of movement that would give him away. But that skin of his, pebbled and gray, was helping him hide as surely as if he were a Shade himself.
The sound of a rope slithering through the air behind me. “Can you grab it? I’ll pull you up!” the cop yelled.
I reached behind me with my free hand, not looking away from the tunnel. Wrapping the rope around my wrist, I grabbed hold of it. “Pull me up!”
The rope tightened, and I was pulled a foot off the ground as Ash leaped from the shadows, clawed hands outstretched.
I kicked up and out, catching him in the jaw and spinning him away, but his wing smacked me, twisting me in the air, too. The spinning knife wasn’t going to do me any good. I was better off with both hands on the rope.
I knocked the blades back and stuffed it into my pocket and grabbed the rope with both hands, climbing for all I was worth as the cop pulled me upward.
A clawed hand wrapped around my ankle. Above me, the cop grunted. “What the hell?”
“Something grabbed hold of me! I’m stuck!” I yelled up at him as I kicked at Ash. “Don’t let go!”
The gargoyle didn’t snarl, didn’t slash at me with his claws. I wondered why, a split second before the ground began to shake again. A whisper of his blue misty magic curled up to soften the ground.
He didn’t need to hurt me to make me fall from the rope.
His magic burst around us, eating away at the edges of the large hole above us. The cop yelled, and the rope swung to the side as he let it slide, lowering me. My foot touched the ground, and I spun off it, slamming a roundhouse into Ash’s chest, sending him flying backward again.
I pulled the spinning disc weapon out of my pocket once more and threw it into the darkness, flinging it for all I was worth. There was a snarl of pain and then the blade was flashing in the light as it soared back to me. My hand shot out, almost on its own, and I caught the spinning weapon. I shoved the curved edges back down, stuffed it back in my pocket, and leaped for the rope once more.
Hand over hand, I went straight up, every second thinking that I’d be grabbed from below, that I’d be tackled to the ground once more.
As I reached the top, hands helped me up the last bit and over the lip.
“Kid, you okay?” The cop crouched beside me, his eyes wide. He’d called me kid, but he wasn’t much older, maybe a year or two with those baby fat cheeks of his.
I nodded and swallowed hard. “Yeah, I’m okay, a bit bruised but nothing bad.” I pushed to my feet, knowing that my time was limited. I had to keep moving. I had to keep going.
But where?
“You should wait for the ambulance,” the young cop said, “to check you over, make sure you didn’t hit your head or anything from the fall.”
I waved him off. “Thanks for your help, but I’m good. A tumble won’t hurt a farm girl like me.”
There was a small crowd and I pushed through it, blending with the other people while the young cop called after me. No, that wasn’t true. I was covered in dirt and blood, my clothes were ragged, and a quick glimpse in a shop window revealed I was in even worse shape than I’d thought. This would not help me blend in, even in a city like the Big Apple.
If being pulled through a knothole backward in the middle of a barn fire was a real thing, I was looking at it.
I needed clean clothes, a disguise if I could find one, and another weapon, and I needed all of that fast. At least it was night, and the semi-darkness of the street helped cover some of the grunge.
But that wouldn’t last, and I had no money to help me get out of here. I didn’t have anything. Even my wand had been lost in the fight with my uncle. I groaned quietly as I hurried through the crowd that had gathered to see the giant hole in the ground. Down to the far end of the alley I went, then hopped a fence and found myself on a wide-open street, traffic backed up as far as the eye could see.
The crush of people might help me in the money department. Ahead of me was a group of women all dressed to the nines right down to their red heeled shoes and glittering handbags. Each one of them dripped with a few pounds of sparkling jewels and gold. Maybe they were going to a Broadway show. Maybe they were coming home from a girls’ night out. Not that it mattered.