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Chapter 27
27
BITCH'S BREW
Lily had been looking all night for a way to approach Minty Fresh. She'd made eye contact with him a dozen times over the course of the evening, and smiled, but with the atmosphere of dread that fell over the room she was having trouble thinking of an opening line. Finally, when an Oprah movie of the week came on the television and everyone gathered around to watch the media diva beat Paul Winfield to death with a steam iron, Minty went to the breakfast bar and started flipping through his day planner, and Lily made her move.
"So, checking your appointments?" she said. "You must be feeling optimistic about how things will go. "
He shook his head. "Not really. "
Lily was smitten. He was beautiful and morose - like a great brown man-gift from the gods.
"How bad can it be?" Lily said, pulling the appointment book out of his hand and flipping through the pages. She stopped on today's date.
"Why is Asher's name in here?" she asked.
Minty hung his head. "He said you've known all about us for a while. "
"Yeah, but - " She looked at the name again and the realization of what she was seeing was like a punch in the chest. "This is that book? This is your date book for that?"
Minty nodded slowly, not looking at her.
"When did this name show up?" Lily asked.
"It wasn't there an hour ago. "
"Well, fucksocks," she said, sitting down on the bar stool next to the big man.
"Yeah," said Minty Fresh. He put his arm around her shoulders.
With Charlie pulling on the legs of the bobcat guy (who was doing some impressive screaming considering he had prototype vocal cords) and the squirrel people dog-piling onto the Boston terrier, they were eventually able to extricate their lieutenant from the jaws of the bug-eyed fury with only a few snags in his Beefeater's costume.
"Down, Bummer," Charlie said. "Just chill. " He didn't know if chill was an official dog command, but it should be.
Bummer snorted and backed away from the surrounding crowd of squirrel people.
"Not one of us," said the bobcat guy, pointing at Bummer. "Not one of us. "
"You shut up," Charlie said. He pulled a beef jerky from his pocket that he'd brought for emergency rations, tore off a hunk, and held it out to Bummer. "Come on, buddy. I told the Emperor I'd look out for you. "
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.
