“They’ll be here by tomorrow afternoon.”
Orfeo clears his throat. “Incredible.”
“We’re going to need them because tomorrow night—we strike.”
“Already?” I reach for my glass of wine.
“The former owners of Hades House are holding a masked ball at Paquet Manor. Everyone’s going to be there—it’s perfect.”
“What?How is that legal?”
“Well, Zane Tamblin—CEO of MedTek Enterprise and former owner of Hades House—is married to Maeve Joy Paquet, third heir to the Paquet fortune and current board executive of the museum trust.”
“Damn,” I say. “Fucking rich people.”
“I won’t be able to leave town, which is probably for the best. I think we’ll need as many bodies as possible on our side.” Leo drags a hand over his eyes, his jaw ticking. “And as you can imagine, if Zane was willing to sell off Hades House to Alfo, of all creatures, it’s because he’s not much better himself. Birds of a feather and all that shit. Oh, and rumor is that he and Maeve love to invite a vampire into the mix.”
“So, what, this party is just going to be like an enormous cocaine-fueled masked orgy?”
Leo lets out a dry laugh. “Yeah. Essentially.”
“How many people are going to be there?” Misha asks.
“Fifty humans at least. And maybe an equal number of vamps, demons, and miscellaneous supers.”
Misha drops her chin to her chest and levels Leo with a scathing look. “No fucking shifters, I hope?”
“No, princess,” he snarks. “None that I’m aware of.”
“At least they’re keeping things classy.”
“Do we not like shifters?” I ask.
“Idon’t like shifters,” Misha says. She pulls what looks like an electric cigarette from the front breast pocket of her jean jacket. “They’re pigs.”
“Anyway.” Leo rolls his eyes. “I thought you were going to quit vaping?”
Misha gives it a hearty suck, rolling her eyes back in her head. She lets out a deep moan as she blows a cloud of smoke at him. “Nope.”
“Let’s focus,” Orfeo says, rapping his knuckles against the countertop. “Daje, ragà.We have to head to town in three hours.”
“Right.” Leo extracts an envelope from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. It’s a manila envelope that looks like it’s from a different century. He unwinds the string closure and slides out a very fragile-looking piece of folded paper.
“This is a map of the entire Echidna campus, plus downtown. It’s the only existing copy outside of whatever’s stored in City Hall, and I had to pinch it from Alfo’s disgusting desk while he was fucking a new waitress, so everyone—please, be very careful.” He begins to gingerly peel the layers apart and soon the onion-skin-thin paper covers the entire depth of the island andnearly half of its length. Misha and I get to our feet and take up residence at a respectful distance.
I recognize campus right away—oversized gothic buildings form a crucifix, with paths connecting them. I spot the iron gates that separate the Art History building from the end of Main Street, and on the far side of the map is St. Haeverth’s, the rectory, and the rose gardens between them. What doesn’t make any sense to me is the snaking, tangled set of lines that are overlaid. At one point, all of the wild, waving lines seem to tangle together, a few inches north of the cathedral.
Leo pulls a number two pencil out of his pocket—which almost makes me laugh out loud—and uses the eraser to direct our attention through the chaos.
“These lines”—he drags the eraser tip over the tangled web—“are the catacombs and the tunnel system that connects them to buildings outside the university. They’re purposefully designed to trap and ensnare lesser beings. These catacombs were built by the archdiocese after the crypt was moved underneath St. Haeverth’s. You can imagine why.” Leo flutters his eyelashes in exhaustion. “There are more dead ends than could ever be tracked and it wouldnotsurprise me if there were creatures still surviving down there.”
Goose bumps rise across my arms. How many nocturnal beings have gotten lost in these unholy crevices and survived on weaker beings, also trapped and lost? Suddenly, my skin feels tight and itchy. “Jeez Louise. Makes sense why the portal is so active then.”
“Good point,” Leo says, and he almost sounds scared too. “If you follow the main artery, this double-lined path here, you’ll notice it connects all the way back…” He traces the path starting from the cathedral, working sideways through the rectory, all the way east until it cuts through the Paquet mansion and grounds. Then his pencil swerves left and cuts south through a thicket oftrees, down through the library, and finally all the way past the iron gates, until he finally lands on Hades House. “Here.”
“So, Hades House is the beginning of the tunnels that connect to the catacombs?”
“As far as we know, yes. Before Alfo bought the place, Hades House was a club for a secret fraternity of Echidna elites. Apparently, it was started by a coalition of families that all had one thing in common.”
