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“Crap. Iron. I can’t touch it. Camille can’t, either. Morio, what about you?” I paused on the step, not wanting to go any farther until we’d decided what we were going to do about it.
Morio stared at it. “I shouldn’t have any problem with iron. Smoky?”
“I’d like to see the piece of iron that could stop me,” said Smoky, his voice low.
I stared at him for a moment. “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
He sent a frozen glance my way. “Are you questioning me?”
Backpedal time. “Nope, nope . . . not in the least.” Camille’s husband or not, he was still quite capable of smashing little—or big—kitty cats, and I had no desire to put his patience to the test. Unnerved by the entire afternoon, I turned to Roz. “And you?”
“Well, I bloody well don’t like iron, but I’m not going to fry from it. At least not now,” Roz said. He edged his way past me and bent to study the lock.
I turned to Vanzir, and he shook his head. “Demons like iron. We use it a lot, actually, down in the Subterranean Realms. Iron, lead, uranium . . .”
“What?” Smoky sputtered. “You have uranium down there?”
Vanzir shrugged. “It’s like a drug for some demons. We resonate with the energy, though I don’t miss it all that much. Most of us are immune to its dangers. Some demons are hooked on it, and there are even uranium Elementals that wizards have managed to conjure out from the metal.”
I blinked twice. Uranium Elementals? Great, that’s all we needed over Earthside: a bunch of crazed uranium Elementals running around poisoning people. “Lovely . . . just lovely.”
Roz suddenly stood up. “I can blow this lock.”
“Won’t that bring the house down on us?” This day was just getting better and better.
“Not if I use just the right amount of explosives. I suggest that you turn away, though. There’s bound to be smoke and a little shrapnel. In fact, maybe you’d better retreat up the stairs a little ways.” He opened his duster and pulled out two smalls vials, one filled with black powder, another with red. “Myocian powder and alostar compound,” he said, noticing my gaze.
I immediately motioned everybody up the stairs. “Go halfway up,” I said, pushing against Morio’s back. Myocian powder and its companion, alostar compound, were made by the dwarves in the Nebelvuori Mountains back in Otherworld and had all the perks of gunpowder. When mixed in just the right proportion, it was extremely volatile. A single tap from a pen-sized mallet could set it off.
When I was a little girl, I’d seen a dwarf who lost his leg to a myocian land mine. The goblins had been using them in a crusade against the dwarves. The dwarves had opened up bounty season on goblin skulls, and shortly thereafter, the goblins had withdrawn their efforts to infringe on dwarven lands. The land mines ended up as a tool for mining operations.
“Where in the world did you get that crap?” Camille said, wincing as she leaned against Smoky’s shoulder. It was obvious she was in pain, but I knew she’d refuse to leave until we were finished.
“I picked them up in a little mining shop in Terial. They have everything you could hope to purchase to make your spelunking adventures complete.” He laughed, shooting a smoldering glance her way. “I like spelunking, if you know what I mean—” Smoky glowered, and Roz lowered his eyes. “Uh . . . never mind.”
“That’s better,” Smoky said, relaxing a little as he sat down on the step behind him and pulled Camille onto his lap. She winced, then rested her head on his shoulder.
Roz finished shaking a few of the grains of the black powder into the lock, then cautiously added a pinch of the red. He took out a thin, pencil-length rod, and with a shake of the hand, it expanded to four feet long. It was narrow but solid, and as he backed away to the bottom of the stairs, he reached out and delicately aimed toward the keyhole.
“I get it,” I said. “I see what you’re doing.”
“Yes, well, I strongly advise everybody to turn around. You don’t want to be facing this direction when it blows.” He twisted at the waist, turning his face toward the stairs, and we heard the scrape of metal on metal. There was a sudden hush, then a loud explosion, and the stairwell filled with dark, greasy smoke.
Coughing, I turned around. “Eww . . . that’s nasty.” The residue from the smoke began to settle on our clothes, leaving an oily silt behind. But the door was unlocked and standing ajar. I glanced back at Smoky. Spotless. As usual. “How the hell do you do it?” I asked.
He gave me a puzzled look. “Do what?”
“The coat, the jeans, the shirt . . . you’re never dirty. You never get muddy, dusty, filthy, or, apparently, oily. What the hell kind of laundry detergent do you use?” I stared down at my own jeans, which now sported several lovely looking grease spots. “I want some of it.”
He just grinned, saying nothing as he helped Camille to her feet, and they started down the stairs. “Why do you suppose nobody’s come after us?” he asked, his smile fading. “We’ve made more noise than a band of drunken Vikings on a rape-and-pillage mission.”
“And just what was the hellhound doing?” I started to ask, but Vanzir shook his head and held up his hand.
“He’s right. And my only answer is that I don’t think there is anybody here to stop us. I think there’s some sort of revenant or specter protecting the venidemons, watching over them as they hatch. I’m figuring we’re heading into a nursery. Want to make a bet they were counting on the hellhound to stop anybody trying to get through?” Vanzir studied the hallway. “There’s demonic energy coursing down the hall like a river gone wild.”
Camille closed her eyes, then shuddered. “Vanzir’s right. It’s undulating like a wave. There’s demonic energy everywhere down here.”
“Then we’d better get a move on. If you’re right,” I said, looking at the dream chaser, “then the protector of those venidemons is waiting for us at the end of the road. Along with the venidemons themselves.”
