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“I have no idea what the thing is,” Roz said as he jabbed at it again with the chopstick, piercing it this time. A burning sensation raced over my palm, and I jumped.
“Stop that! I think it’s dripping something on my skin!”
Smoky pushed his way in and leaned down, whispering a few low words I couldn’t catch. A thin white mist drifted out of his mouth to cover my hand. It reminded me of Iris’s snow and ice magic. As the mist hit my palm, the slime immediately began to pull itself together into a puddle, letting go of my fingers.
“What’s it doing?” I asked, both fascinated and repulsed.
“Trying to keep its core temperature high enough to prevent it from freezing,” Smoky said. He blew on it again, and the blob crystallized into a white pool of icy gelatin, then froze solid. The dragon gave it a tap, and it shattered. I tipped my hand, and it landed on the floor.
“Is it dead?” I asked, staring at the hundreds of slime shards.
“Probably not. Creatures like this can take a lot of temperature variation. It’s some form of ectoplasmic ooze.” He examined my hand. “No worse for the wear. Just don’t touch the walls if you can help it. There might be other, more aggressive forms of it around.”
More aggressive? Not a good thought.
“Where does it come from?” Camille asked.
Smoky glanced around the tunnel we were standing in. “When there are too many spirits from the Netherworld in a small area on the physical realm, the excess spirit energy builds up and takes on a life of its own, usually forming into ectoplasm. When the spirits are strong, it takes on a rudimentary consciousness and becomes a predator.”
“How dangerous is it?” I asked.
“That amount of slime could have digested one—maybe two layers of skin off your hand before becoming satiated. At that point, it would fall into a somnambulant state while it grew. If you left it on, it would start in again when it came out of its molt. If you were attacked by a larger amount, it could be a lot worse,” he said as he examined the ceiling with Roz’s flashlight. “Always check overhead. Ectoplasm can cling to ceilings and roofs.”
I squirmed, not quite liking the idea of having a carnivorous slime on me. “Just how many of them do you think there are in here?”
“Hard to tell how many pieces, but there’s only one of each variety in any given area saturated by spiritual energy. The slimes hive off into cluster cells—blobs, if you will—but retain a group consciousness,” Smoky said, as he turned toward the back of the group.
Before he once again took up guarding our tail, he added, “If you see one that’s indigo rather than green, stay away from it at all costs, or we might not be able to save you.”
“Of course: viro-mortis slimes! I know what he’s talking about now. My father taught me about them when I was young. And Smoky’s right,” Morio said. “The indigo variety is far more aggressive. They call their sister cells to join them when they find a victim, and the things are faster than you might believe. The indigo variety is unaffected by ice, but fire will char them. Which would mean burning the thing off, which would also burn you.”
“Once again, may I say ewww?” I shivered and furiously rubbed my hand on my jeans to make sure it was free of the freakish goo. I glanced back at Camille, frowning. She never got slapped with goo. Sure, she got smacked around by demons, fried by hellhound blood, and slashed by vampires, but she never had to deal with the slime monster. All at once, I envied her, even though I knew it was ridiculous. Of the three of us, I was always—and probably forever would be—the one who’d end up with mud on her face and kitty litter stuck to her butt.
We slipped farther along the tunnel, skirting fallen rocks and a few small sinkholes. The pits weren’t big enough to swallow us up, but they could give a nasty turn to the ankle. The faint drip, drip, drip of water sounded from somewhere in the distance. As we quietly crept along, my mind wandered to the miners who had worked here. They’d dreamed in gold and silver, or perhaps in brilliant Technicolor jewels. How many had truly ever struck it rich?
I was so wrapped up in thought that I didn’t notice when Roz motioned for us to stop, and so plowed right into Zach’s back, knocking him to his knees. Before I could react, he was up again, flashing me a bemused look as he shook his head when I mouthed, “Are you hurt?”
Roz was standing in an archway. The beams that shored up the opening looked old, weakened by water and time. I strained to listen to the timber and didn’t like what I heard: the sounds of age and insects, of wear and tear and splintering wood. Shit, we were in danger here. The sooner we finished and left, the better.
Roz listened carefully, turning his head first to the left, then to the right. His long, curling hair was caught back in a ponytail, and he was wearing his perpetual black Aussie hat with a feather in the band. He’d picked it up in some thrift store after watching Crocodile Dundee with Menolly and me on Late-Night Movie Madness, and even I had to admit, it looked good with the leather duster.
After a moment, he turned around. “I think this opening leads into a different dimension. Vanzir and Menolly turned left, that much I can tell. I smell water to the right. And there appears to be a path leading down into a deep chasm. This cave has just officially branched away from anything typical for the area. There shouldn’t be any mammoth caves around this area—not like this.”
“Should we just walk in? If that’s a portal, are we going to be able to get back once we cross the threshold?” I tried to remember everything I could about the portals. Some, like the ones the Fae had set up to guard against the demons, were very restrictive but fairly stable in actual use. Others, like the ones opening willy-nilly, were unbalanced and threatened to close at random.
Roz looked up at Smoky, who was regarding the opening with caution. “What do you think?” he asked softly. Right then, I knew he was worried.
Smoky’s gaze flickered to Camille, then to me. “Obviously Menolly and the demon thought it was safe. But then again, perhaps they didn’t notice the gateway until it was too late. This entire cavern is unstable. We might as well be carrying a bomb. One wrong move, and we could bring tons of rock down on our heads. Or worse.”
Camille sucked in a deep breath. “We have no choice. We have to find the spirit seal, and we don’t know where Menolly and Vanzir were headed. Why don’t we split up? Half stay here, half go through and see what happens.”
I let out a low sigh. “Yeah, I think so, too. You stay here, along with Smoky and Morio. I’ll take Roz and Zach, and we’ll step through. Once over the archway, we should be able to tell if we’re in trouble.”
For once, she didn’t argue with me, and I wondered if her hand was hurting more than she let on. Usually, Camille played the big-sister card. A lot. But she just looked a little relieved.
Smoky nodded. “Rozurial, if things go wrong, you know how to get Delilah and Zach out. Use it, if you have to.”
I caught my breath. “The Ionyc Sea?” I glanced at Roz.
