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“Hel no, not just yet. Look at this—it’s like some city beneath the city. Who knows what’s waiting down there in the labyrinth? But our serial kil er—if he’s down there, we have no chance of finding him.” I shook my head. “We’l have to hope he hasn’t discovered this place. But what the hel . . .
who could have made this?”
Vanzir let out a long sigh. He turned me toward him, as we overlooked the spiraling abyss.
“Actual y, I know who made it. I suppose I’d better tel you what you’ve stumbled onto before you start hunting around down here.”
“You know? Have you been here before?” I tilted my head, wondering how the hel this could have remained secret for so many years.
“Yeah, but not through this entrance.” He shrugged. “Most of the entrances are guarded by magic. I guess they thought the spirits and shadow men would be a strong enough deterrent.”
“Who thought? What is this place?”
Vanzir let out a low chuckle. “Welcome to the Demon Underground. That’s right—we’re not just a group, we’re an entire suburb below the city.”
“You knew this was down here.” I gazed at him for a moment, openmouthed, then turned back to the staircases crisscrossing the pit. The Demon Underground. Shaking my head, I took one last glance over the edge and slumped on the steps.
“Okay, tel me everything. And don’t hold back.”
CHAPTER 17
Vanzir sat beside me. We were in no danger of blocking the way—there was nobody near us. A figure or two that I could see on the lower levels, but here: nada. I waited for him to speak.
“So . . . yeah, this is the Demon Underground.”
“I always thought you were referring to a group when you cal ed it that,” I said. “We al did.” The Demon Underground was a network of rogue demons hiding from Shadow Wing, over Earthside.
They had formed an al iance to fight against the demon lord, and Vanzir had often consulted them for us when we needed a heads-up on one Big Bad or another.
“It is. A group. But they have to live somewhere, and not al demons can pass for FBHs. I can, to a degree, though most people think I’m one of the Fae, but a good share of the demons look like .
. . wel . . . demons. Monsters, to the mortals.” He shrugged. “Where the hel did you think they were al living? In condos along the waterfront?”
“No, I guess not.” But now that he asked the question, it made sense. It had never occurred to me to ask where al the demons who’d fled the Subterranean Realms had ensconced themselves.
Carter, of course, lived in Seattle proper, but he had the ability to mask his appearance, probably because his father was one of the Greek Titans. He wasn’t ful demon.
I looked up at Vanzir. “I can’t believe none of us ever thought about this before. We can be shortsighted at times.”
“You can’t remember everything while trying to save the world.” At first I thought he was mocking me, but then he laughed and I realized he’d attempted a joke. He reached out and hesitantly patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t feel bad. We’ve done a good job of keeping this place under wraps. Karvanak didn’t even know. And he beat me senseless.”
“Now I see why you tried to veer me off from here. You wanted to keep it secret.” Part of me understood why—secret organizations need secret headquarters. Part of me wondered just how far we could trust him.
“Hel , eventual y you or your sisters would have come back. Better I’m with you to explain matters than you get yourselves in trouble. The demons here may hate Shadow Wing, but they don’t necessarily like humans or Fae. They protect the Underground with a passion. In fact, we’d better go before we’re caught. I need to warn them to set up a new guarding system now that the shadow men are gone.”
“You guys put those fuckers there?” I stood, suddenly understanding what he was saying. “They almost kil ed me. They almost kil ed Morio. What do you think Camil e’s going to do when she finds out you’re partial y responsible for her husband lying in the hospital? What do you think she’l do if he dies?”
“We didn’t put the ghosts there . . . just the shadow men, and they weren’t the ones that staked him.” He paled. “Menol y, please don’t let her think I was the one who did that. I didn’t assign them to guard the entrance. I don’t run the Underground, I’m just part of it.”
“No, but you didn’t warn us even though you knew they were there. You let us walk into a deadly situation without warning—”
“You were determined to head down the passage. You knew about the actual ghosts that are there. You knew the area is haunted. What more could you have known that would make it al come out al right? I couldn’t fight the shadow men, either. And you’l notice they were coming after me, too. It wasn’t my fault Morio got hurt, it was whatever that ghost-thing was that did it.” His eyes whirled with anger.
Even though he was right, I pressed my lips together, keeping my thoughts in check as rigidly as I could. It would be so easy to strike him down, but what he said was the truth. Final y, after a few minutes, I managed to regain my equilibrium and nodded abruptly toward the stairs.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
We silently returned to the tunnels, and I flipped open my cel phone. No bars, but it was time to cal Iris. And only ninety minutes before dawn.
