White Witch, Black Curse

Hours. I'd be here for freaking hours if I had to give a statement. Beside and a little behind us, Edden played his light over the tunnel. "So this is how Remus and Mia did it," he said, gazing back at the vaulted ceilings, going shadowy behind us.

I hoped there'd be someone upstairs in a hospital coat. If I moaned enough, they'd cart me out of here and I could slip away, statement or not. "How they did what?" I asked, wincing when my foot found a chunk of concrete.

Edden took my other arm and gestured to the tunnel stretching into the black. "How they kept slipping through our lines," he explained.

I nodded, head down as I walked between them. "What are these, anyway? A vamp underground? I never knew this was down here."

"It's an old mass-transit plan started in the 1920s," he said, sounding like an instructor as the walls of the stairway closed in around us. "Too little money, too much political infighting. Unexpected structural damage when they drained the canal. A war and a depression. It never got finished. Some of the tunnels are filled in, but stretches of it still exist here and there. It's cheaper to inspect them once a year than destroy them. Some carry water pipes now."

"And Mia would know because she was here when it was built," I said sourly.

Edden chuckled. "I'd be willing to bet she was on the committee to beautify it or something." Making a little grunt of remembrance, he thumbed the two-way on his belt and said loudly, "Hey, someone call utilities and tell them we need a new lock out here!" and then to me, "Rachel, I'm not one to say I told you so—"

A flash of anger lit through me. "Then I'll say it for you," I snapped as my foot almost slipped off the stair. "I told you so. She is a bad seed. A spoiled brat with a goddess complex. She wants to live above the law, and I should have treated her like an animal and gunned her down on sight!" Heart pounding, I shut my mouth and concentrated on the next step.

"And yet you stopped her with just your earth magic," Edden said, completely unruffled as he took my other arm. "You're becoming a superhero, witch."

I winced as I remembered Holly's plaintive cries for her mama when they'd hauled Mia upstairs, roped like a tiger. "That's funny," I said sourly. "I so totally feel like crap."

No one said anything. Another step behind me, I took a breath and let it out. We were almost to the top, and all I wanted was to go home. "Edden, can I give my statement later?"

Eye to eye with me, he nodded. "Go home. I'll send someone tomorrow."

"After noon, right?" I reminded him, wobbling when the stairway opened up and the tight confines of the small room took us. The cold was worse up here, and I clenched my coat closer. I'd never be warm again.

"You okay, Rachel?" Ivy asked.

I exhaled heavily, thinking of Jenks and missing his support. Making a face, I leaned harder on Ivy's arm and started to shake. I was cold. My feet were numb and would probably have cuts when they thawed out. And Kisten's death, once safely removed from my mind, had reached out and bitch-slapped me with all its broken promises and shattered beauty.

"No," I said, wondering if I'd have to walk all the way back to the coffee shop in my bare feet. Edden followed my gaze to my bruised, white toes, and after murmuring something about socks, he set the lantern down and left me with Ivy. Alone at last, I caught Ivy's eyes. She saw my fear, and they dilated. "While I was unconscious, I remembered the night on Kisten's boat," I whispered. "All of it."

Ivy's breath caught. Outside I could hear Edden on his radio yelling for a car to come the hell back and pick us up.

I swallowed hard, barely able to force the words out. "Kisten's murderer had been in the tunnels before he came to take Kisten's last blood," I said, my soul as cold as the snow drifting in. "That's what I've been smelling," I added as I dismally brushed at the filth on me. "It's this damned dust. He'd been in it, and it was all over him."

Ivy didn't move. "Tell me," she demanded, her eyes black and her long hands clenched.

I gave her an evaluating look, wondering if this might be better at home with some wine, or even in a car with some privacy, but if she was going to vamp out, I'd rather have a few dozen FIB agents with guns around. Voice low, I said, "The vampire had come for Kisten, and I was in the way. Kisten died from a blow to the head before the vamp could do more than sniff his blood. He was really mad," I said, my voice going high so I wouldn't start crying again as I remembered his grip on me and my helpless rage, "but then he decided to make me his shadow to hurt you. Kisten woke up…"