“Where was it?” Aidan asked. “What was it doing?”
“It was kind of funny, because it was slinking out of that greenhouse that you used to keep over by your house on Mill Trace—not far from the collapsed end of the clinic.”
Yeah, Cage knew exactly where it was. That greenhouse had a door into a tunnel that led to the suite of rooms beneath the clinic itself. The tunnel had collapsed after he’d used it to help Melissa escape Matthias earlier this summer, but it was possible someone could’ve dug enough debris out to stay in one of the rooms. There was no electricity, but portable lighting was easy to buy.
“Thanks, Joy,” Aidan said. “Anyone else?”
While a discussion about the size and coloring of jaguars ensued, Cage saw Aidan look over at Mirren and give a slight nod. Then the big guy crooked a finger at Cage and walked outside.
Good. Cage was tired of talking, and it looked like a trip to the tunnel was in his future. On his way out, he looked back and expected to find Robin watching him. She wasn’t, and that annoyed him more than it should have.
It took Mirren and Cage ten minutes to walk to the old neighborhood on Trace Way, stopping at the comm-house first to get a couple of high-powered flashlights. Before all the shit began with Matthias Ludlam’s first attack on Penton last January, Aidan had lived here near the end of a cul-de-sac, with Mark and Melissa next door. Now, both houses lay in burned rubble and ruin, but the glass greenhouse that stretched from the house to the edge of Aidan’s property remained intact.
The plants inside should by all rights have been dead, but a few hardy green ones dotted the greenhouse shelves.
“The tunnel was still clear up through that first suite last time I was in here,” Mirren said, walking toward the back corner where the trapdoor lay beneath a layer of artificial turf and a pile of flowerpots. “I was with Glory, and it was just before Matthias had his big show downtown that sent us into the Omega facility. So you’ve been here since then—is that part still open?”
“I’m not sure.” The steel-framed room at the foot of the ladder had still been clear, and he tried to remember whether or not the cave-in had blocked the tunnel altogether. The memories were fuzzy, though. He’d been shot, trying to get Melissa to safety, and had been pretty certain he was about to die.
They shone their flashlights over the stuff piled on top of the trapdoor. “If it’s been moved recently, whoever moved it did a good job of camouflaging it.” Cage knelt and studied the edges of the turf. The dirt around it didn’t look as if it had been disturbed, but it wouldn’t be that hard to lift the whole thing up—especially for a shape-shifter.
“So, in your dealings with Robin, did you ever get around to asking her if she could, I don’t know, smell another shifter?” Mirren began studying the dirt floor of the greenhouse, probably looking for footprints—or paw prints. “I mean if she ran into Mr. Coyote or Mr. Jaguar in human form, would she know?”
That had been one of the few coherent conversations he and Robin had managed to work into their busy evening. “In my dealings with Robin, we did talk about that. She says sometimes yes, sometimes no. I think it’s like us with other vampires. An older, savvier vamp can scent out another vamp whereas a younger one, or one who’s too self-absorbed to pay attention to what’s around him? Probably not.”
“That’s a fucking lot of help.” Mirren walked to the corner and pulled the turf mat aside, revealing the trapdoor. He pulled a small ring of keys from his pocket but pulled on the door’s metal ring before trying any of them. The hatch top lifted off easily.
“Wasn’t locked.” He trained his flashlight beam into the hole. “Nothing looks out of place.”
Cage had already decided that, short of a life-threatening emergency, he wasn’t going down there. He’d managed before only out of sheer desperation. Melissa had to be gotten out of Matthias’s clutches, and working through the tunnel had been the only way to do it. Plus, his gunshot wound had helped to distract him from any claustrophobic panic. Today, Mirren would have to shoot him to get him down there.
“You going, or am I?” Mirren planted his hands on his hips and gave Cage a look that probably meant I’m a lot bigger than you and it would be easier for you to crawl down in that hole.
“Go ahead, knock yourself out.” Cage stepped back and pretended to examine the blackened remains of a hibiscus.
Mirren grumbled a few names in his direction and climbed down the ladder, his glaring gray eyes the last thing Cage saw.
“Come down here.” The voice might as well have come from hell itself, but the tone brooked no argument. Cage took a deep breath and lowered himself into the bowels of the earth. Somehow the daysleep spaces never felt underground, so it was easy to psych himself out.