Alterant (Belador #2)(65)

The old coot ignored her while he concentrated on opening his bottle. He downed a long drink, then sighed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Don’t be lookin’ at me like that. There’s a place underground, or at least there was at one time, but these old guys are Methuselah-old, so I don’t know if—”

“Grady!”

“O. K. ’Sposed to be a warren of tunnels humans weren’t meant to access, but the subway cut through the tunnel system in a couple places. They run up and down like underground hills, so they go anywhere from near the surface to deep down and big open spaces like rooms. Been around since long before all this was built.” He waved his free hand to encompass the city that sprawled around him.

“Why would someone build all those tunnels?”

“You’re not the first nonhuman to inhabit Atlanta, Evalle. Long before the homeless died and turned into Nightstalkers there were thousands killed during the Civil War era that didn’t cross over to the other side. And not all of them were soldiers. Atlanta couldn’t have rebuilt if someone hadn’t found a place for the lost spirits to go.”

“They created a home for spirits?” She had this vision of a freaky halfway house for ghouls.

Any time Grady squared his shoulders and his voice turned instructional—like now—she wondered if he’d taught when he was alive. He had a voice that reminded her of Morgan Freeman, who could play any role from vagabond to president.

And Grady’s enunciation and speech could shift from broken street talk to sound fluent as a university professor, which was how he sounded now.

“Hauntings progressed until it was a serious problem. People shied away from buying a house rumored to have haints or moving a business into a building that scared the workers. The spirits were just as upset about people, industry and progress disturbing their resting grounds. Someone got the wise idea to give them another place to reside. So the tunnels and cavelike rooms were built underground long before high-rise buildings and subways showed up.”

“The ghosts just left?”

“I heard a pair of people, maybe exorcists, coaxed the spirits into going underground, but another rumor said they were tricked.”

She started thinking about being stuck underground with a bunch of spirits. “Are they friendly?”

“Have no idea. None of the spirits up here will go down to the Maze of Death.”

“You’re kidding about that name, right?”

Grady had turned up the bottle again. He took a long slug and lowered it until his unyielding gaze met hers. “No, I’m not joking. Don’t go down there. If those men that ambushed you are down there, leave ’em. They may not make it out again to be a problem, because we both know that some spirits are not nice. If that place is full of angry beings, especially former trained soldiers, it’s dangerous.”

Just my luck the Maze of Death is now on my bucket list.

She checked her watch—running late to meet Storm. “I got you. I have to go. Will you please stay out of sight while you work through whatever it is you can now do with your body?”

He looked hurt. “Why you want to be like that?”

“Because I don’t know what Sen might do if he finds out you can take solid form on your own.”

Grady sniffed and fisted his bottle in one hand. “He don’t scare me.”

The idea of what Sen could do to Grady scared her. “It won’t help my case with the Tribunal either.”

That changed his attitude. “In that case, I’ll lay low, but if I find out they lock you up I’m gonna have to have words with Sen.”

May Macha help her. “Catch you later.”

She checked her rearview mirror as she pulled away and grimaced over Grady’s still-solid form. Riding through the north end of downtown, she didn’t encounter bodies lying around. This area appeared untouched by the fog. People were actually moving around. Did the fog just manifest itself in spots? Were people ignoring what they heard on the news because they didn’t see fog around them?

Or did the newspeople know the fog was behind the killings?

In a couple turns she found a parking spot on West Peachtree Street near the North Avenue MARTA terminal.

Her bike had a warding. If anyone but her tried to ride it they were in for a nasty surprise, but did spraying paint over one section alter the warding symbols carved into the frame?

Tzader would know, since he’d had the bike warded as a gift to her, but she couldn’t ask him right now.

At the stairwell she descended wide steps to the subway level and tried not to think about Grady’s warning.

Maze of Death.

If Tristan was in there, she had no idea how she could pass through a concrete wall to find him or how to pull him out. She couldn’t use the same gift from the Tribunal twice, so teleporting herself anywhere again was not possible.

When she reached the track level, Storm was leaning against a section of tile-covered concrete wall where passengers waited to ride trains.

He watched her coming toward him as if he saw only her.

He had on his usual dark T-shirt and faded jeans. His midnight black hair was pulled back from his face, accentuating the sharp angles and burnished skin his Native American blood awarded him.

Four women stood in a group pretending to chat while their gazes strayed to Storm, whose powerful shoulders pulled at his T-shirt when he crossed his arms.