The Dire King (Jackaby #4)(45)

“That’s about it. Oh, and try not to die too close to each other.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.

“We have a guy—I mean they have a guy,” Pavel said. “He’s very good with, how should I put this . . .”

Jackaby cleared his throat. “With the manipulation of the deceased? The dark art of necromancy?”

“I was going to say meat puppets,” Pavel replied. “I mean, I am undead myself, but his little marionettes always give me the creeps. Dying makes your body fair game for his little trick, so if you happen to kick the bucket, just try to kick it as far away as you can in case he should raise you.”

“Thank you,” Jackaby said. “Very helpful.”

We walked in silence for several paces. Jenny was worrying the strap on Jackaby’s satchel as she walked. “Would you like me to carry it for you?” I asked her.

“Hm?” she said. “No, no thank you. I’ve been doing better with tangibility. I’m fine, really.” She hung back as Jackaby and Pavel got a few paces ahead. “I think the only thing I can’t seem to make contact with is Jackaby.”

“You can’t?”

Her shoulders sagged. “I don’t know why. It’s as though I can’t give myself permission to.”

“Do you think it’s something to do with Mr. Carson?”

She looked pained, and I wished I hadn’t spoken of her murdered fiancé. “Howard was a good man,” she said. “But I finally had my chance to say good-bye. I—I don’t know. I just can’t.”

I didn’t press the matter. My ears perked up at the sound of a policeman’s whistle a street or two away. I could hear faint voices, and in the distance a dog was barking. The streetlight ahead of us had gone out, leaving us in a pool of midnight black. I kept waiting for something to come leaping out at us from around a corner. We quickened our pace to catch up to the men.

“I’ve never liked being out in the streets this late,” I said, pulling my coat tighter around my shoulders. “New Fiddleham is not the same city after nightfall.”

“You read my mind, Miss Rook,” Pavel said, kneeling down by the curb. “The streets won’t get us where we’re going, anyway. From here, we travel below them.”

He pulled up the heavy grate and dropped it onto the cobblestones with a clang. The tunnel beneath was even darker than the pitch-black streets, if that was possible.

“I am not going in there,” I said.

“Suit yourself. Your boss is the only one I really need.”

Jackaby lowered himself and dropped into the sewer. His feet hit the bottom with a splash. “Sir,” I began. Pavel slipped in after him.

Jenny gave me a shrug. She slid gracefully after them, down into the darkness.

I stood alone on the street, my heart pumping. I had spent enough time in deep, dark tunnels to last a lifetime. I glanced back the way we had come. I closed my eyes. Deep breath. I could do this. I knelt down. I had not crossed an ocean just to take the safe path. Deep breath. I lowered my legs into the clammy air of the sewer. I had chosen this life. I had chosen foolish and dangerous and good. My feet hit the bottom with a splash. Deep breath. Oh good lord, that smell! I stopped taking deep breaths and held my sleeve over my face instead.

My eyes blinked open. The tunnel was not pure black. It was more of a hazy charcoal gray, punctuated every block or so by shafts of moonlight. I could see silhouettes slogging forward ahead of me. Pavel was leading the way, eager energy in his steps. The first dose of Jackaby’s blood appeared to have brought him out of his languor; I hated to imagine what he could accomplish if he had drained the source completely. Jackaby was a step behind him, hunched over under the shallow ceiling, and Jenny was a shimmer at his side. I hastened to catch up.

If you have never had the pleasure of traveling by sewer, allow me to spare you the visceral details. This was not a space designed for comfort of either body or mind, and I found it distressingly difficult to gauge distance and time in those gloomy passages.

“Still an hour or so until sunrise,” Jackaby said as we finally slowed to a stop. He was peeking out of a grate by his head. “We seem to be on the outskirts of New Fiddleham. Wait a moment. I know where we are!”

I propped myself up on the tips of my toes and peered out next to him. From my angle, I could see stars and dark trees and just the tips of the eaves of a few nearby buildings.

“Almost there,” Pavel said. “This way.” He braced his shoulder against a nondescript wall of the tunnel and pushed. With the grate of bricks against stone, a wide section of wall swung inward like a door.

“Where are we, sir?” I whispered as we followed Pavel through the hidden passageway. The door led to some sort of basement. The floor was packed earth, and the air was cold and dry.

“We are in the substructure of the last building our dear friend Douglas ever walked into while wearing shoes,” Jackaby said. “Well, unless you count those little booties I had made for him so that he wouldn’t drip pond water all down the staircase. But those didn’t last a week, and they never fit well over his webbed feet.”

I coughed.

“The church. We appear to be directly beneath Father Grafton’s church. Several supernatural beings have been through here. They’ve left their traces like footprints. Pavel’s aura is all over, and so is Morwen’s. She definitely came through here before us tonight. She’s hours ahead. There are hints of chameleomorphs, and I do believe—yes, that’s a lingering residual imprint from the redcap we caught months ago!”