As drunk, nosy passersby begin to creep in to see what all the ruckus is about, Vall’s giant frame takes up the entire doorway. He crosses his tree-trunk arms over his tree-trunk chest and lets out a low hum of disapproval at anyone stepping too close. “Nothing to see here.”
“Hoy, that there’s Kep’s house,” says one lanky man that only comes up to Vallan’s chest. Skittering back a step, he turns to another blind-drunk man stumbling around in the mud. “Ain’t it?”
Vallan is dark in the door, no moonlight on him, and with his hood low no one has spotted he’s a vampire yet.
That’s a bigyet. Turning over my shoulder from the side of the room, my little honey badger scuttles around, moving things aside. She gets on her hands and knees and knocks on the floorboards. I say, “Best hurry up, lass, before we draw a crowd.”
“I’m going, I’m going!”
The drunks outside continue arguing. Or maybe this is their version of conversing. It’s hard to tell. There’s more of them now.
“Sure is Kep’s,” says the stumbling fool. “Someone better go tell ‘im he’s been intrudered . . . intruden? Invaded!”
“Infiltrated, I think, is the word you’re looking—”
“Just go, ass crevice!”
“Why me?” cries the first man.
The wobbler points down at his loose legs. “I’m too sauced to stand, much less walk about.”
With a groan, the crier scampers off.
“Ah ha!” Sephania declares.
I spin as she lifts a floorboard and then another. She grins at the dark hole leading into the depths below. A rope ladder hangs a foot down.
“Your watch is finished, big brute!” she yells over her shoulder. “Close the door and lock it.”
Vallan grunts, does as he’s told, then runs a hand through his beard as he stares at the rickety front door Sephania kicked in. “Lock’s broken.”
She’s already halfway down the ladder, and I’m right behind her. Vallan follows us and we hop into a shallow puddle that mucks up my boots.
The stone hallway under the house is narrow. Vallan has to shimmy sideways to fit through, and with Sephania’s substantial backside, she curses as she bumps along. I have no such problem, being a skinny fucker.
On the other side of the hall, a small room opens. We hear a gasp. Three young Chained Sisters sit on a bench, eyes veering to us. A grate above lets in a grid of moonlight, brightening the front girl’s pale face. She hisses and bares her fangs, leaping to her feet to protect the other two younglings, who cower into the shadows.
It’s Tecca, the dhampiress door-greeter from their old hideout who can’t be more than fifteen winters. Or perhaps thirty, since we dhampir age slowly.
Her face goes slack when Sephania steps into the fretwork of moonlight. “It’s just me, Tec,” says the shadow of my lover.
“Sister Sephania!” The angry hiss is gone from Tecca’s face, replaced with a wide smile. She rushes forward and embraces my little honey badger, slamming her face into Seph’s bosom. “Your mother will be so happy to see you.”
Tecca leads us past the entry room, dragging Sephania by the hand. We come to an antechamber that splits in two directions. It’s dark and dank and damp down here. The deeper we go into the “basement” the more I realize this is an entire network of tunnels.
I wonder where the connection ends.Could it stretch across the entire city? Perhaps the Nuhavians have gotten wise and built themselves an underground labyrinth to hide from their Olhavian overlords.
A darker thought makes me wrinkle my nose in disgust.Or these tunnels were built by the flesh-traders to haul their “cargo” from one end of the city to the other without being seen.
The rightmost walkway leads into a wider, oval-shaped cave. Iron Sister Keffa stands at the front, facing us, giving a lesson to half a dozen Sisters. Her head lifts as we pause at the back, first landing on Vallan’s tall frame. Then it falls to Sephania’s smile.
Lyroan, the dhampiress with an unrequited love for Vallan, looks ready to swoon as she jumps to her feet. Keffa’s smile is warm, and she seems to have aged rapidly in the past few weeks. The lines on her weathered cheeks are deeper, her gray hair lighter as it forms a wispy halo around her gaunt face. “Truehearts save us, Sisters, it’s the Hellwhore herself.”
Sephania sputters a laugh and rushes forward.
Before she can throw her arms around Keffa, a booming voice behind us makes us turn: “Is that my rambunctious, ludicrous daughter I hear?!”
Jinneth barrels into the room, pushing past me and Vallan with ease. Her rotund stature shoves me against a wall as she storms past and joins the three-way embrace with her lover Keffa and her daughter Sephania.