I looked at the door, ancient wood with dozens of raised panels and carved swirls and dimples. It had a vaguely Persian style, metal button-like things, like nipples on each raised panel. Iron strap hinges. Three iron bars holding it all together. And no doorknob.
Bethany was already vamped out. With the talons of her right fingers, she stabbed into the wood and ripped a section of door out. Again and again, until she had torn a hole near one of the hinges in the door, a hole large enough for a small child to crawl through. Then she rammed it. I could feel the force of her strike, vibrations passing through the wood beneath my paws. Which meant that anyone close enough, anyone with ears, would hear it and feel it too. The door broke, a long crack through the splintered hole. Two rams later, it fell with a massive crash. Katie leaped through. A spot of brightness leaped to the broken door.
I pivoted on my oversized paw to see Brute, a pale shadow in the black of the subbasement. He snuffled at me over his shoulder and raced after Katie. It was stupid, but seeing the werewolf thrust relief through me like a spear of happiness. And now we were three.
From somewhere far off I heard words, chanting, sounding like some foreign language. Perfect scary-movie sounds, the kinds with Satanists, big twirly mustaches, and stupid teenaged blondes in tiny bikinis going downstairs into the basement. Soulless big-bad-uglies. Human sacrifice couldn’t be far behind. Too bad I didn’t have a bikini. I leaped through the door after the wolf and the mad vampire priestess. Mad. We were all mad.
Laughter started in the back of my throat. We raced past the records room I had seen from the elevator, a room I recognized by the smell in the dark—old paintings, papyrus, vellum, heavy cloth paper. Inks. Wood. Bethany was right. The bad guys hadn’t spent any time on sub-four. We tore down stairs I couldn’t see. I saved myself a nasty fall hearing the echoes of bare feet slapping and the click of Brute’s claws leaping down several feet. Holding the Judge in my right hand, the wall against my left palm, I followed, falling behind. Ahead, my enhanced nose caught the stench that had nearly buckled my knees the first time I smelled it, a combination of decaying blood, rotten herbs, vinegar, sour urine, and sick sweat. We were near the boo room.
Bethany rounded a corner. There was a huge crash. Another. Light stabbed into the dark. Light and dust and the sound of voices chanting and sobbing and the stench of blood. And silver. I rounded the corner only half a second behind Bethany. Air popped around me. The wolf was racing through the door, his body a gray-and-white smear on my retinas, fast as a vamp. Faster than me.
I had seen this sight before, the wolf racing-leaping into battle. Stupid dog. Yeah. I had thought that before. Stupid dog. And stupid me to race in after him. But I did. Screams sounded as I leaped through the opening. Screams and laughter. And the pong of something rotten and burning. The stink of ozone.
The light of dozens of candles stabbed my eyes. I squinted to protect them, seeing the room in front of me through Beast-lashes. Time slowed, stuttered, stopped. I was in midair, midleap, hanging as if gravity no longer existed. From this vantage, I took in the room as if I had all the time in the world. And maybe I did.
Chained to the wall to my right was a skeleton, a blackened thing, like twigs held together with twine. It had skin like rotten cowhide, hair in tufts, limbs splayed out like a bug. It was wrapped in heavy, tarnished, silver chains. Pocket watches dangled from smaller chains interwoven through the larger ones. Which seemed important, but something for later. The creature was fastened to the wall with spikes. It had been crucified. Silver spikes at its widespread wrists, a spike through its crossed feet. It was naked.
It was alive.
Its mouth was open with laughter, or a scream. It was bleeding from a hole in its right side, nearly black blood, thick as tar. Its eyes glittered with horror and insanity.
Beneath the thing on the wall lay Grégoire. I was pretty sure he was dead or would be in seconds. Across the way, entering from another door, was a bloody apparition, teeth bared, body in midleap. Derek. Forms were behind him. I counted three. The cavalry was here. Between us, as if in a pincer move, lay the rest of the players. Everyone, including me, was halted in midaction.