Dangerous Creatures (18 page)

Rock of Ages

A
s Link walked down the Brooklyn street with Sampson, he couldn’t remember what had been bothering him. Something had been, but it had slipped away. Ridley had that effect on him. A few words from her, and he almost always started feeling better. He’d almost have thought she was Charming him, except for the fact that she’d promised she wouldn’t.

What kinda magic was that?

Link gave up.

To be honest, he didn’t really pay attention to a word anyone said after
audition
. It was like listening to a bunch of chickens squawking over a spilled bag of feed.
Chickens or cheerleaders. The Jackson PTA, fightin’ over which book to ban. My mom on the way home from choir practice, full up with a fresh load a gossip.
Link didn’t have much to say. At least, not to the chickens. His mind was on the audition.

It was an awesome word, like
overtime
or
front row
or
state finals
.
Cheese-in-the-crust
or
double-stuffed
or
supersized
. Of all those words,
audition
was the granddaddy of them all. At least, Link was pretty sure it was.

He’d never actually had one.

Link didn’t audition for bands. He always made sure it was his band, so they had to take him. That was the secret of his success. But it didn’t help him now. He was terrified. Auditions were so good they were bad, so important they were paralyzing. Link’s adrenaline was pushing and pounding so hard he felt sick, same as when he tried to eat his mom’s red-eye gravy halfway through his transition from human to Incubus.

Like he could blow chunks.

Hope I don’t puke onstage. Marilyn Manson puked onstage. Wait. It’s cool, right? If Marilyn Manson did it?

Link was lost in thought until he and Sampson met up with the girls outside a stairwell that led to a subway station.

Don’t think about the audition. Crap, you thought about it, you dumbucket.

“Earth to Link.” Floyd looked at Link. “You sick?”

Link didn’t say anything.
Not in front of her. Not in front of a girl.
He tried to focus on the yellow police tape that sealed off the entrance to the stairs.

“If you’re gonna puke, do it now,” Floyd said. “That’s all I’m sayin’. Remember Marilyn Manson.” She smiled. “That was a damn good hurl.”

Link laughed, in spite of the bile in his throat. There weren’t a lot of girls like Floyd. Even Ridley could see that, which was probably why her feathers had been so ruffled ever since they’d gotten here. He had to admit he kind of liked the attention.

That’s just life in the henhouse
, he thought.
Especially when the rooster’s as smooth as this guy right here.

Floyd looked both ways and ducked inside the stairwell. The second she passed the yellow tape, she disappeared. The air rippled in her wake.

Not something you’d see in any henhouse.

“Is she Rippin’? ’Cause I didn’t hear anythin’.” Link looked at Necro.

Necro shook her head. “Nope. Doorwell. You gotta look for the broken subway stops. They’re not actually broken. They’re ours.”

“The regular old New York City subway? It’s also a Caster subway?”

“The stops are. We rotate ours through the Mortal system, so it’s a different stop every time, all over the five boroughs. Whole system. Someone got the idea when we saw all the New York City utility blockades during the last big storm. So long as we stick to the broken stops, nobody sees us come and go. And nobody bothers us.”

Link looked at her. “Doesn’t anyone ever wonder why there’s so many broken stops?”

Necro smiled. “Who? Something’s always broken. This is New York. Now come on.” She disappeared as she said it, as if she’d explained something.

Link scratched his head. It was hard for him to imagine, seeing as every time a porch light burned out in Gatlin, it practically made the news. At least, it made his mom’s personal broadcasting system.

“Try to keep up.” Sampson looked at Ridley and Link like they were a couple of kindergartners, then disappeared after Necro.

“Fun guy,” Link said.

“Or not,” Rid said.

Link shrugged. “I guess Darkborns are stiffs.”

“You think?” She sounded worried.

“You know what they say. With great power comes great nothing else.” He laughed, but Rid wasn’t having it. Not today.

She looks hotter than Myrtle Beach in July, but she’s just as crabby
, Link thought.

“Come on. You want to—” Link gestured at the yellow tape. “Or should I?”

“They’re gone. We could bolt,” Ridley said. She seemed more uneasy than she should have, considering this whole Devil’s Hangmen thing was her idea.

“Yeah, right.” Link laughed, but she didn’t.
Rid’s not jokin’. So that’s weird.
“What are you talkin’ about? We didn’t come this far to hide like a scared cat now.”

Rid sighed. “I’m not saying I’m worried. I’m just saying. We could, you know. Take off.”

“You said that already.”
So you’re worried
, Link thought. “Why, Rid? I thought you said what happened at Suffer was no big deal.”

Ridley shrugged. “This audition. Lennox Gates. Sirene. I don’t know. I’ve got a bad feeling about this whole thing. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I never should have gotten us into—”

“Whoa. Back it up. This is me.” Link pulled his drumsticks out of his back pocket, where he liked to keep them. “These are mine. I got this. I’m good, and if I’m not, well, that’s on me. You can’t keep yankin’ my chain, Rid. First you’re pushin’ me to do this whole Caster band thing, and now that I’m on board, you want out? No way.”

She looked unconvinced, but at least she didn’t take off. Link knew better than to push his luck more than that.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her across the yellow plastic tape before she could say another word. “Geronimo, Sugarplum.”

The Doorwell to the subway must have used some powerful Illusionist mojo, because once Ridley and Link stepped through the yellow tape, they weren’t in the same place at all. They were in something that looked like a tunnel. Then Link felt it—the energy and electricity, the power coursing through his veins and into the world that was beneath the world.

He didn’t feel sick now. They weren’t in just any tunnel. They were in the Caster Tunnels, the Underground that ran like an unseen labyrinth through the world, just beneath the Mortal Realm. Even when he expected it, it was still a surprise. Nothing else felt like this.

It never did, not even when I was full-on Mortal.

Link breathed deep and opened his eyes wide. He squeezed Rid’s hand one more time. “You okay, Babe?”

She nodded. “I’m okay. I mean, better.”

Of course she felt better. They were back in the Underground. It was hard to remember that there was ever a time these Tunnels scared the crap out of him, though they had. Him, and Ethan. For a while, even Liv had freaked out when she came down here. Back when John Breed was just a bad biker boy—and Vexes and Sheers roamed the Tunnels like rats and snakes.

But right now, the Caster Tunnels were the closest thing to home that Link and Rid had. The Tunnels had become the one place they were free from the eyes and opinions of Gatlin County Mortals—none of whom were too short on either. The Underground was practically a full-time home to Macon, seeing as the whole town thought he was dead. Just goes to show, you can get used to anything.

“Hurry up, man.” Floyd was impatient. She was waiting with Necro and Sampson just ahead, and as Link and Rid followed them through the dimly lit carved stone cavern, it felt like old times. Flickering torches lit the way with uneven light, and Link could see as far as the straight stretch of tunnel before them reached, all the way to the unknown darkness.

Until a small something came weaving toward them through the shadows, and meowed.

Link looked ahead into the dark. “Lucille, what the hell are you doin’ down here? I thought you were headin’ out to see the Statue a Liberty? Maybe catch a show on Broadway? Too late for
Cats
.” He grinned, turning to wink at Ridley.

She groaned.

“Anyway. No Mortal sights down here, Lucille. Just a bunch a dumb old rocks and Casters.”

But Lucille didn’t care. She sat in a pool of light, delicately licking her paw. When Link tried to pick her up, she hissed at him.

“Fine. Be that way. If you get mugged, I’m not going to be the one explainin’ it to the Sisters. You’re gonna have to grease that hog yourself.”

“He’s talking to that cat.” Necro raised an eyebrow.

“I know,” Ridley sighed. “Lucille Ball. She’s sort of like the cousin of his best friend.” Link ignored them, cooing at Lucille. It was the friendliest Link had heard Rid get with any of the band, and he didn’t want to break up the moment.

“You’re kidding.” Necro looked from Link to Ridley. “She’s kidding, right?”

Link kept walking, with Lucille following ten feet behind. He knew better than to mess with the Sisters’ cat, even all the way up North. He should’ve known that cat could handle herself wherever she was.

She was tougher than any of them.

Now Link could see a light ahead of them in the Tunnels, where the passageway broadened into a crossroads. The words
CASTER UNDERGROUND
were laid into the tile mosaic in the walls where the pathways met. On the wall beneath the mosaic hung what looked like a hand-drawn map, held by an elaborately carved frame.

“Siren Hill.” Floyd pointed at a spot on the map. “That’s where we’re headed.” Then she pointed to a far tunnel. “That one.”

Link peered over her shoulder. “That’s how you get there? Not from the Mortal world?”

Floyd shrugged. “There are back doors, side doors, trapdoors. But yeah, more or less. The main entrance is from down here.”

“Just try to keep up,” Necro said, heading into the farthest tunnel. They followed her as she moved through the darkness, until she reached a stone staircase leading to a rusted metal door. By the time the others rejoined her, she was already pushing open the Doorwell—and the echoing stillness of the Underground gave way to something that could only be described as pure chaos.

Mardi Gras
, Link thought.
Beale Street on a hot night.
Ever since he went to that creepy bokor’s shop with Ethan, he’d used the Underground to retrace his steps to the City That Care Forgot on more than one occasion.
Doesn’t smell much better here, either.

The moment they stepped into the dim cavern, the noise overwhelmed them. Outside the Doorwell, the crowd was so thick that it was impossible to see past the first ten feet of people, even for a supersized quarter Incubus who was head and shoulders above almost everyone else.

“Can you see the door?” Floyd shouted up at him. She was a lot taller than Necro, but even she couldn’t see a thing.

“I think it’s that way. Hold on.” He ducked through the crowd, the others following in his wake. “There.” Link nodded and grabbed Floyd’s arm with one hand, guiding Rid with the other. Necro held on to Floyd, while Sampson brought up the rear.

Ridley glared at Link until he dropped Floyd’s arm.

“Look.” Floyd pointed. “Sirenes.”

Ridley scoffed. “Sirenes? That’s not a real thing.”

“It is now. Nox uses them to lure people into the club.”

They weren’t real Sirens, but they didn’t have to be. They were women so hot they could’ve been on the covers of Link’s car magazines. They wandered through the train station, selling tubes of bright red liquid to some folks and clear bubbling foam to others. Floyd was right—if you watched long enough, you could see they were pushing the crowd in the direction of the club.