Chapter 23. Annette
Annette
I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen Jenny carry a weapon, let alone two.
A beautifully polished, unstrung composite bow rested in her lap. Strapped to her hip was a sheathed xiphos, a Greek short sword with a double-edged blade and a cylindrical pommel that was currently jabbing into the passenger’s seat of my BMW. A quiver of arrows rested between her feet.
“What happened to the pacifism thing?” I asked as I drove.
“Artemis told me I’d have to take up her blade and bow again. She was right. I have to stop him.”
You didn’t have to be a PI to pick up on her guilt and anguish. “Alex’s choices aren’t your fault, Jenny.”
She didn’t answer.
In the back seat, Temple had his nose so deep in that book, I was surprised the book didn’t chomp it off. I hated dragging him out of the house again. He looked so exhausted. But he’d insisted, and after my last bout with Alex, I couldn’t turn down the help.
A rumble like far-off thunder shook the car. I tightened my grip on the wheel and tapped the brakes. The other cars on the road were doing the same, except for one that had jumped a curb and taken out a parking meter.
“What the hell?” I muttered. The sky was bright and blue. And thunder wouldn’t jostle traffic.
A block later, I turned onto Lafayette Street. A hundred yards farther, I hit the brakes again. People were running in the opposite direction, shouting and panicking and snapping selfies. I inched the car forward until I saw what they were running from.
A chunk of the street had collapsed into a sinkhole thirty feet wide. The edge of that sinkhole ran directly beneath the Gauntlet.
The bar’s windows were shattered. Flyers and broken glass covered the ground like snow. A gargoyle teetered at the edge of the roof before tumbling loose. It struck the blacktop at the edge of the sinkhole, cracked in half, and fell deeper into the hole.
I hoped that one had been a mundane statue and not one of Duke’s living creations.
I pulled over and parked. I ignored the meter. Jenny helped Temple out of the back while I assessed the situation.
“Tell me Alex hasn’t opened a chasm to hell,” said Jenny. “I hate those.”
“This isn’t even a pothole to heck,” I assured her. Water sprayed from a broken pipe, dousing the dirt and pavement. Broken cables hung along the edge, running parallel to the road. Ten feet down was nothing but muddy water. Who knew how much deeper it went?
The ground rumbled again, and the Gauntlet’s front wall sank a foot and a half. More dirt and road collapsed.
“Something’s down there.” Jenny stepped into the tight curve of her bow and bent the limbs back to string it.
She made it look easy, but I’d once tried to string that thing, and it had been like trying to bend steel.
She strapped the quiver to her hip, opposite the xiphos.
“Smells like the sludge we found in Alex’s classroom but stronger. ”
“What about Alex or his thralls?” I asked.
Jenny shook her head. “It’s hard to pick up other scents over all this.”
My phone buzzed with a text from Duke. I skimmed it and swore. “The main floor just collapsed. Duke got most of the customers out, but there are still a few people trapped in the apartments upstairs.”
“Go.” Jenny nocked an arrow. “Temple and I will handle whatever’s down there.”
I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of splitting up. “Be careful. Alex and his little cult could be—”
“Don’t worry, this isn’t my first subterranean monstrosity conjured up by a power-hungry wannabe god.” She gave me a tight, clearly forced smile. “In the old days, this would have been just another Tuesday.”
· · ·
The old wooden door to the Gauntlet dangled by a single twisted hinge over an ugly drop. I climbed in through a broken window instead, keeping as far from the sinkhole as I could.
The electricity was out. Dust filled the air, thick as a morning fog, but I could make out a large shadow where part of the floor was missing.
It looked like a giant had taken a bite out of the front of the building.
The rest of the floor sloped toward the pit.
Some of the tables and chairs had already fallen in.
The door in back that led to the second floor was crushed and wedged in place by a collapsed section of ceiling.
The Pac-Man game lay on its side, its black screen a web of cracked glass. The pinball machine’s front legs had punched through the floor, making it look like it was kneeling.
End-of-the-world crises were hell on small businesses.
Over the sound of rushing water and the people outside, I heard crying from the other side of the bar. I pressed my back to the wall and started to make my way around the pit. “Hello? Who’s back there?”
“Stay away!” Terror made Duke’s voice all but unrecognizable.
Fear quickened my pace. “It’s Annette. What happened? Are you hurt?”
He didn’t answer.
I found him huddled behind an overturned table. His eyes were wide. His muscular arms were wrapped around his knees.
“Duke, it’s me.” I crouched in front of him.
He shook his head and pulled away, tightening his body like he was trying to disappear.
“We have to get you out of here.” I reached for his hand.
He took a swing at me. I jerked back, and his fist blew past my face to strike the wall. Bricks and mortar cracked.
Aside from his now-bloody knuckles, he didn’t look physically injured. He was just scared out of his wits and not seeing me at all.
What was it Temple had said about shoggoths the other day? “If you look at them closely, you go mad.”
I twisted around and cupped my hands to my mouth. “Jenny! Medusa protocols!”
I couldn’t see her or Temple, but she yelled back, “Got it!”
Hunting the creature without using her eyes would be challenging, but I trusted Jenny to pull it off.
I turned my attention back to Duke. “I’m sorry about this, but I don’t have time to be gentle. I’ve got to break through that terror.”
My mother could have done it with a look. Me, I needed a minute. Time to get in tune with the beat of my heart and the mouse-quick pounding of his. Time to shift my focus from the mental to the physical.
I thought back to the last time Duke and I had hooked up. Those strong hands were so gentle when they brushed my cheek, the side of my neck. They were so rough when they grabbed my ass to pull me close . . .
I remembered my lips on his, my barely checked hunger as we pulled each other onto the bed.
The floor groaned and sank another inch. I pretended it was the creak of bedsprings.
“Marmaduke Stone. Look at me.” My words were soft. Sultry. Seductive. Everything I’d fought so hard to suppress when I was a teenager. Everything I’d indulged a little too much in my twenties.
His eyes twitched. His pupils contracted ever so slightly.
“You know me. Even if your mind can’t remember, your body does.” I took his hand, gently opened his fist, and ran a finger up his palm. He didn’t try to hit me, which was a good sign. “Would you like to get out of here? We could go somewhere quiet and make some real noise.”
His eyes focused on me. Desire rose through the terror and confusion.
I ran a fingernail over his forearm.
He shivered. “Annette?”
The problem with the power I’d inherited—one of the many problems—was that it worked on me, too.
The more his lust grew and poured over me, the more my blood heated to meet it.
I wanted to throw him down and ravish him as the world came down around us.
But I had decades of experience managing my own desires.
When I spoke again, my voice was almost normal. “I need you to focus, Duke.”
“I’m extremely focused.” His hand cupped my face. His thumb stroked my lip. “I’ve missed you.”
I nipped his thumb with my teeth before I could stop myself. Dammit, this wasn’t the time. Reluctantly, I pushed Duke back and tried to concentrate on things like the shoggoth in the pit and the building about to collapse around us. “How many people are upstairs?”
“I think it’s just one family.” His words were raspier than usual. He reached for me.
I slapped his hand away. I had a lifetime of experience smothering my body’s reaction, but I’d overdone it with Duke.
Most of his higher brain functions were offline.
I could see it in his parted lips, the flared nostrils, the unbroken eye contact, the way the tip of his tongue moistened his lips .
. .“I’ll take care of them. You need to get out of here. ”
Duke swallowed. “I . . . I should help. They’re my friends.”
“You are in no condition to do anything but get the hell away from here,” I said sternly. Maybe a little too sternly, judging from how he straightened and caught his breath. I stood and retreated a step.
“Annette . . .” He clenched his fists. “About the way I acted when you were here before—”
“Take a minimum of three cold showers, then decide what you want to say to me.” I pointed to the closest window. “Go.”
His steps were unsteady, but he avoided the gaping hole in the floor and reached the window. Once he’d climbed out, I headed for the door to the staircase.
I tried to move the collapsed section of ceiling holding the door in place but gave up immediately. I doubted even Jenny could have budged that.
So, I went for the direct approach. I pulled my knife and stabbed the closest part of the door. An axe would have been better, but my knife had been enchanted to penetrate kraken scales. The door was old, solid wood, and I pierced it like it was balsa.
Screams erupted from behind the door. My heart stopped. Had I hit someone? But the blade was clean when I pulled it back. They were probably just frightened by me hacking through like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know you were so close. My name’s Annette. I’m here to get you out. How many of you are there?”
“Six.” The voice was oddly high-pitched and melodic. “What happen? Is earthquake? Why Duke screamed?”