Page 50 of Spirit Dances

I muttered, “It was June, and I was having a bad day,” and bent forward as the passageway got lower. Rita took a breath like she wanted to ask a dozen questions, but restrained herself as Igot down on hands and knees to continue forward. I was certain there was room: Tia, either in human or canine form, had fit through, and I was pretty sure she didn’t outweigh me. “Look, I know she isn’t right in front of us, but once we get through here I want you to let me take point and you two stay back to back, okay? Rita, are you sure you even want to be here?”

“People have been brought through here recently, Detective. There are heel marks in the dirt, like they were dragged.”

I stopped and looked at the dirt under my hands, which was littered with paw prints and, indeed, drag marks. “Please tell me you’d noticed that, Billy.”

“Crawling behind two of you who are wiping out the marks? No. Good job, Rita. We owe you one.”

“We see a lot more than people think we do,” Rita said softly. “Just because you don’t see us…”

I said, “Remind me to hire you as my eyes and ears on the street when we get done with this,” and Rita breathed a smile behind me.

“Joanne,” Melinda Holliday said, loud and clear andinside my head, “we have a problem. The police have found Michael.”

Chapter 25

Ibucked upright, smashed my head against the low ceiling, howled with outrage and came down again saying, “What thefuck?” mostly to the voice inside my head. “Melinda?”

“Melinda?” Billy looked around in alarm and I snapped a fist closed like I was snatching the sound from the air.

“Since when is your wifetelepathic,Billy? Melinda? Melinda!” I finally triedMelinda?inside my head, and got startlement back in response.Melinda, what thefuck?

Impatience shot through her answer: “For heaven’s sake, Joanne, I don’t know how long I can maintain this. Wherever you are doesn’t have cell reception and this is important. Get somewhere you can call me before they decide to shoot Michael.”

I bent double—not that it was far to bend—and beat both fists against the ground, swearing and swearing and swearing. “They found Morrison. I have to go get him.”

Rita’s protest was as sharp as my own astonishment. “You can’t leave! You can’t—that thing, it’s, it’s a, a…”

“I don’t have much choice, Rita. We know where Tia is, at least generally. I’ll come back for her, but if I don’t go get Morrison he’s probably going to get killed and—” I broke off,because that sentence finished withand I would rather let every single person down here die than let that happen.I wasn’t sure it was a lie, but I was very sure it was the wrong thing to say. “Are there other ways in and out of here?”

“Probably, but I don’t know! I’ve never been this far!”

Well, the first tunnel we’d chased our golden goose through had been dug out by hand, not one of the old city streets. I arbitrarily chose to believe that meant it was the main, perhaps the only, access point, and started backing up. “Billy,shit, you don’t even have your gun, do you?” I knew he didn’t, not any more than I had one. Worry was making me ask stupid questions.

“I don’t usually bring it to theater performances, no,” he said tightly. “What about Melinda?”

“She’s fine, she’s justtalking in my head.” I was feeling a little over-emphatic, but it was the only way I could keep from shouting everything I said. “Is that normal?”

After a careful pause he said, “No,” which suggested to me it wasn’t entirely abnormal, either, but I wasn’t in the mood to get into it.

“It must have something to do with the dance tonight. Look, if we retreat to the chamber we first saw her in, can you hold the fort until I get back?”

“Me and what army?”

“Ours,” Rita offered, sounding determined if not absolutely certain. “Wolves avoid people, right? Normal wolves? So if I go get some of the guys to join us, maybe just having so many people there will keep her trapped.”

It was dark and the tunnel was cramped, but Billy and I both turned toward her, lights flashing to illuminate her wide-eyed face. “That,” I said in genuine approval, “is a great idea. Thank you, Rita. You’re a hell of a woman.”

“And you owe me a hell of an explanation.” She turned around more easily in the tunnel’s confines than either Billy or I could do, and scampered back the way we’d come.

Shamanic powers did not come investedwith super-strength, so getting Billy, particularly, out of the chamber we’d first seen the wolf woman in was something of a challenge. Fortunately, I was tall and broad-shouldered, if not superheroic, and once I’d boosted him up he was able to haul me up without much trouble. Rita, who weighed about ninety pounds, was no problem, though it was she who said, “We’ll bring a ladder next time.”

I let her explain about the golden-furred predator in the tunnels when we got back to the campfire group, and was pleasantly surprised that half a dozen of them agreed, not even grudgingly, to come keep an eye on the chamber. I didn’t remember seeing another way out of there, and suggested they didn’t even need to go into the chamber itself, but their friend Lynn was dead, others were missing and their attitude had something of a witch hunt to it. I hoped Billy could keep them from going after the wolf, but I had to trust him to it: every minute I stayed below was another minute Morrison could get killed in, and I didn’t care how disorganized the homeless mob was when I left them.

It took less time to get back to the mosaic and ladder than it had taken to get away from it. It was one of those fixed truths of the universe: the road back was always shorter, presumably because then I knew where I was going. I scrambled back to the surface and ran for the parking garage, because, like a moron, I had left my phone in Petite. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d run more than a block, much less a whole damned mile. I had an agonizing stitch in my side by the time I collapsed into Petite’s bucket seat, lodging dirt and muck in the leather, andfrantically dialed Melinda. “Well? Where is he? And how do you even know?”

“I’ve been listening to Billy’s police scanner,” she said without the slightest repentance. I wanted to kiss her for the breach of protocol. “He got himself into the Market somehow, Joanne. They’re still chasing him around it.”

“The Market? What the hell is he doing downtown? And aren’t half the internal passages blocked off by gates?” I slammed Petite’s door, locking it, and was running again before I’d finished the questions.

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