Kitty in the Underworld by Carrie Vaughn (red queen ebook .txt) 📕

has been for you, hasn’t it?” she said, her rich gaze full of sadness and understanding. “Like throwing yourself against a wall and never breaking through.”

Something in me deflated. My shoulders slumped; I rubbed my eyes, keeping back tears. My whole body felt like grit. If she’d offered to give me a hug then, I might have fallen into her arms.

“More like trying to beat up a storm cloud,” I said, and she smiled.

“Right here, we can finish Roman once and for all,” she said, and this time, the light gleaming in her eyes belonged to a warrior. To a goddess of war, a lion in battle. “You can avenge your friend. You can avenge everyone who Roman has hurt.”

What a tantalizing possibility.

We all looked over just before we heard the footsteps pad through the doorway, when we smelled Zora enter the tunnel. Like everyone else here, she smelled ripe; she hadn’t showered in days. But she also smelled of herbs, candle wax, and chalk. The tools of her trade. She appeared in the tunnel, holding up a battery-powered lantern, which gave her the appearance of a ghost in shadows.

“What are you doing? You shouldn’t be here!” Holding her cloak around her, she glared at us with wide, indignant eyes.

“We’re making sure our plans don’t fall apart,” Enkidu said.

“But—you know what he said. You’ll ruin everything! You don’t trust him, you never trusted him!”

Sakhmet spoke soothingly. “No, Zora, it isn’t like that. Please, calm down.”

“Then what are you telling her?”

Enkidu glared. “We are ensuring that your ritual will go smoothly.”

“That isn’t your place. She is like you, an avatar and a conduit, you don’t understand anything beyond that, and you cannot make her understand. That’s for me and Kumarbis. You should wait, that is your part in this.”

“We’ve been waiting too long already,” he muttered.

Chapter 13

THEY SHUT the door, but I didn’t hear the bolt slide into place. Oh, please …

Oh so quietly, I pulled on the slab of wood—and it opened. Wincing, I froze. Waited, listened. But no one was coming, they hadn’t heard it. I had to hope that Enkidu and Sakhmet were arguing with Zora so loudly they wouldn’t hear the door scraping on the stone. Inch by inch, I eased the door open, just enough for me to be able to slip through the opening without scraping any skin on the silver-tainted mine wall.

And just like that I was outside.

More of the battery powered camp lanterns sat on the floor of the tunnel at intervals, spaced far apart. They gave off tiny auras of muted white light, so the space was still dim, the far walls and ceiling lost in darkness. But I could make my way well enough. The tunnel beyond the door was exactly like the ones I’d seen so far, nothing holding up the mountain over us but arcing granite, parallel rusted steel tracks curving along the floor, leading away. A historical curiosity. Any ore carts, spikes and hammers, drills, whatever other tools would have been used to dig out the mine and carry out ore had been cleared out long ago. A coating of white and red minerals splotched the walls in places. The place felt like a tomb.+nit, you’re on the air.”

I stood there far too long, studying the hallway, gaining my bearings. I had no idea how far underground I was, or which way to turn. I’d made that mistake before. Sakhmet and the others would be back soon, so whatever I did I had to hurry.

Closing my eyes, settling my racing heart, I tipped up my nose and took a long breath, learning as much as I could from simple air. Then another, to confirm what I thought—hoped—the air was telling me.

A draft, very faint, stirred down the tunnel. I smelled fresh air, coming from my left.

I ran.

The tunnel branched once. I hesitated at the fork, knowing my window was short, which meant I didn’t have time to make a mistake. But the trail of fresh air continued, and I kept going, until the floor sloped up in a gentle grade. I stopped encountering lanterns—but light remained. The spot of sunlight ahead looked like treasure, brilliant and longed-for. Tears filled my eyes, and I rubbed my face.

The mine entrance was small, a curved passage opening out of the hillside like a mouth. A field of bare gravel sloped away from it, and beyond that granite outcroppings and forest. I paused there, my eyes shut, my arm up to shield my face from too-bright sunlight. Gasping for breath, I coughed as my lungs filled with the clean scent of pine trees, snow, and mountain air, so startling after the close smell of the mine. Even better, the air smelled like Colorado. The Rockies, lodgepole pines and Douglas fir and all the rest. Colorado dirt and sky. Home wasn’t that far away.

I was out, I was free. I couldn’t believe it. I huddled by the entrance, shivering. I was barefoot, and my toes nestled into gritty dirt and snow. My eyes took a long time getting used to the light before I could open them fully and figure out where I was. And what to do next.

By the way the sun slanted, it must have been afternoon. Golden light stabbed through the trees of the forest that dotted the mountainside. A recent snow had fallen; clean white blanketed the ground. The slope of the old tailings pile—waste rock from the mine—was visible, a triangle cutting down the hill and bare of trees. I could start walking, but to where? I could be hundreds of miles from anything resembling help, a gas station pay phone or road with any traffic, a town of any size. My werewolf self could walk that far, even barefoot in the snow, no problem. I might be a wreck at the end of it, but I’d recover.

The air must have been cold, but I didn’t feel it. I just felt … confused. If I really did have a chance