Unknown 9 by Layton Green (each kindness read aloud txt) 📕

in the darkness, this time in English, and from farther away. “I knew you would bring them here, ratcatcher.” The voice switched languages yet again, barking out a few angry sentences in what sounded like Hindi.

Terrified, Andie tried to think of something to do as the front door opened, letting in a flood of light. Standing in the doorway with a satisfied smirk was the priest they had seen in the temple earlier—the one who Cal thought resembled a professor. He was holding a cellular device that looked, from a distance, exactly like the Star Phone.

Beside her, Cal was blinking and using the altar to steady himself, as if disoriented. Andie fumbled in her pocket and didn’t feel the Star Phone. She looked back and forth between the priest and Cal in horror. “What did you do?”

Cal gave her a confused look. “I thought you . . . I don’t understand.”

“He made a gift to Kali,” the priest said with a smile as Andie ran toward him. He slipped through the door and slammed it shut, sealing them inside. Andie heard the click of a lock and found the door barred when she tried the handle.

She pounded on the door as Mani lit a match near the altar. Andie snarled and strode toward him. “You brought him!”

“No,” the boy said. “I swear.”

“Then what was that? Why did he call you a ratcatcher?”

“Because that is my caste. I catch rats near temple for priests, and sometimes, when no money, I beg.”

“What did he say to you in Hindi? Tell me!”

A look of fear crawled onto the boy’s face. “He say when he see me again, he give me to Kali.”

Andie swallowed and whirled on Cal, who was backing away from the altar with a horrified expression. “What the hell was that?”

He jabbed a finger at the wax effigy. “She came to life and stabbed you. I swear it. I had to fling the dagger away and get her off you—”

“What are you talking about?” Andie interrupted in disgust, though when she saw the expression on his face—conviction wrapped in a cocoon of abject fear—she knew something terrible, and very convincing, had happened to him.

“I thought I was helping you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She didn’t know what to say, or how any of this was possible, but the circumstances didn’t matter. Somehow the priest had tricked Cal’s mind, and now the enemy—only an Ascendant would have targeted the Star Phone like that—had stolen Andie’s only link to Dr. Corwin and her mother.

“I can’t explain what happened,” he said. “I saw it. I saw her.” He shivered and looked down. “It was the most awful thing I’ve ever seen. Her eyes and fangs, and that tongue . . . She was right on top of you and wrapping you in all those limbs . . .”

The boy was staring at Cal with an expression of horror.

Andie put a hand to her forehead, forcing herself to think. “We have to go. My guess is that priest is going for help. He’ll probably come back with the Chinese guy.”

“Come, lady,” Mani urged, tugging on her sleeve as he stared at the locked front door. “I help you leave.”

In the chaos, Andie had almost forgotten why they had followed the boy inside in the first place. Her sense of despair at the theft of the Star Phone was so crushing she almost wanted to lie down and let the Ascendants take her, accept whatever happened next.

She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing there was no choice if they had any chance of escaping. “Let’s go,” she said, opening her eyes but unable to look at Cal.

Could she even trust him now?

They followed the boy as he darted around the altar, revealing an iron grate set into the floor. He removed it, exposing a hole that stank like the love child of a slaughterhouse and a sewer. Mani took one of the candles off the candelabra, hesitating as if wary of disturbing the shrine, then lit the candle and aimed it at the hole.

A rusty iron ladder was bolted into the side of the well. “Where does this go?” Andie asked. “And don’t tell me a secret place again.”

“Many places,” the boy said. “You need someplace safe?”

“Yes,” she said, impatient. “I told you.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know. Where, Mani?”

“I take you home,” the boy said, with an earnest expression.

“Whose home?”

“My home. It is safe. Come.”

“Does that priest know about this place?”

“Yes. But not where I live.”

She glanced back at the door, so frustrated by her lack of options she wanted to scream. “Let’s go.”

As Mani climbed into the hole and replaced the grate, Andie made Cal go ahead of her, afraid to lose sight of him again. She followed him to the base of the ladder, ten feet down the hole, where they encountered a tunnel made of pitted granite, slick with algae. The ceiling was so low Cal could barely stand up. A series of small enclosures dug out of the rock and enclosed with rusty metal fencing lined one side of the tunnel, big enough for a goat or even a cramped human being. Andie heard the frenzied bark of an unhappy dog not far away.

She tried not to think about the purpose of this place as they followed the boy down the corridor. Behind them, in the building above, they heard a door open. They began to run, slipping on the damp stone. Soon they heard the murmur of voices and the faint splash of water, confusing Andie because the sounds were coming from farther ahead. Who else was down here?

Just as she started to panic, the boy gripped her arm and said, “It’s okay. No one hurt you.”

“Famous last words,” Cal muttered. “And for the record, I am now officially sick of underground tunnels.”

At least he’s making a snide remark, Andie thought. Though still furious, she was glad to see his eyes were not as glazed. He seemed to have recovered