Owen never shut up, repeatedly asking why he couldn’t have a gun like the ones Trevor andhis three teammates were carrying. And when he wasn’t talking, he was pointing his flashlight in everybody’s face, damn near blinding them all.
“You make it sound so illegal when you say it that way,” Owen said from his place several spots behind Trevor, flicking his flashlight this way and that, like he was a member of the Scooby Gang looking for a clue. “All we did was attach one of those tiny GPS trackers to the underside of your rental car. You know the ones that helicopter moms clip to their little kid’s backpacks? The things are cheap as hell and connect straight to an app on my phone. We put one on Jenna’s car, too, so it’s not like we were only targeting you or anything.”
Trevor bit his lower lip to keep from growling.
“Tagging a person’s car with your cheap GPS tracker sounds illegal because itisillegal, you dumbass,” Connor said from farther back in the tunnel. “It’s a misdemeanor in California for anyone but the cops or a licensed PI to do it. And you guys are definitely neither of those things.”
“I don’t know if anyone has ever told you this, but you come off sounding like a cop when you talk like that,” Isaac said.
“That’s probably because we are cops,” Mike said from directly behind Isaac. “I assumed the fact that we’re carrying licensed handguns would be a dead giveaway, but I guess not. Then again, it’s not like running around in the sewers looking forsupernatural creatures is a normal thing for police to do, so I probably shouldn’t hold that against you.”
There was silence for a long time as Trevor continued leading them through the tunnels, the dirt and musky scent he’d come to associate with the ghouls incredibly easy to follow. Every once in a while, he or one of his pack mates would use a piece of chalk to mark an arrow on the wall. It wasn’t as if they were worried about getting lost down here, but Owen and Isaac were a different matter. If they got separated, hopefully the arrows on the wall would lead them back to the exit.
“Um…I just want to let you know that we never used the trackers on a person before,” Isaac finally said, suddenly sounding guilty. “We originally picked them up in case we ever stumbled across a paranormal creature and needed to follow it back to its lair.”
Trevor had a sudden vision of Isaac jumping on a vampire’s back, trying to clip a GPS tracker on the vamp’s belt, even as the bloodsucker tore the rest of his HOPD crew to shreds. These guys were so far out of their league and didn’t even know it.
“Have you ever actually run into a real supernatural creature?” Hale asked, clearly thinking the same thing Trevor had.
“Oh yeah. Lots of them,” Owen assured them in a tone that suggested it wasn’t a big deal at the exact same time that Isaac said, “Not really.”
Trevor stopped walking to look back at the twomembers of the nerd herd, the beams of their flashlights reflecting off the walls of the tunnel to reveal some seriously embarrassed faces.
“I mean,” Owen started slowly, “we’ve come close to seeing some supernatural creatures. But they always seem to slip away at the last second. They’re out there, though. I swear it.”
“You don’t have to do much to convince us of that,” Trevor said, moving out of the way of the flashlights so that they illuminated the hole in the tunnel floor that the creature had disappeared into the other day. “In this case at least, you’re right.”
Owen hurried over, leaning forward and running his light around the ragged edges of the hole in the concrete, the beam glinting off the pieces of steel rebar the ghoul had sliced clean through. “Where did that come from?”
Trevor dropped to one knee beside the hole. “This is how the creatures we’re after are able to move around the city without being seen. It appears these things can claw through concrete and steel like it’s tissue paper. I’m guessing that flesh and bone wouldn’t present much of a problem, either.”
Even in the darkness, it was impossible to miss that Isaac and Owen had become extremely nervous all of a sudden. Their hearts were beating faster and they were sweating a little. Something told Trevor that both men were probably wondering if coming down here had been such a good idea.
“Do you think there are more than one of these creatures?” Owen asked, running his fingers along the edge of the hole like he was trying to understand how any creature could claw through concrete and metal like this. Trevor couldn’t blame him. Werewolves had claws, but even they couldn’t do anything like this.
“Yeah,” Mike said from the back of the group, and Trevor could see him lift his nose to subtly test the air. “There are definitely more than one.”
“So…” Isaac said, looking back and forth between the part of the tunnel where Mike was standing and the pitch-black darkness filling the hole in the floor. “Are we going down there to try and follow one of those things?”
“That’s the idea,” Connor said, mouth curving into a smirk. “Of course, you two are welcome to head back up to the surface and wait for us up there where it’s safe.”
Isaac seemed like he was ready to accept the offer, but Owen stood straighter and got an obstinate look on his face, like Connor was challenging his manhood or something lame like that.
“Oh, we’re going down there all right,” Owen said fiercely, taking a step closer to the hole in the floor of the tunnel. “In fact, we’re going to go first.”
Before he could take a step, Trevor reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “You’re not going first and that’s the end of it,” he said firmly, tugging Owen back.
Trevor looked at each of his pack mates in turn before turning his gaze on Owen and Isaac. “I shouldn’t have to repeat this, but I will anyway. We’re going down in that hole for one reason, and one reason only—recon. We need to know how extensive these tunnels are and how difficult it will be to navigate them. If we can figure out where these creatures live, we’ll consider that gravy at this point. We’re going to avoid contact, no matter what. We simply don’t know enough about what we’re up against to risk a confrontation.”
Owen opened his mouth, no doubt to demand they should go running in with guns blazing as if they were in a Hollywood action movie. Fortunately, the man censored himself at the last moment.
“Are you sure we can’t have weapons?” he asked instead, peeking down in the hole in the floor again.
“No!” Trevor and his pack mates said in unison.
Jumping into the hole, Trevor immediately began moving forward on his hands and knees. The bottom of this new stretch of tunnel was rougher than the man-made sewer above, with ridges of stones and chunks of rubble that dug into his jean-covered knees and the palms of his hands as he crawled. In some places, the tunnel narrowed, scraping his shoulders and back, while in others, it was big enough to almost walk upright.
As he continued crawling through the tunnel, helistened for the sound of movement ahead of him. He’d hoped that his nose would clue him in to the presence of any ghouls, but the tunnel they were in reeked of dirt and that musky scent he associated with the creatures, so right now, they could be anywhere.
