“There’s only about four inches of stone between us and the clan tunnel. We need to be ready to move the moment they break through,” Hannah said in a soft voice, like she was worried someone would hear her.
Trevor wanted to point out that if no one had heard the three ghouls clawing their way through a mountain of rock, whispering should be okay. But for all he knew, maybe the sound of voices carried farther down here underground than the scrape of claws on stone.
Instead, he nodded and got ready to move. Connor stepped up beside him while Madeleine stayed in the back of the group. If it had been up to him, Jenna’s friend would never have come with them in the first place, but the woman had been stubborn, threatening to find her way through the Prohibition tunnel on her own if necessary. Trevor doubted she’d get far, but he knew Jenna would be furious if her friend got hurt, so he’d acquiesced and told her she could go with them. He hoped he didn’t regret the decision.
“There shouldn’t be anyone in this part of the caverns,” Hannah whispered as she drew the rusted hunting knife from the sheath on her hip, nodding for the ghouls to start digging again. “But if there are, we’ll need to deal with them quickly and quietly before they can raise the alarm.”
Trevor hefted the length of rusted metal in his left hand, pretty sure it had once been used to hold up a stop sign, wondering once again how this could possibly work. He glanced at Connor to see his pack mate holding up a similar piece of rusted steel, maybe from some old piece of farmingequipment, all twisty with gear teeth running along one side.
Hannah had told them earlier that steel wasn’t the secret to hurting ghouls. Instead, it was the rust sometimes found on that steel that could get through their normally impervious skin.
“I have no idea why, but ferric oxide is like their kryptonite,” Hannah had told them. “They avoid it like the plague. On the surface, they won’t touch anything that’s rusty, and while digging, they’ll go miles out of their way to avoid ore pockets containing the stuff. Getting hit with something rusty will break the skin and hurt like hell. Too much of the stuff in their bloodstream will kill them.”
Trevor wished they’d had some way to confirm Hannah’s claims, because it was seriously difficult to believe that a creature as dangerous as a ghoul could be terrified of something as innocuous as rust. But time hadn’t been on their side, so Trevor was simply going to have to trust that Hannah knew what she was talking about. She’d lived among the ghouls for ten frigging years, so if any human knew their weaknesses, it would be Hannah.
“Okay, here we go,” Hannah announced softly as their own ghouls broke through the wall ahead of them, catching the largest chunks of stones before they fell and lowering them silently to the floor.
The ghouls immediately backed out of the way, letting Trevor and Connor enter the large spacebeyond the opening they’d created. Trevor moved in with his rusty steel club held high but quickly realized the tunnel they’d come out in was completely empty. A few sniffs revealed nothing more than the musty scent he’d come to associate with the ghouls, and even that seemed pretty stale. No one had been this way in a while, certainly not Jenna or any other human.
He and Connor quickly strode forward, making room for Hannah, Madeleine, and the team of ghouls. Trevor watched as the creatures began tying pieces of red material around their upper right arm—the signal they’d agreed on earlier to identify which ghouls were on their side.
After tying the red sashes, the ghouls split up and disappeared into the darkness, leaving Trevor to once again worry about whether they could really trust the creatures. It would be incredibly easy for their allies to turn on them. And Trevor and everyone else would never know until it was too late.
“They’re going to slip in and warn their family members and the other members of the resistance that everything is coming to a head,” Hannah whispered as they began to move through the tunnel. “When the time is right, they’ll start creating distractions and lure as many members of the clan away from us as possible.”
Trevor understood that had been the plan, but he wasn’t sure how effective it would be. “If it comesto it, will the Others fight with us against their own kind?”
“They’ll help as much as they can, but if it comes to it, I’m not sure if they would kill one of their own,” Hannah admitted. “The Umdar clans are basically one very large family, close in a way that most human families will never be. This resistance movement by the Others has drastically changed how they see each other in ways that even they probably don’t understand yet. When the fighting starts, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“I guess we’ll simply have to live with that,” Connor said. “And deal with whatever happens, no matter which way it turns out.”
Hannah nodded, turning to shine her flashlight down a narrower tunnel to the left. “Come on. We’re heading toward the main gathering area for the clan. That’s where the holding pens for the captives are and where I hope we’ll find Jenna and the other prisoners.”
The entire concept ofholding penswas enough to almost force Trevor into a shift, fangs threatening to extend to their fullest. Connor reached over to put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently.
“Jenna’s going to be okay,” his pack mate murmured softly, more supportive than Trevor had ever imagined him being. “And so will everyone else. We’re going to get them out of here. You have to believe that.”
For some bizarre reason, Trevor did.
They moved quickly after that, Madeleine keeping up with them, even if she was still obviously terrified, flashlight bouncing around so much now it was like a strobe. She was breathing faster now, and it had nothing to do with the light jog they were maintaining. She had a small rusty mason’s hammer hanging from a loop on her belt, but Trevor knew he’d be stunned senseless if Madeleine ever pulled the damn thing out, much less used it.
“I smell something,” Connor said suddenly a few feet ahead of the rest of them, a position he’d taken up after trying to calm Trevor down a few seconds ago. “Humans for sure.”
“That makes sense,” Hannah said. “We’re only a few hundred feet from the main cavern with the holding pens. Two or three turns in the passageway and we’re there. How many ghouls do you smell?”
Connor had given his older sister the fifty-cent explanation of what it meant to be a werewolf after explaining that he, Trevor, and the rest of the guys were ones. Having heard the secondhand stories from the Others about their first run-in with the ghouls, she had accepted the whole wolf thing rather easily. Honestly, she’d been more concerned with any abilities he and the guys might have that would help them get Jenna and the rest of the captives back. The fact that they could smell the presence of people and ghouls had been far moreinteresting to her than the night vision, claws, fangs, and enhanced strength.
“Three, maybe four,” Connor said.
Trevor thought was probably right. While the scent of ghouls was nearly overwhelming as they moved into the much more heavily populated part of their territory, several of them were a bit stronger, indicating a fresher source.
“I smell Esme and Isaac,” Trevor added a few feet later, his nose working overtime. “There are other people with them.”
“What about Jenna?” Hannah asked hesitantly, like she was afraid to hear the answer.
Trevor sniffed the air again, his heart beginning to beat faster at what he found—or didn’t find, rather. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw from the expression on Connor’s face that his pack mate had figured out the same thing he had.
“She was there,” Trevor finally said. “Recently. But the scent is starting to fade a bit, meaning they took her out of the holding pens within the last ten or fifteen minutes.”
