Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            “Damn straight,” he said, and Quen pushed past me, silent as he took Trent’s light in hand and stepped off the raised platform and onto the curved floor of the tunnel.

            “This way.” Quen paced forward. Trent was next, and then David, leaving Jenks and me last. “I really am sorry,” I whispered, and the pixy’s wings rasped as he landed on my shoulder and tugged at my hair to make room for himself. “I thought Trent was drowning.”

            “Was he?” Jenks asked.

            “Just about,” I said, and Jenks grunted.

            “Then it was probably good you went to get him.” His wings tickled my neck. “Great. They have no idea where we’re going,” he added, eyeing the three men bunched up at a fork, arguing.

            “It’s left,” David said, his attention on a faint glimmer of reflective paint. It was Pike’s logo, and I nodded as I scuffed to a halt.

            “Left leads down,” Trent said, clearly unhappy. “Any lower, and we get wet.”

            “You aren’t the one in slippers,” I grumped as I pushed past them, and Jenks snickered. The light behind me held steady for a moment, and then it began to move, bobbing against the walls as Trent and Quen reluctantly followed, whispering about city maps and pre-Turn records.

            David came even with me, a faint smile playing about his lips. “I would have thought that elves would be comfortable in the dark.”

            “It’s not the dark that bothers me,” Trent said from behind. “I’m not familiar with a direct, belowground, pre-Turn hospital access.”

            “Vamps and humans weren’t the only ones making tunnels before the Turn,” Jenks said.

            David tilted his hat back to study the low ceiling. “I don’t think anyone has been down here since the hospital was abandoned.”

            “Is it far?” I asked, nose wrinkling at the scent of mold.

            “No,” David said, and then I jerked, startled as my foot found an ankle-deep puddle.

            “Water ahead,” Jenks said.

            “Thanks,” I said sourly, my slippered foot suddenly cold and heavy. “So, Jenks, if you’re here, who’s watching the church?”

            “Stef,” the pixy said. “She got most of your ley line stuff upstairs before the I.S. showed up. You would have lost everything if not for her,” he added, his sparkles brightening at the memory. “She was parked on the top stair of the belfry when I left. Getty is with her.”

            “Really? Thanks.”

            “Lee’s been the biggest problem. No one else really wants to go up there, and I think he just wants to make mischief.” Clearly content, Jenks shifted to sit on Quen’s shoulder, looking back at me as he ate a wad of pollen he’d brought. “Lee is hell-bent on convincing anyone who will listen that you killed Vivian, but no one believes him. Even the people who don’t like you. The I.S. won’t move from the curb until Finnis takes over, and the Weres are tooling around as if they own the city. It’s the humans who have me worried. They bought up all the bread and toilet paper as if we got a hundred-year snowstorm coming.”

            David glanced over his shoulder, his amusement brightening his face.

            “Good,” I said. “They should be hiding. What about Pike and Ivy? She has a plan, right?”

            “Did the sun come up this morning?” Jenks grumped, and my tension began to ease.

            Up ahead, Quen’s stiff silhouette slowed and stopped at a rust-laced door. Pike’s logo glittered in the glow from Trent’s light, and the elf’s frown deepened. “What is the sense of having a safe house if you tell everyone it exists,” Trent said as David smacked the heavy door with a tire iron—three distinctive taps.

            “If you can handle Lee, Ivy has an idea for Finnis,” David said as the noise echoed. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

            “Yeah.” Jenks took to the air, tiny features bunched. “Wait until you see who she’s plotting with.”

            “You will not like that, either,” Quen added, his expression sour as the lock slid from the inside and the door began to open.