Page 127 of Black Curtain

Nick brought his face down by the tile bathroom floor. After another few seconds, he began to draw straight lines in a roughly four by four square.

The square took up all of the space directly in front of the toilet.

“Don’t step there,” Nick said, jumping back to his feet. “Well… not unless you want to go for a little ride. I’m pretty sure that’s how they got Kiko and Dex. I can smell them here,” he added apologetically, glancing at me. “I didn’t want to gross anyone out before, but their scent is strongest here, more recent than anywhere else in the house. I don’t think they ever went anywhere else. I think they went here and then…thunk.Andwhoosh.”

He made a sharp, tilting gesture with his hand, indicating a trap door.

Nick gave me another grim look.

“They must have planned to get the humans that way. They’d need to use the toilet more often than the rest of us. Seers generally go for longer without, don’t they? Especially when they haven’t eaten.”

I found it weird that Nick knew that, but it shouldn’t have been weird.

He lived with a seer, after all.

It was weird mostly because I hadn’t really thought about that fact myself.

As soon as he said it, I realized it was true, however.

Seers were strangely economical in terms of how they processed waste.

“But don’t we want to go down there?” Jax argued, pointing at the floor. “That’s where Kiko and Dexter are! We want to go down there, right? Aren’t we going? Now?”

I frowned at Jax’s words.

So did everyone else.

Then, as if by some unspoken signal, we all looked at Black.

“You couldn’t get into the basement from the kitchen?” I asked him.

Black scowled. “No. It’s locked up. Hell, it might becementedup. There were multiple keypads, locks, whatever. I don’t think we could get in there on our own.”

“Then maybe Jax is right,” I said.

Black let out a disbelieving laugh. “What makes you think we can get out of there once we go down there ourselves, doc? What if we just trap all of us inside? Or were you planning to climb back up the trapdoor, once we’re at the bottom?”

“Does it matter?” Dalejem asked mildly.

We all looked at him.

Returning our gazes, the preternaturally handsome seer shrugged.

“I just mean… we can’t get out of the house at all without Brick,” Jem pointed out. “So if he wants us to go down there to solve his puzzle, why would we be fighting that? Don’t we want to do this thing as quickly as possible? Or do you think there is more we can learn, being up here?”

There was another silence.

Black looked at me.

“Did you find any more of the recordings? Up on the third floor?” he asked. “Anything other than the one with Denis and his kid?”

I shook my head, once. “No. Only that one.”

We all looked at one another again.

“What about the kitchen?” I asked Black. “Did you find anything in there?”

Black and Jem exchanged grim looks.

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