Page 94 of A Subtle Scar
“There’s no one here,” I said, but then, past several big water tanks that were also hidden under the tarps, I saw it.
Hermes gasped. “Is that—”
Charon grabbed my hand. “You are not to leave our sidefor a second.”
“That’s a freaking bunker.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chandler’seyeswereglassy,haunted. That, more than the remnants of the psychic magic I still felt around him, told me he was, after everything, still caught in the aftereffects of his trance.
He was right about trances being rare in humans—and completely unheard of in gods, just like necromancy. In his case, while the Dragon Mother would be able to say for certain, I would bet a wing feather that the connection he’d had with his twin since conception had laid the groundwork for the psychic ability, and that his twin’s passing had then amplified it.
The why wasn’t really relevant, not when Chandler was heedlessly pulling me along with him toward the bunker door.
A faded biohazard sign that had once been yellow and black warned people off—but the sign was placed across from the bunker’s entrance so that it was the first thing you saw upon exiting.
A glass oval set in the top half of the door showed old suits in there, a lot like space suits, but worn and brittle, taped over in many places.
The bunker door had a wheel in its center the likes of which you’d see on submarines, and Chandler fought for me to let go of him so he could turn and open it. I didn’t let him.
Hermes looked at me. “Should we?”
I shrugged and nodded toward Chandler. “It seems we have to.”
“I could go inside and handle the humans. They might try attacking like that woman did.”
“No,” Chandler said. “I need to get inside. And…jurisdiction and stuff.”
I was not going to trust him on the veracity of the statement, but it could be useful to have him with us. To make sense of why these humans had chosen to live here, underground. I certainly didn’t see rhyme or reason for it.
I nodded. “Let’s do what he wants.”
“The sooner this ends, the sooner someone gets to blow me,” Hermes said. “Really, at this point, I might just spontaneously erupt.”
Chandler snorted. “You’re not a volcano. Chop-chop.”
“I’ll show you a volcano, baby, once this is done.” Hermes grabbed the wheel and turned.
The mechanism was well oiled, so there was no ominous creaking. The door opened. Hermes didn’t immediately walk inside even though Chandler kept pulling.
While our boyfriend was ready to run headfirst into danger, the two of us not under the influence of a psychic vision checked for any magical traps of which there were none, so we moved forward. Hermes walked ahead, and I made sure Chandler stayed behind him. He wouldn’t let me hold on to him and tried to pull his hand from mine, so in the end, I bound our palms with a little spell.
Chandler frowned at me when the superglue spell stuck, but he saved his complaints. Then he looked around, at the space suits lining the wall.
It was difficult to tell what color they had once been, but sun-bleached light brown probably wasn’t it. There wasn’t a suit that hadn’t been extensively repaired, and repaired was generous when line upon line of tape were the only tools to fix a problem.
But the repairs, however rudimentary they were, had been made, and the suits had been left in their places with care, the boots they went with all lined up next to them with the toes facing the wall.
The space suit room ended in another door, which was the same design, wheel and all. I looked back over my shoulder to see warning signs and graffiti all around the entrance.Beware the plague, cover your mouth and nose, do not touch, do not let them touch you, do not go outside!and other pointless advice framed this solitary doorway.
It was befuddling. Hermes and I were chthonic enough in our magic to enjoy this little adventure of going underground, but the nutritionist who’d once shared her stash of granola bars with me when we’d both been waiting for a delayed flight had told me that humans needed Vitamin D, which humans made in sunlight somehow. She’d explained the science, which I hadn’t understood in detail, but my takeaway had been that humans were a lot like plants when it came down to it: they both needed light, water, yummy soil, and maybe a flirty bee every once in a while.
“They are probably all sick,” I said as Hermes opened the second door.
“They were all sick when they went in here,” Chandler said.
Hermes stopped. “Do you mean there actually is or was some kind of disease? Baby, we’re not taking you down there if you think you might catch anything.”
