not even a rat, but after a brief moment Spleen saluted the darkness, then turned his back on it and marched on.
The garbage trailed off quickly as the tunnel brightened. This part looked new, with utilitarian lights that were part of the actual sewer system, but with tags hidden in corners and on sills that marked this as the border of the Underground. We went north for maybe a quarter mile until we could hear the squeal of a train overhead, and then Spleen pried open a dingy, metal door and gestured down a dirt-encrusted, well-warded stairwell.
“After you, my dear,” he said.
“Fuck that,” I said.
“I’m just messin with ya,” he said, and led the way down.
Here, there was no light other than a dim, yellow, fluorescent wand he carried as he stumbled down worn steps. The stairwell switchbacked through a grim, cinderblock shaft—one flight, two flights, three flights, four: by my count, three stories beneath the streets, maybe more. The door doubled back the way we came, revealing a wider, vaulted tunnel, paralleling the one above us, filled with still, black water. A rowboat floated in the bile, waiting.
“You have to be kidding,” I said, as Spleen got in the boat.
“The old Confederate runoff tunnel,” he said, looking down into the water. “Or maybe a secret train tunnel that got flooded. Everyone who knows… is looong dead.”
“Let’s get this over with,” I said, getting in behind him grumpily.
“Ready? Ready. Ready!” Spleen said, pushing off and clambering forward to grab the oars. “You sit yourself back and enjoy the ride.”
“Whatever you say, Spleen,” I sighed.
The bastard grinned, and then started singing.
“We’re off to see the werewolf,” he warbled terribly, and my blood grew cold. “The wonderful werewolf of Krog. He is the were the wonderful were—”
“The full moon is like, ten days away,” I muttered. “No, I’m not at all worried.”
4. ENTER THE WOLF
At night you can’t see the color of my tattoos—unless I want you to. The darkness robs the blue from the scales of the dragon, the red from the feathers of the eagle, and the gold from the wings of the butterfly, leaving a black pattern of tribal runes like columns of hieroglyphics.
They’re mesmerizing—at least I hoped that’s why the werewolf stared at me so intently with his gleaming eyes. Oh, he looked human, even handsome, crouched on the dock under the yellowed lantern light, but his white incisors were a bit too sharp, his brown beard a little too scraggly, and something hungry lurked behind the lashes of his green eyes.
I stared back, frozen. Deep in a maze of tunnels marked with magical signs I couldn’t decipher, surrounded by blocks of stone that rose above us like a dungeon, trapped in a rocking boat too precarious to even stand, here I sat with the bare flesh of my arms exposed to a werewolf staring at me like dinner. Charming.
The tension grew thick enough to scare me out of my wits before the werewolf said, in a deep, rumbling voice that chilled me to my bones, “Such exquisite color. Such attention to detail. I could gaze on them all night, and not ask the question—can you do this?”
The werewolf flicked an old photograph at me, but I was too stunned to catch it.
“Don’t lose it,” Spleen cried, reaching out impulsively and damn near falling out of the boat, and both the werewolf and I reached to steady him.
Our hands touched—the werewolf’s was shockingly warm—and we both jerked away. Spleen leaned back up, one hand drenched where he’d pitched forward, but the other—and the photograph— still held high and dry.
“Idiot,” Spleen snarled at me, shaking stinking drainwater off his hand. “Why do you think I brought you down here? So he could eat you?”
“No,” I said, staring at the werewolf a bit sheepishly. We were both holding our hands carefully, mirroring each other, and I’d caught a lively spark in his eyes that seemed to promise that he was interested in more than dinner. “That wasn’t what I was worried about.”
“What then?” he asked, handing me the photograph.
I ignored him, holding the photograph gingerly, trying to parse it. It depicted a… stone carving of a wolf—a wolf in chains, which looped around it in an elaborate design.
“A control charm?” I guessed.
“I’m told you are the best,” the werewolf said. “Seeing your work—” he stared hungrily, no, appreciatively, at my arms—”I’d trust no one else. Can you ink the image on me?”