“Preserving our home, my dear Miss McConnell. Protecting our castle, if you will,” said Mr. Dalrymple. “I’m afraid that real estate in Manhattan is a very dark and brutal realm.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t be naïve, Cath.” Bryce wrapped his arm around Janice’s throat and pressed on her windpipe. “Do you think great apartments in rent-controlled buildings on desirable blocks just grow on trees?”
“Bryce,” I said sharply as Janice struggled for air, “stop that! Stop it right now or—or—or I’ll use this sword. I swear I will!”
Janice gurgled, her face turning red, and made a gesture urging me to attack him.
“I am afraid the Sewer Beast must be pacified, Miss McConnell,” Mr. Dalrymple said sadly. “A deal with dark powers, you might say. Indeed, you’d have to say it, as there really is no other terminology that accurately—”
“Get to the point!” I snapped.
“It is the price that I and my chosen tenants pay for our domain, for our tenure in this humble urban castle, if you will.”
“What tenure? What domain? What are you saying?”
English people. Honestly.
“It’s the price for this building,” shouted Bryce, trying to make Janice hold still. She was gasping, struggling, and kicking. “The thing we have to do to have a great apartment at a low rent on the Upper East Side!”
“What is the thing you have to do?”
“Once every ten years,” said Mr. Dalrymple, “we must offer a human sacrifice to the Sewer Beast.”
I stared at him. “You’re making that up.”
He shook his head. “Indeed not. I swear on my honor as a gentleman. We retain our rights to this blessed and cursed domain by entering the bowels of the cellar once every ten years to present a human sacrifice to the Sewer Beast—that grisly manifestation of the fearsome powers who oversee such matters in New York City.”
My jaw hung open and my sword arm wavered. “Seriously?”
“By tradition, the duty always falls to the newest tenant of the building.” Mr. Dalrymple nodded toward Bryce. “So you can understand why I have to be very choosy about my tenants.”
I looked at Bryce. “You started dating me . . . you asked me to move in with you . . . so you could feed me to some subterranean monster?”
Realizing the full implication of the word “replacement” now, Janice threw her whole body weight against Bryce, knocking him back against the wall as she fought for her freedom.
“You bastard,” I said. “My mom was right about you all along!”
Gasping for air as he wrestled with Janice, he protested, “Your mom likes me!”
I snorted. “You’re a fool as well as a philanderer and a murderer.”
“I’m not a murderer,” Bryce insisted, clearly offended. “It’s just going to be this one little sacrifice, for the sake of my great apartment—an apartment you love, too, Cathy! And that’s it. It’s not like I’m going to make a regular thing of killing people.” When Janice bit him, he added, “Ouch!”
I was about to explain to him that one murder was all it took to make him a murderer, but the Beast roared again, emphasizing that this discussion wasn’t theoretical.
“MMWWWWAAAAAR!”
“That sounded really close!” I said.
Mr. Dalrymple nodded. “The creature is here. It’s time.”
He opened the door for Bryce, whose arms were full of a furiously fighting female. Bryce dragged Janice into the doorway, ignoring me as I followed in fear and confusion, randomly ordering him to let her go, leave her be, drop her right now.
A terrible, unearthly red glow rose from the depths of the building, along with a thick cloud of yellow smoke that stank of sewage and sulfur. The stench filled the stairwell and floated into the hall. I reflexively covered my nose while Bryce paused at the top of the steps.
“Sorry, Janice. This isn’t personal. It’s just something that’s got to be done.”
Janice was shaking her head, begging for her life and rocking all her weight frantically away from Bryce, trying to break his hold on her.
His face was cold and determined. I realized he was really going to do it. He was going to murder her right in front of me—all so he could keep his rent-controlled apartment.
Which I had painted and cleaned and tended for him!
“No!” Well, I was Catherine, warrior princess, and I would not let him do this. “Unhand her!”
I leaped forward and slashed at Bryce with my trusty fake sword. He flinched in surprise—which loosened his hold on Janice. She broke free and ran down the hall, screaming,