Devil Sent the Rain - D. J. Butler Page 0,25

from a host of bugs, like beetles only the size of Adrian’s fist, that crawled slowly up and down the walls.

“Never been in a laundry room before?” he joked.

“We’re inside you,” Eddie said. “I’m ready for an explanation.”

“Yeah.” Adrian’s eye, his natural eye, hurt like hell. He didn’t like getting the third degree from Eddie, but maybe he deserved it. “Me, too. I think we’re in my dreams, maybe … or my shadow, if that means anything to you.”

“Nope,” Mike said, “but it doesn’t sound good.”

“It doesn’t feel too good, either.” Adrian rubbed his sore eye.

“I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it,” Twitch said, grinning, “only we don’t seem to have come alone.” She hoisted herself up on top of the washer and shook flakes of dried blood out of her hair. The washer shuddered like a living thing, and the dryer next to it started to raise its door like a top-loading mouth—Twitch thumped it with one fist, and it fell shut again.

Eddie nodded grimly. “I was kind of hoping that when you passed out we’d all wake up back in the Silver Eel.”

“No such luck,” Mike said.

“I take it we came here to hide from the Fallen?” Adrian inferred. He imagined one of the others slinging him over their shoulder and jogging. Good thing he was one of the smaller guys in the band.

As if to answer his question, one of the room’s two doors rattled.

“I don’t think we’re really hidden,” Eddie observed.

“At least we know which door to take.” Adrian grinned gamely. He had no idea how to get out of this nightmare. He was afraid to put the tawny eye back into his head, though it had unlocked his sorcery, at least for one spell—he hurt too much, and he didn’t want to pass out again.

Boom!

The other door rattled, too.

“All three of them are here?” Adrian asked.

Mike nodded.

“We were hoping you might know another way out,” Twitch suggested, crossing her ankles like she wanted to meditate. Under her, the washing machine-beast grumbled and then emitted a noxious stink.

“Up,” Adrian said, thinking of the white umbilical cord he seemed to have—assuming the tawny eye itself didn’t create the connection. Even if it did, surely the light had to go somewhere. “I think the way out is up. There was a window,” he remembered. It had been behind the washing room shelves, as he recalled, and he looked there now. Sure enough, he saw a shadow that could be a window, partly hidden behind a haze of fumes filling the upper reaches of the laundry room shelves. “Too bad Jim’s not here. We might have a shot at actually taking them.”

The water was deeper, almost up to Adrian’s knees. He couldn’t see how it was coming in, but guessed it must be flooding up under the doors.

BANG!

Both doors shook again at the same moment, struck heavily from outside.

“Oh, I think James is here,” Eddie contradicted him. He turned to Elaine Canning, who stood fretting in the corner. “Isn’t he?”

“You truly are devils,” she said, frowning deeply. “And this is truly the worst you and your masters have yet devised. Almost, you drive me to regret my acts.”

Adrian shook his head, feeling groggy. “What’s she talking about?” he asked.

Elaine wasn’t done. “To make me watch as my lover was so shamed and assaulted.” She shook her head and shed a tear from each eye. “You are low, and cruel.”

BOOM!

Both doors shook again.

“Right,” Adrian said. “What I don’t know, et cetera.” Not that he believed it. The thing you didn’t know was usually exactly what killed you. “Let’s get the window open.”

“What’s outside?” Mike asked. The bassist helped Adrian begin to gather up the bubbling vials and glass pots.

“Hell if I know,” Adrian said.

“Maybe hell if you don’t,” Eddie pointed out.

***

Chapter Six

Adrian scrambled up onto the top of the dryer. His feet were wet and numb from the cold water and he slipped, but Twitch caught him. Eddie and Mike stationed themselves one beside each shuddering door, fists clenched. Elaine Canning stood resigned in the middle of the small room.

“Thanks,” Adrian said to Twitch. He leaned against the wall, which was warm and slick and gave way with slight elasticity, like the inside of his own cheek. He tried not to think about it. He tried pretending he was just inside a bouncy castle, on a humid day in upstate New York. Which reminded him of the house where he’d been apprentice and prisoner both.

Which reminded him of the room