grant them access then stood back. It was that or get trampled as Clem took point. Adelaide wasn’t far behind, both of them desperate for another sign from Boaz.
The office was a tight rectangle with an even tighter kitchenette cluttering its rear. Two black doors, one marked as an exit, stood on the opposite wall.
Clem went straight to the bathroom, but he backed out fast. “Empty.”
Linus walked past the exit, on his way to examine the bathroom for the source of the dripping, and magic tingled along his senses. He turned to face the exit door and tested the push bar at its center. There was no give. The bar didn’t budge. And the tapping…stopped cold.
Corbin appeared at his shoulder. “Did you find something?”
“Perhaps.” He drew a sigil on his palm and swept it across the doorway, cataloging the density of magic. “There’s a ward on this section of wall. I’m not certain if there’s an actual door it’s protecting, or if it’s only glamoured to look that way.”
“I’ll circle around back,” Clem decided. “It’s in the right place for an exit, but it never hurts to be sure.”
After he went to try his luck with the door from the outside, Linus shooed Corbin and Adelaide back.
“I’m going to diffuse the glamour first, so we can see what we’re dealing with before we crack it open.”
And pray to the goddess their missing loved ones were revealed.
Twelve
Tuning out the worried come on, come on, come on Adelaide kept chanting under her breath, Linus used a sigil to dent the glamour enough to see where to make his next hit, one that would disable it. The work struck him as familiar, but it wasn’t another of Leisha’s manufacture. This hand was far subtler.
A pulse of energy swept through the room as the exit door wavered and trembled before melting into a metal square, three feet by three feet, welded into the wall. The handle at its top reminded him of a laundry chute, but this was too industrial for that.
“Boaz could fit through there,” Adelaide said softly, as though reassuring herself. “Tight, but doable.”
“I’m going to break the ward.” Linus glanced over his shoulder. “Stand against the walls in case its more powerful than it appears.” As a protest parted Corbin’s lips, he held up his wrist to show the impervious sigil. “I’ll be fine.”
With Corbin and Adelaide in position, Linus withdrew his inkpot and a brush. He covered the rusted metal in the thicker medium, layering in protections for them while peeling back its defenses. Certain he had done his best to contain any martial repercussions, he drew on a combination of sigils that dissolved the ward and jarred the door open with a metallic whine of protest.
The drawerlike access point revealed a tunnel made of reinforced metal resembling an air duct. “Hello?”
The tap, tap, tapping resumed, and Linus glanced back to assess a new presence in the room.
Unsurprised to discover the wraith, he still chastised him. “You were supposed to remain with Grier.”
A skeletal hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Linus understood that habit had summoned Cletus, his own fear and nerves creating an irresistible beacon for the wraith.
“My apologies.” He gestured to the shaft. “While you’re here, do you mind?”
The wraith groaned assent and drifted into the opening. Trusting his allies—no, his friends—to watch his back, Linus shut his eyes and let the wraith’s vision cloud his until they were one and the same.
“The bottom is wiped clean of dust, but the sides and most of the top are thick with it.” Linus narrated for the others’ sakes. “They used this shaft. Recently. There’s no fresh accumulation.”
“That’s good news then,” Adelaide murmured. “See anything else?”
“I’m not sure what this structure’s original purpose was, but there are interconnecting shafts that fork off it in different directions. The downward slope makes me think they intersect the underground tunnel system at some point.”
Cletus halted before another metal door and inspected it for a ward before gliding through to the other side. He materialized in a rusted-out cistern littered with protein bar wrappers and empty bottles of water.
“Cletus?” A scratchy voice came from the darkness. “Am I hallucinating?”
Nudging the wraith closer to the voice with a mental push, Linus gritted his teeth at the bruises purpling Boaz’s eyes, cheeks, and neck. Blood crusted his short hair and ears, but he had washed his face clean.
The wraith poked his cheek with a bony finger, and Boaz jolted, his eyes widening.
“Wakey, wakey.” He