It had the texture of motor oil, slippery and thick. I rubbed it between my thumb and the pad of my finger. A thin tongue of smoky black rose up, and it vanished, boiling off into the air. I smelled something sharp and astringent, like cleaning fluid. The same liquid that had oozed from the bird skull.
“It won’t open,” Lily said unnecessarily.
“Only one way to go, then,” I said. Of course we would go down. It was as inescapable as gravity. “Give me the flashlight. I’ll go first.” This time there was no protest. She handed the flashlight over. I hoped it had fresh batteries.
I walked with steady purpose to the top of the stairs. More black drips on the ground; I’d gone right past them before. The bloodstains were still there. If they were bleeding, I thought grimly, at least they were alive.
The first step creaked alarmingly under my foot as I descended, but the stairway held. I eased myself down. There were ten steps before a landing, more metal bolted into the concrete shaft. I stopped there and shone the light down the next expanse of stairs, leaning out over the rail a bit to see how far down I could see. Two more flights before the next level. The bottom was concrete, but I couldn’t make it out well from this distance.
“Why would they come down here?” Lily asked, barely above a whisper. Her voice seemed to breed in the shadows, hushed echoes swarming down the stairwell ahead of us.
“They were invited,” I said. She stared at me. I stared back. I had no idea why I’d said that. “Ask me another question,” I suggested, curious.
“What’s down there?” she asked.
“A crack in the world,” I answered automatically.
“You’re fucking with me,” she said. I shook my head, unable to speak through the fear closing up my throat. Why had I said that? It was like someone else was answering with my voice. “Where are Abby and Liam?”
“The memory room,” I replied.
“This is a weird prank to pull,” Lily said. “For the record, you have succeeded in freaking me out, and it’s cool if you stop anytime.”
I let that hang. It wouldn’t do any good to argue with her. If thinking it was a prank let her hold herself together, it was for the best. I had no such illusions to fall back on.
I reached the bottom of the steps. Another metal door blocked the way forward, another bloody footprint staining the ground in front of it, but at least it wasn’t more stairs.
“What do you think is on the other side of that door?” Lily asked. I stepped forward to answer her by hauling open the door.
The room beyond was circular, and large enough that the flashlight only reached the middle. But that was enough to illuminate Liam, sitting cross-legged with his back to us, shoulders hunched and head low.
The floor sloped toward a drain in the center of the room, and Liam sat beside it. I approached, flashlight shaking. Lily stayed right at my elbow, her breath loud in my ear. Liam was holding something cradled in his lap. I edged around him.
It was a bird. A tern, or part of one—one white wing, a quivering side, a neck bent violently to the left and a single eye pinning and flaring. But the rest of it was gone, body giving way to viscous black that dripped between Liam’s fingers, over his forearms, as the bird shuddered and strained and shook.
“Shh,” Liam crooned to the bird. “Shh, it’s all right.”
Its wing extended, fluttering, the movements like the spasms of dying muscles. Lily swore under her breath. I choked back a sour taste in my throat. The drips of black liquid slid down the sloped floor and into the drain. The bird tried to lift its head, but it no longer had the right muscles in its neck, and it flopped down again. A gurgling sound came from its throat. It sounded of drowning.
“Put that down,” I said.
“It’s hurt,” Liam said.
“There’s something really wrong with it, Liam. You need to put it down,” I said. “Liam, where’s Abby?”
“She left on wings of shadow. Two and two and two,” he said, singsong. “Hush, hush.” His thumb stroked the side of the bird’s neck.
I put my hand on his forearm, above the dripping black. “Liam. Liam. Let go of the—”
“No!” he shouted. His hands closed around the bird, clenching, fingers digging into the feathered chest. There was a sound like paper