Inked

guarantee my safety and you can’t! There’s too many of ’em. They’re like freaking piranhas! I’m—”
    “You’re not going in there.”
    He stopped midrant. “I’m not?”
    “Nope.” I really didn’t expect any trouble, but you never know. I dragged him back up the embankment and across the road. The tourists had gone, so I lassoed him to the Vegas sign by one ankle. “You’re going to wait for me here, safe and sound and ready to interpret anything I bring back.”
    “What happens if you don’t come back?”
    “Then you’ll be waiting a long time.”
    I returned to the entrance of the drain and pulled out my flashlight. I shone it around, but there wasn’t much to see. A stream of runoff swallowed my ankles before disappearing into darkness. Long skeins of cobwebs fluttered overhead. Mud squelched underfoot, smelling sharply of garbage and man-made chemicals. Oh, yeah. This was going to be fun.
    My natural unease was strong enough that it took me a minute to notice the other, subtler urge plucking at my senses. The more I looked down that drain, the more convinced I was that I shouldn’t be here, like the very air was wrong, alien, not for me . I got the definite impression that this place didn’t like me; that it wanted me to leave. Now.
    So I went in.
    Patrol had noted the presence of a decaying protection ward over the west tunnel entrance. It was the kind that played with a person’s senses—in this case fear—and was the standard keep away for the supernatural community. It seemed like overkill to me. Like anyone would want to go in there.
    The protection ward grew stronger as I moved forward, making me feel like I was battling the tide with every step. I pushed on anyway, trying to ignore the spell screaming that somewhere, just up ahead, something horrible waited. It was terribly real and absolutely convincing, like being a child staring into a dark closet and having complete certainty that evil lurked inside.
    It didn’t help that, if I was in the right place, it just might.
    And then my flashlight blew out.
    I shook it a couple times, cursing, which only caused the bottom to come off and the batteries to fall out. Batteries I couldn’t find without a light. I bit the bullet and gave my owl tat a metaphysical nudge. I felt the power drain immediately, which wasn’t good, but when I opened my eyes the pitch black had transformed into something closer to a dark night—all outlines and shadows. I still couldn’t see clearly, but I comforted myself with the fact that neither could anybody else.
    I found the batteries, but they didn’t help the piece-of-junk flashlight. I finally gave up and went on, deciding I might be better off. No need to announce my presence, assuming anybody was still hanging around. I actually doubted it; patrol had done a brief walk-through, and found nothing: no kappas and no clues.
    But then, they hadn’t had my motivation.
    The protection ward finally cut out twenty or so yards up the tunnel, allowing me to breathe. That was a huge relief, but it was the only improvement. The floor had sunk or the water had risen, because it was now shin high. The temperature had also gone up, enough to plaster my hair to my skull and stick my T-shirt to my skin. And I became increasingly aware of an ache running up both legs, like maybe spelunking through the drains of Vegas wasn’t on my approved activities list.
    I’d gone maybe three hundred yards when I spied flashes of dim light up ahead, spotting the wall like visible Morse code. It turned out to be coming from behind a ward, if you could call such a half-assed attempt by that name. It was spitting and crackling around the edges, lighting up a graffiti-covered junction box. It made me wonder why anyone had bothered.
    Usually, going through a warded door into an unknown location makes my skin crawl. Most of them are designed so that the outside resembles the wall or whatever surface they are mimicking, but the inside is transparent. That leaves the person outside blind, while anyone inside has a clear view—and a clear shot. But in this case, the gloom of the drain ensured that all anyone saw was blackness until I stepped through, with shields up and gun drawn.
    And realized that the most dangerous thing about the place was the smell. The acrid tang of wet, charred wood hit my nostrils like bad breath. The ward was concealing a cave maybe twenty by twenty-five, which looked like it had recently been doubling