Medusa's Dagger (Aya Harris Collection 1)

“My friend says Limax has agreed to at least talk to us, but you’re the only SI he’ll allow in his sewers. So, better not involve your hot-headed partner.” Angel hadn’t forgiven Agent Silva for attacking me last night. “But before we go, we need something from our target. A fingernail, a drop of blood, anything physical. We need it to find him.”

I buried my hands in my hair. It was hopeless. We didn’t even know what Theo looked like, let alone possess a drop of his blood. And I doubted Nicky had anything. Even if he did, there was no way in heaven or hades he’d give it to us. We were stuck.

“We don’t have anything like that,” Gideon mumbled. The new found hope began to drain from his face. He rubbed the back of his head, eyes glazing over in thought.

Maybe we were going about this all wrong. Maybe we didn’t need to find Theo after all.

“Wait, we have another way,” I said. “Is there anything we can use from Michelle or Kit? Anything in their apartment that would work.”

Gideon’s face lit up. “Yes. When our forensics team did a sweep of the apartment, they found Kit’s baby book. It had a lock of his hair.”

“That’ll work,” Angel said, a giant smile stretching on her face.

I looked around the lobby. It was already past closing time and the museum was empty. “I’m coming with you. We can swing by the apartment and then head to the sewage plant.”

Gideon gave me a warning glance. After all my speeches last night about staying away, he was right to look at me that way.

“I’m coming with you,” I repeated with a stern look. “Someone has to be around to save your arse.”

The sky had already morphed into an obsidian black abyss by the time Gideon slid into the driver’s seat of his Sedan, tossing the baby book into my lap.

“It’s all there,” he said, putting the key in the ignition.

Angel looked over my shoulder from the back seat, as I opened the book and pulled out the lock of hair. Straight black hair tied together with a tiny blue ribbon. It was hard to shake off the guilty feeling I had for destroying Michelle’s keepsake, but I was sure she’d forgive me if it led to her and Kit’s rescue.

On the open page, I spotted neat handwriting that curled and looped across the lines. She’d lovingly filled out every bit of the book, marking down the dates for Kit’s first haircut, his first step, his first word. Even the family tree in the front of the book had been painstakingly filled out with generations of Michelle’s family. The father’s side was conspicuously blank.

We drove past the Arcana shopping centers and into the shadier parts of town. Tiny homes with curled up shingles and paint peeling from their siding lined the streets. A pathetic park with one working swing and a rusty old seesaw was the last thing we passed before pulling into the sewage facility.

The city had closed the plant down five years ago due to faulty machinery, and a big blow up on the city council about sewage run off getting into the nearby river. A brand new sewage plant on the north western part of town took over the job, leaving those on the east side with fewer job opportunities and a decaying old sewage plant.

Gideon pulled into the empty lot. We got out and headed toward the giant pipes we spotted at the rear of the building. Angel’s friend had said Limax lived underneath the plant, in the man-sized pipes that were supposed to be empty. I shuddered at the thought of a giant slug slithering under our feet. This was the very edge of town, so the city’s enchantment probably wouldn’t hide his true form. And I wasn’t sure if it even worked down in the sewers.

The drainage pipes were as tall as me. A small amount of water trickled from their giant mouths, forming a polluted stream that flowed into an overgrown brush. We climbed a stack of rocks to pull ourselves into the pipes.

I was regretting that I didn’t think to change at my apartment. My skinny black jeans and light pink satin blouse weren’t going to hold up well in the sewers. Already, dirty water and rust from the pipes covered my hands, and we hadn’t even gone two feet.

“Where’s this slug at?” I wiped my hands on my pants, but the red from the rust still stained my palms. “Do we have a way to contact him?”

“He’s not too far.” Angel handed me a flashlight. It was the type of flashlight you could get at the dollar store or in a Happy Meal. “My friend said to follow the pipe straight in for a good five minutes.”

“And you’re sure he’ll meet with me?” Gideon held a much sturdier flashlight in his hands.

It was probably a standard issue SI flashlight, the kind you could use as a baton if a criminal got out of hand. I considered offering him a trade, but kept my dinky little light instead.

“Yep. I guess he’s up for it,” Angel said, leading the way.

Without the illusion of the city’s enchantment, her perfect skin shined even brighter than usual, as if she glowed. Her shoulder length hair shimmered with an unnatural ripple, and her body moved with a grace that was almost alien.

I’d forgotten that nymphs were captivating without the mirage of the city’s spell. It was no wonder that men and women had fallen madly in love with nymphs over the centuries, and written epic stories about it.

We followed the instructions and trailed the pipe for several hundred yards. There was a dozen connected pipes that went off in different directions, but we stayed on course. Occasionally in the half dark, we’d catch a glimpse of a scurrying rat, or the tail end of a snake slithering through the pipe.

“At least they’re not spiders,” I said after we spotted our fourth rat.

I looked sideways at Gideon in the dim beam of my plastic flashlight. He pursed his lips and kept silent, but I could see the beginning of a slight grin.

Finally, a light flickered in the pipe ahead of us. We plunged forward and found a wide opening where four pipes intersected. Water flowed nearly up to our ankles. A single hanging LED lantern lit up the space from its wire on the ceiling. Lying underneath the lantern was a bulbous and slick mass. A film of white sticky liquid surrounded the black flesh, reeking of ripe fish. I resisted the urge to plug my nose.