Whatever this was, it didn’t smell like any old normal, run-of-the-mill mold. Nope, this was nasty. This was . . . this was . . . sour and fetid and reminded me of the venidemons’ lair, though not quite so bad.

“Man, that’s rancid,” Zach whispered in my ear. “What the hell is it?”

“I dunno, but I’m not looking forward to finding out.” A pebble under my foot set me off balance, and I reached out to balance myself against the wall. As my fingers touched the rock, they met with the ickiest, slimiest mess I’d ever felt. It felt like I’d plunged my hand into a melted banana slug or a pile of snot.

“Gross, gross, gross.” I managed to lower my voice before I sent my dismay echoing down the hallway. I pulled my hand back and frantically tried to assess whether I’d covered it with something dangerous or just nasty.

Zach leaned in as Roz pulled a tiny, pen-sized flashlight out of his pocket and aimed the dim beam at my fingers. They were covered with what looked like some oozing ichor from an old fifties SF flick, the kind of stuff that comes in a can that parents never, ever want to buy their kids because they know it will either end up in the kids’ stomachs or—worse yet—their hair.

Only this stuff smelled worse than skunk juice. Worse than my litter box when I forgot to clean it for a few days. Worse than . . . What the—?

I stopped thinking about how it smelled because the slime started to move on my hand. It began to stretch itself out in a fine film. As it wrapped around my fingers and started to slither down my palm like some freak-ass living glove, I let out a little screech.

“Get this crap off me, now!” I didn’t care who heard me at this point. Visions of digestive enzymes going to work on my skin crowded my thoughts. I wasn’t ready to be assimilated into blob city.

Zach reached for my hand but Roz smacked him away. “Don’t touch it; let me take care of this. Here, you hold the light.”

By now, the others, except for Menolly and Vanzir who had gone on ahead, were gathered around us. Roz pulled out a chopstick—what the hell he had a chopstick in his pocket for, I didn’t know and didn’t ask—and poked at the slime. It reared up, like some bizarre rubbery club, and took a swipe at the long toothpick. Delightful; I was being devoured by Rocky the Blob. Next it would form itself into a tiny boxing glove and start pummeling me.

“I have no idea what the thing is,” Roz said as he jabbed at it again with the chopstick, piercing it this time. A burning sensation raced over my palm, and I jumped.

“Stop that! I think it’s dripping something on my skin!”

Smoky pushed his way in and leaned down, whispering a few low words I couldn’t catch. A thin white mist drifted out of his mouth to cover my hand. It reminded me of Iris’s snow and ice magic. As the mist hit my palm, the slime immediately began to pull itself together into a puddle, letting go of my fingers.

“What’s it doing?” I asked, both fascinated and repulsed.

“Trying to keep its core temperature high enough to prevent it from freezing,” Smoky said. He blew on it again, and the blob crystallized into a white pool of icy gelatin, then froze solid. The dragon gave it a tap, and it shattered. I tipped my hand, and it landed on the floor.

“Is it dead?” I asked, staring at the hundreds of slime shards.

“Probably not. Creatures like this can take a lot of temperature variation. It’s some form of ectoplasmic ooze.” He examined my hand. “No worse for the wear. Just don’t touch the walls if you can help it. There might be other, more aggressive forms of it around.”

More aggressive? Not a good thought.

“Where does it come from?” Camille asked.

Smoky glanced around the tunnel we were standing in. “When there are too many spirits from the Netherworld in a small area on the physical realm, the excess spirit energy builds up and takes on a life of its own, usually forming into ectoplasm. When the spirits are strong, it takes on a rudimentary consciousness and becomes a predator.”

“How dangerous is it?” I asked.

“That amount of slime could have digested one—maybe two layers of skin off your hand before becoming satiated. At that point, it would fall into a somnambulant state while it grew. If you left it on, it would start in again when it came out of its molt. If you were attacked by a larger amount, it could be a lot worse,” he said as he examined the ceiling with Roz’s flashlight. “Always check overhead. Ectoplasm can cling to ceilings and roofs.”

I squirmed, not quite liking the idea of having a carnivorous slime on me. “Just how many of them do you think there are in here?”

“Hard to tell how many pieces, but there’s only one of each variety in any given area saturated by spiritual energy. The slimes hive off into cluster cells—blobs, if you will—but retain a group consciousness,” Smoky said, as he turned toward the back of the group.

Before he once again took up guarding our tail, he added, “If you see one that’s indigo rather than green, stay away from it at all costs, or we might not be able to save you.”

“Of course: viro-mortis slimes! I know what he’s talking about now. My father taught me about them when I was young. And Smoky’s right,” Morio said. “The indigo variety is far more aggressive. They call their sister cells to join them when they find a victim, and the things are faster than you might believe. The indigo variety is unaffected by ice, but fire will char them. Which would mean burning the thing off, which would also burn you.”

“Once again, may I say ewww?” I shivered and furiously rubbed my hand on my jeans to make sure it was free of the freakish goo. I glanced back at Camille, frowning. She never got slapped with goo. Sure, she got smacked around by demons, fried by hellhound blood, and slashed by vampires, but she never had to deal with the slime monster. All at once, I envied her, even though I knew it was ridiculous. Of the three of us, I was always—and probably forever would be—the one who’d end up with mud on her face and kitty litter stuck to her butt.

We slipped farther along the tunnel, skirting fallen rocks and a few small sinkholes. The pits weren’t big enough to swallow us up, but they could give a nasty turn to the ankle. The faint drip, drip, drip of water sounded from somewhere in the distance. As we quietly crept along, my mind wandered to the miners who had worked here. They’d dreamed in gold and silver, or perhaps in brilliant Technicolor jewels. How many had truly ever struck it rich?

I was so wrapped up in thought that I didn’t notice when Roz motioned for us to stop, and so plowed right into Zach’s back, knocking him to his knees. Before I could react, he was up again, flashing me a bemused look as he shook his head when I mouthed, “Are you hurt?”

Roz was standing in an archway. The beams that shored up the opening looked old, weakened by water and time. I strained to listen to the timber and didn’t like what I heard: the sounds of age and insects, of wear and tear and splintering wood. Shit, we were in danger here. The sooner we finished and left, the better.

Roz listened carefully, turning his head first to the left, then to the right. His long, curling hair was caught back in a ponytail, and he was wearing his perpetual black Aussie hat with a feather in the band. He’d picked it up in some thrift store after watching Crocodile Dundee with Menolly and me on Late-Night Movie Madness, and even I had to admit, it looked good with the leather duster.

After a moment, he turned around. “I think this opening leads into a different dimension. Vanzir and Menolly turned left, that much I can tell. I smell water to the right. And there appears to be a path leading down into a deep chasm. This cave has just officially branched away from anything typical for the area. There shouldn’t be any mammoth caves around this area—not like this.”

“Should we just walk in? If that’s a portal, are we going to be able to get back once we cross the threshold?” I tried to remember everything I could about the portals. Some, like the ones the Fae had set up to guard against the demons, were very restrictive but fairly stable in actual use. Others, like the ones opening willy-nilly, were unbalanced and threatened to close at random.

Roz looked up at Smoky, who was regarding the opening with caution. “What do you think?” he asked softly. Right then, I knew he was worried.

Smoky’s gaze flickered to Camille, then to me. “Obviously Menolly and the demon thought it was safe. But then again, perhaps they didn’t notice the gateway until it was too late. This entire cavern is unstable. We might as well be carrying a bomb. One wrong move, and we could bring tons of rock down on our heads. Or worse.”

Camille sucked in a deep breath. “We have no choice. We have to find the spirit seal, and we don’t know where Menolly and Vanzir were headed. Why don’t we split up? Half stay here, half go through and see what happens.”

I let out a low sigh. “Yeah, I think so, too. You stay here, along with Smoky and Morio. I’ll take Roz and Zach, and we’ll step through. Once over the archway, we should be able to tell if we’re in trouble.”

For once, she didn’t argue with me, and I wondered if her hand was hurting more than she let on. Usually, Camille played the big-sister card. A lot. But she just looked a little relieved.

Smoky nodded. “Rozurial, if things go wrong, you know how to get Delilah and Zach out. Use it, if you have to.”

I caught my breath. “The Ionyc Sea?” I glanced at Roz.

Smoky let out a low growl but said nothing.

I stared at him. “Come on, you know Camille had to tell me.”

With a wry grin, Roz said, “She has you there.”

Smoky led Camille and Morio back away from the archway.

“If there’s trouble,” Camille said, “scream—shout—do whatever you have to in order to let us know. If you disappear and we don’t see you within a few moments, I’m coming in.”

“You are not—” Smoky started, but she brushed away his protests.

“Of course I am, and you can’t stop me.” She ran back over to me and leaned up on tiptoe to kiss my cheek. “Stay safe, Kitten. I love you. Don’t get yourself into trouble.”

As she returned to the dragon’s side, I sucked in a deep lungful of air and let it out slowly, counting from twenty to one to calm the jitters that had taken up residence in my stomach.

“Are we ready to do this?” I asked.

Roz and Zach nodded. Roz, Zach, and I linked arms and then stepped through the arch leading into the giant cavern.

CHAPTER 16

A crackle warned me that we were headed into an energy field, and then, without fuss or muss, we were through. It was totally different than the portals to OW. I whirled and, much to my relief, saw Camille and Smoky standing there, looking anxious. Morio raised his hand to wave.

I waved back. “Can you still see me?”

Camille laughed. “Yes, thank the gods. We’re coming through.” They stepped through the archway, and I heard a tiny sizzle of sparks, but nothing untoward happened, and within a few seconds, we were standing together again.

The cavern was huge. My guess was that we were standing a step or two to the left of Earthside’s realm—not far enough to totally separate us from our mother’s home, but far enough to exist in its own little niche. Even with my keen vision, it was difficult to see the other side of the cave. The murky bottom of the ravine was swathed in a mist too deep to tell how far down it went.

The air here was cooler, more humid than the air in the tunnels, and I noticed the drop in temperature even through my jacket. I borrowed Roz’s flashlight and walked over to one of the cavern walls, where I shone the light against the rock. It was wet, slick with water that trickled drop by drop down the sides, and covered with patches of the viro-mortis slime. This time the slime had a purplish tint, and I cautiously avoided getting anywhere near the carnivorous ectoplasm.

“I think we’re getting closer. If the spirit seal is protected by ghosts or revenants or whatever, there are probably a lot of them or they’re very powerful, because this slime is everywhere. I’m not looking forward to—” A noise stopped me in midsentence.

I stepped away from the wall, and we all listened, on our guard, waiting. After a nerve-racking second, Menolly and Vanzir reappeared from around a corner to our left.

With a short sigh, I let out my breath and relaxed. “Thank heavens. We were just about to come look for you. What did you find?”

Menolly’s eyes were wide and glowing red. “We found the chamber with the spirit seal, but it’s heavily guarded. There’s one shade. Big-time dangerous. But before we can even get to him, we have to wade through at least half a dozen wights.”

Wights. Oh shit. Wights were nasty brutes. One foot in the Netherworld, one foot in the grave, they were truly members of the walking dead. Even vampires gave them a wide berth, because wights were so vicious. They were more like animals than intelligent beings, cunning and voracious in their appetite for flesh and spirit. Unlike shades, which devoured the spirit, or zombies, which ate only the flesh, wights fed off both.

They sucked the spirit out of the very bones and muscle as they consumed their dinner, usually while their victim was still alive. There were wights in Otherworld, usually in the dark volcanic ranges of the Southern Wastes and well north of the towering Nebelvuori Mountains, but they seldom ever came near the populated areas, usually feeding off animals and the scant handful of travelers venturing into the mountain passes.

Camille cleared her throat. “Well, do we know what kills a wight?”

“Dragon’s breath,” Smoky grumbled. “But unless the chamber is as big as this one, I won’t be able to transform, and I doubt they’ll come out and play, even if we ask them nicely.”