(continued from part one, preceding...)
***
"Well, I'll be damned," Cendra said, as she considered her fierce reptilian expression in the mirror in her palm, and tried not to lacerate herself with her fangs as she spoke. "'This *is* a basilisk. And just because of the big red comb on top, China said I was just a big... rooster."
Erin McCavish looked her up and down.
"I wouldn't want to be a man-sized grain of corn around you," he finally said. Then he waggled his eyebrows. "Or maybe I would...?"
"Probably shouldn't push our luck," she said, as she scanned the description below the picture. "You remember what happened when I became a Gulon."
Erin shuddered. Cendra flipped a few more pages, stopping on seeing another striking image.
"'Amphisbaena,'" she said. The written description below the image of a small dragon with a head on either end was difficult to read. "Twice the murdery venom, twice the fun, looks like. I should probably stop, though... I'm starving with all the shifting I've done."
"And that *after* polishing off everything in the executive fridge," Erin noted.
She considered the amphisbaena again.
"Well, maybe one more..."
"Hi, Cendra," came a familiar, vaguely Belgian voice from the direction of her office door. "Can we interrupt you for a... *oh god look away the basilisk stare will kill us all!*"
Cendra only realized she'd spun around after her guests were in view. Two guys in black three-piece suits flopped to the floor, having shielded another man by leaping in front of him in the nick of time. A fourth person let out a sigh.
"It's not a European basilisk," said Karina Selanova. "The gaze of this one just makes you feel dead inside. I learned how to deal with it while doing some work for Ivanka in the late 2010s. Hello, Cendra. Hello... Dr. McCavish, is it?"
"Erin," said Erin.
"Sorry, sorry," said Cendra, shifting to human, her clothing reappearing as she did. "I was just trying out a few of these... wait." Her stomach rumbled. "All the shifting I've been doing, I've burned through lunch and then some." She pressed a button on her desk. "Code five hunger alert. Now."
The intercom speaker hissed, before the person on the other end answered.
"You... you mean..."
"It's an emergency," Chalandra said. "McRib me."
The person on the other end didn't reply. But seconds later, everyone in her office heard something thumping about above the nectarisite ceiling tiles. One of them swung down, and a wrapped McRib sandwich fell out and landed on the ink blotter. Cendra unwrapped it, took a deep sniff...
...and was suddenly no longer hungry.
"Don't know why that works," she said, as she gingerly tossed the McRib into a wastebasket with a lid, "but all of us should be glad it does."
"Are we ever," said the man the two agent-types had shielded.
"Manny!" she exclaimed, pulling him forward for a hug. "Those other two... are they gonna be okay?"
"They're my service detail," said Manny Seconds, as he hugged her back. "Surprisingly durable. Dr. Lightbuzz grew them for me out of a vat filled with memory foam, Mountain Dew, and shredded tires, after my last detail quit."
As Erin and Karina hauled the agents onto the couch by the door, Cendra glanced at Manny's cane, currently resting against her desk.
"Nothing to report on that question," he said, before she could ask. "I've been the world over... heck, the galaxy over... looking for answers, or even the right questions to ask. No tech, no superpower, no magic has been able to figure out why I'm slowly degenerating. Dr. Cherysi on Hottentot thinks it has to do with the ultraviolet oscillating fillibrating doubletalk device beam that gave me my confusion powers... but even he's guessing."
"So they still think..."
"If it doesn't speed up, I've got twelve years left, on the outside."
"And Chalandra still can't..."
"Due to the 'doubletalk' effect on my cells, my blood would kill her before she could make me a vampire. We've been over this." Manny shrugged. "Doubletalk technology was banned by the Ottsamaddawiduans decades ago, the scientists who developed it vanished, along with all functioning examples of the tech, and the only other two people to have ever been hit by such a beam--Rad and Radian--were cured by sudden onset temporary divinity, a technique I've not yet found a reliable means of duplicating."
"We don't know Radian was cured," Cendra noted. "She died before showing any symptoms."
"Oh, right!" said Manny, a bit too brightly. "There's that. Hah."
Cendra raised an eyebrow. Manny shrugged.
"I've had a damn good life, and I made it to 53," he concluded, forcing a smile. "Even if I prematurely croak at age 65... I don't have any regrets."
He reached out to Karina, who took his hand and gave him a look that anyone who wasn't a telepath might consider enigmatic.
Cendra could feel the emotion underneath. It was complicated, and not entirely something that could be called love, but not something that wasn't, either. A bond forged during the Genocidal Wars, when they had been trapped on the surface in Lady Awe-Inspiring's new world order, while Chalandra was in the ancient, world-spanning tunnels below, waiting for the right time to strike back against the villains who had conquered the world. She could also feel their bonds to Chalandra--Manny's, straightforward and strong, Karina's, muted but unwavering.
She forced her thoughts to the present, in time to notice Karina looking at the book she had set on the desk.
"Another bestiary?" Karina asked. "I thought you gave up on those."
"A gift from Miguel," said Cendra. When Manny opened his mouth, she raised a hand. "I know, I know, I've told him to knock it off. But for the first time, I'm glad he didn't listen."
She sat down behind her desk, and let Karina and Manny take the seats in front. Erin remained standing.
"Of course, I didn't even look at it closely at first. It wasn't until Camila brought it back up from the Mu'Kaos' lab and made me look at the name of the author that I started really checking it out."
"'Ellis Jonesy,'" Manny read from the interior title page. "You... you think he's your biological mom's ancestor?"
"Look at the art of his face!" Cendra exclaimed. "Those were her eyes! And the beasts in these pages... they're the ones I change into. I mean... *exactly* into."
"It's true," said Erin. "That basilisk face she had on when she came in... exactly like in the book. All the other ones I've ever seen her turn into, too."
"All this time," Cendra went on, "and just looking at this book was what I needed to see I've only known the narrowest range of what I can do..."
"What a coincidence that it arrived today of all days," Karina said.
"I said the same thing," said Erin. "But to Miguel, it was just another old book on a long list he was trying to get for her. And all Bonnie knows is the seller sent it from Montana."
"The fact that the title references the 'Empire of the Hidden' indicates it is relevant to today's occurrences," said Manny. "Likewise what we've brought you."
Karina placed the old, weathered, leathery book she'd been carrying into Cendra's hands.
"Karina was visiting Chal and me in Los Requemados," Manny went on, "when your had your... well, let's call it your monkey business, this morning."
"Let's not," said Cendra.
"When China called in Homeland to take custody of The Programmer," said Karina, "I went out to meet the agents on the scene... only to discover The Programmer had already effected his escape. I stayed on the scene while China and her crew finished their survey of the evidence, and kept our people from being too pushy about collecting and evaluating it without working with your crew. I would've left when they were done, save Manny called and said he was on his way here, and to please be there when he arrived."
"To be clear," said Manny, his gaze lingering on the book, "I'm here mainly as a courier. Chalandra said she wanted to come herself, but... when you read this, especially pages at the start and on up to the sticky note there... you may understand why she didn't."
The first page inside the cover confirmed it was what she suspected and dreaded.
"The Journal of Richard Cartier... volume two."
"The missing volume two," Karina added.
Cendra nodded, even as she felt her insides start to tingle. According to the most reputable scholars of the life of the late nineteenth's century premier occult detective, who had fought both mundane and occult crime as the Dweller in the Shades, the second volume didn't exist. No more than the also-missing twenty-first, or next-to-last, volume.
For it to just be casually carried in to her office on the day another person calling herself the Dweller in the Shades teleported The Programmer away just as her people were about to capture him... it was too much to be coincidence.
Manny's heavy look confirmed it for her. "What Dr. Gigawatt suspected is true. The Dweller did cross paths with 'Lady H' again in the aftermath of his clash with the mysterious Sister of the Trails... and he learned who she really was."
"And this volume never resurfaced because..."
"Read it," said Manny.
"Should he be here?" Karina asked, gesturing to Erin.
"I can leave..." Erin started.
"Stay," Cendra said. *I need your eyes, love,* she telepathically sent to him. *And you're judgment. I know you can't tell me what you learned about Shadebeam, and I hate to drop more top secret stuff on you... but I need you to know what I know, in case... things happen.*
Erin nodded, looking troubled. The specter of things happening will do that. It added to the weight of whatever he and Shadebeam had privately discussed that afternoon in Malaga--something that had disturbed and even frightened him.
"There's a change I can make, so I can speed through this," Cendra said. "Just know... there are consequences."
Before anyone could ask what they were, she closed her eyes and summoned the Wolpertinger.
"Whaaa--?" said a startled Manny, as black rabbit-like fur erupted from Cendra's skin, antlers shot from her head, and a twitching nose and snout grew from her face. Electricity crackled in her antlers as she accepted the reading glasses Erin handed to her.
"In trying out different beasts from the bestiary," Erin noted, "we discovered this one. Much quick. So boopable."
Cendra gave Erin a baleful look, even as he booped her nose. Then she put on the reading glasses, and got down to business. She kept the telepathic link open, and let Erin see through her eyes as she read at mythically fast speeds.
And read.
And read.
She only closed her eyes once, though not in time to hold in a few tears.
Finally, after blowing through the marked pages in under two minutes, she reached the page with the sticky note. She closed the book, resisting the urge to push it back into Manny's hands.
"She and Cartier rescued President Cleveland from the Charnel House," said Manny, "but the choices they had to make... the one she made at the end..."
Cendra nodded, unable to speak.
"She was grieving," Karina noted. "What the Sister had done to her Reginald..."
"I see why she kept it hidden," said Cendra. "And why she didn't destroy it. In case the Charnel House ever rose again... whoever went within might know how to survive."
"It's risen again," Manny said. "Chal's sure of it. Not in Gothopolis. Here. Somewhere in Los Angeles. Why we can only speculate, save that we know from what's in the journal that it's the one door to Terra Subterrene that *can't* be closed, and the High Technocrus of the time was heavily indebted to the rulers of Sol Selegna, and if the same is true for whoever the current H.T. is, they may be using that to get Kazza Malissk and the Heart of Mu away from the surface world where none of us can follow."
Cendra nodded. She thought of what she had read... and how it made jumping into a miles-deep shaft leading down into the Earth's crust seem like a cakewalk.
But if it was where Kazza was heading...
"Would either of you object if I gave this book to Dr. Gigawatt?" she asked.
"I asked Chalandra that before I left," said Manny. "She said the decision was yours. As is the book."
"If the conditions I read about hold, we only have until what I'm given by Gigawatt to understand is called in folklore 'the hour of the wolf,' roughly 3 a.m. local time, correct?"
"If," Karina replied. "And yes... though I don't know if this wolf observes Daylight Savings Time."
"Then where do we start looking?" asked Cendra. "There are any number of places in and close to Los Angeles that might be close to the conditions of the Bay of Tears Cartier described, and it sounded like that's the kind of environment the Charnel House demands..."
Just then, the door to the office flew open. The secret service agents, though still unconscious, nevertheless leaped from the couch and wobbled into defensive formation around Manny. One of them croaked a gutteral warning, while the other lightly snored.
"Hey, Miguel..." Erin started.
Miguel looked from him to Manny to Karina and finally to Cendra. He raised an eyebrow at her furry wolpertinger face.
"Sorry to interrupt," he said. "But we've learned that Kazza Malissk is headed for someplace south of here known to at least a few of the local unhoused as the *Sunken City.*"
"Nice reverb," Manny commented.
"Thanks," said Miguel. "It was involuntary. Um..." He looked at the people present. "What am I missing?"
"Another piece of the puzzle," Erin said.
"A hidden doorway to Terra Subterrene that Kazza Malissk is taking," said Cendra. "Likely within this *Sunken City.* If it's anything like what I just read... it'll be coastal. And from what you've said, south of here. Which leaves us with a lot of searching yet to do, but at least now we have a direction. Thank you."
Miguel nodded. He then saw the Bestiary on her desk.
"I see you had a chance to peruse," he said.
"Yes," she said. "Thanks for that, too... though I'll have to put it aside for now. I have to be part of this search." She turned to Erin. "Could you take both these books to Gigawatt and the Mu'Kaos?"
"You got it," said Erin.
"Tell them to focus on the Journal, and leave the Bestiary for later days," Cendra said, as she joined Miguel at the door. "If we get to the *Sunken City* in time, I want their voices in my ear telling me how to get through what's awaiting us."
With that, she forced the reversion to her human form...
...causing her stomach to growl loud enough to echo through the room.
"Er," said Karina, "you said something earlier about... consequences."
"Yes," Cendra said through clenched teeth. "You may want to leave the room. This is going to get... ugly."
With that, her hands flashed toward the trash can, and the still-warm McRib within, as cries of horror filled the office.
***
*You should go full pants,* Coco said inside Esteban Veracruz's head, as Esteban quietly closed the door to Bonnie's Books behind him and pocketed the key. *If his crew sees us and they're hostile...*
*He won't,* Esteban thought back at his metallic bonobo-shaped companion as he approached the stairs to the second floor, moving silently despite the nectarisitic composition of his sandals. *I don't know if I can count on anything else... but he won't order that. Not... without warning me, first.*
As he thought, he glanced up at the CFL bulbs in the ceiling. For a second, he thought he'd seen them stir... and possibly, he realized, he had. But Bonnie assured him as long as he had her store key on him, they, and other aspects of her technomagical security system, would stay in standby mode. He'd worried they might key on Coco, instead, but they seemed to take no notice of him.
His quarry wouldn't have tripped the system because they wouldn't have gone in through the ground floor... and because, as evidenced by his intrusion that morning, Lemon Rydell already knew how to deal with his sister's countermeasures.
*I hear someone,* said Coco, as he crept up to where the stairs reached the upper floor.
Esteban heard the someone too: a wispy but stern voice that sounded like it was lecturing someone. A few seconds listening identified the subject of the lecture as 'Judy.' He had no idea who Judy was, but got the strong impression whoever the voice was lecturing did at a level somewhere between expert and devotee. He slowed his ascent and peered over the edge.
The shelves that lined the walls were in a state of dishabille, the state they'd been left in that morning by a closed-quarters fight between a group of Demon Monkeys led by Lemon, Johnny Clark, and ki Kazza Malissk, a sentient utahraptor that could turn its feathers into laser bolts and shoot them at any and all of the above. A space in the blue-carpeted area in the center had been cleared of books, DVDs, and the like, and was currently occupied by the shimmering image of an extremely old man in a futuristic-looking wheelchair.
"We do not have much time," the withered man rasped, reaching into the blanket that wrapped his presumably equally-withered frame and pulling out a wrapped hard candy. "I must go to hear Judy's judgment soon. Her time is near."
"Director," said the man in the black-and-white suit before him. Lemon, Esteban realized. "I need more time to explain just what happened here today..."
"You have three minutes."
*Agent Rydell is not alone,* Coco told him. *There are four Demon Monkeys in M.I.B. outfits with him, running the holographic projection.*
Esteban peered around the glowing circle the old man appeared to be speaking from. Sure enough, there were four horned howler monkeys in back-and-white business suits standing equidistant from one another and the withered man's image. Each was holding a box with a lens that projected the light that combined into said image, powering it by turning a crank handle that emitted an indistinct tune.
*Is that Richard Cartier?*
*If what Lemon earlier told Cendra is true,* Coco answered. *Extrapolating from archived images of Cartier in the 1890s, I would call it likely.*
Esteban narrowed his eyes as, just feet away, Agent Lemon Rydell spread his hands and ingratiatingly smiled.
"The short, short version, then," said Lemon. "Kazza Malissk double-crossed us. It's clear from how the event played out that she was in league with The Programmer, who the mercenary Demon Monkeys in the Hawaiian shirts and speedos were working for. After the Programmer's first attempt to confuse us and draw us away from where I'd arranged to meet Kazza failed, he sent them in to the battle on the Venice Beach boardwalk with my guys, enabling Kazza to escape. We've been all over the city trying to find her, but she's vanished."
Cartier--if that's who he indeed was--frowned on hearing this, though between the low quality of the projection and the high volume of his wrinkles, it made little difference in his expression.
"I ingratiated myself with the _Subtler Than Light_ crew hoping they'd have better luck and I'd hear about it, but no dice there, either."
Someone on the Director's end leaned over his shoulder, momentarily appearing with him in the projection. Pale, blonde, with icy eyes that never left Lemon's face even as she whispered in the Director's ear.
"Thank you, Heather," the Director growled, not appearing to spare her a glance. "Agent Rydell, I expect you to obtain the Heart of Mu tonight... and to bring it to me before the night is through. Failure on your part will be... unfortunate."
"For whom?" Lemon asked, his expression unperturbed.
The Director said nothing, though the corners of his mouth turned upward.
"Will you be coming out to the STL?" Lemon asked. "Cendra Seconds was reluctant to agree to a meeting, but acceded on her boss's orders, if you're willing..."
"I twice learned the hard way it's best not to dance to the tune of a Harkness," Cartier said. "You now have a path that doesn't require her. Take it."
Abruptly, the image disappeared.
Lemon considered the empty space where the Director's image had once flickered.
"You can come up now, Este," he said. "You too, Coco, if you're there."
Esteban wasn't sure who was more startled in that instant -- him and Coco, or the Demon Monkeys accompanying Lemon. A couple of the latter started for the stairs, but stopped when Lemon raised a hand.
"What gave us away?" Esteban asked, as he climbed the rest of the way to the second floor, with Coco floating alongside him.
"Nothing," Lemon admitted, as he turned. "Just a prickle on the back of my neck. Director Cartier calls it my sense for the dramatic necessity of a situation. Pretty sure he made that up, but still..."
"You're lucky your sister's too busy with her new toy to come over with me," said Esteban. "She might've given the whole 'smite my older brother' thing another go." He laughed. "That's something I'd've loved to see."
"I bet."
Esteban willed himself not to look away. Everything he'd suppressed for the minute he'd seen Lemon that morning on the STL threatned to surge back up in that second. In his brown eyes were memories of his own face reflected. In his lips were memories of what he'd thought in his teenage naivete was love, what his heart now knew were lies. He'd made a cutting remark and flown away before.
Now, he'd face his past. He'd already made peace with Rumi earlier in the day... how much harder could this be?
"Why here?" he asked. "You could've had Kazza meet you anywhere in the city."
"Since you're here, why don't you tell me?"
"You needed someplace close," Coco said. Aloud, through the speakers that formed in that instant on his metallic throat, he sounded even younger than he did in Esteban's head. "Where your crew could set up a teleportation anchor so they could come and go without needing line-of-sight, as they otherwise would. Now that they can't 'port in or around the STL, a state of affairs I've verified--"
"The secret of how to generate the suppression field you had to concede to Cendra so you could... ingratiate yourself with her..." Esteban noted.
"--it's the next-best port in your very messy storm," Coco concluded. "And you're slipping away from the STL now and coming here indicated what your conversation with the Director has confirmed: you've learned a way to the *Sunken City* without us."
"We may," Lemon said, looking down at the monkey closest to him, who was putting away his portion of their holo-projector.
The monkey looked up at Esteban and said, "Ooook aak eek oook. OOK."
"Lancelot Dink says ook?" asked Coco.
"Ook?" the monkey said, then scowled.
"Beyond that," said Lemon, as Esteban approached to within a couple steps of him, "I wanted to tweak Bonnie. It's funny when she finally got her bookstore up and running, she picked a location so close to you and Miguel." He shrugged. "Or maybe it isn't. I know she's not hung up on him in any romantic sense, but he was her friend when a lot of people weren't... and she doesn't forget something like that."
"Do you?" Esteban asked, before he could stop himself.
Lemon pursed his lips for a moment. Then he looked at the Demon Monkeys around him.
"Give us the room, boys..."
"OOOK."
"And girl..."
"Oook ook."
"And you too, Zody. Wait for my signal."
The suited demon monkeys looked at one another, made various shrugging motions, then vanished in several poofs.
Lemon looked to Coco, then to Esteban.
"You too, Coco," said Esteban. "Make yourself scarce for a few. We've got... some things to say to one another."
*Este,* Coco called on the link he shared with Esteban, inaudible to Lemon.
*I mean it,* Esteban thought to him. *This won't take long.*
Coco looked from one man to the other, sighed, and melted into an amorphous blob of liquid nectarisite. The blob spiraled in the air for a couple seconds before separating into three streams and diving into Esteban's nectarisite sandals and belt.
"He won't listen in," said Esteban.
Lemon shrugged.
They looked at one another for nearly a minute. Lemon's expression was enigmatic to Esteban, though he sensed a question on his lips. He was afraid that, to Lemon, his expression was too easily readable.
So what, he thought. Too much had gone hidden between them for too long.
"I'm not going to apologize for what I said this morning," said Esteban. "You had it coming."
"You were mortified you'd said it," Lemon countered. "The instant you were out of sight, you regretted it, and it's been eating at you since."
"Yeah," Esteban admitted. He felt something small and vulnerable rise up his back, along his spine. "But I also stand by it. I *don't* trust you, as much as I still want to. Maybe *because* I still want to. And that... that breaks my heart."
"You never did trust me, toward the end," Lemon replied, cocking his head and giving him a half-smirk. "Which just made us a bigger challenge." He winked. "And you know I love a challenge."
Esteban closed his eyes, suddenly regretting being alone with Lemon. The feeling climbing his spine reached the back of his neck, and he suppressed a shudder. This close, he could smell, in addition to light aftershave and a few monkey-based scents, the sweat on Lemon's face and neck. He could remember how that sweat tasted.
He bit his lip.
"What I did to you... chasing after Rumi... seducing her and getting her to keep it secret from you..." said Lemon, "...it was wrong."
He opened his eyes, and was startled to see Lemon was now nearly toe-to-toe with him, looking up into his eyes. The familiar coffee-scent of his breath enveloped him.
His shoulder itched. He ignored the sensation.
"I know that," Lemon went on. "I knew that, then. The Heart of Mu made sure I knew that... even after we stuffed it back into the floor in the Root of the _Subtler Than Light_ and the effect it had on me faded. Before, when I flirted with others, knowing you'd find out... I was just doing it because it made your eyes light up."
"With anger."
"With passion," Lemon corrected. "I loved seeing that in you. You kind of lost that, the longer you worked on trying to unwind the mystery of the STL and nectarisite, getting nowhere."
He held up his hands, on seeing what Esteban knew was a suddenly furious expression.
A tingle ran down Esteban's arm, from his shoulder to his elbow.
"Not an excuse, I know," Lemon said. "I... the point is, I never felt any *guilt* for doing things like that. You were... when we found the Heart, and it changed me... I could feel that for the first time. I felt like I was *whole.* For someone like me, to feel that... I don't think I can really say what that..."
He trailed off. Took a breath. Esteban inhaled as he exhaled.
"And when we put it away," Lemon finally continued, "I should've gone back to what I was before. So everything could've been as it was before for us. And I did."
Lemon placed a hand on Esteban's shoulder. Esteban fought off a tremble. Something... the tingle, the itch... went from his elbow to his wrist.
"But I also didn't," said Lemon. "And that's why... that's why Rumi."
"I... I don't understand," Esteban admitted.
"I didn't, either. It took me years to figure it out."
"During which time you somehow joined the unofficial reincarnation of America's most... American... spy service?"
"Man's gotta make a living," Lemon said, giving him a wink. "But that's a story for another day. Now... you got anything better than a pithy bon mot to say to me, or are we done here?"
Esteban took a breath. He'd thought for a long time... for years... about what he'd say to Lemon if he ever got the chance. About how Lemon had hurt him time and again, and how that last night on the _Subtler Than Light,_ seeing him and Rumi in intimate action, knowing that everything they'd been through had just been a game. He'd long ago worked out how he'd express his anger, his sadness, and his heartbreak, every word calibrated to strip the smug look from Lemon's face and make him know, unavoidably, what he'd done and what he'd never get from Esteban again.
"I want to kiss you very badly," he said instead.
"Huh," said Lemon, arching an eyebrow. "And here I was hoping you'd kiss me very well."
That was all it took. Then there were lips, and tongue, and fingers digging through the hair in the back of necks. For a second, Esteban thought he felt Lemon tremble.
It was just as well he couldn't speak, Esteban thought. If he couldn't speak, he wouldn't cry.
Several poofing sounds filled his ears. The lips against his disappeared.
Lemon was gone. Esteban looked around the bookstore, confirming that he was suddenly alone.
He fought back the pain deep in his throat. He had no time for it.
*Coco?* he thought. *Where are you?*
*Where you put me,* Coco's voice came back. *About two-thirds of the way up the back of his head, nearing the scalp. Can't say where we are right now, but he's not talking. Just breathing.* A pause. *The others are talking to him. They've arranged transportation. He had them pull him out the instant it was ready to go.*
Esteban grinned. "They don't know you're there?"
*I re-entered Los Pantalones and emerged in this substantially smaller, quarter-inch-tall monkey form,* Coco said. *Just like we practiced it for when you tell me 'make yourself scarce.' It was easy to come back in, climb up your back and down your arm, and let you place me. It's not a capability we were aware of when he was around... he shouldn't suspect I'm here.*
*Maybe not,* thought Esteban, as he headed downstairs. *But be careful. If you get too far away from Los Pantalones, while that small... I may not be able to find you in time to revive you.*
*You be careful too, Este,* Coco sent. *I will send word when we arrive in this *Sunken City,* if they've indeed found it. Coco out.*
Esteban locked the bookstore door behind him as Bonnie had instructed, then jogged toward the _Subtler Than Light,_ ignoring the surprised looks of those on the boardwalk who saw him. As he ran, he thought of the boy he'd known, and the man he now had to admit he didn't know at all.
He hoped Lemon's understanding of him was equally out-of-date. Otherwise, Coco was in trouble.
"Well, I'll be damned," Cendra said, as she considered her fierce reptilian expression in the mirror in her palm, and tried not to lacerate herself with her fangs as she spoke. "'This *is* a basilisk. And just because of the big red comb on top, China said I was just a big... rooster."
Erin McCavish looked her up and down.
"I wouldn't want to be a man-sized grain of corn around you," he finally said. Then he waggled his eyebrows. "Or maybe I would...?"
"Probably shouldn't push our luck," she said, as she scanned the description below the picture. "You remember what happened when I became a Gulon."
Erin shuddered. Cendra flipped a few more pages, stopping on seeing another striking image.
"'Amphisbaena,'" she said. The written description below the image of a small dragon with a head on either end was difficult to read. "Twice the murdery venom, twice the fun, looks like. I should probably stop, though... I'm starving with all the shifting I've done."
"And that *after* polishing off everything in the executive fridge," Erin noted.
She considered the amphisbaena again.
"Well, maybe one more..."
"Hi, Cendra," came a familiar, vaguely Belgian voice from the direction of her office door. "Can we interrupt you for a... *oh god look away the basilisk stare will kill us all!*"
Cendra only realized she'd spun around after her guests were in view. Two guys in black three-piece suits flopped to the floor, having shielded another man by leaping in front of him in the nick of time. A fourth person let out a sigh.
"It's not a European basilisk," said Karina Selanova. "The gaze of this one just makes you feel dead inside. I learned how to deal with it while doing some work for Ivanka in the late 2010s. Hello, Cendra. Hello... Dr. McCavish, is it?"
"Erin," said Erin.
"Sorry, sorry," said Cendra, shifting to human, her clothing reappearing as she did. "I was just trying out a few of these... wait." Her stomach rumbled. "All the shifting I've been doing, I've burned through lunch and then some." She pressed a button on her desk. "Code five hunger alert. Now."
The intercom speaker hissed, before the person on the other end answered.
"You... you mean..."
"It's an emergency," Chalandra said. "McRib me."
The person on the other end didn't reply. But seconds later, everyone in her office heard something thumping about above the nectarisite ceiling tiles. One of them swung down, and a wrapped McRib sandwich fell out and landed on the ink blotter. Cendra unwrapped it, took a deep sniff...
...and was suddenly no longer hungry.
"Don't know why that works," she said, as she gingerly tossed the McRib into a wastebasket with a lid, "but all of us should be glad it does."
"Are we ever," said the man the two agent-types had shielded.
"Manny!" she exclaimed, pulling him forward for a hug. "Those other two... are they gonna be okay?"
"They're my service detail," said Manny Seconds, as he hugged her back. "Surprisingly durable. Dr. Lightbuzz grew them for me out of a vat filled with memory foam, Mountain Dew, and shredded tires, after my last detail quit."
As Erin and Karina hauled the agents onto the couch by the door, Cendra glanced at Manny's cane, currently resting against her desk.
"Nothing to report on that question," he said, before she could ask. "I've been the world over... heck, the galaxy over... looking for answers, or even the right questions to ask. No tech, no superpower, no magic has been able to figure out why I'm slowly degenerating. Dr. Cherysi on Hottentot thinks it has to do with the ultraviolet oscillating fillibrating doubletalk device beam that gave me my confusion powers... but even he's guessing."
"So they still think..."
"If it doesn't speed up, I've got twelve years left, on the outside."
"And Chalandra still can't..."
"Due to the 'doubletalk' effect on my cells, my blood would kill her before she could make me a vampire. We've been over this." Manny shrugged. "Doubletalk technology was banned by the Ottsamaddawiduans decades ago, the scientists who developed it vanished, along with all functioning examples of the tech, and the only other two people to have ever been hit by such a beam--Rad and Radian--were cured by sudden onset temporary divinity, a technique I've not yet found a reliable means of duplicating."
"We don't know Radian was cured," Cendra noted. "She died before showing any symptoms."
"Oh, right!" said Manny, a bit too brightly. "There's that. Hah."
Cendra raised an eyebrow. Manny shrugged.
"I've had a damn good life, and I made it to 53," he concluded, forcing a smile. "Even if I prematurely croak at age 65... I don't have any regrets."
He reached out to Karina, who took his hand and gave him a look that anyone who wasn't a telepath might consider enigmatic.
Cendra could feel the emotion underneath. It was complicated, and not entirely something that could be called love, but not something that wasn't, either. A bond forged during the Genocidal Wars, when they had been trapped on the surface in Lady Awe-Inspiring's new world order, while Chalandra was in the ancient, world-spanning tunnels below, waiting for the right time to strike back against the villains who had conquered the world. She could also feel their bonds to Chalandra--Manny's, straightforward and strong, Karina's, muted but unwavering.
She forced her thoughts to the present, in time to notice Karina looking at the book she had set on the desk.
"Another bestiary?" Karina asked. "I thought you gave up on those."
"A gift from Miguel," said Cendra. When Manny opened his mouth, she raised a hand. "I know, I know, I've told him to knock it off. But for the first time, I'm glad he didn't listen."
She sat down behind her desk, and let Karina and Manny take the seats in front. Erin remained standing.
"Of course, I didn't even look at it closely at first. It wasn't until Camila brought it back up from the Mu'Kaos' lab and made me look at the name of the author that I started really checking it out."
"'Ellis Jonesy,'" Manny read from the interior title page. "You... you think he's your biological mom's ancestor?"
"Look at the art of his face!" Cendra exclaimed. "Those were her eyes! And the beasts in these pages... they're the ones I change into. I mean... *exactly* into."
"It's true," said Erin. "That basilisk face she had on when she came in... exactly like in the book. All the other ones I've ever seen her turn into, too."
"All this time," Cendra went on, "and just looking at this book was what I needed to see I've only known the narrowest range of what I can do..."
"What a coincidence that it arrived today of all days," Karina said.
"I said the same thing," said Erin. "But to Miguel, it was just another old book on a long list he was trying to get for her. And all Bonnie knows is the seller sent it from Montana."
"The fact that the title references the 'Empire of the Hidden' indicates it is relevant to today's occurrences," said Manny. "Likewise what we've brought you."
Karina placed the old, weathered, leathery book she'd been carrying into Cendra's hands.
"Karina was visiting Chal and me in Los Requemados," Manny went on, "when your had your... well, let's call it your monkey business, this morning."
"Let's not," said Cendra.
"When China called in Homeland to take custody of The Programmer," said Karina, "I went out to meet the agents on the scene... only to discover The Programmer had already effected his escape. I stayed on the scene while China and her crew finished their survey of the evidence, and kept our people from being too pushy about collecting and evaluating it without working with your crew. I would've left when they were done, save Manny called and said he was on his way here, and to please be there when he arrived."
"To be clear," said Manny, his gaze lingering on the book, "I'm here mainly as a courier. Chalandra said she wanted to come herself, but... when you read this, especially pages at the start and on up to the sticky note there... you may understand why she didn't."
The first page inside the cover confirmed it was what she suspected and dreaded.
"The Journal of Richard Cartier... volume two."
"The missing volume two," Karina added.
Cendra nodded, even as she felt her insides start to tingle. According to the most reputable scholars of the life of the late nineteenth's century premier occult detective, who had fought both mundane and occult crime as the Dweller in the Shades, the second volume didn't exist. No more than the also-missing twenty-first, or next-to-last, volume.
For it to just be casually carried in to her office on the day another person calling herself the Dweller in the Shades teleported The Programmer away just as her people were about to capture him... it was too much to be coincidence.
Manny's heavy look confirmed it for her. "What Dr. Gigawatt suspected is true. The Dweller did cross paths with 'Lady H' again in the aftermath of his clash with the mysterious Sister of the Trails... and he learned who she really was."
"And this volume never resurfaced because..."
"Read it," said Manny.
"Should he be here?" Karina asked, gesturing to Erin.
"I can leave..." Erin started.
"Stay," Cendra said. *I need your eyes, love,* she telepathically sent to him. *And you're judgment. I know you can't tell me what you learned about Shadebeam, and I hate to drop more top secret stuff on you... but I need you to know what I know, in case... things happen.*
Erin nodded, looking troubled. The specter of things happening will do that. It added to the weight of whatever he and Shadebeam had privately discussed that afternoon in Malaga--something that had disturbed and even frightened him.
"There's a change I can make, so I can speed through this," Cendra said. "Just know... there are consequences."
Before anyone could ask what they were, she closed her eyes and summoned the Wolpertinger.
"Whaaa--?" said a startled Manny, as black rabbit-like fur erupted from Cendra's skin, antlers shot from her head, and a twitching nose and snout grew from her face. Electricity crackled in her antlers as she accepted the reading glasses Erin handed to her.
"In trying out different beasts from the bestiary," Erin noted, "we discovered this one. Much quick. So boopable."
Cendra gave Erin a baleful look, even as he booped her nose. Then she put on the reading glasses, and got down to business. She kept the telepathic link open, and let Erin see through her eyes as she read at mythically fast speeds.
And read.
And read.
She only closed her eyes once, though not in time to hold in a few tears.
Finally, after blowing through the marked pages in under two minutes, she reached the page with the sticky note. She closed the book, resisting the urge to push it back into Manny's hands.
"She and Cartier rescued President Cleveland from the Charnel House," said Manny, "but the choices they had to make... the one she made at the end..."
Cendra nodded, unable to speak.
"She was grieving," Karina noted. "What the Sister had done to her Reginald..."
"I see why she kept it hidden," said Cendra. "And why she didn't destroy it. In case the Charnel House ever rose again... whoever went within might know how to survive."
"It's risen again," Manny said. "Chal's sure of it. Not in Gothopolis. Here. Somewhere in Los Angeles. Why we can only speculate, save that we know from what's in the journal that it's the one door to Terra Subterrene that *can't* be closed, and the High Technocrus of the time was heavily indebted to the rulers of Sol Selegna, and if the same is true for whoever the current H.T. is, they may be using that to get Kazza Malissk and the Heart of Mu away from the surface world where none of us can follow."
Cendra nodded. She thought of what she had read... and how it made jumping into a miles-deep shaft leading down into the Earth's crust seem like a cakewalk.
But if it was where Kazza was heading...
"Would either of you object if I gave this book to Dr. Gigawatt?" she asked.
"I asked Chalandra that before I left," said Manny. "She said the decision was yours. As is the book."
"If the conditions I read about hold, we only have until what I'm given by Gigawatt to understand is called in folklore 'the hour of the wolf,' roughly 3 a.m. local time, correct?"
"If," Karina replied. "And yes... though I don't know if this wolf observes Daylight Savings Time."
"Then where do we start looking?" asked Cendra. "There are any number of places in and close to Los Angeles that might be close to the conditions of the Bay of Tears Cartier described, and it sounded like that's the kind of environment the Charnel House demands..."
Just then, the door to the office flew open. The secret service agents, though still unconscious, nevertheless leaped from the couch and wobbled into defensive formation around Manny. One of them croaked a gutteral warning, while the other lightly snored.
"Hey, Miguel..." Erin started.
Miguel looked from him to Manny to Karina and finally to Cendra. He raised an eyebrow at her furry wolpertinger face.
"Sorry to interrupt," he said. "But we've learned that Kazza Malissk is headed for someplace south of here known to at least a few of the local unhoused as the *Sunken City.*"
"Nice reverb," Manny commented.
"Thanks," said Miguel. "It was involuntary. Um..." He looked at the people present. "What am I missing?"
"Another piece of the puzzle," Erin said.
"A hidden doorway to Terra Subterrene that Kazza Malissk is taking," said Cendra. "Likely within this *Sunken City.* If it's anything like what I just read... it'll be coastal. And from what you've said, south of here. Which leaves us with a lot of searching yet to do, but at least now we have a direction. Thank you."
Miguel nodded. He then saw the Bestiary on her desk.
"I see you had a chance to peruse," he said.
"Yes," she said. "Thanks for that, too... though I'll have to put it aside for now. I have to be part of this search." She turned to Erin. "Could you take both these books to Gigawatt and the Mu'Kaos?"
"You got it," said Erin.
"Tell them to focus on the Journal, and leave the Bestiary for later days," Cendra said, as she joined Miguel at the door. "If we get to the *Sunken City* in time, I want their voices in my ear telling me how to get through what's awaiting us."
With that, she forced the reversion to her human form...
...causing her stomach to growl loud enough to echo through the room.
"Er," said Karina, "you said something earlier about... consequences."
"Yes," Cendra said through clenched teeth. "You may want to leave the room. This is going to get... ugly."
With that, her hands flashed toward the trash can, and the still-warm McRib within, as cries of horror filled the office.
***
*You should go full pants,* Coco said inside Esteban Veracruz's head, as Esteban quietly closed the door to Bonnie's Books behind him and pocketed the key. *If his crew sees us and they're hostile...*
*He won't,* Esteban thought back at his metallic bonobo-shaped companion as he approached the stairs to the second floor, moving silently despite the nectarisitic composition of his sandals. *I don't know if I can count on anything else... but he won't order that. Not... without warning me, first.*
As he thought, he glanced up at the CFL bulbs in the ceiling. For a second, he thought he'd seen them stir... and possibly, he realized, he had. But Bonnie assured him as long as he had her store key on him, they, and other aspects of her technomagical security system, would stay in standby mode. He'd worried they might key on Coco, instead, but they seemed to take no notice of him.
His quarry wouldn't have tripped the system because they wouldn't have gone in through the ground floor... and because, as evidenced by his intrusion that morning, Lemon Rydell already knew how to deal with his sister's countermeasures.
*I hear someone,* said Coco, as he crept up to where the stairs reached the upper floor.
Esteban heard the someone too: a wispy but stern voice that sounded like it was lecturing someone. A few seconds listening identified the subject of the lecture as 'Judy.' He had no idea who Judy was, but got the strong impression whoever the voice was lecturing did at a level somewhere between expert and devotee. He slowed his ascent and peered over the edge.
The shelves that lined the walls were in a state of dishabille, the state they'd been left in that morning by a closed-quarters fight between a group of Demon Monkeys led by Lemon, Johnny Clark, and ki Kazza Malissk, a sentient utahraptor that could turn its feathers into laser bolts and shoot them at any and all of the above. A space in the blue-carpeted area in the center had been cleared of books, DVDs, and the like, and was currently occupied by the shimmering image of an extremely old man in a futuristic-looking wheelchair.
"We do not have much time," the withered man rasped, reaching into the blanket that wrapped his presumably equally-withered frame and pulling out a wrapped hard candy. "I must go to hear Judy's judgment soon. Her time is near."
"Director," said the man in the black-and-white suit before him. Lemon, Esteban realized. "I need more time to explain just what happened here today..."
"You have three minutes."
*Agent Rydell is not alone,* Coco told him. *There are four Demon Monkeys in M.I.B. outfits with him, running the holographic projection.*
Esteban peered around the glowing circle the old man appeared to be speaking from. Sure enough, there were four horned howler monkeys in back-and-white business suits standing equidistant from one another and the withered man's image. Each was holding a box with a lens that projected the light that combined into said image, powering it by turning a crank handle that emitted an indistinct tune.
*Is that Richard Cartier?*
*If what Lemon earlier told Cendra is true,* Coco answered. *Extrapolating from archived images of Cartier in the 1890s, I would call it likely.*
Esteban narrowed his eyes as, just feet away, Agent Lemon Rydell spread his hands and ingratiatingly smiled.
"The short, short version, then," said Lemon. "Kazza Malissk double-crossed us. It's clear from how the event played out that she was in league with The Programmer, who the mercenary Demon Monkeys in the Hawaiian shirts and speedos were working for. After the Programmer's first attempt to confuse us and draw us away from where I'd arranged to meet Kazza failed, he sent them in to the battle on the Venice Beach boardwalk with my guys, enabling Kazza to escape. We've been all over the city trying to find her, but she's vanished."
Cartier--if that's who he indeed was--frowned on hearing this, though between the low quality of the projection and the high volume of his wrinkles, it made little difference in his expression.
"I ingratiated myself with the _Subtler Than Light_ crew hoping they'd have better luck and I'd hear about it, but no dice there, either."
Someone on the Director's end leaned over his shoulder, momentarily appearing with him in the projection. Pale, blonde, with icy eyes that never left Lemon's face even as she whispered in the Director's ear.
"Thank you, Heather," the Director growled, not appearing to spare her a glance. "Agent Rydell, I expect you to obtain the Heart of Mu tonight... and to bring it to me before the night is through. Failure on your part will be... unfortunate."
"For whom?" Lemon asked, his expression unperturbed.
The Director said nothing, though the corners of his mouth turned upward.
"Will you be coming out to the STL?" Lemon asked. "Cendra Seconds was reluctant to agree to a meeting, but acceded on her boss's orders, if you're willing..."
"I twice learned the hard way it's best not to dance to the tune of a Harkness," Cartier said. "You now have a path that doesn't require her. Take it."
Abruptly, the image disappeared.
Lemon considered the empty space where the Director's image had once flickered.
"You can come up now, Este," he said. "You too, Coco, if you're there."
Esteban wasn't sure who was more startled in that instant -- him and Coco, or the Demon Monkeys accompanying Lemon. A couple of the latter started for the stairs, but stopped when Lemon raised a hand.
"What gave us away?" Esteban asked, as he climbed the rest of the way to the second floor, with Coco floating alongside him.
"Nothing," Lemon admitted, as he turned. "Just a prickle on the back of my neck. Director Cartier calls it my sense for the dramatic necessity of a situation. Pretty sure he made that up, but still..."
"You're lucky your sister's too busy with her new toy to come over with me," said Esteban. "She might've given the whole 'smite my older brother' thing another go." He laughed. "That's something I'd've loved to see."
"I bet."
Esteban willed himself not to look away. Everything he'd suppressed for the minute he'd seen Lemon that morning on the STL threatned to surge back up in that second. In his brown eyes were memories of his own face reflected. In his lips were memories of what he'd thought in his teenage naivete was love, what his heart now knew were lies. He'd made a cutting remark and flown away before.
Now, he'd face his past. He'd already made peace with Rumi earlier in the day... how much harder could this be?
"Why here?" he asked. "You could've had Kazza meet you anywhere in the city."
"Since you're here, why don't you tell me?"
"You needed someplace close," Coco said. Aloud, through the speakers that formed in that instant on his metallic throat, he sounded even younger than he did in Esteban's head. "Where your crew could set up a teleportation anchor so they could come and go without needing line-of-sight, as they otherwise would. Now that they can't 'port in or around the STL, a state of affairs I've verified--"
"The secret of how to generate the suppression field you had to concede to Cendra so you could... ingratiate yourself with her..." Esteban noted.
"--it's the next-best port in your very messy storm," Coco concluded. "And you're slipping away from the STL now and coming here indicated what your conversation with the Director has confirmed: you've learned a way to the *Sunken City* without us."
"We may," Lemon said, looking down at the monkey closest to him, who was putting away his portion of their holo-projector.
The monkey looked up at Esteban and said, "Ooook aak eek oook. OOK."
"Lancelot Dink says ook?" asked Coco.
"Ook?" the monkey said, then scowled.
"Beyond that," said Lemon, as Esteban approached to within a couple steps of him, "I wanted to tweak Bonnie. It's funny when she finally got her bookstore up and running, she picked a location so close to you and Miguel." He shrugged. "Or maybe it isn't. I know she's not hung up on him in any romantic sense, but he was her friend when a lot of people weren't... and she doesn't forget something like that."
"Do you?" Esteban asked, before he could stop himself.
Lemon pursed his lips for a moment. Then he looked at the Demon Monkeys around him.
"Give us the room, boys..."
"OOOK."
"And girl..."
"Oook ook."
"And you too, Zody. Wait for my signal."
The suited demon monkeys looked at one another, made various shrugging motions, then vanished in several poofs.
Lemon looked to Coco, then to Esteban.
"You too, Coco," said Esteban. "Make yourself scarce for a few. We've got... some things to say to one another."
*Este,* Coco called on the link he shared with Esteban, inaudible to Lemon.
*I mean it,* Esteban thought to him. *This won't take long.*
Coco looked from one man to the other, sighed, and melted into an amorphous blob of liquid nectarisite. The blob spiraled in the air for a couple seconds before separating into three streams and diving into Esteban's nectarisite sandals and belt.
"He won't listen in," said Esteban.
Lemon shrugged.
They looked at one another for nearly a minute. Lemon's expression was enigmatic to Esteban, though he sensed a question on his lips. He was afraid that, to Lemon, his expression was too easily readable.
So what, he thought. Too much had gone hidden between them for too long.
"I'm not going to apologize for what I said this morning," said Esteban. "You had it coming."
"You were mortified you'd said it," Lemon countered. "The instant you were out of sight, you regretted it, and it's been eating at you since."
"Yeah," Esteban admitted. He felt something small and vulnerable rise up his back, along his spine. "But I also stand by it. I *don't* trust you, as much as I still want to. Maybe *because* I still want to. And that... that breaks my heart."
"You never did trust me, toward the end," Lemon replied, cocking his head and giving him a half-smirk. "Which just made us a bigger challenge." He winked. "And you know I love a challenge."
Esteban closed his eyes, suddenly regretting being alone with Lemon. The feeling climbing his spine reached the back of his neck, and he suppressed a shudder. This close, he could smell, in addition to light aftershave and a few monkey-based scents, the sweat on Lemon's face and neck. He could remember how that sweat tasted.
He bit his lip.
"What I did to you... chasing after Rumi... seducing her and getting her to keep it secret from you..." said Lemon, "...it was wrong."
He opened his eyes, and was startled to see Lemon was now nearly toe-to-toe with him, looking up into his eyes. The familiar coffee-scent of his breath enveloped him.
His shoulder itched. He ignored the sensation.
"I know that," Lemon went on. "I knew that, then. The Heart of Mu made sure I knew that... even after we stuffed it back into the floor in the Root of the _Subtler Than Light_ and the effect it had on me faded. Before, when I flirted with others, knowing you'd find out... I was just doing it because it made your eyes light up."
"With anger."
"With passion," Lemon corrected. "I loved seeing that in you. You kind of lost that, the longer you worked on trying to unwind the mystery of the STL and nectarisite, getting nowhere."
He held up his hands, on seeing what Esteban knew was a suddenly furious expression.
A tingle ran down Esteban's arm, from his shoulder to his elbow.
"Not an excuse, I know," Lemon said. "I... the point is, I never felt any *guilt* for doing things like that. You were... when we found the Heart, and it changed me... I could feel that for the first time. I felt like I was *whole.* For someone like me, to feel that... I don't think I can really say what that..."
He trailed off. Took a breath. Esteban inhaled as he exhaled.
"And when we put it away," Lemon finally continued, "I should've gone back to what I was before. So everything could've been as it was before for us. And I did."
Lemon placed a hand on Esteban's shoulder. Esteban fought off a tremble. Something... the tingle, the itch... went from his elbow to his wrist.
"But I also didn't," said Lemon. "And that's why... that's why Rumi."
"I... I don't understand," Esteban admitted.
"I didn't, either. It took me years to figure it out."
"During which time you somehow joined the unofficial reincarnation of America's most... American... spy service?"
"Man's gotta make a living," Lemon said, giving him a wink. "But that's a story for another day. Now... you got anything better than a pithy bon mot to say to me, or are we done here?"
Esteban took a breath. He'd thought for a long time... for years... about what he'd say to Lemon if he ever got the chance. About how Lemon had hurt him time and again, and how that last night on the _Subtler Than Light,_ seeing him and Rumi in intimate action, knowing that everything they'd been through had just been a game. He'd long ago worked out how he'd express his anger, his sadness, and his heartbreak, every word calibrated to strip the smug look from Lemon's face and make him know, unavoidably, what he'd done and what he'd never get from Esteban again.
"I want to kiss you very badly," he said instead.
"Huh," said Lemon, arching an eyebrow. "And here I was hoping you'd kiss me very well."
That was all it took. Then there were lips, and tongue, and fingers digging through the hair in the back of necks. For a second, Esteban thought he felt Lemon tremble.
It was just as well he couldn't speak, Esteban thought. If he couldn't speak, he wouldn't cry.
Several poofing sounds filled his ears. The lips against his disappeared.
Lemon was gone. Esteban looked around the bookstore, confirming that he was suddenly alone.
He fought back the pain deep in his throat. He had no time for it.
*Coco?* he thought. *Where are you?*
*Where you put me,* Coco's voice came back. *About two-thirds of the way up the back of his head, nearing the scalp. Can't say where we are right now, but he's not talking. Just breathing.* A pause. *The others are talking to him. They've arranged transportation. He had them pull him out the instant it was ready to go.*
Esteban grinned. "They don't know you're there?"
*I re-entered Los Pantalones and emerged in this substantially smaller, quarter-inch-tall monkey form,* Coco said. *Just like we practiced it for when you tell me 'make yourself scarce.' It was easy to come back in, climb up your back and down your arm, and let you place me. It's not a capability we were aware of when he was around... he shouldn't suspect I'm here.*
*Maybe not,* thought Esteban, as he headed downstairs. *But be careful. If you get too far away from Los Pantalones, while that small... I may not be able to find you in time to revive you.*
*You be careful too, Este,* Coco sent. *I will send word when we arrive in this *Sunken City,* if they've indeed found it. Coco out.*
Esteban locked the bookstore door behind him as Bonnie had instructed, then jogged toward the _Subtler Than Light,_ ignoring the surprised looks of those on the boardwalk who saw him. As he ran, he thought of the boy he'd known, and the man he now had to admit he didn't know at all.
He hoped Lemon's understanding of him was equally out-of-date. Otherwise, Coco was in trouble.
(concluded in part three, following...)
--
Subtler Than Light #7 (c) 2024 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
Gary W. Olson LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/gwox
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Subtler Than Light #7 (c) 2024 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
Gary W. Olson LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/gwox
Superguy/Sfstory LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/superguysfstory