Page 28 of Spring L.A.W.
The yoga mat’s edge flipped up and down, as if it agreed.
8
The sewers had been quiet for hours. Not peaceful. Never peaceful. But quiet.
A rat scurried across the lip of a broken pipe and paused, nose twitching. It smelled the scorch marks first. Then theotherthing, the oily tang of magic, sharp as ozone and old pennies, aka copper, aka blood.
It squeaked once, then turned to run. It didn’t get far. A hand, too long, too thin, and still forming, slid out from a pool of glistening muck and caught the rat by the tail. It dangled there, struggling. Then it went still, as a mouthless face tilted toward it, considering.
The thing was rebuilding, but it must have realized becoming a rodent wouldn’t serve its purpose and dropped it into the muck.
The battle with the witches had torn it apart, shredded it. But magic like that didn’tkillthings like it. Not permanently. It just made it mad.
Around it, the sewer walls held the leftover heat from the explosion, and the magic pulsed through the stones like a heartbeat, stirring old things in the deep places.
A voice whispered in the dark.
They’re not ready.
The gate opens soon. Find the girl. Find the key. Find the boy. Find the mission.
The gray-thing shuddered, sloughing off a layer of burnt flesh that hit the water with a hiss. The spot where its eyes should be glowed. Just enough to make the rats hide.
It didn’t know the girl’s name yet. But it would. And when it did… The next time, there would be no escape. Witches or no witches.
Katie MacGregor woke with a gasp,tangled in sweat-damp sheets and the last shreds of a dream that didn’t belong to her. Again.
She sat up slowly, heart hammering, and grabbed the notebook from her nightstand. It was already open to a page with a foreign scrawl. She didn’t remember doing that. She didn’t remember keeping the pen in her hand either. But there it was, pressed into her fingers.
She looked down at what she’d written in handwriting that wasn’t hers.
When the gate opens, run.
The rats will not protect you.
Beware the one with no voice.
She exhaled slowly. “Fan-fuckin-tastic. Love that for me.”
Outside her window, Brooklyn yawned itself awake. Buses groaning, pigeons arguing, a car alarm doing its daily panic symphony. Normal. Sort of.
On her way to work, she spotted the graffiti. Damn. It was back. She had hoped she’d just hallucinated it the other times. Itwas a scrawled, looping sentence in pale blue spray paint across a brick wall that hadn’t been tagged in years.
You dreamed of this.
She stopped walking. Turned and looked again. The words were still there.
Yesterday, it said, "Watch the teeth." She’d just rolled her eyes. The day before that, it said, "The key is coated in blood."
She hadn’t told anyone. How could she? Her friends would either laugh or stage an intervention. And her landlord would just raise the rent if he thought she had “weird artist energy.”
She took a picture of the graffiti anyway, then added it to the folder on her phone labeledMath problems, hoping nobody would be interested enough to open it if something happened to her.
The dreams were getting worse. Or maybe clearer. Faces without eyes. Doors without hinges. Someone or something was trying tofindher. She didn’t know what they wanted. But she knew they were close. And getting closer. She kept walking, faster now. Not running, but close enough to draw a few odd glances.
By the time she reached the coffee shop, her hands were shaking. Great. That would go really well with the espresso machine. Any pretty picture she’d try to make would look like a scribbled signature.
“Yo, Katie,” called her boss from behind the counter. “You okay? You look like you saw a ghost or fought a demon or something.”
