Free Labyrinth (Book 5) by Kat Richardson Page A

keep me off-balance I’m guessing. I can’t let him do that. I have to be free to move or I’ll end up doing what he wants. And I have to get some sleep so I don’t keep on making stupid mistakes because I’m too tired to think more than a single move ahead.” I was losing my cool and I knew it, but I just didn’t have the energy to be more subtle. I took a few long breaths that turned into yawns before I could continue. “That’s why we’d like to use your basement for a day or two. Lie low long enough to get some sleep and plan. We can leave the dog with you until things are less dangerous. Grendel is a great protection dog. Wygan likes to grab people and use them as leverage against others and I don’t want him to get you or any of my other friends. I know you can take care of yourselves, but ...”
    Ben and Mara exchanged a worried glance, and we all stared out into the yard, watching Brian gambol with Grendel. The dog was jumping around and knocked the boy over. All of us got to our feet, poised to run to the rescue, but the pit bull just held Brian down for a moment and slobbered all over his face, making happy wuffing sounds through his nose while the boy shrilled his pleasure. Boy and dog got back to their feet and Grendel herded Brian around the yard for a while as we watched. I noticed the dog somehow kept himself between Brian and the bloodred stars of the malefic spells scattered along the fence. Maybe all animals had a touch of Grey vision, like the ferret seemed to. I hoped so.
    “It won’t be for long,” I said. “Just until I can get into a better position against Wygan. I’ll have to free my father from him somehow and I’ll have to figure out what he’s doing so I can stop it. I have to take the offensive or the game is lost already. Please ...”

SIX
    I t took a little more talking before the Danzigers felt they knew enough to let me head for bed in the basement guest room. Grendel, the fuzzy bodyguard, turned out to be our ace in the hole: Brian’s immediate response to the idea that we might go and take his playmate away was to throw his arms around the pit bull’s neck and literally dig in his heels. “No! Doggie stay!” he insisted. The plight of adults being a bit too abstract for even the brightest three-year-old, he went for the most important thing to himself: the pet. Ben and Mara exchanged a rueful glance and gave in, which earned a delighted squeal from their offspring. Rick was going to have a hard time getting his dog back.
    Quinton had gotten a lot more sleep the previous night than I had and elected to stay up for a while and help the Danzigers out with some household projects. I suspected he wanted to pick their brains a bit more about the situation we were getting into, and Ben had looked more than happy for the opportunity to do some picking of his own, too. Whatever work Quinton did for the Danzigers would mitigate some of the obligation we both felt for the safety and quiet they had extended to us. Some, not all. I knew I was probably dragging them into the enemy’s sights and I didn’t like it, no matter how much they protested that they wanted to help. Quinton, too, come to that. It seemed that this had become his fight as well, whether I liked it or not.
    I fell toward sleep wondering why Simondson had ended up in Georgetown. . . .
    As I slept, I dreamed I was sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool, trying to make sense of conversations going on at a party above the surface. Distant, burbling sounds that were almost words floated in and out of my ears, and I could see them darting through the water like glittering, colored fish. My dead cousin Jill swam by, her long hair forming a blond cloud as she paused to look at me.
    “This time, we’ll use the back door,” she bubbled. In the drowned light, her pale, dead skin looked blue. She swam away, dissolving into a school of neon-bright tadpoles that broke into sudden shapes and began spiraling around a