Free Fangs for Nothing (Vampire Hunting and Other Foolish Endeavors) by Adrianne Ambrose Page A

the intent of verbally laying into him. But then I realized that Xander was genuinely dismayed about my phone. All the air escaped my lungs, and I felt the beginning of a headache behind my eyeballs. Pinching my fingers to the bridge of my nose, I grunted. “Never mind. It’s a long story. I’m just going to fish it out. I’ll tell you about it later.”
    “Whatever works for you .” Xander was amenable. As I rounded the railing and headed down the stairs, Xander plucked his phone out of his pocket. “I think this deserves documentation,” he called. A flash dazzled my eyes, and I’m sure I looked like a raccoon caught heading for a garbage can.
    “Thanks,” I said, the word sour on my tongue.
    The steps were much dryer than I’d anticipated. Initially, I inched along, worried I’d slip and crack my head open, but they were perfectly fine. My silhouette created an enormous black figure in the photographic images, and for a moment, a giant shadow monster was attacking Victorian era Cleveland. Something about the water was strange, though. The closer I got, the less it looked like water. At the final step, before the green sludge, I squatted down and took a poke at it. Much to my surprise, it wasn’t liquid at all. It was a very fine silk material someone had stretched over the bottom of the stairs. Most of it was reflective, but translucent, which gave it the watery effect. Bits of fine, moss green threads were woven into patches around the cloth to create the “scunge.” Taken out of the context of being scummy water, the fabric was actually quite beautiful.
    “What are you doing?” A girl’s voice wafted down to me.
    I didn’t have to look up to know that Rini was standing next to Xander. “Hey, guys,” I called to them. “Come down here. You have got to check this out.”
    “Mmmh,” was Xander’s reply. I couldn’t exactly see his face, but I knew the expression he wore. His, yeah-I-don’t-think-so expression.
    “Seriously .” I stood up and waved my hand in the get-over-here gesture. “You definitely want to see this.” Reluctantly, they joined me.
    “Wow,” Xander breathed as he too felt the delicate fabric. “Why would someone put this here?”
    “To keep kids from messing around down here,” Rini said as if stringing up fake water was the most obvious thing in the world.
    “Couldn’t they just build a barricade or something?”
    “No.” Rini shook her head. “If you build a barricade in a place like this, then teenagers want to find out what’s on the other side. If you fill the place with green, nasty water, then kids will probably leave it alone.”
    Xander gave Rini a crooked smile. “I love your brain.” Rini blushed. I subdued my gag reflex.
    My phone had made a small tear in the fabric, but not big enough for me to fit my arm through to reach for it. Even though the cloth had been masquerading as gross water, it really was beautiful up close, and I was reluctant to rip it more. I noticed a larger tear next to the wall below the railing. It was heavily in shadow, so no one would have noticed it unless they were standing at faux-water level. “I’m going to get my phone,” I announced, heading for the gap.
    It was easy enough to slip through the cloth , and I quickly grabbed my cell. Besides a small scuff, it seemed no worse for the wear. Before frisking back up the stairs, I thought I might as well see what there was down the dark walkway that someone had taken so much trouble to conceal. I tried using the light from my cell phone screen to cut the night, but it provided very little penetration of the inky black. So I took a picture. I don’t have the best cell on the planet, but it does have an LED flash that gave me a little assistance. In the brief moment of light, I glimpsed a clean, reasonably pleasant-looking hallway. Or about as clean and pleasant looking as you can get in a structure that was made for mass transportation. The long, wide hallway was obviously