The Dream Thief, Kari Kilgore [reading well TXT] 📗

good bit of equipment to take out there but not why. He knows Gemma will likely stay put if the place is at all tolerable, but you'll be coming and going. And he knows you and I have something going on, but he doesn't know what any more than I do."

Loretta wasn't able to stop herself from laughing, and she hugged Karl's face against her breasts to make up for it.

"If it helps, I don't know either. The fact that we haven't killed each other after being cooped up in here for five days has to be a good thing."

"So far, no. We'll see if that holds up once you see your new digs. It's hardly any kind of grand estate, and the locals aren't exactly friendly."

When Karl's friend showed up, Loretta was surprised at how he looked and acted. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but a small, well-mannered, polite man wasn't it.

George barely came up to Karl's shoulder, and something about his messy brown hair, glasses, and round features and belly didn't exactly scream competence. She had a feeling his warm brown eyes didn't miss a damned thing, though. Maybe this wouldn't be quite the disaster she'd been afraid of.

"You have a lot of stuff with you," George said. "Why don't we head out there and check it out first? You might run screaming, and it would be a real shame to have to run and push the cart at the same time."

"Sounds good to me, Georgie," Karl said. "We'll just follow your lead." He turned to Loretta's grandmother, taking her hands. "Gemma, we have to be careful now. Your doctor's clothes will help, but you have to look bored. I'm glad you're excited, but you'd stand out like a torch around here. If anyone stops us, just let me and George handle it."

"I'll do that." Gemma's smile didn't reassure Loretta. "I am excited. Thank you for doing this, George."

"You're welcome," George said. "Don't thank me until you see the place. Really."

The early hour on a weekend morning worked as well as it possibly could have. They didn't encounter a single person on the silent walk through the commons and the wood-walled corridors. Loretta and everyone else breathed a little easier once they were in the dank brick-lined tunnel two flights of stairs below the surface.

George handed out folded pieces of paper.

"I made maps for all of you, but you can't be letting anyone else see those. That would mean all of us rounded up and wishing we'd never met. For now, just follow me and watch where we turn. Oh, I have copies of the keys, too, but I'll give you those in order as we get to the gates. Karl, you have a light?"

He held up a lantern, the same kind George was carrying.

After several minutes of walking and avoiding the larger puddles, they turned down a darker passage. The floor was still damp, but the bricks seemed to be a lot less worn than what Loretta had seen before.

"I've never been in this section," Karl said. "I think we're going under the fence to where the ’sters live."

Loretta frowned. "Stirs?"

George glanced back at them, glaring at Karl before he smiled at Loretta.

"Monsters. Your host forgot to tell you who your neighbors will be?"

"He told us," Loretta said. "I forgot you called them ’sters. These are the oldest ones?"

"That's right," George said. "They're all at least forty years old right now, some a lot older. They don't seem to get weaker the way people do, present company excepted."

"Of course," Gemma said, grinning.

"They stop growing around the same time as people do," George said. "They get stronger, though. More substantial, at least, more confident. A lot harder to control, but they don't seem to care as much about us, either. So when they hit about thirty-five or forty, they're brought out here. Some of them, anyway. Some have to be kept locked up in the towers. The area's still fenced in, but it's a lot more open in the middle. That way they can move around a lot more."

"Don't they hurt each other?" Karl said.

Loretta wasn't reassured by Karl's question, or by the fact he had to ask it. What had he agreed to get them into here?

"They do sometimes, but it's usually not fatal." George paused to unlock a black metal gate, then handed each of them a brass key with a large number one on it. "As long as they don't actually kill each other, everyone seems to be fine."

The tunnel continued, with fewer ladders or stairs to the top than when they first started and not as many corridors or doors branching off to the side. Stretches of the bricks underfoot were buckled and heaved, and brick had fallen out of the roof in a couple of places. The lanterns saved everyone's ankles more than once as the gaslights grew dimmer and less frequent.

George unlocked gates on three of those corridors, providing a key for each. At a nearly solid metal gate, he stopped.

"End of the line here," he said. "I don't have a key to that gate, never even seen one. It's not on any map I know of, either. We have two ways we can go. This ladder's in pretty good shape, but it's slick as glass." He tapped the dark metal rungs with the last set of keys. "This door goes to a tunnel to the surface, steep but passable. Both come out inside the house, no worries about that. As long as the fence holds up."

"Let's try the tunnel," Karl said, glancing at Gemma. "We'd need that to bring supplies in anyway."

George nodded and handed out the keys.

"I'll go first to make sure it's safe," he said. "Stay close behind me."

Loretta watched Gemma dart behind George.

"She'll be fine with him." Karl gestured for Loretta to go next. "If anyone needs help, I'll be back here."

"Great. I suppose I should be reassured by that?"

"You might as