Siren's Call (A Rainshadow Novel) Read Free Page B

fated to be always a bridesmaid and never a bride—she sometimes descended into the Underworld and gave herself over to the ethereal music until dawn.
    Bright yellow warning lights flickered on one of the locator screens. The sled was nearing an uncharted sector. She wasn’t lost yet but she was in danger of driving out of the mapped zone. Even with good amber, that wasa dangerous place to be. There were a lot of hazards in the uncleared regions of the underground, most of them fairly lethal.
    Now that the initial rush of adrenaline had started to wear off, common sense was flooding back. What was she doing, allowing a dust bunny to lead her deeper and deeper into the tunnels?
    Her first thought—the one she had leaned on to rationalize the daring escapade—was that someone was in trouble down below. Children’s books were replete with stories of heroic dust bunnies that saved little kids who had been foolish enough to go into the Underworld alone.
    Right,
she thought.
That would be children’s books
,
as in pure fantasy
.
Get real
.
    But the dust bunny on the dashboard was real.
    The yellow lights on the locator screen turned red. That was not good. Ella was on the brink of making the decision to turn around and go back when the hood ornament froze and uttered a forbidding growl.
    Ella brought the sled to a halt and looked down a seemingly endless hallway. Vaulted entrances to rooms and chambers loomed on either side of the corridor.
    “Okay,” she said. “Now what, pal?”
    The dust bunny leaped from the dashboard to her shoulder, startling her. The creatures were predators, she reminded herself. There was a saying about dust bunnies:
By the time you see the teeth, it’s too late
. Panic flickered through her. If the thing went for her throat she was doomed. . . .
    But the dust bunny didn’t attack. It made more anxiousnoises, bounded down off her shoulder, and dashed through the entrance of the nearest chamber.
    Ella double-checked her personal amber. Satisfied that she could retreat if necessary, she followed the dust bunny. At the doorway she paused to glance back over her shoulder, making certain that she could still see the sled. The invisible rivers of paranormal energy that flowed through the Underworld played tricks on human senses. Losing visual contact with your transport was not smart.
    She went through the opening and stopped short. She was not certain what she had expected to find at the end of the frantic race through the tunnels—an injured prospector or a lost child, perhaps.
    The reality was a long workbench, two strange crystal devices that did not look as though they had been designed for human hands, and a row of small steel-and-glass cages. The locks on the cages were old-fashioned padlocks that required keys. High-tech security devices would not function in the paranormal environment.
    Each cage contained a sleeked-out, mad-as-green-hell dust bunny. There were six in all. Rage and fear radiated from the trapped creatures. They watched her with suspicious eyes, not certain if she was friend or tormentor.
    She took in the situation at once. Outrage flashed through her. The crystal relics on the workbench were the telling clues. Someone had discovered a couple of Alien weapons and was planning to run a few field tests using the dust bunnies as targets.
    “Bastard,” she whispered.
    The dust bunny that had come to her for help dashedfrantically back and forth across the room, chattering anxiously.
    “I’ll do my best,” Ella said. “There’s probably a hammer in the sled’s tool kit but I don’t think it will work. That glass looks like the kind they use in banks and shark tanks. But lucky for your buddies, it’s still just glass. People like me are good with glass.”
    The dust bunny chittered and dashed around her ankles.
    “Okay, okay, give me a minute.”
    She went to the first cage in the row and flattened one hand on the front panel. Gently she rezzed her talent, searching