got away from me.”

“You guess?” snapped Kira. “Jesus, who needs a necromancer

with you around?”

Fugisawa glanced at him nervously.

“You’re being anxious, ” Merlin said, guiding the glowing ball of

fire back toward him. “Don’t rush things. I taught you better than

that.”

“Yes, sir, ” Wyrdrune said, taking control of the ball. “I’m sorry. I

won’t let it happen again.”

“That’s what you said last time, ” Kira said wryly.

“Let’s go, ” said Modred. “We’re wasting time.”

Wyrdrune guided the glowing ball down the stairs ahead of them.

“Does he know what he’s doing?” Fugisawa asked Modred in a

nervous whisper.

“He knows, ” Modred replied. “He just doesn’t always do it very

well.”

“Thanks for reassuring me, ” said Fugisawa.

Modred smiled at him. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay up

here?”

“Not a chance, ” said Fugisawa. “After you.”

Wyrdrune, Billy, and Kira had already preceded them down the

stairs. Modred went down after them. Fugisawa took a deep breath,

blew it out slowly, and followed.

The stairs led down to an ordinary basement storeroom. The

green glow illuminated crates and boxes full of lab supplies and feed

for the creatures upstairs, as well as stored office equipment, old

ledgers, shelves containing billing envelopes and blank invoices,

dusty filing cabinets holding old records… nothing out of the

ordinary.

“There’s nothing down here, ” Fugisawa said.

“Nothing we can see, ” said Wyrdrune, frowning. “But there’s

something down here, all right. I can feel it.”

“Whatever it is, ” said Modred, “it’s below us. There must be