Lords of Trillium (18 page)

“We have to leave him here for now,” said Juniper. Trying to
keep his composure, he released Topher's body, letting it sink silently into the water. “Saints be with you, friend. We will be back for you. I swear it.”

“We must find this Liam before it's too late,” said Billycan.

“Vincent, can you make it?” asked Juniper.

“Don't worry about me. It's the same leg that nearly got crushed under Killdeer's throne—it's used to pain. His teeth went deep, but he didn't hit the bone.” He let go of the wall and began to swim down the tunnel. “We've got to find her.”

They came to a small shoreline in the narrow tunnel, formed with sand and debris. There were odd piles of objects lining the brick wall. There was a stack of broken green glass from bottles, a mound of dented tin cans, and a heap of mismatched bones.

“This must be where Topher lived,” whispered Billycan, looking down at the chaotic tracks in the sand. “By the looks of it, barely surviving off whatever he could find in the floating trash.”

“But where is Liam?” asked Vincent. “I can't make out a scent among all this garbage.”

“There's no time to waste,” said Juniper. “Liam,” he called, “can you hear me? It's Juniper.” He kicked a tin can against the bricks, trying to make as much noise as possible to draw out the rat. “We know you're here. We know you have the pretty brown rat. You best come out of the shadows. Whatever you're feeling right now, whatever anger or confusion you've been going through, it's on account of the injections you and Topher were given in the lab. We're here to help you . . . to bring you home to Nightshade, where you belong.”

A gasp came from where the sand met the brick wall, and a dark blur of a figure moved behind the pile of glass. Vincent walked toward it slowly, his dagger at the ready. “Come out,
Liam. It's Vincent Nightshade. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if you insist on staying hidden.”

As he neared the glass, he noticed some of it was smeared with blood. His heart started to race. “I can hear you breathing back there,” he called out. He took another step and noticed a long tail and two brown feet. With his free paw he waved Billycan and Juniper nearer.

“Bless the Saints,” said Juniper as he saw the pair of lifeless feet. “Liam, what have you done?”

Another gasp came from behind the glass, followed by sobbing.

“Oleander?” said Vincent, finally bringing himself to round the corner and look at the full form of the limp rat on the ground.

Oleander sat behind the glass, rocking on her heels, her body coiled into a small ball. She covered her head with her arms, a broken shard of bloodied glass next to her, one clutched in her paw, and another embedded in the dead rat's chest.

Vincent crouched next to her. “It's Vincent, Oleander.” He handed his dagger to Juniper, gently forcing her rigid arms off her head. He opened her paw and took the shard of glass from it. Softly he lifted her head. “It's all right now. You're safe.”

“You knew him?” she asked, sniffling. “His name . . . it was Liam?”

“He was one of the lost Hunters,” said Juniper. “He and Topher, the one who snatched you, they escaped the museum. They'd been trapped in the lab.”

“I—I
killed
him,” said Oleander. “He came at me . . . said I looked like a rat in the lab, one he'd gotten in a quarrel with. I didn't know who he was, or else I never would have . . .” She glanced down at the bloodied glass sticking out of the sand. “I never killed anyone before. I don't think I can live with it.”

“He and Topher were given injections in the lab,” said Vincent. “Whatever it was, it turned them mad. You cannot blame yourself. Had you not protected yourself, there's no telling what he might have done to you. You are lucky to be alive.”

“But still . . . I took his
life
.”

Billycan crumpled onto the sand, staring at Liam's wilted, malnourished frame. “He was already dead,” he said. “Whatever life he had, he left it in that lab. If anything, you freed him from a future of agony and confusion. You gave him peace.”

Juniper glanced around, noticing a small stack of metal placards. He reached for one. It read
TOSCAN POT, CIRCA 1750
. Another read
TRILLIUM CITY MAYOR TANNER HUFFINGTON, 1892
. “Where did they get these?” He scratched his head. “Did they steal them from the museum?”

Oleander pointed to the wall where a brick had been removed, revealing a sizable hole. “It's a tunnel. I think it leads up to the museum. I was trying to escape the other rat . . . Topher, you called him. I was outrunning him, when Liam came upon me halfway up the tunnel and dragged me back down here. The placards were all over the tunnel, stuck into the damp earth.”

“We must get the others,” said Juniper. He gazed up into the black tunnel. “This route might lead us to the lab quicker.”

Limping, Vincent walked over to the pile of tin cans and began rifling through them, ripping off any lids still attached to them.

“What are you doing?” asked Billycan.

Vincent nodded at Liam's body. He tossed a silver lid to Billycan. “Burying him.”

“I'll go back and get Topher,” said Juniper. “They should be buried together.”

Vincent and Billycan began to dig.

N
O ONE UTTERED A WORD
the long way up the meandering tunnel, which traveled this way and that, clearly formed without logical thought. Pondering the fate of Nightshade's lost Hunters, they were filled with dread over the horrors that might await them in the lab.

The tunnel led into a large, darkened chamber, an exhibit hall of some sort, with alcoves roped off by gold cords. “ ‘Look, but don't touch,' ” said Suttor, reading from a sign. “Where's the fun in that?”

“This room,” said Oleander, stepping toward one of the roped-off compartments marked
TRILLIUM HOUSE 1875
, “it reminds me of the parlor in the manor . . . back in the swamp.”

Billycan looked up at the faded settee, recalling the very one he'd sat on in the manor parlor, plotting his own brother's demise. “Must everything dredge up my memories today?” he muttered wearily. His ears perked. He glanced toward the
archway leading to another part of the museum. “Do you hear that?”

“Music,” said Clover.

“Classical music,” said Oleander. “When I was little, we sometimes played it on the phonograph. We'd drag out the records when the rain kept us inside the manor. Thicket and Stono would dance to it.” She smiled, thinking of them. “They love to dance . . . when they aren't beating the tar out of each other.”

Carn squeezed her paw. “We'll see them soon. I promise.”

Billycan's face suddenly dropped. His jaw fell and his shoulders slumped. “Yes . . . classical music. She's right,” he said limply.

“What is it?” asked Juniper.

“I've heard that music . . . before,” Billycan said as if in a trance. “In fact”—he held up a claw, waving it in time with the melody—“the record will skip right . . . now.”

To everyone's surprise, the record did skip exactly when Billycan said it would.

“How did you
know
?” asked Vincent.

“One of the lab techs, he liked records,” said Billycan. “Stored them in his briefcase. That song . . . it's one of his favorites.”

Juniper tightened the strap on his waterlogged satchel. “I believe we've found our secret lab.”

They followed the music to another hall within the museum, its walls covered with old portraits.
THE LORDS OF TRILLIUM
read the long, gilded sign over the door. “Duncan, isn't this where you said you heard other rats?” asked Vincent.

“Yes,” said Duncan, staring up at the portrait of a stout Topsider named Edward Grimsby III. “I remember his face.”

The music seemed to originate from a cast-iron grate at
the base of the wall, a vent of some sort. Juniper approached the grate. He could hear no sound other than music—no rats, no Topsiders. Unexpectedly a rush of air flew up through the vent, ruffling his fur and temporarily muting the sounds of violins, flutes, and clarinets. Along with the air came something else—the smell of rat. He wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. There were too many scents; the sheer number overwhelmed him. Some he thought he might know, most others he'd never encountered. If what Topher said was true, and there were numerous white rats in the lab, Juniper wondered if any of them could be related to Billycan. Humans bred animals over and over without regard. Since Billycan's father was unknown, many of the albinos could be his family one way or another.

“They're down here,” Juniper announced. The others didn't look surprised. They had gathered by the vent, following the scents floating around them. The smell of the rats' fear was deep, thick, and bitter—an acidic wave of terror that only other animals could sense.

“The lab I was in was well above ground,” said Billycan. “All these scents are coming from down below.”

“How are we going to get down there?” asked Vincent, examining the vent's slick metal lining. “There's nothing to hold onto, and no telling how far down the vent goes.”

“I'm not sure,” replied Juniper.

“The golden ropes!” cried Duncan. “They're all over the museum, roping off the exhibits. They have those fancy metal clasps on the end; we can hook them together. Surely they'll hold the nine of us.”

“Good thinking,” said Cole, patting his son on the back.

“You have a knack for figuring out sticky situations,” said Juniper. “It was you, Duncan, who told us to climb down the chicken wire in the chimneys of the Kill Army kitchens.”

“I did?” asked Duncan.

“You don't remember?” asked Cole. Duncan shook his head. “Well, do you remember Lali cooking you creamed corn with bacon the day you shared that information about the army kitchens?”

“Oh! Now I remember,” said Duncan. “That used to be one of my favorites, when I was little.” His stomach grumbled. “I wish I had some right now.”

“Food always triggers his memory,” said Suttor.

“When we make it home, you can have creamed corn with bacon to your heart's content,” said Juniper. “Why, I'll make it myself.” He chuckled softly.

“Uncle, you'll burn Nightshade City to the ground,” said Clover, trying to lighten the mood. “You can't even make porridge without starting a fire.”

“Let Lali handle the cooking,” advised Cole. “Duncan's mother surely has better odds than you of keeping Nightshade from disintegrating into a pile of bacon-scented ashes.”

Duncan nodded. “Yes . . . if we come out of this alive, I'll help her make it myself.”

After hooking the brass clasps of the golden ropes together, the rats threaded the rope through the lattice of the grate, securing the last clasp to a cast-iron strip on the grate itself. Not knowing how deep the vent ran, they'd used every possible rope they could find, chasing after Duncan as he raced through the halls of the museum, pointing out which rooms had roped-off exhibits, most unchanged from years ago.

One by one the rats sank their claws into the thick velvet of the ropes and climbed down the vent, the echoing symphony creating an eerie setting as they descended. Finally a dull glow illuminated the vent. Vincent's foot hit bottom, his claws scratching the slick metal. “Everyone, quiet now,” he whispered, jerking his foot off the metal. “Soft on your feet.”

Helping each other, they silently dropped onto the floor of the vent, quickly filling the small space. A light flickered in the music-filled lab. The scent of anxious rats was now intense, the sound of breathing loud.

“I can hear them,” blurted Duncan. “I can hear them breathing.”

“Hush,” hissed Suttor, quickly covering his brother's mouth. He whispered in his ear, “We don't know what condition these rats are in—they could be like Topher and Liam, happy to rip us to pieces. And there could be scores of humans down here, just waiting to snatch us up and shove their needles in our hides! Understand?”