CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They were driving for an hour by the time they arrived at their destination. “How’d you make it to the hospital so fast?” Viola asked him when they finally pulled the truck to a stop at what looked like the middle of nowhere. Graham explained to her that he had been staying at his apartment in the city so that he could get into the office early. But he glanced at her rather coyly and amended the statement.

“All right,” he said, “I also just…I didn’t like the idea of being so far away from you through all this uncertainty.”

She smiled a little as she climbed out of the truck, her sneakers crunching against the gravel beneath her feet. She looked up and saw trees, towering evergreens, against a clear blue sky. They seemed to be in a small clearing, but there were no buildings as far as the eye could see.

“Graham…?” He was closing the driver’s side door and walking around to the bed, where he hoisted two duffel bags out of the back. “Where, exactly, are we?”

“The Dwelling,” he replied as though it were obvious. “This way.”

He led her along a trail that weaved in and out of the trees until they came to a small cave opening in the side of a hill. He walked right into the mouth of the cave and disappeared; Viola hesitated before she followed. But after a few steps, motion detecting lights went off and illuminated a small space, no more than four square feet in dimension, with a packed dirt floor and a door, the same grey as the natural rock walls.

“Wow,” she said as he put the bags down and searched his key ring for the right key. “This is…very secret lair.”

Graham smiled as he unlocked the door and pushed his way inside. “Yep,” he said, holding the door open with his foot and reaching down to pick up both bags. “Just call me Batman.”

Viola moved into the Dwelling, her feet landing on a metal platform that led to an elevator. The golden doors glowed warm and swept open immediately when they reached the threshold, even as the main entrance door was closing behind them. They stepped inside, but there were no buttons to press, just a keyhole, into which Graham stuck another one of his keys. Turning it, the doors closed behind them, and they began their descent.

Viola’s ears popped before the doors opened, and Graham hauled up the bags as they stepped out onto a balcony that overlooked an incredible underground sanctuary. Viola stepped lightly over the masonry to the railing, and leaned over, drinking it all in.

It was extraordinary: hundreds of feet below ground, it was a cylindrical lair with balconies that ringed it in a perfect spiral. At the far end of the cavern was a natural waterfall that spilled from the top tier and disappeared into the hot spring below. The place seemed to exist in perpetual evening, with dim, indirect lighting casting everything in a warm, orange glow. “Welcome to the Dwelling, Miss St. James,” Graham said, placing a hand on the small of her back.

“This is incredible,” she said, spying doors here and there, catching glimpses of people moving on the bottom floor, too far away to see clearly.

“Come on, we’ll go down to the Great Hall.”

They walked along the top balcony ring until they came to a second elevator bank and stepped inside. This was a quick jaunt down to the bottom floor, and when the doors opened, she found herself in a wide-open space that looked like one side of a hunting lodge had been blown open to grant admittance to the natural world. On one side of the space was the hot spring into which the waterfall emptied itself, and on the other was a blazing fire pit, surrounded by fur rugs, wooden chairs and couches, and antler chandeliers. It was beautiful, opulent, rustic, and it smelled sweetly of moss and burning embers.

Viola was wide-eyed as a child as she walked around the room—no, it wasn’t a room. It was a universe. “This is so beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Graham said, “we kinda like it.”

There were people around, mostly on their own, some sitting and sipping coffee, reading newspapers, a few were shuffling children to the hot spring and their laughs bounced off the stone walls. Graham led her across the vast expanse of the hall, and at the far end of the room, he ducked behind the waterfall. She followed him and went through a heavy wooden door.

Beneath this waterfall was a stunning master suite with dark hardwood floors and a bearskin rug at the foot of a wide canopy bed. She stepped up to the rug and stared down at it. “Relative of yours?” she asked.

Graham laughed a loud, guttural laugh. “That isn’t real, Viola,” he said. Graham set the bags down on a chaise lounge on the far side of the room and moved to stand atop the fake bearskin. “This is mine, and you’re welcome to stay with me.”

“What, there aren’t guest rooms in this underground palace?” She asked, but her heart had skipped a beat when he’d asked her to stay with him.

“No, there are,” he said, “but I called in the entire clan when things started to go south with Felidae. I know that they’ll all be safe here—no one outside of the clan knows where this place is.” He paused, inclining his head slightly, “except for you.” He leaned against the bed frame and hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Door on the left is a walk-in closet, door on the right is a bathroom.” He pointed to a set of double doors to the left. “Through there is a den with a desk, television, all that kinda stuff. And this is a bedroom.” He flashed her a grin. “Listen, there’s a pull-out sofa in there I can sleep on if you—”

“It’s fine,” she said. “Whatever, we’ll figure it out.” She canted her chin toward the duffel bags. “What’s in those?”

“The rest of your clothes from your apartment,” he said, lifting them up to place on the mattress. “I thought…I’m sorry, did I step over a line? I just figured—”

“No,” she said, stepping forward and unzipping one of the duffels. Her favorite, ratty old grey tee shirt was right on top. “No, this is great. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Viola was feeling weary, ready to drop, even though it was only about ten in the morning. She felt she’d lived three lifetimes over the course of the last week, lived and died, lived and died, lived and died. Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, she was actively fighting the urge to lay down and sleep right then and there. “So, what’s the plan here, Graham?” She said. “Now that we’re in this big, safe, quiet place. What do we do?”

He breathed a sigh that was a gesture of releasing the stress of the last few days and rubbed at his eyes. “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you have a shower, get changed, and I’ll get us some food and a couple of drinks, get us comfortable, and I’ll tell you everything. Everything you need to know.”