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up with, too,” Avalon said, reslinging her backpack, as they came to the bottom of the stairs. Ahead of her was a long, clean hallway that ran straight for a few feet and ended at an elevator. To the right was a door.
    “You’ll have to think of the pass phrase then.”
    “Sam Jacobs is a vaginal dickface.”
    Griffin laughed. Hard. “ What? Who? ”
    “That’s the secret phrase,” Ava said as though it was obvious. “He was a guy I dated in California.”
    Griffin shook his head. “I’m not saying that.”
    “Sorry, dad. Like it or not, that’s the phrase.”
    “Seriously, you are murdering my inner child, girl.” Griffin, still shaking his head, opened the door and reached in for a light switch. The room was a vast rectangular space with an unfinished concrete floor. He could see a massive electrical station with networking modems and wires, as well as a gigantic gray fuse box. The other end of the room had an old oil tank for a furnace, and several hot-water boilers.
    He stepped out of the basement and closed the door, turning his attention back to the elevator. It had a panel to the side of it with arrow buttons for both up and down.
    Griffin looked at Avalon and then pushed the down button.
    “We go down.”
    The doors opened to a typical elevator, except that the plush carpeting of the hallway extended into the elevator as well.
    They boarded and looked at the options. B for basement, was where they were. Above that on the control panel were simple 1, 2 and 3 buttons, presumably for ground floor and the two upper floors of the mansion. Below the B button was an extra space, as if a floor had been left without a button, and finally, there was one more button labeled T.
    “T?” Avalon asked, as Griffin reached out for the button.
    “Hopefully it doesn’t stand for ‘torture chamber,’” Griffin said, as the elevator lurched downward, rapidly picking up speed.
    Griffin’s ears popped as the elevator’s speed decreased and they came to a slow halt. He looked at Avalon.
    “Not just a sub-basement, then,” she smiled.
    The elevator dinged, and Griffin pulled out his M9, ready for action. The doors parted.
    The opening revealed a long, sloping, carpeted hallway, with no doors on either side. Recessed lighting above gave the utilitarian corridor a more upscale feel, but as far as Griffin could see, the corridor went on forever.
    “Up for a walk?” Griffin asked, scratching his left arm, which had just developed an itch.
    Avalon took a deep breath and let it out. “Let’s do it.”
    As they walked down the relatively straight hallway, Griffin could feel more pressure changes in his ears. Behind them, he noticed the lights back by the elevator went out, but looking forward again, he saw that those lights further in the distance came on. He searched the ceiling and the walls and saw some cleverly concealed motion sensors, that must have been activating lights as they walked.
     
     
    After about twenty minutes, Griffin guessed they had walked a mile or so, underground. As far as he could see, the corridor continued on for another mile or more.
    “This thing just doesn’t end does it?” Avalon said, putting her long brown hair back in a ponytail. She was slightly out of breath, and her skin was still far paler than it should have been. Griffin assumed her color would come back once she had been off the drugs long enough.
    “Have you been keeping track of our direction?” Griffin asked her.
    Avalon just looked at him, the question in her eyes, waiting for him to finish his thought.
    “We went under the lake. We’re heading into the center of town. Under it, really. Way under.”
    “This is nuts. Where do you think we’ll come out?”
    Griffin looked at a compass feature on his wristwatch. “Should take us right under the church. Considering how the bell has been acting during the shifts, that’s where I’d guess this hall stops.”
    Fifteen minutes later they came to another elevator,