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have a choice. Stay there in the dark or follow me. Up to you.”
    I didn’t get two feet before I heard Cameron coming after me, brushing up so close against my shoulder it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I knew Cameron probably wouldn’t go feral, but that didn’t stop the reaction.
    Twenty feet into the tunnel, I picked up the faint scent of metal, the kind I associated with stagnant water. God, I hoped Lee had cleared the rainwater from the tunnel this week. Last time through, I’d almost ruined my leather boots when I’d had to wade. I kept my penlight and eyes on the ground, just to be sure.
    The entire Seattle underground was constructed of brick, one of the only reasons so many of the buildings survived the 1889 fire. Thetunnels all looked the same: red-brick arches that had faded to a dull brown. Every now and then we passed a section boarded up with wood that led to buildings that had been closed off at the surface and abandoned. I shone the flashlight through the cracks of each as we passed by. I don’t care how long a building has been abandoned; between the rats and the poltergeists down there, it pays to be careful. Fifteen boarded-up buildings later, I smelled the sixteenth before my light revealed it. Rotten eggs. It was the old sawmill. I covered my nose, knelt down beside the entrance, and shone the flashlight into the space.
    “Cameron, unless you want to see another ghost tonight, I’m going to recommend you turn around and face the wall until I say ‘all clear,’ understand?” I waited until I heard Cameron turn.
    “Des?” I whispered. “You in there?”
    No answer. Damn it, he was probably holed up somewhere lazing around or drinking. Lee wouldn’t be happy about that; Des was paid to guard the entrance, not take breaks. I could get him back to his post through a pocket mirror, but I didn’t want to tap the barrier again tonight.
    I tried again, whispering louder. “Des, I mean it. If I have to pull another globe to find you, I’ll—”
    A loud, derisive snort. “You’ll what, Kincaid?” Des said from somewhere inside the ruined sawmill.
    The ghost of a man in his mid-fifties with a logger’s beard and a pair of wire spectacles—real wire spectacles—balanced on his nose floated out from behind a pillar. Or the head and upper torso did. The rest of him trailed behind like tendrils of smoke.
    “You aren’t that tough, Kincaid,” Des said, his eyes glowing red behind the glasses. Unlike Nate and most ghosts, Des had no problem carrying a pair of glasses around; he was a poltergeist.
    “Des, for Christ’s sake. The least you could do is put your pants on,” I said.
    Des snorted and disappeared right in front of me, re-forming a moment later inches from my face. “You’re noisy enough to wake the damned dead,” he said.
    “Des, you are the damned dead. And the dead don’t need to sleep. Now hurry up and let me by.”
    He smiled. It wasn’t friendly. “Know the new password?”
    “Fuck off?” I tried.
    His eyes glowed a brighter red and the air around me chilled. “Don’t take that tone with me, young lady—”
    “I’m not a lady, and if you don’t let me by, I’ll tell Lee you’re the one sneaking rotten eggs into the tunnels.” I had no idea why, but Des was obsessed with stealing eggs. It’s not like he could eat them. He just left them. Everywhere. To rot. Lee still figured it was the work of rats. The only reason I knew it was Des was that Nate had caught him stealing a jar of eggs from a bar once and had followed him out of perverse curiosity.
    Des regarded me through the spectacles. “You wouldn’t dare.”
    If Des had still been alive, I’d have been a hair’s breadth away from his face. “Try me.”
    Des growled, “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood, Kincaid.” As quickly as he’d appeared, he disappeared.
    I shook my head. Poltergeists are ghosts with serious anger management issues. The older they are, the more powerful;