I stepped to the circular hole in the road and shone the light from my headlamp down into it. Auld’s purple eyes reflected back at me, and he was standing in a relatively clean tunnel that ran alongside the main artery of the sewer.

  Yes, there was stench and sludge slowly working its way down the central corridor, and yes, it was the last place on Earth I wanted to tread, but I knew we had no choice.

  We were running out of time. There was an abomination running amok in Seattle, and we had a monster slayer made of ice on our side. We needed to vanquish the bad guy before the temperature rose and melted our best defense.

  Determined, I looked at my wife. “I think we risk it, Harley. Shave off a piece of the blueberry candy cane and fashion us smell-eliminating nose plugs. It’s time to get serious.”

  Activating her Invento-Weapon ability, my wife used a hair turned wire-saw to shave small pieces off her blue candy cane and shape them into delightful-smelling nose guards.

  Once they were secured, we draped handkerchiefs emboldened with repelling powers around our mouths to prevent the worst of the contamination.

  Being the brave warrior that I am, and since I had bubble powers that could cushion me if I fell, I lowered onto the ladder that descended under the street. It was dark, but I had a headlantern, and once Harley was down, she lit hers as well.

  Stepping into the main tunnel, we scanned the area. Auld had already located the trail of spent coffee grounds that went up the chute.

  I had a very bad feeling, and did not want to follow, but I girded my loins with big girl panties I was not wearing and headed up the sewer after Auld.

  The good thing about the extreme cold temperatures was that the sewage wasn’t as powerfully smelly as it would have been in the heat of summer, and for that, I was grateful as I followed the giant sapient ice sculpture through the channel.

  The trek went on much longer than I wanted, but finally, after long minutes of walking, we found our first clue.

  A single human shoe sat on top of a pile of sludge that was quite different from the sewage around it.

  Harley sucked in a breath. “That looks like a man’s sneaker. What is it doing down here in the sewer?”

  The oddest part of the scene was that it was a clean sneaker. It looked almost brand new.

  Then we heard a sound that made every hair on my body stand at attention. It wasn’t near us; it came from further down the tunnel and reverberated in the concrete enclosure.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  A low, vicious, angry growl. Followed by something far more human.

  “Come on, Shikha. Leave it! Heel! Come!” spoke a male voice, quietly, but urgently.

  Auld crept forward on silent feet, and Harley and I tiptoed after him, covering our headlamps with one hand to not alert whoever was ahead.

  The channel in the center of the sewer was wide, around four feet, and periodically, there were concrete runways crossing it, which was a good thing.

  For when we got closer to the talking voice, we saw a tall black man in a tracksuit on the opposite side of the tunnel, and in front of him, a big, black, shaggy dog growling into a branching tunnel at something we couldn’t see.

  “Shikha!” I cried softly, and the man turned at once, eyes wide with panic.

  I jumped in front of Auld so the man would see a human with a friendly face. I mean, what was intimidating about a red-headed, plus-sized gamer in black spandex running about the sewer on New Year’s Day?

  “We’re friends,” I assured him. “We’re on the trail of a coffee monster—“

  “Oh, you’ve found it, and I think I know who you are. My German Shepherd helped you face down a flying pizza at Halloween, didn’t she?” the man asked.

  “That’s the Slayer Companion?!” Harley exclaimed.

  “Don’t tell me you cosplay,” the fella said flatly. “I know something funny’s going on because that sludge stole the shoe outta my hand while I was scraping dog poo off of it. I stepped in crap while I was running, and now I’m in the sewer in a sock while my overprotective dog goes ape shit about—well, shit. Shit that smells suspiciously like Bordeaux and coffee. My life is nonsense,” he moaned, shaking his head.

  “Leave this to us,” Harley commanded, crossing the concrete path that took her to the opposite side of the chute. Auld jumped, and the man nearly leapt out of his skin, but didn’t go any further into the tunnel Shikha was guarding.

  “What are you, some kind of rescue freaks looking for supernatural trouble?” the man barked at us, clearly panicked about the situation he found himself in.

  Actually, I thought that was a wonderful explanation as to why my wife and I were traveling the sewers of Seattle in super-suits with a giant sentient ice sculpture, but Auld beat me to it.

  “Professional exterminators. City approved. Here to take care of the things no one above ground wants to know about, and sir, your missing sneaker is not too far back that way. So, if you would take your dog—“

  “My dog is obstinate when she wants to be, and today she thinks she’s duty-bound to handle whatever that—“ the man motioned into the tunnel—“is.”

  I activated my Slayer Companion power and immediately became aware of Shikha. She was a fierce, ferocious presence, and there was something in that tunnel she did NOT want to turn her back on.

  I tried to show her confidence. I was powered, a monster fighter. I could handle this with my friends, but she didn’t respond. I took a step forward, but Auld put a hand on my shoulder, pausing me.

  “Get ready,” he directed.

  Using Harley’s Reverb power, I charged up the icicle in my hand with fast-melt intention, deciding that might be my best defense against the Murder Goo.

  Auld stepped in front of the German Shepherd, then walked backwards, pushing her out of the tunnel without ever touching her. Before I even realized what he was doing, the dog and her human were feet from where they'd started, and there was plenty of room for Harley and me to enter the branch.

  We stepped forward but didn’t get far, for only feet inside that chute was a wall of dark slime. I sucked in a breath, then wished I hadn’t because of the rank sewer odor, which was tinged with the sour smell of wine and bitter tang of old coffee grounds.

  “Friends,” Auld murmured. “We’ve found our quarry.”