"Still, it does seem somehow more evolved than the others we've caught."

Jurz' grip shifted, poking new holes into his left arm. Without the talons filling the punctures, the originals began to dribble blood. "Do I kill it?"

"Of course you kill it."

"Hey!"

"Hopefully, it hasn't bred. Just imagine if the egg-suckers started to think." She shuddered. "They do enough damage to the nests now."

On cue came the horrible sound of smashing sh.e.l.ls.

"MY BABIES!".

Jurz dropped Dean, smacked him toward the lava pit with his tail, and raced after his howling mate. Fortunately, he misjudged either the distance or the weight of the object he was attempting to sink.

Legs out over the pit, bottoms of his jeans beginning to scorch and his feet inside the steel toes of his workboots uncomfortably hot, hands abraded by the hardened lava, Dean stopped himself at the last possible instant. Rolling forward, he collapsed as flat as the terrain allowed, trying to catch his breath.

"Come on!" Claire knew she didn't have a hope of lifting Dean if he was actually injured, but that didn't stop her from grabbing at his arm and hauling upward. "Jacques isn't going to hold them for long." The fabric compacted warm and damp under her hands.

Sucking in an unwelcome lungful of air, Dean shook her off and, coughing, heaved himself up onto his feet. "Jacques?"

"He's dead. They can't hurt him." Claire gaped at the smear of red across her palms. "How bad is it?"

"Not bad."

"Can you run?"

He shoved his gla.s.ses back into place. "Sure. No problem."

Side by side they pounded back toward the elevator propelled by enraged howls and French Canadian invective.

Twenty feet from safety, Jacques caught up. "I have no smell," he explained, effortlessly keeping pace. "Les lezards, they count the eggs but that should not take them..."

The howls changed timbre.

"... long."

When Dean stopped to roll a hunk of obsidian away from the door, Claire hip-checked him over the threshold, grabbed the rock, and flung it toward their pursuers.

The howls changed again.

"OW! Coriz, they hit me with a rock!"

"Egg-suckers don't use weapons."

"But I've got a b.u.mp!"

The door cut off further diagnosis.

"What part," Claire gasped, dropping the gate into place and turning to glare at Dean, "of no one leaves the elevator did you not understand?"

"They were about to kill the kid."

"So? He was robbing their nest. Stealing their eggs. Making omelets."

"I couldn't just watch him die!"

"Then we should have closed the door."

"You don't mean that."

She did. Or she thought she did until she met his eyes and discovered that he believed she'd have gone to the rescue herself had he not been there. "Forget it. Go straight to the bas.e.m.e.nt. No arguments."

Dean pushed the lever all the way to the left. "No arguments," he agreed. Pa.s.sing the second floor, he glanced over at Jacques. "Did you really break one of their eggs?"

"And how do I do that?" the ghost asked, pushing his hand through the wall of the elevator. "I touch nothing."

"I stomped on a bunch of sh.e.l.ls that had already hatched," Claire explained. "Jacques stayed behind to distract them."

"Why didn't you..."

"Use magic? Because the possibilities were different there and, since you decided to play hero, I didn't have time to work out a way through. Look at me, I'm filthy. I had to lie down on that black stuff with my feet still in the elevator to reach a rock for the door, and if you ever pull such a stupid, boneheaded stunt again, I'm leaving you to cook in the lava pit! Do I make myself clear?"

Ears burning, Dean ducked his head. "Yes, Boss."

"When we reach bottom, I want a look at those arms."

"It's nothing." A drop of blood traced a trail over the back of his hand, down his index finger, and dripped onto the floor.

She glared at him through slitted eyes. "I'll be the judge of that."

"A gla.s.s of rum in the belly and one on the wounds. He will be fine, Claire."

"I have antibiotic cream in my bathroom," Dean offered hurriedly. "I can take care of it."

"Bring the cream to the dining room." As the bottom of the elevator settled into its concrete basin, Claire tossed up the gate, picked up the doily, and stomped out into the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"You stink like an active volcano," Austin complained, jumping down off a shelf. "Have a nice time?"

All three brushed by him without answering. Dean went into his apartment. Jacques followed Claire up the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs.

"Guess not." He stuck his head over the threshold and sniffed at the bit of tentacle lying on the floor. His ears went back. "Who let the sushi out of the fridge?"

"So stoic," Jacques murmured sarcastically as Dean, sitting on the dining room table, tried not to jerk his arm out from under Claire's ministrations. "So much a man."

"Stuff a sock in it," Dean grunted.

"So articulate."