The distant sound of searching footsteps faded into rumble of the district.
"Come on," Kai whispered, motioning toward the mouth of the alley with his staff. "My place is just three blocks down. We can't stay out in the open."
With a silent mental command, Hide willed the thin layer of Abyssal Slime back over his face, dulling his silver locks into plain ash-brown and flattening his sharp features. Kiko pulled her hood low.
Kai led them through a maze of cracked service lanes and collapsed fire escapes, deliberately avoiding the main boulevards.
They stopped before a rusted, corrugated metal roll-up door at the rear of an abandoned auto repair workshop—a place half-swallowed by concrete debris from a fallen elevated rail. Kai reached beneath an overturned oil drum, entered a manual keycode into a hidden analog box, and lifted the door just enough for the three of them to duck underneath.
Inside, the air smelled of dust.
