Underworld mousebane and.., p.1
Underworld (Mousebane & Red Mist Book 3), page 1
Underworld
C J Powell
Copyright © [2026] by [C J Powell]
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
Thank you
1. The Concealed Claw
2. Everything Changes
3. Wasting Time
4. Open Mic
5. There's People Here
6. The Concealed Claw
7. A Problem Back In Walton
8. Red Mist
9. The Allotment Plot
10. MindWarp
11. The Plot Thickens
12. The Concealed Claw
13. In A While, Crocodile
14. Red Mist
15. Behind Dan's Eyes
16. Flash Finding Mission
17. Both Very Annoying And Very Adorable
18. Dojo Cat
19. Trick or Treaty
20. Prison Break
21. Proud Amy
22. Wrenched
23. The Concealed Claw
24. The Where'd It Go
25. Fréo's Quest
26. New Flowers
27. Amy In Wonderland
28. Going Down
29. Quark! Shark! Flark?
30. Over
31. The Other
32. Passengers
33. The Concealed Claw
34. NoFrankHerbertNoFrankHerbert
35. Exposition Expedition
36. No Trace
37. Common Goal
38. Punch It, Dixon
39. Burn
40. The Tower
41. The Second Stair
42. Top Of The Pricks
43. Mousebane
44. Secret Rooms
45. Catman VS
46. The Concealed Claw
47. Red Mist
48. By The Power
49. Unsquirreled Bewilderment
50. Never Enough Time
51. Everything Changes But You
52. Both Very Annoying And Very Adorable 2
53. Not A Nineties Woman
Also By C J Powell
Also By C J Powell
Also by C J Powell
About The Author
Thank you
Hello!
Thanks for coming this far in the Mousebane and Red Mist series. Woah! You're halfway there. (I mean at this current point in time… to clarify, once you've finished this one, you'll be 3/4s of the way there.) WoooOOah, something about a prayer.
If you could take two minutes to leave a review once you're done that would really help the book be seen by others. And if you haven't already, feel free to review book 1 and 2! If you've come this far I presume you liked them.
Thank you and happy reading!
Chris x
And without further ado, take it away Scratchy T…
The Concealed Claw
It has been months. Cat months. Which is months.
Who was Andrew? Maybe I should forget. Maybe he has forgotten. Maybe that means I have forgotten. Humans live endless lives. Are we but a phase for them? Are we that easily left behind?
I have moved on from the despair. I’m totally not bothered. I have another. The Disappearing Woman. She is tender and kind. The people call her Pip. I like that. Pip. Like a seed. Pip.
With Pip my new life shall begin.
Pip and I see all. I do not understand what we see. She does. She is terrified by it. It keeps her awake at night. I would wreak scratch havoc on the thing that she fears, if I only knew what it was.
There are others. Ha, Bryn, the supervisor also known as Matthew. They also fear what they see. Fear what they are forced to do when they are compelled to do things.
They are rarely compelled and so time passes almost unseen. The days blur. Pip reads often. I sit with her. She is sad. She doesn’t belong here. None of us do, but for some reason they cannot leave, and I choose not to leave her.
Sometimes she stands outside of a second closed door. Sometimes she cries. She cannot open it and so I cannot enter. I taste a presence there on the air. Something different. She yearns for it.
Today is a day like all the rest. Breakfast in the canteen. I get my own mackerel. It doesn’t taste quite like mackerel, but she calls it mackerel. I have a feeling it never lived.
We complete breakfast alone and in silence, and then the sound begins. A garbled instruction much like human speech, but, unlike human speech, which brings with it images in my mind, I do not understand it. Her eyes glaze. She is compelled again. When this occurs I get no response from her.
She stands, and I follow her down to visit the shelves. The place where I first hid. The place where the Dragon was brought down by Red Mist and Mousebane’s human—the useful one.
Matthew is already there, as is Bryn. I sink into darkness and watch from the shadow.
Soon after my arrival, the Hedgehog Man was taken by something I am unable to explain. A creature. He has not yet returned.
Sometimes when Pip and the others are compelled, a single hatted figure emerges from the Room From Which They Come. They bring with them more creatures.
I do not want them to notice me.
They do not come today.
The shelves are high. Each alcove around the size and depth of one of Andrew’s red sofas. But I wouldn’t know that. I have forgotten the red sofas, just as I have forgotten him. Andrew who?
Matthew stands on a rising platform, a silver crate with him. Pip helps him control the platform as he takes something black and squirming from the crate and places it in the nearest alcove. He repeats for the next and the next. Their actions are jerky and stunted. They do not look happy to be performing them. Once a column of alcoves has been completed, Bryn activates a panel at the base of the stack and a window rises to seal each one. They fill with a glowing blue liquid. I am reminded of the frog that brought me back from the edge of death and gave me my ability to heal from harm. I grow increasingly uneasy as each one fills. Each row of shelves holds maybe seventy-two alcoves. And there are maybe thirty-six rows.
The day passes, and I am awoken from a comfortable snooze by another garbled instruction over the speaker system. The entire room now glows blue. Each sofa-sized alcove filled with that luminescent liquid. Bryn and Matthew and Pip trudge like ants towards the exit. I follow. Up the spiral staircase to the place where they sleep. Another snooze sounds good.
Exhausted, Pip falls on to her bed, but before I can enter, the door seals shut between us. The glass dulls and I can no longer see her. The same happens with Matthew, trapping him within. Ha and Bryn’s rooms are also sealed and grey. I suspect they are inside.
This has not happened before.
I paw at the glass door. I do not need to enter, just to know that she is well beyond.
Pip? Do not abandon me too.
The lights dull.
A deep hum shakes the ground, not from the teleportation room nearby, but from the shelf chamber below.
The Concealed Claw must investigate.
So I do.
Everything rumbles with that deep vibration. I stick close to the wall as I descend the spiral staircase. Something is materialising below. Something new. And judging by the sustained rumble, something great or something numerous.
I have nothing to fear. They shall not consider me, for I am danger unseen, danger unknown.
I really am.
Do not doubt it.
The fragrance that races up to meet me as I descend is unlike any I have encountered.
He took me to the ocean once. Family holiday to see the sea, just him and me. Better times. Forgotten times. This now is the scent of the sea, only left to spoil. Salt and sour mould and crisped pork belly.
Flashes of light fill the chamber of shelves, and with each flash, a dark motionless shape appears behind each glowing alcove. A living shape. The first row is already full. I see closed eyes. I see prolonged arms. I see claws. And in some, I see mouths gaping, homes to sharpened teeth. Beasts now sleep behind the glass.
I am not afraid. I have nothing to fear. I am—
Oh heck!
Dark eyes are upon me. They are here. They see me.
Heck! Heck! Heck!
The Concealed Claw must flee.
The hatted figure is present. It reaches out. But it is slow. As slow as any human. I move with haste between its legs, heading for the shaft down which I first came. It is my only hope for escape.
I dodge a set of groping claws. Glance back. More creatures. One skitters and chases. A larger version of the things behind the alcove glass. The same as that which took the Hedgehog Man. In that brief glance, I see no detail, only that it pursues, dragging itself forward on great slender arms. It is not the same as the hatted one.
It is fast.
If I were to be caught, this creature would do such harm to me that I believe even my ability to heal would not save me. And within the shelf chamber, slumbering behind the glass of each alcove, there are maybe two thousand five hundred and ninety-two more. At a guess.
I must put no paw wrong. It falls solely to me to give warning.
I squeeze through the open door into the shaft. Thank Fréo the platform is there.
With a leap, I paw a button and the platform starts to move upward. I scramble aboard as the creature crashes through the doorway. It sk ids on the smooth floor, tumbling beneath me. A tangle of insect-like arms.
The Concealed Claw rises.
Too slow.
A talon grips the side of the platform. A smooth, round face appears. I scratch the absolute flip out of it.
Bitch gonna need all the plasters.
You don’t come all up in the Concealed Claw’s business and expect not to get gouged.
The thing drops away. I open my ears for the sound of its dying.
It makes no noise. No screams of excruciation. No sonic evidence of the physical turmoil I have wrought. Worrying? That was the extent of my scratch capabilities. Not worrying. I expect it died instantaneously of shock. Nothing could survive.
I peer over the edge as I ascend. The thing is gone. Obliterated. Nothing but dust.
Above me, the grey ceiling of the warehouse approaches like the sunrise on a new day.
I return to the surface.
I haven’t forgotten. The Concealed Claw never forgets.
Andrew must be warned. They must all be warned.
Everything Changes
“Come on, we can’t be late,” Dan called back inside. He hurried out the house and to the passenger side of her car, his feet crunching on the gravel driveway. He opened the door ready for her.
“Chill out,” said Amy. “If I move any faster, I will throw up again, and this time I will aim for you. And that’s a pregnant promise.”
“Sorry.” He bustled up to her. “Should you be carrying that?”
She rolled her eyes and handed him her bag.
“Oh, this weighs nothing. What do you even keep in here?” It looked in the main like tissues, dried up oranges, and broken oat bars.
“My lady essentials,” said Amy.
He checked his phone again. If they left now, they’d only be fifteen minutes early. What if there was traffic? What if there was nowhere to park? What if they couldn’t find the ultrasound department? What if they got lost?
He expelled a few steady breaths. The blowing out candle ones that were in the book. Counted towards ten. Got to three. Gave up. Too nervous.
“Stop worrying. Everything’s been OK so far.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just excited.” And he was worried. He was worried to flipping death! This was the first proper appointment. Of course he was worried.
“I know.” Amy climbed into the car while he held the door pointlessly. She reached out and poked him in the tummy. “It’s as annoying as it is adorable.”
He snorted. “I am multipurpose. We don’t find out if it’s a boy or a girl today, do we?”
“No. It basically just looks like a little T-Rex the size of a plum.”
Imagine! How cute. “I was thinking it might be nice if it was a surprise, anyway,” he said.
She gave him an unusual look as he rushed around the front of the car. A sort of shrewd car salesman look, an are you sure the Lamborghini is the car for you, sir? look. He couldn’t think why.
“You thought that?” she said, when he opened his door. Not unkindly, more bamboozled.
He climbed in beside her. “You know, on the big day.”
Her mouth turned upside down, then she nodded. “Sure.”
The trip to the hospital was uneventful. No traffic. Plenty of parking. And the ultrasound department was exactly where it was supposed to be. Exactly where the website and the 3d virtual walk-through said it would be the two (or five) times he’d looked it up over the last week.
He gave Amy’s name to the nurse behind the desk, who told them to take a seat. Amy took the hypno-birthing book he’d bought her from her bag and made herself comfortable. A recommendation from Andrew who, in his spare time, had begun training to become a birthing doula, because of course he had.
A zip of excitement hit every time a nurse called a name. Amy placed a hand on his leg to keep him still.
Before long, it was their turn.
Amy lay on the bed and pulled her shirt up over her tummy. He scanned it for signs of a bump while the nurse squirted some jelly on a thing.
Dan watched the screen as white and grey and black became something small and indeterminate and T-Rex-like.
“All good,” said the nurse. “And look, there’s baby’s heartbeat.”
And that was the moment.
…
Well, there had been a previous moment. Christmas day when he’d received Amy’s gift and had a sort of whispery “this is great” breakdown, but since then the reality and the meaning and the significance had faded a little.
Seeing the flutter of that tiny heart was the moment.
The nurse and Amy were talking, but he didn’t hear a word. He couldn’t take his eyes from the plum-sized king or queen of the dinosaurs. It was coming. In six months it would be here like some miniature Godzilla to crash through the Japanese city of his life. In six months he was going to be a father. Him. Daniel “Daddy” Dixon.
His gaze travelled to Amy’s face. The room paled. She was smiling and wiping gel from her stomach with a tissue. The nurse had said something funny that he had missed. He was nothing more than a pair of wide unseeing eyes attached to a runaway brain.
A sudden rush of energy, of overwhelm, of panic, shot up from his feet, washing up his body and out the top of his head. He was a reverse rushing waterfall of anxiety, a fiery blow torch of “oh, shit”.
They’d heard nothing from Pippa or Simon and the rest. Not since the phone they’d sent arrived. But they were a constant presence in his mind. They were somewhere, watching. Always watching. He had to be careful. He had to keep Amy safe. He had to protect them both. It was his job. His job alone.
A little nuke went off behind his eyes. Kaboom!
He had six months to prepare. He had six months to change. Six months to be better at everything, to achieve dreams and goals and success, to hide their whereabouts, to keep them ready for what might happen.
Then everything would change.
Nothing would be the same.
Oh God! It was like having cats but ten times worse. Fifty times worse. Infinitely worse. Or better. There was going to be good things. It was going to be good. There was goodness.
“Dan?”
And what’s more, if he was going to do anything with music, he had to do it right now. Right flipping now!
“Dan?”
Holy effing holy eff!
He saw a dust-covered bass guitar, the desiccated half-eaten remains of flies dangling on cobwebs between the strings, and him in the background trying desperately to stop a small child with fingers perfectly sized to enter plug sockets from sticking its recently chewed, wet fingers into plug sockets. He saw waking up to a tiny elbow to the groin two hours after getting home from a long post-gig drive. He saw a bank balance at zero and steadily declining, whilst a need for toys and nappies and, uh, extracurricular activities continued to sky rocket.
Because in six months, little T-Rex was going to pop out and say, “Put that guitar away, Daddy, I need you to help me with absolutely everything.” And he wouldn’t be able to say no. He wouldn’t want to say no. No would no longer be in his vocabulary.
“Dan?”
He couldn’t wait. But he also could totally wait.
Oh God!
“Dan?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to start the car? I’m starving. Everything I had for breakfast immediately fled.”
“Yes, indeed.” When had they got back to the car?
“Do you want to go to the Fuzzy Barista in town? Andrew might be working this morning. I fancy a bagel.”
They would not be going out. Out was where danger dwelt. Danger was everywhere. Especially out. Lurking. He had to get her back home.
“We’ve got stuff at home,” he said. “I’ll make toast with avocado and uh …” Not eggs. Not coffee. Coffee was danger! Breakfast was danger! Everything was danger! “And … and toast. I could cut a hole in it. That’s basically a bagel.”
She deflated. “Toast and less toast. Yum.”
Everything was going to change.
Everything always changed.
Change was the only inevitability.
Wasting Time
An artful hour would solve the music problem. Split life into chunks and get everything done. Nothing you can’t do in an hour every day. Security hour. Prep for baby hour. Workout hour. Amy hour. Housework hour. Food hour. Agency and business hour, which often stretched erratically and uncontrollably, like some time-consuming squid, into an agency and business night.
