The Sunken City Trilogy

by Phil Williams

  Fresko had his phone out, and quickly relayed her commands to Mix. He looked like a bloody banker, as always, in his shirt and suspenders, tie flapping over a shoulder. He hung up without waiting for a response and put the phone away, then shouted to Letty, “We could get more people, do this quicker. I don’t like going to their places alone.”

  “Don’t be a fucking pussy,” Lett snapped. “We’re fine on our own, even if you prats keep trying to prove otherwise. We’ll find him in a half hour, tops.”

  “We gotta do more than find him.”

  Letty stopped suddenly, Fresko almost crashing into her. He was sharper than the others in every way, with his Wall Street wardrobe and selective vocabulary, but when she gave him an inch he was still an insubordinate arse. She told him, firmly, “We’re doing this ourselves. I’m doing this. We haven’t needed anyone in nine years, we don’t need them now.”

  They continued in silence, side by side, before stopping at an intersection at the edge of St Alphege’s. Fresko stared at Letty like he had something more to say, but her eyes warned him off. This was a time for everyone to do as they were told.

  “Any problems, shout,” she said.

  “You too,” Fresko replied.

  “I’d rather shoot my own face off than admit to needing your help.”

  With that, she sped away from him, flipping a middle finger in his direction.

  The idiots were cocky, never guessing that the Fae knew their safe house locations. Letty’s target building stood three storeys high at the end of a terrace of derelict homes, with all the windows but the top one boarded up. That neglected one was Letty’s way in. It was only open a crack, but that was enough for her.

  Starting from the top floor, she searched her way down. Most of the rooms were empty, bar dust and the randomness of those occasional bricks that always appeared on the floors of abandoned properties. Complementing the beams of street light coming through the boarded windows, Letty scanned the walls and floors with a torch, looking for hidden rooms.

  She made a quick circuit of the ground floor and discovered a single armchair with a magazine by it. Letty snorted at the cover, a half-naked man with his fists raised, every muscle on his torso tensed and bulging. Martial Arts Illustrated. She muttered to herself, “Christ, get out of the closet.”

  She continued to the kitchen, where the refrigerator hummed and emitted a dull blue light around its edges. A single washed glass sat by the sink. The place was in use, at least.

  Letty spiralled around the bottom floor again. There was no other furniture and she doubted the whole building was dedicated to someone reading a magazine. Frustrated, she rested on the kitchen counter and took her phone out. A message from Fresko blinked up onto the screen: Nothing but rats. Come to you?

  Letty replied: Empty, too. Join the boys.

  As she put the phone away, she took another look at the fridge. It was a hulking ceramic model, like in a 1950s movie, and it looked like it would take three men to move it.

  “Makes sense,” she said, and dropped to the floor next to it, peering under. The glow wasn’t coming from inside the fridge, but behind it. She rose and searched the wall around the fridge. Nothing there. Rushed back along the counter, searching the few empty cupboards, but still nothing. She headed back into the front room, where the armchair sat, and checked underneath it. Then under the magazine. Finally, she paused and saw another of those random bricks, on the floor, up against the wall.

  “Why not,” she said, and shifted it out of the way.

  She stopped triumphantly. Behind the brick was what could have been a light switch, if it wasn’t level with the floor and hidden. She flicked it and heard the fridge move, then raced back into the kitchen and found the blue glow expanding. A cellar door.

  Fuck them all, she was about to save the day. Save everything and everyone.

  She went through the opening and down a set of dimly illuminated stairs. At the bottom, there was a corridor that opened onto two closed doors. One of them had an electronic lock by its handle, lit with a red LED. She allowed herself a fist pump of success and approached it.

  Something clicked.

  She froze, eyes darting to all corners of the corridor. The walls were bare, besides the single fluorescent tube light.

  Something hissed.

  She spun and saw it. In the shadow above the stairs, a waft of almost invisible gas.

  “Oh crap,” Letty gasped and flung herself towards the stairs. She tried to keep low, to avoid the gas, but it was already too late. She smelt it and reeled away, back to the corridor. Gagging and coughing, she tore her phone from her pocket, but her vision blurred. She dropped the phone and it clattered across the floor. Unable to focus, she fell to the ground and bounced, once, before coming to a halt.

  As she used her last strength to lift her head, her eyelids became too heavy to hold open.

  She slumped onto the floor, into darkness.

  13

  Casaria stopped in the tight tunnel. He lowered his electric lantern to one side, its unnatural blue light stretching deep shadows across his face from below. “This’ll do,” he said.

  Pax folded her arms again, hoping the lantern would give her expression the same campfire ghost-story effect. She had trained herself to hide or show emotions at the card table. She was determined to keep her posture rigid, defiant, to hide the anticipation she was starting to feel as they got closer to their goal. In this case, her scowl was to tell Casaria to cut the theatrics.

  He smiled, another flash of perfect teeth. He leaned closer, lowering his voice, and said, “I need to insist that however you feel about what you are about to see, you must not react. That’s something you’re trained in, isn’t it?”

  “All right,” she said. “Whatever you’ve hidden in this rape tunnel, I won’t react.”

  “What is it with you and that word?” Casaria replied. “Besides, a rapist coming down here would be doing society a favour. Now stand as still as you can. See up ahead? Where the tunnels join? Something will be along any minute. Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t freak out.”

  He lifted the lantern to light the tunnel. Ten metres ahead of them, the tunnel split into two, right and left. Pax narrowed her eyes, trying to pick out any details in the shadows that weren’t just the lines of stacked brickwork. The place was empty, not a pipe or cable on the floor, walls or ceilings, only the occasional shells of old lights that might never have worked.

  They waited in silence, Casaria’s breath seemingly non-existent and Pax instinctively slowing and lowering hers. They waited long enough for her to start running his words back through her mind, as she wondered what indescribable thing could possibly be down here. She thought of the weird and wonderful creatures in Apothel’s Miscellany. The creatures of nightmares with their bizarre rules. As she thought over some of them, Casaria whispered, almost inaudibly, “It’s coming. What you’re about to see senses things by touch. Vibrations. So if you don’t move, and don’t make a sound, it won’t know we’re here.”

  Pax screwed up her face. That sounded familiar.

  “You’re kidding,” she replied, loudly enough for him to shoot her a warning look. She was surprised into quiet by his severity, and kept her eyes on the tunnel.

  A scratching noise came from somewhere up ahead. Something was moving there. As the scrapes got louder, Pax picked out the distinct sound of two separate taps, almost at the same time. A creature on four legs. She stared hard, willing her first conclusion to be wrong.

  It couldn’t possibly be.

  But it made sense. The book, the Roma boy being taken away before he could spread the secret. The government agency, covering something up.

  The noise became louder, the creature getting closer.

  It took all of Pax’s willpower not to demand an answer from Casaria there and then, not to blurt out what she was afraid she was about to see.

  Its shadow came across the tunnel intersection first, lancing over the floor as
the creature jerked into the light. Then the claws. They looked like the curved blades of a farmyard tool; black, jagged shapes, stretching into the light. As they came further into view, it became clear they were attached to limbs. Arms that rose to a shoulder. A shoulder that sat below a head with no eyes. A bare head that bounced the light back towards them. A head that turned slightly to the side and revealed a set of teeth, running from the chin to the forehead like a zip.

  Pax held her breath, digging her fingers into her palms to stop herself from moving. She couldn’t take her eyes away, transfixed by how bizarre and fearsome it looked.

  It stood over five foot tall and its legs were inhuman. The torso joined a lower body the size and shape of a large dog’s, like a centaur. It wasn’t furry, though; it was smooth, too smooth for human flesh. The creature had the same bare flesh all over, except for its terrifying claws, which had hardened into something like metal.

  Its head turned in their direction, and for all the world Pax wanted to do nothing but run. She was rooted to the spot, though. All the panicked thoughts punching through her head had no command over her body. She stood staring, horrified, as it looked at her, as though about to pounce, and her heart pounded against her ribs, blood thumping in her ears.

  It would hear her, she was sure.

  It would charge.

  It moved.

  Out of the tunnel, through the intersection and into the next passage.

  Its footfalls moved away, becoming quieter, as Pax quaked. She pulled her gaze away to find Casaria looking at her. He had been watching her the whole time, and as she caught his eye his lips spread into his overfamiliar smile.

  “A sickle,” she uttered, finally finding the presence of mind to say it. “It’s real.”

  Casaria’s smile was gone. “How’d you know that name?”

  They drove in silence, Casaria shooting furtive glances at Pax as she stared out the window without focus. She hadn’t been able to speak as they left the Underground, variously tackling the two conflicting thoughts that kept repeating in her mind: It can’t be real. It is real. Casaria had asked if she was okay and she had said yes, he had asked if she wanted to leave and she had agreed. They had walked to the car and he had described where they were going next but it was all noise. She was trying to process the creature, trying to figure out what it meant. If the sickle was real...

  She didn’t dare complete that thought.

  “It wasn’t a trick,” Casaria said, after ten minutes on the road. “That thing could tear a person apart, if it knew you were there. That’s where I come in.”

  Pax turned with the vague recollection that he existed.

  “What was it?” she asked, quietly, and knew, as the words left her mouth, that this was her admission that it was true. It brought her back to reality with all the worried thoughts and confused images of the beast in the tunnel. She had seen something otherworldly. And this man could explain it.

  “You knew its common name, apparently,” Casaria replied, a touch irritated.

  Pax stared at the side of his face, his indignation unbelievable at a time like this. She said, “Where did it come from?”

  “How did you know its name?” Casaria shot her a look.

  “What?” Pax gaped. “Who cares?”

  “I saw him greet you,” Casaria said. “You made a joke about him asking your name, remember? You didn’t know each other. At what point did he tell you anything?”

  “Who gives a shit?” she said. “After seeing that thing –”

  “It’s important. How did you know it was a sickle?”

  Pax paused. The book was evidently every bit as valuable as she had suspected, and if he knew about it he would want it. She lied, “There was a sketch. In the notepad he left on the bar.”

  Casaria shot her more glances, trying to read her face in brief moments between looking at the road. He echoed her: “The notepad he left on the bar.”

  “You might’ve noticed if you hadn’t been busy hurting him.”

  “A sketch.” They were statements, not questions. Sceptical statements.

  “Yes, a sketch – you want me to go home and get it for you? Let’s dwell on that, after seeing that shit! Jesus Christ, did you see what I just saw?”

  Casaria nodded, slowing down as he concentrated on what to say next. Pax looked out of the window again, distracting herself with the city. They were passing through Ten Gardens, her old neighbourhood, streets of tall townhouses and warehouses repurposed from working-class slums to chic middle-class hangouts. The next neighbourhood would be the warehouse district, mostly derelict and as good a place as any to kill someone who knew too much.

  “Where are we going?” Pax asked, expecting a cryptic answer.

  “Someplace safe,” Casaria told her, and immediately continued. “I know what you’re going through. Eight years ago, I had the same experience. When I’d calmed down, the guy who showed me a sickle gave me the same information I’ll give you. The same choice that I am going to give you.”

  Here it comes. Trapped in a tight space with nowhere to run. Pax had certainly seen too much, and wondered if it was the same for Ronnie Sweet and the others. Sweet had wanted to open a shop under the arches; had he trespassed into their tunnels? Were they all people who had seen too much and decided not to go along with whatever Casaria proposed?

  The car turned into the warehouse district. They were travelling east, between the ruins of former industrial plants. The docks wouldn’t be much further. Better and better locations to dispose of a body.

  “The Ministry has a number of safe locations across Ordshaw,” Casaria said. “Places where we can do things in private.”

  “Things?” Pax spat the word back at him.

  Casaria rolled his eyes. “In this case, talking.”

  “I think I’ve had enough for one night. Can you take me home?”

  He didn’t answer, didn’t look at her. She had little hope it would work, but it was worth a try. He finally shook his head. “We had a deal. And we’re going to talk. Somewhere secure.”

  “Where no one can hear me scream.”

  This made him smile again, for the first time since the sickle had appeared. He turned down another road, into another residential area. Old brick houses that didn’t look lived in. Pax tried to follow the route, to figure out where they had ended up. She knew the city, and had visited all sorts of difficult locations for games, but she was not familiar with this place. That made it one of the neighbourhoods she actively avoided. The other side of the warehouse district, it had to be St Alphege’s.

  Casaria pulled over and lifted a hand towards the building next to them, a brick terrace that looked like it should be scheduled for demolition. Pax gave him a nasty glare and he said, “I like your attitude, Pax. It could take you far.”

  He got out of the car but she stayed, giving the house a hard look. This was it. The perfect place to commit a murder. Willingly travelled to.

  Casaria waited patiently at the side of the road.

  She could lock the door, start the car somehow. Crack the ignition and spin a few wires together, that’s how it worked in the movies, right? But he could shoot her through the glass before she got it going. Unless, being a government agent, he had bulletproof windows...

  His patience ran out while she considered the full scenario.

  “This way,” he said, and started towards the building.

  She watched him. If his intention was silencing her, he had a nonchalant way of making it happen. Then, wouldn’t building her trust in this way make the job easier?

  Guessing and second-guessing people was one of Pax’s specialities. Bluffs, double-bluffs, triple-bluffs, it was all about thinking a few moves ahead. It was also, after a degree, impossible to truly know what was going on in other people’s minds. This wasn’t fair, that she had to figure it all out herself. It wasn’t fair that she’d seen a dog-centaur with blades for arms, and the only person she could talk to about it was this i
nherently untrustworthy spook. No. That wasn’t good enough. She took out her phone.

  Damn Darren Barton and his happy family life, he was gonna tell her something about all this or she’d bring her world crashing into his. She tapped out a message quickly while Casaria had his back to her. Pressed Send. At the least, he would know she’d got more deeply involved in this. Shove that up his conscience. In case she didn’t make it back.

  Casaria stopped at the door and turned back to her. His face crossed with annoyance when he clocked her still sitting there. “What are you waiting for? You asked to come here.”

  Huh?

  Pax checked the surroundings again. Run down. A rough part of town. St Alphege’s, he’d said that before. A safe house. They’d come to where he was keeping Rufaizu. She closed her eyes. He’d taken her to the boy. This might work out, yet. She regretted thinking it, the moment the words entered her head.

  14

  The building was as lavish on the inside as it promised to be from the outside: a desolate shack of dust and decay. Unfurnished, unlit, forgotten. Casaria didn’t give Pax a tour, he just walked ahead of her, through to the kitchen, talking as they entered. “The first thing to tell you is that those tunnels spread all across Ordshaw. Further than that, even. The network was built –”

  Casaria paused in the doorway to the kitchen, his blue-lit face fixed in steely focus. Pax came up behind him and looked over his shoulder, into a kitchen as grim and bare as the rest of the ground floor, with the exception of its vast fridge. That had been pivoted to one side, revealing a passageway that descended into a luminescent glow.

  “Is that a secret entrance?” Pax asked, taking the opportunity to disrupt Casaria in a moment of discomfort. “Who are you guys, the Thunderbirds?”

  He did not respond, but took out his gun. Before Pax could make a sound, he descended the steps. She listened to his footsteps going down to whatever lay below.

  Silence.

  Then a loud exhale, and his voice came, almost merry. “Come here. It’s your lucky day.”