The Sunken City Trilogy

by Phil Williams

  The problem was, it left a niggle of doubt that he really didn’t want to entertain. It was possible – he couldn’t deny it – that it might have been some kind of trick to save the wretched creature. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had lied to him. He took the long route back, driving slowly, to make sure she had enough time to digest the creature, or at least kill it, before they parted ways, in case she planned to throw it up the first chance she got. At least he was certain she’d swallowed it. He had seen the thing in her mouth. He had faith in himself for spotting that kind of detail.

  When they reached her apartment, he stayed in the car. As she was leaving, he told her again that she needed to be sure the evidence was gone, and she told him to fuck off.

  “I’ll check on you tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll see what we can do about your money, then.”

  She didn’t reply. That aspect of her deal, it seemed, had lost all importance.

  Casaria made the return journey in a third of the time, blotting out the thought of Pax Kuranes as his mind shifted back to business. Their safe house had been breached, though the defences had worked. It was one of the more secure ones, totally secluded – that’s why he had chosen it. Now it was useless.

  Had they been following him? No, then they would have found the place sooner. Were they following the girl? No, the thing had got there before them. Maybe they were just doing a blind sweep of known safe houses in their desperation to find the Roma boy.

  Casaria scolded himself: idiot. Believing in coincidences was a sure route to failure.

  Back at the safe house, he kept an eye on the monitor in his pocket – no sign of any Fae nearby. He headed to the cellar. Rufaizu stirred again at the sound of the door opening, groggy and barely able to speak but conscious enough to move without Casaria having to carry him. Not giving the boy a chance to gather his senses, Casaria hustled him through the house.

  He was pushing Rufaizu’s head down, a moment from safety, when the monitor beeped. He reacted instantly, shoving the Roma into the car, drawing his gun and dropping to the ground at the same time. The first bullet caught the top of his shoulder; it ripped cloth and drew blood but the sting was no more than a flesh wound. The second shot went clear over his head, splintering the door-frame behind him. The monitor beeped more violently – at least two separate pulses, getting closer.

  He fired back without aiming, over the car, into the air, gun emitting fast, wide balls of light. Another shot shattered a window on the far side of the car. The sniper was on the other side of the road.

  Shaken awake by the noise, Rufaizu kicked out of the car as Casaria searched the night sky. The Roma screamed, struggling to his feet, but Casaria pulled him to the ground, shouting, “Stay down, you moron!”

  Then came a series of gunshots above the safe house, with the volume of firecrackers. Bullets pattered onto the roof of the car and the pavement around Casaria as he rolled out of the way. He returned fire, his gun erupting in a blinding flash, the projectiles fading into the air above. He pushed off with his feet, dragging Rufaizu’s flapping body partially under the car as the barrage continued. The attackers were either terrible shots or were aiming to miss.

  Casaria reached up to the handle of the car and a bullet struck the back of his hand. He yelled, but kept going, clenching onto the handle and wrenching the door open. As he did, another shot passed his ear. He fired back, this time seeing a shape in the air swerving for cover.

  There was a moment of quiet as the attackers regrouped. Casaria grabbed a canister from a compartment in the footwell of the car and hit a button to activate it. Rufaizu rolled out from under the car and half rose. Casaria pulled him back as the gunshots started again, then he threw the canister high above his head.

  It made a rumbling noise, and a shockwave spread through the air like a heat shimmer. The wave shot through Casaria with an electric jolt. The canister dropped back to the ground a few feet away, the gunshots silenced.

  Rufaizu was gasping, feet randomly kicking. Casaria got a better grip on him, finding the young man bleeding from the neck, eyes wide with panic and mouth voicelessly moving.

  Mix rose from the gutter of the safe house roof as the grenade’s pulse shot subsided, barely having missed him. He spotted Gambay, falling into a grass patch the next house down; he hadn’t been so lucky. Then Mix spotted the blood, streaming out of the Roma boy as the suit scrambled out from under him and put a hand on the wound to stop the bleeding.

  “Gambay’s down,” Fresko said over the radio, factually.

  The suit pulled the bleeding boy into the car and pulled the door shut.

  “So’s Rufaizu,” Mix said. Equally business-like. “We’re gonna need a new plan.”

  16

  Barton writhed in bed as Holly somehow slept through it.

  She always slept through it. He could snore, he could toss and turn, he could watch TV or sing to music, none of it disturbed her once she’d slipped into a slumber. That was what had made it all possible. She was such a deep sleeper he was able to live another life at night without her ever knowing he was gone. It gave him alone time, certainly, but it also meant he had zero support in the darkest hours. He sometimes wondered how different it might all be, if he’d married a lighter sleeper.

  He was haunted by imagination and memory, thinking of the things that lurked in the Sunken City and the consequences of their actions. He saw Apothel’s face, over and over. Sometimes smiling, laughing and drinking. Sometimes crying, shouting, screaming. Always, in any mood, with that hole in his head. Blood streaming across his eyes. Apothel. He had been so alone at the end.

  He saw Rufaizu’s face, too, no better. That cheeky child. Full of heart, in heavy supply of smiles. He could only imagine the trials that Rufaizu had been through in his naïve enthusiasm, after he had disappeared from all their lives. Who had raised him? Where had he gone? An orphan at nine on the streets of Ordshaw. Half his lifetime spent without parents, cut off even from Barton, perhaps the only person who knew where he’d come from.

  And when he finally resurfaced, what had happened? Barton pictured his face beaten, bruised. The boy tied to a chair in some dark basement, electric probes tied to his bare flesh. Water thrown across his face. Barton spun on the bed, not sure if he was experiencing visions of the truth or nightmares of what might be.

  Between the distressed faces of father and son he saw the creatures.

  The glogockle’s dragging knuckles and clucking cry.

  The sickle’s gnashing jaws that split its head in two.

  The turnbold’s tongues as they lashed from under its turtle-like shell.

  The wormbird’s slashing talons.

  All scraping in and out of shadows, one erupting from another and blending back into darkness in the kaleidoscope of his frenzied mind. And behind them all the colour blue. Blue in large, distinct rectangles. Over and over, spinning, splitting, merging and expanding.

  Blue screens.

  Blue screens everywhere.

  He saw the glo, swilling from tankards, rolling off a boat by the barrel-load, disappearing down hungry gullets. Luminescent liquid that opened eyes wider than they were meant to open.

  Apothel laughing like a lumberjack, the first time they drank together. Tree-thick arms pointing down the tunnel as he curated new discoveries. Barton swaying on his feet, not sure if he was hallucinating when the helluvian hound appeared. They tackled it together, without explanation; it simply had to be done. They clamped its jaws shut as fire lanced out the edges, and they bound it with fireproof fish leather before thrusting it into a pit. Only after the excitement, after the thrill of the fight and the chase, after the laughter, did they stop to talk. It was almost dawn and the explanation scarcely mattered, then.

  The explanation never really mattered. Not once Barton had tasted the thrill.

  There were reasons, very good reasons, but they weren’t important. What was important was that he was there, involved, doing it because it felt right. He
had never needed to explain that feeling to himself. That’s what made it so hard to stay away. The logic behind abandoning that life was sound, the emotion was not.

  He saw Rufaizu dying, stabbed in the heart and bleeding onto the floor, alone, crying. He saw Apothel’s face, blood leaking into the eyes as he tried to blink it out. And what? Wingless hawks flooding out of the rafters like a hail of bats, clawing at them, flying back carrying his family.

  His family.

  Grace being torn from his arms. Holly screaming.

  He thrashed in the bed.

  “Take him!” He grabbed Rufaizu’s body, throwing it to the hawks. “Take him, not them! Give me back my daughter!”

  Barton shook awake, soaked through with sweat, sticking to the bed. He pushed up onto his elbows and looked around. The curtains were open and the sun was up. He was alone, Holly apparently long gone. The house sounded still. He dragged himself to the window and looked out.

  Dalford glowed in the morning light, yellow sun bouncing off green leaves. The road wide and clear of cars. As far as you could get from the tight grimy inner-city. Except for one thing. He looked at it, the manhole cover, down the road, like nothing more than a regular sewer entrance. His breathing slowed. He had never been sure why it had been so important to move here, above two houses that needed less work. To be close to that thing. Holly had bought his idea that he wanted a house he could fix up, but that wasn’t it. That manhole cover had drawn him here, stronger than anything. There was nothing down there, not this far from the centre, but it was an option, in case he needed it.

  No. It was a reminder. A warning that the temptation was close to home; giving in was not an option. Something he could never let himself forget.

  He turned away from the window and saw the clock on Holly’s side of the bed.

  10am.

  He scrambled for his clothes. Had to get to work. He flung himself into the bathroom and splashed water over his face, threw on a crumpled white shirt and ran down the stairs as he crookedly buttoned up. He skidded into the kitchen and paused to see his wife perched on a stool, eating a piece of toast. She raised a quizzical eyebrow and said, “Going somewhere?”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” he demanded, flicking on the kettle and grabbing a piece of toast from her pile.

  She snatched it back at once. “Because it’s Saturday. And frankly, you looked like you needed the rest.”

  Barton stopped, catching his breath. It took a moment to sink in, then his whole body slumped with relief. “Oh thank God.”

  “Don’t thank Him quite yet,” Holly said, placing a hand on the kitchen counter. She had his phone. “You’re going to wish you were at work in a minute.”

  He stared at the phone, the possibilities flooding his mind. Had Dr Rimes called him back? He started forming a defence. “Whatever you’re thinking, you know I haven’t been out.”

  “I know,” Holly sighed. “It doesn’t stop it from being a problem.”

  She passed him the phone and he snatched it, desperate to get it over with. The most recent message was from a new number. From the first line, he realised a call from Rimes would have been better.

  Holly said the words out loud as he read them, apparently having studied it enough to know the message by heart. “I see why you don’t want your family involved – but I saw a sickle. You need to talk to me.”

  Barton looked from the phone to her.

  “You said you didn’t know her.”

  “I don’t,” Barton insisted. “She knew our address, you think she couldn’t find my number too? It’s not –”

  “Tell me again,” Holly said, “about the Layer Fae.”

  “Don’t do this,” he answered weakly.

  “No, I want to hear it again.”

  He closed his eyes, preparing the words he’d said to her a dozen times, the story he knew she never truly believed. A story filled with half-truths that she must’ve been questioning again. He said, “The Layer Fae were a gang, the sort we ran into when everyone else was sleeping. They were the worst of a bad bunch. We avoided them. I don’t know why, I don’t know exactly when, even, but Apothel started talking with them. He said or did something they didn’t like, or maybe they just had a bad day, I don’t know. He had a bullet in his head. No trace of who did it. The Layer Fae being who they were, everyone was too scared to go after them for it. Not on account of a bum like Apothel.”

  “The police turned a blind eye.”

  “Yeah,” Barton nodded. “They said it was suicide. A bullet in his forehead.” His voice wavered somewhere between anger and sadness. “Rufaizu was there. He was just a boy. Never should’ve seen it.”

  Holly stared at him, letting the weight of his tale fill the room. It had taken three months of degenerate drinking and wallowing, with dozens of fights and accusations and intrigues in between, before she had first drawn this painful explanation from him. She had accepted it, finally, his story that he had only been spending time with drug dealers and gangs, not cheating on her. That he had been partying at night with, essentially, a homeless man. She always seemed to suspect there was more to it than that, though, and he feared one day she would start asking again. For nine years he had been waiting for the probing questions to come back. It had been inevitable, with Rufaizu reappearing.

  But she didn’t ask any more.

  She said “Don’t you think you should meet with this girl? Don’t let the same thing happen to her.”

  Part 2

  Saturday

  1

  Grace Barton, at 14 (almost 15), believed she had life more or less figured out. The important thing, which a lot of people seemed to miss, was that you needed to stay positive. No one likes a complainer. A lot of girls bitched about people, and their lives, to be heard. But then you had to think of new things to complain about and new ways to be nasty about other people, to keep things fresh. In the long run, it was easier to be positive about things, and people noticed that instead. Like when Kylie Taylor told the group she was mad at her dad because he’d come home drunk, falling over all the furniture in the house, and she hadn’t got any sleep. Grace could’ve offered a similar sob story. She’d seen worse than knocked-over furniture. But she put a positive spin on it, instead. Alcohol was cool, after all. So when Kylie complained about her bumbling dad, Grace asked if he had any alcohol to share. The girls all laughed, and it was better than complaining. Maybe Kylie’s dad didn’t do it so well, though. It was easy with Grace’s dad, because he was an expert, of sorts, rather than a problem drinker.

  “Drink half a litre of water, half a litre of beer and half a litre of whisky,” she had heard him say to her mum once, a few years ago, “and see which one changes your life most.”

  She was not privy to the context of the conversation, or exactly what point he had been making, but Grace liked it. That’s why she made a point of sneaking some of his whisky in a flask when the other girls were experimenting with sugary bottled drinks. Kylie had said “You’re so classy!”, and she wasn’t totally kidding. And someone had told Luke Merrick about it, and apparently he’d said Grace was a legend.

  That was where looking at the bright side of life got you. Grace knew her mum had been upset with Dad about how he used to go out too much, but she just hadn’t been looking at it the right way. Mum didn’t get that Dad needed a particular kind of stimulation. He loved her, with all his heart, there was no hiding that. You could see it in the way he couldn’t leave a room without touching her on the way out, even when he went for something small, like to get a drink. It was a bit gross, but also kind of sweet. And he even seemed to enjoy being told what to do by her, at least a little. But Mum hadn’t given him enough of that – enough attention – that’s why he went out so much. Once she started caring more, and gave him real specific instructions, he was happy. Sure, he complained a bit, and there had been some pretty big arguments a while back, but he genuinely seemed to enjoy being home, and the most annoyed he got now was when he could
n’t do something for them, like buy Grace the best bike in a shop. He just cared, a whole lot, and that was over little things. Grace often thought he must’ve been sad, like, beyond belief, when his friend died.

  No one ever brought that up, now. Even in her head, Grace couldn’t put a positive spin on that. It was too long ago for her to remember what really happened. When she’d asked him about it, once, all he had replied with was: “Bad choices got him killed. Remember that. He didn’t know when to stop.”

  She did remember it. Like when she drank herself sick in the park once, and she moved on to weak cider for Lonnie’s party the next night. And she had a long-term plan. She would cut back around her mid-20s, maybe early 30s. That would give her more time to recover than her dad had, and he was doing fine. With a bit of sensible planning and positive thinking, life didn’t need to stop being fun. Not completely. That was Mum’s problem. That was most adults’ problem. They thought that at a certain age you weren’t allowed fun any more. It was like children going to playgrounds. At 14, it was wrong to go on slides and swings and roundabouts, but Grace loved rounding up her friends to raid the parks with the enthusiasm of kids. Fun’s for whoever wants it, she said. Adults should go on swings and slides and roundabouts, they’d still enjoy it.

  If Mum understood that, Dad would be happier. He was good and settled, sure, but he got a bit vacant at times, didn’t he? There was still a little room for more, if Mum only let him loose.

  That street lady showing up on their doorstep was a reminder. Grace knew, from the moment she opened the door, that any adult woman dressed in boys’ clothes, with almost no make-up, spelt fun. Grace wanted to ask her a hundred questions at once, like what she did for a living and what music she liked, but there was no time. She didn’t even get to compliment her on her coat – which was really retro.