The Regent

by Marcus Richardson

  “You have any idea what you’re doing?” Tecumseh asked.

  Cooper flashed a grin. “Not a fucking clue—let’s get out of sight. Ms. Baker found the entrance to someone’s basement.”

  “I thought the sign said a tunnel?” asked the senator as he disappeared through the arched stone doorway.

  Once Cooper had stepped into the narrow stairwell and sealed the heavy wooden door behind him, the space went pitch black. He heard the sound of shoes scuffling off the stone steps, placed his hand against the cool brick wall, and began his descent. A little over a minute later, he emerged out of the stairwell into a slightly less dark landing. The room was lined in brick, with a gently arched ceiling. The others clustered around the only exit, an old wooden door that had seen better centuries.

  “Now where?” asked Cooper, wincing at the sound of his voice as it echoed in the small chamber.

  “Now, we try to remain a little more quiet,” 13 whispered.

  Cooper gave her a look. Okay, okay, I got it.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve been down here…but this whole system has been commercialized recently. I think we are coming up on the south entrance to The Cave and the Rowantree.”

  “What’s that?” asked the senator.

  “Och, it’s tavern of sorts. But we’re not going there.”

  “You guys built a fucking bar in a sewer system?” Cooper asked, looking down at the crushed gravel floor beneath them. “I knew Scotland was strange, but…”

  “Nah, more like a restaurant…people get married there all the time…” replied Angus, stepping forward. “We need to head the other direction—west, toward the castle. That’s where The Shops are.”

  “Shops? Now you built a mall down here?” asked Cooper.

  “Restaurants, bars, shops—I don’t care! We need to get out of here,” 13 snapped. “We’re almost out of ammunition, in case you haven’t noticed,” she said, glaring at Cooper. “You’re the only one that has much in the way of firepower. Let’s move.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she threw open the door and stepped into the well-lit hallway beyond.

  Cooper blinked in the sudden light and watched as the silhouetted shapes of his companions disappeared through the door. He looked one more time up the stairwell before following them through the door.

  Before him stretched a long tunnel, lined in the ubiquitous red brick so common in Edinburg’s tunnel system. Every 15 to 20 feet, a side tunnel branched off, approximately five feet wide. As they walked forward, 13 and Cooper cautiously checked each darkened side branch before clearing the rest of the group to move on. They discovered most of the side branches were enclosed with glass doors and contained deserted shops. They found a stationary shop, a pottery shop, and a chocolatier. It was as Angus said—the thrifty Scots, not wanting to pass up the opportunity to utilize ready-made space, turned the underground tunnel system into a rabbit warren of a shopping mall.

  “When is this place open?” asked Cooper, checking a souvenir stand of little green stuffed Nessie dolls.

  “On a normal day, it would already be open, but today’s not so normal, is it? We’ve shut down all foot traffic to the area, both on the surface and below. Preparation for the summit, aye?”

  Tecumseh cleared his throat. “So, it’s a safe bet to assume anyone we find out here isn’t going to be friendly?”

  “God help us all,” moaned the senator’s chief of staff.

  “Can we get back to the parliament building?” asked 13. “Please?”

  Angus shook his head. “It’s been years since I’ve been down here. But I think so.” He looked up and down the central tunnel. “There’s usually an information kiosk every 300 feet or so. Look for a poster tacked up against one of the walls. It should show where we’re at and the local destinations.”

  It took them longer than Cooper wanted before they found it—about the length of a football field from where they first entered the tunnel system, Cooper found a framed, glowing map attached to the divider between two side branch tunnels. They all gathered around it and peered at the holographic representation of the underground tunnel system with the surface streets superimposed, seemingly floating in the air, over the tunnels.

  “Well that’s cool,” Cooper muttered.

  “Och aye, the local council spared no expense. As Edinburgh’s tourism rates increase, they wanted to ensure that the economic benefits from—”

  “Okay, got it,” 13 said, cutting him off. “This map doesn’t show the parliament building.”

  Angus shook his head. “Aye, they left off sensitive government facilities like that for security reasons.”

  “How thoughtful of them,” Cooper muttered.

  “Well…look, we know that’s the Royal Mile,” Tecumseh said pointing out one of the surface streets. “So one of these two branches here must connect to it. If anything, even if we can pop up on the surface close to the parliament building, it’s better than being trapped down here.”

  Cooper frowned. Why did you have to say trapped?

  The power went out with an audible pop and the world plunged into absolute darkness.

  “Why did you have to say trapped?” 13 muttered.

  Cooper smirked. Great minds think alike.

  “I think it’s safe to say they know we’re down here,” Tecumseh observed.

  “We’ve got to keep moving. The branches that will take us over to the Royal Mile…I think they were three or four up on the left.”

  Cooper shook his head. “I thought it was five?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” 13 said. “Let’s go. Everyone grab the jacket or belt of the person in front of you. Nobody let go—we make a human chain.”

  “I’ll lead,” Angus said. He turned on his phone’s light and shone the little makeshift flashlight into the darkness. “Well, it’s not perfect, but it’ll do.”

  And so, roped together with hands and arms, they shuffled forward in the darkness like climbers inching up a mountain. First Angus, followed by 13. Then Senator Tecumseh followed her with his chief of staff trailing him, whining and limping the entire time. The wounded driver followed him, and Cooper brought up the rear.

  Cooper kept his hand on the driver’s back, glancing over his shoulder every couple steps in the vain hope that he would spot someone sneaking up behind them. In the absolute absence of light—even emergency lights—Cooper had no idea which way was forward, left, or right.

  I hope the hell Angus knows where he’s going. Cooper glanced over his shoulder, careful to not let the others get too far ahead. It’s creepy as fuck down here.

  17

  A Touch in the Dark

  United States (Junior) Senator from Idaho, Denoyan Tecumseh, shook his head in the near pitch black darkness that swallowed him like Kinepikwa, the Great Serpent that devours the unwary from its dark hiding places in the bottom of lakes and caves. Just six months ago, before the Korean Flu had decimated the world, before his hometown of Salmon Falls had been invaded and conquered by Russians, before he’d joined forces with a group of Army Rangers and helped liberate the town…

  Before he was elected senator in an emergency election to fill seats in Congress…

  Six months…has it only been six months?

  Now he found himself in a labyrinth under the cobbled streets of Edinburgh, thousands of miles away from the people who elected him, the people whom he fought and killed for.

  “Don’t stop,” Ms. Baker whispered, urging him forward. “We have to keep moving, sir.”

  She was good, he had to admit. He’d made the right choice when he hired her after the first assassination attempt. Most of the political hacks and insiders thrust on him by the party bosses all suggested security people they knew and trusted, but Denny had seen her in action. It didn’t hurt that she’d saved his life.

  If she told him to follow her into a crypt and shuffle along in the dark with an empty rifle, hoping to evade a group of murderous thugs inten
t on ending his life, he’d do it.

  “Oh God, it hurts,” whined Eli, his chief of staff. His off-rhythm footsteps seemed louder than everyone else. Especially Baker’s partner, Cooper Braaten, the madman who’d hijacked a garbage truck and plowed through their attackers less than an hour ago.

  “Stop bein’ such a wee scunner back there and keep it down, aye?” Angus complained from the front of their little column.

  Denny peered back beyond Eli’s lurching silhouette. Braaten was back there somewhere, but the man was quiet as a ghost. He had that dangerous look—like the Rangers had when they’d come to Salmon Falls, but worse. He knew Braaten had once been a Navy SEAL, but still…

  “Just keep moving, Eli, we’ll get you patched up when we make it to safety,” Denny mumbled, eyes still scanning for Braaten, who should have been right behind Eli.

  “Ms. Baker,” he whispered, turning around to the front again. “Where’s your partner?”

  When she didn’t speak up, Denny thought better of asking her again.

  “Braaten?” asked the chase car’s driver, somewhere behind Denny. His voice sounded harsh as if he were in a lot of pain and trying not to show it. “You’re not going to see him back there, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s a SEAL. Crazy fuckers.” The driver snorted a laugh. “They’re all like that—they get off on disappearing and shit.”

  Not that hard to do down here. Denny frowned as he wiped a cold sweat from his brow. Hiding in the ground was not what m’wawe, the wolf of the Shawnee preferred. He was a warrior, not some skutalawe—a turtle, hiding in the mud. Thinking of skutalawe dredged up memories of John and Ruth, his murdered neighbors back in Salmon Falls. They had hunkered down and hidden, they were fine underground…

  Until they weren’t. John Townsen had killed them in his mad, ill-focused quest for revenge, against Denny.

  He put out a hand and touched the cool, damp bricks that encased the tunnel. Thinking of John and Ruth wasn’t going to do him any favors. Denny was a long way from forgiving himself for their deaths.

  He let his fingertips caress the rough-yet-smooth texture of the centuries-old bricks. If these bricks could talk…

  “I can’t…I can’t go on…” wheezed Eli.

  “Hey, can we take a break for a minute and let Eli catch his breath?” Denny asked. “I think he’s losing blood…”

  “I saw him topside—he ain’t that bad off,” the driver said.

  Denny felt a presence next to him, like the air was suddenly thicker.

  “He’s right,” Braaten said in a hoarse whisper. “We need to keep moving. I heard something a minute ago back there on our six. We’re not alone down here, people.”

  “You can say that again…fucking spooky, bro,” muttered the driver.

  They’d all stopped by mutual consent near a side branch that had apparently caved in years ago. The little alcove in the tunnel system looked and felt like a small room, open on one side, otherwise completely enclosed by the damp, smooth brick wall and a pile of rubble.

  “Three minutes,” Baker ordered, her voice tight. “Then we move.”

  “No arguments from me,” added the driver, his voice tight with pain.

  Denny leaned against the cool, vaulted wall and closed his eyes, willing his breathing to slow. He tried his best not to think about the thousands of tons of rock, dirt, and city that lay above him, pressing down, trying to crush him in the tunnels. He longed to walk free in the sun, to run through a forest, to do anything other than lurk around in a subterranean sewer.

  “Anyone else have a cell?” asked the Scottish cop.

  “I lost mine in the crash,” Baker admitted. Denny could tell by the tone of her voice she was embarrassed.

  “I think…I think mine’s back in the car,” Eli offered.

  Denny fished in his pocket and pulled his iPhone free. “I’ve still got mine…” He held his finger over the home button and it turned on. “Only got about 10% battery left, though.”

  “Aye, same for mine,” the cop said. “We best keep moving or we’ll be doing this in the dark.”

  “What, you call this sunlight?” asked Braaten. Just as quickly as he’d appeared, he vanished.

  Denny blinked. He hadn’t even heard the man’s footsteps.

  “Let go of me,” Eli complained. “I can walk.”

  “Well hurry the fuck up, sir,” the driver said. “I don’t want to be down here when the batteries on his phone die.”

  “You scared of the dark?” asked Baker with the first trace of humor in her voice Denny’d ever heard.

  “I don’t know…there’s something about this place. It ain’t natural.”

  “I understand what you mean,” Denny volunteered, his own voice sounding like it came from a great distance. “It feels like we’re being watched…”

  The cop chuckled. “Well, they do say as these tunnels are a wee bit haunted.”

  “Fuckin’ ghosts? Are you kidding me?”

  Denny paused and fell a step behind the driver. The hair on the back of his neck rose and the smothering blanket of silence that followed them seemed to draw a little tighter. Now that he was aware of it, Denny had the distinct feeling he was being watched as well. He looked around, and seeing nothing but the hint of brick walls in the darkness wherever his gaze fell, he started moving again.

  “Och, aye,” the cop’s voice floated back toward Denny.

  “Bullshit,” the driver argued.

  It sounded to Denny more like he was trying to convince himself rather than the cop. “Bunch of stories made up by people to scare kids, that’s all. I’ve seen hell, man—ghosts got nothin’ on the shit that goes down in the Sandbox.”

  “Whatever your personal experiences,” Denny said quietly, his feet crunching on gravel, “it is not wise to provoke the spirits.”

  “Oh, come on,” the driver moaned. “Sir,” he added.

  “Cut the chatter,” hissed Ms. Baker. “It’s even better not to provoke me.”

  A few moments later, they had to pause again to adjust the expedient bandage on Eli’s bleeding leg.

  “I can’t…I can’t go on,” he wheezed. For the first time, he truly sounded scared.

  Denny crouched next to his chief of staff and put a hand on the man’s trembling shoulder while the driver tended the wounded leg. “You must, Eli. We’re almost there.”

  “We are?” His voice sounded far away, like in a dream.

  “That’s as good as I can make it. You’re bleeding more than before, but it’s not like you’re going to bleed out in the next ten minutes, so suck it up, buttercup,” the driver muttered before moving deeper into the shadows to confer with Ms. Baker. Their mumbled words came to Denny out of the encompassing darkness in bits and pieces.

  “You’ll be fine,” Denny said, trying to sound reassuring. Eli let loose a low moan in response, the sound echoing all around them.

  “You’ve got to be quiet,” Denny whispered urgently. “Eli, there are people out there looking for us—”

  “They’re going to find us too, if he doesn’t shut the fuck up,” the SEAL said, stepping out of the darkness like a wraith. “They’re getting closer. We need to get off the main tunnel, like, yesterday.” He moved on, his feet barely making any sound at all as he approached Ms. Baker and the driver.

  “I think the turn is just a wee bit that way,” the cop said to the others.

  “…leave him…” muttered the driver.

  “…liability…” agreed Braaten.

  The driver’s response was lost to Denny when he felt someone tap his shoulder. He turned away from Eli, expecting to see Ms. Baker standing before him. He was greeted with only the black emptiness of the darkened tunnel. His eyes strained to detect movement. A familiar tingling sensation rippled down his arms, the hairs raising with what felt like a static electric charge.

  Denny took a step back, the sound crashing like thunder in his ears. His heart pounded; his chest throbbed. What the
hell is going on here? Who just tapped my shoulder?

  Away to his left, up the tunnel, Ms. Baker mumbled something to the SEAL. Behind him, Eli moaned softly, resting against the wall. There was no one else around them—no one within arm’s reach that could have tapped his shoulder like that. He distinctly felt two fingers tapping…once, then twice in quick succession. Exactly the kind of thing one would do to get someone’s attention in a quiet environment.

  “We’re not alone,” he muttered. The conversation to his left stopped immediately and Braaten was by his side with a whisper of boots on gravel.

  “You got something?”

  “Someone just tapped my shoulder.”

  Braaten stepped in front of Denny and swept his rifle back and forth, peering into the gloom. “Stay back, sir,” he ordered, then disappeared into the dark.

  Ms. Baker, the cop, and the driver all appeared next. “What was it?” she asked.

  “See something then, did you?” asked the cop in his Scottish brogue.

  “I…I don’t know,” Denny said. “I felt something on my shoulder…a tapping. Then I turned and there was no one…” He took a step away from the group.

  “Too damn dark in here,” complained the driver. “And don’t tell me about your fuckin’ ghosts,” he warned the cop.

  As the three of them fell to bickering quietly, the two men arguing about the supernatural and Ms. Baker trying to rein them in, Denny closed his eyes and focused on his inner self.

  Hear me, Grandfather. Guide me, show me the way. We are lost and hunted. I am in a strange land…hear me…

  Denny felt like half a fool for doing his meditation ritual, but if nothing else, he could use the calmness it always instilled in him. He felt the energy from the earth below his feet, a deep, strong, old strength, flow into his legs and fill him. It was similar to the feeling he got watching the valley back home, absorbing the power of the earth and all the things that lived nearby. But it…tasted…different. Older, more tired, bitter, not as sweet. Denny frowned. This land has seen much suffering.

  She is watching.