The floor had trapped the rain, and she turned spectral once more as they trudged through six-inch-deep puddles. They found the mouth of the cave, and it was as Susannah had said—there was no way mortals could have entered.
“You mentioned other tunnels,” Baxter called, raising his voice to be heard over the rain.
Susannah nodded. “That’s usually the case. I wouldn’t know where to start looking, though.”
“The same method we used to find you,” Jennie called back. “Or we could use my trusted method.”
Jennie closed her eyes and picked up a faint trace of spectral energy to her right. She followed the signal until she found herself at a dirt wall that easily exceeded forty feet in height.
Susannah gave her a strange look. “It’s just dirt.”
Jennie smiled and traced the mud with her hands. She allowed herself to become material, and as her hand slid over the mud, it revealed a rusted door behind it, the orange-brown color an almost perfect match of the muddy water dripping down over it.
“Bingo.” Jennie smirked. “Let’s assemble the troops. Whatever is going on is on the other side of this door. I can just feel it.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Richmond, Virginia, USA
The rusted door looked to have been a makeshift barrier. There were no hinges, and when they entered the tunnel, the walls were crudely carved into the side of the hill and supported by haphazardly-placed timbers.
Jennie ushered the others inside, out of the attack of the rain. The tunnel stretched ahead and widened into a round chamber where they could stand comfortably together. After the initial sound of shuffling feet and people jostling for positions while they got their bearings, they waited in tense silence while Jennie took a headcount.
They listened closely but heard no one nearby, although Jennie could still feel the buzz of spectral energy somewhere in the tunnels.
There were three tunnels leading off the main chamber, but no signage to indicate what lay down any of them. Jennie had sudden flashbacks to the previous cave-in and exchanged glances with Ashton, Rhone, Roman, Triton, and the others who had accompanied her and somehow survived. “Stay alert,” she instructed quietly. “Stick together, so you don’t get separated if anything goes down.”
She coordinated the assembly, splitting them into three groups. Roman led his group, which included Triton, Ula, Rogers, Feng Mian, and Carolyn, into the tunnel on the left-hand side. Sturgeon led Jack, Ruby, and Ashton into the right tunnel. Jennie took a group that consisted mostly of specters and started her trek down the center tunnel. Before she continued, she sent a message to Julia and the others waiting back at base, instructing them to conduct some research and see if they could turn up a plan of the tunnels.
Jennie turned spectral. Sandra latched onto Tanya and brought her into the spectral world. They crept through their tunnel, grateful for the spectral glow coming from their bodies since torchlight would give them away. At one point, the wall opened to the right and revealed another tunnel, but Jennie pushed them onward, following the places where the spectral trail felt strongest.
The tunnel grew wider, and a fresh breeze came to meet them. Jennie wasn’t sure how long they’d been walking, but a strange sight met them as they rounded a corner.
There was a door, its shape neatly defined by a thin line of light leaking around its edges. The light was warm and flickered beyond the door.
Jennie cocked her head to the side. From here, she could feel the spectral signals stronger than ever.
She placed a finger on her lips and approached the door. She leaned in and could just about make out the sound of people talking. She pressed her face through the door and then went all the way through.
The tunnel was brightly lit by torches lining the walls. The way ahead split into several directions, but it was clear where the voices were coming from.
Jennie found herself at a place where the floor fell away beneath her. She was standing by a balcony overlooking a large, neatly cut arena of rock, mud, and stone. In the center of the chamber were a long stone table and a number of chairs. Plates and goblets had been set in place, although they looked as if they had been left from a party that had been held two hundred years ago.
Or three hundred…
Jiao and the woman the Dreadnought had possessed were sitting at one end of the table. In the seats surrounding them on either side was a gaggle of men Jennie had never seen before, except for one: Vincenzo. She could guess their names, however. The remaining members of the Seven had a particular look about them, the easy arrogance that spoke of a life of privilege and corruption.
The men sat straight-backed in their seats. Vincenzo was busy talking while Jiao and the Dreadnought looked on dispassionately.
Jennie’s blood boiled at the pompous expression on Jiao’s face. How regal she appeared as she stared down her nose at her subjects.
“They took care of the problem. There should be no more concern regarding this…Rogue,” Vincenzo finished. “To be honest, I don’t know what all the fuss was about. If the idiot is stupid enough to climb into a trap, then she’s stupid enough to get stuck down there indefinitely.”
Jiao’s nostrils flared. “You absolute buffoon.”
The cocky expression on Vincenzo’s face fell. “I’m sorry.”
“Rogue has the ability to turn spectral, you idiot. She’ll be able to crawl out of that hole in seconds. I’d wager that your men are already either dead where they stood, or trapped down in that basement themselves.” She picked up a goblet and hurled it at him. “Zhao told me you’d be one of the smart ones. It didn’t take you long to prove him wrong. Then again, he was never too smart himself.”
Jennie’s fists trembled. She did everything she could to hold herself back from jumping down there and taking care of Jiao herself.
The woman beside her cleared her throat and placed a hand on Jiao’s arm to calm her. The other men watched her warily. When the woman spoke, her voice was masculine and aged. “Please do forgive my bride-to-be. While mistakes have been made, we are thankful for your presence and assistance in the matters at hand. From the accounts I hear, you’ve done a tremendous job at disbanding the opposition and laying false trails for them to follow.”
“It wasn’t easy,” a podgy older man spoke up. “They were quick. If I were a few years younger, this would have been a breeze. But following instructions, setting off bombs, and finding places to hide is a young person’s game.”
“You had specters to help you!” another man exclaimed.
“So did you,” the pudgy man retorted.
“Barely!” the man replied. “A handful of weak-ass specters who gave up the instant that Zhao was pronounced dead? I barely scraped through by the skin of my teeth, and I thought about just handing myself in.”
“Yet you didn’t,” Jiao remarked, trying to reinstate composure. “That’s commendable, and we admire your loyalty.”
“Be honest,” the pudgy man began. “What the hell is going on here? Zhao promised us great wealth and power, and so far, all we’ve done is scramble around and confuse the feds. You told us you had some kind of spectral update to give, and all we see is this woman who, no offense, sounds like Louis Armstrong after a packet of Camels.”
“Yeah,” the other man added. “Are you telling us the order of the Golden Dragon is getting with the times? Growing more progressive? Are we going to have our first lesbian dynasty? Is that it?”
“How PC of you,” a third man commented.
Jiao grinned. “You should be careful how you speak to your new king,” she stated, enjoying the wave of confusion that came over the older men’s faces.
“King?” the fourth man grumbled. “All I see are two women sitting side by side. The only men in this room are us.”
At that, the woman grabbed the table and rose to her feet. Her chair fell over behind her, and her body began jerking spasmodically. Her limbs flailed, and a strange choking sound came from the ba
ck of her throat.
The men recoiled in their chairs, disgusted by the sight in front of them. After a few seconds, she stopped and fell limply into her chair, unconscious.
The men couldn’t see what Jennie was seeing. If they had SI glasses, they’d chosen not to wear them just then. The dark, haunting shape of the Dreadnought strode through the table and deliberated for a while before choosing one of the men to enter.
The pudgy man choked and spluttered in imitation of the woman. He sat up straighter in his chair, his eyes growing wide before they turned into dark pools. He finally settled, then he stretched. “That’s better.”
The man next to him gasped and half-pushed himself from his chair. “What the fuck is going on?”
The Dreadnought’s new vessel grinned. He turned his head at an unnatural angle, keeping his body fixed and twisting his neck until he was staring at the other man. A second later, the pudgy man spasmed and fell limp, and the Dreadnought left him.
Jennie watched the Dreadnought jump across the table and inhabit the other man as the first recovered and looked around in shock.
“Fuck,” she whispered to Bax. “It’s like Return of the Body Snatchers.” She thought back to what it felt like to latch onto the possessed and wondered how it would feel to be inhabited by such a corrupt specter. That nauseated feeling in her stomach returned.
The older man repeated the same process as the other, twisting his head around to the point it looked like it should snap. The Dreadnought then worked his way around the group until each had had a turn, before settling back in place inside the woman.
“I wonder why he’s so comfortable in the woman,” Baxter commented. “Everyone else he’s only remained inside for a few seconds, but he seems to favor her.”
Jennie nodded gently, unable to tear her eyes away from the goings-on below them. She shifted her attention to the rings on Jiao’s hand and once again grew curious about the power they held.
The men were shaken, shrinking back in fear the moment the Dreadnought exited their bodies. They had all gone an unhealthy shade of white, and two of them clutched their stomachs as they dry-heaved.
“Is that better for you?” Jiao smiled. It was the same smile that she had given Jennie on a dozen occasions, an unreadable smile that gave away none of the thoughts that ran through her head. “You have been blessed by your new king, so will you kneel, or will you die?”
The men looked at each other, their brows creased. Caught in the dilemma presented to them, it was obvious they hardly enjoyed obeying a woman who had taken the role of Dragon, let alone an unknown entity masquerading inside of a human suit.
The podgy man’s face grew hard. He pushed himself to his feet and puffed out his chest. “I swore my loyalty to the Seven a long time ago. Long before the Dragon presented itself as a possible ally. Over the years, I’ve seen a mountain of change. I’ve conquered my adversities and come out the other side a better man. I was dubious about following Zhao’s rule, and I’m much more so under the thumb of a female oppressor. We Daltons are proud people, and I would rather die than go along with this charade any longer.”
Without looking back, he turned and marched toward the tunnel leading out of the room. “I’ll grab my men and be on my way. This attempt at subduing the crime families of New York is farcical.”
Jiao’s lips tightened. She placed her hand over the woman’s, and the rings flashed in tiny bursts of white. The woman rose to her feet again and held out a hand.
A pulse of darkness sprang from her fingers, invisible to the naked eye but visible to Baxter, Susannah, and Jennie. The dark cloud streamed toward the pudgy man, and before he could reach the tunnel, he stopped in place.
He spun as if tugged on an invisible wire, his face a mask of pain. His mouth opened in a wide scream, but no sound came. The woman scrunched her fingers into her fist, and the man collapsed to his knees. His eyes turned completely white, and his face turned blue. He slumped to the floor and remained still.
Jesus Christ, Jennie thought. We’ve only seen a glimpse of this guy’s power. She turned to Susannah, who stared forlornly below her.
Susannah caught Jennie’s eyes and mouthed, “What have I done?”
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Richmond, Virginia, USA
For a big guy, Roman knew how to stay quiet.
He led the exploration group, his head almost scraping the ceiling as he went along. Ula and Triton behind him were just as silent. Rogers kept pace between them, and Feng Mian and Carolyn followed at the rear.
Ula watched Rogers with a curious eye. She knew little about the man, but she knew an ex-soldier when she saw one. From what she did know, Rogers had been heading the SIA since its inception almost two years ago. Their progress had been slow to begin with, but Jennie had acted like a catalyst for the organization.
Bound to a desk for the most part, Rogers was a strategist. Ula had considered the idea of dedicating herself to the roles away from the frontline, but always found she couldn’t stand the idea of not getting her hands dirty. From the way Rogers carried himself through the tunnel, she wondered if the same couldn’t be said for him.
Even the longest-serving desk jockeys must hear the call of duty.
The tunnels curved in directions without order. After taking a few turns, they came across the echoing sound of voices ahead. Roman raised a fist to halt them. The others obeyed instantly, a well-oiled machine.
There were a lot of voices, that much was clear. Whether they belonged to mortals or specters was another question entirely. They were clearly trying to remain quiet, but all of them were failing. The tunnels carried sound easily, and if there hadn’t been so many people speaking, they might have picked up individual conversations.
Roman ushered them carefully forward. They found a nook at the side of the tunnel where they could see the way ahead, a mouth to another room that was lit in torch flames.
Even from this far back, they could see that the room was filled with people.
“Shit,” Roman muttered.
Rogers peeked out from behind him. They looked at each other then retreated back down the tunnel a stretch, minimizing their own voices as they discussed the unexpected discovery.
“Who are they all?” Ula asked.
“Don’t know,” Roman replied. “There’s a lot of them, though.” He turned to Feng Mian and Carolyn. “Time for some reconnaissance.”
Feng Mian nodded.
Carolyn breathed deeply. “What if there are conduits in there? They might not be able to hurt us, but you’ll all be in danger.”
Roman and Ula shrugged. “That’s a risk we’ll have to take.”
Carolyn gave up and walked alongside Feng Mian toward the group.
* * *
Although Sturgeon had seen some strange sights in her lifetime, she had never encountered anything like this.
Most of the time, her job was to keep specters in line, to patrol the streets of London and the wider counties to ensure that specters behaved and remained in line with Queen Victoria’s rules. Sure, she had encountered some strange types of spectral activity over the years, but this Dreadnought behaved in a way that she had never come across before.
And these tunnels… Where the hell were they right now? She had never come across subterranean specters. Surely, if these tunnels had been here the whole time, there was no need for the focus on drilling the tunnels from the quarry to the sarcophagus? More than that, why didn’t the Dreadnought and his followers seek shelter in these tunnels in the first place?
A lot of questions rolled around in her head, things that needed answers. There was something fishy about this whole situation, and she hoped to get to the bottom of it soon.
The agents that had been assigned to her team walked behind her. She missed her SIS unit. She had been tempted to pull them all back once they had found Vincenzo, but without confirmation about the location of the rest of the Seven, they needed to be protecting the other states. So far, all
was quiet on that front, which in SIS land meant that either they were doing a good job, or something big was coming soon.
Often it meant both.
The air in the tunnels was cloying. The young agents walked behind, accompanied by Sandra and Tanya. Sturgeon wished again that this would be over soon. Everything that was meant to be simple had turned out the exact opposite. All she’d been asked to do was establish a rapport with Rogue and the King’s Court, give the support they needed, and leave. This had been meant to be an in and out job. It hadn’t worked out that way whatsoever.
The tunnel finally opened onto a small room and her heart stopped. There was nothing in the room beside a large stone object, and Sturgeon instantly knew what it was without having seen it before.
“The sarcophagus,” she exclaimed as she broke cover and moved toward it. The chamber was empty of people and clutter, nothing more than a pocket within the tunnels. The walls opened to reveal more tunnels around them.
Jack placed his hands on the edge of the sarcophagus and peered inside. “Not a very comfortable bed, is it? No wonder he refuses to go back.”
Tanya scoffed. “Why would they bother making a tomb comfortable?”
“Seems contradictory, doesn’t it?” Jack replied. “We say ‘Rest In Peace,’ but can you rest comfortably if there’s a slab of rock sticking into your back? The bottom of this is rougher than my face when I had acne in high school.”
“The point is that no one will rise again,” Sturgeon stated. “I don’t know if they had it in mind that Rathbourne would find his way back into the real world again?”
“Then why make the tomb from stone?” Ruby asked. “Whoever tucked him into this oversized shoebox knew what they were doing. Why else would they weigh him down in here?”
Sturgeon considered this. “You have a good point. That witch has a lot to answer for.” She turned to Sandra. “Do you think you could climb inside?”
Tanya went to her defense. “Oh, no. We’re not locking her away just to test a theory.”
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