“When was the last time you saw her?” I asked. I bent down and lifted the manhole cover, slipped in and replaced it. It was about a mile down to the village. I focused, feeling the strength pouring into my legs.
“Before I left for school,” she said between sobs. “She said goodbye to me. Trish said they went out to panhandle. Someone distracted her. When she turned around, Kelsie was gone.”
I turned the corner, not slowing at all when I reached the huge open cavern that was Sarah’s home. Once it had housed a hundred people at most, but it had grown in the last five years. Nearly six hundred lived here now, gathering water and electricity from lines run long ago to a now forgotten generating station. The Awake looked up at me, some with fear, some with admiration. They scurried out of the way as I approached.
“I’m here,” I said out loud, pushing open the flap to Sarah’s tent in the center of the small city. Sarah was sitting on the floor, her arms around Trish. I saw Izak sitting in the back corner of the tent, his body expressionless, but his eyes betraying the sadness that he felt at Sarah’s pain.
Sarah dropped her connection to my soul. She looked up at me with her empty eyes. I felt another pang of hurt that mirrored Izak’s. She eased herself out of Trish’s embrace, stood up, and fell towards me.
The refugee camp wasn’t the only thing that had grown. Sarah had gone from a young girl to a young woman; her body lithe and strong like her mother’s, her face proud and defined like her father’s. Her once pigtailed hair fell to her shoulders in highlighted ringlets, and I was sure the tight jeans and black t-shirt she was wearing were getting her plenty of appreciative looks. I caught her in my arms and held her, kissing the top of her head and stroking her back.
“I’ll find her,” I said.
I looked at Trish. The emaciated blonde woman remained hunched over on the floor in silence, her body wracked with distress.
“I’ll find her,” I repeated.
Sarah backed away from me and returned to Trish’s side. “Tell him where you were,” she said to the woman.
It took Trish a few tries to compose herself enough to speak. “Penn Station,” she said. “We were working the afternoon crowd, trying to get some money for the community. This guy bumped into me, I got knocked down. By the time I got back up, Kelsie was gone. I screamed her name. I looked for her. I grabbed a policeman, but he thought I was hallucinating or something. Oh, Kelsie.” Her sobs started anew.
I wasn’t going to tell Sarah, but that wasn’t the first time I heard the story. Young girls had been disappearing across the city for the last six weeks or so, stolen right out from under their parents’ noses. I had considered looking into it earlier but hadn’t acted. Karma didn’t exist, but it was still a bitch.
“I’ll go down to Penn and see if I can pick up a trail,” I said. “You didn’t sense any Divine?”
Trish shook her head. As an Awake she knew we existed, and she could feel when we were around. I hadn’t expected her to have sensed one, or she wouldn’t have been there. The Awake avoided Divine with even more fervor than they avoided the Sleeping. My killer was a plain, ordinary mortal, which meant he should be easy enough to track down.
“I’m coming with you,” Sarah said, her voice firm. She was trying to preempt my objection. She failed.
“You’re not coming with me,” I said. “You know the stations are dangerous.”
I wish I had known how dangerous the stations were when I had asked Obi to meet me at Grand Central that first time. They had only recently re-opened the tracks that had been demolished by my inadvertent expulsion of power.
“I can take care of myself,” she argued. It was predictable.
There were only a few kinds of demons who could stay in the mortal dimension full-time without a more powerful demon to keep them alive. Vampires, werewolves, and nightstalkers were the most prevalent of the Devil’s children. Then there were the fiends - they had been human once, died and gone to Hell, and had begged to be sent back to continue their dirty deeds.
All of them preferred to stay out of the light as much as possible, but the stations were the hunting grounds of the nightstalkers; powerful humanoids that were more often associated with the term ‘zombies’. They weren’t the shuffling, stupid, brain-eating variety. They were the Devil’s first earthly creation, and while they ran more on instinct than intelligence, they were fast, strong, and silent. They would be a threat to me in a large enough group. Sarah had power, but her body was mortal and couldn’t heal.
“I can Command them,” she said, either reading my mind or getting ahead of my thoughts.
“How many?” I asked. Nightstalkers hunted in groups. I didn’t have the power to Command, but I knew that it meant dedicating a piece of the mind to keeping the target under control, like a computer dedicating memory to each running application. There was a limit.
“I don’t know,” Sarah said, growing frustrated. Her eyes were still streaming tears. “She’s one of my children,” she shouted. “I will come with you.”
I felt the immense pressure in my head, and I had to close my eyes to fight it. When I opened them, I was angry. I almost didn’t recognize the feeling.
“I’m sorry, brother,” Sarah said, reading my anger. “Kelsie.” Her voice trailed off.
My anger faded at once. “I’ll be back soon,” I said.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, finding myself face to face with Izak. The vagrant demon had a sword in his other hand.
“He wants to come with you,” Sarah said. “He wants to be my eyes.”
I glanced back at Sarah. Another manifestation of the evil part of her nature, or just normal teenage rebellion? I knew she had a connection to the demon, similar to the one shared by fiends and their familiars. Did she Command him, or did he volunteer?
“Fine,” I said.
I didn’t care at all if Izak were killed, but I shouldn’t have been so callous towards the demon. Memories of his kindness to Josette circulated through my consciousness. He had been her single source of true companionship in the year that the angel was held captive by her sibling. At first, he had only been her jailor, a silent observer to Gervais’s nightly visits and their painful results. Over time he had becoming something more, a caretaker of sorts, always there to lend a comforting shoulder to cry on, a kind touch, a calm and peaceful presence to help offset the chaotic violence of the archfiend.
The gentle devotion had transferred from mother to daughter, and Izak had been tireless in his efforts to protect Sarah. He deserved respect for that, and at least a small amount of sympathy. Gervais had cut out the fiend’s tongue in fear that he would one day attempt to usurp him.
I put my hand on top of his and looked into his eyes. I could feel his desire to help Sarah, but there was something else there too. She had Commanded him. He didn’t want to leave her side, to leave her unguarded. It was hard enough for him when she went topside to live her mortal life. I saw something else there that I wasn’t expecting. Recognition. He saw Josette.
Sarah and I had never spoken of the events leading up to the change in my appearance. She had known my purpose before I had, and I’d always imagined she knew the outcome. Even so, did she know Josette was her mother? I doubted it. I squeezed Izak’s hand, feeling the bones crunching below the skin.
“Don’t tell her,” I whispered. “Not now.”
He didn’t register the pain, but he did give me a quick nod.
“We’ll be back soon,” I said, letting go of Izak’s hand and heading for the exit.
“Be safe, brother,” Sarah said. She gave me a weak smile, flicked her eyes at Izak, and returned to comforting Trish.
My initial plan was to make my way out of the sewers and back up into the city, crossing over to thirty-fourth and seventh at ground level. Izak had a different idea. I had grabbed onto one of the ladders leading to the surface, but he put his hand on my shoulder again and squeezed it. When I looked at him, he pointed up at the manhole
cover and put his hands over his eyes, and then motioned down the tunnel.
“You know another way?” I asked.
He nodded.
I followed.
Izak’s route quickly got me lost. The demon led me through a mazelike traversal of twists and turns, through knee-deep wastewater and large brick connection tunnels that were part of the New York underground’s original construction. The sheer size of the system was something residents took for granted every day, except when heavy rains would back up the city’s pumps and cause sewage to spill into the surrounding rivers. I didn’t take it for granted, but I did lament the fact that if whoever had taken Kelsie had brought her down here she would be difficult to find. This was the perfect hiding place for demon or human, a seemingly endless conglomerate of tunnels, tubes, pipes, passageways and doorways, with lots of random egress points to the city above.
I kept my senses focused around us, not wanting to be surprised by anything we might come across. I knew there were nightstalkers down here. I had already destroyed a group that had gotten too aggressive in their abductions and had been pulling people from the platforms while they waited to board the trains. It seemed Izak knew how to get around them, because the trek was uneventful.
We stopped at a heavy metal door. Izak looked at me and pointed at it, making a pulling motion. I could feel the vibration of the subway rattling the narrow, pipe filled corridor we were standing in. The demon stepped aside so I could squeeze by him to get to the door. I grabbed the handle and pulled. The door wasn’t going anywhere without some help.
I focused on the hinges, willing the rust that had stuck the door to accelerate in its aging, pushing it past its corrosive half-life and crumbling it to dust. The rumble was growing, and I could hear the train approaching on the other side of the door. I pulled it open.
We were greeted with a blast of hot air, and then the echoing pulse of the subway’s horn blasted into the tunnel. I held my arm out to keep Izak from coming through, pressing myself back while the train rocketed past. I stepped out and jumped onto the tracks behind it, watching it roll off into the tunnel ahead. Izak landed beside me and pointed again. We were almost there.
Penn Station was only a quarter mile further up, and we reached it without incident. I leaped smoothly from the tracks to the raised platform, careful not to be noticed by the people waiting for their rides. Izak pulled himself up beside me. If anyone noticed him, I doubted they cared.
“Trish said they were up in the concourse,” I said. “I’ll…” I stopped talking and focused. I could See a Divine nearby. Obi. “Wait here,” I said to Izak.
He shook his head, but the look I gave him in return settled it. I glamoured myself as a businessman and walked briskly to the other end of the platform. Obi was here, and he was in the tunnels. It wasn’t a good sign.
Once I reached the opposite end, I floated back down onto the tracks and followed my nose through the darkness. I could smell the former marine now, somewhere in the tunnels ahead. He wasn’t alone.
“How did you know?” the voice asked. It was deep and masculine.
“Yeah, sarge,” agreed another. “It’s not like we’re in a random tunnel in the New York City subway or somethin’.”
I followed the source of the voices, off the tracks and through another access tunnel, then down a secondary ladder and back into the sewer. Obi and the two patrolmen were just around the corner. Between my Divine Sight and Ulnyx’s sense of smell, I had a good idea of the scene. My heart dropped a little. He was kneeling over a dead body - a child’s body.
“Just a gut feeling,” Obi said.
Obi had been my first real ally, and despite our estrangement he was the one person I still had complete faith in. After the events at the Statue, he had decided to fight for mankind by getting back into uniform – this time as a police detective. We had gotten into a big fight about his role as one of mine, his pledge to help me keep the balance, and my need to take both sides. He wanted to help people, do good for them, balance be damned. I had been angry, still reeling from Rebecca and Josette, and had said a lot of things I shouldn’t have.
We continued to collide on occasion, when he would find his way into my world in pursuit of a vampire or other lesser demon. I had helped him out a couple of times, and he had returned the favor, but it was purely professional. I had dropped my anger a long time ago when the rest of my feelings had faded. This one was going to be professional too.
“Do me a favor guys,” Obi said. “Head up to the concourse and radio in, get the coroner down here. Also, get Yenys on the line and have her team come work the forensics.”
“Yes sir,” one of them replied. I ducked into darkness when their flashlight beams turned, then watched them exit out of the tunnel.
“Landon,” Obi said. “What brings you down here?”
I stepped out of the shadows and around the corner. My eyes fell right onto the body. It was Kelsie. I felt the anger start to build, then fade. I looked up at Obi.
He was a plainclothes detective, so he was wearing a pair of navy slacks and a navy blazer over a simple white button down. His pumped up form was trying to press its way out of the suit, and he looked younger than the last time I had seen him. He turned his flashlight, bathing me in the glow.
“You knew her?” he asked.
I nodded. “Kelsie Peterson,” I said. “She lives… used to live with Sarah. She asked me to come and find her.”
He looked back down at the body. “Well,” he said sadly. “You found her.”
“This wasn’t my fault,” I said. I knew what he was getting at. “Nobody could have known that I know her.”
“She’s been drained, man,” he said. He reached down and turned her head so I could see the bite mark. “Vampire.”
“That doesn’t mean it had to do with me. She’s a vagrant. That makes her a prime target.”
He shrugged. “Either way, she’s dead. The question is, why would a vampire go after an Awake girl, and how did he grab her without being noticed?”
He was right. The numbers didn’t add up. “I don’t like the sound of that,” I said. “How did you know she was down here?”
“Her mother reported her missing,” he replied. “She was taken from the Penn Station concourse and nobody saw anything. Where else would I look?”
“It’s the same as the others?” I asked. The news reports I had been following wouldn’t have mentioned vampire feeding as the cause of death. According to Obi, mortals couldn’t see the bite marks, and they didn’t seem to think anything was awry with the tremendous loss of blood.
He got to his feet and walked over. “Yeah, six other girls killed by a vampire. It’s the same em-oh, different location. I’ve been keeping an eye on freenet. There’s no chatter about this at all. Usually if a vamp is going around draining kids, they’re selling the blood for a nice profit.”
“So whoever the killer is, he’s likely just your run of the mill psychotic demon.”
“Right,” Obi said. “I’ve got no leads, man. Not a single fiber to give me even the smallest clue about the perp.”
I looked down at Kelsie again. She was too young for this. “I’m on the job,” I said.
“You should have been on the job two weeks ago,” Obi muttered.
I didn’t respond to the dig. “I’ll have to go and tell her mother,” I said. “I’ll have her meet you at the morgue. We should work together on this one.”
Obi thought about it for a minute. “Alright, man,” he agreed. “You carrying a cell these days?”
I had tried not to, but it did have its uses, even for the Divine. I took it out of my coat pocket. Obi snatched it and began keying in his contact info. I was watching his fingers slide across the keys when I caught my first scent of the demons headed towards us.
“We’ve got incoming,” I said to Obi.
He handed me back the phone, and then reached down and drew the gun from his belt. He was probably the only guy on the force w
ho carried a Desert Eagle.
“I’ve got silver,” he replied.
I turned and looked down the tunnel towards the smell - nightstalkers, a lot of them. “Eighteen,” I said. “Nightstalkers.”
Obi groaned. “Eighteen?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of such a large group.”
I hadn’t either, and I didn’t like it. Nightstalkers hunted in groups, but they also kept their packs small so they could survive without attracting too much attention. Four to six was average. Eight to ten was a larger family. Eighteen was unheard of.
They sounded like a subway train, headed towards us at a full run. I could see them through the darkness as they entered our tunnel, a mass of pale flesh in ragged, stolen clothes flowing like a corroded river. A booming echo followed, and the lead demon fell forward to be stomped by the group behind it. Three more shots, and three more demons collapsed.
I took a deep breath and reached for Ulnyx’s power, weaving it into my own and feeling myself go through the change. I growled deeply and dashed forward, my powerful limbs carrying me to the nightstalkers in ten strides. I ripped into them with razor claws, scattering the group at the same time I decapitated the unlucky one who didn’t move away in time. They regrouped quickly, the whole mass of demons leaping on top of me, pulling me down. I could feel their teeth biting into my flesh, and their hands ripping at me. I heard more gunfire and felt a few of the nightstalkers fall away, but the silver wouldn’t hold them long.
“Stay back,” I shouted to Obi, my voice like gravel in the Great Were’s natural form. My body was being ravaged, but I was so accustomed to the defilement that I hardly felt it. I let the weight of the nightstalkers ground me while I changed back to my human form. I always focused more effectively without the demon’s power muddying the waters.
Betrayal (The Divine, Book Two) Page 3
