by Stacia Kane
Wasting time. Back to work.
It was just a closet, as she’d feared. A mop and bucket—she couldn’t imagine why they were there, unless it was simply that closets of this nature grew cleaning implements like fungus. Some wires. A fuse box—oh, fuck yeah.
She jimmied it open with her thinnest pick. How much time had passed now? Three minutes? All of the fuses were lit, they gave no indication of whether or not the elements they controlled were in use, and the elevator shaft was tall enough that she wouldn’t hear the car itself until it got closer. No labels decorated the shiny black metal of the box, either. There was nothing to do but to flip them all, one by one, and if flipping one of them gave her no result at all, she could assume it powered the elevator and leave it off.
Unless one powered more than just the elevator. Shit! All right, she’d leave them all off then, and get out of here as quickly as possible. Assuming she could. If that other door didn’t lead to a tunnel, but instead held another mop and bucket, she’d be down here all night, alone. In the dark.
Still probably better than whatever her pursuer had in mind. And with any luck, he’d spend the night trapped in the elevator, suspended three or four hundred feet below the surface of the earth.
She gave it another minute to be sure. If nothing else, freezing the elevator would stop him—the fuse box in the Church building was unreachable without several keys and a ladder—but if she could trap him he’d be caught in the morning, which would be nice. A Church member, involved with a secret magical organization. A secret anti-Church magical organization, one who’d been trying to overthrow the Church practically since it had come into existence. Was it wrong that for a moment she was glad the penalty was death?
Did she care if it was wrong or not?
The fuse switches were stiff, stiff and cold against her palm. Her right hand burned as she shoved with all her might against the switches. Fire shot up her arm as the first row finally gave. She’d torn the wound back open.
The lights on the platform still burned dully. Chess stared across the cement for a few seconds, trying to estimate the distance between the doorway of the closet and the ditch where the tracks were, and shoved against the other switches.
The platform disappeared. The closet disappeared. No light came from the train, from the silent fluorescents, from anywhere. She was seven hundred feet underground, in the darkness.
Cursing herself for not having grabbed her matches before she cut the lights, she dug them out of her bag. While she was at it, she cursed herself for not buying a fucking lighter. One like Terrible’s, with an eight-inch inferno exploding from the wick.
Shuffling her feet, she left the closet and made her way onto the platform to light the first match. The glow, almost lost in the blackness of the cavern around her, showed she was still a good fifteen feet from the edge of the ditch. She walked as quickly as she dared across to it, and sat on the cold rim just as the match burned down to her fingers.
She had five matches left. Five matches, and who knew how many miles of long dark tunnel ahead of her. This sucked.
The train loomed dark and silent beside her. She couldn’t see it but she knew it was there, could feel its presence the way she would have been able to feel a ghost had one shown up. So far none had. She didn’t know how much longer she would be able to say that.
With the power to the train out she should be able to walk straight across the tracks without worrying about the electric rail, but taking chances didn’t exactly appeal. So, using her left hand, she fumbled around until she found her electric meter, then fed the wire across the ditch—at least she hoped it was across the ditch. No reading. Still…
Holding her pen like a wand, she slung the bag onto her back and bent over. The pen didn’t make a great cane, but it worked. She pushed herself off the ledge and dropped into the ditch on both feet. The gritty thump of her landing echoed through the platform.
Wave the pen, take a step. Wave the pen, take a step. A trickle of sweat ran down her cheek despite the cold. Anything could be behind her, icy hands reaching out to close around her neck, to shove her down…
She jerked upright, her neck craning despite the fact she could see nothing. Her breath left her chest in a whoosh.
“Okay, Chess, you need to get it together,” she said aloud, then regretted it when her voice danced in the stillness around her and made it seem even darker, lonelier. Hostile.
Stop being such a wimp! She forced herself to bend back over, to wave the pen and take another step, and to ignore the prickling on the back of her neck. It was behind her again, she knew it was—
The pen clicked against the metal of the first rail. Good. She stepped carefully over it and continued. Maybe the thing waited at the other side, waited for her to blunder into it like a bee into a spiderweb. Then its cold, spindly arms would close around her, crushing the life from her body…
Damn it! She would be down here all night if she didn’t grow a pair of fucking balls and get to that door on the other side. Why was she such a wimp, why couldn’t she—
Terrible thought she was brave. She remembered it now, heard his voice in her head as if he stood next to her. “They scared. Not you, though.” Terrible thought she was brave, and if he—a man whose name was Terrible, a man whose path people scrambled to get out of—thought so, it must be true. She could do this, she would do this.
Inch by inch she shuffled across the ditch, waving the pen in front of her. Two rails, then three, then she was dragging herself out of the ditch and trotting toward the wall with her hands out in front of her, feeling her way until she found the metal door, sliding her fingertips over the smooth painted surface until she found the lock, then pulling her picks out of her pocket.
She’d never picked a lock in total darkness before, but she’d never picked one in total silence before either. Every click made by steel against steel amplified itself, helping her visualize the tumbler. Got it, got it…shit. The pick slid, dropping the latch.
And something whispered in the tunnel.
Ghosts weren’t supposed to be able to leave the City and head up here; the doors were made of iron, and should have been locked tight. Apparently this one had snuck out before they were shut, or it had never entered the City to begin with.
A third possibility, that her pursuer had been down here, messing with the doors—that more of them might still be down here—occurred to her, and she shoved it from her mind as quickly as she could. Ghosts were bad enough. If she started thinking about ghosts and Lamaru hanging around, hiding in the darkness, she’d never move. The hair on the back of her neck prickled and tingled and she felt goose bumps raise on her arms.
Deep breath. Try again. Slide the pick in, ignore the whisper getting louder. That thing is going to follow you into the tunnel, a human murderer might follow you into the tunnel, if this door even does reach into the tunnel. Don’t think about that. Just get the lock, and you’ll figure out what to do next. Get it, get it—the whispers getting closer, a cold breeze on her back that couldn’t possibly have come from anywhere—got it!
She flung the door open and hurled herself through it, slamming it behind her. This was not a closet, she could hear the faint trickle of water and feel the space around her just as she’d felt that ghost just a moment ago. Nothing else to do but run. So she did.
For as long as she could she kept running, her feet splashing along the floor, trailing her fingertips along the rough pitted walls on either side of her so she could feel when there was a turn, and she made the turns by pure instinct. Left, then right, then left twice, trying to move herself in the direction of Downside and Lex. The tunnels he used had been lit. If she could find a lit space, she wouldn’t need to use another precious match.
This was starting to not look like the best plan after all. Her heart felt like it was going to explode, she wanted her pills, she was thirsty and cold, and she just wanted to go home. At least to take a shower and change the clothes she felt like
she’d been wearing forever. She could prop a chair in front of the door and take her knife with her.
The smell hit her before she even realized it. There had been no advance warning, no faint odor growing stronger. It was as though she’d passed through some sort of membrane and into a room filled with dead, rotting things. Her feet slid, almost going out from under her, and she braced herself against the wall and reached for a match, fighting to keep her empty stomach from turning in on itself.
It was a losing battle. In the weak illumination from the match—light that nonetheless hurt her eyes after spending so long in the utter darkness—she saw bodies, rotting, molding, half-eaten by rats and other small beasts. Sightless eyes stared at the ceiling. Empty sockets mocked her. Open mouths tried to tell the story of lives long since ended, stories told anyway by the bullet holes and slashed throats. Bits of scabrous flesh dangled from bloody bones. Chess threw up, angry at herself for doing so, knowing she would have to light another match to get out of this and angry about that, too.
When the world stopped spinning she straightened up, taking shallow breaths, and lit the next match. Three left after this. The tunnel of bodies went on for another ten or fifteen feet, ending in a door. Dead end. So to speak.
Unless she could pick that lock as well. She checked her compass. If she was right about the way she’d been going, she wasn’t far from Downside. If she could just get out, she could walk or get a cab. Walking might not be safe, but at this point she didn’t care.
Her feet slipped and squished in the deliquescent foulness covering the floor but she ignored it. There was a lock, slightly more complex than the others but still pickable. The match went out as she worked but she’d had enough. No more turning around, no more panic attacks. She didn’t give a shit anymore.
Light dazzled her eyes as she swept through the door, but something caught her eye before she could close it. A wallet. Resting on a corpse’s chest.
She shouldn’t touch it, shouldn’t even think about it. But these dead men were people once, people with names. She used the picks to flip it open.
No ID. No credit cards, no cash. Apparently someone had taken them all, left nothing but—she slid a pick inside—nothing but a few scraps of paper, receipts, and…ooh.
A wrinkled bit of plastic caught on the end of the pick and poked from the mouth of the wallet, inviting her to pick it up and take a look.
The Baggie was dusty and limp in her fingers. It looked like it had been there for several years, and she knew it had when she saw the dull purple color of the pills inside. Valtruin. Almost impossible to get. They’d been outlawed a couple of years ago—not even for pharmaceutical use anymore. Even Bump couldn’t get them. She doubted Lex could get them.
And here were two of them. She dropped the wallet.
“Sorry, guys,” she muttered, tucking the Baggie into her pocket and slipping through the doorway. “I guess you won’t be needing them anyway, right?”
She’d made it. For a long moment she just stood, breathing in air tinged with mold, ammonia, and damp but still unbelievably sweet after the chamber of horrors she’d just left.
So these would be Lex’s tunnels, then. She wouldn’t know how to find her way to a specific spot but there were doors to the street dotted along every so often. She could find one.
Holding the compass in front of her like an oracle, she started walking. Another left turn. A right. Someone breathing.
This time it was simply that junkie she’d met before—what was his name? Big Shog? Yes, Big Shog. He crouched against the wall, his attention so focused on fixing he didn’t notice her until she was almost on top of him.
“How do I get out of here?” she asked. Her voice sounded odd. “Where’s the door?”
“Aono.” He tugged the rubber catheter on his arm, dropped the needle. “Ainnoin, goddet? Ainno nothn.”
“No, seriously, just tell me, how do I…”
He was asleep, his mouth hanging open to show off a row of fuzzy, broken teeth. But he’d gotten in. Last time she’d seen him they’d been not far from a door. There had to be one nearby.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” she said, without really knowing why, and left him there in search of a way out. If she could retrace his steps, she should be able to find it, but which way had he come?
“Ai! T’other way, t’other…”
Big Shog was already passing out again, but before his hand fell to his side she saw the way he was pointing. Great. Chess fished a five-dollar bill out of her bag and tucked it into his pocket. “Thanks.”
The door was only a few minutes down the tunnel, tucked at the top of a short flight of stairs, and she walked through it with the air of someone about to start a new life. She’d survived. The moon was full overhead—it must be at least eleven o’clock—but she’d made it out of the library, out of the church, out of the tunnels, and here she was, on a dingy street in an unfamiliar part of town that smelled of smoke and filth. Sometimes things worked out, after all.
Chapter Twenty-three
“All Church employees are expected to comport themselves in a manner befitting their stations at all times. You represent everything that is right and holy in the world. You must never forget it.”
—The Example Is You, the guidebook for Church employees
After two Cepts, a hot shower, and one purple Valtruin, it was as though the entire day had never happened. Chess strolled into Trickster’s Bar just before one with her face set in a permasmile and her body feeling as though it existed on another planet where nothing bad ever happened. Not like this world. Not like the stuff she had to tell Terrible about before she could head off to Lex’s place for the night. Lex…Lex and that slice of bare skin she’d seen, Lex and that kiss…Him she didn’t trust, not at all. Not that it mattered; trust and sex had nothing to do with each other, at least not for her.
She had to tell Terrible what happened first, though. Because they needed to set up a time and place where she could perform the ritual to set free Slipknot’s soul. Because she was supposed to keep reporting in, and Bump was nowhere to be found. But mostly…mostly because she owed him the knowledge, as fast as she could get it to him. He’d involved himself when he didn’t have to, he’d touched the book for her, and he deserved to know exactly what they were dealing with. And who might be coming after him.
It took a moment for her wildly dilated eyes to adjust to the light, and another minute to find him. The interior of Trickster’s was like a dive bar in a hell dimension, scented with smoke and stale beer and lit with blue lights and red gels so everything white glowed fluorescent red.
Terrible stood in the back, talking to some men whose faces she couldn’t identify but who looked vaguely familiar. From the tattoo parlor, perhaps, or just guys she’d seen around. Downside was a small, small world. Chances were the person you robbed on Tuesday would be dating your neighbor on Thursday.
She floated across the room to him, aware from about halfway that he was watching her.
“Hey, Chess. You right?”
“Right up. Can we talk somewhere?”
He gave her a slow nod. She followed him back into the hall where the bathrooms were. The music was quieter here, by just enough that they didn’t have to shout, but the hall was narrow, forcing her to stand a little closer to him than she’d intended, close enough to smell soap and beer.
“So I found out about him,” she said. “About…the name, on the amulet. What he’s doing here. I mean, I found out what he does, I don’t know what he’s doing here, why they wanted him specifically.” She felt she was babbling suddenly and stopped short. Was he looking at her oddly?
“Aye.”
“He’s a Dreamthief. That’s how he gets people—he sneaks into their heads while they sleep and feeds on the energy of their dreams. He’s like a demon, but not a demon, just a very nasty spirit with a lot of extra power. Like a huge entity made of junk from other ghosts.”
“Thought demons wasn’
t real.”
“They’re not, it was just the only thing I could come up with. He’s powerful like they were supposed to be, is what I meant.”
“He that powerful to start? Or causin he feeds up on a lot of sleepers?”
She thought about it for a minute, which was harder than it should have been. “Probably a bit of both. The book didn’t really say exactly how he came into being, or when, but…Sometimes spirits disintegrate, or meld—sometimes one part of them feeds on the rest, absorbs it, and then combines with other bits from other souls. So he was already pretty jacked up. What he gets from humans only adds to it.”
This still didn’t explain why he hadn’t killed her when he had the chance. Some ghosts needed to work hard to be able to kill people or do damage, but he should have been strong enough right from the beginning, especially with the power of Slipknot’s soul keeping him earth-bound.
“Why somebody wanna call a thing like that?”
Oh yeah. He didn’t know what had happened to her at the Church. “Not just somebody. The Lamaru.”
His eyebrows raised. Right. Why would he know?
“They’re a…they’re an illegal coven. Not one we want to get involved with. You remember a couple of years ago, when they found that—that kid, on Belden Hill?”
Terrible nodded, his eyes darkening. Not a surprise, that. Almost three years on nobody liked to think of what that child’s last hours must have been like.
“That was the Lamaru. We’re still not sure what they were doing, it looked like they were trying to force his soul into slavery or something, but the point is, they’re involved in this, and they’re not people anyone wants to mess with. They summoned the thief. And they have an ally in the Church, somebody I work with. They tried to attack me tonight at the Church library.”
Quickly she sketched out the story for him, eliminating her terror in the dark and making it sound as though she’d heard about the tunnels from one of the Elders. She was inordinately proud of herself for remembering to do so, especially as looking back at what happened only a couple of hours before felt like trying to remember a story she’d been told once in childhood. “Only an employee could have gotten in.”
