9th Circle

by Carolyn McCray; Ben Hopkin

  Trey’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Puffins…The hockey team!”

  “The semipros,” the captain chimed in. “They sold out and moved to Calgary.”

  “And the stadium has been shut down for months while they convert it for public use!” Trey crowed in triumph. “We are back!” He glanced over at Darc and then recanted. “Okay, you’re back, but still! Yes!”

  The captain gestured at the policemen milling about the crime scene. “Take two units. I’ll send as many as I can spare after you.”

  Darc moved off toward the elevator, following his partner for once. The glowing lines were back, solid, bright as they had ever been. Darc wished it made a difference. Those lines all pointed to one conclusion, one glowing symbol. One end of the pathway for the little girl and anyone else foolish enough to stand with her. The letter was clearly etched in his consciousness, its meaning obvious.

  Death.

  *

  Trey yanked the steering wheel hard to the right, leaning on his horn as he veered around the Porsche 911 in their path. He then whipped it back to the left to keep from careening into the gold minivan on their right side. This freeway was like a death trap.

  “Anybody hearing this siren? Maybe we should carry RPGs instead.” Trey swiveled his head to glance at his partner. “We’re going to find her, Darc.”

  “Of that, I have no doubt.”

  “Alive, Darc,” Trey reassured. “Alive.”

  Yeah, that was about the size of things right about now. Darc was always a bit of a Debbie Downer, but this felt…different. More fatalistic.

  Darc hadn’t really said much since he came out of his trance-coma. He was back, but he wasn’t really back. There was something fragile in his partner that Trey had never experienced before. Like Darc was made of thin glass or rusted-out metal.

  Trey had seen Darc shut down before, but it was always in service of something larger. He went all vegetable, sure, but he came out with a stronger sense of purpose. He came out with answers. And he normally came out on his own.

  This time had been something new.

  Never before had Trey stressed out about his partner’s mental health. Physical safety? Sure. Social grace? Absolutely? But cognitive ability? Not a chance.

  Trey racked his brain, looking for something, anything, to say to his partner to get him out of his funk. Something to jump-start Darc’s confidence like he’d jump-started Darc’s brain.

  But Trey came up empty, and Darc just stared straight ahead at the stadium growing larger and larger in the windshield of the Rover. Trey veered into the parking lot and screeched to a halt next to the closest entrance. Cop cars filed into place on either side of Trey’s car, uniformed policemen pouring out of hastily opened doors.

  As Darc exited the car and ran toward the door, Trey reached into the backseat and pulled out a huge pair of bolt cutters. No time to get the stadium facilities manager down here. They were just going to have to muscle their way in.

  The stadium was huge, and they had to jog a bit to get around to the main entrance. Darc might be off his game, but he was still freaking fast. Trey’s jog turned into a near sprint. The clock was ticking down, and Trey had no desire to be the one holding up the show.

  He joined Darc at the entrance a few seconds later, the jaws of the cutters opened wide to clamp down on the chain holding the double doors shut. The clanking of the steel links echoed around the concrete structure, making the sound triple in volume. It was the sound of metallic bones clattering to the ground, warning all who heard that this wasn’t somewhere they wanted to be. Trey knew he didn’t.

  Moments later, the entire group rushed through the long, dark entryway tunnel, guns drawn and leveled. As the cops fanned out, moving around the sides of the oval space, Trey called out to them.

  “Find the lights.”

  The enormous structure swallowed up the tiny policemen and their sounds and then spit them back in all sorts of distorted ways. The metal beams exposed by the jetting lines of the cops’ flashlights lurked above them, seeming to threaten death by crushing to any foolish enough to venture under them. The air smelled of cheap spilled beer and stale popcorn.

  Trey loved sports. Any kind of sports, really. In fact, he had been known to turn on ice dancing or even golf from time to time when he got really desperate. But being here, in this big, cold, dark, and empty space, was making him rethink his position on organized athletics, professional, semipro, or otherwise. This place was just downright creepy.

  Moving down the stairs toward the ice rink in the center of the stadium, Trey could hear the officers spreading out into the sports complex, seeking out the control panel for the lights that would allow them to better see what they were about to face.

  Although, come to think of it, Trey wasn’t one hundred percent positive that he wanted to see it. Based on what they’d come up against so far, that was probably the understatement of the century. If their killer had actually been here—and Darc’s deductions made that a pretty high possibility—Trey wanted to be as far away from here as he could possibly get.

  At that point, one of the cops must have located something, because a single beam from an overhead spotlight radiated down onto the ice below. And then Trey was sure that he didn’t want to see any more.

  Sticking out from the ice was a single bloody hand.

  Trey’s heart rattled around in his chest, feeling like it was trying to escape the ribs of its fleshy prison. The center of his stomach, on the other hand, had no problem racing away from its location, landing somewhere close to his feet. And then he took another, closer look.

  “The hand’s too big, Darc,” Trey gushed, sickened and relieved at the same time. “It can’t be hers. It’s not Janey.”

  Without speaking, Darc pivoted and raced off, not toward the ice, as Trey would’ve expected, but up and away from the rink. Leave it to Darc to surprise him at every turn. Trey groaned and sprinted off after him, his thighs aching after two seconds of stair climbing. Why stairs? Why always stairs?

  And then more lights burst on, flooding the rink in light. Trey caught up to Darc, and both spun around to stare down into the depths of the ice. Dozens and dozens of bodies were encased within the frozen water, their hands pushed up against the surface of their icy tomb.

  “Oh.” Trey groaned. “Damn it all to hell. Why am I shocked? Why?” He glanced at Darc to see that his partner’s eyes were darting from one figure to the next, his breathing shallow, his fists clenched. Trey stared down at the grisly sight below and had a realization. “Oh, God. Do we have to cut them out of there? I mean, I want to save Janey, but…oh, man.” He waited for Darc to declare one way or the other. Maybe there was another route for them to take.

  “We have to go down.” Darc’s declaration sucked the remaining life out of Trey.

  “Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah.” He called to the nearest group of cops. “Let’s find some axes and—”

  “No. Down.”

  “Down?”

  But Darc was already on the move. He stalked down the stairs, Trey struggling to keep up once he had realized he was supposed to follow. Sometimes he felt like some kind of freaky marionette, except that his strings didn’t go up. They went sideways and were attached firmly to Darc’s back.

  Arriving at the guardrail to the ice rink, Darc didn’t so much as blink. He turned to the right and opened up a doorway with a steep metal staircase on the other side that led to the basement. Pipes crisscrossed in the air around and above them as the echoes of their own footsteps reverberated around them. Trey glanced at Darc.

  “Okaaaaaay. Now what?”

  “Down,” his partner reiterated.

  “Dude, we are down. This is the basement. We are here. The ninth circle.” There were no more stairs that Trey could see. They had arrived. A little anticlimactic? Yes. But really? Was Trey supposed to complain about that? He would take his anticlimaxes where he could get them in this case.

  “We need to find what is at the
bottom.”

  “Wait.” This was so not cool. “What? A tenth? What tenth? You didn’t tell me about any tenth circle.”

  “It’s not a circle.”

  Okay, Darc wasn’t making any sense here. None at all. “Then what—?”

  “It’s Satan’s lair.”

  “Oh. Right.” Trey sat down abruptly, right where he was standing. “Down, then?”

  “Down.”

  “Uh-huh. Yeah. Just…give me a minute.” Trey put his head between his knees and took several deep breaths. He then poked his head up, thought better of it, put his head back down, and took several more. Darc stood above him, looking down, a hulking presence in a dark suit. “Okay. Okay. I’m good.”

  Clambering up to his feet, Trey followed Darc to a chained-up door that proclaimed Danger. Do Not Enter.

  “Yeah,” Trey muttered. “No kidding.” Darc looked intently at Trey for a long moment. Trey stared right back at him. “What? I’m not letting loose with the big one. We’re trying to stop hell on Earth here. I think God’ll forgive me a ‘shit’ or two. Shut up.” Trey ran back to the stairwell.

  “Where are you going?” Darc called after him.

  “Look. You can lead me down to hell if you really want to, but don’t get all shocked when I decide to bring backup.” Trey called out for the unis upstairs to grab the bolt cutters and join them down below. He stood facing off with Darc, who had that look on his face. The one that said that Trey was making a huge mistake.

  “We do not need them to accompany us.”

  Trey held up a finger. “Correction. You don’t need them to follow us. I, on the other hand, do. I’m not going to dance with the devil without my crew at my back.” The first of the uniformed cops clattered down the stairs, holding the bolt cutters out to Trey.

  Dragging the tool over to the door, Trey sliced through the chain, letting it fall to the floor with another loud, metallic clatter. This time, the sound was more trapped. Trey was feeling a mite bit trapped himself. He pushed the door open with his toe, the little-used hinges groaning in protest. A wash of stale air flooded the basement where Trey and Darc stood.

  Peering down into the blackness, Trey had to blink rapidly a few times to get to the point where he could see anything at all. Once his eyes adjusted, he saw an even steeper set of stairs than the ones they had just come down. Oh, and they were made of wood. And appeared ancient. And less than stable. Trey motioned for the officers to follow. If he was going down there, he sure as shootin’ wasn’t going to do it with just him and Darc. He then spoke out of the side of his mouth as he and Darc stepped down onto the first step, the wood screaming its protest beneath their weight.

  “Is this part of the Underground even mapped out?”

  Darc shook his head.

  “But you do have some kind of schematic in your head, right?”

  Darc shook his head.

  “Some vague sense of what we are going to find down there?”

  Another shake.

  “Yeah, okay.” Trey pulled out his cell phone and pressed the speed dial for Maggie. One bar of reception. She picked up on the first ring.

  “Hey, Trey. What’s up?”

  “Yeah. Babe. I just…I love you. I wanted you to…you know, just in case—” The line went dead. No bars. Trey flipped the phone shut and slipped it back into his pocket. “Well, that doesn’t bode well.”

  Darc’s eyes glittered in the near dark as he peered at Trey, his eyes partially lidded. His eyes were knowing. Like the floating eyes of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. Man, that was a creepy story. Kids’ book, nothing. Trey spoke over the creaking of the stairs.

  “You should’ve told Mala you thought she was hot.”

  Darc continued down the stairs, silent but for the trodding of his feet and the complaining of the wooden structure. Just when Trey thought there would be no response from his taciturn partner, Darc spoke without turning his head.

  “What makes you think that I did not?”

  Yeah, Trey was surprised. Shocked, even. But knowing that Darc had told Mala about his feelings somehow made the darkness around them just a tiny bit brighter.

  *

  The darkness coalesced around him, covering him, caressing him. He knew he did not deserve to be comforted. Thankfully, the darkness never tried.

  It called to him. It sang to him. It seduced him. But comfort? Never.

  This was the perfect place. The culmination of all his efforts. All roads, light and dark, had led him to this crossroads.

  Time to put the Plan in motion.

  The pawns had been set and were arranged in the most strategic of configurations, readied for their sacrifices. The rook had been neutralized, the queen disposed of. And the knight was on his way. Such a clever knight. Such a delightful challenge. And he took delight in so little these days.

  Darkness. Silence. But for the breathing…

  Darkness.

  It would not do, would it, for the Lord of Heaven to gaze upon his Plan? To see the culmination of his war with God. No, not war. Not that.

  It was only necessity that had driven him here. Only what was necessary. Surely that was clear?

  He pulled the strap down more tightly, securing the form of the tiny girl to the altar.

  God approved of sacrifices.

  Didn’t He?

  CHAPTER 16

  Darc took the last step down into Seattle’s Underground. The beams of Trey’s and his flashlights lanced through the absolute darkness, picking up the dancing motes of dust stirred by their arrival. The floating specks gave a feeling of near solidity to the rays of light, making their intrusion into the black almost a violation. If they were to turn those lights off, they would be unable to view their uplifted digits centimeters from their faces.

  This wasn’t the Underground that tourists saw, with much more light and somewhat Disney-fied. This was far away from that other part of Seattle, in terms of both physical location as well as the atmosphere it contained within its tunnels.

  This was the Underground where even the rodents didn’t dare to tread. It was a barren wasteland. A fossilized relic from an earlier time. There was no life here. This was the place where hope came to die and be buried, never again to see the light of day.

  There were no skylights to dot the concrete ceilings, giving its denizens moments of relief from the all-encompassing darkness here below. There were no beautification projects. No regular patrolling by Seattle’s finest. Here, chaos and decay ruled.

  The foundations of the streets above them pressed down, their weight and presence a physical club that was continually held over their heads. At times, noise from above would creep down below, the sound waves sliding their way through sewage drains or manholes and then bouncing around from hard surface to hard surface, only to wind up here, where they eventually died. Like everything else here.

  A smell of earth and stagnancy invaded Darc’s nostrils. The feel of the air was cool and damp and smelled of death. It caressed his face, entering into his clothing, sapping his body’s natural warmth.

  The buildings on either side of them slipped away from their rays of light as if they were ashamed, seeking only to sink farther back into the depths of the dark and their own obscurity. They crouched on the other side of the beams of light, animals waiting only for an opening in which to attack the intruders who had dared bring illumination to this darkest of all pits.

  Now the questions remained. Where to go next? What to do?

  Darc looked inward to the tracks of light and logic and still encountered mostly anarchy. There had been enough clues to lead them here, but there was no indication of where they should move next. Darc was running blind in a place where running blind could easily be the death of him, his partner, and every uniformed officer who had followed them down into their likely tomb.

  The presence of the seven policemen behind him was like the weight of seven separate anvils pressing on different parts of his mind. Risking lives was not new
to Darc. There had been many times when he had knowingly led men into danger. But in each of those circumstances, Darc had been able to process with pinpoint accuracy the likelihood of injury and death. Then it was a simple matter of weighing the outcomes in the balance.

  Here, there was only a blank nothingness where the percentages should be. It was theoretically possible that every man here would make it out alive and in perfect health. But Darc knew better, even without the glowing certainty of numbers and logic. None of them would make it out unscathed. At this point, with what he knew of the killer, Darc was not sure that any of them would make it out alive.

  And yet here he was, leading a group of fellow law enforcement professionals straight into what he knew might be a death trap. A good portion of that was due to the escalation factor of the killer’s operations. They had followed a geometric pattern, not an arithmetic one. The deaths were growing exponentially. The killer had to be stopped. That was true.

  But there was another part of Darc that he was only now beginning to discover. The deaths had always been numbers, nothing more, nothing less. If the potential loss of life in the rescue operation were more than the expected number of deaths caused by the killer, Darc would have argued against the operation. At least, that would have been the case a couple of weeks ago.

  Now, he was not so confident in that hard-numbers assessment. It would make no logical sense to risk an entire group of police officers to save the life of one little girl. But Darc was no longer sure of what his answer would be if it came down to just that. In fact, that might be exactly what he was doing right at this very moment.

  Trey broke the near silence by kicking a loose pebble at the nearest building, an old barbershop, from the looks of the white-and-red pole out front. The stone pinged off of the only intact glass window, leaving a mark but not actually shattering the pane. He huffed out his apparent frustration.

  “Who builds a freaking city on top of another one?”

  Darc suspected this might be one of the questions Trey referred to as “rhetorical,” but he could not be completely sure. More often than not, he got it wrong. What Trey thought of as his reticence to answer questions was an assumption that Trey already knew the answer and was attempting humor. Darc did not understand most of Trey’s attempts at humor. Better to play this one safe and answer the question.