by Kevin Wright
“Yeah.” Sid looked back down the tunnel. Shouts and feet stomping echoed. “And we gotta hurry.”
“What if it’s clogged?”
“We spend eternity together in,” Sid reached out and covered Cricket’s ears, “shit.”
“Sure you don’t want to make the cab run?”
“No, after you.”
“No thanks, I went first last time.”
“You forgetting about the door? You first.”
“Like hell.” Sid let go of Cricket’s ears; she patted his head and giggled.
Peter clenched a fist and shook it in the air a second before admitting defeat. “Thanks, Cricket, now run along.” Peter thrust his arms into the pipe and hauling himself into it.
The thin trickle of water immediately soaked his chest and pants as his hands fumbled in the muck, trying to gain purchase. “OW!” He banged his head and immediately did it again.
“You okay, Pete?”
“No.”
“Gimme a boost, will you, Crick?”
“Make sure she locks it behind us.”
“Yeah, top of my priority list.”
Dooooooooooom!
The pipe-lock slammed shut behind, echoing long in the stifling black, total darkness enveloping them. Concrete invaded from all sides, pressing in. Only the rush of water around the pipe and pounding of blood in his ears kept him company. And Sid.
“This sucks,” said Sid.
Chapter 42.
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE feet the red brick smokestack thrust up from the city floor, its gaping mouth wide enough to swallow a car. Years ago it had been capped off, its foul spume now but a trickle, a residue, an insult to the glories of old. Depressed three feet deep within its maw, the two-foot thick steel cap offered a unique view to any who wished to climb the four hundred thirty-two stairs spiraling inside the soot-covered throat, a long dark climb.
The stairs were a relatively recent addition, their builders now all dead, certainly of unnatural causes. From this cancerous acropolis, one could gaze down upon the dark city and find it beautiful.
The five women perched like falcons upon the smokestack one would certainly find beautiful. Upon the edge one sat; the rest in a circle stood, backs to the abyss, their adorned furs pulled tightly around their hourglass forms. The furs were warm, though the women donned them not for their insulative properties. They donned them for pleasure. The pleasure inherent in being enwrapped within the husk of another. The scent of death still was upon them, despite their age. The scent of death, a perfume that never wanes, to those who have learned its subtleties. And these five women had learned, recognized, reveled in its subtleties. They traded them amongst each other according to their tastes. Soft mink fur for rabbit. Rabbit for spotted hyena hide. Hyena hide for grizzly bear. Grizzly bear for scalps.
In the chill night air the women spoke, no mist emanating from their lips, their flesh as cold as the earth that spawned them.
“You cooed like a dove for him, didn’t you, Puss?” Lil said, her cheek luxuriating against the rich fur of the grizzly bear. She opened her eyes and smiled. “You sang your siren’s song, didn’t you? Your southern whore impression. ‘I do declare.’ I know you did. How does it go, Puss? Did you tempt him? Did he like it? Did you touch him? Again? How did that feel? Mmmmmmmmm, it’s been so long.” She gazed up at the stars.
Pussywillow edged back, drawing her rabbit fur around her as though it might protect her. It hadn’t protected its owner. “I didn’t touch him.”
“Did you want to?” her three sisters droned in unison, hyenas, all, waiting on the matriarch to sanction a kill. To share the scraps. Their black eyes watched, twitching, waiting, wanting.
Pussywillow met their gazes. “Wipe your drool.” Hers softened as she looked to Lil who rose like a queen from her throne. “Yes, I wanted to touch him. I couldn’t help myself. I’d have done anything to get him. For you, Lil. Anything for you. You know that. You do. Don’t you?”
Lil slipped forward, placing her open hand over the spot on Pussywillow’s bruised face, where the gun had her struck nights before. For an instant, Lil’s soft fingertips hovered over Pussywillow’s pale flesh, and then they dropped. “You failed me.” Lil’s voice was all sweetness and dark, rotten, cavities.
“I failed. I failed because Bob interrupted.” Pussywillow paced like a spooked wildebeest. “I told you he must be dealt with. Because I—”
“What did he feel like?” Lil sidled close, her eyes peering deep, fangs sharp. Her tongue played against the back of her teeth. “Was he … strong? What did he say to you, Puss? Did he say he wanted you? More than he wanted me? Did you like it? Did you want … more?”
“I did not — I wouldn’t have—“
“Of course you did,” Lil said.
Pussywillow’s eyes quivered.
“You know I hate it when you lie, Puss,” Lil said. “It demeans me. Remember the last time? Hmmmm? I know you do.” Lil nodded slowly. “And I also know you’ll never, ever forget. Your screams are etched in sigils within the honeycombed bedrock upon which this city stands. They echo through the dank caverns and dark wyrm’s halls still, crying for mercy. For forgiveness, for pity, and for death. A reminder. Always a reminder. They have failed, have they not?”
Pussywillow recoiled.
“He spoke to you, Puss.” Lil grasped Pussywillow by her rabbit fur. “I want to know what he said. He tried to seduce you. I know he did. That’s what he does. And, I also know that you believed you were seducing him. You believed it then. And you believe it now.” Lil’s pupils were slits. “You are mine, Puss. Not his. You will never be his. And even if you were his, still you would be mine.” Lil released her clutch on Pussywillow’s fur and drove her away firmly, slowly.
Lil turned to the edge, looking out.
“How close is he, Puss?” asked Lil. “Come now, you must know. A fool could tell. How many souls has he taken? Did he brag? Did he boast? Did he offer you a taste?” Lil turned her head and affixed Pussywillow with a predatory glare.
Pussywillow stepped forward. “He is close, so very, very close,” she whispered. “It is the boy. Peter. He holds him back. From breaking free. From…”
“The boy,” said the three sisters.
“The boy,” echoed Lil.
“Refuses to kill,” Pussywillow said. “He refuses to die. He refuses to surface. If he is not changed now, he will, tonight, soon. By the wax of the full moon.”
“He will kill, then,” said Lil, spite in her voice. “He’ll have no choice.”
“He will surface,” said Pussywillow.
“We will take him,” Lil said.
“He will come,” said Pussywillow.
“He will come.” Lil nodded.
“The father,” Pussywillow said.
“The father.” Lil licked her teeth. “He must be presentable. Come,” she said to the three sisters, as she stepped down through the hatch. A few steps down she paused and glanced up. “No, Puss. Remain here. Hand me the fur. Watch the moon rise, alone, tonight, and remember. It is a prelude of things to come.”
The three sisters filed past Lilith in the dark of the looming smokestack as she pulled the steel hatch closed and slammed the huge bolt home, locking it.
* * * *
Another crossroads.
“Which way?” Peter looked left then right. Both tunnels were identical concrete pipes. The thick layer of scum floating on top of the sewer water seemed to be flowing to the left, though.
“Which way’s down?” Sid leaned against the concave wall, breathing hard.
“Left,” Peter gulped. A low growl rumbled in the dark.
“What the hell’s that?” asked Sid, shrinking, or trying to at least. “Your stomach?”
“NNnnnng … yeah.” Peter clutched his midsection. The pain was razor blades and glass shards stuffed in his entrails, twisting, stretching and contracting, begging for blood, for sustenance.
Peter opened his eyes, looked a
t Sid. So easy, it would be so easy to dissolve the pain, calm the fever, the hunger. He turned away and closed his eyes. He could hear Sid’s pounding heart, could smell it, thick pounding muscle fiber, wet and slick. He took another breath, fighting the pain, the need. It’d be so easy…
“Then we go left.” Sid pulled himself up.
“Sid, maybe you should—” Peter looked up at the dark concrete sky. The sun had set hours ago. Peter had felt it falling still beyond the horizon, some innate sense. With every inch it had fallen, Peter had grown stronger, gradually, sharper, and so had the pain, the hunger. When it had sunk finally beneath the horizon, and Peter had known the exact moment it had, his hunger had intensified. Intensified like a funeral pyre doused with inebriated Vikings. It was stronger now, almost complete, a separate entity within him, growing, angry, spiteful, envious. “Yeah, Sid, left. We go left.”
Through the wending tunnels of the sewers and catacombs, the two wandered, hiding sometimes from voices, sounds, leeches, and other things of the twilight and of the deep earth.
In circles, they traveled, through lairs, around gatherings, past now familiar landmarks, sigils, crossroads, and dead ends, skirting murder holes, and burrows of dirt and stone. And with each step, in the slick black of the subterranean world, Peter’s hunger grew. Thick water coursed over their ankles.
“Sit down, Sid.” Peter stopped. His stomach growled. He glanced down the tunnel either way. “It’s clear for now. Rest. Take a break. We’ve been walking for hours.”
Sid fell against the bedrock wall and glanced at his watch. “Three.”
“Six in midget-time,” Peter clutched his stomach and doubled over. “Uhhhhg…”
“Yeah,” said Sid, his nod but a twitch, too tired even for a “Screw you.”
Peter put a hand to the wall. In the distance, the trickle of water mingled with the echo of voices, far away. Sid looked up.
“They’re far, Sid. Noise travels far down here. This is safe, safe as any spot. No one’ll find us here, and if they do.” He clutched the gun.
“I’m okay, really,” Sid said. “We … we need to keep going. There’s not much time.” Taking a wobbling step, he tripped and he fell headlong into the sewer-muck. He raised his head and spat. “Maybe just a second or two. Would be nice…”
Peter knelt beside him. “Look. We’re lost.”
“No shit?” Sid scooped sludge from his eye. “Thought we were doing laps … for exercise.”
“Yeah, well, you’d better head back.”
“Back? Back where?” asked Sid. “I don’t have a fucking clue where we are.”
“Up, Sid.” Peter pointed with his thumb. “Just start heading up. You’ll find your way.”
“I can barely see down here as it is, Pete,” Sid said. “Without you, I … I got no eyes.”
“Jesus, Sid, then crawl, or walk with one arm on the wall, use your watch-light, or something, anything, but go,” Peter said. “Uurg.” Clutching his stomach, he slid down into the sewer sludge next to Sid. “I’m going to keep heading down. Rrrrg … you need to turn around, Sid. Need to start heading up.”
“No, I’ll be okay,” Sid said. “I’m good, really. I’m just covered in shit.”
“Sid, you won’t be okay. Go back.” Peter closed his eyes, shivering, drooling. “Please.”
“Pete.”
“Sid! I don’t know where I’m going, except that it’s down.” Peter grasped him. “I … I can hear hearts beating, Sid. Yours, mine, and others, a lot of others. And I’m going to follow them. Down. I don’t have much time. Rrrrg, you don’t have much time. Okay? Trust me. Please, just trust me, Sid. You need to get away from me. You need to run. To go. Now. If I had a map, if I knew where we are, but I don’t. So just go, Sid. Please, just go.”
“Pete, I—”
“Just, rrrrrg. God-damn! If you won’t…” Peter shook now, sweating, groaning. His teeth were long; the veins and tendons on his neck stood out, and in the darkness, his eyes melted black. He turned to Sid.
Then, in the distance, the echo of gunfire rolled past.
* * * *
For an instant, Detective Winters glanced up the spiral staircase he had just descended. A thin rickety splice of wrought-iron DNA, its top twisting away far into the misted shadows above. Nothing but the drip, drip, drizzle of scummy sewer water splashing on bedrock reached his ears, but he could tell that somewhere, nearby, chaos was afoot.
A stench wafted by, assaulting his nose, a fetid, rotten stench, unmistakable even within the dregs of the Colton Falls sewer system. He took a deep breath, sifting, searching for Brudnoy’s scent, hidden, twisting in the fume of waste, a single thread blowing long in the breeze. He found it, grasped it, followed it, knowing what he would find at the end.
Along the rune-marked rock walls, he strode through darkness.
Whimpers in the dark, mad, animal screams…
Steel rattled ahead, Brudnoy, the stench…
It was not far.
Before, in other towns, in other lands, in other times, he had followed it. Always it was the same. It was no surprise to him, no shock. Few things were capable of shocking him now. That part of him was dead, murdered through repetition, long ago.
He rounded a corner, guns out once more. He glanced up.
Perhaps the first time he had walked into such a place he was shocked, appalled even. Now, though, it was toast and jam, cream and sugar, newspaper and coffee. He gave a silent prayer of thanks to the Chief for firing him. Stretched out before him, along both sides of the hallway, was one shit-load of paperwork.
Cages lined both walls, three levels high, tapering in as they rose. The hallway was close, not more than five feet at the floor, less up high. Most were closed, locked, occupied. Arms hung, long and short, smooth and hairy, from inside the cages, like some forest of willow branches and brambles, bending gracefully down and splaying out upon the shorn rock ground. The forest of flesh and bone stretched on, lit dimly from above by lights lost in a green misted fissure above. How far it stretched on, Detective Winters could not tell, for the arms blocked his view. It stretched far, though; he was sure.
Detective Winters stepped over an arm.
They were men, of course. Men no one would miss: transients, homeless, rail-riders, junkies, broken men. Men whose futures, for once in their lives, were certain. Perhaps some even were men who would be missed, but it did not matter. None would see light of day again.
Down the length of the hall, he stalked, glancing into cage after cage, ducking past flaccid arms and long yellow nails. Coughs and sputters, moans and sighs filtered through the murk. Drool coursed down bars and stone. Addled mumbles of, “Help,” begged, sobbed, cursed.
He did not stop.
Brudnoy’s scent was stronger now. He had passed here, recently, with others. Leeches. His scent was close. He was here. Somewhere. Detective Winters crept on then stopped.
“Marduk’s balls,” he cursed beneath his breath as the scent and sound of leeches filtered from ahead. High-bloods … perfume and mildewed finery, Parisian, hidden in the distance and tangle of hanging human flesh.
There were many.
The men were theirs.
They were coming.
Detective Winters pivoted and slid back the way he had come. He froze, pistols in hand, suddenly as dead flesh slapped on metal. Many footsteps … the spiral staircase. “Junky-sucks,” he muttered, sniffing the coarse air.
They had found him, tracked him down from the sewers. Even from afar, filtered through the boil and rot of human waste and misery, their reek, the scent of their victims putrefying on their lips and tongues, of heroin, crack, alcohol, the ammonia stench of old piss, it was strong, suffocating. Into his lungs it reached, as he inhaled, squeezing, staining, soiling. But it gave them away.
They were in the hall now.
Again, Detective Winters spun and started back down his original route, his step quick now, body low, his arms loose and relaxed, guns ready. There
was no escape. Down the hall, hidden in the dim light and distance, somewhere, the high-bloods, snobs of the demon world, approached.
“Hello, detective,” whispered the junky sucks behind.
“Come for a visit, detective?”
“Come for pie?”
Detective Winters kept on moving, determined now, hurtling toward the high-bloods. He still had time. They were coming. He doubled his pace then, following his nose, possessed, glancing left and right at the cages as he flew past. Men’s hollow zombie eyes watched from within, not caring, not comprehending.
Detective Winters skidded to a halt, kicking an arm from underfoot.
He turned.
They were almost upon him, claws as numerous as centipede legs scuttling along through the hall, scraping and clinking along the walls, bars.
“Oh, Detective!” called out a voice.
Hanging arms sucked back instantly, like anemone tentacles, into the cages, and all was visible.
The junky-sucks crept forward, gray flesh sucked in between ribs on hairless bodies.
Detective Winters glanced right, and the high-bloods were revealed, glancing primly into the cages as though to select which lobster next to boil. Dresses and suits of silk and lace, they paused for a moment, a look of confusion blossoming on their pale austere faces. Slowly then, as black ties, sleek dresses and monocles were adjusted, they were smiles, all smiles. Hideous-chic, they scrambled forward over one another.
The junky-sucks roared, charging.
Detective Winters lowered his gaze at the man in the low cage in front of him. Their gazes locked, the man’s eyes wide with terror, not dazed, not stupefied, not drugged like the others. He shivered, huddling against the back of the cage like a scared puppy.
“Get me out of here.” His voice cracked. “Please!”
“One second.” Detective Winters glanced at his watch, and then his guns whipped out, leveled, blazing orange, blazing streams of red fire; bullets screamed, shell casings flying, dancing off metal and stone. Junky-sucks and high-bloods fell back screaming, clutching chests and faces, bars, falling back into their brethren, but more came charging, screaming, more roaring forth towards the slaughter.
