“So everybody got a map section?” Bishop asked.
Nods all around.
“Lay ‘em out here on the bar.” Pages were extracted, smoothed out. Everyone crowded Bishop as he moved the pieces of the puzzle around, fitting the pages together until they made a complete map, except for one section in the middle.
“What goes there?” He asked.
“Hauptmann’s block,” several voices said at once.
“That was Mouser’s page,” Zoe said in a worried voice. “I told him not to go there!”
“Chill, Zo,” Mohawk massaged her shoulders for a few seconds -- bike messengers obviously weren’t big huggers. “You couldn’t have done anything to stop him.”
“These maps are downloads, right?” Ariel recognized the web site logo on the pages. “So where’s Mouser’s computer?”
Ez reached under the counter and set a laptop on the bar. It was where Mouser always left his computer when he went out. Ariel grabbed it, spun it toward herself, flipped it open and booted it up.
“How are you going to get in?” Bishop asked. “You need a password.”
Ariel typed c0nSpirAc3y and the screen opened.
“Kid’s losing his touch.”
“I peeked over his shoulder,” she saw with relief that Mouser had saved his maps.
“Damn!”
“What?” Bishop asked.
“I think he’s gone into the tunnels.”
“The subway tunnels? How do you know?”
She stepped away from the screen. Mouser had surface maps, but he’d also found plans for what was underground.
“What am I looking at?” Bishop was still confused.
“Schematics of what’s under the sidewalk.”
A small grunger from the gaming pool pushed his way between Ariel and Bishop. “We hacked into city records. This isn’t everything, only what’s been put on-line in the last few years. This city started building subway tunnels over a hundred and fifty years ago, but then there’s maintenance tunnels, steam tunnels, electricity, pedestrian tunnels between buildings, private tunnels dug by rich people who wanted a way to get from place to place without having to mingle with the masses. And all the forgotten tunnels that somebody built for something, but stopped using. There’s tons of other drawings still on paper or microfiche, a lot of plans are in storage or just gone forever. Nobody really knows what’s all down there anymore, except maybe the Deepers. An’ you don’t want to mess with them, they eat people.”
“That’s a rumor,” somebody said, and the debate was off and running.
“I’m going to kill him,” Ariel growled.
Bishop could barely hear her over the argument going on behind them.
“If he’s gone into the Deeps, I’m going to have him for lunch myself.”
“What are the Deeps?” Bishop asked, louder than he intended.
“Take it somewhere else!” Ez shouted. The crowd at the bar shifted to the other end of the room.
Ez shook his head, “Lowest tunnels. People go down there when they really don’t want to be found. Problem is there are other things down there as well.”
Things that eat people? Bishop wondered.
“Mouser’s not that dumb,” Ariel said. “Anyway, the really dangerous ones are more south and not so deep.”
“Sometimes, if they’re really hungry they come out.”
“Shut up, Ez!” Ariel said. “If you think the Deepers may have gotten him, I’m going down.”
“Not alone,” Bishop told her.
“You’d only get in my way,” Ariel said. “You’d be blind most of the time and that’s too dangerous.”
“What about you and Mouser?”
“We have excellent night vision. It’s part of the package.”
“What package? Never mind. I’ve been in the army and I was a cop for six years. I’m not exactly helpless.”
Ez reached under the counter and put a set of night goggles on the bar.
“See?” Bishop said. “Infa-red. I’ve used them before.”
Ariel ignored him, typing something on Mouser’s laptop. Pages began to eject from one of the printers against the back wall of the Caf’.
“Um, excuse me.” It was Speed the Mohawk. “Nobody recognized anybody in the pictures Mouser gave us. We hit pretty much everywhere people hang.”
“Thanks for trying. I appreciate it.” Bishop put the goggles back on the bar.
“Yeah, there’s something else, though.” Speed glanced around to see who might be listening. “They’re not the only ones who are missing. There’s more. Everyday there’s somebody else just gone. It’s getting really creepy. People are freaked. Nobody wants to be out after dark anymore. Last night, this old dude, you know, one of the drunks that crib in the alleys downtown? He was lying under a piece of cardboard on the sidewalk, he grabbed my foot. I nearly shit myself, he scared me so bad. Especially after all the disappearance stuff I’d been listening to in the squats. Then the guy said -- Go home, boy and you go quick, before they get you.”
“I said--Who’s gonna get me, old man?”
“An’ he said -- Them hunters, boy. They don’t care about some old sot like me, but they’d like you. You still got some spunk to you. You go on now before they get you.”
“Man, I booked. An’ I made sure everybody else came in. I don’t know what he was talkin’ about but I wasn’t losin’ any of my peeps over it. Maybe Mouser went into the tunnels cuz something was after him. Maybe it’s safer down there. I thought you’d want to know.”
“You keep everybody home tonight, okay?” Bishop told the messenger. “Don’t go out on the street until we figure out what’s going on.”
“Strength in numbers, bro.” Speed held out his fist. “We’ll fight if we have to. You find out who took Mouser and we’ll kick their ass.”
“I appreciate the back-up” Bishop gave him a solemn knuckle bump.
Ariel laid out the new pages, taping them together in two rows of five pages each. The tunnels looked like a tray of worms, curling over and around each other in different colored layers. Bishop didn’t see how they could find one fourteen year old boy in a maze like that.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Ez. “Don’t leave without me.”
Outside he opened the trunk of his car. He always kept a couple of changes of clothes in the car in case he had to follow somebody and didn’t want to stand out in the crowd.
He dug around until he found a pair of ripped Levis, an old hooded sweat shirt in a faded green and a pair of scuffed boots. I did undercover vice, he muttered to himself. I can blend easier than a pissed off bird girl in a long black coat.
When he went back into the Caf’ Ariel was rolling the computer map into a tight tube that she stuck it into one of her coat pockets. “Give him the gun,” she told Ez.
A familiar looking pistol was lying next to the goggles. It was big and black and Bishop looked at it with a certain amount of envy. He’d always wanted a Glock, but he was in the middle of a pissing contest.
“I already have a gun.”
“It’s the one I took away from Tesslovich.” Ariel told him. “Demon loads, remember?”
Bishop remembered how the bullets had blown the little freak in the striped suit right out a window. He shrugged and took the gun. “Be prepared, I always say.”
EZ pulled a battered green army fatigue jacket out from under the bar. “I’m going too.”
“I can handle this myself, Ez.” Ariel was all business now.
“I’m standing right here, you know.” Bishop muttered. He picked up the objects on the bar. “Goggles. Gun. Yeah it’s me.”
“You need a tracker,” Ez shrugged into the jacket. “I’m it. Chin’s here if there’s a problem.”
“I . . .”
“Don’t argue.”
“Five minutes,” Ariel said and headed for the back room.
“Bathroom’s that way.” Ez jerked a thumb down the bar.
Bishop
changed. He stuck the big pistol into the waistband of his jeans and pulled the sweatshirt over it. He’d have preferred a shoulder holster, but this would have to do. When he came out Ariel and Ez were waiting, ready to go.
The Deeps? Any place with a name like that can’t be good.
Part II
- 1 -
Hauptmann’s Department store was three stories high and covered an entire city block. Bishop remembered being taken there as a kid. The store had everything, clothes, furniture, toys, jewelry, perfume, a fancy gourmet food department and an elegant restaurant. At Christmas it was the most beautiful store in town, its windows decorated with things that sparkled and moved. People came in from the suburbs to see the windows and do their Christmas shopping.
Urban blight and big box stores put institutions like Hauptmann’s out of business. That, and a huge family scandal that ended in bankruptcy and murder. Or maybe it was murder and bankruptcy? He couldn’t remember.
No one wanted to buy a big white elephant, so the bank boarded up the building to wait for some developer with a brain storm about wealthy people returning to apartment living in an urban environment.
Don’t hold your breath.
He stared up at the building. “Now what?” he asked.
“We find a way in.” Ariel tested one of the metal gates that closed off the entrances. “Solid,” she reported. “Let’s go around back.”
The back was an alley that cut between two halves of the building. Enclosed bridges linked second and fourth floors, wide enough for both foot traffic and display.
Bishop remembered the one that led to the second floor toy department. It was always lined with wonderful things; life-sized dolls, a jungle of stuffed animal; racks of electric trains, and at the end, a Toyland big enough to make any child’s dream come true.
Now, everything was dark and forbidding. Bishop kept waiting for something to jump out of the dark and yell “Boo!”
Rusty metal roll-up doors sealed the loading docks in the alley although Bishop noticed they had new looking wires at the top that disappeared back into the building.
“It’s alarmed,” Ariel frowned. “Somebody cares enough to try to keep people from breaking in.”
Ez’s nose was in the air, sniffing the damp air of the alley. “He came down here,” he said. He followed his nose until he was under one of the bridges. “Scent ends here. He must have gone up.”
“Where are his clothes?” Ariel kicked at some cardboard leaning up against the wall. There were no clothes, but a walkie/talkie had been carefully placed behind the cardboard.
“Up where?” Bishop asked.
Ariel looked at the bridge, then leaned back far enough to see the roof. Bishop followed her line of sight.
“He’s strong enough to come back for his clothes, one piece at a time, but he couldn’t manage the walkie/talkie. Or maybe he figured it wouldn’t do him any good where he was going.”
Ariel stripped out of her coat and threw it to Bishop. She had on a tight, long-sleeved turtleneck, backless from just below the knob of her spine to the bottom of her shoulder blades. Down the middle of her back she wore a rig like a double shoulder holster that held a long sheath with a handle sticking out of it.
“Hang on, I’ll take a look. If I see a way in from the roof I’ll drop the fire ladder.”
She spread her arms and flexed her shoulders. Deep brown wings unfolded behind her, spreading sideways until they were fully extended. One beat and she was airborne, another and she disappeared over the edge of the roof.
Bishop didn’t realize his mouth was hanging open until Ez reached one leathery finger out and shut it for him.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Ez said, watching the edge of the roof. “Wait ’til you see her fight.”
“I have,” Bishop told him. “I’ve been trying to figure out the trick.”
“No tricks lad, it’s just her nature. Might as well get used to it.”
* * *
Ariel circled the roof in the air, then did it again on foot. She could see where Mouser had gotten in through an air duct with a bent grill. He was small and she wasn’t sure the opening would be large enough, or the ducting strong enough to hold three adults.
The other option was the elevator shack. Not too many thieves were willing to risk a four floor fall to break into an abandoned building. The cable housing probably wasn’t alarmed. How far down they’d have to climb would depend on where the elevator was stopped and whether they could get access to one of the floors through the safety doors.
She went back over the edge of the roof and down the fire escape to unhook and drop the ladder from the first platform to where it locked about two feet off the ground.
Ez and Bishop scrambled up to meet her. Bishop handed over her coat.
“I’m pretty sure he got in from the roof. I think we can too, if we’re careful. The elevator housing isn’t alarmed.”
A sound like sheets snapping on a clothesline startled all of them. Coming over the edge of the roof, back lit by the ambient glow of dying light were three creatures. They were about forty pounds each, squat, and vaguely human, with stubby wings and bony chests. Their arms and legs dangled, trailing hands and feet with pointed claws. Their misshapen heads protruded from their shoulders, swinging back and forth like short-necked vultures scanning for prey.
“Gargoyles!” Ariel yelled pushing Bishop toward the elevator shed as she moved to meet them. She hoped he’d remembered his gun.
El ripped the boots off her feet, then pulled the sword from the sheath on her back. She’d only ever fought one gargoyle, but she’d heard the stories. They were fast and vicious and used to the element of surprise. But their prey rarely had wings of their own.
Ariel snarled and risked a backward glance. Two more ‘goyles were in the air behind her heading for Ez and Bishop, but she had no time to think about that now. She rose into the air, wings beating double time, hoping to pull her three attackers away from the roof into open air. Two rose to the bait, the other scuttled under her, going straight for Bishop.
She heard two rapid shots. Bishop had remembered the gun.
Ariel made a slow figure eight in the air with her sword. The double-sided blade was shiny, reflecting what light was available. Gargoyles were attracted to shiny objects. The reflection distracted one of the little monsters, obviously the dumber of the two, but the other one came barreling at her screeching, clawed feet extended. Ariel flashed on the disemboweled cow she’d told Bishop about –but her reach was longer than the ‘goyle’s. She turned sideways, raised one leg and planted her clawed foot in the gargoyle’s belly ripping it open. She swung her sword, and took the creature’s head off at the neck. Head and body thumped to the roof and the creature’s ochre blood began to smoke and bubble the tar coating.
Acid for blood. Great.
“Stay away from their blood,” she yelled as the other gargoyle began to circle her from a safer distance.
“Come on.” She curled and uncurled her fingers to show she had talons of her own. She rose higher in the air, moving over the street where there were no obstructions. Her ugly, grey satellite followed, snarling and spitting down at her from over her head. Flapping in a circle, he tried to spin her until she was disoriented, so he could get behind her and go for her back. She let him make one more circle, slowing her own rotation so that she would make an appealing target.
Hearing the frantic acceleration of the creature’s wings she rolled into a tight somersault that brought her up under the gargoyle. With one beat of her wings, she straightened and thrust her sword completely through him, catching him under the tail until it exited through the crown of his head.
Letting her wings hold her steady, she flipped the sword downward and used her feet to push the body off the blade. It fell, bonelessly, hitting the pavement below with the sound of an exploding water balloon.
Take that you little rat from Hell!
She spun around just in time to see Ez
rip a gargoyle in half. The spatter made patches of hair on his arms and chest sizzle and smoke, but he shook it off. His hair was so thick it was likely he hardly felt it.
Bishop stood with his back against the elevator shed, the Glock extended in a two-handed grip. His arms moved back and forth, following the evasive movements of what seemed to be the last gargoyle. Four lay dead on the roof, or maybe five. Ez had a way with dismemberment that made it hard to tell.
As Ariel watched, Bishop’s ‘goyle took three bounding steps and sprang, fangs and talons outstretched, his wings beating rapidly to give him momentum. As he started to arc downward, Bishop calmly put two rounds in his chest and one in his head.
“Watch the spatter!” Ariel called just in time for Bishop to pull up the hood of his sweatshirt.
“Oww!”
Ariel flew over and dropped to the roof. “Yeah,” she told him as he scrubbed the backs of his hands on his jeans. “Triple threat; wings, claws and acid blood. Ez, you okay?”
Ez padded over, teeth exposed in a wolfish grin. He was upright but his knees had a backward bend to them that was visible through his jeans. He’d discarded his shirt and jacket to accommodate broad shoulders, a muscular, fur covered chest and longer arms. His ears drooped at the top, trailing tufts of hair and his forehead and jaw had elongated into a prominent ridge over his eyes, and a muzzle full of sharp, white canine teeth. He pulled his lips up in a mock snarl and his jaw pulled back into a more normal shape.
“You think there’s more?” He scratched at a place on his arm where gargoyle blood had taken out a patch of fur.
Ariel shrugged. “We need to either get into, or off this building before reinforcements arrive. If there are sentinels on the outside, I have no idea what might be waiting inside.”
“Mouser,” Ez growled.
Ariel nodded looking at Bishop. “That was rough. Maybe this isn’t your game anymore, Frank. We understand if you’d like to call it a night. Ez and I can handle it from here.”
“No way in hell.” Bishop pulled the clip out of the Glock and checked the remaining bullets. “I just killed two flying monkeys with acid blood, saw a bird woman dog fight like the Red Baron and met my very first werewolf. Why stop now?”
Raptor: Urban Fantasy Noir Page 11
