MORTAL COILS (39 page)

He
knelt and inserted a hook into the manhole cover. With a wrench, he yanked the
lid free and rolled it aside. Odors of wetness and mold wafted from the hole.

Fiona
and Eliot leaned closer. A ladder disappeared into the shadows.

“So
we’re really doing this?” Eliot asked her.

Fiona
set one hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Piece of cake,” she lied. She let
go and moved closer to Robert. “Thanks for everything.”

She
wondered what Robert had risked by telling them how to prepare. Fiona couldn’t
imagine what Aunt Lucia would be like angry . . . or dangerous-looking Uncle
Aaron. She wouldn’t have been brave enough to do what Robert had for them.

She
moved closer to him.

She
could be dead soon, and she wasn’t about to go without ever having kissed
someone other than Grandmother or Cecilia.

Fiona
touched her lips to Robert’s cheek, light as a butterfly landing; his skin was
hot, and her lips warmed. A thrill pulsed from the touched flesh down her neck,
made her flush and her heart pound.

She
withdrew. The heat between them lingered.

That
was better than any chocolate. Much better.

Robert
took a small step back and stroked where her lips had been. He looked away to
Eliot, and his expression sobered. “You better get going.”

Eliot
looked incredibly uncomfortable. Fiona wasn’t sure if this was due to her kiss
or because they were both about to enter a dark sewer with a man-eating
reptile.

Eliot
pulled on his rubber boots, got his flashlight, and peered down the hole. He
licked his lips, craning his head to get a better view.

“Oh,
for crying out loud,” Fiona said, pulling on her boots. She grabbed her
flashlight. “I’ll go first.”

She
glanced one last time at Robert, then descended the ladder. The air grew cold,
damp, and dark.

“Watch
the time,” Robert called down.

She
climbed down fifteen feet, then splashed into calf-high water.

Fiona
was in a four-way intersection and the passages stretched as far as her
flashlight shone.

The
tunnels were eight-foot-diameter concrete with a canal along the bottom. Suds,
chucks of algae, and disintegrating labels floated past . . . refuse from the
recycling center. On either side the curved walls squared to make ledges.

Eliot
clambered down and stepped onto one ledge, avoiding the sludge. He held out his
hand.

Fiona
frowned, irritated that she needed help, but nonetheless took it and stepped
up.

She
shook her foot. Some of this gunk had gotten down her rubber boot. She hated
wet socks.

“Alligator,”
Eliot said. “There are two species, Alligator mississippiensis and Alligator
sinensis. We’re probably looking at the American, not the Chinese variety.”

“Alligator
comes from the Spanish el lagarto,” she added, “which means ‘the lizard.’ ”

It
was always easiest to start with encyclopedic knowledge. The real world tended
to be a great deal more—she shook her boot again—messy.

“Average
weight and length is six hundred pounds and thirteen feet,” Eliot said, not to
be outdone. “Largest ever recorded, though, was over nineteen feet.”

“They’re
capable of sprints up to thirty miles an hour.”

“More
of a lunge, really,” Eliot replied.

“We
just have to keep out of that lunge range, then. It’s not armor-plated or
anything. Shotgun should do the trick.”

She
sounded so cool and confident. Inside, however, she shook with terror.

“Yeah,
sure.” Eliot’s brows cinched together.

She
glanced at Robert’s watch. The numbers glowed.

Two
hours. Would that be enough time? Fiona didn’t have a clue. Any of the four
passages could lead to the alligator . . . or they could lead through miles of
nothing.

She
and Eliot combined the light of their flashlights and scrutinized each way.

Down
the north tunnel their light blinded a rat. It squeaked and scrabbled off over
the concrete.

Fiona
repressed a shudder. There were rats in their basement. Even with her traps and
poisons Grandmother couldn’t get rid of them all. This rat, though, was the
size of a dachshund.

“Genus
Rattus,” Eliot offered. “Not sure of the species.”

This
time Fiona’s encyclopedic knowledge didn’t help. She could only think of how
rats carried the black plague and hantavirus. They were unclean, rabid animals
that swarmed over one another—all teeth and claws and gleaming red eyes.

She
exhaled. She had to keep her cool. It was only one rat.

“You
know,” Eliot said, “a rat wouldn’t be down here unless there was something to
eat.”

“Like
alligator leftovers?”

“Have
a better idea?”

She
shook her head and they started after the rodent.

“Shouldn’t
we get out the gun—just in case?” he asked.

Fiona
opened her book bag. The half-wrapped shotgun was there. Of course, she’d be
doing the shooting. Eliot hadn’t even wanted to touch it before. Sometimes he
was a child.

She
reached for it . . . paused. In reality, she was scared of the thing, too.

How
hard could this be? A shotgun versus one lizard with a brain the size of a
plum? With double barrels she wasn’t likely to miss.

Fiona
grabbed the gun, set down her flashlight, loaded the shells, and snapped it
shut. It felt natural, as if she’d done this before.

She
then stuffed the oilcloth back into her bag and her fingertips brushed the red
satin of her chocolate box. Fiona reached inside and grabbed one—popped it into
her mouth without even seeing what it was.

She
crunched milk chocolate, chopped hazelnuts, and granules of butter toffee. It
warmed in her and liquid energy spread to her fingertips and toes.

Now
she was ready.

“What
was that?” Eliot asked.

“Chocolate.”
She chewed the last of it. Toffee stuck to her molars. “Robert gave it to me.”

At
least, this was the most likely explanation. She didn’t have the time to
explain the entire “secret admirer” story to Eliot, who would have asked
endless questions. Nor did she particularly want to think too hard about how
the slender box could have had three . . . or was it four layers inside?

“Oh,”
Eliot said, sounding a little disappointed.

She
hefted the shotgun and awkwardly balanced her flashlight on top. Before Eliot
could ask for a chocolate, she took the lead. “This way. Keep your light ahead
of me. I might have to drop mine in a hurry.”

They
moved to where the rat had been. Tiny tracks headed back, crisscrossing over
the original trail.

Fiona
followed the rat prints along the concrete shelf, down one block, then right at
the next intersection.

She
double-checked that they could follow their own tracks back. The concrete was
mold- and algae-spotted, and their rubber boots left an easy trail. The last
thing she wanted was to get lost down here. Part of the test, after all, was
getting back.

Another
rat flickered into view, caught by the beam of Eliot’s flashlight. No, three of
them scampered ahead.

Fiona’s
first instinct was to blast them. She raised the shotgun, but held off.

They
were just rats. Even a dozen couldn’t hurt her.

The
rodents peeped and their fur ruffled as they stared down the barrel of her gun.
They ran off.

Fiona
pressed on, but Eliot hesitated.

“What?”
she asked.

“Did
those rats seem, I don’t know, like they knew what we were doing?”

“They’re
rats. You’re imagining things.”

Fiona
reached into her bag, grabbed another chocolate, and stuffed it in her mouth: a
caramel and marshmallow amalgam, sticky and wonderful.

“How
many of those things are you going to eat?” Eliot hissed over her shoulder.

“What
do you care?” she said, chewing. Fiona marched ahead.

Another
rat crossed just five feet ahead of her, then two more flitted past. These
seemed even larger than the first ones . . . but Fiona couldn’t be sure; they
moved so quickly—a dart of gray fur and whip of a tail.

Eliot
said, “I can hear them behind us.”

Fiona
listened, strained to detect anything over the gurgling water, and the pounding
of her own sugar-charged heartbeat.

There
was faint scratching. Then a peep that ranged into the ultrasonic range . . .
not only behind them, but to either side, and now ahead as well.

“We’ve
got to be getting close,” she whispered.

She
took three careful steps into an intersection. Old brickwork started here.
There were different smells, too: earth, rotting meat, urine.

“I
don’t like this,” Eliot said.

Neither
did Fiona. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. But what choice did they
have?

Eliot
suddenly removed his light from the path ahead and swiveled right.

Fiona
stopped short, fumbled to grasp her flashlight, then turned to see what he was
doing.

There
were more rats.

Not
three or four—but forty or fifty, all piled on top of one another in the
adjacent passage. Their whiskers twitched, and a hundred hate-filled eyes
stared at her and Eliot.

These
were intelligent eyes. Hungry eyes.

Eliot
turned his light down the left passage.

With
great effort Fiona pulled her gaze away and followed where her brother now
looked.

More
rats were there: dozens of them, each three times the size of any rat she’d
ever seen.

Fiona
slowly backed up until she bumped into Eliot.

“Go
back,” she whispered. “Carefully. Very slowly.”

All
they had to do was keep their heads. There was nothing to worry about. Just go
back the way they’d come.

Chittering
squeaks came from ahead—so loud Fiona almost dropped the shotgun to cover her
ears. Then she heard a thousand whisperlike scratches of claws on concrete.

She
shone her flashlight farther down the old brick part of the passage. There was
a seething carpet of moving fur, black glares, and whipping tails.

Fiona
turned to run; so did Eliot.

But
hundreds more rats were blocking their escape.

Fiona
turned to face the onrushing rodents and cocked both barrels of the shotgun.

29

THE
PIPER’S SONG

One
especially bold black rat darted forward. Eliot kicked it into the water. Fiona
cocked the hammers of the shotgun.