MORTAL COILS (41 page)

Eliot
slowed the song as he considered what an “alligator” would sound like. He made
the notes darker, minor, flowing together snakelike through the uncharted
waters of his imagination, then added a light pizzicato phrase like jagged,
zigzagging teeth.

Fiona’s
mouth opened. She slowly closed it and said, “That does sound alligatorish.
How’d you—”

The
rats peeped excitedly. They jumped on top of and over one another. Some
scattered. Some darted into cracks in the walls. But hundreds turned and ran
deeper into the sewer.

“Forgot
how. Look! They’re going to find it. Like the silver in the story.”

Fiona
watched them for a moment. “Keep playing. I’ll go first. She propped a
flashlight atop her shotgun and moved cautiously after the stream of rodents.

Eliot
followed, alternating between the beguiling song in the book and his improvised
alligator tune. He increased the tempo. The rats ran faster, growing wild. His
feet skipped in time to the beat.

Smooth
concrete walls became older cinder block, then age-crumbled brick.

“The
music is creepy,” Fiona whispered. “I’ve heard of it soothing the savage beast,
but making them fetch?”

Eliot
agreed it was weird. Like Uncle Henry’s wild limousine ride or Robert’s claim
that their family were a bunch of immortals . . . these things danced on the
edge of his reality. Not quite impossible—not quite possible, either.

The
rats led them left and right and left again, spiraling down, and the water
flowed faster in the channel, rippling and churning. The old brick walls became
reinforced with beams of solid rust.

A
new scent was in the air, an animal smell, part blood and part dung.

The
rats halted before a large arch. They squealed in protest and turned rather
than continue, but there was nowhere else to go and more rodents crowded the
ones that had halted—as if they had all hit a glass wall. They splashed into
the water and swam upstream.

Eliot
stopped playing.

The
rats were no longer interested in his music, no longer interested in lunch,
either. They just wanted to go.

“I
. . . guess that’s a good sign,” Fiona whispered.

Eliot
nodded.

She
focused her flashlight on the arch’s keystone. It read dsss 1899.

“Del
Sombra Sewer System?” he said.

She
angled the beam lower.

Past
the arch was a lake with no discernible shore. Sunlight filtered in from a hole
above, and water dripped in continuous streams. Trash floated by: pulpy paper,
plastic bags, and a squad of drowned green plastic army men.

Eliot
picked up the other flashlight and added its light to the search.

He
spied an island in the shadowy center of the lake. This patch of land was made
from a few telephone poles, tires . . . but mostly bones—slime-covered, broken
to suck the marrow—cow and rabbit and human.

Curled
upon the center of this grisly mass, watching them, was the alligator

30

VANQUISHED

Fiona
added her light to Eliot’s beam—but almost pulled away when she saw what the
extra illumination revealed.

The
reptile was covered with black scales that could have been fittings of cast
iron. It blinked; nictitating membranes slid over golden pupils and retracted.
The creature looked directly at them.

“The
narrow snout,” she whispered to Eliot. “And see both exposed upper and lower
teeth?”

“It’s
not an alligator,” Eliot replied.

“Crocodile,”
they said together.

This
was bad. Crocodiles were far more dangerous than their alligator cousins. They
were bigger, faster, and meaner. They had been reported attacking lions,
tigers, and even sharks. Every year they killed—and presumably ate—dozens of
people in Africa and Southeast Asia.

A
chill spread through Fiona’s arms, and the shotgun felt as if it weighed a
hundred pounds.

“How
did a crocodile get to America?” Eliot asked.

“Like
Robert said, it was a pet and got flushed down the toilet.”

This
specimen didn’t look like any picture of crocodiles she’d seen. Its neck seemed
longer. The eyes were bigger, too. Or maybe that was because it still had them
locked in its glare.

“Part
plesiosaur?” Eliot said, unsure.

Plesiosaurs
were a family of aquatic Jurassic- and Cretaceous-era dinosaurs. Impossible
that one could still be alive, but he had a point about this thing looking more
primitive than any other creature she had ever seen.

“Don’t
be stupid,” she whispered. “Focus. We have to come up with a plan to get close
enough to shoot it.”

She
couldn’t believe she’d said those words—especially since she was the one most
likely to be using the shotgun.

What
had Robert said? Wait for it to open its mouth? The chill in her arms spread to
the rest of her body, and she found it hard to breathe. She would have to be
almost on top of it to aim down its open maw.

The
crocodile’s jaw worked side to side. It hissed a bassy rumble that rippled the
water. It sounded like . . . words.

Eliot
looked at her. “Do you hear—”

“Shhh.”

She
strained and listened. There were variations and intonations, but they couldn’t
be words. It was just her mind playing tricks. Animal sounds like a birdcall.

Eliot
tugged at her sleeve. “In the limousine, when Grandmother and Henry spoke.”

Fiona
connected the two events, then and now, in a flash. When Grandmother and Henry
hadn’t wanted them eavesdropping, they switched to a language Fiona hadn’t
recognized.

This
reptile spoke the same language. She couldn’t decipher it then, nor could she now,
but she sensed it was old, and something full of secrets.

“There’s
no way that’s real,” she whispered.

The
crocodile’s eyes widened a fraction and then it said, “English. How
distressing. You wish to discard tradition, very well.”

Fiona
stared at the animal. Her mind refused to accept what she had heard. Its mouth
had opened, though. The sound had come from it. Still, such things didn’t
happen in this world.

She
turned to Eliot. He trembled and stared at the animal.

Fiona
felt—of all the ridiculous things—as if she were going to faint.

“So
death finally comes to the eater of death,” it said.

In
the years to come, this would be the moment that Fiona would look back on and
acknowledge as the turning point. Her reality changed in that instant. Staring
into the eyes of a talking crocodile—nothing could be the same afterward.

She
struggled, however, to hang on to her old, nonfantastical world and cast about
for an explanation. There must be gas in this sewer causing hallucinations such
as rats that obeyed violin music and speaking reptiles. That was the only
reasonable thing, wasn’t it?

But
the deep voice of this crocodile was no illusion. It spoke with the weight of
the ages, like Grandmother. As if it had spoken to hundreds of girls before her
. . . telling them to be calm and walk into its gaping jaws.

She
shook her head to clear those thoughts.

She
had to face this. She had to face everything. Maybe her extended family would
really kill her. Maybe her mother had been a real goddess. And maybe a crocodile
really was talking to her.

“It
just sits there,” Eliot said. “Why isn’t it swimming toward us?”

The
crocodile lay its head upon the bones. They crunched from the weight.

“If
I had wanted you dead,” it replied, “you would be. Come closer. Let us end
this.”

“It’s
a trick,” Eliot whispered. “Remember it’s fastest at short range. It lunges at
prey.”

“I
don’t think it’s a trick,” Fiona whispered back. She cleared her throat, then
addressed the beast: “We don’t want to kill you, and we won’t . . . unless we
have to defend ourselves.”

The
beast snorted. “I have read the signs. I know you come to vanquish.”

Fiona
squinted. Were those tears in its eyes?

The
crocodile shifted upon the island, revealing its shoulder. A shaft of metal
pierced its stubby arm and left the limb swollen, gray, and limp. Fiona could
see teeth marks dotting the metal—above and below—where it must have tried to
chew it off. Black blood welled and dripped from the wound onto the bones.

She
could only imagine the pain it was in.

“It
would be one thing if it were attacking,” she whispered to Eliot, “but to just
blow its head off, that would be . . .”

“Murder?”
Eliot said. “Isn’t that what we came here to do? The only way to pass the
test?”

They
were quiet a moment.

“You
know what Machiavelli said about pawns?” she asked him. “How they had to change
to survive?”

Eliot
nodded.

“I
don’t think I can become someone who kills just because they’re told to.”

“Me
neither.” Eliot glanced at the shotgun and then at her. “So what do you want to
do?”

“I’m
not sure, but there has to be another way. I mean, this is an intelligent,
talking creature.”

Eliot
fidgeted, looking uncertain and uncomfortable.

“We
can try to help it,” she said. “Remove that thing from its arm. It might know
our family. It might help us figure out how to survive.”

Eliot
took in and exhaled a slow breath to steady himself. “Maybe I can make it
docile with music. You could get closer—either to help it or . . . whatever.”

Fiona
pressed her lips together, trying to imagine herself voluntarily moving toward
the animal. She couldn’t.

She
nodded, stood straighter, and again addressed the beast. “We’ll help you. Get
that thing out of your shoulder. Then maybe we can talk.”

The
crocodile considered her a moment with its gold-and-black, unblinking eyes.
“Very well. Come end this.”

“That
sounds like an invitation,” Fiona said to her brother.

“Or
a trap,” he replied.

If
that was the case, then Fiona still had the shotgun . . . but even with it she
wasn’t sure she could kill the thing. Anything but a head shot would just wound
an armored animal that size.

But
Fiona had to do something before she lost her nerve. She was still a little dizzy
. . . disoriented enough so the fear had yet to rush in and fill her. But she
knew it would come soon enough.

She
reached into the book bag, into her heart-shaped box, fumbled, and found a
chocolate. She’d thrown handfuls of them at the rats, but thankfully the box
seemed as full as ever. She popped it into her mouth.

Bittersweet
chocolate and raspberry cordial melted over her tongue. Warmth spread
throughout her body and steadied her shaking hands.