Stirred (45 page)

“Let’s try to stop talking about piss for five minutes, okay?”

“Sorry,” Harry said. “Didn’t mean to piss you off.”

Phin took the lead, heading through the doorway and into an unlit corridor. His head was still smarting from the fall down the stairs, and his right knee was beginning to swell up. He kept one hand on the wall, the other in front of him, moving as quickly as he dared. The walls were cold, concrete. Once again, Phin wondered where they were. Some kind of abandoned factory or warehouse? He stopped for a moment, letting his ears tune in to the environment. No traffic noises. No planes flying overhead. No people sounds at all.

Well, no sounds except for McGlade’s squishy footsteps.

Phin sniffed the air, crinkling his nose. He smelled sewage.

“That wasn’t me,” Harry said. “I only went number one.”

Phin guessed they were underground, either in or near the sewer. But his guess proved wrong when they came to another door, which opened up into a room filled with brownish, foul-smelling water. It stretched out for maybe twenty meters, a faint orange glow at the other side.

“Luther needs to clean his pool,” Harry said.

“There’s a light there.”

“You’re not thinking of going in that shit, are you? I already smell bad enough.”

But Phin was already wading in. This wasn’t the sewer line, or a cesspool. Phin knew this was created by Luther, for some deranged reason.

The water was cold, and Phin held up his hand and felt the circulating air. He listened for a moment, caught the hum of a large air-conditioner.

What the hell was this place for?

“I’m so sorry, Bruno,” Harry wailed, trudging in after Phin.

The duo stuck to the perimeter. It took longer but wasn’t as deep, not going higher than the thigh.

McGlade kept Phin company with a constant barrage of complaints.

“Ugh, you smell that?” McGlade said. “How many diseases you think are floating around in this slop, looking for hosts?

“It’s a hot zone in here…

“A goddamn hot zone…

“…I can’t remember if I’m up to date on all my vaccinations…

“…yuck, something solid just bumped me…

“…I think it was a snake…

“…a long, brown, stinky snake…

“…it was either that, or feces…

“…I really hope it was a snake…

“…ugh, it was feces…

“…or the snake was covered with corn…

“…I hate feces…

“…I really hate feces…

“…can you smell all the feces, Phin?”

“Harry, please, can you just be quiet for a few minutes? Please?”

“It’s clinging to me, like I’m some giant shit magnet.”

“McGlade…”

“Is it clinging to you, too?”

“McGlade!”

“Okay, I’ll shut up.”

It lasted all of twenty seconds before Harry said, “I think some splashed in my mouth.”

But Phin was focused on the platform ahead of him.

A platform with a body on it.

He increased his speed, making it over to the concrete slab, to the dead man.

Harry said, “This guy was apparently late for something.”

“Late?” Phin said, staring at the dismembered corpse.

“Yeah. He had to split.”

“Sometimes I wonder how your brain works, Harry.”

“I had to go out on a limb for that one.”

The orange light was courtesy of a gas lamp in the wall. Next to it was a door. Part of a man still hung in the doorframe.

And then Phin saw it. Lying in the doorway, like a gray tongue.

A Velcro strap.

From Jack’s shoe.

“Jack was here,” he said, hurrying though the door.

More dark hallways, and the next few minutes were a rush of panic and hope. Jack was still alive. She’d been this way. They just needed to find her.

“Phin! Losing you in the dark, buddy!”

“I’m over here!” he yelled to Harry, not slowing down.

“Phin!” But it wasn’t Harry. It was another familiar voice.

Herb.

“Herb! Keep yelling!”

Herb kept up the chatter until Phin came upon another cold room.

Herb was sitting in the muck on the floor.

Surrounded by blood.

M
y daughter was sleeping when the door opened and Luther walked in carrying a metal cylinder with a digital timer attached to the pressure valve.

The timer was counting down from eighty-five seconds.

He set it on the drain beside the chair.

“In less than a minute and a half, that canister is going to fill this room with QNB gas. It’ll knock you out. I fear it will kill your little girl. When you were in the truck, she only got a tiny dose because she was still inside you. Now she’ll get a full dose. Give her to me, and she’ll be safe.”

“You go to hell.”

I tightened my grip on my daughter.

“Seventy-five seconds, Jack.”

“Please, Luther, even you—”

“Even I, what?”

“You wouldn’t do this to me. To her.”

“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hand her over.

But the thought of watching her die in my arms was too much.

“When will I see her again?”

“Soon.”

“When?”

“Fifty-five seconds, Jack.” He eased forward, opened his arms.

“I can’t,” I cried.

“Give her to me or she’ll die.”

“I haven’t even named her!”

“Give her to me or she’ll die.”

I closed my eyes. Luther was still talking, but I tuned him out, spent twenty seconds just letting my hand rest on her back, feeling the microscopic rise and fall as she slept in bliss.

How could this be happening?

“Thirty seconds, Jack.”

I whispered into her ear, “Your mommy loves you so much. I’ll see you again real soon.”

And then I opened my eyes, couldn’t see a goddamn thing through the sheet of tears, said, “She’ll need to eat, and you have to keep her warm.”

I felt Luther lift her off my stomach.

I wiped away the tears, watching him carry her toward the open door.

When he reached the doorway, he said, “Jack, you do know you’ll never see her again, right?”

I screamed out as he shut the door after him—a broken, bleeding, croaking noise like a dying animal, like my heart being ripped out of my chest.

If I’d had a gun, I would’ve eaten it.

The human mind wasn’t designed to withstand this level of pain.

Then I heard the hiss of gas escaping the canister, filling this room.

This room where my soul had been destroyed.

“P
hin? That you?”

“I’m here, Herb.”

Herb sensed Phin kneel next to him. “Are you bleeding?”

“A little. Shot in the leg. The bullet went through.”

“But…”

“Most of that blood isn’t mine.” Before Phin could get the wrong idea, he quickly said, “Not Jack’s either. Luther took her through the door behind me.”

“Is that you, fat ass?” McGlade sloshed into the room. “Man, you are a sight for sore eyes. Oops. Hell. Sorry, Herb. He sewed them shut?”

Herb felt Phin’s hand on his chin. “Why?” Phin asked.

“This is Dante’s Inferno,” Herb said. “I’ve been condemned to the third circle, gluttony, sitting in human waste, sightless.”

“Nice,” Harry said. “Phin and I were in the violence circle. We were forced to shock each other. Then we fell down some stairs and waded through a cesspool. A brown snake attacked me, but it wasn’t really a snake. It was feces. You want me to help you with your eyes?”

Herb sighed. He didn’t like McGlade, and though he’d only arrived a few seconds ago, Herb was already sick of him. “How? You got scissors?”

“You want help or not?”

On most days it took Herb a tremendous effort just to tolerate Harry. But right now he needed all the help he could get.

“What have you got in mind, McGlade?”

“Hold still.”

Herb felt Harry take his head in his hands then lean in close like he was about to kiss him. But instead, he moved his mouth over Herb’s right eye.

“Damn, McGlade, what are you doing?”

“It’s cool. I can tie a cherry stem into a knot with my mouth. I’m good at this. Hold still.”

“Yuck. Harry—”

“Stop moving. I don’t want to bite your eyelid off.”

It was gross, and weirdly intimate, but it didn’t really hurt. In just a few seconds, Harry pulled away and said, “There. Nipped the knot off. Lemme do the other eye.”

A moment later, McGlade was gingerly tugging the thread from Herb’s eyelids.

Herb opened his eyes, which were swollen so badly they only parted a slit.

But, damn it, that was enough.

“Harry…I…I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s great to see you.”

“Great to be seen,” he said.

Herb was so grateful he was momentarily at a loss for words. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

McGlade grinned. “How about a blowjob?”

Herb grinned back. “I don’t want one right now. But how about this?”

And then Herb did something he never thought he’d do, even if he lived to a hundred. Herb Benedict gave Harry McGlade a big hug.

“Thanks, Harry.”

“No problem, Herb. I’ve been a jerk to you for years. Least I could do.”

“Well, I owe you one, and—” Herb’s nose wrinkled up. “Do I smell piss?”

“It’s Phin,” Harry said, pushing him away. “Now let’s go get our girl back.”

Phin was already at the door, tugging on the handle. When it didn’t open, he put his good shoulder into it, which did nothing.

“Can you walk?” Harry asked Herb.

“I dunno.”

McGlade stared at the bullet wound then pulled off his jacket. “Ralph Lauren,” he said sadly. “Sorry, Ralph.”

He tucked it under his armpit and tore off a sleeve, and with Herb’s help tied it around his calf. Then he helped Herb to his feet, making him wonder if this was really McGlade, or some robot replica.

“Do you know the code?” Phin called to them.

“Read the plaque again.”

“’Gluttony. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’”

Herb had been wondering about that, and he had an idea. “How is
way
spelled?”

“W-A-Y.”

But
way
was a homonym for
weigh
. Which made a warped sort of sense.

“I think it might be her weight,” Herb said, gesturing to Christine’s body. Seeing her for the first time, it was impossible to match up the corpse to that beautiful singing voice.

“How much you think she weighs?” Phin said.

Herb frowned. She was bigger than he was, but it was hard to judge.

“Start at three fifty,” he said. “Then go up, a pound at a time.”

I
awoke, thinking I was still strapped to the birthing table.

But this was something else.

Something worse.

I could feel a bunch of pads between my legs, the faint trickle of blood.

I squinted until the room came into focus. Beneath me lay a floor of sand. Motes of light floated lackadaisically down from the ceiling. When one of them landed on my leg, I gasped at the sudden burst of heat.

It was smoldering ash.

Raining from above.

On the wall, I spotted another plaque that read “CIRCLE 7: VIOLENCE.” There was some writing below it that I couldn’t make out.

I checked my bonds, saw my wrists and ankles were strapped to some sort of pulley-and-gear mechanism. To my right stood a metal cart with a control panel on top.