The City Beneath (5 page)

“Have any of the autopsies been completed yet?” I asked.

Greta nodded. “Only two of them. No bites were recorded.”

“Have a different medical examiner redo the autopsies. And if I were you, I'd read the report as soon as it's completed, before another witness is compromised,” I suggested.

Greta shook her head, her gaze fixed on my recorder. “But no one threatened
me
to change
my
story. I saw the victims myself, and they were clean slices from knives, not animal bites.”

“Just do me this one favor, G,” I pleaded. “Have the autopsies repeated, look at the results as soon as they're complete, and if I'm wrong—if the second autopsies reveal knife wounds—I'll let the whole thing go.”

Greta narrowed her eyes. “And if you're right?”

“If I'm right, then you will allow the polite and well-mannered Ian Walker to do his job the best he knows how. And you'll let me do mine, without demanding any more retractions. Deal?” I asked, offering my hand.

“You met Walker, I take it?” Greta asked. “He came anyway, despite my voice mail?”

I nodded.

“Maybe Walker was the one who did the charming,” Greta commented.

I wiggled the fingers of my outstretched hand.

Greta hesitated as she mulled it over. Finally, she wrenched her gaze from my recorder and took my hand. “It's a deal.”

On my way out of the station, I locked eyes with Walker. I gave him a thumbs-up. He nodded back, his dimple deep and distracting. Just as I would have passed his chair, however, he stood and sidestepped in front of me.

I raised my eyebrows. All his height was in his legs. Standing so closely, I had to crane backward to meet his gaze.

“Are you intendin' to walk home?” he asked.

I blinked. “Is that your business?”

“The animal who left those bites on the victims is still wandering the streets. If home isn't nearby, I'd recommend taking a cab. It's already dark,” Walker whispered urgently, his speech decidedly less drawling.

“Whether home is nearby or not, I usually take a cab,” I said, keeping my weight on my left leg to relieve some of the pressure on my hip. Scenes from Monday night flickered in my mind, and I shuddered, suddenly grateful all over again for the new, fortified locks on my windows.

“Good. Then I'll see you around,” he said, the dimple reappearing.

I smiled back. “You'd better. I'm expecting a statement on those bite marks.”

“I don't make a habit of givin' statements to the press,” Walker tossed over his shoulder as he walked past me toward Greta's desk.

“You wouldn't be talking to the press,” I said to his back. “You'd be talking to me.”

The police nearby who overheard our exchange laughed. I pointed my finger at all of them as I left. The officers only laughed harder; the lot of them knew me too well.

Walker hadn't lied. While I'd bartered with Greta, the sun had set, casting the neighboring blocks in shadow. I tried to comfort myself with the knowledge that the street was well lit, but the city lights hadn't dissuaded whoever was responsible for the attacks at Paerdegat Park, nor the man who was responsible for attacking me last night. I slipped my hand into the outer pocket of my shoulder bag and clenched the pepper spray tightly in my right fist. I wouldn't be caught unarmed a second time.

The shouts, curses, and beeps of city traffic muffled the tap of my shoes on the concrete walkway. Businessmen and women dodged between the masses, talking sharply on their cell phones and balancing briefcases, laptop cases, and coffees while closing deals. I picked up my pace. My hip didn't appreciate the extra use, but I ignored its grinding ache and walked briskly down the sidewalk toward Rogers Avenue to hail a cab.

As I neared the corner, a group of tall, leggy women in loose sweaters cut in front of me to hail a cab, as well. They were laughing and talking animatedly.

“Excuse me,” I said, trying to cut through their group to reach the street.

One of the women snorted at something her friend was saying, oblivious to me.

Just below the bustle of city life, however, I sensed something that made the back of my neck prickle. I glanced down the street. The businessmen and women I'd just passed were still talking and walking. Horns were still blaring and people were still cursing and shouting. Everything around me was normal, but inside, my heart had tripped and was pounding against my ribs in a hard, frantic fall.

Walker's warning is making me skittish
, I told myself. I was not being tracked or followed or watched. The retraction didn't have a byline, so for all anyone knew, I
had
followed the man's orders and written the retraction myself. He had no reason to come back for me. I was a few steps away from hailing a taxi and less than ten blocks from my apartment, and I was
not
going to be attacked two nights in a row.

A low and deep and hauntingly familiar hiss rattled from the alley behind me. I gave up on reason, listened to my gut, and ran.

 

A clear, bloodcurdling shriek pierced the air behind me. I cursed, thinking of the laughing, excited women who were hailing the cab, but I didn't turn to look. I knew what was hunting. I'd seen his fangs and felt the pull of his icy eyes and remembered the slice of his talons sinking deep into my shoulders.

I ran faster.

My shoulder bag slapped against my side. I tucked one of the straps under my arm to keep it tight and steady against my body as I elbowed past other pedestrians. They glared at me, their expressions annoyed and angry. One looked concerned. Others were looking behind me, and their expressions made me run even harder.

I cut across the street against a red crossing light, dodged around a honking taxi, and sprinted down the next block, trying to put as much space and traffic and turns as possible between me and whatever was hunting. A third scream hadn't sounded, and the avenue to East 29th Street was straight ahead. I gripped my pepper spray tighter against the sparking grind of my hip and just ran.

A black and iridescent green blur suddenly rushed me. Something tore through my forearm. I screamed and triggered the pepper spray, but the blur had already disappeared down an adjacent avenue.

“You're hurt!”

People were running and screaming around me, but a few had frozen in shock. They were staring down the alley where the blur had disappeared. A man was in front of me, pointing at my arm.

I peered down, shaking. Blood poured from a deep, jagged gash across my forearm. The victims from Paerdegat Park had suffered from identical wounds. Meredith's close-up in yesterday's paper could have been my arm. A sudden vision of my body lying eviscerated on the concrete like their bodies burst through my mind.

No
, I thought,
I am no one's victim, not ever again
. I covered the wound with my hand, hoping to staunch the bleeding and the pain.

The man stepped forward. “You need a doctor.”

“Run,” I gasped. My voice was low and rasping and not my own. “Get off the street.”

“What was that? Who—”

A rattling hiss growled from the alley.

I didn't wait for the man. I ran. East 29th Street was only a few more blocks, but another black and iridescent blur swooped down from overhead to slash at my legs. I screamed again. I heard people screaming around me. Holding my breath, I shot more pepper spray, but the blur disappeared just as quickly as the first. The spray sizzled like acid against my slashed calves.

Gasping, I stumbled around the corner and dodged left onto East 29th. Several of the nearby apartment buildings had walk-in lobbies. My apartment was only a block away, but any shelter now was better than this cat-and-mouse bullshit. Resolving to slip into the next open apartment complex, I tucked my chin and pumped my arms and legs as fast as I could despite the pain.

A blur of black, flapping cloak, and glowing violet eyes darted out from a side alley and tore a gash over my stomach.

I faltered midstep, and the pepper spray slipped from my hand. A suspended moment of shock and breathless disbelief washed over me, and I suddenly felt the warm gush of blood pour over my abdomen and drip down my thighs. My knees almost buckled. I caught myself against the side of the building's brick face, struggling for balance.

The familiar, rattling hiss vibrated from the surrounding shadows. There couldn't have been just one or two; there must have been dozens surrounding me in every direction—in front, behind, to the side, and above me—as the dissonant crescendo of hisses overpowered every other city sound.

Another tearing slash cut through my lower back. I fell to the ground from the impact, and my knees pounded hard into the asphalt. I focused on inhaling and exhaling, taking long, deep breaths, but it hurt to breathe. It hurt to remain upright on my knees. The pain didn't recede or ebb, and through its constant, sharpening ache, I became aware of a sparking charge in the air. The air was electric, almost snapping.

I glanced up. The men, creatures—whatever the hell was attacking me—were closing in, and the frequency of their rattling was a tangible, expanding, vibrating swell on the air. Their glowing eyes surrounded me. Luminescent shades of blue, green, and purple were gliding out of the darkness and enclosing me in their ranks. I crawled to the side of the building and leveraged to my feet.

A fire escape hung above me. If I jumped high enough, I might be able to reach it and climb away from the creatures. I might still be able to escape and survive. Gathering what remained of my strength and hope, I bent my knees, held my breath, and leapt to reach the handle of the fire escape. The handle was close, and I stretched as high and long and tall as I could. The tips of my fingers grazed the rough, rusted metal handle.

One of the creatures jumped in front of me, crossing an insurmountable distance in a single bound. He clamped onto my left wrist with his teeth like a rabid, growling animal. We faced one another, eye to eye, in the single instant suspended between jumping and falling. This one had icy violet irises that bled to white toward the pupil. His mouth suddenly re-formed and elongated, like bones were shifting position beneath his skin, into a snarling muzzle. He tore the flesh and muscles and tendons from my wrist.

I jerked back, screaming, and my fingertip slipped from the fire escape. I crumpled to the ground against the building. Blood poured down my arm. At least a dozen more of the creatures peeled from the darkness to surround me. They all resembled the man who wasn't quite a man who had attacked me last night, all flashing the same luminous eyes and bearing a nearly skeleton-like leanness. Although they all had individual facial features, like siblings have differing features, they were all impossibly tall and strong and male. And hunting me.

I eased my hand into my shoulder bag slowly, trying not to trigger their attack. My cell phone was buried amid my recorder, notepad, wallet, and pens. If, like animals, they couldn't reason, maybe they wouldn't know that I was calling for help. If they were anything like the creature from last night, however, they might look like animals, but they could think. They'd know my intent.

I looked at them, one by one, as they surrounded me. The feral hunger and anticipation lighting their eyes convinced me that whether or not they could reason, whether or not I made a sudden move or called for help, they were going to attack anyway.

I swept aside a few pens in my bag, frantic to find my phone.

The man with icy violet eyes broke formation and crouched directly in front of me. “You didn't want us to remain a secret,” he hissed. “And neither do we. We plan to show the world exactly who we are, but you can help us do that without writing a single word.”

I blinked, thrown by his articulacy. The creature from last night had been well-spoken, too. I'd nearly forgotten his voice, overwhelmed by the lasting impression of his fangs, strength, and ferocity. This violet-eyed version of him had all of those traits, as well. I stared at him and knew that the daily life I'd grown accustomed to living would never be the life I'd live again.

“Nothing to say now, without the anonymity of your paper to stand behind?” the creature growled.

I shook my head. “I, um.” I swallowed. “This is about my article?”

The creature stared at me, a slow smile widening his muzzle-like, protruding mouth.

“A retraction was written,” I whispered. “I haven't told anyone about your kind, I swear.”

The creature cocked his head. “You remember seeing us last night?”

I shook my head. “No,” I assured him. “Just one of you. And I did everything he asked.”

“Liar,” he murmured. He brushed a matted, blood-spattered lock of hair away from my cheek. “Lysander wouldn't have let you live with your memories, yet here you are, and you still remember him.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How could I possibly forget?”

The creature cocked his head to the right. “Easily.”

One of the other creatures growled behind him. “Lysander's power must be deteriorating faster than we thought if he can't even link his mind to a human.”

All of the creatures growled in a sudden, shrieking discord. The sound was uncomfortable, like a squirming pressure against my chest, nuzzling beneath my skin. The back of my neck prickled. I fought not to plug my ears and to keep my hand inside my purse, searching for my phone.

The line of creatures hadn't moved, but they were suddenly noticeably closer.

“Please,” I begged. My hand had finally found my phone. I tried to unlock the screen saver without breaking eye contact with the creature. “Whatever you're planning, don't. I—”