The Shadow Cabinet (29 page)

“We need to find an access point,” Stephen said. “I need one of your phones.”

“No point in that,” Boo said, handing hers over. “Emergency services is swamped. Calls aren't getting through.”

“I'm not calling anyone. I'm looking up urban exploring sites. They always know the access points to things like old sewers. There should be one quite close.”

He scanned for a moment.

“Right,” he said, looking up. “It looks to be a few meters away in that direction, toward Rotten Row. Look for a dip in the ground. That's a sign of where the river was. Someone will have to carry the stone.”

Boo hoisted the stone with no trouble at all. We walked away from the fountain, toward the trees. There were lights in the fountain area, but where we were going was pure dark. Boo and Callum had flashlights, but they couldn't do much but illuminate a step or two ahead.

“Just try to feel your steps,” Stephen said. “The ground may also get more marshy.”

“Here!” Freddie called after a moment. “It goes down a bit here.”

It was squishier underfoot.

“Look for a plate, probably metal,” Stephen said.

This was located—a small, square opening made of thick metal. Boo and Callum pried it open, revealing a black hole and a metal ladder going down about ten feet.

“So we're going down here?” Callum said. “With nothing.”

“Wait,” I said. I pulled the bloody locket from my pocket and held it out. “Jane had these. Two termini.”

“You're joking,” Callum said, taking the locket and opening it. “What's on this? Is this blood?”

“I ran our previous ones through the phone and the batteries to give them a range,” Stephen said, not answering that last question. “We don't have time to rig them now. If you want to use these, you'll need to make direct contact. And they're untested. I don't know how strong they are, or even if they're real or if they work.”

“Only one way to find out.” Callum closed the locket and put it in his pocket.

A harness was quickly rigged together by turning Callum's coat backward and putting the stone in the front, like a giant baby. Boo climbed down first to make sure the going was safe and shined a flashlight up to guide Callum down.

“Freddie, you should stay here,” Stephen said. “I can't imagine you've been trained in the last few days, and we'll need someone topside in case . . .”

He didn't need to finish that statement.

“Keep your eyes open,” Stephen continued. “If you're in trouble, get out. Don't try to do anything on your own. And, Rory . . .”

But I was already on the ground, the wet grass under my hands, lowering myself into the dark.

29

W
E
WERE
U
N
D
E
R
G
R
O
U
N
D
,
M
O
V
I
N
G
A
L
ONG
A
PASSAGE
much narrower and shorter than the one we had previously walked down. This tunnel was circular, so we were walking on a curved surface, in about a foot of water. The walls were made of dirty golden brick. Unlike the well-lit passage from before, in front of us was a circle of pure black. We did have flashlights, but they illuminated only a small section of the path in front of us. We could barely hear each other over the sound of water moving down the passage. This fact, and the darkness and lack of rails or anything to guide us—it reminded me that this was a
sewer
I'd lowered myself into.

One good thing—it didn't smell the way you'd expect a sewer to smell. This smelled like seawater and a little bit like soap. The bad things were many. The fact that we were walking through water was one of the biggest. It came up to just below my knee and rushed against us, making every single step a massive effort, pushing against the flow. I wasn't wearing a coat, and though the temperature in the tunnel was warmer than above, the cold water still ran up my legs, making me shake. There were some marks along the walls that indicated how high water levels might go. I was unhappy to see one that went well over my head.

Our progress was slow and steady, as we had very little sense of what was ahead aside from more round tunnel and dark. Stephen was leading the way, because presumably he was the only one who had the best idea which way led to the north entrance of the park, by Lancaster Gate. His walking was steadier than before, not quite as sideways and drunk, but he didn't move as quickly as he might have normally. Callum kept right with him, stone and all, and Boo stuck by my side. They were flanking us, of course, making sure we didn't pass out facedown in the water. Boo kept giving me sideways looks.

“I'm okay,” I said.

She didn't respond.

We slogged on, pushing against the water, unable to see where we were really stepping. At some points, the water was a bit lower, but a few seconds later, there would be a dip and my knees would go under and I'd stumble, Boo catching me. The tunnel narrowed. Stephen, Callum, and Boo all had to bend a lot. I had a slight advantage, being a few inches shorter, but not much. The tunnel narrowed a bit, then narrowed some more. The bricks changed color—some red, some brown. It was then that the tunnel really seemed to close all around me—darkness behind and darkness ahead, water rushing everywhere. My breath caught and my heart started to pump wildly and I stopped and put my hands against the curve of the wall, which was covered with a dirty slime. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even see. The walls of the tunnel were shrinking to a single point in my head—the point at which the universe winked out of existence. Boo was at my side telling me to take deep breaths, but there was no point. I closed my eyes for a moment and saw . . .

People on a floor. Bodies on a floor.

“Rory?”

I don't even know who said it, but I could tell all three of them were around me now. I had to pull myself together. Had to. I didn't know how—my brain was driving itself to Feartown. I had to get the wheel. Get the wheel, get the wheel. My brain. I was in control. I could decide not to let this happen, not to let my body go weak. I could breathe. Clearly, I was breathing. I had to be breathing. I was breathing quickly. That was the problem. Slow, slow, slow.

They were all talking to me, but I heard only water.

I could still see the mental images of bodies on a floor—an unknown floor. My brain was giving me a weird slideshow.

Someone's hand was on my back.

“It's just panic,” Stephen said. He was close to my ear. “It passes. Panic can't hurt you.”

Bodies. I saw a mental image of bodies. This terrible tangle of bodies on something white. A dark room flooded with candles. When I'd panicked before, back in the hospital, my mind conjured images of Uncle Bick and home. I had no idea what it was doing now. My brain was a collection of broken pieces rattling around in a useless skull.

“Listen to me,” he said. “Try to focus on my voice. You can hear me, right? Nod if you can.”

I nodded.

“We're both broken right now. Something's happened to us. But we can do this. We have to. I'm with you. Whatever is going on in your mind right now, I'm with you.”

In my mind, I was now sitting at a restaurant table listening to Stephen talk. This was at least a calmer, more pleasant mental setting.

“I've been in the dark,” Stephen said. “I know what this feels like. But, Rory, I can't do this without you right now. I'm not strong enough. I need you to take my hand. Take my hand.”

He put his hand on mine, and I had a strong flash of reaching across a white table—Formica—flecked with silvery bits. I opened my eyes and I saw my hand was on the wall. I turned it awkwardly to embrace his. I commanded myself to focus in front of me, to take in the sight of the wall with its varicolored brick flickering in the beam of the flashlight, to take in the water. I would breathe, and I would go. The air down here was full of watery mist, but it was still air. I could breathe.

“Good,” he said. “Deep breath. Deep one.”

My hands slid down the wall.

“I can walk,” I said.

Once more, we moved on, Stephen and I linked together, pushing through the water. The tunnel was still dark, but at least I could make out the walls again. If I was thinking—and I
was
thinking—I was in control. I would make it another step. And the one after. And again. I would make a little song in my head.

Step, step, step

It's just a little wet

Dark, dark, dark

Under Hyde Park

Not the greatest I'd ever done, but it kept my mind occupied, and I let it play on constant repeat. I gave all my attention to it. Stephen was gripping my hand tightly as we all bent to fit through the passage. We crouch-walked, the water now completely over my knees. Stephen and I had to separate, and we all used the sides of the tunnel for balance to get through. Stephen stumbled on something, and Boo and I helped pull him up. Callum had to do all of this while holding the stone at his front.

When it seemed we would almost not be able to get through, there was a sudden widening and we could stand. The water went back to shin height, and we were in a larger chamber with two passages in front of us.

“That looks like overflow to me,” Stephen said, raising his arm with some difficulty and pointing to the slightly higher and narrower of the two openings. It also had a steady and fairly strong flow of water gushing out of it. “I think we want this one.”

This one
was wider and drier, so I approved of the choice. There was only a bit of water in this one. We could walk down it with little problem, side by side once again. There was even a lightness about this tunnel as we went on—a pinkness to the dark ahead. I think the calm and ease of this part of the passage unnerved me more than the tightness and dark before. The lightness was unnatural to the tunnel. The lightness didn't belong. Then, finally, we were at a wall of white, as solid as any brick. We stopped a few feet away from it. The surface was not completely smooth—it had wisps, like frosting, like clouds, little fingers that snapped out at us and were sucked back into the mass behind. It also was moving within itself, like a hurricane twisting along, wrapping around itself.

An old memory from the file cabinet in my mind drifted to the front of my consciousness—the town haunted house again, the smoke machine by the door that puffed chemical smoke into the night air. I had been to this place before. Not back then, not in Louisiana, but more recently. I knew what was in this mist. I understood it in a way I couldn't quite place. Stephen had turned to me and was regarding me.

Like he knew what I was thinking.

“The part we need to get to is through there,” Stephen said.

“So we go in,” Callum said. “To that.”

There was a flatness to his tone that unnerved me. We were all afraid of the thing in front of us, and the reality of who we were fell on me all at once. None of us were fearless—we were four people too young to be doing this, under London. If Freddie went away, no one would even know we were here under the ground.

“We have this,” Callum said, indicating the Oswulf Stone. “Doesn't it do something? Is it a terminus?”

“Not precisely,” Stephen said, his voice edged with exhaustion. “As I understand it, there are charges. Our stones are a negative charge—they repel. This stone is neutral. It has a function, but not a charge.”

“We still have the termini.”

“They won't be enough. Not against this. I don't know what happens if we go in there.”

Something was forming in the mist by Callum's shoulder. There was a parting in the air, a hole of dark here and there, and then a face was peeling itself between the bars—a face stretched in pain. Then there was another a moment later, and bit of a body pulling out of the fog, made of the fog. It was suddenly all hands and eyes. It was like the thing I had encountered in Highgate, except this thing was not wretched and dirty and scared—this was air incarnate, bending itself, filling the tunnel opening with faces and limbs and screaming mouths. The faces extended toward us, the necks growing long. Then arms. Then hands were reaching out. We backed up, but they extended for us with every step.

It was Boo who made the first blow. She pulled the locket from Callum's pocket and swung out her arm, the locket clasped in her fist. She made contact with part of a face. The result was a vibrating crack that shook us all and a blinding flash. The tiny bit of fog snapped back, and Boo fell to the ground. Then a new hand formed and reached again for Boo. A face floated in front of mine—a face that stretched and changed and turned into a hundred faces within a minute. Then a hundred more and a hundred more.

“I can do it,” Stephen said after a moment. “Give me the stone.”

“Bollocks you can do it,” Callum replied. “You're not going in there. We just got you back.”

“Callum, this is—”

“Shut it, Stephen. That's not happening again, you understand?” Callum put his arms around the burden at his chest. “I'm going. I have this stone, I have a terminus. Tell me what to do.”

“I'm going as well,” Boo said. “And Callum's right. Stephen, look at yourself.”

I looked as well. We were all wet, bedraggled, uncertain. Stephen's face was an ashen color, and his eyes were shaded in exhaustion. He closed his eyes and the last reserves of whatever was keeping him upright appeared to be on the brink of leaving him.

The fog still danced in front of us. A parade of Londoners long gone appeared and disappeared in front of me, all looking me in the eye, all challenging me, but none venturing to touch me. A hand came out of the mist and formed a crooked finger, beckoning us on.

“And me,” I said. “If any of us even has a chance . . .”

“Then we all go,” Stephen said. “We stand a better chance together. Agreed?”

Stephen pushed himself off the wall. Callum reinforced his grip on the stone, and Boo pressed herself against him to take some of the weight. I saw a look go between them, acknowledging something. Stephen took my hand. I took the front.

As a group, we stepped forward. The hand vanished back into the sea of the fog, and faces appeared once again as we got closer. Then we were against it. When we used the terminus before, there was a smell of burning, like a flower—this smelled of all the flowers burning, great fields of them, smoke and life going up together into the air.

I saw nothing as we passed inside. But I could feel, and I could hear. There was still the warmth of the others around me and Stephen's hand in mine. In front of me, the fog parted inch by inch, giving me the tiniest view. I put my feet down one in front of the other, though I had no idea where the ground was. I heard Callum and Boo crying out, but their voices dissipated, and I started to forget why I had come . . .

The hand in mine. The feel of the others.

Faces swam around me like clouds of fish underwater, except these faces came and went and multiplied, and they all looked at me as if I
knew
something. And on some level, I felt like maybe I did know something. Something old, something so far back maybe it was from when I was born. I had a sudden remembrance of the nurse in the hall of the hospital, the one who told me to get out. I hadn't belonged there. The dead did not want me around. Lord Williamson had given up when he met me. The Resurrection Man had tried to burn me up. I was outnumbered here, but I still had strength. I had life.