Viper Moon (33 page)

Nefertiti flopped weakly in a small pool beside me. The gushing torrent spread out on the flatter surface and started to drag her away, so I grabbed her.

Like the basement under the warehouse where we’d found the weapons, a part of a wall had collapsed into the storm sewers. The gaping crack spewed a torrential flood.

Flynn surged out next. In an instant, though, he scrambled back to the opening, shoved his body in, grabbed Dacardi, and dragged him out. Michael came next. The water gushed harder. Flynn stuck his arms in, feeling for Dacardi’s man. He drew a breath and shoved his upper body in. Finally, he pulled back gasping. “I can’t find him.”

“I’m sorry, Dacardi,” I said.

Dacardi shrugged. “Don’t think he followed us in. I didn’t hear him. I guess he ran.”

While the others sat coughing and trying to shake off the effect of the cold, I moved away from the pipe. I managed to stand, not an easy task with an armful of snake.

My light flashed on our surroundings.

“Where are we?” Flynn stood beside me.

I swung the light to the floor. A set of rails, twisted and broken, ran into the darkness in both directions. “A subway tunnel.”

Nefertiti was limp as a length of rope in my hands. Shit! I had to get her warmed. Dacardi was wearing the most clothes. I went to him. “She needs close body heat.”

“Goddamn, bitch.” He unzipped his coveralls. “Better a snake around my neck than following you.” He ripped his shirt open so she could lie against his skin.

“She likes you, too,” I said to Dacardi. I coiled her as best I could and deposited her in his coveralls.

To my amazement, one of Dacardi’s coverall pockets produced a plastic bag with dry cloths. What an incredibly complex man.

We had no way to dry anything else, but we cleaned up the weapons as best we could. Water from the hole in the tunnel wall still gushed, but quickly drained away in the vastness of the subway tunnel. That particular danger seemed to be over. I relaxed and oriented myself. The pipe we’d crawled through felt straight enough; that would put the pentagram’s center a hundred yards to the southeast.

“This way.” My little band of warriors followed me. Not that they had a choice at this point.

Water had slicked Michael’s hair back. He’d lost the cap he’d worn earlier, but his wonderful face and graceful body gave no hint of discomfort, even though he was as wet as the rest of us.

Dacardi stared around, interested in his surroundings, on his great adventure to rescue his son. He fared the best of all, I think. His coveralls didn’t keep him dry, but they kept him warm. Flynn, like me, seemed to be concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.

We hadn’t gone far when we reached a platform where passengers once waited for the trains. “Anybody know how long it’s been since the Barrows had an operating subway?” I asked.

Michael answered me. “It’s never had one. It was close to completion in 1948, the year the sixty percent of the Barrows’ infrastructure collapsed. They’d built the subway and were going to link it uptown. Those tracks have never had a train roll over them. An old man who worked at the clinic told me about it. I was curious, but not brave enough to go into the monster’s lair and explore.”

“What caused the collapse?” In a few sentences, he’d given me more information than I’d ever been able to find.

“He didn’t know. The electricity stopped working and regular sewers failed.”

“Not surprising.” Not given the total aberration of the place we called the Barrows. Those aberrations extended far beyond the ruins and to the people who lived here. I climbed onto the platform and the others followed me.

“How’s Nefertiti?” I asked Dacardi.

“She’s moving better now. She led us here?”

“It appears so. Let’s search the general area and see what we find.”

We crossed the platform. The stairs going up to the street had collapsed into a pile of rubble, so no escape there. I wasn’t looking for escape, though.

Dacardi grunted and Nefertiti’s head popped out of his coveralls. She squirmed and stretched her body out a foot. I rubbed my thumb under her chin. “Which way, baby?”

She twisted to my right. Debris piled against the wall, partly from the falling stairs. “Go closer,” I told Dacardi.

He walked slowly toward the pile. Behind it, I could see a steel door. Where would that lead? Thirty minutes later, with a minimum of grumbling, we had the frame cleared. The opening revealed a closet full of wires hanging in mad disarray, an electrical closet that once served the subway.

I wasn’t willing to let matters go so quickly. I shoved myself into the closet. “Bring Nefertiti here.”

Dacardi came to me, Nefertiti slid out of his coveralls into my arms, and I laid her on the floor. His body heat had revived her and she moved normally now. I worried, though. She immediately crawled through the clump of wires and disappeared.

I dropped to my knees and the remaining floor debris cut into my jeans. “Nefertiti, we can’t go that way.” She didn’t return. I bent down to dig through the wires and they parted as easily as spaghetti in my hands. I found what she wanted me to see. Behind the wires was a three-foot-square box that led into what had probably been a service passage.

“Okay, guys. Help me get some of these wires out of the way.”

They let out a few sighs, but gave in. What else could they do? Call a cab and go home? I stood back while Michael and Dacardi tore at the wires so they wouldn’t tangle in any equipment we carried.

Flynn stood beside me. “Cass, if we can’t find Selene, I’ll understand.”

“Why shouldn’t we find her?” I laid a hand on his chest and felt the steady beat of his heart. “Nefertiti is on the trail.”

“You were right, though. I should have had faith in you.” His lips brushed across my forehead. “We didn’t need Michael or his money.”

“No, we didn’t need Michael or his money. But I think he’s here with us for a reason.”

“Not a good one.”

“Don’t let your prejudice make good guys into bad guys.” I said
prejudice
when I meant
jealousy
.

“And Michael’s a good guy?” Flynn’s voice sounded tight. He didn’t believe that.

“Michael is Michael.”

“And Dacardi?”

“Dacardi is a criminal, but I like him, too. Bare-ass courage made him what he is. He’ll stand with us. Remember the knights on the chessboard. We’ll see what he’s made of soon.”

“The same could be said for all of us, Cass.”

He was right. I drew a breath to speak, to say the words, tell him how I felt when a scrape came from behind me. Claws on concrete. I knew that sound. One of the rhinolike predators I’d killed the day we’d fallen into the sewer was scrabbling and clawing its way onto the platform. Ungainly, slow, and lumbering, probably injured by the storm sewer flood. I drew my gun but hesitated. I’d be shouting
Here I am!
by blasting monsters this close.

“That’s it,” Michael called from the closet. “We’re in.”

Nefertiti suddenly raced past me. She coiled and struck the predator in one smooth movement. Her fangs caught the thing in the softer-looking tissue around its lips. The thing froze and she struck again, this time under its eye. Then she calmly glided back toward us.

The monster stood rigid. It gave one long, mournful cry that stretched away down the long tunnel and into the darkness beyond. With a heavy, wet smack, it toppled over onto the concrete platform. The gray hide quivered and jerked. One final sigh escaped its lungs like air from a balloon.

“Damn,” Dacardi said from behind me. “She’s good.” Nefertiti crawled to him and stopped at his feet. He crouched in front of her. Then he held out his hand and she crawled up his arm to nuzzle his ear. I went first, a bit of a squeeze, but no more than the pipe that dumped us here. At least it was dry. As I suspected, a duct carried electrical wires serving the subway. Twenty feet down, it opened up into a narrow passageway that let us stand. Still more wires to shove aside, but easier this time.

“These wires are copper,” Dacardi said. “A million dollars in salvage here.”

“Probably.” I had to agree. “There’s a lot in the Barrows that’s salvageable.”

“Who owns it?” Flynn asked. “They pay taxes, don’t they?”

“Yes,” Michael said. “I do.” His words weighed heavy with irony.

“All of it?” I stopped to turn back and stare at him.

“No. A large portion, the Zombie and the areas close to the docks.”

“You own the Zombie? How did you manage that?”

“Abandoned property. Tax sales. I purchased it from the city. They were happy to sell. Taxes are pennies a square block until I redevelop. I’d begun the redevelopment process near the docks when I suddenly ran out of money.”

Oh, yes, brother Vic had helped himself to the cookie jar. That semi-explained why Michael tolerated Theron. He needed the money.

We came to another metal door, but this one cocked to the side and hung from one hinge. We emerged into an underground parking garage.

This was ideal territory for monsters, but there was no sign or smell. Only one level below the street, but I could hear water seeping in the lower end, lapping at the pavement like a dog slurping from a toilet. The roll of thunder thudded through the building. Now relatively safe, I prayed that the Mother would send a biblical flood to cleanse the nightmare under the streets—and I wondered why she didn’t do it before we went down. Abby said she controlled the weather. I assumed she controlled the weather. So how did we go wrong here?

Nefertiti slid down Dacardi’s arm and headed across the garage to the high end, where a set of twisted steel stairs led up into the building itself. She waited for us. I picked her up when I reached her and draped her over my shoulders. I knew she could climb, but I still worried. She’d taken a horrible chill for a snake.

We climbed the stairs one person at a time to distribute our weight, but they creaked and groaned. We gathered on a more solid landing.

“This is too easy,” I said softly. “Nothing I do is this easy.”

“Don’t borrow trouble, Cass,” Flynn whispered in my ear.

“Dim the lights,” I said as I gripped the metal door handle.
Great Mother, don’t let it be jammed.
The door opened with the perfect ease and oiled silence of something used often. Disturbing. Were we expected? Most likely. The hallway we entered was clear of debris. An easy path to the interior and another set of stairs leading up to the next floor.

Our feet made little sound on the steps as we climbed. Shreds of ancient rotted carpet clung to the steps—at the outside edges, not the middle. Someone used this path often enough to wear the threads away. The air smelled different here. Not like habitation, but not the tomblike atmosphere of a truly abandoned building. The signs of use ended at a door. I signaled for them to cut off the lights and we walked into a dark, silent hallway. In the distance, I could see a faint glow and hear the soft sound of voices.

Nefertiti writhed and slid down my body to the floor and headed for the light.

The men fanned out on either side of me as we crept down the hall. I had them turn off their lights and let their eyes become accustomed to the dimmer illumination.

Then a child’s voice, a little girl’s, said, “Oh, look, the snake is back.”

“No, that’s a different one. The other one was bigger.” A boy spoke this time, his young voice pitched high with fear. “Don’t go over there, Kimmy. It might bite you.”

Soft light spilled from a room on my left. An open, steel-barred cage door stood in place of a regular one. I faced my troops and held up my hands, palms out, trying to make them not rush into a trap.

“Careful.” I mouthed the words. Still too easy.

I peeked around the door’s edge. Several kids—I couldn’t tell how many—sat huddled together on mattresses on the floor. The light came from a few battery lamps scattered around the room. Cookie and candy wrappers littered the area, along with empty water bottles. At least the scum who locked them up fed them. A couple of portable toilets sat in the corner, but in spite of that, the room smelled of sewage. Long-term planning by someone who kept children as sacrificial lambs.

Dacardi surged forward and I blocked him with my body. Had he heard Richard’s voice? “Wait,” I said. “It could be—”

“What was that?” another girl said. This one sounded older.

Flynn drew a sharp breath. Selene’s voice, most likely.

I stared straight ahead down the hall, still looking for a trap. I saw nothing but darkness.

“Who’s there?” a boy called. Fear came with his words, but anger, too.

Dacardi jerked again. Richard for sure.

I stepped in front of the door so they could see me. They all stood now, huddled in a group. Selene was there, as was Richard. Teenagers, they stood tall above four other children, two boys and two girls. The older pair stepped in front of the smaller children.

“Hi,” I said softly.“Richard—quick—are there guards?”

He shook his head. “No. At least not close. Men come at daylight and bring food.” He didn’t talk loud, hadn’t moved, and held the others back. Healthy suspicion resonated in his voice.

“Stand still and be quiet. Okay?”

Richard nodded.

“Michael, give me a hand here.” His strength, combined with mine, should’ve let us remove the door.

Michael came forward. “Stand back.”

He wrapped his hands around the barred door and jerked up and out. It cracked with the sound of a demolition crew at work as it popped loose at the lock and tore out half the doorjamb.

Dacardi rushed into the room. Flynn followed him. I couldn’t blame them.

“See!” Selene cried as she flung herself into Flynn’s arms. “I told you my brother would come. I told you!” Flynn didn’t say anything. He cried. So did Dacardi.