The Sunken City Trilogy

by Phil Williams

  “I love you, Diz,” she said weakly. “I always will. And I’ve tried so hard. But there’s a line. I’m telling you, this is it.”

  “Please,” Barton said to her. “Trust me. I just need to get some answers.”

  “Answers to what?”

  He couldn’t say he feared Grace was missing. That Rufaizu or the girl were somehow responsible. He didn’t even know if it was true. “Give me one night, I’ll make all this go away. Forever.”

  “No.” Holly shook her head. “You don’t get to leave me behind again. You don’t get to have secrets. We share this life, that’s what you promised me. I don’t care what you think’s dangerous, there’s nothing that can be worse than you not sharing it with me. Nothing.”

  Barton saw desperation in her eyes, her voice quivering on the brink of sobs. He took a breath. “If I show it to you...you’ll see why I didn’t want you to know. But you have to see it for yourself.”

  10

  The tunnels Pax entered from the empty storage room were eerily similar to the ones from the night before, half a city away. Equally bare and unused, of an almost identical size, with the same occasional faded light boxes, none of which were lit. Equally unlikely as a paradise for fairies.

  They travelled along straight paths, intersecting and turning at right angles, occasionally sloping up or down. It was impossible to tell where they were going, or if they had at some point turned in a circle. Pax walked behind Casaria as he lit the way with his blue lantern, checking his monitors for signs of the things that dwelt down there. There were sickles a few blocks away, he said, but it was a distant signal and they weren’t of interest. He was tracking something else.

  As they descended a set of stairs, onto another unending stretch of tunnel, Pax grew weary of the monotony of their footfalls and the seriousness of the hunt, and she broke the silence. “Are there special laws for your prisoners? Can you legitimately hold Rufaizu for something? Suspicion of possessing a weapon is pretty weak grounds for arrest, isn’t it?”

  Casaria looked over his shoulder at her, his expression disapproving. “If it was Fae technology, it could do a lot of damage. Unlikely as that is. But yes, we have special jurisdictions. You have no idea of the trouble idle talk could do.”

  “Who’d take him seriously? My brother used to play fantasy games, you know, and he –”

  “This isn’t a game,” Casaria replied shortly, continuing down the tunnel. “Rufaizu stirred those Fae assassins out of their nest, for one.”

  “You’re sure that’s what they were? Assassins?”

  “What else would they be,” he scoffed. Not a question. “You’ve no idea the complications people have introduced, trying to argue the rights of different animals down here.”

  “How do you –”

  “It used to be simple,” Casaria cut in with annoyance. “Fighting these monsters, creating a firm line between the city above and below, preserving the things that mattered. Then people started asking questions, creating absurd diplomatic initiatives for clerks who prefer to sit behind desks than do anything active. Suddenly there’s specific words we ought to use, specific protocols to follow when engaging with our enemies, countless regulations they’ve invented to create meaningless jobs for people enforcing them. There’s a lot of ugly ambition in the Ministry, I’m sorry to tell you that. But you stick with me, I’ll show you how we can get around it.”

  They continued in a terser silence, his shoulders stiff ahead. Pax kept quiet, trying to put together the exact issues this loon was dealing with. He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders to loosen up. Trying to think of something to say, wanting to redirect the conversation. Without looking back, he said, “I used to play the trumpet. When I was a kid.”

  Pax frowned. Why not. “Yeah? You don’t strike me as the type.”

  “Gave it up when I lost a tooth.”

  “Was that somehow related?”

  “Yeah,” he said, but didn’t explain. Instead, he said, “I often wonder if I should’ve got a gold tooth, instead of the white one.”

  “Would’ve looked badass. But, like an ex-con. Not really respectable.”

  “Not like a badass who hunts monsters for the government?”

  “No,” Pax said. “You’d want a tattoo for that. A coat of arms. Like the SAS.”

  She could see from his cheeks that Casaria was smiling. Hopefully this nonsense would help when she asked him not to kill her for wanting nothing more to do with the Ministry.

  He looked at his monitor and stopped dead. Pax almost bumped into him as he swore.

  She spun around, looking back, left, right, above her. “What? Where is it?”

  He drew his pistol. “Got behind us. Keep calm, I’ll handle it.”

  They turned and Casaria moved in front of Pax. As he did, the lantern lit up something on the floor that scuttled up the wall, back into the shadow. The alien thing moved with the many legs of a spider or crab. Its claws clicked against the concrete, little green eyes twinkling briefly in the light. Pax froze as Casaria held the lantern higher and revealed it again. It was about a foot wide, five wiry legs joined in a central, round body, which hung under the joints. The body was spiky like a sea anemone, and had a square, toothed mouth in its centre.

  The creature paused, seeming to look straight at them, then scuttled into the shadows again, and started moving rapidly away, its otherworldly patter making Pax shudder. Casaria thrust the lantern into Pax’s hands and flicked a switch on his pistol, lighting a torch. He ran, gun raised. Pax ran after him.

  They caught up to the creature as it turned a corner, two of its queer legs folding as they lifted. Casaria skidded into the open, aimed and fired. A few metres back, Pax flinched as a ball of lightning erupted from the gun like an electric meteor. She turned the corner and saw what was left of the creature charred into the wall, bits of leg sticking out of a smoking black smear.

  “That,” Casaria said, holstering his gun, “was an Item 13. Scientifically called a crus adsecula. Crusad for short.”

  “It was a giant fucking spider!” Pax exclaimed.

  Casaria let out a short laugh. “Oh no. Much worse.”

  He prodded one of the legs with his shoe. Nothing more than a burnt stick now. He turned back to Pax with a smile, but his eyes widened and his hand fell back to the holster. She followed his gaze to above her shoulder, where a second creature had appeared. Its beady eyes focused on her as it bared its teeth like a dog.

  She shrieked and fell sideways as it pounced. She felt the weight of its horrible little body on her shoulder as the talons pinched into her. She shook her shoulder violently and held her arms up and out, trying not to touch it. As she spun, Casaria swore and ran closer. He batted the thing off her. It thumped into a wall, then another thump as it hit the floor. Finally another blinding electric blast and it was gone.

  Pax was panting as Casaria helped her to her feet. She looked at the half-incinerated mess of the thing with horror. The shot had torn through it on one side, this time, leaving behind a half-mutilated, twitching monstrosity.

  “Holy fuck,” Pax said. “It was trying to bite my throat out!”

  “No,” Casaria replied, calm. “Crusads don’t eat flesh. It probably just saw you as an easily reachable object to get to the other side of the tunnel.”

  “Fuck off – it was trying to kill me!”

  “If it wanted to kill you it would’ve used its stinger. You’re not hurt, are you?”

  Pax quickly looked herself over. She was too pumped with adrenaline to sense any pain, but didn’t see any marks. She shook her head. Casaria nodded in approval, then took out his sensors to check for other targets in the vicinity. He said, “Crusads are open season, they need culling. They keep the turnbold population down, but there’s a shortage of turnbolds right now.”

  “That’s all right then,” Pax muttered, stunned at how this man could talk about hunting an alien spider as casually as if it were chicken farming. Something jarre
d him out of that calmness, though.

  “We need to leave,” Casaria said, putting his gun and monitors away. He grabbed the lantern from Pax. She frowned, but he was already striding away. “Right now.”

  She rushed to match his brisk walk, and asked, “What now? Boar with a chainsaw?”

  “Save your energy,” he shot back. As he picked up his pace to a jog, Pax’s worries grew, aware that serious cardio was beyond her. She tried to keep up without exerting too much energy. Watching his monitor, he cursed once more. His jog turned to a run.

  Pax chased after him. He ran and skidded around a corner, and she struggled to keep up, to keep sight of his guiding light. They came to some steps, and as Casaria cleared two or three at a time Pax hit one of the first ones and tripped, falling onto her hand. She cried out and he stopped to look back. As she shoved herself to her feet, he yelled, “Hurry!”

  She gave a quick look back to see what it was they were running from, and in that moment was too awestruck to move. Creeping around the corner of the tunnel they’d come down was a branch of effervescent light. It flaked into view like a climbing but crumbling vine, its extremities breaking free with the flutter of autumn leaves. All around the strangely spreading shape was a glow of electric blue.

  Casaria’s hand clamped on to Pax’s upper arm and hauled her up the stairs. He shouted, “Move your damned feet!”

  She did as she was told. He dragged her as he ran, and as they reached the top of the stairs she looked back. The glow was floating up after them. Casaria kept going, taking her with him. He was running as though his life depended on it, spurring her into doing the same, charging for the next set of steps, back up into the empty storage room.

  They powered through the last stretch together, bursting out into the room, and Casaria slammed the door shut behind them. He rammed the bolt in and brought the barrier down, firmly securing the door. He leant against it, almost as out of breath as Pax.

  Breathing so heavily she felt like she was going to swallow her tongue, lungs burning and legs aching, Pax turned to retch. The exertion, the panic and the fear brought up part of her dinner. As she spluttered, she demanded answers, flapping a hand in the direction they’d come. “What the hell was that?”

  “The praelucente. Part of it, anyway. It shouldn’t have been there. The scanners –”

  “You said it was a good thing!”

  “I said,” Casaria replied, “it serves a greater good. That doesn’t mean it’s safe.”

  She glared at him as he walked by.

  “We’re done here.”

  It was only when she asked that Casaria really thought about how he’d been testing Pax. She wanted to know what came next, and he told her she should rest and think about what had already come. He had established well enough that he could talk to her and that she could behave herself, and she hadn’t baulked at the strangeness of it all, or shown any particular need to expose and undermine the Ministry. Or to climb its convoluted ladder. She had also shown enough independent spirit for him to feel he could respect her. He respected so few people. She would be a valuable companion, with a little conditioning. She just needed more exercise and at least a general awareness of how to handle herself in a physical confrontation. If he filed the D7-RRb he was putting off, to make her involvement official, the first step would be a full medical exam.

  Running this assessment through his mind, he decided on the next step. Before dropping her off, he said he would see what he could do about getting her some firearms training. She stared at him as though she had just been told he would organise a sex change for her. Nevertheless, she mumbled thanks.

  She lingered by the car as he waited for her to leave, clearly keen to ask questions quicker than they mounted in her mind. There was just one point he hoped she wouldn’t touch on, and of course, she did: “What’s next for Rufaizu?”

  She wasn’t ready to drop it yet. Watching her reaction carefully, he told her, “It’s not up to me now.” He held up his bandaged hand. “After the attack last night, the pencil-pushers will take over. In all likelihood, those idiots will turn him loose rather than risk creating ripples.”

  Another question was clearly forthcoming, but instead Pax held her mouth as though something had risen in her stomach. She retched again, with a nasty cough, but nothing came out except the rancid smell of bad Chinese. Casaria marvelled at how much she’d suffered from such a short run. Perhaps the fairy was repeating on her. “Try and get some rest,” he told her.

  Waving an irritated hand at him, she spat noisily, then pointed to his bandages. “What about those Fae that came at you? Are they still out there?”

  Casaria shrugged. “I might have got one or two of them in the fight, we’re not sure. But I’ll deal with the others, don’t worry.”

  She nodded.

  As Pax left for her apartment, Casaria pulled away and checked his phone for any reports of incidents across the city. Nothing of note. There was no way the administration would actually let him join the Fae hunt, anyway. They resented his enthusiasm for practical activities. Handing over the severed head of a glogockle for examination had once cost him a week of writing reports in a windowless room. Meanwhile Sam Ward got a promotion for conducting a demographic survey. That was considered research?

  Bastards.

  He slowed down at an intersection and saw a man resting against a wall, behind a piece of cardboard declaring his sob story. Young, not yet 30, still strong, though with the vacant look of one who’d lost his intelligence to drugs. If he’d ever had it to begin with.

  Casaria pulled over behind a warehouse, sheltered from cameras. He wove back through alleys on foot until he got to the main street, then approached the homeless man with a smile. “You want to make some money?”

  The young man looked up at him, eyes half-closed. He didn’t appear to have heard.

  Casaria took out a note. “I’ve got £20 with your name on it. Meet me around the corner. But take that path, don’t follow me. It’s not a sex thing. And it’ll be fair.”

  The bum couldn’t take his eyes off the money. He nodded slowly, not entirely following or caring, then Casaria walked away. The homeless man stood with great effort, then ambled in the opposite direction. The CCTV footage would show this pedestrian in a suit taking pity on the vagrant, leaving him enough money to set him prowling through the alleys for a fix. The homeless man disappeared into an area with no other cameras, where he would be found bloody and bruised late the next day.

  When asked who did it, he would refuse to give details.

  He’d mumble through his broken teeth that it had been a fair fight. Couldn’t fault that.

  11

  Pax couldn’t focus as she tried to find the section in Apothel’s book on the crus adsecula. It was unlikely to be the name Apothel had used, given the pattern of the others, but it should have been recognisable from the pictures. Her eyes blurred, the detail of the pages hard to make out, and her head started swimming. She felt nauseous, cursing herself for being so out of shape, and twice since she’d left Casaria she felt like she was going to vomit again. It never came, though.

  She drank a glass of water, took a few aspirins and sat on the bed waiting for the feeling to pass. She felt the room expanding and contracting like the breathing of some great beast. How long had the fairy been shouting for? The words only vaguely sifted into her ears, and for a moment she didn’t understand where they were coming from. She stared across the room to the closed cupboard.

  Oh yes.

  The fairy.

  She closed her eyes, but that made things worse, like she was about to roll off the bed despite sitting still. The shouting continued and she grunted, pushing off the bed and lurching towards the closet. She tried to speak: “Like having a damned pet I never asked for.” The words came out like the cries of a dying goat, her tongue barely moving. She opened the cupboard and lifted the lid off the shoebox. Her focus lasted long enough to see the tiny lady looking up.

>   “You look like shit.”

  She fell, with just enough time to realise something was seriously wrong.

  Letty had pretended to sleep when Pax left, conserving her energy. She had done a good enough job of hiding the tiring effects the Ministry gas had had on her, she felt, but needed to recover in anticipation of a rescue operation. If one came. When the lummox had made a snide comment about no one having come to save her, Letty held her tongue, but there was truth in what the girl said. The boys had not come, and she didn’t know why. They had Pax’s address, they should have at least followed up on threatening her. But nothing. Letty was alone, out on her arse. Betrayed by those useless pricks.

  She was fuming on that when the girl returned. Deciding to vent some anger, Letty started shouting, until the shoebox was finally opened and the girl collapsed with a great crash. Letty took advantage at once.

  Using her full weight, Letty shoved the giant t-shirt into the corner of the box, balling it up enough to clamber to freedom. With the lumbering giant felled like a tree, it was a free ride out. Letty jumped onto the cupboard shelf and landed next to Pax’s twitching hand. The girl’s forearm flopped into the cupboard, her body slumped against it. Her head lolled against the cupboard door, barely conscious, half-open mouth drooling. The arm was a perfect ramp down, which Letty pounced onto, running over the long sleeve of Pax’s hooded top. She stopped as she reached the shoulder, though, seeing erratic rips in the terrain, a hole close to the neck. The skin beneath the cloth looked completely wrong.

  Letty continued down Pax’s back, throwing a few glances back to the wound. She reached the floor and jumped off. As she started across the carpet, its weaves up to her ankles, the fairy slowed down, considering the girl’s chances.

  Not good, she thought, approaching the looming door. There was a draught excluder at its base, but enough space was left to squeeze through. Letty stopped as the girl let out a groan. She looked like a semi-comatose drunk. Standard human affair on a Saturday night. But there was nothing alcohol-related in Pax’s condition. The wound, festering with a bubbling, slightly green tinge, was unmistakably the work of caustic venom. The sort caused by pentanids. It would start with dizziness and nausea, immobilising her and leaving her numb, then the bite would spread through her system, decaying her organs, corroding her bones. The anaesthetic would wear off by the time that happened, when it was too late to do anything about it. She’d suffer a lot.