I should have that tattooed on my head, I muse wryly as I head straight for the door.
Though it’s a risk, I pocket Walter’s phone, figuring it might be a help when I get down to the flood tunnels.
I shiver. Shiver as I realize I’m actually going to do this. I just had the day from hell, and there are so many things I should be investigating, from whatever the hell Spencer is keeping in that butcher’s warehouse, to Senator Rogers himself.
But I set my mind on this. Because this – the hope of the chessboard – gives me a much-needed hope of escape.
It’s a word that echoes on my lips, “escape,” as I finally walk out of my house and let my magic lock it.
I tilt my head up, I clench the muscles in my jaw, and I get back into the fray.
Chapter 6
I PREFER WALKING AT night. It’s not just the anonymity of darkness. I swear the energies of the city are more concentrated as soon as the sun goes down. It’s easy to allow those energies to lead me forward, to keep me safe.
I’m in a completely different disguise now. Dressed up as a derelict. I’m an old man, with a gray beard that’s scraggly and touched with tiny flecks of black.
I’m wearing torn, tattered clothes. An old pair of rundown blue jeans, a winter’s coat that’s seen better years, and a pair of shoes that’s so broken, you can see my toes peeking out under a stained white sock.
I make my way through the back alleys of town, heading toward one of the drain entrances that will take me underneath the city.
I’ve never fought in the drains before. I have been in them, though. Years ago, I went down there on a school trip. Caught a bit of the history – not that I can remember it now.
I finally find a drain entrance. It’s not just a manhole that’s sunk into the asphalt or anything. No, I’ve headed right down to the river. Far along the banks are several exit points for the drains.
They are massive affairs. Huge. These pipes that could fit semitrailers down them. I make my way along the darkened bank of the river, my old, tattered shoes slapping through the silt-covered mud.
There’s no one around, and you’d think it would be safe for me to assume my original appearance. But you’d be wrong. I can’t trust that anymore. And by that, I mean myself. From my glossy black hair to my ever-trusted leather jacket – just the thought of them fills me with an erratic energy that darts down my tongue and escapes hard into my belly. It reminds me of one man.
Spencer.
Shit. I swear I can still taste him on my mouth. And as I shift my lips back and forth, it’s like they’re hungry for him.
But they sure as hell aren’t going to get another bite. What happened in his car was a massive mistake. I underestimated the force of imprinting – just another lesson to add to my quiver of ever-growing knowledge about this world.
Point is, I’m not going to be stupid enough to make that mistake again.
That’s why I remain in this form as I reach forward and clap a hand on the massive concrete pipe in front of me. I have to tip my head all the way back to see the top.
It’s covered in grime. And you guessed it – it stinks.
It’s this kind of silty, organic, dirty scent that kind of reminds me of sticking my head down a bathroom sink.
Problem is, this bathroom sink will go on forever. A fact I confirm as I tilt my head forward and in through the drain.
My eyesight was never particularly fantastic, and when I was a teenager, I had reading glasses. But when the magic came, my body adapted. Now it’s pretty easy for me to see in the dark. I don’t even have to bring up one of my old, arthritic gnarled hands, spread my fingers wide, and let a charge of magic zap through it.
I just narrow my eyes and catch sight of the drain going on seemingly forever.
I haul myself up onto the concrete, my old shoes trailing silty mud from the riverside through the entrance.
That’s hardly to say it’s clean.
It’s absolutely covered in gunk, and with every step I take forward, my broken shoes track that gunk all over my socks and legs.
But what do I care?
It’s not like I’ll have to wash these clothes.
There’s a massive iron, rusted grating in place a meter back from the drain entrance, obviously to stop people like me from exploring them.
Wait, no, not people like me. Because it’s practically impossible to stop people like me from getting anywhere.
A fact I point out as I reach the grating.
There’s a little metal door in the grating. Obviously some kind of service panel. I reach forward, tapping the lock once with my finger, and it unlocks itself with a click. I unhook the chain. I open the door and clamber in. Just to be thorough, I grab the chain and lock it back up, and secure the entrance once more.
I turn on my foot. I pause.
I take another hard breath and force myself forward, telling myself to ignore the smell. I’ve faced a hell of a lot worse than a lungful of crap. And I will face a hell of a lot worse if I can’t get my hands on my own gameboard.
Though moments before I was distracted by Spencer, I almost reel back as an image of Senator Rogers slams into my mind, front and center. It’s almost as if he somehow burrowed right into my frontal lobe, and he’s now taking up space in my brain, never to be evicted. And that’s a far more accurate explanation than you’d think.
Just the thought of him seems to set up this reaction in my body, and though I’m striding forward, I have to stop. Fortunately I don’t rock down and fall into a seated position. I just kind of stand there, bring up a hand, and lock it over my face, a little distracted by my beard but not distracted enough to push the thought of Rogers from my head.
I know one thing for sure. John’s warning will be right. If I dare make eye contact with that man in my original form for too long – for longer than a goddamn second – he will imprint me, and I’ll be done. There’ll be no getting out of his grip.
Though at the thought of John or Spencer catching me, I usually have an ambivalent bodily reaction – my heart beating with heat and yet my legs wanting to turn and run me in the opposite direction. With Senator Rogers, it’s different. There’s less of that desire – and way more fear. I hope it’s going to be enough to force me to do whatever the hell I need to to get away from him, permanently.
That word kind of sticks in my head.
Because it points out something to me – something kind of sickening. If I ever want to get out of Rogers’ grip forever, I really have only one option. Bolt – run, get the hell away from Rival City and never look back. But even then, I somehow doubt I’ll be able to tap out of this magical world forever. I know it will just follow me.
So there’s really only one other option. Isn’t there?
Kill Rogers.
If the mere thought of him is enough to stop me in place, the thought of killing him is completely different. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like it before. It’s like swallowing scissors. For a few seconds, it doesn’t seem to do anything to me, but then it seems to reach my heart, and I feel as if my chest twists to the side. As if a pair of someone’s hands appear right there next to my heart and they plan on stealing it right out of my chest.
It takes me a few minutes to calm down and regain my nerve. I have to tell myself over and over again why I’m doing this. That this is the only goddamn way.
But it’s another thought that finally sees me pushing forward.
Walter.
Whenever I need a kick in the butt in this world, it’s always the memory of Walter that does that. I just have to half close my eyes and remember him looking up at me, his surprise so evident, so visceral, so damn unforgettable.
I can remember his lips shaking, his cheeks paling, and the words slipping out of his mouth.
I’m an unattached queen. And I have to help John Rowley.
I shake my head and stride forward.
The one good thing about being able to change my appe
arance with magic is it’s giving me a new appreciation for different people, different genders, different sizes, different shapes. Not just the way other people treat me, but the way it affects my movement, how I think about myself.
I’m not about to pause and write a groundbreaking essay on walking a day in someone else’s shoes. It’s just a thought I let distract me as I wind through the tunnels.
When I’m far enough away from the entrance, I break into a run. I figure by now that if I face anyone down here in these tunnels, it’s probably likely to be someone magical anyway. Me running at the full extent of my abilities, despite my disguise, isn’t going to look as damn dodgy as me being down here in the first place.
I have no idea where I’m going, but I know one thing for sure – if I follow the energies, concentrate on the magic and the general feeling of this place, it will lead me somewhere.
I lose all connection to time, have no idea whether it’s still the frigging night or if I’ve been down here until morning. But finally, I start to find something.
It’s slow at first. Just this slight change in energies. It’s like dusk descending. Seriously, that’s the only way to describe it. Except it’s already night, and I’m well and truly away from any light source. That’s not the point. As I shift through the tunnels, it’s like I’ve entered a night that’s unique to them.
And that – that is a seriously unsettling thought.
The tunnels are relatively new. And by relatively, I mean they were built in the 70s. They get fixed every now and then if a massive rain takes out a chunk of the concrete or the natural shifting of the earth does anything to the superstructure.
Apart from that, everything in these tunnels should be about the same age.
So why do I suddenly feel as if I’ve walked into a museum?
I’m in a particularly large section of the tunnel. The roof of the drain above me has to be at least 20 m away. I shudder to think how terrifying it would be to be down here at maximum flood time. Casting my gaze up the side of the tunnel, I can see the watermark of where the last flood was. It’s pretty high up.
But it’s not wet season at the moment.... So why... why can I hear something that sounds like running water?
I suddenly freeze, back stiffening, head jerking to the side, old eyes blasting wide.
I’m not making it up. There’s something that sounds sonorous and low like running water. It’s not pounding toward me as the drains fill or anything.
It’s just a trickle, just a hum.
It’s one that shouldn’t be here, though. Because even from here, I can tell there’s something wrong with that sound.
I dash forward, pushing into a full run again, old limbs pumping so hard and fast, if an ordinary person were to see me, they’d freak out.
Though the tunnels themselves are these huge continuous structures made out of joined concrete, I suddenly skid to a stop.
Because right there in front of me is a different tunnel. And it’s not made out of concrete. It’s made out of dirt.
The concrete has been eaten away either side of the tiny dirt tunnel for about a meter and a half.
It looks... it looks like somebody’s burrowed right through the concrete into the earth.
“What the hell?” I say, the first time I’ve dared to utter anything since I’ve come down here.
Darting pressure spreads through my chest, jumps into my heart, and makes me feel like I’ve swallowed an electricity pill.
It’s enough to see me jolt forward.
Though maybe I should hesitate before I head into the patently creepy tunnel before me, I know I don’t have time.
I still have Walter’s phone on me, and subconsciously, I shove a hand into the inside pocket of my old, tattered winter jacket and wrap my old fingers around it. I don’t pluck it out or anything, just use it for a little comfort, almost as if it’s a hand I can lace my fingers through.
There wasn’t that much information on Walter’s phone. Just his suspicions and the location data I managed to find.
I’m starting to put two and two together. Walter must’ve seen something pretty big to conclude that there’s an old gameboard underneath Rival City.
I wonder if he also managed to follow the energies like I did. Or is that just an ability set aside for a queen?
You know one of the worst things about being in this world isn’t even necessarily being hunted by the kings – it’s not knowing how many powers I have. It’s excruciating. Only this morning, I learned I had the ability to magically alter the traffic around me when I copied Spencer’s spell. Just how many other spells out there could I learn? Spells that, if I knew them right now, could change everything?
“Get a grip and concentrate. You get nowhere if you complain,” I snap at myself. I, however, don’t let my voice echo out too loudly. That feels... wrong. As if I’m right now walking through a wolf’s den, and the slightest noise will wake the pack.
I get the urge to change back into my original form, but I clench my teeth and push it away. Being in disguise doesn’t change my magic – unless I’m around a king, that is.
But I’m alone down here, right?
I can’t feel anyone, so I tell myself I’m definitely alone.
The dirt tunnel is winding, almost as if it was cut by somebody who was deliberately trying to put someone off the scent rather than cutting a path directly to their objective.
The further along it I run, the more my stomach twists and turns like it’s a perfect copy of the tunnel itself.
I’m sweating now, despite the fact it’s cold down here. It’s from anxiety, from the fact my hearts pounding in my chest like a pinball in a machine being thrown from latch to latch.
I don’t know how long it takes, five minutes, maybe 10, but I feel a sudden change in the energy.
Abruptly, I exit into a room.
Not a drain. Not some kind of service room used to check the structural integrity of the tunnel system.
No.
It’s a cavern.
It’s carved.
It’s ancient.
And it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
The tunnel exits onto a mezzanine path that circles around the top of the cavern. On the left and right are two long, sweeping staircases that lead down to the room below.
The roof is carved. It makes it look like a cathedral.
This place is stunning.
As I skid onto the mezzanine level, my eyes instantly dart down to the floor of the cavern below. Trust me, yours would too. Because the floor is carved white and black, just like a chessboard.
It’s massive.
I’ve only seen a handful of chessboards before, but my reaction to them has always been the same. This visceral punch in the heart that tells me I’ve encountered something that literally holds my destiny like a magical set of hands.
This time it’s way worse.
There’s this old carved stone railing that runs around the mezzanine level, and before I know what I’m doing, I skid forward, wrap my arms around it, and allow myself to fall to my knees. The energies of the room flood into me, making me shake, making tears trickle down from my cheeks.
It’s terrifying.
But you know what’s more terrifying?
Suddenly, I hear voices.
Faint – damn faint, and someone without my acute hearing might just mistake them for bumps in the night.
But they aren’t bumps in the night.
It’s a male voice, and it’s low, grating, pulsing in a chant. It’s rhythmic, keeps beating with breathy pauses as if the guy is using his voice like a drum.
The section of railing I collapsed on doesn’t have gaps, a fact I’m seriously thankful for. I huddle with my back against the stone, drawing my hands up and collapsing them over my head as I try to hide from that voice.
I don’t hear footsteps. No shouts.
I’m pretty sure whoever is down there doesn’t know I’m up here.
M
y eyes are so damn wide that I feel my eyelashes practically snagging against my jeans as I blink frantically.
That voice...it’s... it has to be a king.
But it’s not Spencer. And it’s not John.
Good God.
Rogers.
I....
I have to get away.
Have to get away.
I force my head up, lock my gaze on the opening to the tunnel. It’s right there in front of me – less than a meter and a half away. If I stay on my hands and knees and crawl, I’ll be able to reach it without Rogers catching sight of me.
But I can’t move.
It feels like somebody has bolted me to the floor. “Move, move,” I mouth to myself, the movements of my lips and jaw hard as if I’m trying to chew through my own resistance. But no matter how much I spit at myself and hate on myself for being so weak, it just doesn’t count. There’s nothing I can do to fight the fear that locks me in place.
Rogers’ muttering changes now. It’s not as rhythmic anymore. It starts to become chaotic, this unique song of destruction. It’s categorically the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard. It makes the skin on the back of my neck crawl, makes me want to shiver into myself, crawl into my own body and disappear like I’m about to implode.
But that’s not going to work, and there’s no way I’m going to get away until I break through whatever’s holding me in place and I run.
Abruptly, Rogers’ chanting stops.
It feels like someone has just slapped me in the face with a bat. My whole body tingles, not with pleasant heat, but with total, gut-wrenching fear.
I hear footsteps. But the thing about a cavern as large as this and with such an echoing ceiling is it’s pretty hard to locate where those footsteps are coming from. They could be on the opposite side of the cavern leading away, or they could be heading toward one of the stairways and up to me.
I collapse a hand over my chest, grasping the fabric of my jacket so hard, if it were real, I would’ve shredded it.
I wait.
I wait.
I wait.
And finally, finally I feel footsteps. Not hear them, mind you. I feel them. They’re coming up the stairs.
The Last Queen Book Three Page 7