by Kenny Soward
Straight to the basement they’d gone. It was only when Elsa stopped to open the door to her playroom that Trolley got away. The unlucky bastard climbed right up the stairs and slammed into Lonnie, tumbling halfway back down again. “Bring that tasty morsel here, would you, Lons?” Elsa called.
Lonnie had no choice but to oblige despite Trolley’s begging. He wrestled the wiggly fellow down the stairwell to drop him at Elsa’s feet. “Thanks, darling,” she said, and kicked Trolley in the face a half dozen times with those boots of hers, spiked toe tearing him to bloody shreds.
While Trolley sat on the dirt floor sobbing and trying to piece his cheeks back together with shaking hands, Elsa finished opening the locks to her playroom. She jerked her head at Lonnie as she thew open the door and released a wave of rotting stench. “Want to watch?”
Lonnie shook his head, no, backing away as she took hold of Trolley by the arm and pulled him, moaning and wheezing through the hole in his face, to his doom.
“Come, dearie. You only live once,” she told Trolley, “and Auntie Elsa will be with you until the end. Isn’t that wonderful?”
The door slammed shut.
After a brief shudder and another furtive glance at the painted door, Lonnie wove his way between the leaky water heater and a series of pipes. He ducked beneath them, bouncing across a dirty spring mattress. On the other side, he pushed aside a slab of pressboard and traversed a brick passage to a room rife with mildew.
He crossed the space in three strides to an opening where the bricks had been removed, leaving enough room for a single person if they turned sideways. He squeezed through, touching old iron pipes in the dark. They were hot or cold and sweating moisture as he slid along them through the tightness until it opened into a wide channel beneath the city streets.
Lonnie knew the underground well. He made runs through the sewers all the time. There were many exits to sewer grates and dusty basements in other buildings. Hell, he was more familiar with the city below than he was standing on the street.
Where this passage connected to a larger one, Lonnie stopped and sat on a cinder block, resting his head between his hands to think. He stretched his legs, feet settling on a foot-wide pipe dumping its raw sewage into a wider trough that flowed toward the river.
Part of him hated it down here, but part of him liked it too. Peace and quiet but for the liquid drips and trickles. The occasional hiss of steam and distant squeak of rats. No one would look for him here. Especially not Elsa. She might enjoy being a complete bitch to Lonnie, but the sewers reeked. She'd go no further than the bottom of the stairs (and her playroom) to come looking for him. If she ever chose to venture deeper in, Lonnie could lose her in the dark passages. He’d had to use his cellphone’s flashlight to navigate the tunnels the first few times but later the light filtering through the cracks above had been enough to guide his way.
Here in the relative quiet, Lonnie pondered what had transpired over the past few days. Horrible things coming out of the fog. Fiends. Things that crept through nightmares. His quick spotting and firing. Killing. The revelation that Elsa and Ingrid were just as monstrous as what he’d shot. And Selix’s touch, her icing. She’d done it again a few minutes ago after his argument with Elsa.
Only this time it hadn’t worked so well, and the black ice was cracking.
Lonnie pulled a cigarette from the pack inside his jacket pocket. Struck the dragon lighter. Lit up and inhaled deeply.
“Shit,” he said on the exhale, rubbing the lighter between his fingers, his thumb brushing over the raised part.
He’d break through given enough time, but he needed the dragon visions, too. Could he summon them at will now? He closed his eyes. Rubbed the lighter harder, feeling every groove and marking, etching it into his brain.
A gust of hot wind and the scent of sulfur touched his face. The heady sense of being somewhere else returned, and this time he wanted it.
Only this vision was absent of dragon and sand. Of monsters and escape pods and survivors.
He stood in a hall. The hall was long and filled with echoes. Walls of metal grating. Screams and shrieks from behind closed doors as initiates went through the rigors of testing. The noise made him nervous, as always, but he’d had nothing to fear before. A mere pageboy, delivering jugs of water or wine to this door or that. Commanded always to set it down and go.
Today, he carried no jugs.
Not only that, but the Master walked beside him, the old, haunched woman oozing cynicism and wisdom in one cackling voice. “It’s here the greatest warriors are made. Heroes forged from the least likely of acolytes. More promising students, easily broken. It’s the truest test of character. It cuts through facades and privilege, showing us who is truly worthy among us. Even the shadescreamers must attend.”
“I know what this place is, Master. I’m here every day, delivering sustenance to those in need of revitalization. My brothers and sisters in arms.”
“Perhaps. But yesterday you were only the ghost of a boy. Today, you are the man you will become. Today is truly your first time here.”
A feline form purred on his shoulder, nuzzling him with a soft, whiskered face. He nervously stroked the sandcat’s head. Soft, tan fur with two crimson stripes running from temples to tail.
Lonnie swallowed. “What’s so special about today?”
The old woman shrugged. “What’s so special about any day? The answer is, nothing. Until we make it so.”
They stopped before a door, ominous black steel. Steelcore.
“I will take your word for it, Master. I will trust you know what’s best.” His words sounded grown up. Man words. But inside he was trembling, terribly afraid. He’d seen what the warriors looked like when they stumbled from these cold cells.
“I always know what’s best. It’s convincing your father of it that vexes me.”
A latch snapped, and the door swung wide. The Master removed the feline from his shoulder and ordered him in. Lonnie’s smile faltered, his fear grown to a monster inside him. Yet, he put one foot in front of the other and did as he was bidden. When he hesitated at the threshold, the old woman gave him a boot to the ass, her cackle following him.
It was a chamber, twenty yards by twenty yards, slits in the walls the length of his index finger.
The door slammed shut. Locks turned and fastened it tight.
But the cold, empty cell was not what frightened him the most. It was the slits. There was something dangerous about them. Something that caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand.
Steam hissed. A boom shook the chamber. A shift in the floor, followed by a loud click. Mechanizations working, setting a thing in motion as mechanizations inevitably did.
Sweat pooled around his collar. His stomach churned.
What was this test? What was his power? He was the oldest of his brothers and sisters, so he had no reference point from which to draw. He’d never cared to ask about the testing because it was only for the tall and hardened boys and girls of the citadel. Lonnie was his mother’s son, not like the others. He often used compromise and understanding to get things done, not fists.
What was he to expect from this dark chamber of steel?
Before he could wonder another thing, an insect buzzed his ear, and there was a small sting. He reached up and touched the burn. Drew his hand away and stared at it. There was blood. A surprising amount. More things whizzed at him, cutting his legs and arms and belly, and he did a strange little dance in the center of the chamber to avoid being hit.
The chamber noise escalated, hissing and clanking in an effort to kill him.
The sandcat yowled mournfully from the hallway.
He threw himself against the door, wanting nothing more than to be out of this room, up in his warm bed, and snuggling with his pet.
“Master!” Panic made his voice squeak. “What do I do?”
A cluster of buzzing things cut his cheek, causing him to leap away from the door to the other side of
the chamber where more slits and angry slivers greeted him. He bled from more wounds than he could count. He covered his eyes to avoid them being shot out of his skull.
“What is it, young man?” The Master didn't sound overly worried.
“It’s killing me, Master. It’s cutting me to ribbons.”
The old woman cackled. “The mechanics are performing optimally, then. That is good news. As for you, you must learn runecraft the hard way. By trial. By blood. Use your hands. Defend yourself. Raise the runes.”
Raise the runes.
A truck trundled overhead, shaking the sewers and knocking the image of the steel chamber and its slits from his mind. Lonnie shook his head, still stuck in the sewer with the shit and the rats and the lingering words of the old woman.
Raise the runes.
What the fuck did that even mean?
He didn’t know, but the idea of it strengthened his resolve to keep from being iced. To avoid Selix completely if he must. Time would help him understand the puzzle and where his piece fit. Maybe he wasn’t a mere piece. Maybe he was the puzzle.
It felt like being torn between three worlds. Nerve-wracking as hell. But he needed to stay tough if he wanted to keep his shit together. Right now that meant getting the stuff Selix requested. The list. Yeah, step one, fill the list and get back inside the house without letting Selix touch him. Step two, avoid becoming a prisoner in Elsa’s playroom.
Stay alive.
Easy enough, right?
The cigarette had burned down to the filter. Lonnie flicked the glowing butt into the flow of sludge and stood. He needed to move. The heroin itch tapped at the back of his skull with growing intensity, and he was wasting time. Lonnie stepped into the main artery, straddling the trough of flowing shit, and headed east. His combat boots squelched in the muck. Rats were bold here, running around his feet or sitting on the edges of outflow pipes to study him as he hustled through the dark.
As far as the sewer stench, he was used to it.
Coming to a cross section, Lonnie found himself standing beneath a propped open grate. Surprised and grateful no one from City Maintenance had seen the displaced lid and popped it back in place, Lonnie grasped a crowbar laying nearby and climbed the iron rungs set into the wall until he reached the sliver of light at the top. Feet balancing him, he pried the crowbar into the gap and worked the heavy grate open until he could shove it far enough out of the way to squeeze through.
Once out of the sewer Lonnie dragged the grate back into place, leaving it propped like he’d found it. He wiped his hands on his jeans. Pulled out another smoke and lit up. Took a long drag, strolling down the alley and into the late afternoon sun like a cockroach boldly exiting its dark, comfortable crack.
Chapter 9
Lonnie ascended from the lower West Side full of trepidation. His heart skipped with anxiety. Sweat poured from him in rivulets. Gang turf was dangerous but to leave the familiarity of it for the slightly better digs of West Central wasn’t something he looked forward to. Yet, he possessed the list. The list needed filled. Not accomplishing this meant repercussions in many unattractive ways.
He climbed the hill past tenements and fired-out apartment buildings, until the first signs of real businesses showed. Corner bars competing for the drudges. Further up was a flower shop, a sandwich place, and a pharmacy. Closer to the college campus and he’d be just another weirdo people couldn’t bring themselves to see. Him with his beard and longish hair and black leather jacket with the inverted crosses on the sleeves. His eyes ticked left and right, instinctively seeking places to run or hide if he should garner unwanted attention.
As Lonnie hoofed it up Reading Road to Henry’s Hardware, he decided to take a detour. He needed to fix again. That was important. The next most important thing besides Selix and the gang. And survival. Well, they ranked close as priorities depending on the situation. And in this one (weighing it against the time they expected him back) it would be simple to go check his secret spot.
He backtracked three blocks and detoured into the stairwell of an abandoned apartment, crouching beneath the stoop amidst the piss puddles and discarded needles. Lucky day. Nobody around. Unless a couple pigs got busy clearing the nooks and crannies of human refuge he’d be fine for a short time. He only worried about nodding off and falling into one of those dank yellow pools.
He found his fix kit behind a loose rock in the corner and opened it with shaking hands. Caught his breath. Inside he spied the tools of his habit and a baggie of black tar.
Getting out his stuff, he spread it in his lap. Put the filter and junk in the burn-tarnished spoon. Saturated the mixture with water he caught dripping from a spigot. Flicked the dragon lighter and set the flame beneath what he imagined to be a tiny pot of drug stew. He smiled over the concoction as his body settled into a momentary calm. Hands steady and lungs breathless, he loaded the needle and checked it for air. Tied himself off, found a vein, and did the business.
Lonnie lost track of how long he nodded off, but it must have been a good fifteen minutes. By the time he came back around, the atmosphere beneath the stoop had grown hot and soupy. Street sounds were muted like he had pillows covering his ears. The piss stench barely registered anymore.
Emotion overcame him. Always did when he got high alone. He wasn’t afraid to cry. For the family who considered him dead. For the dog and two cats he’d neglected toward the end. All the details of his miserable failure so vivid. The lower points, surviving on the streets and acceptance of the situation he’d gotten himself into. Eating out of a dumpster and the new perspective it provided; half eaten tuna salad sandwiches, leftover food from the Market Buffet, and whole-stale pastries if he was lucky enough to catch the bakery throwing them out.
But he’d come a long way since the dumpster diving days. A hell of a long way.
Clinging to that small swell of positivity, Lonnie picked up a rock and scrawled on the cement wall beneath the stoop. Girl names, potential wife-and-Shrimp names, hoping to jar something loose.
Clarissa, Claire, Chris, he wrote, thinking of his wife. Rose, Reggie, Reese. One of those reserved for his daughter.
He stared at his scribblings. Tilted his head to see if it might jar a memory. It didn’t. None of the names seemed right. He threw the rock against the wall with a clack and thought he better get moving.
He pulled out his cellphone and glanced at the time. Forty-five minutes wasted. Not too bad. But if he didn’t move his ass he’d have another argument with Elsa. Didn’t want to end up like Trolley.
Or Tina.
Tina’d been a runner for the Eighth Street Gang for three days when she tried to get away with a pound of fine grade. Elsa and Ingrid tracked her to Chicago and brought her back beaten half-senseless. Now that Lonnie thought about it, Tina had been rather bloodless too, which made sense if he believed what he’d seen in the alley fight today. That whole monster thing. Tina got taken to the basement, too, just like Trolley. Her screams had shaken the house for hours. They never saw Tina again after that.
Damn. Now his high was ruined.
He packed up his kit, stuffed it back into its hiding place, and exited the shadowy alcove.
Lonnie headed up Reading, eyes snaking around to make sure he wasn’t being followed, until he came to a sign stenciled with Henry’s Hardware in red letters hanging from a pole out front. He loitered for a minute, plucking at his courage. It was one thing to stand up to the gang. Quite another to walk into a store full of normals, cool and collected with his head going crazy.
Here the city showed its age, something out of a time before the internet, cellphones, and even cars. The buildings were still that same German architecture representative of Cincinnati’s character. Bent-but-not-broken. In fact, far from broken. Ageless. Due to being built between and atop a series of hills, the city's founders had to press structures into triangles or trapezoids to fit perfectly into the space, old European precision despite the odd impression they left on the eye.
Before he could chicken out, he pushed through the front door, leaving bells jingling behind him. He found a cart and pulled the list from his pocket.
He shopped.
Henry’s was a small place, not like the huge chain stores peppering the suburbs and surrounding areas. Two floors of everything jammed in wherever it fit. Small aisles, just large enough for Lonnie’s cart. Clipping boxes of supplies stacked at the ends of the isles. He collected the first three items in a minute then searched for the aluminum framing. He rose on his toes, peering over the shelves until he spotted troughs of the required materials in the back, and set out in that direction.
Lonnie loved the smells of the hardware store. Wood dust, paint, and the faint hint of oil rubbed over packaged tools to keep them from rusting. He’d filled half the list—several pieces of thin aluminum framing, seven rolls of duct tape, and a Black and Decker drill—when he realized two things. One, this stuff was a couple hundred dollars already. Two, the owner of the establishment, Henry, was following him.
Lonnie thought he could lose him in the paint section but when he rolled around the corner, the elderly fellow with a short white mustache and dark complexion marred only by a few age spots stepped in front of him.
Without missing a beat, Henry challenged Lonnie with wise, bespectacled eyes. “You got money to pay for all that?”
Lonnie wasn’t sure. He didn’t remember Selix giving him any money unless she’d wrapped it inside the note. Lonnie never worried about cash. Never handled the stuff unless it traveled with a package or someone gave him a couple bills to fetch smokes or a Red Bull or a jar of pickles.
Lonnie might be fucked. Might need to take evasive measures.
No, he couldn’t just run with goods. Showing up on the evening news as the suspect in a hardware store robbery would not bode well for him. And he didn’t want to use his piece. Didn’t want to hurt the guy.