Viper Moon

by Lee Roland

  “Exactly what she wants to do,” Flynn said. Resignation weighed like granite stone in his voice, but determination lay there, too.

  “Damn it, Cass.” Michael grabbed my hand, then, with a glance at Flynn, released it. “I told you we can—”

  “No. Michael, you’ve lied to me, directly and by omission. Theron and the Goblin Den, Victor—you give me hints like I’m supposed to be a sleuth in a mystery novel. I can’t trust you.”

  “But you’re bringing me along.”

  “Yes, I am. You’re right. I want to know where you are. All the time.”

  Michael said nothing, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Not angry, but elusive and evasive as ever.

  Dacardi grumbled from the front seat. “My men—” He nodded his head toward the other Fire Dog. “They can take him somewhere else.”

  “No. Let’s go get this disaster over with.”

  Flynn squeezed me tight one last time as we climbed out of the van.

  I convinced Dacardi not to bring the flamethrowers. Excellent weapons they might be, but not in a tunnel, where a back draft could incinerate us all.

  The Fire Dogs remained, lights off, while we used flashlights to check our weapons. Dacardi thought of everything right down to plastic bags for his electronic gadgets. He wore multipocketed coveralls like those you see in hunting magazines. He and the two men he’d chosen to accompany him carried automatic rifles, and Flynn accepted one when offered. Dacardi wanted to bring four men, but didn’t argue too much when I said no. Dacardi grumbled about how much the bronze ammo cost.

  I stuck with my pistol. Michael refused all weapons. I guess he thought he was indestructible. We were all loaded down with ammo, and we had brilliant, but unlit, halogen lights attached to our bodies, so our hands were free.

  “This is great,” I said as I adjusted the light harness so my gun wasn’t covered. “For once I’ll be able to see really well.”

  “You’ve never used lights?” Dacardi asked.

  “No. I never go below unless necessary.”

  “It’s not necessary now,” Michael said. I jumped because he spoke from behind me. I hadn’t seen him move. Sneaky bastard. I ignored him.

  My night vision and sense of direction were excellent, and with the glowing lichens, I could find my way. I doubted I could guide them in that manner. The drastic increase in the number of monsters was problematic, too.

  “This one.” I pointed at a manhole cover. Dacardi’s men lifted it off with their bare hands and exposed a three-foot black circle into hell.

  I gave the signal and the Fire Dogs left us standing alone in the street. I realized my mistake when grunts and groans filled the night air. The vehicles should have stayed until we went down. At least Dacardi remembered to bring the ladder I’d asked for.

  Once the manhole cover came off, I made Dacardi and his men take a good whiff so they could get their puking over with before we went down. Dacardi gagged, but he held. His men grumbled, but had no other reaction. Where had they been that such a powerful stench left them unmoved?

  “I’m going down first,” I said. “Michael, you and Dacardi come after me. You two”—I pointed at Dacardi’s men—“come next. Flynn comes last.” I laid a hand on Flynn’s chest. “Watch out—when you’re alone, they may charge. Try not to shoot if you don’t have to. We’re more than a mile from where we need to be, but we should keep the noise down.”

  “I’m ready,” he said. “You be careful going down.”

  Most manholes have climbing rungs set into the walls of the tube, but they aren’t always stable. They might hold me, but the bigger, heavier men could break one loose and fall. We’d use a ladder here. I lifted Nefertiti out of her basket and draped her around my neck. She coiled and made herself comfortable, her head close to my ear. Somehow, the weight on my shoulders comforted me.

  I started down, carrying another of the powerful halogen lights Dacardi provided. Most predators would run from that much light, at least temporarily.

  The last thing I heard before I went down was the rumble of distant thunder. It hadn’t rained in three months, and a half-inch shower over the Barrows would send walls of water crashing through the storm sewers. The Earth Mother ruled the weather, though, and if she wanted this job done, she’d send any rain far from here.

  As soon as my head went below the road surface, I turned on the lights. Nothing greeted me when I reached the tunnel floor and, better yet, only an inch or so of shit covered my boots. That meant fewer monsters in this section. Of course, one is too many. I lifted Nefertiti off my neck and laid her on the floor. She rolled to wet her body in the slime much as Nirah had rolled in caviar at the hotel.

  Michael followed right behind me.

  “You sure you don’t want a gun?” I asked when he stood beside me.

  “No. I’ll depend on yours. I place my trust in you, even if you have less faith in me.”

  “Trust is earned. I’m predictable.”

  “Oh, if only that were so, Huntress.”

  Dacardi lumbered down the ladder. He gagged but, again, didn’t lose his dinner. His two bruisers followed him. Flynn suddenly dropped, clinging to the rungs to break his fall. The ladder gave a violent jerk as he released it.

  I stepped under the manhole and fired two shots straight up. The ladder stopped moving. The explosion of shots in the sewer’s confines left us deaf and our faces pinched with pain. Dacardi bent over holding his ears. I motioned everyone to stand close while our hearing returned. When it did, I said, “That’s why we don’t shoot unless necessary.” I eyed Dacardi. “And we don’t use grenades unless we want to bring the roof down. Everyone stay in the light.”

  Dacardi sneered, but he’d lost confidence, so it quickly faded.

  The sewer was square here, and brick, at least fifteen feet wide and almost that tall. The walls and floor appeared to be in good condition. We’d entered almost a mile from the pentagram’s center, and we’d have a long walk to the first cross point.

  I pointed at Dacardi’s men. “You two come last. Take turns, but keep a light shining behind us at all times.”

  The pair looked at Dacardi for confirmation of my orders.

  I made an instant decision. “These two don’t go. They’re not listening to me.”

  Again, they glanced at Dacardi for direction.

  “You got your men. I got mine.” Dacardi lifted his rifle in outright defiance.

  “Okay.” I threw my hands up. “I’ll leave. You can go on, go back, or go to hell. Your choice.” I snatched the map out of my shirt pocket and offered it to him. “Just follow the lines.”

  Flynn moved quickly to me. So did Michael.

  “Bitch!” Dacardi spit out the word.

  “Yep, that’s me. First class. Look, Dacardi, I appreciate what you did for me last night in the river.” I ignored the fact that if he hadn’t taken me to the warehouse in the first place, I wouldn’t have required saving. “And I appreciate the badass weapons. But it’s my hunt. Either they take orders from me or I leave.”

  We stood in a semicircle, in a brilliant pool of light. One of Dacardi’s men suddenly lifted his gun and pointed it at us. As he did, he backed up, too close to the pool’s edge. A clawed arm flew out of the darkness, snagged him, and dragged him back. He didn’t even have time to scream before the snarls and the flesh-ripping, bone-popping clamor began. The smell of fresh blood filled the air.

  Everyone but me stood stunned. I swept the brilliant flare of my light toward the hideous sound. Three large, slimy predators writhed and tore at something on the tunnel floor. I drew my pistol and fired three shots into one. In spite of the light, the monsters never slowed their feast. The one I shot went down, and I hoped the other two would start on him when they finished their human dinner. We needed time to get away. I sent a silent Thank you to the Mother that they were in the opposite direction we needed to go.

  I waved my arms to get everyone’s attention, since we were all deaf again.

&
nbsp; Nefertiti slid in front of us as they followed me down the tunnel, leaving the banquet behind. When we’d gone a short way, I fixed one light on the back harness of Dacardi’s remaining man so it would shine behind us. He didn’t object.

  Dacardi hadn’t spoken since his man had gone down, but he drew a breath, coughed, and said, “Those things . . . if someone got them uptown . . .”

  “Not uptown. The Mother keeps them here in the Barrows. River Street, maybe, if there was a complete blackout.”

  Dacardi didn’t say anything to that.

  I’d seen no evidence of the larger predators since we left the manhole entry, though we did come across a few bones now and then. The thin stream of water that sloshed under our feet wasn’t clean, but also not as foul as that behind us.

  In that environment, in the heavy darkness that had probably not seen light since construction early in the twentieth century, time became indeterminable and indefinite. Maybe we were down an hour, and maybe five minutes. A long, lonely journey filled with heavy silence broken only by the echo of breathing and the slosh of water at our footsteps. We came to a crossroads where the tunnel diverged in two other directions. We’d reached a place where the pentagram lines met, and we weren’t far from our goal. I had to decide: find a place to go up, or see if I could get closer by using one of the smaller feeder lines?

  “Cass.” Tension suddenly rippled through Michael’s voice. “Can you hear . . . ?”

  I did. Rain. The blessed sound people prayed for over the long summer; the deadly sound of a swelling wall of water. A drip, a trickle, then finally a rushing deluge to sweep human and monster away without prejudice or discretion.

  We had to get out. Already, a small surge sloshed over our feet. Nefertiti whipped her body in a large splash and rushed away down a side tunnel.

  “Come on,” I said. I followed my snake.

  We had no choice really. None of our flashing lights showed a single manhole. Once we passed a street grate, far too small for us to get through. The sound of rain hissed on the pavement above, so we picked up the pace. Nefertiti waited at a smaller tunnel to our left, then entered as we reached her. I started after her.

  Flynn grabbed my arm. “Cass, if we get trapped in there—”

  I pulled away. “I follow Nefertiti. Michael?”

  “Yes, Cassandra.”

  “You can say ‘I told you so’ anytime you want.”

  “I’d love to, if I weren’t down here with you.”

  We headed down the side tunnel, barely wide enough to walk single file. We’d gone no more than a hundred feet when it suddenly ended at face level. At my feet was a three-foot-diameter concrete tube. I stooped down and shined my light in the hole. I couldn’t see the end, only Nefertiti, who had stopped again, waiting on me. She writhed and I could feel her agitation. I dropped to my hands and knees.

  Flynn crouched beside me. “You’re not going in there!”

  “Yes, I am. No one has to go with me, but—” The sound of rushing water came closer. “Sorry, guys. I should have gone in alone.”

  Should have—Cassandra’s famous last words.

  I started in. I did hurry, but by the time I’d crawled twenty feet, four inches of water sloshed under me. The poor condition of the concrete pipe became more evident with every foot. Cracks cut into my palms and knees like I crawled over broken rock.

  How absolutely fucking miserable. I couldn’t die of a nice noble gunshot. I couldn’t even drown in the river after a massive explosion. I had to drown in a tube of shitty water. Worse, I had dragged the man I loved and three others behind me. There was nothing to do but go on. I could feel a faint brush of cool air on my face, but if the pipe completely filled . . .

  “Nefertiti,” I yelled. “Where are you?”

  The water rose to my forearms. Nefertiti whipped her body in front of my face. The light I’d secured to me burned bright, but it couldn’t penetrate water murky and thick as sludge from a clogged drain. It covered my elbows and sloshed against my stomach. I crawled faster.

  All our weapons were wet. They should fire, but I had always had some doubts about the integrity of ammunition manipulated to add the bronze. Two things I left to the experts—my ammunition and my car. Point them in the right direction, pull the trigger or step on the gas, and life was good—if they worked. I hoped my ammo man was more competent than my mechanic.

  Damn. I was going to drown and all I could think of was my water-soaked weapons.

  The water had risen to my chest. Numbing winter cold, cold as the depths of the Sullen. The dark sewers leached every bit of warmth it might have gained passing over steaming asphalt above. I had to drag my heavy, soaked clothes with me.

  “Cass?” Flynn gasped from behind me.

  “Keep moving,” I yelled.

  The pressure came from behind, which meant the main sewers had filled and forced the water up this tubular death trap. Why had the Mother let it rain now? Had she abandoned me as she’d abandoned Abby?

  Water splashed up and filled my mouth and nose. I choked and blew the filth out. I crawled in the complete darkness of what would be my tomb.

  Nefertiti’s body hit my face. She writhed weakly, a reptile dying in the frigid water. I opened my mouth and liquid filth poured in. I grasped Nefertiti in my teeth as gently as I could and forged on. We probably had less than a minute before the tube filled completely and we all drowned. My hands clawed at the pipe, scrabbling and scratching for momentum, and found . . . nothing.

  I fell forward into the gap and my head went underwater.

  chapter 29

  The water’s force shoved me from behind, rolled me, slapped me against concrete, and flung my body out onto open, level ground. Water spewed from the opening and covered me in a dirty waterfall. My lungs heaved and gasped for air, but my light, free from water, returned the gift of sight. I coughed and gagged, spitting and sputtering to get the filth out of my mouth.

  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 fe
lt 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?”