An Interrupted Cry

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “No. Stop that.” She stared down the darkness of the tunnel ahead of her, and tried not to let herself get sidetracked, following the cantrip that sparked and shimmered dimly ahead of her. “Don’t panic, think.”

  She could ping Bonnie, have her rouse the troops, have the wrath of the Cosa descend with her…. smart money would probably do exactly that. But smart money wasn’t always the right money, her father used to say that. He meant what seemed the right move wasn’t always the one that paid off. And here, in these tunnels…

  Deductive logic, she heard Danny say. What does basic deductive mother-of-pearl logic tell you?

  Bioluminscent moss still clung to the walls in scraggly patches, but there was no other source of light that she’d been able to find. So whatever lived down here, they had good night vision. And it was quiet. The kind of quiet that pressed against your ears and made you think someone was standing right behind you: she’d already turned several times, current crackling in defense, only to find herself alone.

  No, she’d been right in her first instinct. Too many people down here would set off alarms long before she was ready. Quiet infiltration, until she figured out what was going on.

  Then she could ping for help.

  “Assuming they can even transloc down here, not being able to see a damn thing for landmarks.” The words were barely more than silent mouthings, but the way even that was swallowed by the stillness and the moss made her decide not to speak again. Way too disturbing.

  Silent, night-dwelling creatures that clunked people over the head and carried them off…. It really was like some bad 1950’s horror movie. Except she wasn’t the faint-hearted blonde scientist-girl who screamed and fainted.

  Where are you, boss? she asked the cantrip. A thread of current flared brighter in response, and she followed it deeper into the tunnel, until she found the residents by literally running into them.

  “Holy mother of fuck!” It came out as a yelp, the moss swallowing it, but leaving an odd ringing in her ears.

  Whatever she was facing, they weren’t silent, either. They hissed. And they didn’t like current, not a bit, she learned that when they attacked her arms before anything else. The neon glow of the strands wrapped around her forearms were like a candle for moths, hard fingers scrabbling at her arms as though they were trying to tear her skin off to get at the current, yank it out of her by force. She barely had time to yank her arms away, pulling the current back inside herself and plunging the hallway back into darkness before she realized that had been a terrible idea: they could see in the darkness and she couldn’t.

  She pulled the current back out, shaping it as she did so into a dense ball, then threw it—not at her attackers, whom she couldn’t see except as faint shadows in the darkness, but at the wall she could feel, to her left.

  It hit, and imploded, a boom of noise echoing into the hallway, followed by an intense burst of blue light, and another boom, like the sonic boom of a jet, chasing the light down the hallway.

  In the split-second they were blinded, Ellen dodged around them, slipping out of those hard fingers grasping for her, and kept going, moving to the left when she sensed the tunnel split again, not out of any plan or knowledge, only instinct.

  And when she heard something moving ahead of her, shuffling toward her in the darkness, rather than running away, following that same instinct, she grabbed it, thinking—she didn’t know what she was thinking, if she was thinking at all.

  But there was cloth under her hand, rough cotton and solid muscle and a smell she’d recognize in—well, a dark room. Surprise and relief flooded her, making her grab at him more tightly, a rough and unexpected hug.

  “The hell—Ellen?” His voice was low and raspy-sore, and the best thing she’d ever heard.

  “Hi boss.” Ellen wasn’t going to start giggling, she wasn’t. “Don’t suppose you know another way out of here?”

  His raspy breath sounded near her left ear, the weight of his body a reassuring, human—mostly human—presence. “I didn’t even know the first way. Do we have backup?”

  “Just me.” It seemed idiotic, now, that she hadn’t pinged for help, despite all her rational-at-the-time thinking, and there’s no way the kids would have found anyone by now, if they even went through with finding the office and delivering her message.

  It was like he could hear her thoughts, or maybe he just knew how she thought, because, “You know, just because Valere’s the poster child for do-it-all-yourself, that doesn’t mean she should be your role model.”

  “Yes boss.” He yelled when he was stressed, and even at a hoarse whisper, that had definitely been a yell. And she could fix that part of it now, at least.

  *Found him* she sent, more a sensation of Danny and relief and worry, because she had no idea where they were or how they were going to get out of here, and there was something wet on her hand that she was pretty sure was blood, and it wasn’t hers, so odds were it was his.

  There was a shift of air in the tunnel—they’d been found. “Can you move?”

  “If the alternative is being dinner, yes.” And even in the dark she could tell he was giving her his ‘don’t ask me stupid questions you already know the answer to’ look.

  A reply came from Bonnie, distant, like the ping was trying to force its way through interference, a sense of relief and worry, and the vague image of a medical gurney.

  *Yes* she sent back, tugging at Danny’s shoulder. “Come on.”

  If they moved fast, they might just make it back to the opening before they were caught.

  oOo

  I had no idea how Ellen had found me. But I was also pretty sure I wasn’t operating at a hundred percent capacity just then, so I didn’t let that bother me. Also: I’d trained her, hadn’t I? So go, me.

  The fact that she stank of fear wasn’t quite so reassuring, but I was pretty sure I didn’t smell much better. No shame in being scared when something wants to eat you.

  “How—”

  “Don’t talk,” she said, her fingers curling more tightly into my arm. I’d probably have bruises but hell, right now everything felt like a bruise, and the blood slowly moving in my limbs again wasn’t helping, making me feel like I was being attacked by a thousand tiny pissed-off acupuncturists. I bit my lower lip like a stoic hero, and stumbled on after her without a sound.

  We moved along in the darkness that wasn’t quite as dark as before. It took me too long to realize that the visibility was thanks to current glowing a dim orange in front of us. Not in front of us: curled along Ellen’s arm, the one that wasn’t towing me along like I was a recalcitrant five-year-old. It hugged the line of her wrist up to her elbow, just enough to show us shapes and not enough to totally disrupt our night vision, the way emergency lights worked, and wasn’t my Shadow a smart girl?

  And I might have lost a few more brain cells than I thought, because… oh. That wasn’t sweat on my forehead. I was bleeding. When had that happened?

  She was muttering under her breath, some cantrip from the sound of it, and I wanted to tell her to shut up, that they’d hear us, but interrupting whatever she was using to find the way out seemed a bad idea, too. We turned a corner, and then another one, and without thinking I pulled her to the side.

  She turned to me, her lips moving, the word barely audible even inches from my ear. “What?”

  “Fresh air. That way, not this.”

  She didn’t question me, just backtracked to the last turn, and we headed that way, instead. I might be bloody and woozy and half—numb, but the nose knows: I’m a city creature by choice and preference, but there’s something in my genetics that will always turn toward open space and fresh air, or at least as much of that as we can get in the city.

  And yeah, okay, maybe I was too focused on that, or keeping the blood out of my eyes—when had I started bleeding, and should I be more concerned about it?—and maybe I was trusting Ellen’s sense of direction and her current-glow more than I should have, but we turned
a corner and barreled into one of the mole people. And I mean barreled—it wasn’t expecting us, either, and we hit at a reasonable clip, two bodies hitting one, and the one hitting back immediately.

  I’ve been in my share of brawls—I was the half-breed kid of a single mother, and a Navy kid living off-base, so fighting was probably inevitable—and I took two things away from this, immediately. One: mole people were crap at actual fighting, and two: I had definitely taken damage earlier, because my first swing knocked me back more than it did him.

  And three: I needed to work on Ellen’s fighting skills more, once we were out of here, because she should have been able to take a single opponent out faster than she did. But there was only one, and they didn’t seem to be in communication with each other, because there was no hue and cry after he was laid out on the floor. Low light and low-tech. Possibly anti-social, or a really low birth rate, since I’d never sensed more than three or four together. Good to know.

  Four: The floor was cold. And really hard. And suddenly, I needed to take a leak like nobody’s business.

  Ellen was leaning over me, pulling me up by both arms. “You okay?”

  “No.” Honesty is the base of good communication, right? “But I can move.”

  We abandoned what attempt at stealth we’d been making, the glow on Ellen’s wrist intensifying. I guess she figured at this point the risk of letting them know we were there was offset by the likelihood that the increased light might blind them?

  Increased light meant I could see that the tunnel we were in was stone and wood, not metal, the surfaces scraped clean enough we could see tool marks and the black scrawls where long-ago engineers had left half-finished plans. Human work, which, combined with the fresher air flowing, meant we were closer to the surface now. Hopefully.

  “Are the lights still out?” I’d been in the dark, literally and figuratively, for so long now, I almost couldn’t imagine a world with light.

  “When I came in, yeah.” Ellen’s voice was still low, but she didn’t shush me this time. “Whole city and some of the ‘burbs, rumor has it a whole line of generators blew, but nobody’s admitting to anything.”

  Of course not. I swiped the heel of my hand across my forehead, and came away with more blood, but it felt tackier now, like it was starting to dry up. Good. “How close to morning is it?”

  “Don’t know. Might be light already. Maybe?”

  Not good. If we went out and it was still dark, the mole people could yank us back again easy enough. Or maybe not: if I could shake this dizziness, and Ellen was prepared, we could take them. Probably. Maybe. And maybe they’d decided to let us go.

  I listened, as best I could while moving fast, trying to hear past Ellen’s ragged breathing and the pulse of my own heart, and could hear things behind us—and not far enough behind for comfort.

  My heart may have pumped a little harder. “Move faster.”

  Ellen’s fingers tightened on my arm, and her annoyingly long legs seemed to get even longer, forcing me to stretch to keep up. “What are those things?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care right now,” I said. “Less talk, more running.”

  We weren’t actually running: I wasn’t sure I could, and the current-light, even brighter, wasn’t enough to tell us what might be ahead. But the closer we got to the source of fresh air, the faster I walked, until the taint of cold metal and stale water disappeared entirely, replaced by a saltier, warmer smell. Truck exhaust, and green growing things, and the smell of people, living too many together, all the most glorious things I could imagine, just then.

  Until we hit a dead end.

  “The fuck?” Ellen sounded less surprised than indignant: how dare our escape route fail us? I sagged forward, not risking collapse in case couldn’t get up. Hands braced on my knees, I tilted my head back to keep the blood from getting in my eyes, and blinked. “Look up.”

  “This isn’t the way I came in,” Ellen said, staring at the battered, metal trap door set above us.

  We both heard the sounds of pursuit behind us—if you could call those slithery dry whispers sounds—at the same time. “You want to go back and find it?”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth, boss,” she grumbled, already looking for a handhold to use, so she could reach the handle. Ellen’s taller than me, and uninjured, so I leaned against the crumbling stone wall and waited for her to figure out how to open the hatch. After a minute of her doing everything from jumping straight up to trying to climb the wall like Spiderman, I coughed gently.

  “Maybe current’ll do the trick?”

  There was a shocked second, and then a grumbled “fuck you, Hendrickson.”

  Laughing was a bad idea. My ribs were killing me, even before she reached a hand down and hauled me up, just as the first bony finger scraped at the back of my shirt.

  oOo

  The metal hatch clanging down behind me was one of the most orgasmic sounds I’ve ever heard, even moreso when the sizzling crackle of current told me Ellen was sealing it tighter than the MTA’s budget. I let my knees give out under me, then, dropping to the dirt like someone’d cut my strings.

  On the plus side, the pins and needles feeling was gone. The minus side, that just let me feel how sore I was, all the way through every muscle.

  Ellen staggered away from the metal hatch and collapsed next to me, arms stretched over her head, legs bent, and dug her fingers into her hair, pulling at the thick curls like she need to relieve pressure. “Where are we?”

  Good question. Her human eyes were probably only seeing shadows and smudges. The hatch led out to a small hill overlooking an abandoned factory—based on the size of the parking lot and the broken windows, anyway. The hill itself was mostly dirt and a few scraggly patches of grass, but there was a wild rosebush just behind us that filled the dark air with perfume, even though most of the flowers were still buds.

  The Bronx, I thought. Maybe. The first glimmer of light was coming into the sky from our right, and when I stood up, carefully, I could see the still-dark silhouette of Manhattan behind and to our left. “South Bronx. Not my favorite place in the world, but better than where we were.”

  “No lie.” She turned a little, looking over her shoulder at the hatch, a dark glint of metal through the grass. “You think that’ll hold them?”

  “They won’t come after us,” I said. Okay, it was more of a hope than a certainty, but I’d had time to gather evidence to support the hope. “They like it dark as possible, which means they’re probably not all that fond of sunlight.”

  “It’s not dawn yet.” She didn’t open her eyes to check, but she was right: there was barely a streak of dark red across the horizon. But it would come up fast, after that.

  “In their skin, would you risk it?”

  She thought about it for a while, then shook her head.

  I hoped that let her rest better for a while. Me, I was twitchy as a selkie in shallow water: just because she or I wouldn’t do something didn’t meant the mole people wouldn’t. I mean, I had no idea who they were or why they’d been in the city to start, much less knocking over some poor bastard in his office.

  “I’ve called in the troops,” she said, her eyes closed. “They were waiting until we had some sense of where the hell we were. They should be here soon.”

  “Tell them to bring coffee and doughnuts,” I said, sitting back down beside her.

  That didn’t get the laugh it didn’t deserve.

  “I’m almost afraid to ask, but there were two kids….”

  “‘Bout yay tall and scared out of their limited wits? Yeah, boss, they made it. Well, they made it as far as me, and I sent them on to Bonnie.”

  “Good move.”

  “If they made it. They were freaked out enough they might have just gone home, too. Boss… I saw them. In a vision.”

  That made my already-exhausted adrenaline leap again, before I told it to settle down—we’d already rescued them, right? “When?”

  �
�Just before I got to the office. Would have been around the same time you were getting clunked over the head, maybe?”

  Before I could dig further, there was the sound of a car horn, a damn site closer than any car should have gotten without me hearing it, and then:

  “Good morning, children.” The man standing over us would have blocked out the sun if it had been up already. He had a massive flashlight in one massive hand, and what looked like a squeeze-horn on the other. “Your ride is here.”

  “Hey Nifty.” I waved at the Pup, mentally tabling Ellen’s vision-report for later. “About time you guys showed up. Do I always have to do all your work for you?”

  He took us home, anyway.

  oOo

  Translocation always made me want to heave my cookies. This time, I made it to the PUP office bathroom before doing so. When I came out again, mouth sour but hands and boot-tips clean, Ellen had a mug of what smelled like hot cocoa in her hands, and her feet curled up under her on the sofa in the break room. And we had an audience not only of Nifty and Bonnie, but Venec and Pietr, too. Not quite an all hands called out confab, but close enough to make me nervous.

  I sat next to Ellen on the sofa, intentionally sitting on her feet until she pulled them away with a scowl at me.

  Bonnie waited, then sighed. “So.”

  “So?” I knew where she was going, or I thought I did, but since I had no idea what to tell her, I was willing to drag it out a bit.

  “Ellen gave us the once-down, but she didn’t know a hell of a lot. What the hell were those things, Danny?”

  PUPI had been established to investigate crimes within the Cosa Nostradamus, the things regular law enforcement was incapable of dealing with, or even understanding, in most cases. They’d won a lot of support, grudging or otherwise, in the years since Venec and his late partner had fought to establish them. But they didn’t speak for the fatae.