Demon Underground (2)

by S. L. Wright

  I could feel the hum of tension on the cables, the motion creating vibrations in the air. It was the nearest thing to a mechanical aura I had ever encountered, as if the bridge was alive.

  A heavy iron ladder was bolted into the wall. Mystify climbed up and worked at a panel in the wall where the electrical conduits joined a junction box.

  “That looks awfully small,” I whispered.

  “You’re going to hate it. But it’s the best I can do.”

  Crawling through reminded me unpleasantly of the pipe leading out of the Grand Central condos. I felt squished in on all sides. But it was short and opened into a crawl space for the electrical grid.

  “I knew we’d be in filth again,” I muttered.

  “We’re about six feet under the street.”

  “Is that enough? Will it hide our signatures?” The thought of Goad roaming the streets above me made me want to run back to the bar.

  Mystify pulled out a green glow stick. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  It was reckless, it was barely thought out, this scheme of mine. I was flinging my life out there on a whim, just because I couldn’t stand feeling responsible for all this pain.

  I couldn’t stop now.

  I crawled after Mystify, sticking myself on cable-ties and worse. It smelled of mold and dog urine, a nasty combination. When we passed under a manhole cover, pencil beams of light showed through, blocked by constant movement. The racket on the street was shockingly loud. It sounded like a riot was under way at the Prophet’s Center.

  We crawled under it all until the noise disappeared. I figured we were below the sidewalk when Mystify whispered, “Hang on while I try to get this open.”

  I should have been forewarned by that “try.” Despite everything Mystify did, he couldn’t get through. A lock had been placed on the interior to keep people out of the basement of the Prophet’s Center.

  He sat down and pulled out his laptop to search through the plans he had downloaded. I didn’t say a word. This was no time to jostle his elbow.

  Finally he looked up. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “What is it?” I craned my neck to see the glowing screen.

  “An old sewage pipe.”

  I groaned. “How old?”

  “It was replaced in the early seventies when the garage ramp was rebuilt. The new sewage lines are laid on top, so there will be some . . . leakage.” He reached into his pouch and unfurled a plastic bag. “We’ll have to take our clothes off.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the plastic bag. “I don’t think I can do it.”

  “You don’t have to. We can go up and have a nice feed on the crowd, and forget we ever thought of bringing Dread down.”

  “I know you’re loving it, but I won’t profit off the chaos he’s created.”

  Mystify shrugged, his eyes wandering upward as if he was thinking of all those juicy bamboozled people milling around up there. How many times would he ever be so close to a mob brimming over with his preferred emotion?

  “Let’s see this sewage pipe,” I made myself say.

  I kept telling myself I could back out at any time. I could go up to the street with Mystify and be all pious and disapproving while he wallowed in the mob. I could go on pretending to be human while I was really a demon.

  Or I could act, and do something to stop Dread.

  The pipe didn’t look like much from the access tunnel. It crossed the floor at right angles. The top had caved in, opening up a large section. When we cleaned out the old chunks of brick and rubble fallen from the tunnels above, the floor of the pipe looked like it was partially filled in with dirt. There was just enough space to crawl into it on your hands and knees. Above it was the curved concrete bottom of the new sewage pipe, half the size of the old one.

  “Looks fine to me,” I tossed off.

  Dubious, Mystify leaned down to put his face into the ragged opening. “It stinks.”

  “How far do we have to go?”

  “About thirty feet.”

  I scoffed. “That’s nothing. Where will we end up?”

  “Subbasement. The plumbing in a lot of these old factories emptied into a well with a clean-out trap. From there, this old pipe goes down to the river. It used to be a tannery so there’s no telling what awful chemicals they were dumping in the water.”

  “At least it can’t hurt us. Do you want me to go first?”

  As much as Mystify didn’t want to crawl in there, he wasn’t going to let me go first. He knew Ram would go charging in, and he took a deep breath as if girding himself to do the same.

  When he saw me watching him, he made a show of popping open the button of his jeans. “I think the person in the rear will get more of a view.”

  I blushed, but it had to be done. I couldn’t walk around the Prophet’s Center smelling like that pipe.

  After he bagged our clothes and tied it around him, Mystify dived right in. I crawled after him, noticing that he was wearing a particularly fine ass. The first few feet were not bad, but we quickly hit a “wet” patch. The crust broke under my hands and I was slimed up to my elbows. The upper curve of the pipe left a streak of mold down my head and back. The stench was unbelievable, and I finally stopped breathing, preferring the dizzying rush to actually being inside that pipe at that moment.

  Mystify had to drag me through the opening at the end. I shifted rapidly, trying to shed my skin and the muck along with it. Mystify was wiping himself off as well, shaking his head and going instantly bald to rid himself of the dripping mess.

  I turned to hide myself from him, and quickly did the same. It was awful and wonderful at the same time.

  The subbasement was chill and dark. The echo of the furnace sounded a long way off.

  I gripped Mystify’s arm. “We did it. We’re inside.”

  I opened my pupils as wide as possible to see his proud delight. “I bet there’s a way into every building in the city,” he said.

  “If anyone can find it, you can.”

  He leaned toward me, his intent clear, but I grabbed the plastic bag and gave it a tug. “Clothes time.” I didn’t want him to get any ideas. I liked Mystify, but he didn’t make me fire up inside the way Ram did.

  If Mystify was disappointed, he didn’t let it show. We worked as if we had always been a team, making our way up through several basement levels without arousing any alarms. Just below the ground floor, I stopped him. “There’s Cherie’s signature. Elude.”

  “Like the tide is rushing out,” Mystify agreed. “But where’s Dread?”

  “And Lash. And Zeal. We should have felt them before Cherie. Her signature is milder than theirs.” Mystify was still wearing Bliss’s signature, but it was easy to ignore. “Why would they all leave Cherie here alone? Without any demons to guard her?”

  “We’re inside their perimeter. They aren’t expecting us to get past Goad’s horde on the streets.”

  “It’s just like Dread to be so sure of himself,” I muttered. To Mystify, I added, “Go ahead, change into Missy van Dam.”

  Instantly it felt like Zeal was standing next to me, her pressing, squeezing signature consuming my own. He looked exactly like Missy van Dam, with her rugged complexion and messy updo, her expression shining with joy. His baggy pants and T-shirt suited her perfectly.

  “What am I going to do again?” he asked.

  “Just talk to her. We’ll figure it out from there.”

  Doubtfully, he asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to kill her? It would solve the problem in one whack.”

  I glared at him until he held up his hands in defense. “Fine, it was only a suggestion.”

  I headed straight to Dread’s private elevator, the one that didn’t have any cameras in it. But with the Prophet’s Center wired to the gills, I would run into surveillance at some point. So I changed my face into June, the perky Amerasian girl complete with pink braces and eager smile. It was very possible that June was somewhere up above doing the prophet’s wor
k, but I’d have to risk security seeing double rather than putting my own face out there. I bet there was an automatic alert that would sound if I ever wandered into view of a Fellowship camera.

  I hated wearing someone else’s face. It made me feel like a demon.

  I had to step right over the patch of ground where I had lain in a straitjacket, with Goad leering down at me. When he had touched me and promised to violate me at a later time.

  When I punched the call button, the elevator opened with a faint ping. The last time I had been in it, Ram had been about to explode and give birth to Mystify. He glanced around as if remembering that.

  When we reached the top, we stepped into the private foyer between Dread’s and Vex’s sprawling apartments. The door that led to Dread’s torture chamber didn’t have a handle, only an electronic lock. I would have bet the bar that Dread hadn’t dismantled his iron cage. A nice cell phone pic of it would make for handy bargaining material.

  But we didn’t have time, and I still didn’t have a phone. I turned toward Vex’s old apartment. Mystify was looking around as if he had seen it all in an old movie.

  When we stepped into the hallway where the security cameras were watching, both of us kept quiet and tried to act nonchalant.

  Mystify rang the bell to Vex’s loft. I could feel Cherie inside. There was still no sign of other demons within range.

  Cherie answered the door. “I thought it was you, Missy. I don’t know why, a feeling, I guess. Weren’t you going to help the prophet?”

  “I didn’t want to leave you alone,” Mystify said in a fair imitation of Missy van Dam’s gravelly warmth.

  “But you said he needed you because of Mrs. Anderson.” Cherie’s eyes narrowed. With her perfect features, everything she did looked like a staged editorial. Even the bad lighting couldn’t make her look unattractive. “After all that drama, she isn’t going to be staying here, is she?”

  So that was why Dread and Zeal were gone. They were taking Lash somewhere for safekeeping.

  “I’ll catch up to the prophet later,” Mystify said blandly. “Can we come in, Cherie?”

  “I hear sirens. It sounds like there are even more of them.” Her gaze drifted back inside the loft. She seemed closed-in, and I was already doubting our success. Even her aura had the burnished hue of trepidation.

  But she turned her back on us as if we meant nothing to her. Her fear was coming from someplace else. Did her demon memories tell her what she really was, and she was afraid of being exposed?

  Fear . . . Dread was probably all over Cherie right now. He must be loving her confused suspicions; maybe he was even stoking her fears. But he also needed her to be stable in order to maintain the charade. What a conflict that must be for him right now.

  As we went inside, I saw the loft was very much as Vex had left it, monochromatic with black leather and chrome, and the old wooden floor of the factory exposed. The windows had been covered over with swaths of muslin to block out inquiring cameras. It made the room bright but somehow stifling.

  I stayed firmly in my June persona. I wouldn’t put it past Dread to have surveillance cameras on Cherie. “I bet you’re really confused right now what with everything that’s happened.”

  Cherie tossed her head, a compulsive denial. She wasn’t looking at me, as if she couldn’t care less who I was. Just another flunky. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine, or it was until she came back.”

  “The prophet took her away,” Mystify said soothingly, much like Missy would.

  “He shouldn’t have let her come back,” Cherie snapped. “She betrayed him. How could he stand being in the same room with her? She distracts him, and that distracts me because she’s so needy. She’s always been that way, interfering. ...”

  I shot Mystify a look. Maybe Glory had managed to do something by sending back Lash. With Dread caught between Cherie and Lash, no wonder he had decided to separate them. “I’m sure you have the prophet’s undivided attention, Elude.”

  Her true demon name slipped out in spite of myself. I held my breath, but Cherie seemed to see me for the first time. “Yes, yes, I believe I do. After all, I have achieved perfection.” She drew herself up to her full six-foot height, unblemished by time. “Mrs. Anderson hasn’t achieved perfection. She’s even older than me, and she looks every day of it.”

  “You were touched by God,” I agreed. “Why do you think that happened? What did you do differently from the rest of us?”

  “I accepted myself,” she said promptly. She rapidly repeated the same cant she had been spouting since her resurrection, going on about herself and her perfection. She drifted over to the mirror, examining her face, pointing out the renewal of each delicate curve and stroking her skin to feel the softness.

  “This could take forever,” Mystify mumbled. He sat down on the back of a couch and crossed his arms, clearly waiting for me to make progress with her.

  Dread was probably going to drop Lash at some fancy hotel with Zeal, and he could be on his way back home to Cherie right now. But breaking through the Teflon shield of self-absorption that surrounded Cherie was not going to be easy.

  I had crawled through a sewage pipe to make this happen. I wasn’t going to let a spoiled socialite stop me.

  One step at a time. I went up behind her. “What is it you really want, Elude?”

  I’d done it again, said her real name. This time she mouthed it after me. “Elude. That feels right, somehow.”

  She turned and took hold of my wrist, her long fingers easily circling my arm. Before I knew it, she was feeding off me. I kept my shields up so she got only drops from me. Her eyes glazed as if she had no idea what she was doing, as she greedily lapped up my desire to flee.

  I wanted to run as far away from here as possible, before Dread and Zeal returned. I felt as if I were standing on an exposed mountain peak, vulnerable from all directions, and all I wanted to do was hide.

  Hide . . .

  Cherie closed her eyes in bliss. She had found what she was made for. Poor Fervor must have wanted to run away even more than I did now. Cherie latched on to me like she would never let go.

  “Listen to all those people,” she whispered. On the other side of the muslin, far down below, was the mob chanting and crying out for help. It was getting louder. “Why don’t they go away and leave me alone?”

  “Good idea, Cherie.” I urged her toward the door. “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go hide. There are too many people here. We have to get away.”

  “The prophet said I couldn’t. He said I was safer here.”

  She protested, but she wasn’t going to let go of me while I was radiating what she wanted. I quickly led her into her closet and picked out some practical clothes for her, including sneakers instead of her stilettos. “We’re going somewhere more casual, relaxing. You need to relax, to get away for just a little bit. The prophet will join us there.”

  “Why are the people so angry? Why do they yell at me? They want to get me. I can feel it. I’m immortal, and they want it for themselves. They’ll try to kill me to get it. I’m perfect, so they can’t let me survive. It’s too much for them to take. A slap in the face. Don’t they realize they can be perfect, too, in their own way? Why won’t they listen and go home and be who they are? Why are they here?”

  Mystify couldn’t help himself; he took Cherie’s arm, feeding off her confusion.

  “I’m not a bottomless pit, here,” I warned him quietly, as Cherie kept babbling.

  I drew her down the hallway, leading her with my flight response, expecting to feel the return of demons any second. I didn’t even bother listening to what she had to say. I had found a much easier way to manipulate her.

  I punched the down button on the elevator.

  Even as we passed the street level, I didn’t feel any demons. I drew a deep breath.

  As we stepped into the basement, I asked Mystify, “Can you find that access door with the inside lock?” I doubted we could get the princess to craw
l through a sewage pipe.

  He grinned. “I figured you’d want that.”

  He led us down another flight of stairs and over to the far corner. Behind a rack of old paint cans was a rusted panel. A padlock held the eyehook closed, but Mystify made quick work of it with a small crowbar he had brought along in his bag.

  I expected Cherie to balk at slipping into the underground access tunnel, but she didn’t say a word about it. Our flight fit perfectly with her need to hide, to secret herself away someplace dark and quiet. She finally fell silent when we crawled under the manhole cover where we could hear the pounding feet of the crowd and their shouting for her. I shuddered at how close we were to destruction. Those people would tear her apart in their frenzy if they could get their hands on her.

  Cherie held on to my ankle even tighter, sucking up my all-consuming desire to stay hidden. I never thought it would be this easy. To think a little sewage pipe had almost stopped me.

  “Good job,” Mystify whispered back so only I could hear. “Considering it’s your first kidnapping.”

  14

  We paused inside the base of the Williamsburg Bridge, crouched next to the anchor drum that held the strands of cable. I gently pushed Cherie away from me. I needed my strength, and Cherie was plenty charged up. But she moved in close again, practically leaning against me, letting her aura overlap mine as if the taste of my desire to stay under cover was enough to satisfy her.

  I was curious how much she understood what had happened to her, but I didn’t want to frighten her back into the Prophet’s Center. That was why I hesitated to ask her to change her appearance so we could walk out onto the streets.

  “Can you find a way for us to stay underground?” I asked Mystify. It would also help conceal our signatures from the demon guards that Dread must have posted.

  He nodded, popping open his laptop to access the Internet. “Let’s go back this way. Whatever we do, we’ll have to go inland.” He keyed the pad as we walked. “The L train isn’t too far. We could walk there in ten minutes.”