by Hopkin, Ben
“Keane! You are contaminating a—”
Trey held up a hand to ward off the rest of his captain’s speech. He peered around the room, seeing out of the corner of his eye that his boss seemed to be holding his breath and turning colors. Putting that uncomfortable thought out of his head, he finally focused on the bed. Racing over to its side, Trey ripped the blanket off, throwing it into the lake of blood covering the floor. The captain’s face was turning from pink to something more resembling a nice red wine.
“Keane! I am going to have to ask you—”
Yeah, yeah. Trey had heard it all before. Keane, knock it off. Keane, you’re a screw-up. Keane, stop blubbering. Whatever. There were more important things to occupy his brain right about now. Trey looked at the pillow still resting up at the head of the bare mattress. He gently lifted it up, exposing a stack of drawings beneath. Blowing out a sigh of relief, Trey snatched up the pictures and raced back out of the room, trying not to splash the blood too much with his boss right on his heels.
Darc was exactly where Trey had left him, his face even more expressionless than it typically was. Nurses and cops and CSI orbited around him, like somehow Darc had become the center of their little solar system. Trey knew what that felt like. He dashed over to his partner and started holding up Janey’s drawings, leaving each one there for several seconds before moving on to the next.
“Come on, buddy. See something.”
Captain Merle stalked over to the side of the catatonic detective, his face gradually returning to a more flesh-colored tone. He looked on in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Priming the brain pump,” Trey explained, lifting another picture into what he hoped was Darc’s eye-line. “Jump-starting the smarts.”
Frustrated with the lack of response, Trey darted off to the nurses’ station, shoving one of the orderlies out of the way. He ripped open the nearest desk drawer, rifling through it until he came up with some tape. In quick order, Trey plastered Janey’s sketches all over the wall closest to his partner.
He moved back over to Darc’s side, pulling him toward the wall. Grabbing the tall detective’s jaw, he moved his partner’s head from side to side, trying to mimic Darc’s own natural movements if he were studying the drawings.
“Take it in. Janey’s telling you something. I know she is, or she wouldn’t have drawn anything.”
Darc began to blink, the first sign of movement Trey had seen.
“That’s right, buddy. You know you want to show off that ginormous intellect of yours.”
The blinking intensified, Darc’s pupils contracting as they seemed to come into focus.
“Come on, dude. Say something insultingly condescending.”
And then Darc’s hand shot out, grasping Trey’s wrist in a vise grip.
* * *
The lines and symbols swam into and out of focus, the effect like a dreamscape that was forever warping and changing, flowing with the tide of the dreamer’s subconscious.
Meaningless chatter flooded his ears, filled his mind with dross. It was unimportant. It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. He was nothing.
A band of discomfort gripped his jaw, his head swiveling back and forth as it floated freely above the vertebrae of his spinal column. A minor irritant. Nothing of import. Just additional white noise.
And then a dog floated into his view. It was small. It was fluffy. Its spine and tail formed a symbol that leapt off the page and slapped Darc across his mental cheekbones.
His surroundings began to take on substance, the other drawings yielding up their symbols, the letters cavorting and shuffling into place in his mind.
Darc reached up to pull Trey’s hand away from his face.
“That will be enough.” Darc moved to the pictures, pulling them off and rearranging them to match the patterns in his head.
His partner backed off, rubbing his wrist. “Hmm. Insulting and condescending. You know what? I’m going to take it. And I’m going to like it.”
The captain looked at Darc shuffling around the papers on the wall, and then glared back at Trey.
“Well?” he asked, locking Trey’s gaze with his own.
Darc continued to turn the pictures over and around, moving them until they revealed themselves fully to him. He could feel Trey’s eyes on him, seeming to beg him to take over the explanation. Darc ignored him.
Trey shuffled his feet a bit, then spoke to the captain. “Let’s see, the ninth-circle punishment is a frozen wasteland.” The captain raised his eyebrow in apparent disbelief. Trey’s reaction sounded a touch defensive to Darc’s ear, although that pitch could possibly mean pain as well. “What? I know how to google.” He regrouped and started again. “Anyway. It’s filled with traitors.” Merle’s eyebrows crept up another notch. Trey sighed. “Okay, Darc gave me a primer.”
“Does that information help us at all?” the captain asked.
“No, there are, like, a thousand places this creep could have set up shop,” his partner answered. “All the way from the snowcap of Mount Rainier to an ice-cube plant.”
The symbols in front of Darc locked into place, the space between them filling and glowing with a new shape. The answer. Logic had come back to him. It had come back for him. And he had responded.
“Puffins,” he croaked. Switching from the extremes of inner vision to outer communication was always a difficult transition. And this one was worse than normal. He felt shaken in a way he had never experienced previously.
His partner pushed his hair back in frustration. “Puffins? Wow. Still so behind.”
The captain spoke over Darc’s shoulder at Trey. “Is he talking about the bird?”
Darc began removing the pictures from the walls in frustration. He forced words to form on his lips, directing the sounds at Trey. “Think. Frozen. Traitors.”
Trey’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Puffins…The hockey team!”
“The semi-pros,” the captain chimed in. “They sold out and moved to Calgary.”
“And the stadium has been shut down for months while they convert it for public use!” Trey crowed in triumph. “We are back!” He glanced over at Darc and then recanted. “Okay, you’re back, but still! Yes!”
The captain gestured at the policemen milling about the crime scene. “Take two units. I’ll send as many as I can spare after you.”
Darc moved off toward the elevator, following his partner for once. The glowing lines were back, solid, bright as they had ever been. Darc wished it made a difference. Those lines all pointed to one conclusion, one glowing symbol. One end of the pathway for the little girl and anyone else foolish enough to stand with her. The letter was clearly etched in his consciousness, its meaning obvious.
Death.
* * *
Trey yanked the steering wheel hard to the right, leaning on his horn as he veered around the Porsche 911 in their path. He then whipped it back to the left to keep from careening into the gold minivan on their right side. This freeway was like a death trap.
“Anybody hearing this siren? Maybe we should carry RPGs instead.” Trey swiveled his head to glance at his partner. “We’re going to find her, Darc.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
“Alive, Darc,” Trey reassured. “Alive.”
Yeah, that was about the size of things right about now. Darc was always a bit of a Debbie Downer, but this felt…different. More fatalistic.
Darc hadn’t really said much since he came out of his trance-coma. He was back, but he wasn’t really back. There was something fragile in his partner that Trey had never experienced before. Like Darc was made of thin glass or rusted-out metal.
Trey had seen Darc shut down before, but it was always in service of something larger. He went all vegetable, sure, but he came out with a stronger sense of purpose. He came out with answers. And he normally came out on his own.
This time had been something new.
Never before had Trey stressed out abo
ut his partner’s mental health. Physical safety? Sure. Social grace? Absolutely? But cognitive ability? Not a chance.
Trey racked his brain, looking for something, anything, to say to his partner to get him out of his funk. Something to jump-start Darc’s confidence like he’d jump-started Darc’s brain.
But Trey came up empty, and Darc just stared straight ahead at the stadium growing larger and larger in the windshield of the Rover. Trey veered into the parking lot and screeched to a halt next to the closest entrance. Cop cars filed into place on either side of Trey’s car, uniformed policemen pouring out of hastily opened doors.
As Darc exited the car and ran toward the door, Trey reached into the backseat and pulled out a huge pair of bolt cutters. No time to get the stadium facilities manager down here. They were just going to have to muscle their way in.
The stadium was huge, and they had to jog a bit to get around to the main entrance. Darc might be off his game, but he was still freaking fast. Trey’s jog turned into a near sprint. The clock was ticking down, and Trey had no desire to be the one holding up the show.
He joined Darc at the entrance a few seconds later, the jaws of the cutters opened wide to clamp down on the chain holding the double doors shut. The clanking of the steel links echoed around the concrete structure, making the sound triple in volume. It was the sound of metallic bones clattering to the ground, warning all who heard that this wasn’t somewhere they wanted to be. Trey knew he didn’t.
Moments later, the entire group rushed through the long, dark entryway tunnel, guns drawn and leveled. As the cops fanned out, moving around the sides of the oval space, Trey called out to them.
“Find the lights.”
The enormous structure swallowed up the tiny policemen and their sounds and then spit them back in all sorts of distorted ways. The metal beams exposed by the jetting lines of the cops’ flashlights lurked above them, seeming to threaten death by crushing to any foolish enough to venture under them. The air smelled of cheap spilled beer and stale popcorn.
Trey loved sports. Any kind of sports, really. In fact, he had been known to turn on ice dancing or even golf from time to time when he got really desperate. But being here, in this big, cold, dark, and empty space, was making him rethink his position on organized athletics, professional, semipro, or otherwise. This place was just downright creepy.
Moving down the stairs toward the ice rink in the center of the stadium, Trey could hear the officers spreading out into the sports complex, seeking out the control panel for the lights that would allow them to better see what they were about to face.
Although, come to think of it, Trey wasn’t one hundred percent positive that he wanted to see it. Based on what they’d come up against so far, that was probably the understatement of the century. If their killer had actually been here—and Darc’s deductions made that a pretty high possibility—Trey wanted to be as far away from here as he could possibly get.
At that point, one of the cops must have located something, because a single beam from an overhead spotlight radiated down onto the ice below. And then Trey was sure that he didn’t want to see any more.
Sticking out from the ice was a single bloody hand.
Trey’s heart rattled around in his chest, feeling like it was trying to escape the ribs of its fleshy prison. The center of his stomach, on the other hand, had no problem racing away from its location, landing somewhere close to his feet. And then he took another, closer look.
“The hand’s too big, Darc,” Trey gushed, sickened and relieved at the same time. “It can’t be hers. It’s not Janey.”
Without speaking, Darc pivoted and raced off, not toward the ice, as Trey would’ve expected, but up and away from the rink. Leave it to Darc to surprise him at every turn. Trey groaned and sprinted off after him, his thighs aching after two seconds of stair climbing. Why stairs? Why always stairs?
And then more lights burst on, flooding the rink in light. Trey caught up to Darc, and both spun around to stare down into the depths of the ice. Dozens and dozens of bodies were encased within the frozen water, their hands pushed up against the surface of their icy tomb.
“Oh.” Trey groaned. “Damn it all to hell. Why am I shocked? Why?” He glanced at Darc to see that his partner’s eyes were darting from one figure to the next, his breathing shallow, his fists clenched. Trey stared down at the grisly sight below and had a realization. “Oh, God. Do we have to cut them out of there? I mean, I want to save Janey, but…oh, man.” He waited for Darc to declare one way or the other. Maybe there was another route for them to take.
“We have to go down.” Darc’s declaration sucked the remaining life out of Trey.
“Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah.” He called to the nearest group of cops. “Let’s find some axes and—”
“No. Down.”
“Down?”
But Darc was already on the move. He stalked down the stairs, Trey struggling to keep up once he had realized he was supposed to follow. Sometimes he felt like some kind of freaky marionette, except that his strings didn’t go up. They went sideways and were attached firmly to Darc’s back.
Arriving at the guardrail to the ice rink, Darc didn’t so much as blink. He turned to the right and opened up a doorway with a steep metal staircase on the other side that led to the basement. Pipes crisscrossed in the air around and above them as the echoes of their own footsteps reverberated around them. Trey glanced at Darc.
“Okaaaaaay. Now what?”
“Down,” his partner reiterated.
“Dude, we are down. This is the basement. We are here. The ninth circle.” There were no more stairs that Trey could see. They had arrived. A little anticlimactic? Yes. But really? Was Trey supposed to complain about that? He would take his anticlimaxes where he could get them in this case.
“We need to find what is at the bottom.”
“Wait.” This was so not cool. “What? A tenth? What tenth? You didn’t tell me about any tenth circle.”
“It’s not a circle.”
Okay, Darc wasn’t making any sense here. None at all. “Then what—?”
“It’s Satan’s lair.”
“Oh. Right.” Trey sat down abruptly, right where he was standing. “Down, then?”
“Down.”
“Uh-huh. Yeah. Just…give me a minute.” Trey put his head between his knees and took several deep breaths. He then poked his head up, thought better of it, put his head back down, and took several more. Darc stood above him, looking down, a hulking presence in a dark suit. “Okay. Okay. I’m good.”
Clambering up to his feet, Trey followed Darc to a chained-up door that proclaimed Danger. Do Not Enter.
“Yeah,” Trey muttered. “No kidding.” Darc looked intently at Trey for a long moment. Trey stared right back at him. “What? I’m not letting loose with the big one. We’re trying to stop hell on Earth here. I think God’ll forgive me a ‘shit’ or two. Shut up.” Trey ran back to the stairwell.
“Where are you going?” Darc called after him.
“Look. You can lead me down to hell if you really want to, but don’t get all shocked when I decide to bring backup.” Trey called out for the unis upstairs to grab the bolt cutters and join them down below. He stood facing off with Darc, who had that look on his face. The one that said that Trey was making a huge mistake.
“We do not need them to accompany us.”
Trey held up a finger. “Correction. You don’t need them to follow us. I, on the other hand, do. I’m not going to dance with the devil without my crew at my back.” The first of the uniformed cops clattered down the stairs, holding the bolt cutters out to Trey.
Dragging the tool over to the door, Trey sliced through the chain, letting it fall to the floor with another loud, metallic clatter. This time, the sound was more trapped. Trey was feeling a mite bit trapped himself. He pushed the door open with his toe, the little-used hinges groaning in protest. A wash of stale air flooded the basement where Trey and Darc stood.
> Peering down into the blackness, Trey had to blink rapidly a few times to get to the point where he could see anything at all. Once his eyes adjusted, he saw an even steeper set of stairs than the ones they had just come down. Oh, and they were made of wood. And appeared ancient. And less than stable. Trey motioned for the officers to follow. If he was going down there, he sure as shootin’ wasn’t going to do it with just him and Darc. He then spoke out of the side of his mouth as he and Darc stepped down onto the first step, the wood screaming its protest beneath their weight.
“Is this part of the Underground even mapped out?”
Darc shook his head.
“But you do have some kind of schematic in your head, right?”
Darc shook his head.
“Some vague sense of what we are going to find down there?”
Another shake.
“Yeah, okay.” Trey pulled out his cell phone and pressed the speed dial for Maggie. One bar of reception. She picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, Trey. What’s up?”
“Yeah. Babe. I just…I love you. I wanted you to…you know, just in case—” The line went dead. No bars. Trey flipped the phone shut and slipped it back into his pocket. “Well, that doesn’t bode well.”
Darc’s eyes glittered in the near dark as he peered at Trey, his eyes partially lidded. His eyes were knowing. Like the floating eyes of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. Man, that was a creepy story. Kids’ book, nothing. Trey spoke over the creaking of the stairs.
“You should’ve told Mala you thought she was hot.”
Darc continued down the stairs, silent but for the trodding of his feet and the complaining of the wooden structure. Just when Trey thought there would be no response from his taciturn partner, Darc spoke without turning his head.
“What makes you think that I did not?”
Yeah, Trey was surprised. Shocked, even. But knowing that Darc had told Mala about his feelings somehow made the darkness around them just a tiny bit brighter.
* * *
The darkness coalesced around him, covering him, caressing him. He knew he did not deserve to be comforted. Thankfully, the darkness never tried.