Valerie was grateful to find the towels. They were dingy and smelled vaguely of fish, as did everything aboard, but at this point, she knew she couldn’t be choosy. She handed a towel to Eli, then bundled herself up as best she could, stomping her feet occasionally in her soaking wet boots and doing her best not to think about the mess her afternoon had become.
As the little skiff was pulling up to the dock, she glanced at the sun on the horizon and queried the old man, “Do you know what time it is?”
“A bit past five o’clock, I reckon.” Gaspar lifted the well-chewed end of a stubby cigar to his lips and chomped it between his teeth. “Don’t have no clock aboard, but the sun’ll be down in a few hours.” He raised an arm and squinted over his outstretched fist, gauging the distance of the sun from the horizon. “Aye, I’d say just past five.”
Valerie cursed under her breath as she waited for the boat to pull ashore.
She had no idea how to get back to the car unseen or make it to work on time.
As soon as Gaspar tied off the skiff, Valerie leapt onto the dock.
“Thanks for your help,” she muttered quickly. “I hate to seem ungrateful, but I have to get uptown in a hurry. I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Uptown, you say?” Gaspar replied. “It be a long, winding way up that way.” He nodded toward the heart of the city. “We be outside the walls now. You’ll have to climb back a mile or more west before finding your way through. Up the old quarry road. Get passage through the Ore Gate.”
“Damn,” Valerie muttered, switching the briefcase from one hand to the other. “Isn’t there any other way? A way you don’t have to get through the wall security?”
“Not unless you get yourself a ride in one of them fancy cars whizzing by the high road,” Gaspar said. He scratched at his whiskers. “Well, I suppose there is one way. But not for a young lady like yourself,” he said. “If it was just the boy here, I might suggest it, but it wouldn’t be the type of route a lady would take.”
Valerie considered the position of the sun above the horizon. “Try me.”
Gaspar raised an eyebrow. “Well, if you’re the observant sort, say maybe an old timer like me, you know that all the rainwater runoff from uptown flows down through those drains there.” He pointed along the seawall to a rusty, corrugated pipe jutting through the rocks that was only partially submerged in seawater. “Used to be nothing big ever made it down the wall drains. They had the passages beneath the wall defenses barred off to prevent attacks and invasions from the old days. Used to be nothing much bigger than a rat ever found its way out through those grates.
“But that was before. Been seeing some big things floating out of the drains of late. Car tires. Tree branches. Sort of things that never would have made it out in the old days.” He flicked his nose and leaned closer. “Way I see it, city maintenance ain’t taking care of the drains anymore, and all those grates have rusted away. Means that pipe there is a straight shot more or less all the way to Bringham Park. That’s where the drain system starts.”
Valerie eyed the drainpipe suspiciously. “You’re suggesting I crawl through a sewer?”
“Not recommending it, mind you. Just saying it might be possible,” Gaspar replied. “The type of route I might use if I ever found myself in a situation where I needed to get uptown in a hurry and maybe do it without attracting the attention of the City Watch.” He winked conspiratorially. Gaspar pulled a box of matches from his pocket and struck one to light his stub of a cigar. “Watch out for more of them flying cars though,” he added. “Wouldn’t want you to get yourselves into any trouble.”
Valerie blushed. Their lie hadn’t worked in the slightest.
At least it seemed the old man had no intention of reporting them. If he had wanted to turn her in, he could have pulled up to any one of the guarded docks dotting the harbor.
At that moment, a patrol boat motored its way around the jetty to the west. They appeared to be searching the shore. She noted a pair of patrol cars working their way down the hill as well, their lights flashing. She cursed under her breath.
Gaspar tossed Valerie the box of matches. “Looks like you might be needing those.” He untied his mooring lines and pushed away from the dock again. “So long!” He gave a quick wave, then turned the skiff around, motoring away with the put-put-put of his undersized outboard motor. The smoke from his cigar blended with the boat’s exhaust, and the old man drifted away downstream.
Valerie only waited till he was out of earshot, then tuned to Eli. “Well, I guess that’s that. We’ll have to climb a damned drainpipe.”
Eli studied the pipe, then looked up the dock to where the gravel path met the quarry road. “I think I’ll just take the long way back to Tidewater.”
“We can’t go that way,” Valerie said. “They’re sure to be looking for us at the gates. You heard what that boatman said.”
“I know,” Eli said, stomping his soggy sneakers and making little puddles on the dock. “But, I guess . . .” He glanced at her, then looked away. “I guess what I’m trying to say . . .” He finally dragged his eyes back to hers. “I think I want to see other people.”
Valerie stumbled over the arguments she had been about to make, taken aback by his statement. Despite the circumstances, she couldn’t stop the smirk of amusement from forming on her lips. “You’re . . . breaking up with me?”
Eli looked away. “I mean, it’s not that I don’t still think you’re pretty. You are. And I like that you can drive and everything, but . . . I think . . . I think you might be a bad influence.”
Valerie laughed.
Eli watched, confused. “You think it’s funny?”
“No. I get it,” Valerie replied. “You’re right. You deserve someone who will be better suited for you.” She laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been great. Best boyfriend a girl could ask for.”
Eli straightened up at that. “Really?”
“Yeah. Stay out of trouble, okay? Be careful getting back. I’m sorry I got you into this.”
“It’s all right,” Eli said. “It was kind of fun.”
The port patrol boat was making its way toward the docks. The soldiers aboard were now scanning the docks with binoculars.
“See you around, kid.” She leaned over and kissed Eli on the cheek. “Gotta run.” She took a tighter grip on the briefcase and dropped off the base of the dock, then worked her way along the seawall to the runoff pipe.
“Watch out for rats,” Eli said. “I’ve heard they get as big as cats in the drains.”
“Great,” Valerie said. “Just what I needed to hear.” She reached the end of the pipe and peered inside. Subtle sloshing echoed from the darkness as the water lapped back and forth. She pulled a match from the box and hesitated. She looked to the dock for one last bit of reassurance, but when she scanned the dilapidated structure, Eli had vanished.
A blast of the patrol boat’s horn solidified her resolve. She struck the match against the side of the rusted pipe, lifted the dimly flickering flame ahead of her, then plunged into the darkness.
23
Dank
Valerie wasn’t scared of the dark.
She was scared of what she was touching in the dark.
She’d been inside the runoff drain for what felt like forever. The first few matches came and went in a hurry, but as she continued on, she had to ration them. It could be a long walk, and who knew what other need she would have before reaching the end.
One advantage of her slightly below-average height was that she barely had to stoop to avoid the top of the pipe. She could imagine that hunching over for any length of time in this cramped space would be difficult to maintain.
The walking wasn’t easy either way. The ridges of the metal pipe made for uneven footing, and the curve made her feel continually off balance. She was careful to keep her feet because there were thick layers of algae and slime coating the bottom of the pipe, and she was uninterested in falling face first into the
stuff.
There was little to do inside the pitch-black pipe other than to walk and to think. Think about how, a matter of weeks ago, she wouldn’t have dreamed of entering this dank hole in the ground as a means of getting anywhere. No manner of prodding would have convinced the Valerie Terravecchia of those heady days that anything could have been worth it.
That Valerie wouldn’t have understood.
She couldn’t have comprehended the abysmal injustice of this place. She certainly couldn’t have fathomed this one-person war she was now waging against the House of Sterling. Even having lived it, Valerie had a hard time comprehending how bad things had become. She barely recognized herself.
She had taken every chance offered to her so far but had lost at every turn. The theft of her inheritance, Henry’s death, her condemnation as one of the nameless. All of it was bizarre. As bizarre as the person she had now become. She was a car thief. A fugitive from the law that was seeking justice by, of all things, entry into a tournament in which she was almost certainly outmatched. A person who, at this very moment, was crawling like a rat through the bowels of the city that had ruined her. Could she possibly get any lower?
The briefcase she was holding hadn’t felt heavy before. It was a lead weight now. The adrenaline of the car chase had worn off. Combined with the growing self-pity she was now feeling for her circumstances, the list of her recent defeats was almost enough to make her cry. But she was tired of crying.
She would rather be angry.
Every squishy step through this drainpipe was fuel for her hatred of Jasper Sterling.
His arrogant smirk as he boasted of his engagement to Charlotte.
His merciless sneer as he stabbed Henry.
More than anything, she wanted to wipe that smug look off his face.
Valerie’s foot struck stone and she nearly fell.
She caught herself on the side of the pipe but not before stumbling, inadvertently dipping her knee into God-knows-what fluid at the bottom of the pipe.
She was already soaked, so there was little change to her overall state of dampness, but she could still feel the slime permeating the leg of her trousers. It made her want to wipe it away or possibly crawl out of her clothes, but neither were options.
She fumbled for the matches and got one lit. As the flame sputtered to life, it illuminated an iron grate with bars a half inch thick in some places. The top of the grate was still intact. The thick bars protruded down through the exterior of the pipe and had, at one time, pierced all the way through the bottom. But the days of it holding back invaders were gone.
Years of corrosion had eaten away at the iron, causing it to crumble from the bottom up. What once must have been a small opening was now, as Gaspar had suggested, a large enough hole for tree branches and tires and other flotsam to slide through.
That wasn’t to say the grate had failed to stop anything.
To the contrary, a great many things, primarily trash, had accumulated against the bars and had been packed so densely that it was impossible to see much beyond. The only way forward was through the trickling stream at the bottom of the pipe. What space there was had been carved out by the flow of water along the bottom. The water’s persistence had cleared a sort of tunnel though the accumulated debris.
She hadn’t counted on this.
The hole was big enough for a person to get through, but only providing they were small and willing to get down on their belly to slide under the heaps of refuse pressed against the other side of the grate.
Valerie cursed again. She stooped to peer through this tinier and more constricted version of hell.
Tiny eyes reflected the flame of her match back at her. Just before the match went out, Valerie counted no less than five pairs of them, waiting.
Then darkness returned with the scent of smoke.
Every part of her mind rebelled at the idea of crawling through that hole, but she had no choice. Outside the sun was sinking, and if she went back to find another way, she would most certainly be caught. Once the City Watch had her, she might end up at St. Anselm’s before the night was over. It was still hours until she legally turned eighteen. She had little doubt Jasper would make use of that time if she was caught.
No. Going back was out of the question now.
Mentally unleashing a symphony of curses, she set the briefcase down, twisted her hair into a knot atop her head, then sank to her hands and knees. She clamped her mouth shut and her eyes tight, careful to avoid any chance of injecting the muck directly into her body. Then she crawled forward, pushing the briefcase ahead of her, inch by disgusting inch.
Mud and slime squished up between her fingers, and the smell assaulted her nostrils. It had been dank enough walking through the stuff, but having it this close to her face was enough to make her gag.
To make matters worse, the tunnel constricted, and she had to sink all the way to her belly. She kept her face out of the muck but just barely. The slimy water went down her shirt and into her boots and soaked through every bit of her clothing. She crawled with one hand and one elbow, her other hand desperately clenching the box of matches and keeping it above the water.
She tried to avoid thinking about how many animals were currently using this pipe as a toilet.
An agonizing few yards later, she was able to get to her hands and knees, then finally to her feet. She had cleared the blockage.
She picked up the briefcase and listened to the steady plop of mud and sludge sliding off it. Now fueled by a blend of anger and disgust, she stomped the rest of the way through the pipe, attempting to dislodge the ooze and slime from her body. She had little luck.
She traversed the remaining length of pipe in a sort of trance, refusing to think of anything other than escape. Before long, she spotted light. The drainpipe opened up into a larger drainage system and passed beneath several streets. She was able to peer up through the runoff drains and listen to the noise of passing pedestrians.
She trudged on, grateful that at least no one knew she was down here.
As Gaspar had predicted, this portion of the drain system terminated in Bringham Park. The flow of water was cleaner here, and the tunnel was littered with stones that had washed in from a stream. Valerie staggered out of the last portion of the pipe and found herself beneath a pedestrian footbridge. People were walking above it, chatting gaily about the tournament and the impending events. She could make out a few refrains of a festive song being sung somewhere nearby.
The sun was still up.
Valerie took a moment to splash herself with the stream water, attempting to remove the worst of the foulness from her body, but it was a hopeless cause. The smell of the drainpipe still lingered in her nostrils. She felt as though the majority of the filth was now on the inside of her clothes, and that made matters even worse.
She was still several blocks from where she had parked the car, and she had the drive to Tidewater to manage. There were so many people between here and there that someone was bound to see her. What if someone she knew saw her like this?
But there was no other option.
When she crawled out of the stream and up to the footbridge, she indeed got no shortage of stares from passersby. But she didn’t have time to listen to their tittering comments. She broke into a run, the briefcase thudding against her thigh and her boots squishing with each step. Little jets of water spurted out the tops of her laces for several paces.
She cut north through the park, avoiding the main footpaths, then met the street at the far side. Here there was no avoiding the stares and comments of other pedestrians.
They weren’t kind.
Rim rat.
Street filth.
Gutter trash.
Peasant.
She ducked through alleyways to avoid the comments as much as the City Watchmen but kept a steady pace. She noted with some satisfaction that the endurance training Damon had been putting her through was paying off.
Finally, she reached the str
eet where she had left Damon’s junker.
The car wasn’t there.
She turned a circle where she stood, double-checking the street signs. There was no sign of it.
Then she spotted a smattering of rust on the ground near the front of the parking space. The rust was partially adhered together with undercarriage sealant. It looked as though it had been scraped loose recently.
Someone took it.
A pair of City Watchmen turned the corner of the building and began walking her way. She ducked behind a parked car and waited for them to pass, then ran the way they had come, working her way downhill. “That stupid impound,” Valerie muttered. “When will they stop towing my damn cars.”
The sun had disappeared into the horizon, and she was miles from Tidewater on foot. She began to run.
She did her best to avoid the main roads, sprinting through parks and gardens at every opportunity. With the crowds for the tournament, there was no avoiding being seen. Fortunately, the exit gate at the city walls was getting much less attention from the guards than the entrance gate, and she was able to slip out amid a caravan of farmers returning home from the markets.
She reached the bridge but cut right instead, racing downhill along the worn and uneven road to Tidewater. Seagulls cawed from recesses in the bridge above her as she followed the glow of the village ever downward. By the time she reached the wharf and made the turn toward Rico’s apartment, she was exhausted and out of breath.
The lights of the Twisted Tentacle were glowing brightly, and the place looked to be packed.
She would need a change of clothes and a shower before showing her face. There was no way around that, but she would have to somehow sneak in to get cleaned up. She knew her chances of continued employment were slim now either way, but she certainly couldn’t let Janet see her show up drenched in sewer water.
Valerie made her way around the back of the building, walking up the same alley that she had been assaulted in the first night she showed up. She was almost to the back door when she noted a man lingering in the shadows a few doors down.
Sword Fight Page 22