Inside the Shadow City (23 page)

Unlike maps of Wisconsin, these kinds of maps can't be purchased at your local gas station. They're usually kept locked away in bank vaults or tucked beneath your grandmother's mattress. That's because the guardians of such maps know they must be protected at all costs. The
secrets they hold can be dangerous in the wrong hands. And there's no shortage of people who would be willing to kill or die for the chance to possess them.

Of all the maps ever created, the NYCMap was among the most powerful. Even the Irregulars' map of the Shadow City couldn't compare. Put the three layers of the NYCMap together, and the secrets of the greatest city on Earth would be laid bare. With the bottom layer of the NYCMap to guide her through New York's sewers and subway tunnels, the middle layer to help her find the perfect shrub to hide a bomb, and the top layer to show her the way into every building aboveground, a criminally inclined fourteen-year-old could break into any museum, destroy any building, or kidnap any Princess. And she wouldn't have to stop there. She'd have all the information she needed to bring millions of New Yorkers to their knees.

I hadn't forgotten the feverish look in Kiki Strike's eyes when Luz first told us she had found the NYCMap. For me, it had been a bit like discovering an alien spaceship. Though I'd found it fascinating, I didn't have the foggiest idea what to do with it. But Kiki had always understood the true power of the NYCMap. And once it was no longer possible to break into the Princess's house through the Shadow City, the NYCMap became Kiki's last hope. It alone could guide her to the one thing she really wanted.

I knew that if Kiki was after the map, the Princess, the Irregulars, and the entire city of New York could all be in serious danger. We needed to find her before she found us. But searching for a single girl in a city the size
of New York is like looking for a diamond ring that you've flushed down the toilet. In other words, we had no clue where to start, and we knew it might turn nasty. Finally, Oona suggested we pay a visit to Kiki's hidden house. Of course, I doubted we would find her there. Few sane people would return to a place they've been forced to flee in a hail of bullets. But we couldn't afford not to follow every lead. If she was after the NYCMap, Kiki Strike was more dangerous than I had ever imagined. And unless we could stop her quickly, I'd be forced to take drastic action. I didn't want to do it, but I was prepared to call the police.

• • •

The Irregulars waited until dark and set out through the streets of Greenwich Village. We arrived at the wooden gate at 133½ Bank Street to find that the knocker in the shape of a severed hand had been replaced with a bronze smiley face engraved with the words
Have a Nice Day!
With an effortless flick of her wrist, Oona picked the lock, and the gate creaked open. The little garden was in full bloom, and warm light streamed out the windows of the cheerful storybook cottage. Hiding behind a bush in the yard, I took out my trusty binoculars and aimed them toward the house.

Sinking into the cushions of an overstuffed sofa were angelic dark-haired twins sporting pretty purple party dresses. One girl's dress was embroidered with the name Emily, while the other girl's dress bore the name Charlotte. Apparently, even their parents had a hard time telling them apart.

Without so much as a warning, Emily pounced on her sister, and soon the two girls were beating each other senseless. Charlotte sat on top of Emily, her fingers en-twined in her sister's curly hair, yanking with all her might. Emily's hands were locked about her twin's throat. The two girls seemed intent on killing each other, and I had a feeling we were witnessing just one battle in a long and bloody war.

A tired-looking man whom I took to be their father entered the living room from the kitchen, carrying a newspaper under his arm. He stepped over the twins, who were locked in mortal combat, and took a seat in an armchair by the fire. As Charlotte turned blue and began to lose consciousness, he opened the newspaper and started to read, ignoring the struggle taking place at his feet.

“Kiki must have sold the house.” I shoved the binoculars at Oona and silently thanked my parents for allowing me to remain an only child.

“Yeah, but look on the bright side. If we ever need to hire an assassin, we'll know where to come,” Oona remarked with a note of respect in her voice. “That Emily's a real killer.”

We slid out of the bushes, and tiptoed through the yard to Bank Street. Though the hidden house had been a long shot, I had secretly hoped we would find Kiki Strike sitting on the sofa, wearing a mink coat and counting the cash she had stolen from the Chinatown Savings and Loan. Now those foolish hopes had vanished. I said nothing to the other girls, but I wondered how long we should look for Kiki before I took our story to the authorities.

With no time to waste, we started our search immediately. That very night, in a flurry of caffeine-fueled activity, Luz crafted two miniature video cameras, each no bigger than a bonbon. The next afternoon, Oona carefully tucked the cameras inside a pair of stuffed pigeons that Betty had discovered in her parents' prop collection. Before the sun had time to set, one of the cyborg pigeons was keeping a silent watch over the gates of the Marble Cemetery. The other recorded all the comings and goings at the Princess's brownstone on Bethune Street.

In case Kiki Strike made it past the pigeon guard at the Marble Cemetery, DeeDee and I rigged Augustus Quackenbush's vault with Deadly Device #575. Should Kiki try to pry the lid off his coffin, she would trigger a cloud of noxious gas that would render her unconscious for hours. Before we assembled the booby trap, DeeDee warned me that it would be difficult to deactivate. If the Irregulars wanted to return to the tunnels, we would first have to get our hands on some gas masks. After a moment's thought, I decided to proceed with the plan. Gas masks or no gas masks, I reminded DeeDee, none of us had time to explore the Shadow City.

For a week, in the lonely hours between dusk and dawn, I monitored the snowy feed from the cameras and waited for Kiki to appear. The other Irregulars took turns patrolling the entrances to the Shadow City, searching for signs of breaking and entering at the dozens of buildings that were still marked with our logo. When we slept, we dozed with our cell phones next to our ears. Mine never rang, and each morning I left for school dazed and disappointed. Panic and caffeine kept me alert for signs of Kiki during
the day, though I fell asleep twice during biology, and my hands shook so badly that the frog I was dissecting looked like he'd had a date with Jack the Ripper.

Apparently, the Irregulars weren't the only ones who were worried. One Saturday evening as I guzzled a tumbler of coffee, I saw a man in a dark suit arrive at the Princess's door. A thunderstorm was making the video from the pigeon cameras sputter and crackle, but I recognized the dapper FBI man who had come to my apartment after the explosion in the tunnels. The following Monday, the Princess was escorted to school by two large bodyguards who, judging by their jailhouse tattoos, had spent their formative years behind bars. After school, they followed the Princess wherever she went, happily shoving menacing senior citizens and dangerous toddlers out of the Princess's path. I watched the two hulks viciously manhandle enough innocent civilians to realize that even Kiki Strike, kung-fu movie star, would be no match for them.

According to school gossip, the Princess's mother had hired the bodyguards to defend her daughter from the danger of stalkers. But the main person they kept at a distance was Naomi Throgmorton. Naomi had been dismissed from The Five the day her father, an accountant to the stars, was arrested for stealing millions from his celebrity clients. It wasn't the crime that offended the Princess, but rather the fact that the last of Naomi's fortune had been used to pay her father's lawyers. A poultry heiress replaced Naomi as the Princess's new “best friend,” and whenever Naomi tried to cozy up to The Five, the Princess's bodyguards escorted her back to her proper place.

Once, just before summer vacation began, I saw Naomi try to speak with the Princess. Ignoring her old friend, the Princess stepped into the Bentley waiting for her outside the school gates and slammed the door. When Naomi tapped on the car window, a bodyguard grabbed her by her designer belt and dropped her into a puddle that reeked of something other than rainwater. Inside the Bentley, the Princess roared with laughter. A scholarship girl tried to help Naomi to her feet, but Naomi angrily pushed the girl's hand away. Watching her walk down the sidewalk, leaving a trail of sodden footprints behind her, I felt sorry for Naomi. She may have been despicable, but I knew what it felt like to be betrayed by a friend.

While the Princess's bodyguards shielded her from social climbers, I continued to keep an eye out for Kiki Strike. By the time summer vacation began, I was starting to wonder if Kiki knew we were watching. Since we had started our search, the robberies had stopped and not a single girl had been kidnapped. As the days passed and my exhaustion grew, I began to see Kiki everywhere. I'd catch a glimpse of her peeking out from between the curtains in a building I passed. Ahead of me on the street, someone in black would duck around a corner. The loud rattle of a Vespa motor followed me, and several times I heard footsteps on the fire escape outside my bedroom. I still don't know whether any of these phantoms were Kiki Strike, but I could sense her presence wherever I went.

• • •

One night, Betty offered to monitor the pigeon cameras while I stepped outside for some fresh air. Strolling
through Chinatown, I turned down Doyers Street, a narrow lane that curves in unexpected ways and never lets you see more than a few feet ahead. In the days when gangs ruled Chinatown, Doyers Street had been the scene of countless murders, and it was still an ideal place to ambush an enemy. I was thinking of all the blood that had trickled down that tiny street when I heard someone singing “Ring Around the Rosie.” For a second, I wished I had chosen a different route.

As I rounded the corner, I saw a girl about my age sitting on the dark stoop of an old building. I hid in a nearby doorway and watched her. Her face was obscured by the shadows, but the girl's outfit struck me as familiar. She wore a dress smeared with grime and a single stiletto heel. As I inched closer, I saw why she had stopped. She held the other shoe in her hand and was staring at its broken heel, which dangled by a thin strip of leather.

The girl looked up as I approached. Her face was filthy, and her hair was greasy and matted. She leaned heavily against the stoop's railing.

“It's broken.” Her words came out slurred, as if her tongue were too thick to move. She held out the mangled shoe like a child handing a ruined toy to her parent. The word
Italie
was stamped on the bottom. “Fix it, Ananka? Please?” she pleaded pathetically. It was Mitzi Mulligan.

There was no mistaking it. Something was wrong with Mitzi. The pupils of her eyes were the size of dimes. Having watched enough hospital dramas to know that this could be the sign of a serious head wound, I examined her scalp for bumps and cuts. Other than a dead
bug or two, there was nothing to be found. I could think of only one other thing that might be responsible for her condition, and at first it seemed too ridiculous to consider. Girls like Mitzi Mulligan did not take drugs. But there she was, petting her ruined shoe and singing mixed-up nursery rhymes.

“Can you stand up?” I asked her.

Mitzi giggled. “Of
course
I can, dummy.” She dragged herself up by the railing and managed to stand for a few seconds before she began to teeter, and then finally slumped back down on the stairs.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“Fighting dragons,” she giggled. She reached behind her and grabbed an unfashionably large handbag. She turned it upside down and a heavy metal object and a scrap of golden paper fell out. “See?” Mitzi handed the object to me. It was a bronze five-toed dragon, roughly half a foot in length. “Be careful. It bites,” she warned.

The dragon's head wobbled from side to side. I gave it a gentle twist and the head popped off in my hand. The body of the dragon was hollow. A tiny amount of liquid trickled out, and a familiar, sickly-sweet odor rose to my nose.

“Where did you get this,” I asked Mitzi.

“Party favor,” she said, swooning. “You weren't invited.” Her eyes fluttered, and it looked as if she might pass out on the stairs.

“Come on, Mitzi,” I said, giving her a vigorous shake. “It's time for rehab.”

“You're letting me go?” she asked, looking up at me in surprise.

The unmistakable rattle of a motor scooter appeared out of nowhere and began to travel slowly down Doyers Street.

“Get up now!” I demanded, grabbing Mitzi's arm and dragging her off the stoop. The urgency in my voice brought her around. “Kick off your other shoe,” I ordered. No sane person would walk barefoot through Chinatown, but it was the only way to get Mitzi moving, and I figured she couldn't get much dirtier. Mitzi draped her arm around my shoulder, and I pulled her into an entrance at 5 Doyers Street. A staircase led to an old underground tunnel lined with tiny shops. Together we made our way toward Chatham Square at the other end of the passage.

When we emerged, I could still hear the scooter drawing closer. Ten different streets fed into the square, and it was impossible to tell which direction the scooter was coming from. As I fought off a surge of panic, a taxicab swung around Bowery and into the square. I waved frantically with my free arm, and it pulled to the side of the street. I shoved Mitzi inside, but before I could jump in beside her, a Vespa appeared on the opposite side of the square. The driver wore a black T-shirt, black leather pants, and a helmet with a visor that concealed her face. A shock of white hair stuck out from beneath the helmet. The Vespa stood motionless, the driver watching me from behind her visor. I bent into the cab and squeezed in beside an unconscious Mitzi.