Undertow (The UnderCity Chronicles) (34 page)

Scrambling to his feet, Jack faced Hugo, Randa MacMurphy’s towering bodyguard, who regarded him with Buddha-like contentment.

“Welcome home, Cole!” MacMurphy let out a gibbering laugh, jerking Lindsay with the wire. “Won’t the Moles be happy when they see what we’ve brought them?”

When Jack lunged for Lindsay, Hugo seized him by the scruff of his jacket and pulled him back as easily as a mother with a recalcitrant child. Smiling serenely, the giant moved to take him in a headlock, but Jack spun and threw every ounce of his power into a punch right to the solar plexus.

It was like hitting a stone wall.

Jack staggered backwards, pain shooting up his arm. Hugo’s smile widened in amusement, and again he reached for Jack.

MacMurphy planted a foot against the small of Lindsay’s back, and yanked viciously in an effort to finish her with the garrote. Lindsay gasped as the wire cut through the leather of her gloves and into her fingers, and she pitched herself backwards, sending them both to the stone floor, fighting to keep back the wire. MacMurphy’s grip tightened.

“It’s for the best,” the madwoman crooned. “Life is full of pain—better to get it over with, right?”

“I’ll show you pain,” Lindsay gritted out. She wiggled one hand free from the wire and grabbed for her gun.

Jack leaped back and forth before Hugo, barely evading the man’s attempts to catch him. He feinted to the right and dove for the sub-machine gun. Hugo stomped his massive boot down on the weapon, narrowly missing Jack’s hand. Jack’s eyes widened at the crushed gun. Its light flickered, and then fizzled out.

On sheer instinct, Jack launched another fierce punch at a more vulnerable point on the bodyguard. Struck between the legs, Hugo staggered back, his pale green eyes fixing on his opponent, his smile fading. Jack wasn’t waiting around for the man to recover.

He scrambled for Lindsay’s gun, only to have her unintentionally snatch it from his outstretched fingers.

“Fuck.”

Then Hugo grabbed his ankle and dragged him back into the darkness.

Seeing the gun in Lindsay’s grasp, MacMurphy twisted as hard as she could on the wire, driving Lindsay’s protecting hand into her chin. Pointing the gun blindly over her shoulder, Lindsay tilted her head and pulled the trigger. The force of the recoil loosened her hold on the weapon's grip, and the volume of the blast so close to her ear filled her head with a shrill ringing. The tension on the wire vanished, yet even as Lindsay tossed aside the garrote, the bloodied MacMurphy clamped down on the gun.

Jack was lifted into the air by his ankle, Hugo swinging him and letting go, sailing him straight into a thick stone pillar. There was a sickening crack of bone when Jack made impact, but he struggled through the pain and rolled to his feet.

Hugo was on him again in an instant, this time elevating him in a deadly bear hug. Kicking frantically, Jack felt the steel-hard arms act like a python as they tightened around him until his vertebrae popped. He flailed his fists at the man’s thick face, but it was like punching a concrete block. He had to fight as vermin did—vicious and dirty.

The light from Lindsay’s gun played wildly about the tunnel as she struggled with MacMurphy. Despite her rail-thin physique and part of her face blown off, the woman fought with the strength of insanity, and to Lindsay’s horror, the lunatic was winning. Slowly but surely the gun was slipping from her hands, and in moments, MacMurphy would have the weapon.

Then, with a shrill cry, Seline was there. She grabbed MacMurphy by the hair and drove her fist into the woman’s mouth, shattering teeth with a single rage-powered blow. Lindsay jerked the gun away from the AP, and shone its light down the tunnel toward Jack.

Snarling, Jack dug his fingers into Hugo’s scalp and chomped down on the soft cartilage of the giant’s nose. Roaring in agony, the bodyguard tried to peel Jack off. With the savageness of a rabid rat he held on, and sank his teeth deeper and deeper, blood filling his mouth.

With a deafening shriek, Hugo threw Jack aside, clutching his ruined face. An instant later, a volley of bullets tore through his gigantic frame. He fell against the wall of the passage, then slid down its curved surface with a final rattling gasp.

Lindsay stood wide-eyed in shock, holding her smoking gun. It took a moment to gather her senses, and, aiming her light on Jack’s crumpled form, she saw him spit a bloody hunk of flesh onto the ground.

“That,” he said hoarsely, “is tunnel-fighting.”

* * *

As the faint echoes of gunfire died away, Crabbe looked at his watch. It had been a little more than an hour since he’d dropped off his passengers, and if not for the promise of nine grand, he would have hightailed it home the second they were out of sight. He had a grand in his pocket—enough for heat and smokes for weeks. Why press his luck?

There was the roar of some deranged animal and another burst of weapon fire. Whatever his passengers were mixed up in, it wasn’t good, and the last thing he wanted was to end his days in his grandfather’s chasm, another floater for the cops to fish out of the Hudson.

Then again, a man could do a whole lot of living on ten grand. Hell, he could get a new television, get his cable reconnected with porn channels and everything. There was also the matter of Tocat, who might not take it so well if he came back without Cole and the woman. The Teco might not be as dangerous as the things that crawled the sewers, but he could still snuff out Crabbe like a damp cigarette.

Either way there were risks, and either way there were rewards, and only God knew which path was the best to take. In times like this a smuggler had only one friend, though it’d been a while since they’d last talked.

Pinning the flashlight between his knees, Crabbe reached into his coat pocket and dug out a tarnished quarter—his entire life’s savings until he’d been handed the roll of bills up at the park. Balancing it on his dirty thumbnail, he closed his eyes and whispered into the darkness, “Please, Saint Dismas, I’ll try and be a better guy, and, however it lands, I’ll drop a twe—a ten—in the collection plate next time I get the chance. Help me pick the way to go.”

Crossing himself, he flicked up the coin, caught it and slapped it down onto the back of his hand.

“Heads, I wait for ‘em,” he mumbled. “Tails, they’re on their own.”

He slowly lifted his hand from the coin and squinted down at the result.

* * *

Lindsay hurried to help Jack to his feet. He tried to stand, every breath like a fresh blow. For sure, he had cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder, and there was something the hell wrong with his leg, too. “The Moles are going to be here any minute,” he wheezed. “You remember the way back?”

Through the ringing in her ears, Lindsay nodded. “Then take Seline and run. I’ll catch up.” His bout with MacMurphy’s thug had left him severely injured, and there was no way he’d make it to the Chasm before the Moles reached them. Not on his own steam, anyway.

Lindsay shook her head. “No way. We’re all going, Jack. Now.”

He gritted his teeth in pain and frustration. “Linds, I’ll make it. Now go.”

Lindsay hauled on him. “You sure will. Now
move
, goddamn you.”

All Jack needed to do was to drop down; she wasn’t strong enough to carry him. The Moles would come and take him, and that would be that. Except Lindsay would fight them, and there would be no way she could fend them all off. She would die horribly. Seline, too. He moaned and pushed to stand.

Lindsay hung on. She shifted so that her arm came around his waist, and slung her gun over her back.

“Seline,” she called. “Get on his other side. We’re leaving.”

* * *

Behind them MacMurphy weakly raised her head and ran her tongue over the jagged remains of her front teeth as she watched the light from the gun disappear down a side passage. Hugo had been a useful follower, and his sacrifice had served its purpose. The Moles were on their way, and Cole was too injured to outrun them. Soon he’d be back where he belonged, and this time his conversion to the underground would be completed. The Moles were very effective at breaking people, but she had a few tricks to add to their psychological arsenal. A cocktail of pentazocine, sertraline and a few other psychotropic drugs would do wonders for his attitude, and with his cooperation, their plans could begin in earnest.

One day soon, New York would be plunged into darkness, their communications severed and their water poisoned. The same fate would befall all the major cities of the world, and in the ensuing chaos, the APs would torch it all. It wouldn’t be an act of war, nor one of terrorism, for they had no demands to make of humanity. It would be an act of glorious revenge, and the dawn of a new dark age in which monsters, both human and not, would again stalk the night.

She smiled. Then began to laugh. A high-pitched cackle of unbounded hatred that heightened as a pack of inhuman forms rushed past her into the blackness, hell-bent for Schenley's Chasm.

* * *

Lindsay knew Jack was fighting to remain conscious. His each gasping breath was pained, each step a visible effort. She and Seline were moving as fast as possible, their breathing labored as they dragged him through the columned halls. In the shifting light all the passages looked the same, the fetish dolls mocking her from their niches upon the hewn walls. She worried that in their haste she had made a wrong turn. The Pits were a labyrinth of tunnels and side passages, no doubt designed to confuse intruders and lure them to dead ends.

Jack rasped out, “You sure you know—?”

Had he sensed her doubt? “Jack, the only thing blonde about me is my hair. We’re almost there.”

Seline whimpered. “Hurry, I can hear them! They’re catching up!”

Lindsay shook her head, trying to get rid of the high-pitched whine that still sounded in her ear. Between it and the thumping of her adrenaline-fueled heart, she could barely hear a thing, but she believed Seline. She had witnessed firsthand the deadly alacrity of the Moles. Their only hope was the Chasm, where the chill, toxic waters might halt the creatures’ pursuit.

Then, as if in answer to her prayers, she spotted the natural side passage that led to the underground river. With renewed vigor, she pulled Jack and Seline into the tunnel.

“Only fifty feet more,” she whispered, as much in encouragement to herself as them. “Thirty. Twenty. Ten.”

They burst into the cavern, with such momentum that Lindsay had to plant her feet to stop them all from going headlong into the filthy water. Desperately she looked about, for a moment incredulous, before rage and panic filled her heart.

The boat was gone.

“Damn you, Isaac Crabbe!” she screamed.

Then, from out of the darkness the man appeared, poling his boat towards them. “I’m here! I’m here! Keep your panties on!”

“Lindsay!” Jack yelled, and with a fierce shove sent her and Seline sprawling into the frigid water. From behind leapt a trio of nightmares, their black jaws snapping where Lindsay had just been. Jack gave a brutal kick at the one closest to him, propelling it into its companions so all three went head over heels.

Lindsay and Seline emerged chest-high in the water, its cold gunk strong enough to burn. She put the gun to her shoulder and pulled the trigger. The small cavern instantly filled with the blaze and thunder of gunfire. Jack hit the floor as gore splashed over the symbols scrawled on the cave walls, two of the Moles going down in the hail of bullets. The third dodged aside, and like a great jungle cat, leaped over the arc of Lindsay’s gunfire toward her.

There was a loud crack as Crabbe’s pole connected with its head, spinning it into the water. When the monster surfaced, thrashing and sputtering, the smuggler whacked it again with his improvised weapon, dispatching it beneath the churning water.

Lindsay hauled her niece onboard, tipping the boat dangerously. Jack had slid into the water as well, and she struggled to get him into it. His weight was too much for her.

“Help me, Jack!” she yelled. “Get up there! Get on the fucking boat!”

His hand clutching the edge of the skiff, Jack let out a soundless scream as he pulled himself over his damaged shoulder. She shoved him hard and his face thumped onto the rough boards on the bottom of the wildly rocking craft.