On the other hand, aside from her general discomfort and dislike of the City, there was no escape from there at all. The only way out was the way back up, and she didn’t particularly want to spend the entire night there while silent ghosts stared at her and her skin went pink then white with cold. Underground … underground was never safe.
Unless … Hadn’t Lex said something about those tunnels? How they went everywhere under Triumph City itself? That probably extended to the Church grounds, right, since before Haunted Week this had been a business district?
At the foot of the elevator was a platform where the train waited.
Hadn’t she seen a couple of doors down there, when she went? One of them might lead into the tunnels. And if she could get into the tunnels, despite the confusing twists and turns, she could find an exit. She knew she could. She had her compass with her, tucked into its little pocket in her bag.
It wasn’t a great idea, but it was the only one she thought might work. She slammed her palm against the elevator button. The second or two it took for the door to open stretched out like hours while the footsteps on the staircase grew louder, and she threw herself into the car as the railing rattled and she knew her pursuer had jumped over the side.
Just before the doors closed she saw him, a hooded figure all in black, the symbol on his chest iridescent in the glow of the safety lights, and memory clicked into place like a bullet into a chamber.
Oh, fuck.
“… they were not aware of the earth’s power, and so pumped their garbage through it, and dug into it for all manner of things.”
—A History of the Old Government, Volume III: 1800–1900
Six minutes down, six minutes up. Then six minutes back down, if he decided to follow her, which she was sure he would—why wouldn’t he, when as far as anyone knew there were no exits? Alone with one of the Lamaru—the Lamaru with their fucking precious symbol and their bloodthirsty black magic. And they’d infiltrated the Church itself, actually gotten in the building, recruited another employee like her.
If they had one, did they have more?
If they were in the Church now … no one was safe. Not the Elders, not the Goodys, not the regular employees. And definitely not the People, who counted on the Church to keep them safe. The Lamaru didn’t want to keep anyone safe. They just wanted power. Wanted control, wanted adulation. And would do anything to get it.
So what were they doing now?
Unfortunately there was no way to hold the elevator, no emergency brake or lever to flip. So she had twelve minutes to get as far away from here as she could, into the tunnels, if she was even right, and those doors were tunnels and not simply a couple of supply closets or utility rooms full of wires tangled like snakes.
Chess shivered. It was always so cold down here, and silent. The train with its dim, blue interior and flat opaque headlights watched her with the incurious gaze of a predator as the elevator started returning to the surface. Six minutes up, six minutes back.
Two doors cut into the damp cement walls, one on each side of the train. She’d lost her syringe full of lubricant, of course, but sound didn’t matter so much when there were none to hear it. Luckily the lock was easy to pick, a basic tumbler with a rolling catch that she lifted in about thirty seconds. How much time had passed now? One minute, two? Shit, she could almost feel that Lamaru in the room, his black-gloved hands reaching for her, his eyes burning dark from blood sacrifice or who-the-fuck-knew what kind of spells he’d been working … She spun around, ready, but saw only the train’s empty eye staring back at her.
Wasting time. Back to work.
It was just a closet, as she’d feared. A mop and bucket—she couldn’t imagine why they were there, unless it was simply that closets of this nature grew cleaning implements like fungus. Some wires. A fuse box—oh, fuck yeah.
She jimmied it open with her thinnest pick. How much time had passed now? Three minutes? All of the fuses were lit, they gave no indication of whether or not the elements they controlled were in use, and the elevator shaft was tall enough that she wouldn’t hear the car itself until it got closer. No labels decorated the shiny black metal of the box, either. There was nothing to do but to flip them all, one by one, and if flipping one of them gave her no result at all, she could assume it powered the elevator and leave it off.
Unless one powered more than just the elevator. Shit! All right, she’d leave them all off then, and get out of here as quickly as possible. Assuming she could. If that other door didn’t lead to a tunnel, but instead held another mop and bucket, she’d be down here all night, alone. In the dark.
Still probably better than what ever her pursuer had in mind. And with any luck, he’d spend the night trapped in the elevator, suspended three or four hundred feet below the surface of the earth.
She gave it another minute to be sure. If nothing else, freezing the elevator would stop him—the fuse box in the Church building was unreachable without several keys and a ladder—but if she could trap him he’d be caught in the morning, which would be nice. A Church member, involved with a secret magical organization. A secret anti-Church magical organization, one who’d been trying to overthrow the Church practically since it had come into existence. Was it wrong that for a moment she was glad the penalty was death?
Did she care if it was wrong or not?
The fuse switches were stiff, stiff and cold against her palm. Her right hand burned as she shoved with all her might against the switches. Fire shot up her arm as the first row finally gave. She’d torn the wound back open.
The lights on the platform still burned dully. Chess stared across the cement for a few seconds, trying to estimate the distance between the doorway of the closet and the ditch where the tracks were, and shoved against the other switches.
The platform disappeared. The closet disappeared. No light came from the train, from the silent fluorescents, from anywhere. She was seven hundred feet underground, in the darkness.
Cursing herself for not having grabbed her matches before she cut the lights, she dug them out of her bag. While she was at it, she cursed herself for not buying a fucking lighter. One like Terrible’s, with an eight-inch inferno exploding from the wick.
Shuffling her feet, she left the closet and made her way onto the platform to light the first match. The glow, almost lost in the blackness of the cavern around her, showed she was still a good fifteen feet from the edge of the ditch. She walked as quickly as she dared across to it, and sat on the cold rim just as the match burned down to her fingers.
She had five matches left. Five matches, and who knew how many miles of long dark tunnel ahead of her. This sucked.
The train loomed dark and silent beside her. She couldn’t see it but she knew it was there, could feel its presence the way she would have been able to feel a ghost had one shown up. So far none had. She didn’t know how much longer she would be able to say that.
With the power to the train out she should be able to walk straight across the tracks without worrying about the electric rail, but taking chances didn’t exactly appeal. So, using her left hand, she fumbled around until she found her electric meter, then fed the wire across the ditch—at least she hoped it was across the ditch. No reading. Still …
Holding her pen like a wand, she slung the bag onto her back and bent over. The pen didn’t make a great cane, but it worked. She pushed herself off the ledge and dropped into the ditch on both feet. The gritty thump of her landing echoed through the platform.