She jerked upright, her neck craning despite the fact she could see nothing. Her breath left her chest in a whoosh.
“Okay, Chess, you need to get it together,” she said aloud, then regretted it when her voice danced in the stillness around her and made it seem even darker, lonelier. Hostile.
Stop being such a wimp! She forced herself to bend back over, to wave the pen and take another step, and to ignore the prickling on the back of her neck. It was behind her again, she knew it was—
The pen clicked against the metal of the first rail. Good. She stepped carefully over it and continued. Maybe the thing waited at the other side, waited for her to blunder into it like a bee into a spiderweb. Then its cold, spindly arms would close around her, crushing the life from her body …
Damn it! She would be down here all night if she didn’t grow a pair of fucking balls and get to that door on the other side. Why was she such a wimp, why couldn’t she—
Terrible thought she was brave. She remembered it now, heard his voice in her head as if he stood next to her. “They scared. Not you, though.” Terrible thought she was brave, and if he—a man whose name was Terrible, a man whose path people scrambled to get out of—thought so, it must be true. She could do this, she would do this.
Inch by inch she shuffled across the ditch, waving the pen in front of her. Two rails, then three, then she was dragging herself out of the ditch and trotting toward the wall with her hands out in front of her, feeling her way until she found the metal door, sliding her fingertips over the smooth painted surface until she found the lock, then pulling her picks out of her pocket.
She’d never picked a lock in total darkness before, but she’d never picked one in total silence before either. Every click made by steel against steel amplified itself, helping her visualize the tumbler. Got it, got it … shit. The pick slid, dropping the latch.
And something whispered in the tunnel.
Ghosts weren’t supposed to be able to leave the City and head up here; the doors were made of iron, and should have been locked tight. Apparently this one had snuck out before they were shut, or it had never entered the City to begin with.
A third possibility, that her pursuer had been down here, messing with the doors—that more of them might still be down here—occurred to her, and she shoved it from her mind as quickly as she could. Ghosts were bad enough. If she started thinking about ghosts and Lamaru hanging around, hiding in the darkness, she’d never move. The hair on the back of her neck prickled and tingled and she felt goose bumps raise on her arms.
Deep breath. Try again. Slide the pick in, ignore the whisper getting louder. That thing is going to follow you into the tunnel, a human murderer might follow you into the tunnel, if this door even does reach into the tunnel. Don’t think about that. Just get the lock, and you’ll figure out what to do next. Get it, get it—the whispers getting closer, a cold breeze on her back that couldn’t possibly have come from anywhere—got it!
She flung the door open and hurled herself through it, slamming it behind her. This was not a closet, she could hear the faint trickle of water and feel the space around her just as she’d felt that ghost just a moment ago. Nothing else to do but run. So she did.
For as long as she could she kept running, her feet splashing along the floor, trailing her fingertips along the rough pitted walls on either side of her so she could feel when there was a turn, and she made the turns by pure instinct. Left, then right, then left twice, trying to move herself in the direction of Downside and Lex. The tunnels he used had been lit. If she could find a lit space, she wouldn’t need to use another precious match.
This was starting to not look like the best plan after all. Her heart felt like it was going to explode, she wanted her pills, she was thirsty and cold, and she just wanted to go home. At least to take a shower and change the clothes she felt like she’d been wearing forever. She could prop a chair in front of the door and take her knife with her.
The smell hit her before she even realized it. There had been no advance warning, no faint odor growing stronger. It was as though she’d passed through some sort of membrane and into a room filled with dead, rotting things. Her feet slid, almost going out from under her, and she braced herself against the wall and reached for a match, fighting to keep her empty stomach from turning in on itself.
It was a losing battle. In the weak illumination from the match—light that nonetheless hurt her eyes after spending so long in the utter darkness—she saw bodies, rotting, molding, half-eaten by rats and other small beasts. Sightless eyes stared at the ceiling. Empty sockets mocked her. Open mouths tried to tell the story of lives long since ended, stories told anyway by the bullet holes and slashed throats. Bits of scabrous flesh dangled from bloody bones. Chess threw up, angry at herself for doing so, knowing she would have to light another match to get out of this and angry about that, too.
When the world stopped spinning she straightened up, taking shallow breaths, and lit the next match. Three left after this. The tunnel of bodies went on for another ten or fifteen feet, ending in a door. Dead end. So to speak.
Unless she could pick that lock as well. She checked her compass. If she was right about the way she’d been going, she wasn’t far from Downside. If she could just get out, she could walk or get a cab. Walking might not be safe, but at this point she didn’t care.
Her feet slipped and squished in the deliquescent foulness covering the floor but she ignored it. There was a lock, slightly more complex than the others but still pickable. The match went out as she worked but she’d had enough. No more turning around, no more panic attacks. She didn’t give a shit anymore.
Light dazzled her eyes as she swept through the door, but something caught her eye before she could close it. A wallet. Resting on a corpse’s chest.
She shouldn’t touch it, shouldn’t even think about it. But these dead men were people once, people with names. She used the picks to flip it open.
No ID. No credit cards, no cash. Apparently someone had taken them all, left nothing but—she slid a pick inside—nothing but a few scraps of paper, receipts, and … ooh.
A wrinkled bit of plastic caught on the end of the pick and poked from the mouth of the wallet, inviting her to pick it up and take a look.
The Baggie was dusty and limp in her fingers. It looked like it had been there for several years, and she knew it had when she saw the dull purple color of the pills inside. Valtruin. Almost impossible to get. They’d been outlawed a couple of years ago—not even for pharmaceutical use anymore. Even Bump couldn’t get them. She doubted Lex could get them.
And here were two of them. She dropped the wallet.
“Sorry, guys,” she muttered, tucking the Baggie into her pocket and slipping through the doorway. “I guess you won’t be needing them anyway, right?”
She’d made it. For a long moment she just stood, breathing in air tinged with mold, ammonia, and damp but still unbelievably sweet after the chamber of horrors she’d just left.
So these would be Lex’s tunnels, then. She wouldn’t know how to find her way to a specific spot but there were doors to the street dotted along every so often. She could find one.
Holding the compass in front of her like an oracle, she started walking. Another left turn. A right. Someone breathing.
This time it was simply that junkie she’d met before—what was his name? Big Shog? Yes, Big Shog. He crouched against the wall, his attention so focused on fixing he didn’t notice her until she was almost on top of him.
“How do I get out of here?” she asked. Her voice sounded odd. “Where’s the door?”
“Aono.” He tugged the rubber catheter on his arm, dropped the needle. “Ainnoin, goddet? Ainno nothn.”
“No, seriously, just tell me, how do