Tenth Man

by Tamara Sheehan

Chapter 21, part 2 of 2

Something growled in the darkness above. Water shook down on them from ugly red stalactites. His skin crawled. ”What was that?” Saul whispered, his voice echoed harshly.

Howie’s lamp bobbed, flashed into Saul’s eyes as he turned to look back the tunnel. “We’re under High Street. The rumbling is cars passing but that one might have been a bus. Come on.”

The light that was Toven bounced impatiently in the darkness. “All right back there?” he called.

No I’m bloody well not, Saul wanted to shout back. He wanted air, smells and color again. He wanted the cacophony of minds chattering, aimless, self-absorbed thought patterns that he was growing used to. He wanted to scream and not hear the echo of his terror ringing out on all sides.

His grating breath was bouncing back to him from the walls, like sand rubbing on tender skin.

If he got lost, would he find the surface again? Could Howie’s gear prevent him from starvation, from the dark and madness? He thought of Toven’s total unconcern. How he’d made a home in the tunnels under the park, been so unwilling to leave.

Then he thought of how unstable Toven had seemed. Would I go nuts? Would I never want to come out again? Just the thought of it made his throat constrict. All the darkness, all the distance. Miles and miles of tunnel under the city, water endlessly running, lapping, dripping down onto him.

The constant wet echoing sound was making him want to scream. He slipped on the sloping floor, swore, scrabbled for the walls, hands raw on brick, nails bending backward. Water everywhere. It ran down the cavities of his hands and soaked the sleeves of his shirt. Why doesn’t someone drain these things?

“Hey, Saul, all right there?” Howie had slowed, his headlamp shone a bobbing beam into Saul’s eyes.

Saul cringed back, coiled, suddenly full of pent-up violence. “Will you stop doing that?” His voice was high and hysterical. “You’re blinding me with that thing.”

Water lapped over the edge of his boots and soaked his feet. Howie sloshed toward him. He spoke softly. “You’re freaking out, you should have said.” Howie’s hand was warm, solid. It brought Saul out of the surreal world of constant noise, of fear and rats and water. “We’re almost there. Relax, all right? Just take a deep breath. Just like last time.”

“I don’t like this,” Saul told him with a sheepish laugh.

“Yeah, well, you’re a bit of a weirdo aren’t you? Come on, walk between Toven and me. It’s easier if there’s someone keeping the darkness away.”

Saul nodded, let Howie push him on ahead and put his head down. The beam from his lamp reflected off rainbow water, red brick walls spangled with glittering moisture, the jeweled eyes of rats. He trudged after Toven, listened to the quiet, interior chattering in Howie’s mind and tried not to hear himself think.

The tunnel widened without warning, wings of brick soaring up into shadows, curving out. The space was bowl-shaped, like some subterranean animal’s great den. The walls and ceiling were festooned with garlands of moss and mold, the space between lit by the vague, pale glowing of phosphorescent lichens. The water ran fast, loudly trickling, pulling at his feet.

“This is it, Toven, hold up.” Howie called. He shook out a map, wiped the plastic with his hand. His headlamp sent shadows whirling around them.

Toven splashed back to them, his face split in a wide, boyish grin. He nodded at Saul. “Too bad you’re so nervous. It’s nice to be home.” He thrust his hands in his pockets and looked around him like a man strolling on a beach.

Saul smiled a little. The air was cool here, slightly fresher. Less cloying and dirty, less choking. He inhaled. Damp earth, oil and gasoline, sewage, wet brickwork, he tasted them all on his tongue. Some of the claustrophobia had gone, but the sense of being watched was only stronger

“Know where we are?” Howie asked Toven. Toven nodded, he looked expectantly at Saul who shrugged.

“Where?”

“Under the plant.”

“You mean,” Saul looked from grin to grin, feeling profoundly stupid. “You mean we went from one end of town to the other and never broke the surface?”

“Of course.” Toven smiled at him. “The city’s built on a latticework of tunnels. You can go anywhere.”

“See why I like it?” Howie shook the map and tucked it into his coat pocket. “All right, there should be a ladder that takes us up to the subbasement of the warehouse. Spread out and holler when you find it.”

Hello.

Saul started, looked around him. Howie and Toven were moving off into the shadows, all ready their lights were as distant as stars. “Did you say something?” He called but Howie looked up and shook his head.

Saul moved toward the brick wall. It bulged outward as if he stood rat-high inside a regular brick section of sewer, then arched above him. Hung with soft red stalactites, it wept rust-colored water.

Hello pretty.

The voice was softened by a faint English accent, whispered and sly in his ear as if the words were a secret. He swung the beam of his light upward. Shadows and stalactites and moisture. His heart pounded. The water lapped and echoed. He stood and strained his ears to hear the voice again.

What brings you to a place like this?

Pattering echoed through the chamber. Something burst into movement and was still again in the dark above him. Saul looked up and saw the whites of another man’s eyes staring down.

He gasped, backed away, slipping over the filth that lined the sewer. The man hung upside down from the sewer roof, his hands and feet clinging to the brickwork like some gargantuan spider. He climbed hand over hand toward Saul, reaching down to catch his chin, caress the line of his jaw.

Don’t shout, pretty.

Something like paralysis was seeping into Saul’s body where the creature touched. He wrenched back, forcing a cry. The creature swung down toward him, gripping the ceiling like a trapeze artist, pawing the air for Saul.

He spun on his heel, sprinted back toward the others but the creature swung free of its perch, a perfect missile of bone and sinew. It landed squarely on him, wrapping him in weedy arms and legs. Saul pitched forward. Water closed over his head, flooded his nose. The long limbs were like cables, pinned his arms to his sides, his legs to the slick, hidden surface of the pipe.

Lie still, lie quiet.

Bewilderment transferred with the thought. It was to Saul like an open door. He twisted around, jerked upward, squirming, struggling. Bubbles of air sprayed out of his nose and mouth. One hand broke free and went up, a blind guard against the attack he was sure would come.

Lie still, lie still! There was fear in the creature’s mind.

Saul reached out, caught sensations like bullets fired from the creatures mind. Greed, lust, murderousness.

Take, kill, eat, own...

He countered with his own. Let me go.

Panic hit the creature like a wave. Saul heard the thought like a shout in his mind: Wizard. Kill it!

He spasmed away, wrenching his body back, kicking. The creature’s grip faltered, the regained purchase. Saul’s chest was on fire, stars bloomed and burst behind his eyes.

Long hands scrabbled at Saul’s skin, slipping, clutching. The creature bent, gripped Saul’s shoulder with sharp teeth, bit down. Saul screamed, gasped in water, tasted shit and oil and dirt. Pain in his lungs made him cough. The creature was drowning him, long hands pressing his head against the sludge of submerged brickwork, smashing down again and again.

Stop, stop, stop! He grabbed at the mind above him.

The deadly rhythm faltered. The elbow of Saul’s free arm connected with something solid and the impact made the creature’s grip weaken. He struck again and again, the same place growing softer each time.

The grip loosened, Saul thrashed out from under the weight, surged to his feet and fell forward again. Toven came splashing to his side, helped him stand. Saul turned to the creature.

It was floating, a still and bloodied mess. Long limbs splayed like a starfish, pale skin taut over bones. It’s eyes stared glassy and unblinking at the shrouded ceiling, windows looking out by a dark crater in its head.

“Nice job.” Howie said quietly. He prodded the floating body with a sludge-covered stick. “Definitely dead.”

Saul realized he was shaking, his teeth chattering. Water and mucus dribbled out of his nose. “It was in my head. Sick, revolting...” He stepped back as the body tipped and began to sink in a slow pirouette. “What was it?”

“Incubus.” Toven answered.

A disgusted fascination took Saul. So that was what the mind of an incubus was like. He thought of Toven’s lover in the memory and wondered if he had known the same fear, the intolerable length of time between attack and death. He shook himself to clear his head.

“Why was it here? Shouldn’t it have been near the High Street where all the clubs and bars are?”

“It was probably standing guard. My dad’s not stupid, Saul. You came through this way when you bombed the place.”

“Came through where?”

Toven pointed to the wall behind the body. An ironwork ladder crusted with rust clung to the wall. “That’s our way in.”

To be continued...