Madhouse

11

While I'd been doing other things, very interesting things, Niko had been thinking. I got the results of that the next morning as I yawned. I was not a morning person, to say the least. "The subway?" I finished applying the gun oil and reassembled the Desert Eagle at the kitchen table. I was done playing with that cannibal son of a bitch Beane. Big gun, explosive rounds, and one vengefully pissy attitude—if that didn't take care of him, I might have to check out the going price on a rocket launcher.

"Miles and miles of tunnels, some of them even abandoned and unused, it's as close to a cave as one can get. More and more, Sawney seems to be a creature of habit. But Ham may have narrowed down a location for us. He called last night while you were out becoming a man." His lips twitched, but he went out without any more ragging on the subject. "He turned down our invitation to join us for any battles with Sawney, as expected, but he did have some information. Several of the homeless have disappeared. All of them have been the more 'out-there' ones. The schizophrenics, the mentally ill. And all of them had been using the Second Avenue Subway construction project for shelter."

All the SAS construction and mess going on there—it made sense. Easy access to the lower abandoned levels for both the homeless and Sawney. Those poor bastards could've walked right into his cupboard.

What also made sense was him going after the ones who were a little off. "You know," I said diffidently, "Sawney's made it pretty clear he has a thing for the nuts. Madness seems to be a turn-on for him." And I tasted just fine.

"I've heard what he said. You know it's not true. And considering what you've been through in the past year, the fact that you're not is a testament to just how strong you are." He fixed me with a sharp glance. "Don't make me emphasize that. My hand gets tired from swatting that hard head of yours."

Niko was at the table opposite me doing a little cleaning of his own. I wasn't the only one breaking out the big guns. He was rubbing a cloth across the metal of a double-bladed axe. It was a somewhat smaller version than seen in your average barbarian movie, but not by much.

"How the hell do you hope to walk the street with that?" I asked as I carefully slid the clip home. When an accidental discharge can take out a two-by-two chunk of the wall, it pays to put safety first. New York landlords are not especially understanding of homegrown ventilation systems.

"I've taken up the cello." He hefted the axe and measured it with approving eyes. "And this should fit quite nicely in the case." Laying it on the table, he began to wrap it in soft felt far more gently than was required. To me a gun was a gun, a hunk of expensive metal—nothing more. To Niko a weapon was an object of respect. "Musical aspirations cover a wide number of sharp-bladed sins," he added with an undercurrent of dry humor.

"I'm all for seeing you sin away on that son of a bitch Sawney." There was nothing quite like catapulting out of sleep with the absolute certainty there were teeth in your chest and hunks of your flesh being torn away to be eaten while you lay paralyzed. It really put a damper on the whole goddamn morning, let me tell you. "Promise coming with us again?"

"Yes." He tied a cord around the felt with a simple slipknot. "I think she worries that two helpless creatures such as us need a bodyguard." Normally, that would be a joke. I wasn't so sure it was this time. "And she feels a responsibility. It was she and her friend that drew us into this."

"Responsible enough to take Robin in and keep an eye on him until we figure out who's after him?" Whether it was the survivor or the Rom in me, I'd never been one to overlook an opportunity.

"Believe it or not, very probably," Niko allowed. "However, Goodfellow seems extremely loath to give up his independence, even with his life at stake. He's as stubborn as you."

Okay, maybe he wasn't done ragging on me after all about the previous night, but it was said with acceptance. Exasperated acceptance, but acceptance still. I'd made my decision, gone through with it, and Niko was going to stand behind me on it. The swat he delivered to the back of my head as he stood and circled the table didn't change that. Gave it a helluva punctuation, though. "My hand's not quite as tired as I thought," he informed me.

I rubbed the area and scowled, "You can't smack out stubborn."

"Oh, I think you'd be very surprised what I can do when I put my mind to it. Promise will meet us here this evening and then…" He looked down at the swaddled axe and smiled. It was something Niko rarely did; he was usually more subtle in exhibiting his emotions—head-smacking aside. This smile, however, had its share. Anticipation, retribution, and an icy anger. Niko would walk out of here carrying a cello case, but it didn't look like music was going to soothe his beast, not until Sawney was back where he belonged. Dead and in minute pieces. Not surprisingly, I didn't have a problem with that. And the more old subway tunnels we ended up splashing through and the more rats we dodged, the less problem I had. Even if Sawney hadn't killed the people in the park and warehouse, even if he hadn't tried, fairly successfully, to turn me into dinner, I would've long lost any tolerance for him.

That night, as planned, we made our way into the tunnels through the SAS. The extension of the Q train to Second Avenue and Ninety-sixth Street was a great idea—and the city had been having that same idea for longer than I'd been alive. After all the false starts and financial disasters, there were enough half-built and abandoned tunnels to hide a hundred Sawneys.

Now, that was one crappy thought. One of that son of a bitch was plenty.

The water was thigh high in the latest tunnel we hit, a maintenance one long out of use, and cold enough that I'd lost the feeling in my feet and legs. This tunnel itself was inky black except for our flashlights, and the rats were big enough that at some point they must've mated with dogs. Great Danes from the looks of them. None of this was the worst I'd come across in my life, nowhere near. But after hours and hours of it, I was losing my patience, and I had considerably less of the commodity than my brother. It wasn't something I was good at.

"That last rat had a subway conductor in his mouth," I grunted. "You saw that, didn't you?"

"Don't exaggerate. It was a dead coyote and only a medium-sized one at that."

I rolled my eyes in Nik's direction to see if he really thought that made it better. From the raised eyebrow that met my gaze, apparently he did, and I sighed and sloshed on.

"The wildlife is varied and interesting." Promise was doing the same, to my left and slightly ahead of me. Although she didn't slosh when she moved through the water—she didn't make any sound at all. Even Niko, quasi-ninja extraordinaire, caused the faintest ripple now and again, but when Promise moved, you wanted to rub your eyes to verify that she was actually there at all. Then again, dressed all in black as she was, without the paleness of her hair and skin, your eyes would've let you down too.

I didn't know whether moving that silently was a skill vampires were born with or one they gained over the years of their long lives. While I was curious enough to ask, the cockroach as big as my hand that fell from above to land on my shoulder distracted me. The dead body that came floating by distracted me even further.

The mass slowly drifted toward us speared by our flashlights … a tangle of clothes and limbs, pallid white hands with fingers curled like the legs of drowned spiders. As the body came closer, I got a better look, and said with a grimace, "Leftovers?"

It wasn't a body. It was pieces of one. Two bloated arms and a leg ripped off from below an absent knee were wound up and trapped in sopping cloth as the entire mess of it floated along. It wasn't pleasant to look at and less pleasant to smell. There was no way to tell if Sawney's scent was mixed in this toxic soup somewhere. I had a good nose, but I wasn't a bloodhound.

"I guess 'waste not, want not' isn't a concept Sawney embraces." Niko bent for a closer examination. "Death occurred somewhere around two days ago from the looks of the decomposition."

It wasn't just a guess. There was a book sitting on one of our shelves that spelled out the stages of decomposition in a corpse…dry corpse, wet corpse, soggy…whatever you were looking for. I knew because I'd once used it to prop up one leg of the coffee table. Nik, on the other hand, had read it, memorized it, and on occasion the knowledge had come in very handy. Despite that, I still had no desire to crack that book.

"Two days, give or take, yes," Promise gave a confirming nod. Considering she was old enough to have lived through a time when vampires still fed on humans, she would probably know. She aimed her flashlight down the tunnel. "The question now is the distance they've traveled. How far is the larder they slipped from?"

There was only one way to find that out and we moved on. Promise had her hair in an intricate twist that was wound tightly around her head. Despite the delicacy of it and her large shadowed eyes, she didn't look out of place in this hellhole. She … I don't know…fit, in some strange way. From day one, if you'd asked me to picture her life, I would've imagined that every day of it was spent in elegance and quiet luxury. That she was to the manor born, as they say.

But she'd once given me the hint that that wasn't the truth, not her truth anyway. She hadn't gone into any detail, but I got the impression Promise had been born to dirt and hardship rather than silk and satin. Not all vampires had lived in a castle with bug-munching flunkies to wait on them hand and foot. I didn't know Promise's age, but it was possible she was old enough to have been born into some pretty rough times in history…for vampire or human. It would explain all the rich husbands with fastly approaching expiration dates she'd had. Our bodies might escape the conditions that made us, but our minds rarely do.

Whatever her origins, she moved through the tunnel as if it were an aisle in Sak's—boldly and comfortably. I followed and Niko pulled up the rear. Every fifteen minutes or so, Nik and I would switch off, but we kept Promise, her flashlight now turned off, in the lead. Vampire night vision was better than both of ours put together. When the revenants came, she spotted them several seconds before we did and raised a hand to halt us in our tracks.

To look at, they weren't so different from the body parts that had been carried our way—decomposing and hideous to behold. Nature's imitation of a corpse—slick putrid-appearing flesh, white-filmed eyes, and yellowed, rotting teeth framed by bloodless gums and a dead black tongue. Some of them wore filthy clothing; some of them wore nothing at all. An anatomically correct revenant is nothing to write home about…literally. With all their smooth mottled flesh, I had no idea how to tell the difference between male and female. But knowing how to kill them was info enough.

It wasn't too difficult…killing them. Although, if you just chopped a piece off, it would grow back— given enough time. Simple minds, simple nervous systems, Niko had explained disparagingly. Upright salamanders with an attitude, that's what I said. Bottom line, not that hard to kill, but if you didn't finish the job, a revenge-seeking revenant would show up a few months later sporting new limbs and a hard-on for a little mutilation of his own. The motto is "Make sure the imitation dead are the genuine dead."

So, when the first revenant appeared into the weak orange light ahead of us, I wasn't worried. When the next five showed themselves, I only pulled my Glock. I wasn't wasting the .50 and expensive rounds on these guys. But when the following sixteen slunk into sight, I did spend the time to be grateful that I didn't see Sawney with them. A revenant was a walk in the park, a couple of revenants…cake, but twenty-two? I'd been accused of being a little cocky, but I wasn't stupid. Certainly not that stupid. Twenty-two was going to be a workout, no way around it. Because revenants, when they wanted to be, were fast. They weren't the cheetahs of the preternatural world, but they were the hyenas. Their asses could move.

Niko, always up for a little aerobic exercise, had left the cello case behind at a junction of several tunnels and now hefted his axe. "How unfortunate for them that they can't regrow their head." Which was the place to aim on a revenant. If they had a heart, I had no idea where it was. Their circulatory system was a lot more primitive than a human's. Whatever pumped their vital fluids didn't seem to be centralized, and taking out the brain, à la every zombie movie ever made, was your best bet.

They were unusually quiet as they came. Revenants weren't the biggest talkers around, but they weren't above the occasional dinner conversation…of the usual "I'll rip you to shreds and enjoy every mouthful" type. Not these, though…they were silent and completely on-task. Sawney appeared to be a monster who valued discipline in his clan. There was no speaking, only determined white eyes, and a random jagged laugh here and there.

Which was disturbing in its own right. Because that laugh…that crazy, nerve jangling, completely over-the-edge-and-dogpaddling-in-the-pit-of-insanity cackle…was pure Sawney Beane. "Sound familiar?" I murmured to Nik.

"Yes," he answered flatly. "Yes, it does."

That's when they spoke. Every last one of them…simultaneously.

"Travelers."

Okay, that was creepy. I'd seen a lot of shit in my day, but that was definitely pretty damn freaky, but worse? It was Sawney's voice…almost. Not exactly, but like a distorted echo of it.

I shot the lead one in the head and heard another echo—this time in my mind. He'd said I tasted like insanity. And I wasn't. I wasn't like that. Wasn't like him or the Auphe. I gave a silent snarl and fired again, the flashlight in my other hand. After that they were on us and the gun was no longer the best option. They were too close, moist skin against my clothes. Niko was swinging his axe with devastating effect and Promise had a sword—silver, slender, and deadly. The one I drew was more along the lines of a Roman short sword. Long enough to take off a head, short enough for close quarters. Ugly, but functional…much like the revenants themselves.

I pushed hard at the one on me, shoving it away before slicing open its gut. That didn't kill it, but the wound distracted it long enough to let me whirl and take the head off the one coming from my other side. Partially anyway. Another two chops and then I flipped the first one over my shoulder. I could feel the drench of whatever fluid escaping his sliced guts hit my back. It was hot, slick, and that was more than I ever wanted to know about the internal juices of a revenant.

From the corner of my eye I saw Promise take the head of one revenant with her sword while tossing another of the creatures fifteen feet straight up to smash against the ceiling of the tunnel. A third hit her as she handled the first two and took her down to disappear under the water. I only had time to take one step toward her before she surfaced…alone. Three for her, three for me, at least six for Nik, which left only ten.

Unless you counted the next twenty that appeared from the gloom.

And behind those … I stopped counting. When it came to mathematics, there were three numerical concepts I was interested in: barely worth the time, doable, and strategic fucking retreat. I didn't need a calculator to know we were looking at the latter.

"Promise, go," Niko rapped. "Cal, cover us."

"Got it." The big gun was coming out after all. I pulled out the .50 and emptied the clip. I hit the revenants in the lead and concentrated the rest of my fire on the ceiling. It didn't fall, but chunks of it did. Between that and the heads of their companions exploding like a Fourth of July event gone catastrophically wrong, they did hesitate slightly. It was enough to give us a head start and we took it. I stopped once more in my headlong rush to slide another clip home and fire again. Normally this would've been enough to put off a group of revenants, even one this large. They weren't bright, but they weren't usually suicidal either.

These were different. Sawney, not their own instincts and intelligence, controlled them. I didn't know if it was through sheer force of his maniacal personality or through something more unnatural in its domination. And in the end, the "how" didn't really matter; it was the results that concerned me. The ones that were left kept coming and coming, no matter how many I dropped. There were probably close to thirty-five to forty of them still remaining by the time I ran out of the explosive rounds.

"Cal."

"I'm coming." I turned and ran again. Niko was waiting a short distance ahead as I splashed along. The revenants weren't far behind me…like I'd said, they were fast. "All out of the good shit," I panted as we both raced along. As we approached, Promise stood still in a sickly pool of yellow light by a metal door she'd pried open. I saw the remains of the lock hanging, shattered by her deceptively slim hands. It was nice having a vampire on your side when it came to breaking and entering, especially when the breakage involved was fairly high.

"This way," she said, seemingly untroubled by the horde behind us. As the three of us passed through, she slammed it behind us and turned the handle with a flick of her wrist. That flick led to a creaking of metal and one seriously jammed door. Body after body hit it behind us. It held, but it wouldn't for long. We didn't wait around to time it. This tunnel was higher than the other, the water only ankle deep.

"Think Sawney is making this his permanent headquarters?" I asked as we moved. We needed him to settle in, to choose his territory—the one he wouldn't be able to abandon. The one he'd be forced by his own nature to stick around in so we could kick his ass, the home he'd defend to the death…hopefully his.

"Difficult to say. He's long-lived and the long-lived tend to be cautious. Especially, I imagine, those who've been burned to death." Niko had slowed to a fast lope and Promise and I followed suit. "Even if that death was only temporary. I think it's more likely he'll try several locations before choosing the one most suited to his particular lifestyle."

If you could call eating random strangers a lifestyle—cannibalistically inclined seeks open-minded cave dweller. No vegetarians please.

Nik's conclusion wasn't what I wanted to hear, but he was probably right. Sawney was cunning. He wasn't going to pick a place without checking out all his options. As for the revenants…"We're going to need more firepower or more hands or both," I pointed out. "I swear, that son of a bitch has every last revenant in the city working for him. The line at Monster Manpower must be short as hell now."

In the distance, I heard the sound of a metal door slamming back against concrete, and it was time for more serious running—not to mention a little serious cursing. By the time we reached one of the tunnels close to the surface, I was torn between barfing up a lung and lying down to die of a welcome heart attack. Damn, those bastards could run. They'd pulled back at the last second when we'd finally reached the lights and sounds of civilization. It was a good thing we weren't in active tunnels. Vaulting off the rail followed by a mob of ravenous revenants would've ruined the evening of any average commuter who happened to be standing on the platform.

I sat on the floor and leaned against a square pillar. "Enter"—I wheezed—"taining."

Vampires did breathe. They weren't dead, undead, any of that—a common misconception, no matter how much it made for good literature. They did have a larger lung capacity than humans, though. Promise was barely breathing deeply. At least Niko, who thought the New York Marathon was for those without the commitment for genuine exercise, was pulling in the occasional heavy breath of his own. It made me feel a little better about my burning chest.

"So …" I sucked in a breath and the oxygen deprivation spots began to fade around the edges of my vision. "What now?"

"That is a good question." Niko looked back toward the tunnel. "A very good question indeed."