Mind the Gap (Hidden Cities #1)

Mind the Gap (Hidden Cities #1) Page 13

He shot her a look of terror. "But the torch —"

Jazz tore the duffel from his hands and let it fall to the floor of the tunnel, hoping one of the bastards would trip on it. Cadge wanted the torch in case they had to hide some-where that the light from above didn't filter in and where there were no electrical lights still siphoning power from the upside world. But they couldn't afford to lose a step.

Better to live in the dark than die in the light.

Her face burned with exertion and hatred, not only for these men but for herself. The BMW man proved it, and she'd seen that recognition in all of their eyes. They were here for her. Jazz had brought blood and perhaps even death to Harry and his United Kingdom. Her heart tightened into a fist in her chest.

She couldn't let them catch her. The pain they would inflict on her would be terrible, but far worse would be the knowledge that her mother had spent so many years preparing her to survive and that she had failed at the task.

She had to live for Mum.

"Here," Cadge said.

The only light came from vent shafts twenty yards in ei-ther direction, but her eyes had become used to the dark in the past couple of months and she saw immediately what Cadge pointed to. A small narrow platform was set into the left side of the tunnel. Against the far wall were thick pipes that thrust deeper into the Underground and ran up to the ceiling of the tunnel. They branched off there, some follow-ing the tunnel both ways and some going straight up through the ceiling toward the surface. Others, however, turned and vanished into a crawl space atop the platform wall, no doubt once having carried water or power into other tunnels and stations from here. Many of the pipes had large wheel valves, but it was the ladder that mattered.

She gave Cadge a push and they ran for it together.

As they climbed onto the platform, the men rounded the bend in the tunnel.

"Where d'you think you're going?" one of them called, and then laughed.

As the laugh died out, Jazz heard another sound. Cadge had reached the ladder ahead of her, but he turned and stared back down the tunnel —not at the men but beyond them, as though he could see the source of the distant shriek that came whistling up the tunnel, building in volume.

"Fuck me blind," Cadge whispered.

The BMW man reached the platform first and leaped up onto it. He lunged at Jazz. She turned and squared off, letting him come, and then swung her leg to kick him in the balls. He was ready for the attack, as she'd figured he would be. It had been a feint.

She drove her fingers into his eyes.

He screamed, reached for his face, and Cadge slammed a shoulder into him, knocking him off the platform. The others tried to catch him, but the BMW man slipped through their hands and hit the ground.

"Jesus, my eye!" he cried. "It's bleeding. Bitch popped my eye!"

The words were a shout of fury and pain; otherwise, Jazz would never have been able to hear them —not over the shrieking wind that came hurtling along the tunnel. The howling noise grew louder. To her ears it sounded like a train derailing and the terrified screams of the passengers, all merged into an infernal chorus.

The Hour of Screams.

A hundred rats ran along the tunnel, all in the same direc-tions, ignoring the humans and seeking darkness once again.

"Jazz, a song!" Cadge shouted, his lips right beside her ear.

Her hair whipped past her face. The wind buffeted her, and now she saw that it had spectral texture.

She nodded and huddled with him at the base of the ladder. Jazz clapped her hands against her ears to block out as much of the noise as she could. The banshee wail of the Hour of Screams grew louder, grating on her mind, stripping away her thoughts.

Harry had said to pick a song but hadn't elaborated much. Jazz knew it had to be something that she felt in her heart, that meant something to her, or she wouldn't be able to concentrate on it. But as she tried to focus, tried to choose, the Hour of Screams grew so loud she could barely think, and nothing came to mind. Snatches of lyrics, but she couldn't think how any of those songs went.

The stars, she thought. Something about the stars.

And then she had it, a song she could never forget, a melody that would never leave her.

Are the stars out tonight?

I don't know if it's cloudy or bright.

I only have eyes for you, dear.

Jazz sang the words softly at first and then louder, defiantly. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, but she felt Cadge at her side, huddled against her. Fear cradled her and she sur-rendered to it. Her sanctuary had been shattered. Her blood would soon stain the Underground, and the vanishing that had begun the day of her mother's murder would be com-plete.

The Hour of Screams bore down upon them. Jazz shook, breath hitching in her chest. Things slipped past her that might have been gusts of wind but were not. They caressed her, and she knew these were not ghosts like the phantoms she had encountered before.

"I only have eyes for you," she sang.

Beside her, Cadge shouted as though to drive the screams away and then began singing louder. She forced her-self to open her eyes against the buffeting winds to make cer-tain he was all right. Cadge had his own eyes screwed shut and hands clamped over his ears. His lips moved along with a song, but over her own singing and the howling of the Hour of Screams, Jazz couldn't make out the words or the tune.

Motion on the tracks caught her eye. She looked and saw the men crumbling to their knees. Ethereal shapes whipped around them, darting in close and then drawing back, pulsing in the air. The men beat their arms uselessly against the wind. Their eyes were wide with terror, and their shrieks joined the symphony.

And then it passed. The wind began to diminish and so did the volume of the screams, until moments later it lin-gered as nothing more than a distant whistle, just as it had been the first time she'd heard it from so far away with Harry and Cadge.

The men did not rise immediately, nor did they curse or shout. One by one, they looked up, eyes still wide. One of them wore a grin that seemed slashed into his face. He started to laugh and the BMW man slapped him, which only made the thug laugh harder.

The BMW man's gouged eye bled down his cheek. He glanced around with his one good eye and spotted her, then he bared his teeth and growled like an animal. His upper lip curled back to reveal crooked teeth.

One by one they rose, driven mad by the Hour of Screams.

"Rats," one of the men muttered, staring at Cadge and licking his lips. "Drive 'em out."

"Jazz," Cadge whispered.

The men were moving slowly. The first one reached the platform and began to haul himself up.

"Jazz!" Cadge shouted. He grabbed her arm and whipped her around, shoved her toward the ladder.

"Climb!"

Heart thundering in her ears, she grabbed hold of the rungs and scrambled upward. Cadge shouted after her, urg-ing her faster. Jazz caught his face with the heel of her shoe, so quickly was he following.

"Go! Go!" he yelled.

At the top, hands sliding over dust and grime, she pulled herself into the crawl space between the thick pipes. It couldn't have been more than two feet high but wide enough that she twisted sideways and rolled into the dark-ness. Turning around to face the way she'd come, she reached out to grab hold of Cadge's hand as he topped the ladder.

He froze, clung tightly to the top rung, and she saw a terrible understanding in his eyes: they had him.

Cadge knew he wouldn't be getting away.

The BMW man roared in triumph as Cadge's fingers were torn away from the rungs.

Jazz screamed for him. And for herself.

At the edge of the crawl space, she could see down onto the platform. The BMW man dropped onto his knees on Cadge's chest and began to beat him. There was a cracking of bone and the wet slap of skin on skin, growing slippery with blood. The others pulled him off, desperate to have their turn. They had been sent down into the underneath to hurt or even to kill, but they were madmen now. They kicked Cadge in the side and the head.

In the dim gloom of the tunnel, she thought she could see the life go out of his eyes. But Jazz knew it before the men did, and so her own screams turned to numb horror and she edged backward through the crawl space, deeper and deeper. Eventually, it would lead to some other tunnel or passage, but she would be the only one to emerge.

The BMW man still growled like an animal, but soon the wet noises and the thumps of their blows ceased. One last smack echoed through the tunnel and into the crawl space, and then she heard them.

"What was that? That wind. What just happened?"

"Fuck's sake, look at him. What'd we... ?"

The sound of vomiting followed.

"Couldn't stop myself," one of them whispered.

The ladder grated, metal upon stone, as one of them climbed up to the crawl space. Jazz held her breath. She saw the silhouette of a head blocking out most of the ambient light from the tunnel. The BMW man. She could smell the blood on him, could hear the low snarl that came up from deep inside him. The madness of the others might be pass-ing, but not this one. He was broken forever.

"Come on, Philip," one of the others said. "Girl's long gone. Work's done for the day."

The BMW man hesitated. He reached up to touch his ruined face, but she was far enough back in the darkness that he could not see her with his remaining eye. After a few mo-ments, he descended the ladder.

Jazz could hear them moving off but worried that it was a trap. So she lay there quietly, waiting for some sign that they were really gone, waiting for Cadge to tell her it was time to come out. Dear, sweet Cadge, who'd fancied her so much. She wished now that she'd given him a kiss. Just one. He was so young, but what harm could one kiss do?

Perhaps she could still give it to him.

Maybe he'll know, she thought. Maybe he'll see. All the ghosts of old London are down here.

Now they've one more to join them.

Chapter Nine

the river flows

Time blurred, and Jazz did not know whether she stayed in the crawl space for long minutes or hours. When at last she overcame her fear and tamped down her grief enough to act, her left arm had gone numb and prickled with pins and nee-dles as she moved. Her neck and hips were stiff and ached to the bone.

A foot from the ledge, she hesitated. The top of the lad-der was visible, and if she closed her eyes she knew she would see Cadge's fingers being pulled away from the rungs. She kept them open.

Something shifted in the tunnel. She heard breathing, which stilled her own. For long moments she considered her best course. The thugs who'd been driven mad by the Hour of Screams knew she had come into the crawl space. They might not have been able to squeeze in there to come after her, but they knew she was there. If they'd stuck around, surely she'd have heard them?

So whoever or whatever was out there was on their own and didn't know Jazz hid so near. She could try to back up, but that might make enough noise to draw attention. Or she could inch forward just a bit, enough to see who it was.

A low sigh came to her then, and a new thought rose in her mind. Cadge?

Jazz slid to the edge and looked down onto the platform. Her heart sank when she saw the bloody figure lying there, limbs akimbo like some cast-off marionette. She drew in a shuddering breath.

Someone moved in the shadows on the other side of the tunnel. At first glance she thought it was a ghost. An image crossed her mind of the magician's specter performing sleight of hand in the midst of old London's echoes. She half-expected him to emerge, drawing colorful kerchiefs from the sleeves of his jacket.

But the silhouette resolved itself, and she recognized him.

Stevie Sharpe.

He moved away from the wall, stepped over the old rail-road ties, and climbed up onto the platform.

Stevie pulled out a white rag and knelt to wipe some of the blood from Cadge's swollen face. One side of the boy's skull had been caved in. Jazz put a hand to her mouth to hold in a scream.

There had been enough screaming today.

"Are you coming down?" Stevie asked, still gently wip-ing at Cadge's face.

He glanced up at her. She was surprised to see tears on his face. Stevie would not cry aloud; Jazz knew that much about him already. His expression seemed carved in granite. But his tears gave him away.

"Jazz, come down," he said.

It took her a moment to realize that she was supposed to reply. But she couldn't open her mouth. She crawled to the ladder and stared at the rungs where Cadge had tried so hard to hang on. Cadge, who had a touch of whatever awareness Jazz had found here in the underneath. Cadge, who'd only ever been sweet, who'd tried to make her feel at home.

"Jazz —"

Stevie stuffed the rag in his pocket and went to the ladder. He climbed up, boots clanging on the metal rungs, and gently reached for her, putting a hand on her wrist.

"Come down," he said.

His eyes always seemed shielded. They were supposed to be the windows to the soul, and while Jazz couldn't be sure she believed in souls, she did have faith in her ability to read someone's heart in their eyes.

But not Stevie. He hid himself down deep. She supposed they had that in common.

"I'm afraid," she whispered.

Stevie nodded. "Good. We should be afraid. But you can't stay here. The others will be gathering at the ren-dezvous point soon, and we've got to check on Harry before we meet up with them."

Jazz wrapped her fingers around his wrist and they gripped each other's arms for a moment. From the first, she'd seen that Stevie differed from the others in some in-tangible way. She still didn't know what it was, beyond the age difference, but Jazz felt certain she had not imagined it.

The contact went on a beat longer than was comfort-able. Stevie pulled his hand back and averted his eyes, then started down the ladder.

"Let's go."

Jazz took a breath and spun around. She scooted over the edge and began to climb down after him.

"Did you see them?" she asked as she came off the lad-der onto the decrepit old train platform, purposefully avoid-ing looking at Cadge's body.

Stevie nodded. "I sent the others away, but I doubled back to see if I could help. After the Hour of Screams went by, I heard them shouting and I knew what had happened. I hid when they ran past, then came as fast as I could. Did you see anyone else?"