The City Unseen, page 23
part #2 of The Unseen Series
“It’s our best bet,” said Noah. “Let’s go.”
Two streets over, Rachel once again slowed the van to a crawl.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Look.”
Ahead, two blocks up, was a mess of barbed wire and temporary fencing that blocked off the entire street. Dozens of Kindred stood guard in rows and each held an enormous blade, almost like the machete I’d found in Wheeler’s basement.
“Look,” said Noah pointing from the back. “The windows up top.”
Several floors up in an apartment building on each side, two Kindred sat pointing enormous guns through the window at the street below. Snipers.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “That’s too easy; I can blow up those guns from here.”
Rachel shook her head. “Remember what happened at the park? No chance you can turn off your damper, not this close to the signal. They’re banking on that.”
“Masks back on,” said Noah. “We’ll get in the old-fashioned way.”
“Nothing old-fashioned about this,” said Hud.
Rachel edged slowly towards the barricade. When she was less than a block away, one of the Kindred standing guard gestured for us to stop. We did, and he approached Rachel’s window, the glass missing from when the man had smashed it out with his face on my way from Blackwood.
“This street’s closed,” he said. “You know that.”
“Yeah,” Rachel lied. “We got a bit turned around out there. Which way’s the entrance, again?”
The man tilted his head slightly. “They’re all closed. Total exclusion zone. Nobody in or out.” His voice became threatening. “Which unit are you, anyway?”
“Um—” Rachel began.
“Six,” I interjected, a little too loudly, keeping my head turned away so he wouldn’t recognise my eyes through the mask. “Unit six.”
“Wait here.” He walked back to the others and talked with them for a moment.
“Should we go?” asked Noah, nervously.
“That’ll blow our disguise completely,” said Rachel. “Let’s see how this plays out.”
Hud sat forward. “We could ram them or use the grenades?”
“No way,” I said. “Snipers, remember? Plus, we need the grenades for the transmitter.”
The man began walking back. He looked casual.
A little too casual.
A red dot appeared on Rachel’s chest. Then another.
“Hey Rach,” I said. “Look down.”
She did and swore under her breath.
“Okay, maybe you were right, Noah. New plan. Hud, grab a grenade, but move slowly.”
He carefully removed one from the bag.
The man was almost at the van, and he shouted. “Take off your masks, now!”
Rachel shook her head. “What about anonymity, hey? Isn’t that why we wear these?”
Quietly, she murmured to Hud, “Take out the pin, but keep the lever depressed.”
“I know how to use a grenade,” Hud said. “I’ve seen it in movies like a thousand times.”
“Hope you’re a good throw,” she replied. The man outside was still shouting. He reached the window. “Remove your masks, Unseen scum.”
“Hud,” said Rachel. “Now.”
Hud reached forward and threw the grenade out Rachel’s window. The man paused for a moment, staring at the little black oval bouncing along the road. He yelped, then dove as the grenade exploded, lighting up the street and filling it with chunks of flying asphalt. Rachel slammed the van into reverse and the tyres squealed. The red dots had disappeared from her chest, the snipers’ sightlines obscured by smoke and flame. Rachel turned the wheel, spun the van a hard right, threw the gearstick into drive, and floored it. Deafening cracks ripped through the air, and a hole appeared in the back of the van. Sniper fire.
“Anyone hit?” Noah yelled.
We checked ourselves. All okay.
The van squealed again as Rachel sped out of sight of the Kindred. Once it was clear we weren’t being followed, she slowed the van a touch.
“Guess we can’t get in that way.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But we’re heading toward the docklands. Might as well keep going.”
We went silent for a moment.
“You want to take the tunnels?” asked Noah.
“I don’t want to, but we have to. It’s the only way in.”
We were going back. Back to where we first ran into the Zealots.
Back to the place Josh died.
FORTY-SIX
The docklands were abandoned, and the tunnel entrance unguarded. That didn’t mean we’d have a safe run the whole way, but it was something. The entrance sat as we’d left it; burned to scraps, with the forklift still parked on one side. No-one had cleaned up, or probably even reported it. The Kindred would have paid off the dock staff to keep our eventful evening quiet.
The van headlights lit the tunnel as we approached.
“If we can clear some of this debris, I could get the van in there,” said Rachel.
“The tunnels are pretty wide, so as long as we keep the van centred on the tracks it should be okay,” said Noah.
“Driving’s definitely quicker than walking,” I agreed. “I’d feel safer in a vehicle anyway; it’s a faster getaway.”
We jumped out of the van as Rachel pulled up, and we cleared the debris in front of the tunnel. The wood from the door was heavy, and it took all four of us to lift the larger pieces.
Once the tunnel was cleared, Rachel got back in the van. The rest of us stayed outside to guide her into the tunnel, before jumping back in. The tunnels looked different from inside the van; we were higher up than on foot, and the headlights lit it far better than our torches had.
“Where to?” she said.
“We shouldn’t go directly to the gallery basement; that’s bound to be guarded, especially ‘cause they’ll know we used it to get into the tunnels.”
“What about Century Park Station? That’s a few streets behind where the Kindred had the barricade; it’s inside the exclusion zone.”
“If you guys can get me near the lake, I can guide you to where I found Ari,” said Hud.
“And then I can get us to the station,” I said “I’ve got a pretty good idea of where we went after we escaped.”
“That takes us out of the old section and into the main subway tunnels,” said Noah. What about trains?”
“I doubt any of them are running today,” said Rachel. “I think the drivers are probably all busy.”
The trip was quiet, and the tunnels in this section were abandoned; although I jumped when we turned into the section where the animal corpses lay. There was no sign of any of the Zealots we’d killed; either the Kindred had cleaned them up, or the Zealots had done something unspeakable to their fallen brethren.
Noah pointed ahead. “Here’s the spot where we turned to the lake,” he said. “Hud, is this close enough?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I spent way too long down here by myself. Got a pretty good idea of where to go now.”
Hud guided us further into the tunnel network, and despite a few wrong turns, we ended up where he’d found me in the dark.
Rachel slowed the van to a stop.
“Okay,” I said. “I think I can get us to Century Park from here.”
We veered right at a junction and the tunnels became better maintained; we were in the new section. A red light glowed ahead in the dark, signalling trains to stop. An alarm echoed; five beeps, and a recorded message telling us to evacuate the subway. It must have been activated with the emergency system I’d heard above ground. It was eerie, hearing the message echo through the tunnel over and over again.
Rachel drove slower now; as we grew closer to the exclusion zone there was more chance of encountering Kindred fighters.
A marker on the wall read Century Park, 1km, so Rachel stopped the van. “We should go on foot from here,” she said. “Don’t want the engine noise giving us away.”
We got out of the van and began trudging down the tunnel, but not before Rachel swung the grenade-filled backpack over her shoulder and made sure each of us had a gun and taser in our belts. Honestly, they were hard to miss. The gun was heavy even though it was small, but I knew enough of guns to know I shouldn’t underestimate its power. Last time I’d fired a rifle on a friend’s farm, the kickback had nearly dislocated my shoulder.
The extra weight from the weapons was annoying. My legs were so sore they felt like they were going to drop off, but I shook them out and tried to count the railway sleepers to keep my mind off the pain. My arm was hurting, too, but not as much as before. It had become itchy, which was either a good or bad sign.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Noah quietly as the recorded message ricocheted off the brick roof of the tunnel.
“About?” asked Hud.
“About what happens after today. If we take down Wheeler.”
“When.” I frowned. “When we take down Wheeler.”
“Okay, when. There’s still a Kindred army flooding the streets, and a swarm of Shadows flying around somewhere.”
“A Swarm of Shadows,” said Rachel, trying to laugh off Noah’s concern. “Sounds like a fantasy book.”
“He has a point, though,” I replied, defending Noah even though I didn’t want to. “When I was in Dad’s apartment building there was an old woman, Mrs Parker. She’d murdered her husband. A lot of people have died today. A lot of people have become killers. Not to mention the slaughter we saw at the park. I can’t get that image out of my mind, all those people torn to pieces. So much violence and anger and death. Even if everyone gets back into their right mind, I don’t know if there’s a way back from this. Not for Coleton.”
Rachel stopped, and turned to us both, torchlight illuminating her face as it bounced off the ground, lighting up her chin and making her look severe. “There’s always a way back,” she said firmly. “Always. No matter how far gone we get. Look at me. The stuff I went through at Ettney—the things they did to me—I should be unable to function, I should be sitting in a chair staring off into space muttering to myself about who knows what. I did, for a while. But I made it back. I have a way to go, but I made it back.”
In the distance, the emergency evacuation warning beeped again.
She looked me in the eyes, her pupils glinting in the torchlight. “The people of Coleton might need a lot of help, and it will take a lot of time, and a lot of anger and bitterness and tears, but eventually they’ll make it back. Not all of them, but enough of them to make a difference. Enough of them to mean that what we’re doing right now matters. This matters.” Rachel turned to Noah. “And if you can’t pull your mopey head out of your butt and get on with it, I’m gonna reach in there and do it for you.”
I snorted at the image, and so did Hud. Turning, Rachel stalked off down the corridor, leaving us to catch up from behind.
Reaching the next junction, she slowed, holding out one hand to indicate we should stop. We did, leaving the last shuffle of our feet to echo through the tunnel. A signal box glowed red beside Rachel, flooding the tunnel with amber light and casting deep shadows on her face.
There was movement ahead, and murmuring sounds.
“Kindred,” Rachel whispered as we crept toward her position. “Lots.”
“The station’s just around the corner. They’ve got it guarded,” said Hud.
“We need a plan,” I replied, stating the obvious.
“What about the van?” said Noah.
“The one we just left fifteen minutes back?” Rachel sighed.
He nodded. “We know they can’t use their abilities, so they’ll probably have guns. If we speed through fast enough, they might not be able to hit us, and we can draw them further into the tunnel. You can drive, and I can use a few grenades to take them out when they follow us.”
“Well,” Rachel replied, sounding impressed. “Seems you did manage to remove your head from your rectum. Either that, or you do real good thinking in there.”
“Bit of both,” he grinned.
“No way,” I said. “That is the worst plan I’ve ever heard. Who do you two think you are? Action heroes? They’ll either shoot you dead on sight, or the grenades will blow up the train tunnels and collapse the whole thing in on you.”
“I’m willing to take the risk,” said Noah. “Rachel was right. I’ve spent the last six months thinking I was invincible after Ettney. Thinking I could take on anything. I mean, we destroyed the entire complex. But what happened with Josh the other night—it broke that spell. I suddenly saw the stakes, I mean the real stakes. Any one of us could die here. And that rattled me. It got in my head, and I couldn’t stomach the thought of anything else happening to any of you.”
“So… you’re feeling better because now you’re okay with one of us dying?” said Hud.
“Yes.” He saw my face. “I mean no, not just any of you. But Rachel’s right. I had my head stuck up myself so far, I could see daylight. I thought I was too scared of dying. But I’m not. Not anymore. I’m okay with losing my life here today.” He looked straight at me. “The thing that scares me most is losing you.”
The last word hung in the air, swallowed up by the emergency warning blaring from a speaker overhead.
I opened my mouth to reply, but I had nothing to say. Not here. Not right now.
Rachel cut in to the silence. “We’d better get walking then. Noah and I will get the van and lead the Kindred blockade further into the tunnels. Hopefully they’ll all follow, but if not, you and Hud can fight your way through the remainder.”
“This is insane,” Hud protested.
“You got a better plan?” Rachel snapped.
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No.”
“Wait for our signal,” she said, “then be ready.”
“What’s the signal?” I asked.
“A five-ton black van hurtling toward you down a train line.”
I smirked. “I’ll try not to miss it.”
Rachel and Noah jogged off down the tunnel to the van, leaving Hud and I to get as close to the station as possible without being seen.
We crept forward, staying low to the ground, until we saw the lights of the station washing the tunnel in their green fluorescent glow. The Kindred couldn’t spot us from here, but I could just see them. There were more than twenty cloaked Kindred spaced along the platform, staring various directions, keeping a lookout. None of them seemed to have night-vision equipment, which was a win for us. All of them held very big guns, though, and dampers glowed green under the hoods of their robes.
Hopefully most of them would follow the van. If not, I couldn’t see how we were going to take them out in time.
A few minutes passed, waiting, watching, sweating, stressing, and then an engine roared in the distance behind us. They were here. Hud and I pressed to the side of the tunnel as headlights appeared in the dark, turning through the junction and blinding us both as they sped our way.
There was movement on the station platform. The Kindred knew something was up. Hopefully they’d take the bait. The engine noise was unbearably loud in the tunnel as Rachel redlined the van. It had almost reached us, but something was wrong. She started flashing the headlights, flicking to high beams again and again. Noah screamed at us from the window, but I couldn’t make it out.
A bullet cracked through the air, whipping off the tunnel roof and sending dust down around my head.
The van reached level with us, and Noah screamed at me again from the open passenger window. “Run!” he yelled, face ashen, before the van sped past us and toward the station.
Behind the van, under the red light of the signal box, I saw why he was scared.
Zealots.
Dozens of them.
FORTY-SEVEN
The blood on their skin glistened in the red light from the tunnel, hair matted together, eyes wild and dark. Some of their clothes looked fresh. They were new Zealots, maybe only transformed today through Wheeler’s broadcast. Probably locals who lived close to the transmitter source, and so their change had happened fastest.
Rachel didn’t slow the van, and I didn’t blame her. It rocketed toward Century Park Station to a hail of Kindred bullets, which cut through the air around us and shot off into the tunnel. Hud and I pressed close to the wall to avoid the gunfire.
The rear door of the van kicked open, and Noah hung out the back, small black object in hand. “This way!” he called to us, and we began to run. He pulled the pin out of the grenade and hurled it down the tunnel toward the Zealots. I didn’t dare look back, but a few seconds later I was blown to the ground by the blast. My ears rang, and I rolled over, holding my leg, which was bleeding at the knee.
The grenade had blown apart several Zealots, who were lying in pieces across the tunnel floor. The remaining Zealots were swarming the dead, doing things to them that would be burned into my skull for a long time.
The Kindred had seen the Zealots now, and hesitated between the van and the onslaught, not sure which to protect against first. As the van passed the station, Noah hurled a grenade at the Kindred standing on the platform. They had warning from the one he’d just used on the Zealots, and one of the Kindred kicked the grenade down in the tunnel as the rest took cover. Hud and I stayed flat as the explosion ripped through the train line. The skin on my neck blistered from the heat.
The van disappeared down the tunnel, and half the Kindred followed it, leaving the remaining ten to deal with the Zealots. We were caught between the Zealot pack and the guards, with no way out.
The creatures had finished with their fallen brethren and turned toward the source of the second explosion. They were coming our way. Gunfire ripped them apart as the Kindred let loose volleys of automatic fire. Not that I could hear it now. My ears were dulled from the grenades.
Mowing down the Zealots had the desired effect. When one of them fell, the others pounced on it, leaving them vulnerable to even more fire. Wheeler’s creations were brutal, but dumb.
