Could my injured ankle take the hit?
It had to. Staying put wasn’t an option.
Rolling to my bum, I scooched forward, eased my legs over the edge, then turned onto my stomach. I tried to stretch to my full length while keeping a grip on the door opening. The brick was too slick, my fingers too numb. I dropped off.
The landing sent a sharp slap of pain up my left leg. The knee buckled and I tumbled sideways. My shoulder hit hard, and rough ground claimed what skin remained on my right cheek.
I lay a long moment, waiting for the throbbing to subside. My hands and feet were almost dead from the cold. My head pounded. My mouth and tongue were parched.
I was gagging from the smell of sewage and sludge.
Sudden flashbulb images. A quarry. Boxed bones. Chris Corcoran. Vecamamma. Cukura Kundze.
Lassie Tot.
At last. Memory was trickling back.
I’d traveled to Chicago when? Vecamamma’s Christmas decorations were up. December. How long ago? What had occurred since?
Recent history remained elusive, so I tried to focus on the present situation.
In the stillness, faint but close, I heard twittering and scratching.
Adrenaline shot from synapse to synapse.
Rats!
I lurched to my feet.
And cracked my skull.
My heart went into claustrophobic overdrive.
Easy!
I drew a steadying breath. Another.
Bent at the waist, I tested with one tentative step.
My injured ankle breathed fire.
I gulped several more mouthfuls of air. Then, crouching with arms outstretched, I painfully backtracked.
I’d landed not far from the mouth of the tomb. I explored the wall with my hands.
I was in a brick, tubelike structure with a sloping floor. The tomb entrance was near the tube’s top on one side.
The scrabbling sounded closer now, robust. I shivered from cold and disgust.
The tube leads somewhere. Follow it.
Using the wall as both guide and crutch, I began hobbling through the dark.
The air was dank, the ground slick underfoot.
I imagined beady red eyes. Naked tails. Yellow teeth bared in long pointy snouts. I had to force my fingers to stay on the brick.
The smell was overpowering, a mixture of garbage, feces, and slime. Was I in a drainpipe? A sewer?
Yes. It had to be a sewer.
Active? Abandoned?
Sudden terrifying thought.
In older neighborhoods, Montreal relies on a combined drainage system, with sewage and rainwater running through the same pipes.
The air was frigid. What conditions prevailed up top? Snow? Sleet? Was it too cold for rain?
Might a surge of black water suddenly engulf the space I was in? Would it carry me downstream or drown me?
What was wrong with my mind? Why contemplate Montreal’s public works and not recall what brought me to this hell?
Think! Think!
More firefly images.
The Oka skeleton. The Memphrémagog corpse.
I took five more tortuous steps. Seven.
Names.
Rose Jurmain. Christelle Villejoin. Anne-Isabelle. Marilyn Keiser.
Nine.
Ten.
Then, my hand met emptiness.
Heart hammering, I yanked it back.
Something rolled. Hit brick.
An anemic yellow beam arrowed the floor.
I blinked at the first illumination I’d seen in hours. Days?
Oh, sweet Jesus, yes! Yes!
I lunged and snatched up the flashlight.
The beam wavered.
Please!
I tightened the casing. The beam steadied. I swept it around my feet.
Filthy water puddled the brick, iridescent black in the pale yellow glow.
I slid the beam up the curve of the wall.
The little oval jitterbugged in my shivering grasp. Sniffed the flashlight niche. The small space was empty now, save for rat droppings.
I pointed the beam up.
Sludge-coated brick arched over my head. Not good. Whatever flowed through here must at times fill the whole space. The tunnel I was hunch-walking through was no more than four feet in diameter.
I aimed the beam in front of me. Behind. Six feet out the tiny shaft of light was devoured by darkness.
A tremor shook my body. My teeth chattered.
Keep moving. Must keep moving.
I resumed creeping, wall-leaning, flashlight arcing from side to side. The feeble beam was already starting to weaken.
With each yard, I felt more wetness, more drag on my feet. The puddles merged. The water rose up the sides of my soles. Sewers have to empty into something.
Please, God, don’t let me be walking upstream.
Now and then I stopped to dip a finger. Was the water level rising? Should I turn back? Ahead, I sensed, more than heard, a low murmuring, like wings beating somewhere in the darkness.
One flashlight sweep illuminated an armada of tiny heads rippling the slick surface. I slogged on, refusing to consider what was swimming at my feet.
The filthy water. The rats. The anger and fear. Whatever the trigger, jigsaw memories now winged at me hard.
Adamski.
Claudel.
Ryan.
The confession.
I sloshed on.
The water covered my laces.
The missing phalanges.
The Lac Saint-Jean molars.
Marie-Andréa Briel. Miranda Leaver.
Sebastien Raines.
Had Raines put me here? Had he and Briel learned that I was onto them?
My abduction was still a void. Had I been drugged? Hit on the head? What did it matter? I was here and I had to get out.
Ten steps, then the beam sputtered.
Please, God. No!
I thumbed the switch to preserve the batteries, casting myself into absolute blackness.
The murmuring now had a backbeat of gurgling and slapping. Water covered my laces. My back and hamstrings screamed from the strain of doubling over.
Reverse?
Go forward?
I’d lost all feeling in my fingers and toes. I was shivering wildly. Fever? Hypothermia?
Find an out! Break free!
I continued onward, every cell in my body dedicated to escape.
My scalp tingled.
I ignored it.
Again the tingle, now on my forehead.
Feathery legs brushed my eyelid. The bridge of my nose.
A spider!
My hand flew up and my fingers raked at my face.
Trembling from revulsion, cold, and exhaustion, I leaned into the wall, despair threatening to overwhelm me.
Screw the batteries. I had to have light!
I flicked the switch.
The beam was almost useless except as an emotional crutch. I aimed it ahead, toward the source of the murmuring sound. Saw inky black.
My body was racked with ever more violent shivers.
As I wrapped my arms around my torso, amber light skimmed the brick at my shoulder.
Picked out something.
Breath suspended, I drew the flash close to the wall.
41
THE FUZZY AMBER SPOT CRAWLED BLACK MARKS ON THE brick.
Stenciled letters, faded and chipped.
I inched the light along, forcing my addled brain to fill in the blanks, form words, derive meaning,
ALEX DRE DE S VE ET DU PAR L FONT INE
Street names.
Rue Alexandre-de-Sève Rue du parc Lafontaine.
An intersection.
Dear God, that corner was just blocks from the lab!
The brackish water. The stench.
The tunnel had to be a sewer. Did it underlie one of those streets?
But I’d awakened in a tomb.
It made no sense.
The bitter cold
was jumbling my newly emerging cognition.
I struggled for a mental map of the terrain overhead.
Veterans Park. The entrance ramp toward the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. Rue Logan. Malo. Avenue Papineau. De Lorimier.
Another flash. Not recent. This synapse came from way, way back. From a written page.
Veterans Park was the site of the Old Military Burying Ground.
Had I been sealed in a tomb built for dead soldiers?
No way. Those graves were exhumed and moved in the forties.
Had some been missed? Raines was an urban archaeologist. He’d know about cemeteries. Tombs. Sewers.
My abductor had to be Raines.
I was starting to feel dizzy.
How much time had passed since I’d left the tomb? How long until I succumbed to hypothermia?
I tried to think clearly.
My brain screamed one word.
Move!
Jaw clamped against the tremors, I resumed hunchbacking forward, palm skimming the wall.
The downhill slope sharpened.
The murmuring-gurgling-slapping grew louder.
Water now lapped my ankles.
I slogged on, beam reduced to one strip of amber filament.
Another ten feet and I came to an opening, round, the lower half filled with broken brick and debris. From beyond came the unmistakable rush of moving water.
I pointed the beam through the gap.
The sewer I occupied was joining another. A main collector? Water ran through the larger shaft, a knee-deep river of swirling black sludge.
My eyes squinted for detail the light couldn’t find. Saw only a collision of shadows.
My ears told me the current was swift, strong enough to sweep my feet from under me.
My only choice lay behind me.
The tomb. The silent dead.
Don’t be stupid. You’ll never get back into it. The opening is too high.
It was then that the beam died altogether.
Desperate, I shook the flashlight.
The bulb sputtered to life, wavered, went out for good.
Using the cadence of my hammering heart, I hypnotized myself calm.
You’re OK! You’re OK!
How long since I’d left the tomb? An hour? A minute? Time still meant nothing.
Plan your next move. Think. You have to keep moving.
Then, over the watery snarl, my ears picked out another sound. Grating, like metal scraping concrete.
Craning my head into the junction, I peered in both directions down the main line.
To the left, light seeped from a circular opening in the tunnel’s arched dome.
Had it been there before? Had I missed it?
No.
Then how?
A manhole!
Someone was entering the sewer!
As I stared, two legs appeared. A torso. A human figure began descending a ladder now visible against the curved tunnel wall.
“I’m here.” Pure instinct. Yet the cry was feeble.
The figure continued its downward climb.
“Je suis ici.” Still hoarse, hardly above a whisper.
Two more rungs. The figure gleamed oddly, as though made of satin or plastic.
“Help me!” This time I shouted with all my strength. “Please!”
The figure froze.
“Over here.” My shout echoed.
The figure scrabbled down the last few rungs, then scuttled into shadow.
I waited, blades of hope and fear windmilling in my chest.
Had I imagined it? Was I hallucinating?
No, the man was real.
Why didn’t he answer?
My stomach curdled at a terrifying thought.
The man was not a city worker.
My abductor had returned to finish me off!
It had to be Raines.
But no.
Raines was a gorilla. The figure on the ladder had long spider legs.
Spider.
The spider on my face.
Duclos’s “spider” tooth.
The itsy bitsy spider went up the waterspout . . .
My lids felt heavy.
I allowed them to drift down.
Briel took the spider tooth from Bergeron’s tub and placed it with the Lac Saint-Jean child.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out . . .
Like I’d soon be washed out.
In a sewer.
What do you explore?
Underground stuff.
Drainsplorers.
Joe.
Joe had access to the tub.
Not Briel.
I had a key.
Joe had a key.
I was so tired. I wanted to drag myself back uphill to the tomb. To hide.
Spine to the wall, I slid downward into the fetid water. Hugged my knees in an attempt to preserve heat.
A million miles away I heard splashing. Shouting.
No. Not distant.
Here.
Now.
Dragging my lids apart, I muscled myself forward and peeked into the intersecting sewer.
A two-headed monster-marionette stumbled and splashed in the pale circle of gray cast by the open manhole. Four legs struggled in the swirling black water, two glistening, two dark. Four arms flailed.
As I watched, the marionette-monster exploded down the middle. Two puppets emerged. Both were tall and lanky. One wore a tassled hat. The other had hair that was spiked on top.
Spike lurched left.
Tassle lunged after and grapple-hooked Spike around the throat.
Both puppets toppled backward but were not swept away. Their thrashing sent waves cascading outward into the darkness.
Angry shouting bounced down the tube. I could not catch words.
My vision was swimming.
I blinked. Still the images seemed disjointed, like frames of film disconnected by edits.
Spike staggered to his feet.
Tassle clung to Spike’s leg, was dragged.
Spike turned and kicked out with one foot.
Tassle’s head snapped back. He pinwheeled, then fell. Filthy brown water covered his face.
Spike slogged toward the ladder.
Tassle struggled to his feet, pistoned, caught Spike from behind and drove him face-first into the wall.
Spike’s hands flew up and his neck whiplashed.
Tassle body-slammed Spike a second time, harder.
Spike’s head again smashed brick.
Tassle stepped back.
Spike slid downward into the watery scum.
“Here.” Barely a whisper. “I’m here.”
With that, I crawled to a hidden corner of my mind. To the reassuring cadence of blood pulsing in my inner ear.
The sewer evaporated. The water. The cold. The rats.
Moments, or hours, later I saw a flashlight bob toward me.
Time passed. Or didn’t.
I became aware of a presence. Of my shoulders being raised. Deep rasping breaths. The smell of wet wool. Male sweat. Warmth.
I forced my eyes open.
A face floated inches from mine.
Slowly, the features shaped up.
“Hold on, buttercup.”
42
STAGE TWO HYPOTHERMIA.
That was the diagnosis. When Ryan found me, my body temperature had dropped to 95 Fahrenheit.
For mammals, that’s not good.
I have only dim memories of my last moments in the sewer. By then I was feeling warm and sleepy, ready for cocoa and cookies and bed.
I remember being jostled. Something padded under my back, probably a stretcher. Gray sky. Flashing red lights.
Then nothing.
I woke in a hospital room. It was dark. Then light. Then dark again. Nurses adjusted tubes, changed drip bags, checked my hands and feet, shined lights into my eyes.
I’d suffered frostnip, not frostbite. The doctor had chuckled on explaining that. I’d been fa
r less amused. But relieved that I’d keep all my digits.
I was also relieved that my treatment involved only heated blankets and hot drinks. No sloshing warm liquids through my bladder, stomach, and other hidden places. Lavage. He’d described that, too.
Hallelujah.
During lucid periods, I learned that cold hadn’t been my only aggressor. Joe Bonnet had also contributed his share of hurt. In the course of abducting, transporting, and dumping me, he’d concussed my brain, sprained one ankle, and converted one cheek to raw flank steak.
Yeah. Joe. The drainsplorer. I’d gotten that right.
I let my gaze travel the room. IV drip. Cardiac monitor. Water pitcher. Wall-mounted TV. Visitor chair, one of those convertible plastic types originally designed to crack secret agents. A paperback novel lay on the arm rest.
I checked the title. Playback. Raymond Chandler was Ryan’s favorite author.
I smiled. It hurt like hell.
I recalled talking to Ryan during one waking phase. Grilling him would be more accurate. I’d been abducted at 10 Tuesday night. It was now 10 a.m. Thursday. I did some calculation. Thirty-six hours had passed since I’d charged from my condo. Twenty-eight since Ryan had sprung me from the sewer. More math. I’d spent eight hours underground.
The flukey warm spell had been a mixed blessing. Milder temperatures had aided my survival. They’d also spurred melting, sending gallons of runoff into the sewers.
As if cued by telepathy, Ryan appeared, bearing a bouquet of pointy orange things that looked like they fed on small lizards.
Seeing me awake, Ryan hurried to the bed.
“Are those things dangerous?” My voice sounded hoarse and croaky.
“Only if you threaten their young.” Ryan set the flowers on the bed, took my hand.
“Holding only. No caressing or massaging.” He stroked a thumb lightly across my knuckles.
I floated a brow. I think. My questioning brow is on the right. That side of my face was toast.
“Rubbing could dislodge ice crystals intent on bushwacking your heart.”
“I hate when that happens,” I said.
Ryan dragged a chair to the bed. Sat. Reclaimed my hand.
“OK, Galahad,” I said. “Dish.”
“Everything?”
“For now, just the highlights. My abductor was Joe Bonnet, right?”
Ryan nodded. “Long story short, your beloved assistant felt underappreciated and overworked.”
I rolled my eyes. That hurt, too.
“Sensing disaffection, Briel schmoozed Joe up. Said he was a superstar. Offered a golden future with Body Find.”