Raising his head, Pithfwid peered up at him and licked his nose. “Personally, I could care less. Cats have their own truth, you know, and humans entirely too little of it. That, and the need to restore your mother’s health, are all that allow for my interest in wishing to have it returned to you.”
“Oh,” mumbled Simwan, properly abashed. The knowledge that their quest was virtually over perked his spirits. “Well, anyway, we’ve got it back.” He turned toward the conduit from which they had emerged. They had a long, smelly hike ahead of them to get back to the surface. The sooner they got going, the sooner they would be able to pop into a corner market and buy whatever cold drinks they wished, without having to worry about spelling them into existence.
He was nearly at the tunnel entrance when he noticed that the girls were hanging back. “Come on, what are you waiting for? Let’s move it.”
“In a minute, brother.” Rose was sorting through a plate-size pile of jewelry she had assembled. “There’s so much nice stuff here that’s just going to waste.”
“We won’t be long.” N/Ice was modeling a shoulder bag that looked like it had just come off the rack at Bergdorf’s.
“Waste not, want waste.” Amber leaned toward a small, intact nineteenth-century mirror as she tried to adjust a delicate and very bright diamond necklace around her throat.
One paw raised off the floor, Pithfwid was peering into the dark, dank conduit and sniffing intently. “Humans and their decorative baubles! Myself, I’m perfectly content with a dead mouse.” He looked back up at the increasingly anxious Simwan. “This is not a department store, and no place to linger.”
“I know, I know.” Turning, Simwan pleaded with the coubet. “Okay, each of you take one thing, and let’s get out of here.”
“Race you to the surface!” N/Ice yelled. She darted toward the tunnel—only to halt well short of the opening. And not because she had decided to wait for her kin.
The opening was already occupied.
“Race?” The voice that oozed out from inside the conduit was rich and oily, like that of a self-centered operatic tenor who had just polished off six courses of a particularly fatty meal. “Can I participate?”
N/Ice retreated slowly, backing up as a dark, hairy, muscular shape emerged from the opening. It regarded her and her siblings with eyes the color of the blood of its victims. Sharp claws click-clacked metallically on the stone underfoot and pointed teeth gleamed in its jaws. Both ears were inclined forward while a naked, fleshy tail trailed on the ground behind the rest of it like a stalking snake. Flanking the Crub were his personal ratainers, each of them lean and strong and smiling as they flashed teeth that had been whetted to daggerlike points. Their expressions were eager and hungry as they fanned out around both sides of the tunnel opening. As Simwan watched, the flow of murderous rodents kept coming and coming, until they had formed a perimeter around the interior of the entire garbage chamber. There were at least a hundred of them, with more spilling out of the conduit every minute.
First to spot the arriving ools, Rose nearly gagged at the sight. The steaming, sluglike black shapes had no eyes or ears and no limbs. One end terminated in a round opening of a mouth from whose center projected an equally black proboscis that wiggled and twisted like a worm. The other end terminated in depravity. Having arisen out of the muck and mire, they stank of interminable corruption. Even Pithfwid, who was rather fond of rooting through trash, felt the gorge rise in his throat as the hideous, stinking shapes humped and coiled their way forward. After the ools, it was almost a relief to see scattered platoons of ferrets and snakes among the Crub’s entourage.
Concealed behind her sisters, Amber had slipped her cell phone out of her bag and had proceeded to dial 911. Discouragingly but unsurprisingly, it failed to pick up a signal so far below ground and in the midst of so much evil.
“Never mind,” declared the Crub when no reply was forthcoming in response to his request. “There isn’t going to be any race. Because the race is over.” Eyes like rubies flicked from one wary Deavy to the next as the rat’s voice thickened. “This race is over, and you lost. After the race, of course, comes the celebratory meal. You are all invited. In fact, I can say with assurance that you will be the center of attraction.”
The small bottle containing the Truth lay securely buttoned up in one of Simwan’s jacket pockets. Whatever happened, he knew he had to be careful to keep it intact. If the bottle cracked, the Truth, as was all too often the case, had a way of leaking out and fading away.
“We’re just tourists,” Rose essayed, “out for a night-time walk, and we lost our way.”
Amber mustered a smile. “Just let us go and we won’t bother you anymore.”
“Yeah,” added N/Ice. “I mean, it’s not like we knew anybody lived down here.”
The Crub shook himself. Droplets of muck and bits of decaying meat, fetid memories of his most recent meal, flew from his wirelike fur. “I agree that you have most certainly lost your way. Do you think me dumb vermin, like the rest of your fast-breeding, bipedal kind? I know you. You are those who tracked me through the woods. You are those who have battled and defeated every one of my minions’ attempts to keep you from coming here. And on top of all that, in addition to all that—you are thieves.” Raising a paw, he indicated the necklace draped around Amber’s neck, the bag hanging off N/Ice’s shoulder, the ring that sparkled on Rose’s finger.
“You’re hardly the one to be speaking of thievery.” Trying to keep an eye on each of the hundreds of rats and ools and other creatures in addition to the Crub itself, Simwan gestured accusingly in the direction of the mountain of recovered rubbish. “Look what you’ve stolen.”
The Crub smirked—an unpleasant thing to see in a rat. “Some things found, some thrown away, some … borrowed. When one has lived as long as I, amusement becomes the essence of existence.” For a second time the raised paw pointed—this time straight at Simwan. “Since I have so few encounters with it, I thought the addition of a little Truth to my world and the removal of some of it from yours would be entertaining. And so it has proven to be.” The Crub took a step forward. “After all, it has brought you to me, and you promise to provide much amusement—for as long as you can be kept alive. I can promise you it will be for a long time. There are all manner of ways to make sure someone dies slowly.” Teeth flashed.
“Your Truth-loving mother, for example. I wouldn’t want you to die before receiving the delicious knowledge that she has preceded you in death. I am told by my minions who keep track of developments in that region that she is very, very ill indeed.”
Rose exploded. “Nasty thing! Nasty, filthy thing!”
“Wicked creature,” Amber added. “Better you should have stayed beneath the ground and not soiled the surface with your presence.”
“Impious offshoot of an honorable race.” Her voice having suddenly deepened so that she sounded considerably older than her twelve years, N/Ice was raising her arms in the direction of their adversary. “Hie back to the depths that shelter you! Return to the foulness in which you lie!”
White light erupted from the fingertips of the hand that was not holding the tiny flashlight. For a long instant, the vast stone chamber was illuminated as if by a hundred strobe lights. For an extended moment in time, everything within—priceless trash heap, moss, water, Crub, ools, rats, other servants of the master, and Deavys—was outlined in stark black and white. The rats and ferrets and snakes hissed in collective dread while the ools curled in upon themselves like worms exposed to bright sunshine. Even Simwan had to turn away from the radiance.
It struck the Crub foursquare on his chest, between his front legs. The force of the light blasted aside the thick fur there as if the spot had been struck by a bullet and washed over the chunky rodent shape like the shampoo electric.
The last of the light clung to the tip of the Crub’s tail as if reluctant to l
et go. With a diffident glance and a sharp flick of that naked appendage, it was sent flying harmlessly into the darkness. Blood eyes turned back to the watching Deavys. Wild rat-jaws creased upward in a carnivorous smirk.
“I am not bothered by white light. I am not affected by insults. I am not even,” he added with obvious relish as he locked eyes with Simwan, “troubled by would-be witches and sorcerers. I thrive on such diversions. I welcome whatever attacks you can mount. They only make me stronger.” He began to advance toward the youngsters: slowly, deliberately, unhurriedly. “Violence stiffens my resolve, as your spines will stiffen in death. I will indulge my teeth in the soft parts of your bodies.”
The Crub charged.
The shrieking and squealing and howling that filled the chamber was terrible. Hundreds of ravenous rats and other rodents poured out of all four of the great drains, filling the open space with their cries and screams, their eyes like thousands of points of shifting, darting red light: crimson stars set in a mad, swirling galaxy of horror. The Deavys fell back into the soundest defensive formation they knew: back to back, hands upraised, each of them facing a different point of the compass.
They fought back as fiercely as they were attacked. N/Ice continued to fling the white light of purity in all directions. While the Crub might be too strong, or simply too mean, for it to affect him, it froze rat after other rat in its tracks, turning their fur and faces stark white. Hands crossed at the wrists, Rose barked out the fleeting, terse charms that were her specialty. Lifting half a dozen rats at a time, she utilized words of power and maturity to hurl them against the masonry walls. The ferocious but small bodies smashed into the unyielding stone and, their backs broken, fell to the floor where bodies had already begun to accumulate in piles of bleeding, twitching bone and fur. Amber flung profound enchantments left and right, catching those rats that leaped high and spinning them in such tight circles that they spun themselves into non-existence.
As for Simwan, he made it his task to pick off the ools. They were faster than they looked, slithering forward with their wide sucking mouths agape. Choosing to respond with the simplest bit of applicable magic he could remember, he called forth the chopping spell that his dad had once taught him to use when bringing in winter firewood. Slashing outward and down while alternating both hands, the edges of his palms became extensions of an imaginary ax. Each time he slashed out, an ool died. Chopped in half, or thirds, or little-bitty pieces by Simwan’s spell, each black segment continued to writhe and thrash with a horrible lingering half-life long after it had been sliced and diced.
Pithfwid was an ebony tornado. So swift was the Deavy feline, so fast did his lithe form and teeth and claws slash, that the silver stripes with which he had recently invested his fur could not keep up. They kept darting around the roaring chaos that had enveloped the chamber, struggling to catch up to the rest of the cat, streaks of shadow forever fated to remain one step behind the shape that cast them.
With N/Ice flinging light, and Rose lobbing rats, and Amber spinning one rodent and ferret and snake after another into self-consuming oblivion, and Simwan chopping up slinking, stinking ools like they were so many eels in a Danish fish market, the air was full of blood, rat feces, and flying, dismembered rodent bodies. Had all the professional exterminators in the Northeast been brought into play, they could not have accomplished half so much destruction so swiftly, nor with such efficiency. And all the while, Simwan was careful not to jostle the precious bottle that lay tucked in the padded depths of his jacket pocket.
Awash in the carnage of his followers, the Crub hesitated. As ratainer after broken ratainer, ool after oozing ool, chattering mice and moaning voles and fulminating ferrets were flung around and past him to shatter against the walls and ceiling, freeze in their tracks, or compact into nothingness, his ruby eyes bled fury. Already, he had been deprived of the pleasure of watching his prey perish slowly, picked to pieces by his adoring minions. And while his armies continued to pour into the chamber, their numbers were not infinite. Not every rat in New York bowed to the Crub’s command. Not every rodent and ground-dweller heeded his orders.
It had been clear from the very beginning that the offspring of humankind who had first pursued him through the forest and onward into the city and now here, to his very secret place itself, were different. Special. Non-Ords. The Crub growled to himself. It was not, after all, so very surprising. It was even, to a certain extent, to be expected. Humans were not the only species to be divided into those who were ordinary and those who were Something More.
Of his kind, the Crub was the pre-eminent example of Something More.
Simwan was the first to see what was happening. He was able to steal a long enough glance to perceive the transformation because the waves of attacking rodents flowing toward him had begun to subside somewhat. Over by the entrance to the conduit that led back to the surface, a greenish glow had appeared and was intensifying even as he stared at it. It expanded and ballooned, obscenely swollen by the thing it cloaked. Reaching out with one hand (and careful to use the back, non-edge generating part of it), he tapped Rose, who was nearest. She alerted Amber, who in turn took a moment to grab N/Ice by the shoulder and give her a warning shake.
“ENOUGH OF THIS! THE TIME FOR CHILDREN’S PLAY IS ENDED. THE TIME FOR RENDING IS HERE!”
Enveloped in ichorous, sickly green light, the Crub had contorted and distorted into his full self. To left and right, he was flanked by the similarly transmogrified dozen of his most trusted ratainers, his personal bodyguard. At the sight of these who had been horrifically transformed, even the rodents who were the Crub’s allies scrambled frantically to get out of the way.
Simwan was not ashamed to admit that he was frightened. Ferocious rats he could handle. Biting mice and nibbling voles he could deal with. Snapping weasels and striking snakes he could defend himself against. There were spells and enchantments for dealing with such nuisances. But this … this … As the Crub and his horrifically mutated dozen servants began to advance, he saw his sisters continuing to do battle with the rest of the underground army. He stayed where he was: in the forefront. Being the big brother, that was the place Providence had designated for him. Swallowing hard, he readied himself to do battle with the likes of that which he had never encountered before, not even in a book.
Holding true to prior proportions, the Crub was still twice the size of the next largest of his closest followers. Only now, the master of the sewers was as big as a bear. A rat the size of a bear. Through the intervention of magic most malign, he had metamorphosed into something much more, and much, much worse, than what he had been before.
Already awful jaws had lengthened and expanded until they now comprised fully a third the length of the Crub’s body. The hurried and unnatural growth had spawned massive muscles behind the head and jaw, creating a huge hump just behind the distorted skull. Feet and claws had likewise undergone disproportionate growth, so that they now resembled talon-tipped shovels. Even the Crub’s fur had changed, turning from dark brown and semi-silky to a thick, tangled mass of kinked strands that were more like wire than hair. Flanked by his most trusted fighters, he advanced slowly and deliberately toward the eldest Deavy.
Simwan struck out as he backpedaled, but whereas previously his charm-enhanced hands had cut into the foe with comparative ease, now his blows only slid off the thicker, tougher fur and skin of his mutated assailants. A panicky glance behind him showed that he was approaching the north wall of the chamber. Soon, he would be unable to retreat any farther. Though his sisters saw what was happening, their attention was wholly occupied by the hundreds of screaming, squealing, fighting rodents that separated them from their brother. They were too far away, too engaged, too busy to help.
He bumped up against the cold, clammy stone wall. He was out of room, out of options, out of ideas. Out of time. Looming before him, the Crub sensed his prey’s helplessness as he lapped up the youn
g man’s fear.
“OVER NOW,” the monster rat rumbled ominously. Nearby, his most trusted fellow killers snarled and squealed in anticipation of the rending and tearing that was to come. “YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT BAD ENOUGH ALONE. YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME. NOW, YOU ARE FOOD.” Powerful, perverted muscles tensed as the abomination of Nature bared obscenely distorted jaws and prepared to leap.
“Just a minute, now. If you please.”
His back pressed up against the wall, a startled Simwan looked to his left. A pair of mismatched shapes were emerging from a different tunnel than the one he and his sisters had used to access the Crub’s lair. One figure straightened while the other did not have to. Surprised beyond measure, Simwan could only gape.
“Uncle Herkimer?” His eyes dropped to the second figure. “Señor Nutt?”
Wagging his tail as he took the measure of the ongoing battle and continuing rat butchery taking place before him, the tiny dog barely glanced in Simwan’s direction as he replied. “No,” he exclaimed tartly. “We’re the other dead guy and his Chihuahua.”
Uncle Herkimer’s hollow yet perceptive eyes focused on the massive, disbelieving shape of the Crub. “My, but you are every bit as disgusting a creature as I supposed. Be a good monstrosity and be off with you, now, to whatever unclean place you dwell within, and leave my nephew and nieces alone.” Broken teeth and cracked lips curved into a genial smile. “They’re on holiday, you know.”
Stunned by this casual presumption, the Crub hardly knew how to react. Nor was the abrupt and unexpected appearance of the Deavys’ uncle and his dog the last of the surprises in store for the master of the sewers.
From atop a pile of dead and dying rodents rose a questioning shout. “Hie, dog! What are you doing here?”
Craning to see, Señor Nutt replied, “I thought that being a cat, you would obviously need some help.”