Page 254 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘It’s the way in, yeah.’

Riley starts walking.

Lachlan looks across the street. ‘There’s Rapture.’

‘What?’

‘The club. The nightclub.’

‘And?’

He shakes his head. ‘Never mind.’

They follow Riley around the back of the theatre, sticking closely to the shadows, boots slicing through water rushing for the gutters. The rain precedes a storm. Kade can taste it gathering vetiver on his tongue instead of salt. An alleyway sits right ahead. Riley takes it. Brick walls rise on either side until they come to a chain-link fence that he scales with impressive ease, landing lightly on the other side.

‘Fucking cat,’ Lachlan mutters, offering Kade a boost. ‘Here.’

Kade lands in wet mud with a splat, scanning the area.

A chained service door looms ahead.

‘We going inside?’

‘Not that way.’

‘Where, then?’

Riley kicks aside a collapsed box, revealing a black metal cellar door that opens with a heavy groan, barely swallowed by the rain.

‘Down here,’ Riley says, climbing down.

Kade swears under his breath and follows him.

Lachlan goes last, pulling the hatch almost shut behind them, but wedging something in so that it’s not closed all the way.

The rain disappears, leaving only the enclosed dark and the sound of three men breathing. Both Kade and Lachlan thumb on their weapon lights, but Riley can’t find his, so Lachlan reaches over to do it for him.

‘Thanks.’

Three javelins of light reveal a low brick tunnel furred with mould, its ceiling sweating rain that finds a hundred ways through the old city overhead. Water crawls black along both walls and gathers in the buckled centre to make thick, dark streams leading ahead. The air is thick with wet earth, rotted wood and rust, undercut by the sour stink of rat piss.

‘This way.’

‘Yeah, no shit, Harker. Kade, you good?’

‘Of course.’

Lachlan winks, and they walk.

The tunnel slopes steadily beneath the city, forcing them to lean into the descent as water runs around their boots. Riley leads with his weapon raised, Kade follows and Lachlan watches their backs.

Their lights move over flooded alcoves, pale roots and old pipes.

More than once, Kade feels the distant shudder of what he thinks is the nearby subway system through the walls.

After ten minutes, the tunnel divides without warning.

Riley stops so abruptly Kade nearly walks into him.