Page 405 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Kade and Lachlan descend together.

Water covers the bottom three steps.

‘How the hell is it rising so fast?’ Kade mutters. The first touch is viciously cold, closing around his ankles and seeping up his leg.

‘Careful,’ Lachlan says. ‘You can’t see the floor.’

They move right at the bottom.

The water reaches Kade’s knees within a dozen steps.

It isn’t surging or breaking against the walls. It simply rises, rippling and steady, swallowing the basement by degrees. Doors stand open along the corridor, allowing it to move freely from room to room. Every few seconds, the surface creeps higher against Kade’s legs. Somewhere deeper below, the lake roars through the tunnel-flooding system.

They find Rike at the next junction with two members of his crew. All three are waist-deep beside an open maintenance hatch. One is seriously injured, a mechanic named Eric, his arm hanging uselessly and blood washing from a wound above his temple.

‘Get upstairs right now,’ Kade tells Rike. ‘Bodyguard, help him.’

‘I’m staying with you.’

‘You’re stronger than anyone. Carry Eric up, then come back.’

Kade wrenches open the recessed emergency cabinet set into the wall and pulls out two waterproof flashlights and a pry bar.

He throws the flashlight to Rike and keeps the other.

‘Control,’ he says through the radio. ‘Kill all power to the sub-levels.’

‘You’ll lose electronic access to the Drowner.’

‘I can jam the manual release.’

Kade closes his eyes, preparing them for the sudden dark.

A short pause.

‘Heard. Cutting power now.’

The light vanishes through his eyelids.

He opens his eyes, waits for the blackness to resolve into vague shapes, then switches on his flashlight.

‘Clever boy,’ Lachlan tells him, lifting Eric like he’s a pillow and heading back the way they came. ‘One minute.’

Kade pushes deeper into the basement alone.

The water is above his navel as he wades towards the Drowner. It drags at his clothes and drenches his skin. The longer he’s in the water, the more he starts feeling and hearing something in it, like a fine vibration.

Kade keeps moving. He has no time to listen.

The Drowner door is locked tight. Kade grips his pry bar and wedges its end into the door seam beside the manual release and leans his full weight against it. This is the second fucking time in seven days he’s forced this door open.

Metal shrieks.

The gap widens just enough for the water to push Kade inside with it, harder than he expected. His feet leave the floor. The flashlight slips from his hand and he’s dragged under, shoulder striking concrete as the flood pours into the holding room. Cold closes over his head.

In the dark, the vibration becomes clear.

There you are, he hears in the frequency of song. We have been waiting.