It was like releasing a slingshot. The hollow flew away and slammed into the bridge with a splintering crash; the whole tottering contraption buckled and went tumbling into the water. At the same time, the back of our boat dropped, and the motor, once again submerged, flung us forward. The sudden acceleration toppled us like bowling pins. Sharon managed to hold on to the rudder, and righting himself, he steered us sharply away from a collision course with the canal wall. We flew down the spine of the Ditch, a black V of water shooting out behind us.
We hunched low should any more bullets fly. We seemed to be out of immediate danger. The vultures were somewhere behind us, and I couldn’t imagine how they’d catch us now.
Panting, Addison said, “That was the same creature we met in the Underground, wasn’t it?”
I realized I’d been holding my breath and so let it out, then nodded. Emma looked at me, waiting for more, but I was still processing, every nerve jangling with the strangeness of what had just happened. This much I knew: this time I’d nearly had him. It was as if, with each encounter, I dove a little deeper into the hollowgast’s nerve center. The words came easier, felt less foreign to my tongue, met less resistance from the hollow. Still, it was like a tiger onto which I’d managed to clap a dog leash. At any moment it might decide to turn and take a bite out of me, or any of us. And yet, for reasons beyond my understanding, it hadn’t.
Maybe, I thought, with another attempt or two, I could really get my hands around it. And then—and then. My God, what a thought.
Then we’d be unstoppable.
I gazed back at the ghost of a bridge, dust and wood pulp spiraling in the air where the structure had stood only moments ago. In the wreckage below, I watched for a limb to break the surface, but there was only a lifeless swirl of trash. I tried to feel for it, but my gut was useless now, wrung out and empty. Then the mud-colored mist closed behind us and painted away the view.
Just when I needed a monster, it had gotten itself killed.
The boat nodded as Sharon eased the throttle and banked right, through the slowly clearing murk, toward a block of ghastly tenements. They stood at the edge of the water in a vast unbroken wall, resembling not so much houses as the outermost boundary of a maze, scowling and fortresslike, with few points of entry. We drifted along at a crawl, searching for a way in. It was Emma who finally spotted one, though I had to squint to recognize it as more than just a trick of shadows.
To call it an alley would’ve been exaggerating. It was a slot canyon, narrow as a knife’s edge, a shoulder’s width from wall to wall and fifty times as high, its entrance marked by a moss-shagged ladder screwed flat to the bankside. I could see only a little distance in before the passage hid itself, curving away into sunless dark.
“Where does it go?” I asked.
“Where angels fear to tread,” Sharon replied. “This wasn’t the landing I’d have chosen for you, but our choices are limited now. Are you certain you wouldn’t rather leave the Acre altogether? There’s still time.”
“Quite certain,” Emma and Addison said simultaneously.
Me, I would’ve been happy to debate the matter—but it was too late to turn back now. Get them back or die trying was something I’d said in the past few days. Time to dive in.
“In that case, land ho,” Sharon said dryly. He retrieved the mooring rope from under his seat, tossed it over the ladder, and pulled us toward the bank. “Everyone out, please. Do watch your step. Wait, allow me.”
Sharon climbed the slippery, half-runged ladder with the nimbleness of someone who’d done it many times. Once at the top, he knelt on the bank and reached down to help each of us up in turn. Emma went first, then I handed up a nervous and wiggling Addison, and then, because I was proud and dumb, I climbed the ladder without taking Sharon’s hand and nearly slipped off.
The moment we were all safely on land, Sharon was climbing back down the ladder. He’d left the motor idling.
“Just a minute,” said Emma. “Where are you going?”
“Away from here!” Sharon replied, hopping from the ladder into his boat. “Would you mind tossing down that rope?”
“I will not! You must show us where to go first. We’ve no idea where we are!”
“I don’t do land tours. I’m strictly a boat guide.”
We exchanged looks of disbelief.
“Give us directions, at least!” I implored him.
“Or better yet, a map,” said Addison.
“A map!” Sharon exclaimed, as if this were the silliest thing he’d ever heard. “There are more thief passageways, murder tunnels, and illegal dens in Devil’s Acre than anywhere in the world. The place is unmappable! Now stop being childish and hand me down my rope.”
“Not until you tell us something useful!” Emma said. “The name of someone we can ask for help—who won’t try to sell us to the wights!”
Sharon broke out laughing.
Emma struck a defiant pose. “There must be one.”
Sharon bowed—“You’re speaking to him!”—then climbed the ladder halfway and plucked his rope from Emma’s hands. “Enough of this. Goodbye, children. I’m quite sure I’ll never see you again.”
And with that he stepped into his boat—and right into a puddle of ankle-deep water. He let out a girlish squeal and bent down to look. It seemed the gunshots that missed our heads had drilled a few holes in his hull, and the boat had sprung leaks.
“Look what you’ve done! My boat’s shot all to pieces!”
Emma’s eyes flashed. “What we’ve done?”
Sharon made a quick inspection and concluded the wounds were grave. “I am marooned!” he announced dramatically, then cut the motor, collapsed his long staff to the size of a baton, and climbed the ladder again. “I’m going find a craftsman qualified to repair my dinghy,” he said, breezing past us, “and I won’t have you following me.”
We trailed him single file into the narrow passageway.
“And why not?” Emma shrilled.
“Because you’re cursed! Bad luck!” Sharon waved his arm behind him as if shooing flies. “Begone!”
“What do you mean, begone?” She jogged a few paces and grabbed Sharon by his cloaked elbow. He spun around fast and yanked it away, and I thought for a moment his raised hand was about to strike her. I tensed, ready to leap at him, but his hand just hung there, a warning.
“I’ve run this route more times than I can count, and not once have I been attacked by Ditch pirates. Never have I been forced to abandon cover and use my petrol engine. And never, ever has my boat been damaged. You’re more trouble than you’re worth, plain and simple, and I want nothing more to do with you.”
While he spoke, I glanced past him down the passage. My eyes were still adjusting to the dark, but what I could see was terrifying: winding and mazelike, it was lined with doorless doorways that gaped like missing teeth, and it was alive with sinister sounds—murmurs, scrapes, scurrying steps. Even now I could feel hungry eyes watching us, knives being drawn.
We couldn’t be left here alone. The only thing to do was beg.
“We’ll pay double what we promised,” I said.
“And fix your boat,” Addison chimed in.
“Never mind your bloody pocket change!” Sharon said. “Can’t you see I’m ruined? How can I return to Devil’s Acre? Do you think the vultures will ever let me be, now that my clients have killed two of them?”
“What did you want us to do?” Emma said. “We had to fight back!”
“Don’t be facile. They would never have forced the issue if it wasn’t for … for that …” Sharon looked at me, his voice falling to a whisper. “You might’ve mentioned earlier you were in league with creatures of the night!”