"In less educated days, mental health workers used to plunge people over and over underwater. It was some time before they came to admit that near drowning didn't seem to improve anyone's mood disorder." Niko regarded the flat surface of the water with disdainful repugnance. "I doubt Sawney is using it for a reason any more enlightened."
He was right.
A hint of white swelled under the water, breached, then sank again. An arm, it had been an arm. Christ. You'd think I'd be getting used to finding body parts littering the landscape in Sawney's wake. I wasn't. As we continued to watch, a leg appeared and disappeared, followed by a hand. All were disembodied, all white and drained of blood. The hand was a woman's, delicate with nail polish the exact color of a rose I'd once seen at a flower stand. Pink with the faintest touch of peach—the color of spring. It was beautiful and it was awful and I wondered if the ring belonged to her.
"Goulash," Robin said beside us. "Lovely. I'll never eat again."
"I have seen worse. So have you." Promise nudged him into motion.
"So I have," he exhaled. "Although I could've done without the reminder."
We all turned to exit the room. I'd taken one step when the cold hand fastened around my ankle and I was suddenly breathing water—black water that served as the broth for body parts. I choked and held my breath as I kicked at the iron grip that pulled me down. I felt the random bump of decaying flotsam and jetsam and kicked all the harder. It didn't help. There was the sharp scrape of a tile-edged opening at my waist just as I felt fingers on my wrist from above. Warm fingers. Niko. But as suddenly as his grip had appeared, I was yanked from it. I passed through the opening that I could only feel, not see. After that there was more water, the burning of my lungs, and that implacable grasp on my ankle.
Finally just as my breath threatened to give out, I was dragged out into the air feet-first. Not unlike my birth, I came out kicking and screaming. Or kicking and spitting waterlogged curses. A revenant had his teeth buried in my thigh. I kicked him off with my other foot and he looked up, grinning at me with a mouthful of mottled yellow and green teeth. I aimed the Desert Eagle there and blew his head off. There was more splashing of water and I twisted to see another revenant rising from the water. I fired again and the pieces of him sank beneath the surface.
Now alone on the tile floor—except for one dead revenant—I coughed up water and did my best not to think about what had been in that water. Around me was a room that was identical to the one I'd been yanked from. Great. More cutting-edge mental health care. I looked at the water one more time and then shook my head dog-fashion, sending the water flying. Nik wasn't coming. If he were, he'd have been here already. The other revenant must have closed some sort of hatch in the passage that connected the two tanks of water. Closed and locked it.
I set the flashlight on the floor to prop against my leg, which wasn't bleeding too badly, wiped at my face, and rolled up my sleeve. On my arm the map of the tunnels sprang into view. Niko's anal-retentive ways paid off yet again. I mentally traced a path that would connect the tunnel this room was off back to the tunnel where the others were. I knew Nik would be doing the same. Hopefully, I'd meet them in the middle. I grabbed the light and scrambled to my feet. The door to the room was half open and I slipped through into the hall, turning left.
And there was the bad news.
It was a concrete wall, one that wasn't on the map. It wasn't nearly as old as the walls of the tunnel. A recent addition, perhaps to keep trespassers and the more adventurous students out of a less stable part of the tunnels. Whatever it was, right now it was a huge pain in the ass. I holstered my gun, switched the light to the other hand, and checked the map again. There was another connect, but it was in the other direction and farther. I gave in to the inevitable and started a steady lope.
The air was cool and damp, reminding me too much of the water I'd just come out of. I closed my mouth against it and kept moving. The revenants were waiting. I didn't expect anything different. It was the ones that weren't out hunting…who were done with hunting for the night. They were well fed and a little sluggish for it, but sluggish for a revenant is still fast—just not fast enough. They came in twos and threes into the light. I went through half a clip, but it wasn't the revenants that worried me. It was Sawney. If he showed up, that was it. He'd handled all of us with a boggle and wolf chaser. If he caught me alone, ego and a smart mouth wouldn't help me one damn bit. I thought of making a gate over to the next tunnel, but if I did that, there was no guarantee I'd be able to do my part when the time came. There was no guarantee I'd be conscious to even walk through that gate—not after the last time. I couldn't take that chance.
I kept running, but I listened for a familiar insane cackle. I listened hard. And when I came to another wall, I did something else as hard.
"Son of a bitch."
This wall was the same as the other, and it effectively penned me in the same as a mousetrap. It was a little less than a humane one with the revenants running around, but a damn effective one. Couldn't these people update their maps? I had the explosive rounds, true, and if it had been a plaster wall, I could've used a clip to put a nice hole in it. But this wasn't plaster; this was concrete. If I used every round I had on me…maybe, and then what would I use to distract Sawney? Other than serving up myself as a buffet supper, not a damn thing.
I didn't want to go back in the water, but I didn't see any way around it. I didn't know if I could get past whatever obstruction was down there, but I knew I couldn't get past this one. We were losing time. The later it got, the more revenants would come home from the hunt, and that would only make things harder. They were hard enough already. Goddamn it. I turned and this time, assuming I'd nailed all the revenants, I ran faster.
Assuming, it wasn't what I'd been taught. Niko has a quote…hell, Niko has a quote about anything and everything. This one had been about overconfidence or complacency, something to that effect. And then Niko had summed it up in terms I would actually remember. Assume, he had said, and you will get your ass kicked by me. It was slightly different than that old saying I'd learned in the sixth grade, but it got the point across. And I did remember Niko's version most of the time, but once in a while I blew it. Once in a while I had to say hello to Mr. Fuckup.
I thought I was alone. I was wrong.
"Traveler."
It stopped me in my tracks, that one single voice. I thought it was his at first, Sawney's, but the second time it came, I knew better. It was as gloating and predatory, but it wasn't coated with the oil slick of insanity. Instead it was coated with the dryness of dust and the grit of desert sand. I could smell the heat of a merciless sun rising from limestone tombs. Could all but hear the chanting of priests and the movement of a stone slab that would seal you in for human lifetimes.
My flashlight beam shot back and forth for several seconds before I spotted what I knew I would see. There was no cowboy hat this time, but there was the same resin-hardened flesh, blackened and withered lips, brown stubs of teeth…bandages, dry ones. He had been here awhile, then…waiting.
Wahanket.
The dusty glow flared in his eye hollows and the leathery jaw cracked in a crooked, jagged grin. "Surprised, traveler? You should not be. On occasion every scholar should engage in field research."
"What are you doing here? How the hell did you even know we'd be here?" I asked warily as I pulled my gun.
"Knowing your movements, the most simple of things. I set my little pet to follow you." Pet? Oh, Jesus, that damn squeaking zombie rat he'd been putting back together at the museum. It'd run off in the shadows and I never thought about it again. "It was my eyes. I saw you come to this place before…above. I knew you would return here, below. As for what I want?" The corpse grin twisted. "Observing. Recording. That has been my life in that wretched basement for years upon years. I want to participate." Like a kid who wanted to be in the school play. Yeah, whatever.