They trod the length of the sewer, breath and footsteps too loud, echoing off the walls and creating phantoms of sound and movement along the corridor. Adam felt Talia’s weight grow heavy on his arm.
“How much farther? This woman needs medical attention.”
“Abigail’s got a doctor for you. She saw that, too.”
Abigail better damn well have some answers.
When Talia stumbled, Adam caught her before she hit the sewer water. She groaned as he lifted her into his arms. He’d have liked to sling her over a shoulder so that he could have at least one arm free to aim and shoot, but he didn’t trust the pressure on her diaphragm. Cursing, he shoved his gun in his belt and opted to cradle her, baby-style, though it was damn frustrating that her body protected him more than he could protect her.
The tunnel came to a crossroads of refuse, and Zoe took the left path toward a buzzing bass din accented by a high whine—somebody’s idea of music.
She stopped at a metal ladder directly under the noise. “This one,” she said, though Adam had to read the words on her lips to understand her.
The girl climbed, and Adam wondered briefly if he would have to sling Talia over his shoulder after all, but Talia struggled against him and reached for the bars herself, scaling the ladder one rung ahead of him. When she neared the top, several arms reached down to lift her out of the hole as if they expected her.
Adam cleared the hole and found himself in a dark alleyway, damp concrete buildings jutting several stories high on either side of him. A group of people carried Talia into the back entrance of the nearest one. A wave of distorted electronica poured from the door.
He leaped out of the manhole and followed, fingers itching to draw his gun again, but cautious reason overruled the impulse.
Wait and see.
He entered into the back of what appeared to be a club, a heavy metal door thumping closed behind him. The smell of stale cigarette smoke clung to the doorway and pervaded the air of the interior. The walls were painted black, as was the concrete floor, and papered with layers of bright, cheap flyers, which lent the underriding gloom of the place a decidedly happy spin.
Likewise the music was bottomed by a murky bass beat and overlain with melodic guitar effects that would’ve been downright perky if the tone hadn’t been subtly dissonant. A woman’s voice crooned the melody with ethereal, if synthetic, perfection.
A group of decidedly counterculture people clustered around an open door to the left, some swathed in black, like Zoe, their club attire selected for mood and show, rather than dancing. One wore a variation of the goth getup, sexed up with a corset and fishnet stockings, while another paid homage to piercing, including a rather tribal stretching of his earlobes around metal rings in addition to the series of studs he wore across his eyebrows and in his lip.
Like the music, their expressions were contradictory, evoking a strange combination of nihilism and concern about Talia’s condition.
Adam craned around the group, glimpsed Talia’s telltale white-blonde hair in the noir hole of what must have been a dressing room, and pushed his way through the crowd.
A transparent oxygen mask was in place over Talia’s mouth and nose, and a young woman in jeans and a T-shirt crouched at Talia’s back with a stethoscope. How she hoped to hear anything in this squealing noise was beyond him. The doctor attached a white clip to Talia’s finger; the clip connected to a digital reading, probably for pulse and blood oxygen levels.
Adam searched Talia’s eyes for signs of distress, though her skin was pinking nicely. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes wrinkled at the outer edges in answer, an attempt at a smile, and she raised a thumbs-up.
The tension in Adam’s neck and shoulders eased somewhat.
Adam addressed the doctor. “Is she going to be okay?” He hadn’t meant his voice to sound so demanding, so stern. He knew a little gratitude was in order.
The woman’s gaze shifted from Talia to Adam. “Give me a minute, yeah?”
Adam stepped back—patience was not one of his strong suits. “What about this Abigail? Where is she?”
“I’ll take you,” a voice piped up from behind him.
Adam turned. Zoe, again.
“I’m not leaving Talia. Bring Abigail here.”
Zoe raised a thin eyebrow. “What—you think we’re going to hurt her?”
“You might not, but the people who did this to her might be behind us.” At the very least, they had to have discovered the concealed elevator by now and its route to the sewer. This building was not that far away from his loft.
Zoe waved away the concern. “Nah. Abigail would have seen it.”
“Who is she? Has she got the sewer wired or something?”
Zoe snorted. “She’s got the whole world wired. Come with me and meet her yourself.”
Adam looked down at Talia. He couldn’t just leave her here.
Talia lifted a hand and waved him away. When still he hesitated, she shoo-shooed him again. “Oh, go on.” Her voice rasped into a cough.
“Please,” the doctor added, her eyes rolling.
Damn it. Adam leaned down to Talia’s ear. “Stay alert. Be ready to use the dark.” And because she managed to retain a hint of sweetness in her hair after the foul crawl in the sewer, he dropped a kiss on her jawline.
Zoe led him down the hall to a staircase. The landing, vibrating slightly with the music below, lengthened with rooms off to each side. They took the second to the right and straight on until they reached a starry curtain, which Zoe pulled aside.
In a rocking chair sat a dried-up old crone of a woman in a tentlike, flowery housedress, presumably Abigail, though far too old to be Zoe’s sister. Her eyeballs were covered with a dark, brackish film that did not clear when she blinked. Her hair was stringy gray. The room smelled sharp and stale, like illness.
Adam glanced around. Sickbed, sink, stacks of books—lusty romance novels from the look of their covers—and on the bed, an open package of store-bought chocolate chip cookies, which made his stomach rumble. But there were no surveillance systems in this room; the tech center had to be somewhere else in the building.
“You’re cuter than I thought.” Abigail’s voice was clear, young, even, at odds with her appearance.
Which made Adam look a little closer. “Who are you? How did you know where to find us?”
“I’m Abigail. And I knew where to find you because I saw you there.”
Now Adam could see the family resemblance; she spoke in cryptic taunts like her “sister.” He had no patience for this. He needed to collect Talia and get to safety.
“Oh, take a cookie and sit down. You’re safe enough here.”
Adam hesitated, then perched on the corner of the foot of the bed. He forced his voice to controlled courtesy. “Thank you for your help and for the medical assistance you’re providing my—” What was Talia to him anyway? Employee? Lover? “—friend. If you knew where to find me, you may have some idea of the circumstances that brought us there. So I would very much appreciate it if you or your sister would be more forthcoming with answers.”
Abigail pressed her lips together in a grimace of disapproval. “Life’s short; you should try and have a little more fun.”
Adam chuckled with bitter irony. “Not possible at the moment.”
“Then quit being so dense. I could see you in the tunnel because I have the Sight. My Eye has been drawn to you for a while now—” Her mouth quirked up to one side. “By the way, that was some very nice work earlier. Up against the window like that. Very nice.” She fanned herself with her hand.
Adam frowned, his mood black, but she continued, “Don’t begrudge me a little vicarious pleasure—I’m thirty-three years old, and what my Eye has shown me has turned me into an old woman.”