Only for a moment. Somewhere, high above, the silence was rent by the piercing shriek of steel. Cass knew in an instant. Someone, or something, had breached the door. She wanted to believe it was the man, coming to get them. The dread in her heart told her it wasn’t.
“Mama?”
“Come on, baby.”
Cass swung Wren up on her hip, adrenaline coursing, heart pounding. In the complete blackness, she took the steps down, two at a time. Knowing they were closer to the bottom than the top gave her some courage, but she knew how slowly she’d taken that first stretch. There was no way to tell how quickly whatever it was would descend.
Around and around they twisted, Cass plunging her feet down into darkness, hoping with every step that there would be a stair below to meet them. Then. Finally. Concrete. They hit bottom so quickly, she stumbled to a knee on her second step, expecting to find another stair instead of level ground. A pale yellow light shone weakly not far away.
The chemlight. Miraculously, it hadn’t broken in the fall. Cass scrambled to it, seized it, raised it high to get her bearings. Follow the pipes, he had said. To the first alcove.
She did.
A long concrete corridor, smooth and rounded, tunneled from the base of the stairs, off into apparent oblivion. Along the wall, oxidized pipes stacked atop each other, some merely as wide as Cass’s arm, others large enough for her to have crouched inside, had there been a way to enter them. They were beaded with moisture, much as Cass was, despite the coolness of the air. She pressed on in the dim light, searching for a break in the wall.
Wren’s arms tightened around her neck, and he pressed his mouth to her ear, speaking in a ragged whisper.
“Mama… Mama…” the boy choked out, like a child caught between wakefulness and nightmare. “It’s coming!”
Cass could hear the fear in his labored breathing, felt it herself, in her bones, like a great grasping claw just at her heels. She didn’t dare look behind. She jogged on, trying to keep the balance between silence and speed.
Behind them, a strange sound. A flapping sort of echo, like bat’s wings. Or bare feet upon the stair.
There. Just ahead, on the right. A break in the wall. The first alcove.
The pipes continued on, passing over top of the niche. By ducking down, Cass found she and Wren could slip in behind them, though once they did, she couldn’t see the point. It was a dead end, only six feet deep; deep as a grave, and no more. But it was all they had. She took Wren to the far wall, as far back as they could go, sat him down on her lap, between herself and the wall, switched off the light.
And waited.
Cass fought to quiet her own breathing, to calm her thumping heart. The blood in her ears made it impossible to be sure whether or not those were footsteps in the corridor. In the next instant, she had her answer.
An evil croak, a mixture of loudly exhaled breath and digital static, echoed down the concrete tunnel. Instinctively, Cass cradled Wren to her, buried his face in her breasts. He clung to her with trembling hands. Silence. Then, again, the harsh electronic cry. This, now, followed by shuffling steps, growing louder, closer. Cass’s mind scrambled for options, to think of anything she might have to use as a weapon. Realized she had none.
A faint ice-blue glow began to spread at the entrance of the alcove, so faint at first Cass wasn’t sure she could see it. Slowly, gradually, it intensified, until there was no mistaking it. The shuffling steps continued.
The man had brought them out from the safety of the wall, sent them here, sent them here to die. And she had let him. Cass bent her head, silently pressed her lips to Wren’s damp hair, kissed him goodbye. She took the slightest trace of comfort in knowing that at very least, Asher would never take Wren.
The footsteps ceased. The entryway was bathed in soft white-blue light, slowly, faintly pulsing. The inhuman cry sounded again, shocking, intense in its proximity, and Cass realized a Weir was standing at the entrance, its blue-glow eyes roving to find them, searching. Through a gap in the pipes, she caught a glimpse of the pinprick orbs, smoldering in their sockets. Her heart caught in her throat, chest constricted in terror.
And then—
Shuffling steps resumed. It moved on, further down the tunnel, croaking every so often. Light faded, and eventually sound vanished as well, leaving Cass and Wren clinging together in the uncertain safety of the alcove. Neither dared to speak. They hardly dared to breathe.
Finally, after a time, Cass allowed herself to believe they were alright. She checked the time again: 19:29 GST. Just twenty-two minutes had passed since their pitch-black flight down the stairs. It was going to be a long night. Wren leaned heavily on her, limp, breathing with the deep rhythm of exhaustion. Cass shifted her weight, brought her coat up and around them both, leaned her head back against the wall.
But sleep wouldn’t come. Not for her, not here in this place. She fought the urge to turn the chemlight back on, though the promise of its meager light seemed like water to parched lips. The blackness began to work on her mind, making her see things, hear things she knew weren’t there, couldn’t be there. Fedor, Kostya. Asher. Asher and his hounds, hunting them, finding them, seizing Wren, and taking him back. She couldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t let that happen.
Cass accessed the satellites again. The man had told them to head north when the sun rose. But she didn’t know why, or what they should be heading for. She scanned, just pulses at a time, always releasing connection after a few seconds and siphoning a new one to avoid trace. North. Miles and miles of urban wasteland. Nothing surprising there. She panned the internally displayed image, eyes open, seeing the image projected onto her corneas, not the darkness beyond. Nothing stood out, no exceptional towns, no safe houses, no signs of life. Unless… She isolated; zoomed.
And froze.
A soft white-blue glow engulfed her. The Weir had doubled back.
Five
Wren lay sleeping in her lap, undisturbed by the deadly creature prowling at the entrance of the alcove. Cass could see no details of the thing, save its gently radiating eyes: blue, cold, electric. These shifted; floated in a fluid, elliptical pattern, as though the Weir were peering at her through smoke, or heavy fog. Or like a cobra, before it struck. Instinctively, slowly, she squeezed Wren closer, hoping he wouldn’t stir. The Weir hadn’t seen them here before. Maybe it would overlook them again.
For a moment, it just stood there, silently. Cass couldn’t even hear it breathing. But she could smell its scent. Antiseptic, metallic, faintly pungent, like a stainless steel scalpel, with lingering vapors of embalming fluid. Death preserved.
It glanced casually away to its right, as if disturbed by some unfelt breeze, or perhaps considering continuing on to the stairs. The creature hesitated there, just long enough for Cass to hope it would leave. Instead, it whipped its gaze back directly upon her, and she knew it was over.
The Weir crouched back, coiling to pounce, and let fly its white-noise scream. Cass crushed Wren to her, shut her eyes, turned her back to absorb the brunt of the attack.