The Sunken City Trilogy Read online

  “What about them?” Landon said. “They attacked an officer of the –”

  “You want to arrest them?” Casaria called back, already halfway down the stairs. “Be my guest!”

  Bees glared at the overweight man as he and his young, terrified colleague gave them worried looks. The older one shook his head, backing off after Casaria, and offered a moronic parting comment. “You boys stay out of trouble.”

  14

  Barton scanned the red-brick wasteland, holding up the useless instrument Rimes had given him and still getting nothing that resembled a response. It didn’t matter. He was confident that it didn’t work, now that he could see the trails of colourful light hanging in the air. The pain from his injuries had gone. His niggling doubts and fears, too. The drink gave him focus: a narrow, sharp mind to follow the trail and do what needed to be done.

  Destroy them all.

  He had picked up the trail easily after swigging from the canister of glo. He could sense the flutter of wings and muted voices from half a mile away. He blundered towards them. Then he saw them emerge from between the abandoned buildings, talking in hurried tones. “Let the FTC sort it out, we take care of ourselves first.”

  They flew between the buildings like a pair of dragonflies, black shapes against the sky that would not usually have warranted a second look. Barton was used to the tricks of the Sunken City, though, and knew not to trust his eyes. When he squinted he could see through the mirage. The insects flickered like a heat ray, not entirely solid, though he couldn’t see what was hidden underneath. There was no doubt they were fairies. They darted off through the sky, leaving a trail behind, fresh and thicker than the others. The clear glint of gold in the air gradually faded to the pink he had followed to get there. He watched them go, high above the buildings, making a beeline towards the city.

  Barton did not follow them. He turned in the opposite direction, continuing along their earlier trails, the ones that were slowly dissipating. They didn’t lead to the FTC, he could sense that. He continued until it took him back to the dusty remnants of an office complex. The trail led into a building, and back out. They had made a stop here. He crept inside.

  There, in the back room, he found a very different energy. The dull grey cloud that glo revealed as human. Someone had been here. More than one person. It was hard to make out, much less distinct than the trails that fairies left. Frustrated, Barton picked out the pink of the fairies again and followed them back out into the road. From here they might have gone to their camp. Maybe the FTC itself.

  The trails ahead were fading. He picked up his pace and clambered over half-fallen walls for the quickest route, and less than a block away he started to see more colours in the sky. Different paths crossed over the pink, some stronger, some weaker. Greens, blues, yellows. Other fairies, heading to a central location somewhere behind the buildings ahead. Was this the hub? The Fae Transitional City itself, up ahead? He dropped Rimes’ device and cracked his knuckles. No idea what he would do when he got in there, only that someone was going to answer to him. He took a heavy step forward. A female voice came from somewhere up above.

  “Wouldn’t do it if I were you.”

  It had taken Letty longer than she’d have liked to get mobile again, and the result was hardly impressive. After a decade operating outside the FTC, it was little difficulty for her to locate a mechanic in the periphery of the city, but it was another matter to trade for the specific and expensive piece of machinery she needed. Fae disabilities were a niche market that demanded high prices; while alternatives to wings and limbs were available, sometimes even superior to the originals, the funds she had taken from their Bettor Off hideout were scarcely enough. Only through her fiercest haggling was she able to get the minimum equipment required to puff through the sky, with a tractor-engine hum. The fan stabiliser on her back was the flying equivalent of a leg crutch.

  At least she was able to move again. She needed to concentrate on matching her surviving wing to the erratic stop-start of the artificial engine, but she could still cross the city quicker than any human.

  She headed straight for the Innovation Centre, hoping to catch her boys returning to the hostage before they discovered Pax had screwed up their plan. Assuming they hadn’t already done the unthinkable and gone after Barton. Had her leadership really been all that was keeping them from murderous idiocy? Mix, she could understand, he liked to solve things with his guns, but Fresko was at least a little brighter than that. The pair of them must have known that Barton, even if he was a dumb lummox, was not their enemy.

  She flew to the research centre and found it empty, the girl long gone and no sign of Pax or her boys. That meant going to the Barton household. On her way out, though, she spotted a suspiciously human shape leaning around a wall, looking in the direction of the city. Given his attempt to hide and his focus on the sky, he was searching for something particular.

  Letty floated towards him with a sigh of relief.

  Finally, she told herself, some good fortune.

  Barton slowly looked up at the voice, fists ready.

  “You’re incorrigible, aren’t you? Gonna punch the sky?” The fairy settled on a windowsill above his head. Barton put a hand over his brow to block out the sun’s glare, trying to get a better look at her as she studied him. He could see this one alright. Maybe because she was closer, maybe just not as well masked. She rested the pistol in her hand on a knee. “Shit, what happened to you?”

  Barton hadn’t got any cleaner since the morning. He had seen his reflection on the way over, skin caked with dried blood and coloured by bruises. So what, he had no desire to speak to this little nightmare creature. He stepped out, preparing to launch at her.

  “You wouldn’t stand a chance,” Letty said. “And what the hell were you thinking to do in there?” She screwed a thumb in the direction he had been heading.

  “Improvise,” Barton said, barely opening his mouth beyond a snarl. The fairy smiled.

  “Well, now you don’t have to. You can thank whatever God you jizz over that you ran into me. I knew Apothel, lummox. And I know you. We can help each other.”

  “You killed Apothel.”

  “No. He betrayed me, actually, if you care.”

  “I don’t. Should’ve come for you people years ago. You’ve crossed a line now. My daughter. My goddamned daughter. Where is she?”

  “Last I saw,” Letty said, “she was safe. If you’re lucky, she’s on her way home. We have a mutual friend that was trying to help her.”

  Barton frowned. “Who? Why?”

  “The card player. Except going to your home does not mean safe, right now. The bitch in charge has given orders for a clean-up. That means you, your family, whoever else has touched this.”

  Barton’s face brimmed with anger, his eyes running from the fairy to the direction of their city. “Not if I tear your whole world apart first.”

  “If I hadn’t seen you,” Letty told him flatly, “you’d have been shot the moment a scout spotted your face. Still a long way from the FTC. I’d rather keep you alive.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “You know what Apothel was killed for, right? You know why Rufaizu came back?”

  Barton glowered at her, echoing the words. “What he was killed for? What your people killed him for? Trying to help you?”

  “Something like that. I just had a very interesting conversation that might’ve shed some light on that. Some people…” The fairy looked aside, seeming to reflect on her distant, hidden home. “My people, have an idea of what’s possible. What the device Apothel took can do. And they don’t all want to do it.”

  “What’s it matter now,” Barton snarled. “You went after my family, you’re all –”

  “Are you listening to me?” Letty snapped. His response had angered her, causing her to swoop down towards him, and he took a step back as she buzzed in his face. “You want to help your family, you need to do as I say!” He looked at the odd co
ntraption slung over her shoulder, as a single wing flapped at the other side. She wasn’t normal, this Fae. “Your family are in the firing line now – Pax too – all because there’s people that don’t want us to succeed in the Sunken City. Actively fucking sabotaging it. Listen to me and we can take them out together.”

  Barton took a breath. He asked, slowly, “Like I said. What’s it to you?”

  “They fucking cheated me. They’re cheating them-fucking-selves. Now, you’re gonna take out your damned phone and make a call.”

  Watching through his scope, Fresko could see activity in the house, but it came to a halt in the living room area. They were exchanging pleasantries or something when the roughly dressed one received a phone call. The others stopped when she held up a hand for quiet.

  “Something’s wrong,” Fresko said.

  The one on the phone waved at the others. The mum rushed to the window and drew the curtains, cutting off their view.

  “Shit.” Fresko sat back from the gun.

  “They’re going for the blinds,” Mix said, pointing. “Take them out.”

  “I’d get one of them, maybe, then the others go to ground and we have to go in there. No. They think they’re keeping safe in there right now. Means we can still do this slow and simple.”

  “No, numbnuts,” Mix said, “it means Barton’s alive and he’s coming back.”

  “Can still make it look like an accident.” Fresko checked through the scope as the younger lady pulled a blind down over another window. “Set some charges.”

  “Why bother?” Mix snarled, drawing his pistol. “Let’s do this the old-fashioned way.”

  Fresko hesitated. It was unlikely that Barton could stop them if he did come back, but he added an element of uncertainty. If it was even him they were waiting for. It was the card player who’d taken the call, and she had to have her own plans. She’d found the girl somehow, after all. Fresko thought out loud: “It’d take us five minutes to set the charges.”

  “And it’d take us ten seconds to shoot the pigs.”

  “The Ministry can’t know it was us.”

  “Fuck the Ministry,” Mix grunted. “Let Val worry about them. Come on, are we Fae or what?”

  All the windows of the house had been covered, now. The women inside had to be hunkering down in fear as they waited for their slovenly hero to return. Idiots and cowards. “All right,” said Fresko. “It’s not every day we get to have some fun. Let’s go in.”

  “Yes!” Mix let out a booming laugh. “I knew you hadn’t gone soft!”

  15

  “What did he say, exactly?” Holly demanded as they pulled the last blinds closed.

  Pax was moving in a flurry, running from one room to another, checking the walls for holes, any ways for the smallest of creatures to get in. She replied, without looking at Holly, “Lock the doors, close the windows, he’s coming back soon and he’s got help.”

  “What help could he have? That mad scientist woman?”

  “I don’t know, I just know we’re not safe,” Pax said. “Do you have a chimney?”

  “A what?”

  “A fireplace, somewhere Santa could drop in!”

  “No, we have gas –”

  “Vents? Extractor fans? Any gaps in the walls at all?”

  “This isn’t a country pub, for heaven’s sake!” Holly said. “What exactly are you expecting? Rats? Snakes?”

  “Worse.” Pax stopped and gave her a level look. “Fairies with guns.”

  Holly held the look for a moment. Grace, hovering at her shoulder, paused too. After processing the word, the mum let out a shrill laugh. “You have got to be joking.”

  “I said you wouldn’t believe it.” Pax turned away to keep checking the house, scanning the awnings, the corners. Her urgency, she felt, made Holly pause and take note. “Block any holes you can. Nothing so big as a mouse can get in here. And don’t worry, as long as we can keep them out we can work through this. My people are going to bring me something we can use to negotiate.”

  “Negotiate with fairies?” Holly laughed again, this time without humour.

  “Believe me, we need to.”

  “In there, the toilet.” Grace pointed helpfully. “There’s a fan above the mirror.”

  “Thanks.” Pax hurried through to the opening. She took off the extractor fan’s grate and shoved a hand towel in, blocking it tightly.

  “Grace, don’t listen to this nonsense,” Holly said.

  “It’s not nonsense, mum!” Grace protested. “You don’t have a better explanation!” Holly went quiet as Grace dogged Pax’s heels. As Pax backed off from the toilet, she bumped into the younger girl, and Grace whispered, “I love your coat.”

  Pax paused, taken off guard, and checked her tatty fleece-lined jacket. She couldn’t help but feel a little warmth at being validated by the teenager. As she muttered, “Thanks,” a window smashed.

  They all froze, locking eyes as the sound came again, in the living room, followed by glass shattering against the floor. Grabbing Holly by the wrist, Pax pulled her into the bathroom with Grace and shut the door.

  “What on earth –” Holly spun back, but Pax kept hold of her, shooting a finger to her lips for quiet. They all listened in deathly stillness. Something moved into the corridor, with the flutter of a tiny bird.

  “All right,” a man’s voice said. “Light up the closet.”

  “Get down get down!” Pax shouted, pulling Holly and Grace to the ground, with not a moment to spare before an eruption of gunshots. The door burst apart in miniature explosions of splintering wood. The sink cracked as though hit by a lightning-fast ball bearing. Grace screamed.

  Pax kicked the door out, counting on catching the fairies in the tight space of the corridor. The gunshots paused as she caught the blur of one of them flying to the ceiling, the other twisting around the door.

  “Move, quick!” Pax yelled, sprinting for the front door. The two fairies quickly recovered and started shooting as she crashed a shoulder through the plate glass of the door and rolled outside, the wooden frame exploding around her in tiny gunshots. Holly and Grace came out shrieking under the gunfire, ducking the shots that were meant for Pax, and before the fairies could adjust their aim they were outside, too. On her way through the door, Holly dragged the coat rack down and a mess of jackets flapped behind them, bullets tearing through the down of a winter coat.

  Pax tried to stand and winced, something stinging her leg. She rolled aside with a cry and landed on the grass, both hands grabbing at her calf where something had gone through. It was at the very rear, her jeans lightly ripped; close to the surface, but a bastard all the same. Warm blood rushed over her hands as she clutched the wound.

  “Son of a bitch!” Pax screamed back at the doorway.

  “To the car, the car!” Holly cried, taking Grace by the hand. She skidded next to the vehicle, patting her pockets. No keys.

  All three of them looked to the front door, as the tiny attackers navigated their way through the mess of coats. Grace let out another scream and picked up the nearest object she could find, a ceramic plant pot. She hurled it.

  “Back!” one of the men shouted, as the plant exploded over the entrance. In the mess of shattered pot and scattering earth, one of the shapes appeared to spin out of control and hit a wall.

  “More, more!” Holly encouraged her daughter, picking up another pot and throwing it. A short barrage of plant pots followed as mother and daughter threw every unfixed piece of the front garden back at their unseen attackers, creating a cloud of debris.

  Pax pushed herself up and limped away from the house. In the momentary respite from the gunshots, Holly took out her phone and started dialling. Pax bowled into Grace and Holly together and pointed down the road, shouting, “Keep moving! Head for the manhole!”

  Without questioning her, the two women sprinted. Holly was already shouting into her handset, “Yes! Police! I need the police!”

  “No!” Pax yelled, slapping
the phone out of her hand. “Just run!”

  The gunshots started up again from the doorway. They were more than a building’s length away from the door now, though, and the first shots went wide.

  “Stay low, Grace!” Pax warned, as she raced past the teenager to the manhole cover in the road. She threaded her fingers into the holes and hauled for all her worth as the gunshots stopped, the fairies either reloading or repositioning.

  “What do we do, what do we do?” Grace pleaded.

  “Help me!” Pax commanded, and suddenly Grace and Holly were at her side, all three of them taking a grip on the cover and heaving at it.

  As the metal shifted, Holly demanded, “How is this going to help?”

  An immediate answer came as Pax pivoted the cover behind them and a bullet twanged off it, the makeshift shield protecting her chest. She gave herself only a moment of surprise, then pointed into the opening. “Get in there, now!”

  “The sewer?” Holly exclaimed.

  The gunshots picked up again, another bullet hitting the manhole cover, one scratching the tarmac nearby. Grace and Holly threw themselves into the dark hole. Pax dropped down after them, hearing the man’s voice as she fell. “You done preening, get after them!”

  Pax’s feet found the slippery rungs of a ladder and she dug her heels in as she put all her strength into hauling the manhole cover back over the hole. It shifted and almost swung onto her, making her let go and drop. She fell ten feet onto hard concrete, with a thump and a light splash of surface water. Looking back up, she could see the light of day through a crack in the cover – it hadn’t quite fallen into place.

  Holly and Grace came to her, trying to help her up, as the small silhouette of a man appeared at the cover’s edge. He had a pistol in his hand, which he aimed down at them.

  Pax rolled aside, just as the gun went off, its sound echoing through the arched chamber. The three women sprang up and started running again, Holly directing this time. “Over there!”