The Sunken City Trilogy Page 33

  “Uh-huh. Except there’s no one but us to do it.”

  “Yeah,” Pax said. They had themselves, the painfully normal Bartons and a reclusive botanical scientist. And Rufaizu – she couldn’t forget Rufaizu. The young man had been abducted by the MEE. He was interested in the answers, and possibly had a few of his own. “You know where the Ministry are based, here in Ordshaw?”

  “Yeah,” Letty said. “Cheap ugly building in Central. Labs, cells, a right little den of intrigue, all sandwiched between a bunch of offices so you wouldn’t know they’re there.”

  “Could you sneak in?”

  “Sure,” Letty said, in a tone so light Pax knew a tirade was coming. “If you turn off the Fae detectors and knock-out gas and get their access codes and make them look the other way. Use your book-brain, Pax, they’ve got ways of killing us that would make you shit kittens.”

  “I don’t like leaving Rufaizu locked up in there,” Pax said. She wasn’t sure if it was thoughts of her brother Albie, or her struggle to keep Grace alive, but she couldn’t quench the protective flame that had been stoked in her. Whatever miracle might see her clear of this, it wouldn’t be enough if Rufaizu was totally abandoned. To justify it, she said, “He must know things that could help.”

  “Seriously,” Letty said, then yawned loudly. She stretched her arms up, an almost inaudible click coming from her back. “You’d need an army to go up against the MEE. Your best and only chance to get that boy out of there was before he got put in there.”

  That would have meant crossing Cano Casaria, the Ministry agent who’d drawn Pax into this. The unstable oddity who had tried to induct her into his way of life, threatened to arrest her and, finally, broke rank to help her. Pax had left him stranded with another agent who wanted to take them in, so it was likely he had his own problems now. Sighing, she said, “You got any ideas yourself, or just more problems?”

  Letty shrugged. “Already gave you one: get out of here.”

  “Are you going to run?”

  “Hell no,” Letty snorted. “But it’s not like this is your fight.”

  “It’s my city,” Pax replied defensively. It was her home, her poker circuit, her heart that burnt uneasily in the night. “I can’t let it be overrun by mythical monsters. And if I left, what’d happen to you? And the others?”

  “Me, I can hide a hell of a lot easier than you. Now I know for sure that monster can be hurt, we can find another way to destroy it. I can take the Sunken City back myself. I could be queen all on my own, my people be damned. As for the others, who gives a shit? Think they’d stick around for you?”

  Pax was fairly sure Barton would do anything to protect anyone in need, even a stranger. And she suspected Letty might too, despite her words. But the mention of Letty’s people made her pause, as she recalled Letty’s past speeches about reclaiming the Sunken City for the Fae. The Fae Transitional City, or FTC, existed because the minotaur and its minions had driven the tiny race from their territory in those underground tunnels, long ago. Letty still referred to the Sunken City as home, and directed every atom of her considerable will towards getting the Fae safely back there. Pax said, “Aren’t there other Fae who think like you?”

  “No one thinks like me,” Letty said, informatively. “I’m a superstar.”

  “Ones who sympathise with you. They can’t all be happy living in the FTC, peace or not. Surely others want to reclaim the Sunken City?”

  “Definitely, but I’d be caught trying to get anywhere near them. And they’d have to be willing to defy our governor. A crew like that takes a lot of time to find.”

  An army of Lettys was a troubling thought, but it might be just what they needed. “There aren’t others already in exile?”

  Letty screwed up her face, uncomfortably. “Yeah. The sort I would avoid myself. But now I’ve got a few choice things to say about the great governor Valoria Magnus, we might find ourselves on more equal ground. Yeah. Rolarn comes to mind.”

  “Roland?”

  “Rolarn,” Letty corrected. “Fat fucker out in Broadplain who controls one of the best bits of Fae real estate you’ll find. Best for you – you’d actually fit in there. Personally, I think it’s a dump. He’s a difficult, irritating loner, but he harps on about the old guard, dreams of putting the FTC back in the hands of someone willing to stand up for Fae rights. There’s a chance I could get him on board.”

  Pax raised an eyebrow. “You got his number?”

  “You don’t have conversations like that over a phone,” Letty said. “I can get over there in no time, check in with him while you wrap things up here. Or do you wanna come, sneak off before the others wake up?”

  Pax shook her head. “The doctor and Barton have information to share, this –”

  A noise from the woods cut her off. A dog-like growl, feral and angry. It recalled the low and terrifying sounds that had haunted Pax through the tunnels of the Sunken City. She stared in its direction, wide-eyed, but the sound didn’t come again.

  Letty hopped off her shoulder, into the air. “You oughta be more scared of that doctor and this place. While you’re sharing information, make sure her experiments are locked up safe.”

  2

  “Something’s happened, across town,” Holly Barton announced, as Pax returned to the telegraph station. Holly had positioned herself at a chunky laptop near the centre of the scrappy workspace, and Pax took more interest in her than the news. After surviving Ordshaw’s tunnels, Holly had driven them here, negotiated their stay with a woman she disliked, and single-handedly dressed her husband’s wounds. She’d even remade the hot chocolates, after spitting out the doctor’s brackish first attempt. Pax had last seen her sitting by the bed, where she might have stayed all night. Now she was wide awake and presentable, her shoulder-length hair free of tangles and her clothes oddly crisp, despite her t-shirt being stained and torn.

  “I’ve only been gone a few minutes,” Pax said. “How did you...”

  “I heard you moving,” Holly said. “And I saw this antique out here last night. I thought I’d check if we’d made any Most Wanted lists. But this came up. It’s literally just happened.”

  Pax came closer, sensing before she saw it that this news was somehow connected to them and what they’d been through. She leaned in to read the headline: Breaking – Five Injured as Burst Gas Main Shakes Ordshaw.

  “It’s on the BBC,” Holly said. “National news. We were near there last night, weren’t we? And look – right here –” She searched for a line. “Potentially caused by a trespasser in the sewer system. Did we cause some kind of structural damage?”

  Pax stared at the photo on the article, showing stricken residents recovering in the street, and got an unsettling sense of déjà vu. She recognised the face of a young dark-skinned man, but she couldn’t place him. Had she played Hold’Em in that area once? At least passed through? A name came to mind – Greg? The memory felt intangible, like she’d seen it in a dream. Perhaps the dream she’d woken from, with the electricity, the monsters, that feeling. “When...exactly when did this happen?”

  “It’s just breaking,” Holly said. “Couldn’t have been half an hour ago. Probably less. Don’t suppose we could’ve felt the tremor at this distance, but I bet we would’ve felt it back home in Dalford.”

  Pax was wary that she had felt something, waking in that panic. “Does it say anything about us?”

  “No. Which is rather odd. You’d think our names and faces would be out there.”

  “They want us found but not seen. Or heard. Or whatever.”

  Holly made a frustrated sound, scarcely believing the nerve of these people. “I’ve spent my life accepting that the government do good work. I happily pay my taxes.”

  “They had us at gunpoint.”

  “I know. Darren told me in the night, stay off the phones, don’t send emails. Like this Ministry could pick up our scent on radio waves. It’s madness and I’ve been racking my brains but I can’t figure it out.
What are we going to do?”

  “Did Darren have any ideas?”

  “Oh, he was rambling like a loon. We don’t have phones, anyway – only Darren had his on him and it’s dead. All I’ve got is this.” Holly handed over a piece of paper and Pax scanned the elegant handwriting.

  Problems:

  Husband mortally wounded.

  Government can’t be trusted – ergo police/hospitals/communications unsafe.

  Monsters under the city.

  Fairies = real – also want to kill us.

  Solutions:

  Contact the Evening Standard.

  “The Evening Standard?”

  “Yes,” Holly said. “They ran an excellent exposé on a pothole scandal in Ten Gardens. Those roads are now being fixed and the culprits are facing jail time. This isn’t much different, is it?”

  “There was a fifty-foot electric octopus thing,” Pax said. “It’s a little different.”

  “The principle’s the same,” Holly insisted. “The papers could offer us protection, surely. We need help of some sort – Darren needs to get to a hospital. I’d rather hoped for more, visiting a doctor.” Holly glanced towards the thickets of plant life that surrounded them, like she held this botanical recluse personally responsible for not having a medical degree. “But now we need to rethink – and the newspapers seem as good an idea as any.”

  “Except,” Pax said, “all we’ve got is a story.”

  “We’ve got your friend?”

  Pax met her eye and checked the room with concern that the doctor might be nearby. Something moved behind a wall of overgrown ferns, a few tables over. Pax willed Holly to be more careful keeping Letty secret; the fairy had rescued her from the Ministry, after all. “Her people stay hidden for a reason. But you’re right, we need more options. I’m hoping the doctor might present some.”

  “Oh, good luck. She’s been lurking,” Holly warned.

  Pax moved away and found the doctor standing aimlessly behind the ferns, thin hands clutching a steaming tin mug. Under her tent-like lab coat and dungarees, she seemed skeletal and birdlike, and was most definitely lurking.

  “Doctor,” Pax said. “How are you?” The doctor nodded awkwardly, the worry in her eyes intensified by thick-lensed glasses that covered half her face. Pax’s gaze tracked to a large glass jar hanging from the ceiling, the grime on the outside obscuring whatever floated inside. The machinery noises, she realised, had stopped. “You experiment on things from the Sunken City, right?”

  “When I can,” Rimes said. She lifted a hand to a potted tree with warty bark and mottled brown leaves. “There are...fascinating specimens down there.”

  “A regular horror show,” Pax agreed. “We weren’t properly introduced, were we? Pax.” She held out her hand. “Thanks for taking us in.” The doctor took a halting step forward, almost spilling her drink in surprise at her own movement. She gave a bony shake.

  “Dr Mandy Rimes.”

  “With what?”

  The joke met with silence.

  Pax continued, “You’re friends with Darren?” Another nod. “And Rufaizu?”

  “I knew his father,” Rimes said. “I hadn’t seen the boy since he was little, though.”

  “Hadn’t?”

  “Until last week.”

  Pax waited, but there was no elaboration. This woman might have been the only person to actually talk to Rufaizu before he was abducted. “Did he tell you anything? About where he’d been, where he was going? Anything he’d learnt?”

  “No. Not really. Just checking if I was still here. Ready to help.”

  “I guess this isn’t the sort of help you had in mind. Bunch of maimed strangers with the Ministry breathing down our necks?”

  Rimes’ shoulders bunched up weirdly, her nose scrunching, and it took Pax a moment to realise she was amused. “It’s exactly the sort of help I had in mind,” the doctor said. “This is a safe house. It always has been. Especially from the Ministry.”

  That was to say, it was a safe house for Apothel’s team. Their fight against the monsters had ended nine years ago, though, after Apothel’s assassination at the hands of an anonymous Fae. Yet the doctor was still here. Pax said, “Do the Ministry know about you? That you’re out here? That you knew Darren?”

  “Oh yes,” Rimes said. “Since Apothel – ahem –” She went quiet, as though the death of Rufaizu’s father was taboo. “They came after Apothel left us. I consult on their research, now.”

  “You what?” Pax started in alarm, almost jumping into the ferns.

  “I consult,” Rimes repeated, completely unapologetic. “I had to agree to it. Otherwise – otherwise they would have shut me down.”

  “You can’t be –” Pax began, but saw the doctor’s innocent smile. She had seen enough poker faces to know when someone’s emotions rested on the surface; Rimes genuinely didn’t see a problem. “Does Darren know?”

  “Of course,” Rimes nodded quickly. “We’ve been very careful – but really, we parted ways before Apothel’s...incident. And the Ministry understand Apothel was in the past. They never come here. Even if they did...” She pulled her thumb and forefinger across her lips to show they were sealed.

  Pax stared. This was a bad start. But she’d said it herself: Rimes hadn’t turned them in so far. “What if they do come?”

  “Ah. They usually send me samples by courier. Or I collect from the Long Culdon Post Office. They don’t like to visit, because of the security system.”

  “A security system that keeps the government away?”

  “Oh yes,” Rimes said. “An alarm, the dogs. Then the beacon. A combination of blinding water and a flock of ether bats.”

  “Blinding water and ether bats.” Pax could not recall these oddities from the nightmare creatures she’d first read of in Apothel’s book.

  “A powerful deterrent. I have various ways to reveal Sunken City secrets to the wider world. Otherwise the Ministry might have just – well – you know.”

  Pax did know. They might have killed her and disappeared the body. Yet something about the doctor’s manner, living in her own world, suggested Rimes hardly took the Ministry threat seriously. “Why haven’t you revealed these secrets anyway?”

  Rimes gave an awkward shrug. “You experienced some things down there, yes? We disagree on some of our research, but the Ministry are right to be cautious. Widespread knowledge of that world could be very dangerous.”

  That was true enough. A little knowledge had turned Pax’s life upside down. “There’s a lot you must be able to tell me, though. Can I ask you some questions?”

  The lower half of Rimes’ face fixed tightly. “Questions?”

  “About the creatures – what Apothel called the minotaur, and the blue screens on the walls, the ones he used to write messages – what? What’s wrong?”

  Rimes was shaking her head. “No. Can’t talk. I don’t know you.”

  “I came here with Darren, we’re –”

  “The Sunken City,” Rimes said, almost in a whisper, “is not to be discussed.”

  “You trust Darren? What if he tells you it’s okay?”

  Rimes shot a look towards the bedroom. “He’s hurt.”

  “Yeah,” Pax said, “and he’s not getting help if I can’t figure something out.”

  “I can help him.” Rimes’ eyes were still on the bedroom door, away with her thoughts. She hadn’t helped last night; if she was hiding some medical talent when he’d lain bleeding and broken, then she was a bigger mess than Pax thought.

  “How?”

  “I’ve got some glo,” Rimes said. “Not much, but it should do.”

  She pointed a shaky finger to the far side of the room. Pax spotted the unnaturally glowing bottle of liquid partially hidden behind a stack of translucent containers filled with either old stew or preserved animal organs. She knew a little about glo, the potion which had given Barton and Apothel the ability to see the creatures in the tunnels. “How’s that supposed to h
elp?”

  “It accelerates the healing process. One of its many charms. If he has no serious problems, the body will heal itself, with glo’s help.” Rimes smiled with a twitch. “If his wife will let us. She’s a stern woman.”

  A light, surprised cough, behind the plants, revealed Holly had been listening.

  The bedroom had an atmosphere like a candlelit vigil. Cardboard boxes and rags littered the space around the bed, making the room dark and impossibly tight. Darren Barton lay across one side of a rusty cot, his skin blue with bruises where it wasn’t black with scabs or hidden under darkening bandages. His daughter, Grace, lay alongside him, curled up with her bare soles raw and swollen, flesh hard and dirty even after she’d spent half an hour scrubbing.

  Holly perched on the rusty metal chair where she’d spent the night. She took one of Darren’s beefy hands in both of hers. “Diz, dear. Are you awake?”

  He clearly wasn’t, so she leant closer and asked again, louder. He stirred with grumbles. Rimes crept into the room, ahead of Pax, the jar of bright liquid cradled in two hands.

  “What’s happening?” Barton moaned. He tried to push himself up.

  “Stay put, dear. We just came to check on you.”

  His eyes scanned the gathered trio and rested on Rimes. “Wasn’t a dream...”

  “No,” Holly said, more patronising than comforting. “Your family did get molested by monsters you neglected to tell us exist. And tiny people and government agents do want to kill us.”

  “I remember,” Barton said, pulling free from her and sitting up. His face creased with pain as his leg shifted, and his strangled curse woke Grace with a moan.