Death Touched Box Set: Urban Fantasy Romance

Chapter 8

8

The sewer was now illuminated by long rows of tall incandescent light bulbs that-from their rough filaments-showed their great age. They sat in small metal bowls and sourced their energy from a long wire that trailed just below their bowls. Both sides of the sewer tunnel had the same row of illumination.

Not only was the darkness gone, but so were the puddles and filth. The metallic walls of the culverts changed to ancient, crumbling bricks, filtering the filth between their porous surfaces to create a dry walkway.

Jack looked down at Nena’s gaping mouth and smiled. “You were saying?”

She shook herself and looked up at him with wide eyes. “This is. . .people made this?”

“I wouldn’t say people,” he told her as he tugged her along down the tunnel.

The sewer pipe led on for another fifty yards before it came to a stop and the world opened. Before them arose a huge area the size of four football fields that resembled an old-fashioned subway station. The walls and high ceilings had scraps of paint and graffiti, but no natural light flowed down from above. Large electric chandeliers two hundred feet above the ground lit up the space.

The station had two tiers with the second accessed via stairs on either end of the ground level. The entire second level of the terminal was a towering block of businesses with several double-door entrances and a glass dome atop them that reached to the curved ceiling. The buildings were held up with spare strips of metal roofing, planks of wood, and a lot of faith.

Dozens of shops with their interiors sunken into the bottom of the upper tier lined the long wall on the ground floor. Twice that many homes made of strips of metal and old wood stuck out from the walls to the left and right of where they stood. The shop windows were filled with everything a person could want, from clothing to food.

Throngs of people walked the wide streets on the upper tier and ground level. They were young and old, man and woman, and many were dressed in shabby attire of patch pants and coats. A few men in ragged police uniforms stood at the corners watching the hustle and bustle. Their attentions were most especially on the numerous people hidden beneath black robes as they hurried on their way to the dark corners of the small city.

A few vendors with handcarts strolled the impromptu city square between the residences and the tiered shops. Their ringing voices shouted their wares.

“Hamburgers! Hamburgers for sale! Get them while they’re hot!”

“Newts! Fresh newts for a fresh poison-er, potion!”

“Cauldrons on sale! Two for the price of one! Can’t make a good spell without one!”

“Fresh fish! Two eyes or three!”

“What do you think of the Terminal?” Jack asked her.

She gawked at a pair of cackling old women as they shuffled past with their white hair wrapped around their extra-long fingers. “It’s-um, interesting.”

His eyes flashed with a wicked light as he stepped down out of the tunnel and onto the cobblestones that made up the floor. “Let’s see how interesting it can get.”

A small plastic ball bounced out of the crowds and toward them. It rolled to a stop at the base of the sewer culvert. A boy of eight rushed after the toy, but he stopped ten feet away when he noticed the strangers. His bright blue eyes flickered between the ball and the group.

Nena smiled and bent down. She plucked the ball off the ground and bounced it back to him. The boy’s face brightened and he met the toy halfway. He gave them a grin and a wave, and disappeared into the crowd.

“Still terrified of it?” Jack asked her.

She glared at him. “I wasn’t afraid of it.”

He smiled and stepped down from the culvert. “Of course you weren’t, now let’s go.”

Nena swallowed the lump in her throat and followed him with Peter behind them. She stuck close to Jack as they waded into the mass of humanity, or so she thought. Her shoulder bumped into a middle-aged man in a dusty old browned robe. Jack kept her from falling, but the other victim in the collision dropped back onto his rump.

He glared up at her with his thinning hair flopped to one side and partially covering one eye. “What do you mean by pushing around the Great Zolius, the astounding wizard extraordinaire!”

Jack stepped between them and leaned down to offer his hand. “No harm done-” The man slapped his offered hand away and struggled to stand as his feet kept tripping over his long robes.

“No harm done? No harm done?” He grabbed one corner of his robe and lifted it up so they could see a spot of dirt. “What do you think this is? My last meal?”

Jack smiled, but there was no warmth in his expression. “It might be if you keep being rude to the lady, friend.”

Zolius sneered at him. “I’m no friend of yours, you filthy-” Jack drew his gun and pressed the barrel against the tip of the man’s nose. The Astounding gentleman crossed his wide eyes to stare down the long barrel. He shook in his robes as sweat trailed down his brow. “Y-you can’t do that. I-it’s against t-the rules.”

“What’s going on here?” a voice called out.

Nena glanced in the direction of the shout and paled. One of the uniformed men shuffled toward them. His skin was the color of paste and pieces of flesh were missing. The color of his eyes was hard to discern through the glaze over them, but she could see an unearthly glow in their depths. This, then, was one of the zombies of which Jack had spoke, and he was the law in these parts.

The officer stopped between the men and looked from one to the other before his gaze fell on Jack. “You think the rules don’t apply to you, Jack?”

Jack pocketed his gun and grinned. “I was just trying to teach this guy how to treat a lady.”

Zolius scoffed. “If she’s with you, she’s no lady.” Jack’s narrowed eyes fell on him and a faint blue fire illuminated them. Zolius stumbled back a few steps and pointed at him. “Y-you can’t use that here! It’s n-not allowed!” He whipped his head to the zombie. “O-officer, I demand you arrest this-this thing!”

The officer pursed his lips as he studied Jack. “You’ve had your fun, Jack. I’ll have to ask you to get your business over with and leave, or just leave now. It’s your choice.”

Jack closed his eyes and a crooked smile slipped onto his lips as he shrugged. “No harm done, but I wouldn’t mind a trip to the precinct.”

The officer arched a rotten eyebrow. One end hung by a thread. Literally. “What are you wanting there?” Jack opened his mouth, but the officer held up his hand. “On second thought, never mind. You’re either going to lie to me or tell me a half truth. I’ll let the chief deal with you before you attract any more attention.” The entire ground floor of the Terminal had stopped to watch the confrontation.

The officer guided the companions down past the ground-level shops to a pair of doors with thick glass. Nena glanced over her shoulder and saw Zolius glare at them before he marched off. She looked up at Jack and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Was he really a wizard?”

He shrugged. “Maybe, but I doubt he could entertain a kid’s party.”

The officer led them inside where they found themselves in a typical police precinct complete with a bullet-proof glass front desk and two dozen desks behind that one filled with zombies booking witch-attired women and filing reports on ancient typewriters one pecked letter at a time.

Their guide nodded at his coworker who sat behind the glass. The other zombie returned the gesture and slipped his hand beneath the desk to press a button. A door on the left unlocked and the group walked into the desk area. They meandered their way among the rotten wood and officers to a door at the rear left wall. The name ‘Chief Romero’ was written on the thick, foggy glass.

The officer rapped his knuckles on the glass. “Chief?”

“Come in,” came a cultured voice.

The officer opened the door and led the group inside. It was a small office with a worn wooden desk at the back and a few filing cabinets on the left. Two chairs sat in front of the desk, and behind the office furniture was a larger wood chair, the occupant of which was a burly rotting corpse that wore a police uniform. A gold bar on the front denoted his rank.

He looked up from his paperwork as they entered and frowned. “I see. I will deal with them from here, sergeant.”

The officer saluted. “Yes, sir, and good luck.” He shut the door behind them.

The chief set his pen on his desk and leaned back to study the group. “Took you guys long enough. I thought you would be here days ago.” His gaze fell on Nena and he arched an eyebrow. “I do not recognize you, Miss-?”

“It’s Nena,” she told him.

“Are you new to our world?” he asked her. She bit her lower lip and nodded. His eyes flickered to Jack. “Has she been informed of the rules?”

Jack leaned his hip against the desk and shook his head. “Nope.”

Chief Romero sighed. “Then I will take up the task. In the Terminal and the Underground you don’t kill, murder, bump off, destroy, or poof anyone out of existence.”

Nena blinked at him. “‘Poof someone out of existence?’”

He nodded as he stood and walked around the desk. “Yes. It’s for the witches. They’re always trying to skirt the rules, so we designated a phrase specifically for their abilities.” He paused beside Jack and frowned at him. “I was thinking of implementing a few rules for you, as well.”

Jack shrugged. “The Agency tries to-”

“No, not the Agency, just for you,” Romero corrected him.

Jack grinned. “I’m flattered, Chief.”

“Don’t be.” The chief walked over to the door and grabbed the handle before he turned to the group. “Now come on. I would rather not deal with this thing any longer than I have to.”

Romero led them outside where they took a hard left down a hall that ran deeper into the station. He stopped at a door marked ‘Lockup’ and opened the entrance. They were greeted with a roughly-hewn stone staircase that wound its way in a tight circle downward. Electric lights along the damp walls led the way.

The group proceeded down the steps. Jack tilted his head back and swept his eyes over the stairwell. “This brings back memories.”

Nena averted the wet walls and glanced down at him. “You were arrested?”

“Only last month,” Romero spoke up. He glanced over his shoulder at looked at her with a glassy eye. “I hope you will not be the same.”

Jack chuckled. “Not this one, chief. She’s cleaner than a Rockwell scene.”

Chief Romero pursed his lips and turned his face away to stare ahead. They reached the bottom of the stairs and found themselves at a junction of two halls. One traveled to their left and right, the other lay straight ahead. Thick metal cell doors with tiny slots at the bottom lined either side of all the walls. Growls and groans emanated from some of the dark cells.

They took the forward path. “So how long have you had this thing?” Jack asked their guide.

“Three days,” Romero told him.

Jack arched an eyebrow. “You ever think about getting rid of it? These things aren’t exactly Terminal-friendly.”

They reached the end of the hall where the path opened to a small circular room. On the opposite side was a thick metal door without a slot. On the left of the door was a pad with a small angled cup half embedded into the pad.

Romero stopped beside the pad and turned to them with a frown. “I requested rune bullets for my men, but your boss won’t hand any over. We can only scrape together what your people leave behind, which isn’t much.”

Jack’s humor vanished as he turned his attention to the door. “If I’ve got any left after this remind me to give you some.”

“That would be much appreciated,” Romero replied as he faced the pad.

The chief knocked the bony part of his palm against the back of his head. His right eye popped out and into the palm of his other hand. Nina cringed while Jack arched an eyebrow. “You might want to get that looked at, chief.”

“This is the key to get into the maximum security cell,” Romero explained as he set his eye into the small cup.

The eyeball rolled a couple of times before it came to a stop at the bottom. The pad let out a small beeping noise and hidden metal parts clanked and groaned. The door creaked open and revealed a small darkened rectangular room with a one-way mirror on the opposite wall. On the left was a door that led into the circular room beyond the glass.

Romero plucked the eye from the ball and pushed it back into his eye socket.

“Do you use super-glue to keep that thing in?” Jack wondered.

“Magic,” the zombie told him as he stepped inside the room.

The others followed and the door slowly closed behind them, shutting off their main source of light. The greatest illumination came from the other room.

Romero gestured to the space beyond the glass. “There’s your Death Shadow.”