I didn’t think the pair of camping lanterns in the room were there as nursery night-lights. Whoever was responsible for having Ollie strung up like a side of baby food beef had wanted him able to see what was going to eat him.
That was enough to send me scrambling to my feet.
Ollie was still wearing the absurdly expensive suit he’d had on the last time I’d seen him. My little British friend didn’t look too much the worse for wear. He was bald as a cue ball due to his toupee presently sitting in SPI’s break room. He had some cuts and bruises, and his suit was beyond all dry cleaning help, but other than that, not bad. However, the noises coming from behind Ollie’s gag were simultaneously enraged and impatient. My movement and Ollie’s squealing caused a chorus of ravenous chittering as every last grendel spawn started clawing and biting at the insides of their eggs, desperate to get to us. To add to my terror and sensory overload, Roy was yelling at me from inside my own head.
“Mac, do you read? Dammit, girl, talk to me!”
“I’m here.” Now how to describe where here was, but more to the point, who I was here with?
As far as I could tell, the narrow room I’d landed in was cement—walls, floor, ceiling—with the exception of the way I’d come in. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the bottom third of a wall of six-inch-thick concrete. Other than Ollie and the eggs, the narrow room was empty, but it was obvious that it hadn’t always been. There were metal brackets that looked to have once held cables against the wall, and what appeared to be big fuse boxes, rusted and empty now. I flipped on my helmet’s high beams. The ceiling was high, about twenty foot worth of high. I had no idea what the room had been, but now it was a grendel nursery.
The way I’d come in seemed to be the only way out. There had to be another one. I’d had to shuck my armor to fit down that shaft. There was no way Ollie had come down the same way I had, and there was no chance he’d go up the way I’d come down.
I had a problem; though actually, the problem was worse for Ollie. The ropes that held him suspended above the nest had been rigged up with a pulley system anchored in the ceiling. The only way to get him down would be to cut him down. I didn’t know how much pressure it’d take to pop one of those eggs, but I suspected Ollie’s weight would more than do the trick. Unfortunately, it probably wouldn’t be enough to squash the grendels inside.
“Are the eggs there?” Roy was asking.
“Oh yeah, but tell Rolf we can’t use grenades.”
At the word “grenades,” Ollie’s muffled scream rose into a not-so-muffled shriek.
Silence from Roy. Then, “Why the hell not?”
“The eggs have company.” I paused and tried to do a quick count. I gave up at thirty. “More than thirty eggs about to hatch, and Ollie’s hog-tied overhead as baby food.”
“Shit.”
“My thought exactly, sir.”
I gave Roy and the others the basics of my dilemma. Though what to do wasn’t the dilemma. Chucking a grenade down that shaft wasn’t the only thing that was officially off the table; so was leaving Ollie behind to be eaten.
Ian’s voice came over the comms. “Mac, where’s the door?”
“Don’t see one. No vents, ducts, or anything.” That couldn’t be right. There was air in here, and it was moving. What was coming off that pile of eggs smelled like the backwash off a hog farm, but there was something else in the air. It didn’t smell that great, either; but it was familiar.
Damp and garbage. Problem was, that particular combination of aromas could have applied to anywhere in the city.
I shone my headlamp at the corner of the ceiling where the pulley holding Ollie off the nest was mounted. The air seemed to be coming from there. Then I saw it. A metal grate about three foot square with water dripping from it. There was a metal ladder bolted to the wall, but it started at the grate and only extended halfway down. Far too high for me to reach. I’d seen nearly identical grates on the sidewalks near subway stations. Trains passing on the tracks below would send up blasts of air and noise. I wasn’t standing above a subway station, but Calvin did mention something about . . .
“Ian, tell Calvin I think I might’ve found that abandoned subway station.”
Ian’s voice cut in and out then dissolved into static. I couldn’t make out a word he said, and Roy sounded like he was talking to me from the bottom of a well. “. . . are . . . way . . . do not go . . . wait . . .”
Then silence.
Oh hell.
I scrambled into the hole in the wall and stuck my head up the shaft to get the signal back.
Nothing but a lot of dark and silence.
“Hello?” I called up the shaft.
No answer.
The shiver started at the base of my neck and ran clear down to my toes.
If they’d been attacked, I would have heard something, wouldn’t I? Unless they’d been overwhelmed by grendels, ghouls, and spawn, and torn limb from—
Stop it. They’re fine. You’re going to be fine. If everything up there got carried off to hell in a handbasket, you’re not gonna do yourself or Ollie any good by hitching a ride along with them. I took a deep breath. It’s not a problem, Mac. They’ll find you. You’ve got a tracking chip in your . . .
Armor that you’re no longer wearing.
Dammit.
Either something in this room simply affected my reception, or the signal was being deliberately jammed. It didn’t matter which it was, both meant I was on my own until reinforcements arrived. And they would arrive.
Unless they didn’t.
My eyes went to the eggs which were starting to look more like a pile of giant Mexican jumping beans. The egg closest to me had two slits that hadn’t been there half a minute ago. A pair of claws appeared through the slits, and the baby monster slashed its way through the membrane that was keeping it from being first in the chow line.
Ollie was having himself a panic attack, and I was about to join him.
As far as I could tell, whoever had strung Ollie up had opened the grate, run the rope through the pulley, then lowered him until he was right above the nest. I couldn’t reach the ladder on the wall, unless . . . I did some quick thinking. I had an idea. It might work, it might not, but it was the only idea my brain was giving me right now.
If I could cut Ollie down, I could pull down the rest of the rope that he’d been hanging from, Ollie could boost me up enough to reach the base of the metal ladder. I’d pull myself up, tie the rope to the ladder for Ollie to climb . . .
I stopped and snorted. Ollie shimmying up a rope? Might as well ask him to sprout wings while I’m at it. But the rest of my plan was entirely doable—unless I got to the top of the ladder and the grate was locked, welded in place, or it was too heavy to push up. It was pitch-dark up there, so I didn’t know what I’d be climbing into . . .
“But if you don’t do something and stop flapping your jaws,” I snapped at myself, “you’re gonna get eaten.”
Motivation found.
No, Ollie wasn’t the athletic type, but I think he’d find his inner mountain climber real quick if not climbing that rope meant being eaten alive. If a mom could lift a couple tons of car off her child, Ollie could haul his ass out of a concrete bunker.
Though none of that was gonna happen until I cut Ollie down.
I didn’t know how much Ollie weighed, but I knew once I cut that rope, he’d come down. Fast. Smack-dab in the middle of that nest.
Not if the nest wasn’t there, said the little voice in my head. You know the one. The voice responsible for telling your buddies, “Hey, y’all, watch this!” after drinking vast quantities of alcohol, and before doing something guaranteed to land your ass in the hospital. But just because I didn’t want to move the eggs didn’t mean that it was a bad idea. Actually, it was a very good idea. There were about thirty of them. Two dozen, plus a few extra. If they were chickens, it’d be less than three cartons.
Screw it. Just pick up the damned eggs, Mac.
Yeah, I was wearing gloves, but if one of those grendels picked the next two minutes to hatch, they’d bite through them like casings wrapped around sausages. I grabbed the egg closest to me, the one with the two claw slashes. If I put it on the bottom of the pile, I could bury it under its siblings. The grendel inside squirmed frantically to get out. I squeaked and ran and put the egg on what looked like a trash heap in the corner. It took every bit of control I had not to raise that squeak to a scream. On the next trip, I grabbed one egg in each hand. It doubled my urge to scream, but it’d get the job finished faster. After the fourth trip, the grendel squeals got louder, and my carrying turned into tossing and kicking.
After the last eggs left my hand and boot, and I had a landing pad for Ollie.
I took one look at Ollie’s panic-stricken face and decided to leave his gag in for the trip down. The last thing either one of us needed was for the little British guy to go into loud and vocal hysterics the moment his mouth was unstoppered. Just because anyone hadn’t popped in to introduce themselves as our captors didn’t mean they weren’t close by.
In response, Ollie went red in the face and squealed in indignation.
“Shut up!” I whispered emphatically.
I’d definitely made the right choice by leaving that gag in.
Suddenly the grate over our heads was lifted off. I doused my light and flattened myself against the wall—for all the good it’d do me.
Someone or something in black rappelled down into the room from the now-open ceiling grate.
I got my gun in my hand—the real one.
“Mac!” came an urgent whisper. Ian’s whisper.
With shaking hands, I holstered my gun and started breathing again. I’d damned near shot my partner.
A couple of seconds later, Calvin followed Ian down.
I stepped away from the wall. “How did you find—”
“Not now.” Ian unhooked himself from the rope, and quickly attached my harness to it. He looked up and gave a quick nod to Yasha and Rolf leaning over the edge of the grate opening.
