Fear Her Wrath III: It Runs on Blood

Chapter 6

The journey through the dark sewers beneath Marbrose City seemed to take twice as long as usual. I was nervous. Well, maybe "agitated" would be more accurate. My mission tonight was the culmination of weeks of work by me and my allies. It was Fatima's idea, originally. When I'd told her and Hazel about Eugene Rothko's machine, she immediately realized that it would need a significant amount of electricity to function—enough that it should be noticeable to anyone who bothered to look. I'd assumed it was just drawing on the city's own power grid, but that theory was demolished when businessman Jacob Florian, a known ally of Don Montagnese, met his abrupt demise in nearly exactly the same way as councilman James Greenwald had two months earlier. I recognized the coded language used in the press reports, and instructed Ellie to look for recent fluctuations in the city's power grid, but nothing came up. That, as Fatima pointed out, meant the machine had its own generator, separate from the city. After weeks of exploring tunnels near the Dreyfuss Hotel and poring over old architect's plans in the city archives, we finally located what we were sure was the source of the machine's power. The plan was simple: blow it up. It could take months for them to get things back in working order, and in the meantime, the machine would be gathering dust beneath the Dreyfuss, useless to Don Montagnese and his friends in city hall.

It was a good plan. Provided I didn't mess it up.

"This is where your journey ends, soul of wrath," rasped the Psychopomp as we approached the stone staircase that rose from the murky water of the abandoned Bellamy sewers. It was impossible to tell this deep underground, but we were only two blocks from the Dreyfuss Hotel, at the place my guide through this forgotten underworld called "the Mouth of the Styx."

"Thanks," I said as I leapt out of the boat. "Um, don't go too far, okay? I'm gonna need to leave in a hurry."

The chthonic ferryman didn't answer as he pushed off into the darkness. I watched him until he disappeared in the gloom, then set out for my destination.

The obscure maze of sewers, service tunnels, abandoned subway tracks, and forgotten basement vaults beneath Marbrose City held many secrets. It was practically a rite of passage to explore them, although most kids made it only a few meters into the dark before they panicked and ran screaming back to safety. At least, that was what I did when me and my friends tried it back in 7th grade. It wasn't just the scary stories, or the rats, or the unpleasant smell. You could easily get lost—permanently lost—in this cold, gloomy underworld. Even the hobo punks that lived in the tunnels beneath Vice Mile didn't know all of its hidden caverns. That was why the Prioress always carefully plotted my route whenever I ventured through the Bellamy sewers.

Getting lost forever in the murky dark was not my preferred way to go.

I felt the delicate crunch of dried rose petals beneath my feet as I walked along the dark passage, but I wasn't following them this time. I passed by the turnoff that led to the Barclay Continental Steam Plant and turned left into a narrower passage that followed a cluster of rusted gas pipes northward. I felt the bricks in the walls rattle as a subway train passed about twenty-five feet overhead. Squeezing through a gap in the wall, I found myself in a slightly larger tunnel lined in concrete that ran almost parallel to the first one. I was on the right track.

"Right at the hole in the wall," I told myself, repeating the instructions Ellie had drilled into me just in case we lost the connection. "Fifty meters to the turn, then you're there."

I zapped a rat carelessly with my electro-staff as I rounded the final turn and found myself at a dead end. Blocking my way was a round door of Nirosta steel in the same style as the one beneath the Dreyfuss, but smaller, and less than half as thick. That meant that, if they were measured out and placed with the utmost care, a series of small (but very powerful) explosives could blow the door from its hinges without bringing the tunnel down with it. Emery had only my description of the door to work with, but she was confident it would work.