Inside the Shadow City (32 page)

I looked down at the photo of a stunning woman dressed in royal robes. Standing by her side was a tall man in a military uniform. He smiled down at an infant cradled in his arms. I turned the picture over to find the inscription
Sophia and Her Family
written on the back.

The floorboards outside my bedroom creaked, and I tucked the little book under a pillow.

“What's taking you so long?” Kiki Strike stuck her head through the door. “Don't tell me you forgot where you hid the map.”

“No, I've got it,” I said. For a moment, I found myself unable to move.

“Well?” Kiki demanded. “What is it, Ananka?”

“Nothing,” I said, ignoring a little voice that was whispering in my ear.

• • •

The green blip on the tracking device grew stronger as the Irregulars slinked through Chinatown. According to Oona's watch, it was one thirty in the morning. At the corner of Bayard and Elizabeth streets, Kiki grabbed Luz's arm.

“How close do you think we are?”

“The building's got to be nearby. It's probably around the next corner,” Luz answered.

“Okay, ladies,” Kiki called out to the rest of us. “The street's too dangerous here. We're going to have to travel across the rooftops,” Kiki said. “The buildings here are so close together, we should be able to step from one to the next.”

“I don't know. That sounds pretty risky,” said DeeDee.

“We'll be fine,” I told her. “When these buildings were built, the streets were far more dangerous. People used to travel around on the roofs all the time. If you lived on the top floors, you only went downstairs if you had to.”

Kiki scanned the street, then pointed at a run-down tenement building across the street.

“Do you think you can pick the lock on that door?” she asked Oona.

“You're kidding, right?” Oona marched over to the building. Within seconds, the front door was standing wide open, inviting us inside. We climbed a set of steep, rickety stairs, kicking trash and cockroach carcasses out of our way.

“I can see why people stayed on the roof,” said DeeDee, struggling to catch her breath as we neared the sixth-floor landing.

At the top of the stairs we opened the door to the roof and stepped out into the nighttime air. The smell of tar was overwhelming, and our feet stuck to the ground as we moved.

“This way,” Luz directed us, pointing east. We quietly stepped over the low walls that separated the roofs of half a dozen buildings and ducked under clotheslines draped with damp sheets that floated like ghosts in the breeze. Finally, we stood at the edge of a building, looking down on Bayard Street. A streetlight illuminated the entrance to a warehouse where four men stood smoking cigarettes and chatting. To the casual passerby, the scene would have appeared perfectly innocent. Kiki took out her binoculars.

“Have a look.” She passed the binoculars to me. One of the men had a telltale bulge beneath his jacket.

“They're armed,” I said. “And a couple have dragons tattooed on their arms.”

“That means they're members of the Fu-Tsang gang,” said Oona.

“I guess we're not going in through the front door,” noted DeeDee.

“We wouldn't stand a chance,” said Kiki. “What about the building, Ananka? Does it have an entrance to the Shadow City?”

“The building has an entrance, all right. Look, you can still see our logo stamped on the sidewalk. The problem is, we nailed the trapdoor shut. This is Oliver Harcott's
warehouse—the place where we found the counterfeit shoes. There's a secret room under the building. That must be where they're hiding the girls.”

I flipped through
Glimpses of Gotham
.

“Here it is,” I said, placing my finger on a passage I had highlighted two years earlier. “Pearcy Leake heartily recommends a visit to the Jade Monkey Salon, located on Bayard Street but also accessible through the Shadow City. It says it was an opium den that was secretly owned by one of New York's finest families.”

“How appropriate,” muttered DeeDee.

“So that's where they're holding Betty and the Princess?” asked Oona.

“That's my bet,” said Kiki. “Which means we'll have to take them out through the Shadow City.”

“But how are we going to get back into the Shadow City?” DeeDee wondered. “The Marble Cemetery's boobytrapped, and we don't have any gas masks.”

Realizing what she had just let slip, DeeDee bit her lip and we all looked nervously toward Kiki. None of us had told her about our efforts to keep her out of the tunnels.

“You booby-trapped the Marble Cemetery?” Kiki asked. “To keep me out?”

“Well, you did lie to us about being Augustus Quack-enbush's granddaughter,” said Luz defensively. “What did you expect us to do?”

“I guess I thought you might trust me,” sighed Kiki Strike. “But it doesn't matter now. It's a good thing I know another way into the tunnels.”

We followed Kiki to Greenwich Village. At three o'clock in the morning, we reached Bethune Street. The
Princess's house sat at the end of the block, its windows dark. I would have expected a flurry of activity and perhaps a police car or two. But the Princess's mother didn't seem to know her daughter was missing. Kiki walked up the stairs of a brownstone three doors down from the Princess's house. I noticed a little golden
i
stamped on the sidewalk, and I realized it was the same house we had escaped from two years earlier.

“I can't pick that lock.” Oona pointed to a sticker in the corner of one of the windows. “They've installed an alarm system. The police would be here in no time.”

“Believe it or not, Oona, there are other ways of getting inside a building.” Kiki knocked at the door.

Several seconds later, the door opened and a little head popped through the crack.

“Hello, elf,” said a cheerful face.

“Hi, Iris,” replied Kiki. “Are your parents still out of town?”

“They won't be back from Borneo 'til next week,” said the little head.

“And the nanny?”

“Sleeping off a bottle of tequila and a half-dozen wine spritzers. Want to come in?”

We stepped into the foyer of the brownstone. The walls were covered with ceremonial masks, and two shrunken heads sat propped on a little table next to a stack of mail. The door shut behind us, and a girl wearing pink pajamas embroidered with ladybugs stepped forward to greet us. She was almost as small as Kiki had been when I first met her, with hair only a shade or two darker. In fact, her resemblance to the young Kiki Strike might have been
uncanny if it hadn't been for her healthy complexion and hazel eyes.

“Ladies,” said Kiki, “this is Iris McLeod. Iris, you remember the Irregulars, don't you?”

“Sure,” said Iris, stepping forward to shake our hands. “They're kind of hard to forget.”

“You can't be the little girl on the stairs,” said Oona. “She was just a baby.”

“It's been a long time. People grow up. I'm eleven now,” huffed Iris, who seemed a little offended.

“What's with the masks?” asked Luz.

“My parents collect them,” said Iris. “They're anthropologists, experts on cannibalism. My dad thinks the masks keep burglars away.”

“So how long have you two known each other?” I asked Kiki.

“About a year now,” said Kiki. “Iris helps me out with a few things.”

“I keep an eye on the neighbors,” added Iris enthusiastically.

Kiki shot Iris a disapproving look. “She's usually more discreet.”

“Sorry,” said Iris. “I guess you guys are here to see the basement. It's this way.”

Iris guided us down a set of stairs and into a basement that reeked of mildew.

“We haven't been able to get rid of the smell since the flood,” noted Iris.

“We're really sorry about that,” said DeeDee.

“Oh, don't worry,” Iris laughed. “If you ask me, it was all worth it.”

She walked over to an empty trunk that sat against one wall of the basement. She heaved it to the side and studied the floorboards beneath it for a second.

“The handle's around here somewhere,” she said.

“Wait, Iris, let me …,” insisted Kiki, stepping forward to raise the trapdoor. But Iris had already reached down and grasped an upturned board. As she struggled to open it, her fingers slipped and she fell backward into Kiki, who stumbled a few steps before she tripped over the trunk. As she fell, Kiki's backpack flew across the room, its contents spilling out along the way. A roll of duct tape bounced across the floor and came to a stop at my feet.

“I'm sorry,” Iris said quickly, rushing to help Kiki gather her things. Kiki ignored her as she shoved her possessions into her backpack. “I'm really sorry,” Iris tried again.

“This is serious business, Iris. You've got to start thinking before you do things.” Kiki threw her backpack over her shoulder and returned to the trapdoor. As she pulled upward, a section of the floor rose, revealing a hole beneath.

“The Shadow City,” murmured DeeDee.

“Are you sure you're feeling up to this?” I asked.

“You don't have to go if you don't want to,” added Oona.

“Of course I'm feeling up to it,” DeeDee insisted.

“I'll go!” offered Iris.

“Forget it, Iris,” Kiki told her.

“But it was an accident!” pleaded Iris.

“We can't afford any accidents tonight,” said Kiki as she flipped her flashlight on.

“Next time,” I whispered to Iris.

“Ready?” Kiki barked at the rest of us. I saw the others nod solemnly. “Okay, then. Let's go.”

And with that, Kiki dropped into the darkness.

Anyone who regularly watches the local news may have noticed a curious fact. Each time a bank robber, kidnapper, or garden-variety bad guy is hauled out of his house in handcuffs, there's always a group of neighbors milling about who swear that they never noticed anything unusual. As far as they knew, the man who knocked off the local Stop & Shop was just an average upstanding citizen who took good care of his lawn.

After seeing so many surprised neighbors, you might come to the conclusion that criminals are an exceptionally clever bunch. But that's simply not the case. Neighbors rarely see anything strange because they just aren't paying attention. A good detective, however, makes a habit of looking for the clues that other people miss.

Open Your Eyes!

Most people walk through the world in a daze, seeing only what they expect to see. They never bother to notice that the mailman never stops at the house down the street or that the shades in one of its bedrooms are always drawn. The fact is, most clues are hidden in plain sight. All you have to do is keep your eyes peeled and never assume that there's a harmless explanation for everything you see.

Know that Little Things Can Mean a Lot

Even everyday objects can offer important information. For instance, if you were to find an ordinary fountain pen at the scene of a crime, you might conclude from the bite marks around the top that the owner was either a nervous nellie or desperately trying to quit smoking. By examining the tip of the pen, you might be able to determine whether the person was right- or left-handed. And if the ink in the pen were a pale shade of purple, you would know that the owner had a bit of a flamboyant streak.

Listen for What People
Don't
Say

In many cases, the subjects that people avoid are far more interesting than the ones they choose to talk about. Has the new girl down the street never mentioned what her parents do for a living? Perhaps you should find out. Does she try to change the subject whenever you ask where she lived before she moved to your town? If a subject is off limits, there's bound to be a reason.

Read Their Body Language

People communicate far more with their body than they do with words. Often a person will say one thing while his body tells you the opposite. And while you can't always trust the things people say, their bodies never lie. A good way to teach yourself to interpret body language is to watch television with the sound off.

I was the last of the Irregulars to make the descent into the Shadow City. Iris closed the trapdoor from above, and the weak light that had guided the others down the ladder was suddenly extinguished. All I could see were the beams of four flashlights flickering like fireflies far below me in the darkness. Each time my feet searched for another rung, my heart pounded hard and fast against my chest. Dizzy with fear, I prayed that my sweaty fingers wouldn't lose their grip.

I reached the bottom and immediately grabbed for the flashlight tucked into the waistband of my pants. My eyes followed its spotlight as it illuminated one small section of the room at a time. Stacked high along the walls were simple wooden boxes, each filled with dozens of bottles labeled
Angus McSwegan's Finest Scotch Whisky
. There must have been hundreds of boxes and enough whisky to give half of Manhattan a vicious hangover. Judging by the skeleton slumped in one corner of the
room, Angus McSwegan had guarded his fermented fortune to the very end.

“Okay, ladies,” said Kiki Strike. “We're not here to enjoy the scenery. We've got to move fast. There will be no sightseeing this time. Without our uniforms, we're extremely vulnerable. So it's there and back again—nothing more. Got it?” She shined her flashlight in each of our faces, searching for signs of opposition. She wasn't going to get an argument from any of us. Oona was chewing nervously on one of her nails. DeeDee's scar was flushed, and little beads of sweat had appeared on her forehead. Even Luz had momentarily forgotten she was angry at Kiki and was nodding along in agreement.