Shadows of New York (13 page)

“Uh, no.” Steve looked confused. “Uh, why?”

“Larry Fancypants?” Rosemary asked, dropping Steve’s hand and clapping both of hers together. “I love Larry Fancypants!”

“Yeah, he’s great,” Aiden said hurriedly to Rosemary. To Steve, he answered, “Because I need to talk to him.”

“About what?” Steve still looked puzzled.

“Can he come over?” Rosemary begged.

“Maybe later,” Aiden told Rosemary. To Steve he said, “Because I think he might know something about…our shadowy nemesis.”

Steve blanched beneath his freckles.

“What’s a nesmaniss?” Rosemary asked Aiden.

“Where is everyone?” Aiden asked Rosemary. He had just noticed how quiet the apartment was, especially for a Saturday.

“Mom went running,” Rosemary ticked the family members on her fingers as she spoke. “Jackson is in his jogging stroller with Mom. Dad is working in the study. Mrs. Effigy went to the farmers’ market, and the boys are
still sleeping
!”

“Oh,” Aiden said then turned to Steve. “Do you have any idea where Larry might be?”

“I...I might,” Steve said.

Without another word, Aiden turned and moved toward the foyer, motioning for Steve to follow. “Are we going there
now
?” Steve asked as he hurried to catch up.

“Yes,” Aiden answered.

“To Brooklyn?”

“If that’s where we might find him, yes.”

“But it’s just an old abandoned subway tunnel. He might not even be there. Are you sure you want to go
right now
?”

“If there’s even the slightest chance Larry might be there, that’s where we’re going,” Aiden said as he pulled open the door to the utility closet and grabbed a flashlight.

From somewhere behind him, he could hear Rosemary yelling, “Why won’t anyone tell me what a nesmenenis is?”

Not wanting to waste time with the subways, they took a cab. As much as he fought against it, Aiden was asleep before they had gone two full blocks. He woke with a start as Steve punched his shoulder and said, “We’re here.”

Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, Aiden looked around. They were in downtown Brooklyn, all right. It was pretty far from Larry’s usual stomping grounds.

Aiden paid the cabbie and followed Steve out to the sidewalk.

“So where next?” he asked Steve.

There was a pause before Steve pointed out into the middle of the busy intersection. The only thing out there that Aiden could see was a manhole cover.

“Are you sure about this?” Aiden asked Steve, eyeing the manhole skeptically. “It doesn’t exactly seem like a Larry kind of place to hang out.”

“I know, man.” Steve shuffled his feet. “But I could swear this is the place I heard him talking about.”

“Who was he talking to?”

“I don’t know. He was…he was on his phone.”

Aiden needed to ask Larry some questions before Cleo let anything slip to Siegfried about the game. He sighed and said, “Okay, let’s do this.”

The two men waited for a break in traffic and then went to the intersection. They eased the heavy manhole cover off. For some reason, Steve happened to have a collapsible orange traffic cone in his pocket, which he set up in front of the now-open hole.

“Uh, do you always have one of those on you?” Aiden asked.

“It’s a leprechaun thing,” Steve answered, looking discomfited. He pulled out a little red plastic lobster, a bright yellow tennis ball, and a roll of blue tape. Answering Aiden’s puzzled expression, he said, “I have to have a representative of each of the visible colors on me at all times.”

Aiden didn’t know as much about leprechauns as he thought he did. “Right. I’ll go first.” He clicked on the flashlight and descended the old, rusty ladder into the dark hole, a mixture of panic and determination coursing through him.

The ladder wasn’t as long as he’d anticipated. “It’s only about ten feet down,” he called up to Steve, who came down the ladder while Aiden illuminated it for him.

They stood side by side in a cramped earthen tunnel. It was so small that Steve had to stoop. Scanning the space with his light, Aiden saw that the tunnel ended at a concrete bulkhead about fifty feet away. An old metal door was set in the bulkhead. “Let’s check it out,” he said, turning to Steve. He noticed an odd look on his friend’s face, one he couldn’t quite place. Aiden chalked it up to nerves.

“Wow, people used to be a lot skinnier, I guess,” said Steve with an anxious-sounding chuckle. The door was only about two feet wide.

Aiden pulled at the door, which refused to budge. It was open a crack, maybe an inch or two, but would go no farther. He looked at the hinges closely and saw that they were rusted solid in that position. He handed his flashlight to Steve and, with a grunt, placed his fingers in the sliver of space between door and frame and pushed against the bulkhead with his feet. After a minute or two, he gave up.

“Think it through,” Aiden muttered to himself. “How to get in…how to get in…”

“Wolf?” asked Steve tentatively.

“Wolf,” said Aiden with a nod.

Thirty seconds later, Werewolf Aiden was having just as much success as Human Aiden. With one last harsh snarl, Aiden became human again and said, “Forget it. If I can’t get through there, I don’t think Larry can.”

Steve stood rubbing his chin, looking at the door as if the solution was right in front of them if they would only look at the problem the right way. “How would your father have solved something like this back on the farm? Like, if a tractor got stuck?”

“Depends. If it was in mud, he’d try to wedge something under the tires for traction. There was one time that a barn partially collapsed so that the door was only something like three feet high. He ended up cutting out a huge chunk of wall so that it would fit out.”

“So if we can’t fit through the door, we take out the door.”

Aiden continued staring at the door. It was heavy and it was metal, like something you’d find on a battleship. The concrete around it, however, was flaky and chipping.

Looking around, Aiden found some old machinery that looked like it had been lying there since the 1800s. He picked up a thick piece of tarnished metal and took it back to the door, using it as a makeshift club and striking the concrete as close as he could to the door frame. With each swing, small bits of concrete flew.

Aiden hacked away, talking to Steve in between swings. “I don’t know” (
smash
) “why” (
smash
) “we’re so” (
smash
) “intent” (
smash
) “on getting in here.” (
smash
)

“Yeah, I know,” said Steve, timing his words, like Aiden, in between crashes. “It doesn’t look” (
smash
) “like he’s here.” (
smash
) “We can take off” (
smash
) “if you want.”

With a shake of his head and another series of swings, Aiden indicated that he was getting through that door no matter what it took. He justified this to himself with the thought of finding Larry. A little part of him, though, told him that he was just tired and angry and wanted to smash something.

It took a good twenty minutes, but Aiden chipped away at enough of the concrete so that the door, with an ear-splitting crash, pulled free from the wall and fell forward.

As they went through the opening in the bulkhead, a wider, taller tunnel met their eyes. A rough set of wooden stairs led down to this larger area’s dirt floor. Going down the steps, followed closely by Steve, Aiden looked around by the light of Steve’s flashlight. The walls were made of large cut stones fitted together with mortar. The domed ceiling was of brick. The floor, where two sets of old railway tracks remained, was scattered with debris. There was no sign of life, not even any rats.

“This place is pretty cool,” Aiden said, “but I’m starting to seriously doubt that Larry would come here.”

Almost before he finished speaking, he could see, in a far bend of the tunnel, the mere hint of movement. Aiden crouched, senses kicked into overdrive, as he scanned the tunnel ahead. All he could detect were Steve’s quiet footsteps behind him as he backed away.

“Larry?” Aiden shouted. His voice came back at him, echoing from all sides. Larry, if he was present, didn’t answer.

Taking a few tentative steps, Aiden reached the outer range of the flashlight that Steve held. If he went much farther, he’d be walking blind.

“Stay right there,” he called out to Steve. “I’m going to wander a little, but I want to be able to find my way back to the door.”

“Okay.” Steve sounded a lot farther away than he should have.

Aiden wasn’t much better off than if he were walking with his eyes closed. There was one thing that he could do that might help. The wolf. Taking a deep breath, he felt the familiar sensations (itchy face, sweaty armpits, and hunger for raw meat) that always accompanied his transformation.

Moments later, his vision became somewhat better. When he was in very low light, the wolf vision allowed him to see almost like it was daylight. The problem was that, other than Steve's distant flashlight, there was no light at all. He could see only shadows overhead, where he knew the brick ceiling must be curving high above. He could see the tunnel itself running off into the distance, fading into a black that was far deeper than that surrounding him. He could see long, dark shapes on the floor, stretching away from him, their edges shimmering as if they were shadows cast by a flickering candle. The only problem was that there was no candle, and it was far too dark for any shadows.

If his wolf vision wouldn’t do the trick, there were always the other senses. Aiden closed his eyes and focused on his ears. It didn’t help. All that he could hear was a faint scratching noise. It was so quiet that he wasn’t sure that he heard it. By comparison, the sound of his own heart sounded like someone beating on a bass drum.

It was his sense of smell that finally convinced him that something was there. Even before transforming, the tunnel was ripe with the smells of age and decay. As a wolf, they became even stronger, almost overwhelming. Only after focusing on individual smells, not everything all at once, did he pick out something alive. He inhaled deeply and realized that there were two, maybe three somethings. Big somethings. Big somethings low to the ground, approaching him stealthily.

* * * *

“Morning,” Josh said, poking his head into the study, where his dad sat at the computer.

“Good morning, buddy,” his dad replied. “Nice hair.”

Josh reached up and could tell, by touch, that he had some major bedhead. “Where’s Mom?”

“Jogging with Jackson. You guys hungry? You almost slept till lunchtime.”

“We can get something.”

“Okay. Just let me know if you need any help.”

Josh went across the hall to the kitchen, where Nick was already pouring himself an overflowing bowl of Mallow Mateys. Nick knew that Josh’s mom didn’t allow sugary cereal and that Mrs. F-G sometimes had weekends off, so he usually brought his own breakfast when he slept over. “Want some?” he offered.

“Sure.” Josh grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and loaded it up with marshmallowy goodness.

They sat at the island, silently shoveling it in, until Rosemary floated in from the dining room on a wave of Celtic music. “Whatcha doin’?” she asked.

“Eating breakfast,” Josh answered. “Duh.”

“Wanna have a dance party?” she directed at Nick.

“Uh, no thanks,” he said, a scared look on his face.

“Everyone is so boring,” Rosemary pouted. “Dad is working. Mom is running. And Aiden and Steve went to some tunnel place in Brooklyn to look for Larry Fancypants.”

Josh’s spoon clattered to the island. He turned on his stool to look at Rosemary. “They went
where
?”

“I don’t know, some old tunnel. Aiden was looking for Larry, and Steve thought he might be there.” She wrinkled her nose. “Who’d want to go to a stinky old subway tunnel, anyway?”

Josh felt a surge of panic. From what he’d seen in the game last night, and the weird vibe he’d gotten from Larry before, he had a bad feeling about Aiden confronting him. He had to help Aiden, but had no idea how.

Just then, from the hallway, came the sound of the apartment door opening and footsteps heading for the kitchen. Mrs. F-G appeared in the doorway, arms laden with canvas bags full of fresh produce.

“Josh, dear, what’s wrong?” she asked, spotting the worry on his face.

“Can you take me to Brooklyn?”

“Brooklyn?” Mrs. F-G didn’t look too happy about the question. “Anywhere in particular? And why?”

For a second, Josh contemplated making up a fake story on the spot, as Aiden seemed to do so well. After a couple of blank seconds, though, he gave up. He hurried over to her and said quietly, “Aiden went off chasing Larry because he thinks there’s some connection between Larry and Mr. Midnight and, I don’t know, something’s just wrong.”

“Larry and Mr. Midnight?” She looked more confused than upset. “Why in the world would he think that? I mean, Larry’s certainly not what I’d call—”

“Please, can we go? Now?”

“Well…” She gave him another long look. “All right. We’ll drop Nick off on the way.”

“Cool. Nick, grab your stuff. We have to go. Now.”

“What? Now?” asked Nick, spitting a few chunks of semi-chewed marshmallow onto the counter.

“Now.”

“Do you have any idea where we’re supposed to go?” asked Mrs. F-G, as she put the produce away in a rush.

Josh felt his plan start to unravel. There was probably more than one subway tunnel in Brooklyn. Mrs. F-G simply nodded and said, “That’s okay. I’ll find him if you finish putting away the groceries.” She left the room. Josh stared after her, wondering what sort of things she could predict besides the perfect meal.

Josh was alone in the kitchen when she returned. Nick was gathering up his stuff, and Rosemary had twirled away to pester their dad. Mrs. F-G came back with a laptop just as Josh put the last box of orzo pasta in the pantry.

“The phone your parents gave Aiden can be tracked,” she said as she navigated a series of screens. “Looks like he’s…at an intersection. He’s been there for a few minutes.”