Undertow (The UnderCity Chronicles) (17 page)

Now, floating in a cloud of sleep, he reached for her. All he got was a rumpled sheet. He jerked awake. She was gone, and there was too much morning light in her room. He read the clock on her bedside table. Quarter past nine.
Shit
. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept that long without the aid of a pill.

He cocked his head to listen. Silence.

Jack pulled on his jeans as he took the hallway to the living room. The couch bed was already tucked away. No one except for that damn stuffed lion. Where the hell was she? Had she gone to work? Why, when she herself had said that they’d talk in the morning?

He stood in her empty apartment and in crept a paralyzing fear. She regretted last night. After all, she not tried to touch him afterwards. It was something he might do, not something he pictured Lindsay wanting. Then why had she even slept in the same bed with him? Fuck. He did not need these mind games.

He heard the key in the lock and hit the foyer at the same time the door opened.

“Where the hell were—?” He broke off when he saw who was behind Lindsay. Reggie was holding a cup of takeout coffee in each hand, one of which he shoved at Jack. The big man took in Jack’s bare feet and mussed hair, and his face lit up in congratulatory pride.

“Mornin', Jack! Slept well, huh? Had yourself some sweet dreams?”

Lindsay was at the closet, unzipping herself out of a fleece-lined suede jacket, uncovering a breast-molding sweater underneath. He kept his mind focused. “What’s Reggie doing here?”

“You know, Jack, you have this very silly habit of referring to people in your presence in the third person,” she observed. She shut the closet door and headed to the kitchen with a bakery bag. His stomach squeaked in longing for its contents.

Jack turned to Reggie. “What’s with her?”

“See what I mean?” Lindsay called over the clatter of dishes.

This was not what he’d planned. Not that he’d come up with anything solid. He needed to talk to Lindsay about last night. That wasn’t going to happen with Reggie here. He scowled at his best friend. “What the hell you doing here?”

Reggie squared himself before Jack. “What, no poor black folk allowed in Chelsea?”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” Jack growled. “I’m asking what you’re doing
here
.”

Lindsay popped her head around the corner. “I invited him. Come on. Let’s have something to eat.”

Jack stared at her. “You invited him? For breakfast?”

Reggie kicked off his boots and made for the kitchen, as if breakfast at Lindsay’s was an everyday occurrence. “Lindsay told me the Moles took Seline ‘cause they’re trying to get you back. She told me that you two were coming up with a plan and said I should be part of that.”

Jack’s coffee rose to the brim as his grip tightened on the cup.

“Nice place, Lindsay,” he heard Reggie comment. “You know I have a buddy who can get you some real nice stuff, real cheap….”

Jack simmered in the foyer as the two chatted on about décor, then made to follow them.

That’s when he heard a key in the lock and the door open as far as the chain would allow. “Yoo-hoo, Lindsay!”

Lindsay swept by him on her way to the door. “Janice!”

Janice was as he remembered her—a broad-hipped woman who wore color. Her full-length red coat opened onto a dress that looked ready to ignite. And her boots…her and Lindsay shopped the same places. She set down a grocery bag and gathered Lindsay in a hug, and took him in over her shoulder. He became acutely aware he was shirtless and in his bare feet.

“So you’re Jack Cole. All grown up.”

He stuck out his hand. “Yes, I am, and I remember you,” he said, hoping his politeness masked the fact that he looked like a beach bum. “I know I’ve changed but you haven’t aged a day.”

Janice made a sound that indicated she wasn’t big on flattery. She removed her coat. “Hang that up for me, will you Jack? I thought you two would like a surprise breakfast. That is, if you haven’t already eaten.”

Picking up the grocery bag, Janice headed for the kitchen, Lindsay trailing after her. While he did coat-check duties, he heard Janice meet Reggie.

“Oh… hello.”

“Janice, this is Jack’s friend, Reggie.”

“Would you look at the size of you? Good thing I got an extra carton of eggs.”

Jack cut to the bedroom and came to the kitchen, wearing a shirt and socks. Janice, spatula in hand, had taken note from which room he’d emerged. She tightened her apron strings and turned her back on him to fuss with the grill. Reggie gestured to the bar stool his ass wasn’t parked on. “Have a seat, Jack.”

He tried to catch Lindsay’s eye to get a read on how she was feeling but her attention was on applying cream cheese to toasted bagels. When she did look up, it was to ask, “Anyone for orange juice?”

“Sure,” Reggie replied.

“No,” Jack said. Beside him, Reggie whacked his knee against his own. “No, thanks,” he modified. He didn’t need etiquette lessons from a man who used his tongue for a dishcloth. What he needed to know was that he hadn’t messed things up with Lindsay. Even with Reggie and the mother hen here, she could at least look at him, smile, come close, anything except ask him if he wanted fucking orange juice. Or that was her answer: carry on as if nothing happened.

So he did. He picked up his bagel. “I'm guessing you and Reggie have discussed something already."

“No details, other than it involves kicking ass,” Reggie updated. “Apologies,” he added quickly in Janice’s direction.

“Heard worse, hon,” Janice said, above the sizzle of eggs and bacon. “Sounds like I’ve arrived right in the middle of something. Are you any closer to finding Seline?”

Jack pulled the bagel back from his mouth, muttering to Reggie. “Perhaps you remember what happened the last time a certain someone antagonized the Moles? We go down there with numbers and it’s going to be another massacre.”

Janice’s eyes darted from one to the other of them, finally settling on him. “What’s going on here? Moles? Massacre?”

Jack looked at Lindsay. He didn’t know what to say and he didn’t think it was his call. Janice followed his direction. “Lindsay? What is he talking about?”

Lindsay turned to face Janice. “Janice, we’ve found out who’s got Seline. Reggie’s here to help work out a plan to get her back and—“

“She’s been kidnapped?” interrupted Janice, eyes wide. “Well haven’t you called the police? For God’s sake, Lindsay, why are we standing here if she’s being ransomed?”

“She’s not being ransomed. It’s not that simple. There are these…things under the city. They’re the ones that have her.”

Janice clicked off the stove. “Things? Lindsay, listen to yourself. I don’t know what these two are trying to pull here, but if you know where she is then you need professionals. Police. Detectives. Not two miscreants looking to profit from Seline’s disappearance.”

Jack had had enough. Standing he planted his hands on the counter, his golden eyes flashing in anger. “I understand you mean well,” he growled. “The fact is you have no idea what you’re dealing with or who you’re talking to. Captain Monroe gave Lindsay my number because he knew I was the only one who could help, and I happen to have a fucking doctorate from Oxford. So I’m not going to be questioned by some big-mouthed, small-minded woman who thinks she knows everything just because she’s figured out how to work a search engine.”

Everybody’s jaws were practically on the floor. He wasn’t done quite yet.

“Now, if you want to help then shut your mouth and open your ears, because you’ve got a lot to learn before you get to have an opinion. And by the way, yes, Lindsay and I spent last night fucking. She’s a grown woman, and that was her choice. You’re in no position to judge either of us, got it?”

There was dead silence in the apartment for a moment.

“Okay,” replied Janice.

“Good. Now to recap: there are monsters under the city. We’ve learned that they captured Seline. No one will go down there, except for us. Now let’s move on.”

It was Reggie’s turn to venture speaking.

“We can do it. If nobody’s got the cajones to stand up to those freaks, then what’re they going to do next? The line’s got to be drawn, Jack. Lot of people look up to you. If you take on the Moles then they might, too.”

“If we go down there to fight, we’ll lose.”

“And if we don’t, Seline is lost,” Lindsay countered.

Jack dipped his head. That was the truth of it.

Janice turned the stove back on, busying herself with breakfast.

“We won’t lose if we come ready,” continued Reggie. “Sumptown’s got a whole arsenal Mr. Moore would lend us.”

Jack shook his head. “In case you haven’t been keeping count there’s only three of us, and Lindsay doesn’t know the first thing about tunnel fighting. Give her a gun and she’ll be more a danger to us than the Moles. Do I really have to tell you what a bad idea all this is?”

He really needed a coffee. He looked past Reggie to the pot and watched Janice drain the last of it into her mug. Figured.

Reggie took a healthy slurp from his steaming cup. “I know what you’re saying. Only with Lindsay’s dollars we could get ourselves some serious muscle. Killers that know how to fight in the dark.”

“Are you out of your mind? Who could we get that would be any good?”

Reggie stuck out his thick jaw. “Najib knows some people. Real hard cases, and tunnel folk, too. They’d go down with us if the money was right, and he told me we could drop his name. Anyway, we’ll need someone to help walk Seline out of there. Lindsay’s good for that.”

Janice divvied up scrambled eggs and bacon onto four plates, one of which got shortchanged by half. Surprise, surprise, that was the one she laid in front of him.

He pushed away his half-portion of breakfast, looking from Lindsay to Reggie and back again. Shit, they were serious. “No way.”

Reggie folded his massive arms over his chest. “No choice. We’re coming.” A glimmer of his golden smile appeared. “Lindsay said you know you can’t do it alone.”

Jack shot her a look. He’d bared his soul to her, confessed his need, and she’d told Reggie the very next day. What had she told him about last night? Had it all been a bit of fun for her? Who had used who for sex?

Her gaze drifted to him, a small smile on her lips. It dropped away the second she registered his expression. She shrugged and reached for the orange juice, topping up Reggie’s glass. Behind her, Janice scowled.

Fucking women and their mind games.

His gut, head and heart all felt as if they’d taken a pounding.

“Fine,” he growled. “But if we’re doing this then we do it my way. No questions, no complaints. Agreed?”

To his surprise everyone, even Janice, nodded.

* * *

When Seline first saw the moving shapes in the dark, she had put them down to hallucinations, products of her fear and isolation. Then she noticed that if she held her hand in front of her she could discern outlines. She’d been in the dark so long that her eyes had gradually adjusted, and were now able to perceive the minute amount of phosphorescent light that radiated throughout the chamber.

Since that discovery she’d detected the silent forms slipping past her regularly, though not often. If she could somehow ditch the collar, she might be able to escape during their absence. Only what then? It was insane to think she could ever navigate her way back to the surface in one piece. Even if she evaded her captors, there were the packs of carnivorous rats that prowled the deep tunnels. She wasn't a mile from the surface, and yet it might as well be a hundred for all the good it did her.

She was sitting cross-legged on her sleeping bag when another of the dark shapes came into view. Unlike the others, which had never stopped, this one silently approached her, pausing perhaps a dozen feet away. If her weak perception wasn’t deceiving her, it was smaller than the others.

“Hello?” she whispered tentatively.

She thought she heard it sniff.

“My name’s Seline. What’s your name?”

The shadow paced back and forth like an animal in a cage, then squatted down a few feet away to study her.

Seline wet her lips. “Please talk to me.”

A heavy silence hung between them, and Seline had concluded that this captor was as mute as its fellows, it made a sound. It was soft and rhythmic, and perfectly mimicked the drip of water. Astonished, Seline leaned forward , and the sound changed to the distant echo of a subway rumbling through the tunnels.

No wonder she hadn’t heard them. They could have a conversation ten feet away from her and she’d never realize it.

“I don’t understand what you're saying,” she said slowly. “Do you speak any English?”

There was no reply. The small form—it would probably come up to her waist—stayed put.

Could it be… a
child
?

“Don’t be afraid,” she soothed, trying to keep her voice steady. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not here to hurt anybody.”

It inched closer.

“Do you live here?” Seline asked. “I’m from the city above. That’s where I live.”

The small form tilted its head, as if listening.

“I have an aunt up there…more of a sister, and I really miss her. I know she must be very worried about me.”

For a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, neither of them moved, then cautiously it extended its hand to her.

Seline sighed with relief. If she could establish a dialogue with one of them, even a child, then they’d see she was no threat. Ultimately these were people she was dealing with, no matter how strange. And all people, especially children, could be reached.

Carefully, so as not to frighten the little shadow, she stretched out her open hand. A universal gesture of peace and friendship anyone could understand….

The thing seized her wrist, embedding black teeth into the soft flesh of her palm. Seline yelped and kicked out, but it was already gone, its skittering footsteps fading into the dark.

“Little bastard!” She clutched her bleeding hand and rocked back and forth, the pain of the bite excruciating. And despite her best efforts to remain brave, she let out a sob of pain, fear and frustration. Then her ears caught the sound of other scuttling footfalls. Many more.