face. He clears his throat. Tries to get his growl on, sound as much like Sorago as he can manage.
“Detonate,” he says. “Over.”
Candlefly hears it and laughs.
He punches the button.
Vithra leaps over the quad. It passes underneath as he hits the ground again.
Trailing behind are a dozen sticks of dynamite. Connected to the braid of det-cord.
There’s a sizzle. The cord burns.
The man that was once Konrad Zoladski is caught in a wave of fire. Hot white heat hits him like a tractor trailer. But there’s something else, too – an intricate cage the color of bronze. It breaks apart, spears of metal tearing through him–
And with it, a howling specter. A face, familiar. Casimir. His grandson. (Is he even Konrad Zoladski anymore?) The specter is a torn ribbon, a rain of knives, a howling mouth and a thousand eyes. Wraith-hands, hands of wrath, plunge into his mutated flesh and rend it asunder and fire fills the gaps.
Then the wave of white is gone, buried in darkness as the lights go out and the tunnel crashes down around him.
A fresh wave of smoke blows in, but the giant fans, running on generators, push it back. Burnsy sighs. “She was a good girl, that ride. God bless America.” He holds his hand over his chest and stands stiff.
“Guess we timed it right,” Nora says.
Burnsy drove the quad forward, the accelerators held down with electrical tape – he bailed off the back soon as he got it going in a straight line.
Skelly leans against the wall, exhales a heavy breath. “Are we done?”
They listen. No more bestial sounds from the dark.
“Think so,” Mookie says. It feels like his voice is coming back. The venom is still in him, but his heart is picking up the pace. Returning to the normal drum-beat he hears in the hollow of his head.
The radio crackles.
“What happened? Who is this? Over.”
Candlefly’s voice. They share a look. Mookie grabs the walkie with a numb hand, uses the meat of his palm to press the button.
“You’re damn right it’s over,” Mookie says. “All your buddies are dead, Candlefly. Tunnels One and Two are intact. You should run. Because I’m going to come for you soon as I see daylight. And when I find you, I’m going to tear you into hunks like a piece of fresh bread, and I’m going to dip those parts of you into your own blood.”
Then Mookie drops the walkie and stomps on it.
“Did you really need to stomp on the radio?” Burnsy asks.
Mookie shrugs. “Felt good.”
“Let’s find our way out of here,” Skelly says.
Water Tunnel #3 is collapsed. No way to get past it. And no Boss-thing corpse in sight. Down here it’s dark, and they’re thankful Burnsy brought a pair of headlamps.
Mookie directs them toward another bolthole. It will take them back out, he says, toward the Canal Street station. They walk for a while in the underground. They don’t talk. Occasionally they hear the wail and gibber of a goblin in the distance.
A sound, it seems, of the madness born of mourning.
As they walk, Nora starts to feel it. She almost forgot, almost felt normal.
But then–
It’s just an itch, at first. A twinge in her belly. Then a tickle over her flesh like the tiny legs of a thousand ants dancing. Anxiety begins to crawl up inside of her. Soon it’s more than that; it’s full-bore panic, scrabbling and slamming itself against the walls of her mind. Sweat pours out of her. Her mouth is dry as a desert wind. Her hands curl into claws; the muscles in her legs start to clench and cramp.
They get to an old rusty door with a cracked wire-frame window.
A subway train blasts past on the other side. Lights strobing.
Mookie goes to open the door.
She cries out.
He stops. Turns. The headlamp light shines bright in her eyes. She can’t see his face, but he can see hers and she wonders how she looks. If it’s half as bad as she feels–
“What’s wrong?” he asks, pulling her close.
“I can’t… go.”
“What?”
“I can’t go with you. Out… up. Back.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
She stifles an unexpected sob. “I’m… different. I belong here.”
“Nobody belongs here,” Skelly says. She pulls Nora close, but Nora draws away – her touch feels like burning. “Nora, whoa–”
“Oh, God,” Nora says. “It was the mushrooms. Wasn’t it?”
“You’re on mushrooms?” Skelly asks.
Burnsy steps past. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What mushrooms?”
“We found the Death’s Head,” Mookie says. “It’s a mushroom. She was… dying. Dead. I gave it to her…”