“Right, right.” She walked back to me and began to pull up the hem of her shirt.
“Um, I’m not sure stripping down is the solution here, Scout.”
“Prude,” she said dryly, but when she reached me again, she turned around.
At the small of her back, in pale green, was a mark like mine—well, not exactly like mine. The symbols inside her circle were different, but the general idea was the same.
“Oh, my God,” I said.
Scout dropped the back of her T-shirt and turned, nodding her head. “Yep. So I guess it’s settled now.”
“Settled?”
“You’re one of us.”
14
Forty minutes—and Scout’s rifling through a two-foot-high stack of books—later, we were headed downstairs. If she’d found anything in the giant leather volumes she pulled out of a plastic tub beneath her bed, she didn’t say. The only conclusion she’d reached was that she needed to talk to the rest of the Adepts in Enclave Three, so she’d pulled out her phone, popped open the keyboard and, fingers flying, sent out a dispatch. And then we were on our way.
The route we took this time was different still from the last couple of trips I’d made. We used a new doorway to the basement level—this one a wooden panel in a side hallway in the main building—and descended a narrower, steeper staircase. Once we were in the basement, we walked a maze through limestone hallways. I was beginning to think the labyrinth on the floor was more than just decoration. It served as a pretty good symbol of what lay beneath the convent.
Despite how confusing it was, Scout clearly knew the route, barely pausing at the corners, her speed quick and movements efficient. She moved silently, striding through the hallways and tunnels like a woman on a mission. I stumbled at a half run, half walk behind her, just trying to keep up. My speed wasn’t much helped by my stomach’s rolling, both because we were actually going into the basement again—by choice—and for the reason we were going there.
Because I was her mission.
Or so I assumed.
“You could slow down a little, you know.”
“Slowing down would make it harder for me to punish you by making you keep up,” she said, but came to a stop as we reached the dead end of a limestone corridor that ended in a nondescript metal door.
“Why are you punishing me?”
Scout reached up, pulled a key from above the threshold, and slipped it into the lock. When the door popped open, she put back the key, then glanced at me. “Um, you abandoned me for the brat pack?”
“Abandoned is a harsh word.”
“So are they,” she pointed out, holding the door open so I could move inside. “The last time you hung out with them, they put you in the hospital.”
“That was actually your fault.”
“Details,” she said.
My feet still on the limestone, hand on the threshold of the door, I peeked inside. She was leading me into an old tunnel. It was narrow, with an arched ceiling, the entire tunnel paved in concrete, narrow tracks along the concrete floor. Lights in round, industrial fittings were suspended from the ceiling every dozen yards or so. The half illumination didn’t do much for the ambience. A couple of inches of rusty water covered the tracks on the floor, and the concrete walls were covered with graffiti—words of every shape and size, big and small, monotone and multicolored.
“What is this?”
“Chicago Tunnel Company Railroad,” she said, nudging me forward. I took a step into dirty water, glad I’d worn boots for my shopping excursion, and glad I still had on a jacket. It was chilly, probably because we were underground.
“It’s an old railroad line,” Scout said, then stepped beside me. Cold, musty air stirred as she closed the door behind us. Somewhere down the line, water dripped. “The cars used to move between downtown buildings to deliver coal and dump ash and stuff. Parts of the tunnel run under the river, and some of those parts were accidentally breached by the city, so if you see a tsunami, find a bulkhead and make a run for it.”
“I’ll make a point of it.”
Scout reached into her messenger bag and pulled out two flashlights. She took one, then handed me the second. While the tunnels were lit, it made me feel better to have the weight in my hand.
Flashlights in hand, we walked. We took one branch, then another, then another, making so many turns that I had no clue which direction we were actually moving in.
“So this mark thing,” I began, as we stepped gingerly through murky water. “What is it, exactly?”