Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2) (59 page)

On the long Chesterfield, Henry and Ling lay perfectly still, dreaming, while Mabel and Jericho kept watch silently. Mabel took one of the soggy watercress sandwiches from the stack wilting on the fancy plate. Already she’d turned away several angry partygoers at the door. It spelled doom for the museum, though that seemed a moot point now.

“What do you suppose they’re dreaming?” she asked, nibbling a corner of sandwich.

“I don’t know.”

“I hope they’re all right down there.”

“I shouldn’t be here. I should be with them,” Jericho said, and some dam gave way inside Mabel.

“So you could look after Evie?” she asked, looking up at Jericho.

Jericho turned back to watching their sleeping friends. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to. Was it after Knowles’ End or before?”

Jericho kept silent, but the muscle at his jaw tightened.

“I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” Mabel said, pushing the rest of her sandwich aside. Black spots danced before her eyes as she fought back stinging tears. “Why did you kiss me, then, if you prefer her?”

“It isn’t as simple as that,” Jericho said.

Lightning flashed at the windows. Harsh light streaked across Mabel’s fists. She could see every freckle on her skin. He’d chosen Evie. It didn’t matter that Evie was liable to break his heart, that she could
never care for Jericho the way Mabel did, or that Mabel had volunteered her time to help with the exhibit. It didn’t matter that Evie could have any boy she wanted, and would.
He’d chosen her.
The realization sucked the air from Mabel’s lungs. Every day, Mabel Rose worked to make the world a little fairer. But the hard truth was that there was some unfairness you couldn’t do anything about. You couldn’t make a boy like you just because you liked him so very much. And tonight, as she’d watched Jericho with Evie, she knew the truth: Jericho was in love with Evie. Did Evie know? Had she known all along, even as she had encouraged Mabel and given her advice?

God, she was such an idiot.

And she hated this dress. Evie had been wrong—it didn’t suit her disposition at all. That was just the way Evie wanted to see her. The way everyone wanted to see her: Good old Mabel. Reliable, predictable Mabel. Chipper Mabel.

When she got home, she was going to burn this dress.

Jericho indulged in his odd habit of making a fist and releasing it. Mabel had found it eccentric but charming before. Now it grated on her.

“Would you like some coffee?” Jericho asked.

It was a peace offering, Mabel knew, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. She shook her head.

Jericho crossed the room and poured himself a cup of coffee he didn’t want or need. The truth was that Jericho wanted Evie but wasn’t sure that he could have her. He could have Mabel but wasn’t sure that he wanted her. Neither scenario made him feel very good about himself. More than ever, he wished he had someone to explain his emotions and girls to him, to help him figure out how you knew when it was right.

“I kissed you because I wanted to,” Jericho answered after a while.

“Are you just being kind?”

“No. That’s the truth.”

“If you want to kiss me again, you can,” Mabel said. “But only if you really want to. I’m not Evie. I never will be.”

Jericho reached over and took her hand, and her stomach knotted. What did that mean? Was it brotherly affection, or some deeper passion? It was not a kiss; that much was clear.
It’s over
, her mind whispered.
There’s still hope
, her heart insisted. What was it Jericho had called it—the opiate futility of hope? Well, right now, Mabel wanted to be drunk on it.

On the couch, Ling sucked in a thin thread of air. Her fingers stiffened, then softened again.

“Is she all right?” Mabel asked mechanically.

“I think so. We should probably keep close watch,” Jericho said, breaking away.

“Of course,” Mabel said, hating that he was right, hating that she was all wrong.

In the ruin of Beach’s pneumatic train station, the growling whine was everywhere. The strange, bright things uncoiled and dropped to the dusty tracks. The way they moved—twitching and lurching, followed by lightning-quick bursts of adrenaline—was like watching wounded animals determined to survive.

“
Dreamdreamhungryhungrydream…
” they chorused.

They seeped out of the cracks in the walls like cockroaches. Memphis counted five, ten, a dozen at least. It was ten feet to the gate. Memphis held tightly to Wai-Mae’s bones. With the other hand, he laced his fingers through Theta’s.

“Run,” he said, and the four of them bolted across the dusty platform and burst through the gate. Behind them, the wraiths growled their displeasure.

“Which way back to the station?” Theta screamed.

“This way.” Memphis swung his light to the left and stopped short. He thrust his arm out to hold back the others, then carefully shone the beam forward again. A ghostly woman in a blue dress was caught in the hazy light. Her head whipped in their direction. She sniffed. Her upper lip curled, revealing jagged teeth.

“Don’t move,” Memphis whispered. “Be… perfectly… still.”

The girl in the blue dress took one stumbling step forward, sniffing again. She swayed unsteadily. And then her mouth opened with a shriek. Other shrieks answered, the roar of an unholy army.

Sam flicked his flashlight to the right. The long corridor appeared empty. “Other way,” he yelled, and they ran deeper into the underground.

“I don’t want to say I told you so,” Evie said, her voice bumping with the movement. “But I did, in point of fact, tell you so.”

“Save your breath,” Sam panted. “You’re gonna need it.”

Memphis glanced over his shoulder at the greenish wisps flickering between the underground arches. A pack of them was weaving toward them, jerking and twisting. Their terrible barking grunts rang down the tracks. A warning. Or a call for reinforcements.

“Watch it!” Memphis called, yanking Sam back just before his boot went under the wooden covering of the third rail.

“Thanks, pal,” a shaky Sam managed. “I coulda been cooked.”

“Don’t thank me yet. There’s miles of tunnels down here. Plenty of places for those things to hide.”

“Keep moving,” Theta insisted. “I can see a station up ahead. Gotta be Brooklyn Bridge.”

The bright lights of the station bounced before their eyes as they ran. They were close. A sound like claws clicking across a tile floor made the hair on Sam’s neck tickle. He looked up. Nothing. But just to his right, about three steps ahead, some movement caught his eye. He flashed his beam to the space between arches. Up high, a wraith hissed and scurried down the subway wall in a backbend, like a giant spider, its fingernails clacking against the tile, loud as tap shoes. It hissed again as it dropped to the tracks in front of them. A stuffed rabbit dangled from its ghostly hand.

“What. Is. That?” Theta said, stopping completely.

“It’s a kid,” Memphis said. “It’s just a kid.”

“Was a kid,” Sam corrected, backing away. “Some kind of… demon now.”

“All children are demons,” Evie said, breathing heavily. “This is precisely why I always refused to babysit.”

“Shut up, Evil,” Theta said in a terrified whisper.

The night was alive with shrieks and growls and deep-throated calls, a demonic chorus drawing nearer. In front of them, the little girl
unhinged her mouth. Blood dark as midnight coursed down the deep cracks lining either side of her mouth; she was like a hungry animal sensing prey.

“Oh, that is uncalled for,” Evie whispered in terror.

The ghostly little girl lunged, jaws snapping, but her coordination was off. She tumbled, face-first, onto the tracks. In that split second, Memphis yanked Evie out of the way, tugging her toward the Brooklyn Bridge station. From the tracks, the thing that had been a little girl turned her head toward them, sniffing. Shrieking, she chased after Memphis and Evie. The other things were visible in the tunnel, flickering against the darkness, cutting off any chance for Sam and Theta to follow.

“Come on,” Sam said, leading Theta across the tracks and through the pillars to a connecting tunnel.

“But Memphis—”

“We can’t go that way. Theta!” Sam insisted. “It’s this way or we’re dead.”

Reluctantly, Theta watched them go and raced alongside Sam as they headed into the tunnels, away from Memphis and Evie.

Memphis and Evie climbed onto the platform at Brooklyn Bridge station, pushing through the new coin-operated turnstiles, past the relic of a wooden ticket chopper, and headed straight for the empty ticket booth. Memphis wrenched open the door and pushed Evie inside, following on her heels. He slammed the door and locked it. The glowing wraith was nowhere to be seen. But in a moment, her small hands crept over the edge of the platform as she pulled herself up, crawling forward quickly, like a bug.

“I had a friend back home, Dottie, who was double-jointed, and I thought it was the berries. But that is truly hideous,” Evie whispered.

“Shhh,” Memphis cautioned.

The wraith child sniffed twice, then threw herself at the iron
grating of the ticket booth. With a shout, Evie and Memphis fell back against the wall of the tiny space. The wraith’s arm pushed through the tiny cut-out at the bottom where change was made daily. And then it squeezed itself through like a snake.

“I. Hate. Ghosts!” Evie screamed. She yanked open the door and pulled Memphis after her as they ran up the steps toward the street. The first staircase ended in a corridor that branched left and right.

“Which way? Which way?” Evie cried.

It didn’t matter. At both ends, the wraiths were coming. And from below, the little girl had begun her ascent.

“Get behind me,” Memphis said, sweeping Evie back with his arm.

“I want to tell you not to be noble, but I’m terrified,” Evie said.

“Me, too.”

Instead, Evie came around and stood beside Memphis, holding his hand.

“I really wanted to be somebody,” Evie said, her voice catching.

The wraiths were closing in. The little girl had reached the top of the steps. She was a foot away. Evie could smell the rot on her and see the deep, dark gashes in her glowing skin. She wanted to shut her eyes but was too afraid. Memphis squeezed her hand.

The thing that had once been a little girl stepped very close to Memphis and inhaled deeply. She shrank back, hissing. She let loose a spine-chilling howl. The others answered. Memphis and Evie stood perfectly still. The girl slunk back down the steps, down into the dark, sniffing for other prey.

“Why did it do that?” Evie whispered.

“I don’t know,” Memphis whispered back. He glanced down the corridor, left and right. “They’re not moving. Let’s run while we can,” Memphis said, and Evie didn’t have to be asked twice. They kept alert as they inched up the next set of steps, not making a sound until they broke out onto the rain-soaked streets, and then, as the pounding rain washed over them, they let loose the screams they’d held back. People passing by under the cover of umbrellas stared at them as if they were lunatics. One woman covered her mouth with a gloved hand. “Dear
me,” she said, and it was only then that Evie realized she still held Wai-Mae’s skull in the crook of her arm.

“We’re performing
Hamlet
,” Evie said, tucking the skull inside her coat. “Every evening at eight, and a matinee on Sunday.”

“Do you see Theta?” Memphis asked, whipping around in circles.

“Perhaps they got out first, and they’re already on their way to the graveyard,” Evie answered.

“I don’t want to leave without Theta.”

“I’m not going back down there,” Evie said. “We said we were going to Trinity Church. They’ll know to meet us there. The sooner we bury these bones, the safer we’ll all be.”

Rain coursed over Memphis’s worried face. “You certain about that?”

“I’m not certain about anything anymore, Memphis.”

Memphis gave the underground one last, woeful glance. He held the bones tightly to his chest. “It’s about six blocks to Trinity. We’d better hurry.”

“Time for your second act, Yorick,” Evie said, holding fast to the skull as she trotted after Memphis in the rain.

Sam and Theta had run north, coming out in a tunnel under construction, and the way ahead was a dead end, blocked by debris, steel and wood scraps, pipes, giant drills, and digging equipment. Sewer water and runoff from the storm streamed into the tunnel via a pipe. Already the water was up to their knees.

“Sam, stop!” Theta called, doubled over. “Where are Memphis and Evie?”

“I-I don’t know,” Sam gasped, holding a hand to his side where it ached. “But we gotta get outta here.”

“How? It’s a dead end, and those things are behind us!” Theta said. Her eyes searched the claustrophobic space for a weapon, and she decided on a section of pipe, which she wielded like a bat.

Sam pushed through the fetid water to a set of rungs jutting out
from the concrete wall. He peered up. “I think this ladder leads to a manhole and the street!”

Theta pushed against the water, moving toward the wall. She stopped suddenly.

“Theta, hurry!”

Theta shook her head. She gripped the pipe tightly. “Something moved. Under the water.”

Sam held perfectly still. He swept his flashlight beam across the murky brown water. “Nothing. It’s okay. Just keep moving.”

Theta took another step and stopped again. The water’s surface buckled; a glow came up from underneath, rippling out in waves. And then the wraith broke through, rising up in front of Theta, blocking any hope she had of reaching Sam and the ladder. It was big, well over six feet, and broad, with the build of a bricklayer or ironworker. Its eyes were milky, as if it had not seen light for a very long time, but its teeth were needle-sharp, and that mouth… that mouth opened with an unnatural elasticity, dark, viscous drool coursing down over a chalky jaw. And that sound—as if all the demons of hell were singing.

Theta’s throat constricted, forcing her breath out in short, shallow puffs. Fear tightened its grip on her, and a sense memory arose—nights spent listening for Roy’s boots banging up the steps, Theta staring at the turning doorknob, stiffening her body in anticipation of the blows.

“Theta,” Sam shouted. “Hold on!”

But Theta couldn’t really hear Sam. It was as if she were in danger of floating away, out of her body, away from fear and pain, the way she used to do with Roy, like a child crooking a finger inside her and showing her the way to a hiding closet. She was vaguely aware of Sam lunging, swinging the knife at the wraith’s broad back, vaguely aware of the knife sticking fast but having no effect. Her body shook as Sam thrust out a hand, screaming, “Don’t see me,” but the broken thing lurched toward Theta, undaunted.

“
Dreamdreamhungrydream…
” it said in that garbled, satanic voice.

The lamp on the front of the thing’s digger’s helmet flickered in Theta’s eyes, hypnotic keystrokes of light.

Roy’s voice rang in her head:

Where’s my dinner, Betty Sue? Were you flirting with that boy, Betty Sue? I saw you. Don’t lie to me. You know how I feel about lies.