A Perfect Blood

“I think I sprained my ankle,” I said, nauseated as I put a hand to the wall and slowly stood. “He’s got my gun, too.”

Jenks hovered before me, a green tint to his dust as he looked at his best garden sword, the pixy steel snapped at the hilt. I eased my weight to my injured ankle, and hissed, jerking it up again. “You want to call it?” Jenks said, and I glanced at the mouth of the tunnel.

The memory surfaced of Winona fighting Gerald as he stripped her, and Chris dancing in delight as the curse made with my blood twisted her into a monstrosity. Eloy’s slurs and misplaced superiority made my eyes crinkle in renewed anger. My pulse hammered. I wanted him. I wanted him bad.

“Hell no,” I said, and Jenks threw his broken sword at the wall. It made a sliding ting as it hit and fell, and I felt bad for him even as he darted to the mouth of the upward-facing tunnel, more determined yet. Hobbling, I managed the few steps to the shaft and looked up into the dark. The end of Eloy’s makeshift rope dangled, looking too thin to support my weight. “He climbed that?” I said, and Jenks went up and down like an impatient yo-yo.

“It’s only five feet. Then it goes at an angle.”

Five feet. Straight up. My upper-body strength wasn’t that bad, and I reached for the makeshift rope. The sticky lacework clung to me, and I started to feel a little better. The slimy rat had kicked me when I was down. Took my gun. Tied me up with my own zip strip. Made Jenks break his sword. It was enough to make me wish that Trent had given me a charm to turn people inside out.

I could hear thumps from the shaft, and knowing no one—not even the mysterious alpha or beta teams— would be guarding the other end of the air shaft, I tensed my arms and started up. “Move it, witch!” Jenks shouted, and I swung my body weight, trying to get my good leg up to help support my mass.

Jenks was right, and I found the other end of the weird rope stuck to the wall of the shaft where it made a sixty-degree angle and sloped upward. My ankle wasn’t hurting as badly, and panting, I wiggled my way up, hitting my shoulder on the wall as I struggled.

“Good God, Rache,” Jenks swore, hovering an inch before my nose as I lay in the shaft and tried to catch my breath. “Think you can make any more noise?”

“He knows I’m coming,” I wheezed. “Get out of my way,” I added as I got my arms in front of me and started dragging myself forward on the flats of them. I didn’t know what I was going to do without my gun, but I drank in the line as I went, filling my chi again with the line tasting of earth and ice-rimmed moss. Jenks hovered for a moment, then darted ahead. Slowly the shaft grew dark, but it didn’t matter. There was only one way to go.

The shaft was only two feet tall, and about as wide, made of dark metal, and claustrophobic. The edges where it was soldered together were thick, looking like someone had been in a hurry as I dragged myself over them. If this was a Turn-instigated shelter, then it had probably been constructed in a matter of months. The shaft could come out anywhere, but I bet Eloy had a car waiting already. He was that kind of planner. Who had given him the gun when he escaped from Glenn? Who had cut his zip strip?

A sudden commotion ahead of me brought my head up, and I waited a breathless moment as I heard Eloy shouting, thumps, and Jenks’s laughter. I gathered myself to surge forward, and the pixy was back, grinning. “What did you do?” I said, and he landed before me, dust spilling from him bright enough to read by.

“I got your gun back,” he said. “He had it stuck in his waistband in the back, and he couldn’t do anything when I shoved it out and dragged it off him. Dumb place to put it, if you ask me. It’s up about twenty feet, waiting for you. He might scoot backward to get it, but I doubt it. He knows you’re coming. He still has his pistol.”

And maybe four bullets. “Thanks,” I wheezed, feeling renewed hope as I resumed inching forward, dragging my lower body along. My ankle throbbed, and I ignored it. I wanted my gun. The shaft was rising at a steeper angle, and I could smell cold cement. Slowly the sounds of Eloy’s passage faded, and I pushed myself into moving faster. The shadow of my gun slowly appeared, and I grabbed it, my knuckles scraping as I crawled forward with it in my hand.

Frustrated by my pace, Jenks walked before me to light his way. There was a crash from somewhere ahead, and I froze, feeling the weight of the earth press on me. “Hold on a sec,” Jenks said, and he darted ahead again.

The tunnel grew dark. My ankle still throbbed, but I pushed on, arms aching. I heard Jenks before I saw him, an excited red to his dust as he slid to a stop, inches before my nose. “He’s out!” he said, and I blew the hair from my eyes. “That was a grate popping off. It opens up into a sewer line or something. You’re almost there. Hurry your little witch ass up!”

“Swell,” I breathed, thinking someone had made a mistake. You don’t have an air shaft empty into a sewer, even if there was negative airflow. “You think you could slow him down?” I panted as I tried to move faster.

He gave me a thumbs-up and darted ahead. The air suddenly smelled a lot fresher, and I thought I saw a patch of lighter darkness ahead. I could hear cars, and I wondered how far I’d crawled. A city block? “I’m going to smack you so hard you won’t wake up until next week,” I whispered as I pushed myself the last few feet. “Making me crawl through a pipe. God!”

Heart pounding, I managed the final span, carefully poking my head out past the broken grate hanging from one twisted chunk of metal. I was about five feet above the floor of what looked like a subway tunnel, lit by a thin strip of streetlight coming in through a grate, almost even with me on the other side of the wide cement tube. Eloy was nowhere to be seen.

“Holy crap,” I whispered, looking up at the rumbling sound of traffic overhead. We were under Central Parkway. This wasn’t a sewer line, but the old subway system, or what was left of it. It figured they’d use it for a bioshelter during the Turn.

I looked down at the five-foot drop. I had to take it headfirst, but if Eloy could do it, so could I, and hearing Eloy’s sudden oath and Jenks’s laugh, I slowly wiggled into the lighter darkness, reaching for the ground. My hips started to slide out, and I tossed my gun to the cement an instant before I fell.

The ground rushed up, and I stifled a gasp, palms and arms taking most of the impact. My shoulder hit, and I rolled, tucking my head so I wouldn’t crack my nose open. The stink of wet cement hit me as I sucked in my breath and tried not to cry out. Everything hurt, and holding my elbow, I tossed my hair from my eyes and looked for my gun.

“Hurry!” Jenks said, looking frazzled as he hovered before me. “If he gets out onto Central Ave., he’s gone!”

I reached for my gun. Jaw clenched, I staggered to my feet, trying not to put too much weight on my foot. At least I could stand now. My boots were tight enough to give some support, but it still hurt like hell.

Jenks flew beside me, braver than I was for doing the same thing with no sword to back up his words. The street noise grew louder, the sunlight leaking through dimmer. The tunnel ended in a wide stairway, and the quick flash of sunlight followed by a thump of metal on metal made me lurch forward.

“Wait!” Jenks whispered, almost in my ear, and I hesitated. That slow, rasping noise started again. Eloy was still down here, and I put my back to the wall beside the stairway, trying to catch my breath and regroup. He had a pistol. Trent’s charms didn’t last very long and could be circumvented by simply avoiding eye contact when they were invoked. Frowning, I pulled my remaining zip strip from my boot and left it in the dirt. I’d have to bludgeon Eloy into unconsciousness and sit on him until Jenks could get help.

I smiled, liking the idea.

Heart pounding, I peeked around the wall and saw Eloy at the top of the stairway. The man had his back hunched as he stood under a door set flush with the ground, like a root cellar, pushing it up with his back to make a crack big enough to get his hand through, but little else. It was hard to see with only the dim sunlight leaking in, but it looked like he was trying to saw through a chain. Where in hell had he gotten the saw?

I ducked back and met Jenks’s eyes. He grinned at me, and I grinned back. “I take the high ground, you take the low,” he said, and I shook my head.

“You’re compromised without your sword,” I whispered, and he scowled. “I need help. The radio is off. We’re fighting HAPA. Go get Glenn. Tell him where we are. I’ll keep Eloy busy until you get back.”

“I’m not going to leave you. You’re compromised, too, you stupid-ass witch.”

God, I loved hearing him call me that. “Get Glenn!” I insisted, awkwardly shifting my weight. “Even with my gun, I can’t bring him down by myself. As you say, I’m compromised.”

Jenks’s face tightened, but he nodded. “Can you just stay alive for the next five minutes?” he said, and lifted up and away, his wings a bright flash as he found the sunbeam and followed it out.