approached. A few seconds later, I could see its headlight. I walked down the platform, away from the entry, like I wanted to get on the train near the driver.
The attendant stood and folded his chair. As soon as his back was to me, I vaulted the fence and scrambled behind one of the old trolley cars. The last train rolled into the station, brakes screaming, and slowed to a halt. I heard the doors slide open and footsteps cross the platform. Warning bells bonged, and the doors slid closed. The train revved, then pulled away from the station. I waited, rubbing my right wrist. Even with the splint, I’d hurt it again climbing over the fence. A shapeshifter can heal a broken bone within a day or two, but not if I kept reinjuring it. I needed to be more careful.
Within two minutes the station was silent. I crept along between the antique trolley cars and the wall, until I stepped into the tunnel beyond the display. The tunnel curved to the left; a triangular head poked around a corner on the right. Kane was waiting for me. He stood in a narrow corridor that led back into the station, coming out behind the stairs. Roxana had said part of the tunnel served as an emergency exit; Kane had discovered the easy way in.
As we moved farther into the tunnel, I pulled out a silver knife and held it ready in my left hand, my fingers tight on the grip.
The tunnel was a narrow, arched passageway, just big enough for a trolley to clear the walls. Lights, spaced every twenty feet or so, cast a yellow glow over the concrete. The old track was still embedded in the floor, but the place was swept clean. Nothing about the tunnel suggested a hidden lair for the ancient undead. It looked like what it was: a clean, well-maintained emergency exit.
Even so, I got that squeezed-in feeling, the weight of the walls and ceiling pressing on me. It wasn’t as bad as crawling into Deadtown the back way or being stuck deep in a pitch-black slate mine, but the constant pressure made me crave air and space.
Kane went first, and I was happy to let him lead, with his sensitive nose and keen hearing. He’d be able to smell trouble before it leapt out snarling at us.
Regularly spaced, arched indentations appeared along the walls. The indentations were both narrow and shallow, no more than a foot deep. Perfect for a worker to squeeze into when a trolley passed, but lousy for hiding. Good. The fewer hiding places here, the better.
When the curve straightened out, I could see a long way down the lighted tunnel. There was nothing that looked like a hiding place for the Old Ones.
We went swiftly but cautiously through the tunnel. After a few minutes, we came to some stairs leading upward. It was the emergency exit, heading toward street level and safety. Beyond it, the tunnel stretched into darkness.
The walls crowded in a thousand times more closely.
I glanced up the brightly lit staircase, then squinted into the dark tunnel. Kane was already so deep into the shadows that I couldn’t see him. I took the flashlight from my pocket and flipped it on. I pointed the beam straight down at the floor, trying to keep the light as unobtrusive as possible.
A paw appeared in the circle of light at my feet, and then Kane ducked his head into the beam and gazed up at me. I’d never thought of wolves raising their eyebrows, but that was his expression. And I knew what he was thinking: that I could wait here, in the light, as he checked out the tunnel and reported back.
“No,” I whispered, “we stay together. I’m fine.” Kane could probably hear my heartbeat from where he stood, a riotous thumping that sounded anything but fine. “Give me a second.” Okay, so the lights stopped at the emergency exit. I had a working flashlight. And even if it failed, I wasn’t alone. Kane was here. His eyes shone with intelligence and loyalty, telling me I could rely on him.
I willed my heart to calm down. When it slowed to something like its normal rhythm, we stepped past the emergency exit staircase, beyond the light. Kane continued in the lead, and I stayed close behind him. The narrow tunnel’s walls and low, curved ceiling pressed more heavily with the weight of the darkness, and each breath required conscious effort.
It was slow going. Like the lights, the tidily swept floor ended at the exit, and I had to watch carefully so I didn’t trip on the tracks or the debris that covered them in this part of the tunnel. Every few feet, Kane would pause and look up, his ears straining forward, his nostrils working to sift through the scents ahead. Then he’d put his nose back to the ground and keep going.
I couldn’t smell anything besides mold and the old dust that covered every surface. But that was the scent of the Old Ones, that deep, underground scent of ancient decay. I stayed on edge, unable to tell whether I was smelling an old, empty tunnel or a black-robed, fanged monstrosity about to attack.
Yet nothing did attack. We reached the end of the tunnel without finding any sign of the Old Ones. At the far end, a huge pile of cans, ranging in size from soup cans to ten-gallon barrels, was heaped up against the wall almost to the ceiling. It looked like debris from a landslide. I shone my flashlight on a label. Pear halves. Judging from the dusty, peeling condition of the label and the rust that marked the seams of the can, it was decades old. There were cans of other fruits and vegetables, crackers and biscuits, and drums marked POTABLE WATER. I didn’t think it would be all that potable now.
Homeless settlement? Fallout shelter? Whatever this tunnel had become after it was closed, these supplies had long outlasted whoever had carried them in. I sheathed my knife. The Old Ones weren’t here.
As we backtracked to the emergency exit, the pressure lessened. We were on our way out.
By the exit, I turned off the flashlight, happy to stand again in the lights of the emergency exit. I set my foot on the first step, but Kane leapt up in front of me and blocked my way.
“What?” Fresh air and open sky were calling me, and I was eager to say hello.
He jumped down the stairs in a bound and pulled at the back of my sweater.
Reluctantly, I stepped back into the tunnel and turned around. “Why can’t we go? Did you spot something?”
He stared at the tracks. I did, too, looking for a secret switch or something that might open a hidden door, like the door to Axel’s guest room. I didn’t see anything like that, but after a minute I realized what Kane was trying to tell me. There was only one set of tracks.
“This tunnel has room for just one train. There must be an old track on the outbound side, too.” Kane yipped and ran along the lighted tunnel. After a longing glance up the stairs, I followed him.
Since Boylston Street Station was closed, we could hunt for the other tunnel without anyone bothering us. I was glad the station attendant hadn’t turned out the lights when he went home. The platform was deserted. We walked along the tracks a little way, then crossed to the outbound side. At the end of the platform, we squeezed around a gate and into another disused tunnel. No lights here. I pulled my knife again, shone my flashlight straight down to the floor at my feet. A little ways into the tunnel was a door marked PUMP ROOM. Cautiously, I tried the handle. It was locked. Kane spent a long time sniffing around the edges of the door, but eventually he continued down the tunnel. Although we followed the tracks to the end, we found nothing else besides dust and scattered debris.
No Old Ones here, either.
We crossed back to the inbound platform and followed the route to the emergency exit. This time, we took the stairs to the street-level door. When I pushed it open, an alarm sounded at the same moment the cool night air hit my face. It took only a second to get my bearings—we were on Tremont Street near the Wang Theatre—and move quickly away from the clanging exit toward Deadtown.
“Just to make sure,” I said to Kane as we walked. “You didn’t scent Juliet in there, did you?”
He shook his head.
“Myrddin?”
Another shake.
“What about the Old Ones?”
He stopped and sat on the pavement. He reared up and lifted his shoulders in a canine approximation of a shrug.
“Not sure, huh?” I could understand that. The entire subway system smelled like an age-old tomb.
Kane nodded, and we continued our progress toward Deadtown.
Although the night was chilly, the breeze blowing from the Common felt warm, carrying smells of spring, of
