“This place used to be a café.”
The others leaned around William to better hear Gracie’s whispers. He said, “A what?”
“A place where people came for drinks and food. They were utterly pointless. They served drinks no one needed and food that had little nutritional value, but tasted nice. Apparently”—she pointed at the wall of booths—“you’d go into that pod, and those machines had small screens on them. You’d pick what you wanted from the screens, and the machine would spit it out for you. Hard to imagine now, isn’t it? Before everything went to shit, everyone had so much to eat and drink, they were more worried about how fat people were getting than feeding them.”
Artan turned full circle, his mouth hanging open, his spear at his side. “So people gathered here, like in a meeting hall?”
“Kinda. Although, from what we understand, while many people were in the same place together, they gathered in smaller groups. They were much less communal than we are. Mass gatherings were commonplace and rarely a shared experience.”
“How do you know all this?” Olga said, an accusation more than a question.
Gracie stared down at Olga’s slightly raised sword. “We learn about this city’s history as part of our education.”
“And you know it’s true?”
“As much as I can say anything I’ve been taught is true. There are very few facts that haven’t been tainted by bias.” Gracie snapped her hands out to either side and pressed down on the air, forcing everyone to halt.
“Wha—”
“Shh!” Gracie cut Olga off.
His friends as confused as him, it took William a few seconds before he heard it. Maybe Gracie’s time in the city had sharpened her senses.
The uneven beat of footsteps. The slathering grunt of phlegm-clogged lungs. A diseased lolloped past the café, and Hawk bristled, but Gracie shoved him back. The moon highlighted the creature’s twisted and galloping form. On the edge of its balance, it fell from one step into the next and stared straight ahead as if it had somewhere to be, streaking across the front of the café before vanishing from sight.
William’s tight grip sweated on Jezebel’s handle.
“How did—”
A raised finger halted Max mid-sentence. After another ten seconds, Gracie finally broke the silence. “That’s one of the many reasons we pass through this place at night. The shadows are our friend. If the diseased don’t see or hear us, then we don’t have to fight them.”
“Duh!” Olga said.
“You didn’t hear it coming,” William said.
Olga scowled at him.
Matilda spoke in a whisper. “Are there many diseased in the city?”
A shake of her head, Gracie then hooked a thumb to show them their intended destination through the other side of the café. “You rarely get swarms of them. Fear and Fury do a good job of thinning their numbers. Now let’s move.”
Two metal frames were all that remained of the café’s front doors. They followed Gracie’s path through them, small pieces of glass popping beneath their steps.
Gracie’s long ginger plait flicked one way and then the other when she looked up and down the next road.
William shivered and hugged himself for warmth. The street had a bank of buildings on either side that funnelled the wind, condensing its blast.
“On my count, I need you to follow me,” Gracie said. “One … two … three …”
Gracie took off, running with a slight stoop across the road, Artan behind her, followed by Dianna, Matilda, Olga, Max, and finally William.
From the other side of the road, their destination had looked like a dark pit, but now they were closer, William saw the steep steps leading down into a tunnel.
“Fuck no!” Olga said. And who could blame her? She halted and shook her head. “No way am I going down there. No fucking way.”
Gracie shrugged and descended into the darkness. The others followed her.
When William placed a hand on Olga’s back, she snapped taut, and her grip on her sword tightened. “What else do you propose we do?” he said.
“I don’t care, but I’m not going down there.”
“So you’re going to stay up here and wait for another diseased to find you?”
“I’m not going down there. I don’t trust her.”
“Or you’re scared?”
An ugly twist to her face, Olga said, “Of course I’m fucking scared. Look at where we’re going.”
“So, what? We leave you?”
“Do what you want. I’m not going down there.”
“You need to let this whole Gracie thing go. Other than her and Max being friends, you have no reason to hate her.”
“I don’t trust her.” A sharp shake of her head, Olga said. “Besides, it’s nothing to do with her and Max.”
“Right.”
“I’ll say it again … look at where she wants us to go.”
But if William stared into the darkness for too long, he wouldn’t go down there either. From where he stood, the moonlight revealed only a small part of the tunnel. How many steps would it be before they were utterly blind? How deep did they have to go? “But you don’t like her.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Everything. It impairs your judgement.”
“One of us has to question her motives lest she lead us all to our deaths. You need me to keep the Gracie fan club grounded.”
Maybe she had a point. Another biting gust of wind cut into William. “I’m sorry, Olga, but I won’t let your jealousy put me in danger.”
“Fuck you, William.”
William took the steps two at a time. Made from the grey stone Gracie had called concrete, the edges of the stairs were wrapped with metal as if to protect against corrosion. So far, it had worked.
The darkness of the tunnel stretched away from them like one of the asylum’s unlit corridors. Max paced in small circles, spinning his war hammer
