But as they edged along the side of the train, Ruth looked up and cried out in shock. The torchlight revealed the dirty windows were streaked with blood in explosive, paint-gun patterns. Inside she could just make out the shapes of bodies. It was hard to tell from her perspective, but they didn't appear to be in one piece. The sour-apple stink of decomposition was thick in the air.
Veitch noticed it too. 'The doors have been torn off,' he noted.
Ruth could just make out small figures too, and frail, old ones. She fought back tears; the terrible waste still tore a hole in her heart. 'The Fomorii must have moved out across the city through the network when their leader was reborn.'
Veitch peered in through the ragged doorway. 'Poor bastards. Didn't stand a chance.'
From ahead came the tramp of many feet. Ruth and Veitch were halfway along the carriage, squeezed tight against the dirty, oily walls. They wouldn't be able to make it back to the open tunnel before the Fomorii arrived.
'In here,' Veitch whispered. He crawled up through the doorway into the body of the carriage, pulling out his handkerchief and pressing it against his face. Ruth shook her head furiously in primal disgust, but she knew it was the best option. She screwed her eyes shut, covered her nose and mouth and followed Witch in.
He guided her along the floor away from the open doors, but even with her eyes shut she had a visceral image of the scene around her. She brushed against hard and lifeless things that swung or shifted dramatically with a soft, wet sound. The floor was puddled with a thick, sticky substance; though her mouth was covered, the stench made her retch. Her stomach heaved time and again, and she didn't know how she managed to keep it silent, but then her eyes filled with tears at the thought of what had happened and somehow that helped.
Veitch took the torch, which was so low it barely cast any light, and said he'd shield it with 'something he'd found'; Ruth didn't ask what that was. They'd barely ended their exchange when the carriage rocked madly as the Fomorii barged past on either side. The two of them slid backwards and forwards on the slick floor. Ruth had to jam her hands and feet against the sides of the seats to stop herself skidding back towards the doorway. She almost lost her grip when Veitch slammed his boot heel into her face, but a moment after that the violent movement subsided. They exited the carriage a little sooner than safety would have suggested, but even then they couldn't escape the stink from their fouled clothes; nor the thought of all the atrocities that had been committed.
A little further on they smelled smoke, and as they progressed they realised they could make out a faint glow tinting the tunnel walls. They moved in closer to one wall and edged forward cautiously. The smoke grew thicker, the light brighter.
Round a bend in the tunnel they glimpsed several fires burning. After so many hours of darkness it took a while for their eyes to adjust to the glare, and when they did they pulled back quickly. Several Fomorii were moving amongst piles of burning rubbish. It was obviously some kind of checkpoint or guard camp.
Veitch cursed quietly. 'We're never going to get past that.'
'I bet they've got camps like that all around the perimeter of their core area.'
'There was a door further back. We will find a way past the bastards.'
'I wish we could get some of that fire.' Ruth examined what remained of the torch.
They retraced their steps to an unmarked door almost lost in the gloom. Veitch used his dagger to smash the lock and they slipped into a clean corridor that led on to a large thoroughfare. It had a hard Tarmac surface and there were military-style stencils on the wall pointing to locations obviously written in code.
'These must be the tunnels the Government set up in the fifties and sixties in case of a nuclear strike,' Ruth said. 'A good way to save all the great and good and leave the poor bastards to die. Probably a favour. Who'd want to live in a world filled with politicians, the military, businessmen and the aristocracy?'
'We're well and truly bleedin' lost now,' Veitch said angrily. 'Why did it have to be me who fucked up again?'
When he was like that there was no consoling him. 'Pick a direction,' she said dismally. 'It'll take us somewhere.'
His anger grew more intense as it became obvious they were moving off the beaten track. The well-tended road gave way to rough ground, the tunnel became unfinished: bare brick, then girders and scaffolding, before they came to a thick barrier of sleepers and planks.
Veitch smashed his fist against the wall, as hard as if he was punching someone in the face, but his rage wiped away any pain he might have felt. When he turned, Ruth could see his knuckles were ragged.
She cowered as he stormed around searching for something to attack. 'We fucked up!' he yelled.
'We can go-'
'No! We! Can't!' His furious face thrust an inch away from hers. Suddenly she was terrified; she couldn't see any sign of the funny, gentle Veitch she had known from the quieter times they had shared.
She took a step back, but didn't show her fear. 'Pull yourself together.'
'What?' His eyes ranged wildly as though she wasn't there.
'I said, pull yourself together. You're the hero here-'
'Hero! I'm the bleedin' loser! Same as I always was!' He flailed his arm, obviously some sort of primal gesture to wave her away. But instead he caught the torch and knocked it from her weak grip. It smashed into pieces on the floor, the flame now a faint flicker along one of the shards.
'Ryan!' Ruth dropped to her knees desperately, but there was nothing to save.
'Oh, fuck! Now look what I've done!' He ran over and kicked the wall hard.
Ruth only saw what happened next from the corner of her eye as she bent down trying to pull the remaining pieces of wood together to keep the flame going. Weakened by his punches, the wall collapsed. Veitch plunged forward into a gulf beyond and a shower of rubble fell down reclosing the opening.
Ruth covered her head until the fall had ended, but none of the debris touched her. She looked at the faint flame and then slowly took in her surroundings.
'Oh, Ryan,' she whispered. And then the tears came in force.
When she finally regained control of her emotions, Ruth wiped her eyes and resolved to find a way out of her predicament. She wasn't going to be beaten. She certainly wasn't going to die down there. Balor had to be beaten, humanity had to be saved and, more importantly-she had to laugh at that strange truth-she had to see Church again. Even if she had to crawl along pitch-black tunnels to find a way out.
The flame was barely more than a candle's height on the splinters of wood. It became trimmed briefly with blue and then began to gutter.
Here we go, she thought. Prepare yourself.
Then, as the flame finally began to die, she became aware of other lights in the dark. At first she dismissed it as an optical illusion caused by the sharp contrast of shadow and light on her retina. The flame became the size of her fingernail.
Almost gone now.
But the other lights remained; tiny, glittering stars sweeping across the firmament. She scanned them curiously, and then, just as the flame finally died she realised what she was seeing and her blood ran cold.
Darkness swept up around her and she heard the sharp skittering sound as the first rat moved forward.
Veitch fell fifteen feet into freezing water, slamming his head hard on the way down. The cold and wet kept him conscious, but the dark was so all-consuming he couldn't tell up from down. The water came up to his thighs and by stretching out slowly on either side he realised he was in some kind of small tunnel or gully as wide as the span of his arms. He spent ten minutes trying to find where he had fallen and attempting to climb back up, but it was impossible to see, and more rubble kept falling. Dejected and afraid he might be pinned by another collapse, he began to wade wearily forward.
He continued for what he guessed was around an hour, pausing occasionally to rest against the wall and catch minutes of microsleep. He couldn't even feel his lower legs and he wondered how long it would be before hypothermia set in. But whatever set him apart as a Brother of Dragons made him resilient, helped him to heal; he'd keep going, he thought dismally. He hated himself. He hated himself so much he considered lying down in the water and drowning himself, but it wasn't in his nature. So he had to continue with the infinitely worse burden of his guilt, thinking about what he had done to Ruth, punishing himself by images of her wandering along inky corridors until the inevitable end came. It had all been his fault; he could almost have scripted it.
The water began to rise soon after, a half-hour later it was up to chest height. He was racked by convulsive shivers, drifting in and out of a fugue state brought on by the cold. Gradually he became aware that the tunnel was
