Reliquary

A dark opening appeared at the side of the tunnel, and Duffy made for it. Smithback followed, and suddenly the ground opened up beneath his feet. In an instant, he was sliding uncontrollably down a slick wet chute. Duffy’s wail came keening up from below as Smithback spun around, clawing at the slick surface. It was like every dream he’d ever had of falling, except even more horrible, inside a dank black runnel, unguessable depths beneath Manhattan. Suddenly there was a splash in front of him, and the next moment he too landed, hard, in about twenty inches of water.

He scrambled to his feet, aching in numerous places but glad to feel a firm surface under his feet. The floor of the tunnel seemed even, and the water smelled relatively fresh. Beside him, Duffy was wailing uncontrollably.

“Shut up,” Smithback hissed at him. “You’re going to draw those things right to us.”

“Oh, my God,” Duffy sobbed in the darkness. “This can’t be happening, it can’t. What are they? What—”

Smithback reached into the blackness, located Duffy’s arm, and pulled the man toward him brusquely. “Shut up,” he said, lips touching the engineer’s ear.

The sobbing subsided to a soft hiccuping.

“Where’s the flashlight?” Smithback whispered.

Sobbing was the only reply. But then a dim light switched on nearby. Miraculously, Duffy was still clutching it.

“Where are we?”

The hiccuping subsided.

“Duffy! Where are we?’”

There was a stifled sob. “I don’t know. One of the spillover tubes, maybe.”

“Any idea where it goes?”

There was a sniffle. “It bleeds off excess flow from the Reservoir. If we move downstream to the Bottleneck, maybe we can reach the lower drain system.”

“And from there, how do we get out?” Smithback whispered.

Duffy hiccuped. “Don’t know.”

Smithback mopped his face again and said nothing, trying to roll the fear, the pain, and the shock into a little ball he could stuff down inside himself. He tried to think about his story. God, he’d be a made man with a story like this, following on the heels of the Museum Beast murders. And with luck, he’d still have the Wisher piece in his pocket. But first…

There was a splashing sound, its distance hard to gauge because of the echoes but clearly approaching. He leaned into the darkness, straining to hear.

“They’re still after us!” Duffy yelped, inches from his eardrum.

Smithback grabbed the arm a second time. “Duffy, shut up and listen to me. We can’t outrun them. We need to lose them. You know the system: you’ve got to tell me how.”

Duffy struggled, making an unintelligible sound of fear.

Smithback squeezed harder. “Look, we’re going to be all right if you just calm down and think.”

Duffy seemed to relax, and Smithback could hear him breathing heavily. “All right,” the engineer said. “The emergency spillovers have gauging stations at the bottom. Just before the Bottleneck. If that’s where we are, maybe we can hide inside—”

“Let’s go,” Smithback hissed.

They splashed through the darkness, the flashlight beam jogging from wall to wall. The low tunnel took a turn, and a vast, ancient piece of machinery rose up before Smithback: a giant hollow screw, or something like it, placed horizontally on a bed of granite. Heavily rusted pipes protruded from either end, and a convoluted mass of pipes lay farther back, like coiled iron guts. At the base of the machine was a small railed platform. The main body of the stream ran down past the station, while a small side tunnel snaked its way into the blackness to their left. Taking the flashlight, Smithback grabbed the railing and swung himself up, then helped Duffy to a position beside him.

“Into the pipe,” Smithback whispered. He pushed Duffy inside, then wriggled in himself, tossing the lighted flashlight into the stream before retreating into the darkness.

“Are you crazy? You just threw away—”

“It’s plastic,” Smithback said. “It’ll float. I’m hoping they’ll follow the light downstream.”

They sat in absolute silence. The thick walls of the gauging machinery muffled the tunnel noise, but in a few minutes Smithback could tell that the splashing sounds had grown more distinct. The Wrinklers were approaching —swiftly, too, by the sound. Behind him, he could feel Duffy twitch, and he prayed the engineer would keep his head. The splashing became louder and now Smithback could hear them breathing, a heavy wheezing, like a winded horse. The splashing sounds drew alongside the gauging station, then stopped.

The foul goatish reek was thick now, and Smithback shut his eyes tightly. In the blackness to his rear, Duffy was trembling violently.

He heard splashes in the water outside the station as the things milled about. There was a low noise that sounded like snuffling, and Smithback froze, remembering the Mbwun beast’s keen sense of smell. The splashing continued. Then—with an enormous feeling of relief—Smithback heard it begin to retreat. The things were continuing down the tunnel.

He breathed slowly and deeply, counting each breath. At thirty, he turned to Duffy. “Which way to the storm drains?”

“Out the far end,” Duffy whispered.

“Let’s go.”