Page 44 of The Song Rising

“Good.” We rose, and he let go of my hand. “The Beneath has many doors, doors to which Scion no longer has keys. You will be safe with us, so long as you obey our orders.”

“Just tell us what to do,” I said.

We met up with Maria and Eliza at the Old Spitalfields Market. Hundreds of amaurotics milled around the stalls, trying to get provisions before ScionIDE could send them all inside. For all they knew, it could be days before they were permitted on the streets again. Eliza was carrying an enormous rucksack, while Maria was handing out waterproof clothes and flashlights to the voyants who would be coming with us, people who worked in her section.

“The toshers’ king has allowed our entrance,” I said to her. “We’re good to go.”

“Fabulous.” Maria tossed me an oilskin. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Where’s the entrance?”

“I-4,” Wynn said.

A few rickshaws were still offering rides, albeit for sky-high prices. We hailed a pair and clambered into one with half of the group. The PA system was repeating Weaver’s announcement on a loop between periods of droning from the sirens, adding that all denizens should clear the roads for military vehicles. The shops that hadn’t closed already were full to bursting, their automated doors pried open by those waiting outside. White Scion cabs were thick on the streets, ferrying people to their homes, but our driver wove a path between them.

The soldiers’ marching dreamscapes were on my radar now. Too close for comfort. They might not fire at will in the capital, but we couldn’t take chances.

The rickshaw dropped us off close to the Holborn Viaduct, a flyover bridge that crossed a main road, where our group would enter the Beneath. Cars were jammed bumper-to-bumper. Pedestrians scampered around them, fleeing from the mourning of the sirens. Wynn gathered us beneath the bridge and took a strange sort of key from her belt.

“The entrance is that manhole over there.” She pointed out a stretch of pavement. “We can’t let anyone see us go underground. Eliza, you come with me to help lift the cover. When I signal, Paige and Nick, you follow.”

“No. Jos and Ivy first,” I said.

She paused before saying, “Very well.”

I checked for cameras or obvious scanners, but there were none. Wynn and Eliza dashed across the street. Their heads dipped out of sight as they crouched beside the right manhole. When Wynn stood again and beckoned, Maria nudged Ivy and Jos forward.

Jos was swamped by his oilskin and mittens. He put on a brave face as Ivy pulled his hood over his brow and hurried him across the road. Those two had been on Scion’s radar for as long as I had. Wynn waited for them to climb into the shaft, then followed.

My sixth sense was trembling. While Wynn vanished into the pavement, cars began to reverse and swing into frantic U-turns, their wheels mounting the kerb. Others veered away from the center of the road, the way they did when an ambulance or fire engine needed to get through. I didn’t need to feel their dreamscapes to work out what was coming.

“Go, go, we need to move,” Nick barked. I found myself running into the snarl of traffic, just missing a Scion cab as it smashed into the front of a truck. Horns screamed in protest. Our boots pounded. I saw the manhole, its open lid, the ladder inside it. I tried to push Nick in front of me, but somehow my legs were in the shaft, and my shoulders were following. My hands collided with the ladder. My boots slipped, then found purchase. I clambered down, rung after rung, foot after foot, until I hit solid ground.

Eliza was next, panting with the effort of carrying the backpack. A moment later, I heard a grunt as Nick dropped from the ladder.

“Maria,” he called, “get down here!”

Her silhouette was above us, boots on the rungs. “Dobrev, hurry.” She took one of her voyants’ hands and swung him on to the ladder below her. She said something to him in Bulgarian, and he choked an answer. Without hesitating, Maria reached up and closed the manhole cover.

There were six voyants out there, and the key was in here. The darkness was as good as a blindfold, but I could hear their footsteps, sense their dreamscapes clustering above. “Wait. No, wait for us,” a voice cried, raw with terror. Another called out, “Underqueen! Maria, please!”

“Just go, damn it,” Maria shouted.

I grasped a rung. “Maria, what are you doing?”

“They’re too close!”

She was right. The convoy was seconds away, certainly within sight of the manhole.

To do nothing would abandon them to the mercy of the soldiers. To lift the cover would compromise the only chance of survival we had.

“Leave them.”

My words rang through the darkness. It took only seconds for the voyants’ footsteps to retreat.

The convoy plowed over our heads. The thunderstorm of wheels and armor reverberated through the tunnel, so it seemed as if we stood in the stomach of a chthonic monster. My hands found a damp wall. I was a little girl again, cowering from the soldiers beneath a statue. All around the vehicles, single dreamscapes were moving at a slower rate. Foot-soldiers. One of them stopped a few feet from the manhole. In the shaft, Maria was motionless. I thought about ordering everyone to run, but one splash, one careless footstep, could give us all away. After almost a minute, the soldier gravitated back to the convoy.

It was a long time before anyone moved. Light flared from Nick’s flashlight, revealing the drawn faces of the group. Jos was tearful, Ivy looking at me strangely, and Eliza’s hands were over her mouth. When the rumble of the convoy had softened, the Bulgarian voyant tripped off the ladder. Maria jumped the last few feet and switched on a flashlight of her own. The two beams revealed a cramped brick passageway. The ripe smell of decay invaded my nose, laced with something more malodorous.

“So,” Maria said, “this is the Beneath. Home, sweet home.”

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