Page 68 of King Among the Dead

She had a flashlight in her pocket, and she fished it out and clicked it on as Beck crawled in behind her, and pulled the grate back into place so no one would notice anything amiss from the outside. Her flashlight revealed a dusty, cobwebbed ventilation shaft that forked ahead of her.

“Go left,” he said behind her, and she crawled forward on hands and knees.

Long coats weren’t made for this. The water dripping off them caused an occasional squeak, and she would stop, and wince, wait. She couldn’t hear voices, but there was a steady sort of thrum overhead, a vibration that grew stronger the deeper they went.

Slatted light appeared on the floor of the vent ahead, and she shut off her flashlight. The next turn revealed another grate, rusted, in terrible disrepair. The tin snips Beck had brought would make short work of it.

But first, they paused, pressed up against the metal, listening.

The thrum was like a pulse now, a regular, loud throbbing. Machinery of some kind, though it sounded unsettlingly organic. Voices: indistinct murmurs somewhere over her head and to the right.

And something that wasn’t a sound at all, but afeeling. A pressure in the air that raised all the fine hairs on the back of her neck and down her arms. She fought off a shiver.

Beck cut the grate, pushed it out – they both caught it with their fingers curled through the mesh, and set it down silently. Then they crawled out into the heat and light of a fully-functional drug factory.

The duct had spit them out behind a stack of tarp-covered crates. A peek around them revealed an old factory fixed up and retrofitted, shiny and bustling. Assembly lines snaked up and back the length of the vast building, some carrying piles of white pills, others vials of measured product ready for sale; others powder. The belts climbed up and down gentle slopes; dumped their loads into vats, where great waterwheels churned and then bucketed up to other belts. It was hot; some part of the process emitted a thick, white steam, and the women working the line wore surgical masks, and little else, most stripped down to knotted tank tops or bras, sweat gleaming on their skin.

A few brutish, shirtless guards with cudgels paced up and down the length of the lines, ready to give someone a knock if they slacked off.

Across from their position, along a far wall, stood a second-floor office with a whole wall of windows and a balcony, a metal staircase leading down to the main floor. Men with closed-cropped hair and black clothes stood on the balcony, guns visible at their hips, and in their hands: compact assault rifles on neck straps, held casually, at the ready. This was the guard Beck had mentioned before: Castor’s personal death squad. Not meatheaded, neckless toughs, but lean, hard, battle-honed professionals.

“Is Castor in that office, you think?” she whispered.

“Undoubtedly.”

A wide roll-top door off to the left rolled up, startling her at first. Men came in on foot – heads tipped back, mouths open in shock. They wore no uniform: some were skinny and black-clad, some beefy in stained white t-shirts. An array of body types, different shades of professionalism. They elbowed one another, and talked amongst one another, though she couldn’t hear the words.

“New recruits,” Beck explained. “This is their test. This is meant to impress and frighten them.” His voice was tight; she felt his muscles tense where they were pressed together, side-by-side.

The door rolled back down. Some of the newcomers whirled to watch the rubber seal hit the cement of the floor. Others stared at the machinery.

Others looked up toward the office, like they knew what was coming – and dreaded it.

All at once, the assembly lines halted. Steam hissed, metal screeched, and visibility was cut down to nil. The sound died away slowly.

Voices became more distinct – shouted questions, shouted orders. The shuffle of feet.

Beck grabbed her hand, and tugged her forward. She couldn’t see at all for the thick, white clouds of steam, but she trusted Beck to lead them true. Hurried after him, jogging on the balls of her feet, soundless. If the steam cleared…if someone spotted them…

But no one did. He pulled her up on top of another stack of crates, and they crouched down behind a bit of blue tarp.

A voice boomed out of the swirling vapor, a sharp northern accent. “Gentlemen, welcome, welcome!”

A high, whining sound snapped on – fans, she realized, as the steam began to dissipate in tatters. They ran for maybe a minute, and when the steam was only a few cottony shreds, they cut off.

The voice sounded again, rich with laughter. “Welcome,” the man said again, and this time she could see him.

He stood on the balcony outside the office, large hands on the rail, rings catching the light. A tall man going heavyset with age, square-faced, and big-voiced, his dark hair slicked back, tight and shiny as a helmet. Dark eyes, and a wide smile that turned her stomach. He wore a black suit with a red tie.

Tony Castor, in the flesh.

He was flanked on either side by the death squad; two members stood at the top of the stairs, a human shield between their boss and anyone stupid enough to try and charge up toward him.

But then her gaze shifted to the man standing to Castor’s left, and her throat went dry.

Superficially, he was unremarkable: medium height and build, blunt-featured, hair a nondescript brown, clothes rumpled and too-casual.

But heglowed.

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