Abnormals underground 01.., p.29
abnormals underground 01 - one to five, page 29
“We knock,” Xavier said, “and hope for the best. If we're lucky, lots of other Abnormals will be there tonight, hiding out from the authorities.”
“What if demons are there?” I asked as we left the booth.
“There could be,” he said. “It's not a hangout for Abnormals like Seer Mages and pixies. We might pass. Well, you. And if they serve, um, something you can have there, you might want to take it.”
“I'm sure a place like that does,” I said, horrified at the way Xavier was talking. I still wondered if he knew about the librarian. I wanted to keep stuff like that off screen as much as I could. “Where would they get it, though?”
“From Normals,” Xavier said, facing me. “Chances are, the donors wouldn't be as willing as the ones we're used to in the Underground. It won't be like Thorne. The best case would be if they're Normals who are trying to become like you.”
“It doesn't work that way,” I said. “You have to have the rare gene or you don't turn when you get bitten.”
“Some people don't want to believe that.”
I knew all about that. A lot of Normals thought it was a choice to turn if you got bitten and the ones like Hannah were proving it wrong all the time, and why did everyone who got bit by a werewolf turn, anyway? That was another one that blew the whole stupid theory out of the water.
Xavier and I searched around for a long time, walking around creepy old apartment buildings, but none of them had stairways leading to any basements. I smelled the air and caught faint whiffs of werewolf, but the wind was blowing in every direction tonight, making it hard to pin down where it was coming from. “There are definitely other Abnormals around here,” I said. “The Pit must be shielded pretty well because I can't hear any music.”
“Maybe there are wards around it,” Xavier said. “I heard that you need to be recommended by someone who goes there in order to get in. It could just be a theory, though.”
“Then how are we going to do that?” I asked.
Something was moving in the shadows up ahead. There was a very dark alley that branched off from the end of this street, so dark no human could see down it, and two figures were walking away from us with silence that definitely wasn't Normal. My gray vision snapped into place and I saw that a man and woman were both heading down a set of stairs. The woman was dressed in a black robe—a possible Dark Mage. The man had scales on the back of his neck. An incubus.
“We wing it,” Xavier said. “Wait. Do you see something?”
“I think we found it,” I said, pointing to the alley. The people vanished down the steps and didn't come back up. “I just saw a couple of patrons heading in.”
“I wouldn't have thought to look over there,” Xavier said.
I could see why. The building The Pit was under wasn't an old, abandoned apartment like Xavier had heard. It was actually a place called B's Market and Produce that smelled like veggies and fruit. The place was closed and a sign on the front door read that it was only open a few days a week. Bananas and lettuce heads sat behind the window. Underneath where Normals shopped in the hopes of being healthy was The Pit.
“Does 'B' stand for Beatrix?” I asked. “A half-demon runs a farmers' market?”
“You'd be shocked,” Xavier said. “We met a banshee that ran a lingerie shop. We might as well see where that goes.”
The fake plastic bat tingled in my grasp. I shook it out and it took the appearance of Thorne's very sharp blade. Xavier snapped his gaze to it, then up to me. “Not yet,” he said. “If we can settle this in peace, that would be great.”
“What are the chances of that?” I asked.
“I don't know. Maybe one or two percent? Beatrix is a crime boss.”
“And if we do settle this without spilling blood? Do we each get another one of these?” I held up my wrist with the fire symbol on it. “I don't think we should be taking on any more of these potentially deadly deals.” I was so not looking forward to bringing Leon back from the dead. I guessed that the chances of his forgiving us also sat at one or two percent.
Allunna would be coming back, too. Xavier had killed her. Therefore, we would be enemies for eternity.
“I'm not sure about that either,” Xavier said as we entered the very quiet and creepy alley. “This is our only option for getting to the ruins. Only a demon's blood can open portals.”
I remembered the portal I'd seen on the top of the ATC building before the Shadow Wraiths had caught up with us, the pool of water. I had no clue how to get one of those to work but if we wanted any chance of saving our families, we would have to learn. “Xavier,” I said as a thought hit me. “Could we use the portal in The Pit to get to the Infernal Dimension?”
“We could,” he said. Then he spoke like he only just realized it. “We could. The one here might not come out in the part of the Infernal Dimension that we want. It could drop us on the other side of the Infernal world for all we know. I think only Thoreau's portal will come out near where our parents are. Surviving there long enough to find anybody might not be possible. You saw what the Infernal looks like.”
“So it's too risky.”
“Once we're in,” Xavier said, “only a demon can let us out. At least, that's the legend.”
“So it really is too dangerous to try.” My hope deflated like a week old balloon. My father was still in there, sleeping, and the portal to him was close but so far away. I turned around and eyed the top of the ATC building again. I couldn't see the logo from here, but the tower rose tall into the night, blocking out the stars.
Xavier was right that the stairs led down to a set of closed metal doors nestled under the market. We walked down and I eyed the top of the doors, searching for a camera. Nothing. The place felt dead like there was nothing here. No Normal would pause here for a second.
“Let me see your sword,” Xavier said. “Ready for Hello Kitty again? We don't want to walk in with weapons drawn.”
I handed him the sword and he ran his finger down the blunt side, muttering again, and my cane with its Hello Kitty tape appeared in all its glory. It felt so much better than carrying around the bat. He handed it back to me.
Xavier raised his fist and knocked. There was nothing for several seconds and then he tried again. We waited and waited. Then he cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled. “Hey! Is this The Pit? We need a place to hide for the night.”
At last, the air got warm and tingly. A flash of bright blue appeared above the doors and I jumped back, ready to raise the cane, but then I realized that it was a glowing, ghostly eye that looked like it belonged to the world's largest cat. Bigger than a baseball, it trained its slit pupil down on Xavier and then on me. I remembered that blue was Seer magic. I hadn't expected to find this here.
“Hello?” Xavier asked the eye if this were normal. “My name is Xavier Lovelli. War Mage. This is my battle partner, Alyssa. We need to hide for the night. The authorities are after us.”
The eye looked at us in turn again. I wasn't sure what to do so I waved. There had to be someone on the other side of this surveillance system, watching.
The ghostly eye blinked and vanished, leaving us standing there for several seconds and then a full minute.
“Well, that was worth a try,” Xavier said in a low voice. “We might have to break the door down next.”
But right as Xavier closed his fist to summon his magic, one of the double doors opened.
“What is a Lovelli doing here?” a gruff voice asked.
There was a very short man, so short he only came up to my chest, standing there with tan skin and greenish hair. He was wearing a black T-shirt that read The Pit, Staff across the front. I had seen men like them down in the Underground and I wasn't sure what they actually were. I guessed he was some sort of fae, a dwarf maybe. I hadn't studied them too much in school mostly because teachers didn't like talking about Abnormal society.
“I need asylum for the night,” Xavier said. “I made my family angry again.”
That seemed to get the dwarf to let down his guard. “So you're the rebel Lovelli,” he said with a grin. “It runs in the family, doesn't it?” His teeth were very blunt and greenish like his hair. He smelled like earth and compost to me. “What did you do now?”
“I interrupted an Elder meeting,” he said with pride.
“I did that,” I said. “You tried to stop me.”
The dwarf turned his gaze to me. “That takes some guts,” he said. “But you still cannot enter The Pit unless you are recommended by a member here.”
I had to go on a guess here. “Mack recommended that we come here,” I said. “Is he around?” I hoped he wasn't as much of a hermit as I thought. This seemed like a place where a Dark Mage would want to hang out. I already smelled wood smoke, dinner-infused blood and other scents wafting out of the place. Faint techno music met my ears.
“Oh. Mack!” the dwarf said. “Let me go and ask him.” He closed the door and whatever cloaking wards there were must have gone back up because I couldn't hear his footsteps or the music anymore. It was almost like The Pit was in another world and this was the gate.
“That was great, Alyssa,” Xavier said. “I didn't even think of that. It'll be very lucky if Mack is in there tonight.”
“Well, since he lives so close, I thought maybe he came here. He is a Dark Mage.”
All we could do was wait. The dwarf took a long time getting back to us. When the door opened again, though, he frowned.
“Mack isn't here tonight,” he said. “If he did recommend you, you might need to wait a while. He doesn't show up often, maybe a couple of times per month. Try again Saturday night. We're open then.”
“We can't wait,” Xavier said, reaching into his pocket.
“These are the rules,” the dwarf said.
“Look,” I said, leaning forward and looking down at the dwarf. “Thousands of Abnormals are in danger and if we wait until Saturday, they might all die or get captured.” I grabbed the front of the dwarf's employee shirt and pulled him off the floor. “We need to ask Beatrix if we can use her portal.”
The dwarf frowned and grabbed at my wrist, where the fire symbol was still etched. “Put me down. You Normal-sized people think you're so much better than the rest of us.”
I shook the dwarf. I wanted to hurt someone, something. At the same time, I hated doing this to the doorman. “I'm sorry, but if you don't let us in, you're going to learn how it feels to burn from the inside out.”
“You don't want to do that,” Xavier said, money in hand. “I've seen her take out two stone gargoyles that way.”
“No one can make you burn from the inside out,” the dwarf said, meeting my gaze. “Not even demons can do that. Beatrix has threatened to do that to me many times and she never has.” He gasped for breath as I tightened my grip on his shirt, pulling at the collar around his neck.
“I'm not Beatrix,” I said. “Just tell her that Mack recommended us and we'll all be good.”
“Okay. Okay,” the dwarf said. “Just let me down.” His tan face was turning the shade of wet sand. “She might be interested in speaking to the grandson of Leon Lovelli.”
Chapter Thirteen
It felt almost too easy. Either Beatrix had just hired the worst doorman in the world or there was something else going on here. I kept the Hello Kitty cane close to my side, aware that it probably wouldn't fool anyone in this establishment. The dwarf gasped for breath as Xavier and I entered a dark hallway that had zero lighting. My gray vision snapped back into place and I realized there was a spiral stairway at the end of the hall, one with a sign above it that read TO THE PIT. A jagged arrow pointed down into the depths.
“Good name,” I said as the dwarf closed the door behind us.
“I can't see anything,” Xavier said. “I don't think a lot of humans come here.”
“There are some here,” I said. “I smell them.” A mixture of turkey dinners, spaghetti, microwave fare and pasta floated up through the stairwell along with the adrenaline of nerves. There was also the unmistakable sewer smell that told me there was at least one demon down here.
The scents only got stronger as we descended the metal steps. “I don't like this,” Xavier said.
“Neither do I.” I checked to make sure the doorman wasn't following us. Check. I couldn't even pick up his scent anymore. “I wonder if everyone gets in by threatening that dwarf. He is a dwarf, right?”
“Dwarves usually have beards and they don't live in cities. Well, the men do. That was a redcap. They can be nasty. We need to watch ourselves.”
I'd never learn all the species of the world that I now inhabited. The smells got stronger the more we descended. There was some red light far below that made me wonder for a moment if we had stepped into the Infernal Dimension, but this light was electric and changed to green, then to yellow, then to red again. I could see it through the grating of the steps. Electro played down below, loud and deafening. It blocked out every other sound that I could have heard but the smells were enough. This place was very inhabited.
“We follow the sewer smell to Beatrix,” I said. “I hope.” I remembered the incubus coming down here with that woman. I hoped the incubi and succubi would be off in another part of the club with their dates, away from everything else. I couldn't imagine that any other way.
When we reached the bottom, it turned out I was right. There was a large bar in the middle of the room along with two dance floors where a variety of Abnormals were dancing. A burly werewolf man was serving all kinds of drinks in the bar and a Normal man was also sitting there. There were bite marks on his neck. He had been catering in a different way. A balcony encircled the whole place and there were several closed doors up there. I could only imagine what was going on behind them.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Xavier said. “Let's find the office as soon as we can.”
I wondered if Beatrix would force us to make another horrible deal. We had already made two in the last couple of days. I didn't need any more.
“There,” I said, pointing.
There was a small glass window at the very top of the club, overlooking everything. It was hard for even me to see in these changing lights, but if I looked close enough, I caught the figure of someone moving around inside.
“That looks like something I'd use as an office,” Xavier said. “Let's go and get this over with.”
We followed some narrow stairs up past all the closed rooms (that we did not want to open) and towards the door that was next to the glass window. I was shocked that no one wanted to stop us. In fact, there was no one up here on the balcony. The music was loud as ever up here, drowning out any sounds that might be coming from anywhere else, so Xavier and I couldn't exchange any words.
When I knocked on the door, though, it opened right away as if we were expected.
The creature standing on the other side was another golem. It took me a moment to realize that. The stone man looked like a typical club bouncer, complete with a bulging employee shirt and a jutting chin. He smelled of cold rock and glared at me and Xavier as we stood there.
I waved. “Can we talk to Beatrix, please?” I could see inside the office, which was lit with a single lamp in the corner. I caught a tall leather chair that was facing away from us.
The stone creature made no motion or sign that it had heard us.
“Beatrix!” Xavier shouted over the music.
Then the golem moved back into the office, shuffling over to the desk. It tapped on the back of the chair with a stony finger and pointed to us like it wasn't sure what to do.
The chair turned around and I caught my first glimpse of Beatrix.
She wasn't what I'd expected. For one, she was quite old, almost as old as Leon had been, and she was very small. Her hair was pure white and in a tight bun. She had eyes almost like a full Normal, but the irises were very black like a demon's. The look on her face was anything but friendly. Beatrix might be shorter than me when she stood on her toes, but there was nothing comfortable about her gaze.
“I wasn't expecting guests,” she said. At least she wasn't petting a white, fluffy cat or I would have cracked up. “Who are you, and why did you come unannounced into The Pit? Or how, I should say?”
I tightened my grasp on the fake cane, ready to shake it out and summon its true form any second. “We were recommended by Mack,” I said.
Beatrix leaned forward on the desk, putting her hands together and tapping her fingers against each other. She smelled like a mixture of sewage and bloody steak. Apparently, half-demons liked their food almost raw. It was a strange scent I would never forget.
“That's not what my doorman told me.”
Oh. The bouncer golem stood there by the door, right behind us now, blocking the way out. I wondered how the redcap had delivered the news.
“Ma'am,” Xavier said, stepping forward. “The Underground is in danger. I know it was wrong of us to come in here like this, but Thoreau is planning on burning everyone in the Underground alive in a few days. If you'd allow me to explain-”
“Silence,” she said in a very smooth and very intimidating voice. The way Beatrix spoke commanded attention. It was no wonder she headed a crime syndicate. “I know the Underground is in upheaval. I will not get involved either for or against Thoreau. Risking my operations is not on the table.”
“But who helps you with your operations?” Xavier asked. “Think about your club. If Thoreau vaporizes everyone in the Underground, will you have any patrons left?” He went on to explain everything to Beatrix, including Elsina's vision and the fact that Leon's body had gone missing. He even included the bits about the Dark Council and the fact that he had killed Allunna and by extension, Leon. I wondered if he was trying to win points by pointing out that he had eliminated another War Mage.
Beatrix shifted her gaze to him. “Not all Abnormals reside in the Underground and not all of my patrons are Abnormal. I am half Normal, after all. Why does no one remember that?”
“But many Normals do hang out in the Underground,” I said. “The authorities are capturing all the Abnormals who are too scared to go back home. Your patrons are going to disappear and with them, a lot of your business. That's why we have to ask to use your portal.”
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