Submerged: The Labyrinth, Book 2, page 20
“Okay, that’s pretty freaky.”
“What is?” Teddy asked.
“He’s right. You can feel the stairs, but you can’t see them. And the spot where you do see them is just empty space.”
“Well, I’ll be darned.” Teddy rubbed his chin. “How do we make it down those without breaking our necks?”
“Very carefully,” LeHorn said, and began his descent.
Sarah followed him. Teddy brought up the rear. They stopped when they reached Tony.
“You sure you’re okay?” Teddy asked him.
Tony nodded. “Nothing broken.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t sprain an ankle, falling like that.”
“Maybe I should go first,” LeHorn suggested.
Tony made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Be my guest.”
LeHorn crept forward, moving cautiously, seeming to walk on thin air. Tony followed closely along behind him. Taking a deep breath, Sarah did the same.
“Reckon we ought to close the door?” Teddy asked.
“Leave it open,” LeHorn said. “Any light is better than no light at all.”
Sarah frowned. Even though LeHorn was only a few steps away from her, his voice sounded far more distant, as if he was speaking from twenty feet away or more. She shook her head.
“I’ve never taken acid,” she muttered, “but this place seems like a bad acid trip.”
“I have,” Tony replied, “and yeah, it is.”
Down and down they went, following the invisible spiral staircase, until the dim light from the hatch door disappeared, and the darkness swallowed them.
FRANKIE AND BLOOM stepped out of the portal and found themselves in an alleyway. To their left was the brick facade of some sort of warehouse, standing several stories tall. To their right was a high-rise apartment building. The warm air smelled of urine, grease, cooking aromas, and car exhaust, and was filled with sound—honking horns, idling engines, ringing phones, throbbing bass from countless car stereos, and a babble of voices talking.
Frankie closed the door behind her, and the portal disappeared.
“LeHorn didn’t say where he was sending us.” Frankie sniffed the air again. “But I smell a harbor nearby, so, we’re someplace with a waterfront.”
“We’re in Boston,” Bloom said. “June of 2021.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
Bloom shrugged. “The accents I’m hearing?”
“You can tell that from way back here in this alley, over all the other noise?”
Bloom shrugged again.
“And the date,” Frankie said. “How does hearing an accent tell you what month and year it is?”
“It doesn’t.” Bloom pointed at a crumpled newspaper on the ground. “That does.”
Frankie studied him closely. Clearly, something was off. It wasn’t just that Bloom had been shot, or that he was still functional after such an ordeal and suffering such a wound. He seemed different than the young man who had accompanied them so far. He even spoke differently. And there was something else. Something she couldn’t yet put her finger on.
“Are you sure nothing else happened to you after the tsunami hit?”
Bloom sighed. “It’s like Sarah and I told you, Frankie. We got washed out to sea. We fought a few monsters. Then a boat full of bad guys showed up, and I got shot. Sarah got us to shore. And then we found the rest of you.”
Frankie decided that it was in his eyes. They didn’t look like Bloom’s eyes anymore. Or rather, it felt like it wasn’t Bloom who was behind them anymore. It felt as if someone else was looking out at her from inside them.
Then, she shook her head, annoyed with herself. She was just being paranoid. She’d encountered Ob back at the RHIC in Hellertown, and that had thrown her for a loop. Bloom wasn’t possessed by a Siqqusim. He was probably just in shock. The man was walking around with a major gunshot wound, after all. And besides, how well did she know him, anyhow? Bloom’s behavior seemed different to her, but maybe this was normal for him. How well did she know any of these people? Sure, Tony was cute, and he was definitely her type, but that was all based on their short time together. How well would he hold up to scrutinization a month from now, after they’d spent more time together? And Teddy, for that matter. The old man was sweet, but he was of a different generation and a different background. In Frankie’s experience, those two factors often meant the individual harbored some racist ideas, even if subconsciously. Was Teddy secretly that way, too? Sure, he’d treated her respectfully so far, but who knew what stereotypes he secretly harbored in his heart?
She stopped herself, realizing her mind was going down a dark, unending rabbit hole of paranoia and second-guessing. Frankie relaxed and took a deep breath.
“Everything okay?” Bloom stared at her quizzically.
“Yeah,” she said. “Never mind all this. Let’s get you to a hospital.”
“I told you all before, I don’t need a hospital.”
“You need a fucking hospital!” Frankie threw up her hands in exasperation. “Shit, I need a hospital and I’m not hurt nearly as bad as you are.”
He nodded at her clothing. “You’re going to go out on the street dressed like that?”
“I don’t see that I have much of a choice. If people stare, fuck them. And besides, your clothing ain’t much better. I may be wearing a ratty old hospital gown, but you look like you just stepped out of a sewer.”
“Why is it that you always seem to end up wearing a hospital gown? Isn’t that what you had on when you fled Ramsey Towers?”
Frankie’s breath caught in her throat. “How the hell do you know that?”
“I don’t know,” Bloom replied. “I guess I saw it when Amun put us in the Chamber of Spheres. Didn’t you see glimpses of the other’s lives?”
“No. No, I didn’t.”
“Oh. Well, maybe the process is different for each person.”
She stared at him for a long moment. Bloom stared back, unblinking. He smiled at her. When Frankie didn’t react, he blinked, and then grew restless.
“Come on,” she said, starting forward. “Let’s go.”
LEHORN PAUSED as he led the others down a long, curved passageway composed of white stone blocks. The walls seemed narrow, barely wide enough for them to squeeze through, but that was an illusion. In truth, the corridor was wide enough to drive a semi-truck down the center of. Curiously, each block glowed from within, providing dim but welcome illumination.
“What’s wrong?” Teddy asked from the rear. “Roadblock?”
“No,” LeHorn answered. “I just thought we could all use a quick break. I could, at least.”
“You look troubled,” Sarah said.
LeHorn nodded. “I am.”
“What’s wrong?” Tony asked. “Don’t tell me we’re lost.”
“No, it’s nothing like that. I...there’s something that doesn’t make sense. Something I don’t understand. I guess it has me doubting my abilities and my knowledge of what we face.”
Teddy shuffled closer. “How so?”
“Well, when we use the Labyrinth to find one of the Thirteen, the door is always a different color for me. I don’t know if that’s how the Exit or the rest of you perceive it, but it’s how I see it. It was that way for Kandara, and for Frankie’s world, and for the world we just left. And for here, as well.”
Tony shrugged. “Sounds to me like your radar is working fine.”
“But that’s just it,” LeHorn replied. “The level I sent Frankie and Bloom to? It was clear. No Thirteen on that Earth. But right as they stepped through, the door changed color.”
“What does that mean?” Sarah asked.
He shrugged. “It could be several things. Maybe I’m wrong about the color. Maybe it indicates something else. And that troubles me, because that means I don’t know as much as I think I do. But there’s a third possibility that worries me even more. It could also mean that one of the Thirteen invaded that level just as Frankie and Bloom were entering it.”
“Simultaneously?” Tony frowned. “I don’t know, Nelson. If we were in Atlantic City or Vegas, I’d say those were some very long odds.”
“Given the size of the multiverse, I agree. And that troubles me even more, because it leads back to the idea that maybe I don’t know as much as I think I do.”
“You’re overthinking,” Teddy soothed. “You’re exhausted and stressed. We all are. But you’re doing fine, Nelson. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“It…” LeHorn paused. “I don’t have a good track record with the people who put their trust in me.”
“You haven’t led us astray yet. I trust you, and have faith in you.”
“Me, too,” Sarah said. “I mean, we don’t really know each other, but if Teddy vouches for you, then that’s good enough for me.”
Tony clapped LeHorn on the shoulder. “I got your back, chief. Don’t sweat it right now. Ain’t nothing we can do about it anyway. We’ve got Leviathan to fucking deal with. And look, it ain’t like Frankie or Bloom is one of the Thirteen, right? It was probably just some kind of weird space-time glitch or some shit.”
“Sure,” LeHorn said quietly. “That’s probably what it was.”
Sighing, he led them on.
22
I t was long past nightfall, and Lou was still sitting in the cave, staring out at the stars, and watching the moon’s reflection ripple across the roiling ocean. He was full of questions, but had few answers. At some point during his meditations, he had seemingly changed form. When he looked down at his arms and hands, they were no longer gray and slender, but decidedly human—thickly muscled, bronzed, and covered in a light layer of curly golden hair. At first, the transformation had terrified him. Now, he was simply astonished.
He was still puzzling over it when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned, expecting to see Rena, Jackie and Billy. He frowned in concern, since they had never before been here so late.
Instead of the children, three men appeared. Two of them were dressed as police officers. The other was a man in his late-thirties. His expression was livid and frenzied.
“That’s him!” The man pointed with one hand. His other hand curled into a fist at his side. “That’s the motherfucker. right there!”
“Sir,” one of the officers said to the man, “you need to stand back. We’ll handle this.”
The other officer nodded curtly at Lou. “Good evening, Mister...?”
“Hello.” Lou smiled, and began to stand up.
The second officer’s hand crept toward his sidearm. “Stay where you are.”
Lou held up his hands. “I’m sorry.”
“Just don’t make any sudden moves, okay?” He waggled his chin down toward his chest. “My body camera is filming this interaction for both my safety and yours, but still...just take it easy.”
“I understand.”
“Do you live here, sir?”
Lou nodded. “Yes. Some local children helpe—”
“He admits it,” the third man snarled. “He’s a fucking pedophile! Arrest him.”
The first officer grabbed the man by the arm. “I’m going to ask you to step out now, sir, and let us do our job.”
“He did something to my son!”
Lou understood then that this man was Billy’s father.
“Look at him,” the father continued. “He’s fucking naked as a jaybird for Christ’s sake!”
“I’m not going to tell you again.” The officer’s voice turned cold and authoritarian. “Turn around, go outside, and wait for us up on the street.”
Glowering, the father stood stiff, fists balled at his sides. He trembled with barely controlled rage. He opened his mouth to speak again, but instead made a series of choking sounds. He turned toward Lou once again, glared, and then turned around and stalked out of the cave.
“What seems to be the trouble, officers?” Lou asked.
“Sir, do you know a...” The second officer pulled a small notebook from his pocket, flipped it open, and quickly checked it. “Rena Williams, or Jackie and Billy Chizmar?”
“Yes. They’ve been helping me out.”
“How so?”
Lou smiled. “Bringing me food. Keeping me company. They were the ones who showed me this place.”
“I see.” The second cop nodded. “I’m Officer DeMatteis. This is Officer Giffen. What’s your name?”
“Lou.”
“Lou what?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know if Lou is my real name. But it feels right.”
The first officer, Giffen, edged to the side and took a few steps closer to him.
“I don’t say that to be difficult,” Lou hurriedly explained. “I say it because I genuinely don’t know.”
DeMatteis arched an eyebrow. “Have you been drinking tonight? Using anything?”
“Is that what you immediately assume whenever you encounter an amnesiac?”
“You have amnesia?”
“That is correct. But I’m starting to have...flashes...of memory. I’ve been sitting here pondering over what it all means.”
“Okay.” DeMatteis nodded. His tone remained calm and sympathetic. “Do you remember where your clothes are?”
Lou glanced down. “Honestly, it didn’t even occur to me that I was naked until it was mentioned a moment ago.”
Giffen crept closer. “This is private property, sir. Are you aware of that?”
Lou shrugged. “I only know that the kids said they use it as a clubhouse.”
“You mean Rena, Billy and Jackie?”
“Yes.”
DeMatteis jotted something down. “And what is your relationship to them?”
Lou sighed. “As I said, they’ve been kind enough to offer me assistance.”
“Assistance?”
“Correct.”
“Lou,” Giffen said, inching closer still, “we’d like to ask you some more questions. How about we leave this sinkhole and continue the conversation some place better?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Giffen shrugged. “Well, then at least step away from the edge. That’s a long way to fall.”
Lou glanced behind him at the opening, and the sea churning far below. He sensed movement, and turned back around to see Giffen stepping toward him.
“Do you have anything on you,” the officer asked. “Weapons? Drugs? Anything that might stick me?”
“Given that, as has been pointed out, I’m naked, they’d have to be hidden up my ass, wouldn’t they?”
“I still need to check.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Not at this time. I’d just like to check you.”
DeMatteis nodded. “For our own safety, and yours.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Now, Lou,” DeMatteis soothed. “Let’s do this the easy way. You’re not under arrest. You’re only being detained.”
“Gentlemen, as I said, I’ve been sitting here trying to find myself. You are interrupting that.”
Both officers moved in. Lou took several hurried steps back—
DeMatteis reached for him in alarm. “Wait!”
—and then the cavern floor disappeared beneath Lou’s feet, and the salt air suddenly grew stronger, and the roar of the ocean grew louder, and he realized that he was falling. His arms and legs pinwheeled. For a brief moment, he saw the gaping faces of the police officers, staring down at him. Then he twisted in the air and saw the ocean and spikes of jagged rock rushing toward him. Lou screamed. He flailed and then...
...the rocks and the ocean receded, growing smaller beneath him. Shrieking, Lou glanced about and saw the officers peering out of the cave—except now they were looking up at him.
Lou flexed his back muscles, and felt the air shift on either side of him. He looked over his shoulder and saw that huge, white-feathered wings had apparently sprouted from his back.
He shouted again, but this time with wonder and joy, rather than terror.
Then he flew into the night, circling toward the lights of the city. The lights of Los Angeles.
The city of angels.
23
T he Exit awoke in a darkness so all-encompassing that at first he thought he’d gone blind. He heard a frightened burbling sound to his right, followed by a panicked scrabbling. He sat up quickly, confused. The last thing he remembered was the tentacle-headed girl, feeding on both him and Henry. He’d grown weak then, either from loss of blood or from some kind of sedative property in the creature’s saliva—or possibly a combination of the two. Then, they’d been carried off by a group of shark men.
But where was he now?
Still in R’lyeh. That much was obvious, judging by the humidity, and briny stench in the air, and the feel of slimy stone slabs beneath him. Given that he was still alive, he guessed that they had plans for him. He wondered where Henry was.
“Henry,” he whispered. “Are you there?”
This elicited another frightened whimper from the darkness to his right. After a moment, the unseen presence moaned one tearful word.
“Moxey.”
The Exit didn’t know who or what Moxey was, but he recognized the voice as Henry’s.
“Stay there,” he whispered. “I’ll come to you.”
Henry whined in response.
There was a low rumbling beneath them, and the floor vibrated slightly. When the noise stopped, the Exit scooted forward, feeling his way, slicking his palms with slime, until he touched something—the hilt of a knife. Clutching it, he felt again until he found the teen’s quivering form. Henry yelped in surprise.
“Henry, it’s me. Stop. It’s alright. I’m going to get us out of here.”
The boy fell quiet again, but his body was still taught and tense and trembling.
