Xiang nodded. He would never dream of using the word fortunate.
Toru sipped the tea. “That is excellent.”
“Indeed. Yes it is,” Xiang agreed. Hopefully, if Toru was in a good mood, he would kill him quickly and not have him tortured or humiliated first.
“Yes. This is a sign.” The Iron Guard, for Xiang could never believe in such a thing as a former Iron Guard, stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Nothing happens by accident. It would appear that the ghost of my father has once again guided my path. As I said, I am here to deliver a message. You are a reporter.”
“I am an editor.”
“I do not care. Just as it has moved me, fate has placed you here for a reason. You will report what you see so that my message may be made clear. This is another sign from my father. I will tell you a story, and you will see that it is published.” Toru looked at him expectantly.
“What?”
“You should take notes. You will need to get this right.”
Zhao had only led them part of the way back down the smuggler’s tunnel when Lance spoke up. “Oh damn. Damn it all to hell.” He sounded distracted, which told Sullivan that part of his mind was occupied inside some other living thing.
The group froze. “What’ve you got?”
“You want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Good news, I suppose.”
“Our big-eared gangster friend didn’t sell us out.”
Zhao seemed upbeat for once. “I hoped my cousin would keep his word.”
Heinrich laughed. “And now, of course, the bad.”
“One of his underlings sold us out. Du and his boys left in a convoy of trucks. They’re still counting money and having a good time, but one of those serving girls of his walked down the street from the warehouse and started talking to a policeman. I don’t speak the lingo. Way she’s standing there listening, she’s not a snitch or getting a bribe, she’s one of them, undercover. Now the policeman’s talking into a radio. Wish I spoke Chinese…”
“Don’t need to.” Even though the floor was damp and slick, Sullivan took a knee. It was easier on his back than standing all hunched over. He looked over to Zhao, who was thoughtful enough to keep the hand torch pointed down the other way so as to not blind everybody. “They’ll be waiting for us.” Sullivan pulled the Webley from inside his coat. They had passed several forks in the smuggler’s tunnels. “You got another way out?”
“Yes. There are many places to exit in the ruined quarter.”
“Got a rat following the girl. She’s gone back into the warehouse with a bunch of those secret police. There’s a diesel engine…”
“What does it do?” Heinrich prompted.
“Hard to get an angle from the floor… Wait, it’s a water pump. She’s killed it. Now she’s trying to turn a big valve on the floor.”
“She’s flooding the tunnels,” Heinrich snapped.
“They’re not rolling us up.” Sullivan put the Webley back. “They’re flooding us out.”
“The whole system fills very quickly,” Zhao said. “We will be taking the closest exit. Hurry.”
The knights set out. Lance was all distracted trying to steer more than one body with only one brain, so Heinrich grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him along. Sullivan brought up the rear, mostly because he was too damned big to go fast all hunched over, but it beat crawling. He’d done enough of that in France.
“That valve’s heavy. She’s having to fight it. I’ll distract her… Okay, lady. Say hello to my little friend.” Lance began to laugh maniacally.
“What’d you do?” Heinrich asked.
“Had a rat crawl up her dress to bite her on the ass. Ha!” Then Lance grimaced, stumbled, and crashed into the wall. He fell on his face, moaning.
Heinrich dragged him up. Their Beastie had been floored, sure as a punch to the head. “You okay?”
“Getting stepped on always hurts.” Lance was rubbing his temples. “Yeah… But we’ve got problems. She had more secret police with her. The valve was rusted stuck, but they’re working on it.”
“How much further, Zhao?” Sullivan asked.
“A few minutes.”
“Keep them busy, Lance. I don’t feel like drowning.”
“Looking… I’ve got to collect my Power… Here we go, there’s like two hundred rats in this warehouse… Can’t control that many individuals… Hell. They’ve unstuck the valve. I can only provoke a couple of strong emotions in that many minds.” He closed his eyes and concentrated hard. “I’m going with rage and uncontrollable hunger.”
Sullivan didn’t know if Lance was really going to sic a swarm of giant, vicious wharf rats on the secret police, but he was fresh out of pity. “Do it.”
“Already on the way.” Lance struggled to his feet. “Too late. The floodgate’s open.”
There was an odd sound in the distance, not quite like anything Sullivan had heard before. It sounded more like thunder than anything. The atmosphere in the tunnel changed as air was forced past them.
“We’re not going to make it in time!” Zhao shouted.
They only had a few seconds. “How close are we to the river?” Heinrich asked.
The flashlight beam bounced toward the right. “I don’t know. Maybe twenty feet.”
“Oh… That’s nasty…” Lance said through clenched teeth, his mind divided between here and the warehouse. “So much blood.”
Serves them right, Sullivan thought to himself, but that was just out of spite because they were about to drown. Drowning was preferable to being devoured by rats.
Heinrich still had Lance by the arm. He looked to Sullivan. “Hold your breath and hang on. I’ll come back for you.” Then Heinrich turned grey and hazy. A split second later Lance did as well, and then the two of them disappeared through the rock.
Sullivan looked around. There was nothing to hold on to. The rumble had grown into a much bigger noise, like they were about to be hit by a train. Sullivan flexed his Power, using it to see the world as it really was, interconnected bits of matter under constant forces, and he could feel the incredible spike of energy heading their way. He instinctively did the math. His Power would be sufficient to anchor himself in place, and then all he’d have to do is hold his breath until Heinrich got back.
Then he looked to Zhao, who was staring at him in wide-eyed terror. Aw hell. Every time Sullivan had ever forced a significant increase of gravitational power onto somebody else, it had either severely injured or outright killed them. His body was trained to deal with it. Sullivan was a Gravity Spiker. Everybody else was fragile in comparison. Zhao would either be swept away to be battered to death or drowned, or Sullivan could anchor him in place, but if he screwed up even the slightest bit, half of the kid’s internal organs would rupture under the pressure. If the water was solid, he might be able to slow it, but fluids worked differently under gravity. They’d still rush past him and get the kid anyway. Fluids were complicated.
“Get behind me,” Zhao shouted.
It was usually Sullivan that said that to others in crisis situations. He was not used to hearing it from somebody else. Zhao roughly pushed past Sullivan, toward the onrushing wall of water. The kid dropped the flashlight on the floor, extended his hands, palms open, and squinted into the darkness. He began muttering in Chinese in what Sullivan could only guess was either a desperate prayer or angry profanity. It really could have gone either way.