Madhouse (Cal Leandros, #3)(65)

Still, dead body parts or not, Sawney might use the sewers as a home base. Cold, dank—it was a possibility, which was more than we had before. Now that we'd been at the Second Avenue Subway construction, he was bound to have left there. Sawney wanted his spider-hole secret. We didn't know whether he'd actually settled on that location or not before we'd shown up, but regardless we'd spoiled it for him.

Niko switched on his flashlight. "Do you remember when you were five and flushed your fish?"

"He was dead and that was in South Carolina." I sloshed through the water.

"Mmmm." The light dipped and I saw a sinuous shape beneath the surface of the water move past us. It was barely three feet long and it was not Freddy. Good thing too. Freddy had been a piranha.

We kept moving and truthfully I was surprised when we didn't come across any pieces of patients. Sawney wasn't the neatest of eaters. Unless he'd invested in a bib and a course in table manners, then this wasn't home or home was much farther down. I was really tired of tramping through tunnels and sewers, but it looked like this wasn't going to be an easy one. "Jesus. We might have days of this ahead of us," I said. "We'll have to get more help, bring paint to mark the off branches we cover, more lights." I turned and shot the revenant behind me in the stomach. "And get some rubber boots. My goddamn feet are freezing."

It fell in the water with a gurgle of blood and water rushing from its mouth. Its abdomen was pretty much gone—a bloody ruin of shredded flesh and the cartilage that passed for their bones. But there were still arms, a head and neck, part of a chest, and a frantically thrashing set of legs still joined, just barely, at the pelvis.

"I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to shoot it," Niko said, "or were thinking of giving it a piggyback ride instead."

I rolled my eyes. "Asshole. There's no pleasing you." I nudged the legs with my foot as the head went under water. "I think I should've used the Glock."

"It would've been more convenient for questioning purposes," Nik pointed out with mild exasperation as he dipped his hand under the water, grabbed the neck, and lifted the head up out of the water. "We would like to have a word with you, if you're not too occupied at the moment."

The head whipped back and forth, arms moved in jerky disjointed movements, the upper torso dripped fluid. Been seeing a lot of that lately. It was getting boring. "I can question the bottom half if you want, but unless it can do sign language with its toes, I think I'm out of luck."

An even more exasperated gray glance hit me, then turned back to the revenant. "Where is Sawney?" The gurgling turned to a scream, then a wheezing laugh. "Traveler."

There was another gurgle as the head went back under the water. Niko sighed as he held it under. "I'm a patient man, but this is all getting to be rather annoying." Corpse gray hands clawed at Niko's arms. He ignored them. "And if you can't use your explosive rounds responsibly, I'll have to take them away."

"It could've been Sawney," I defended. "I can't smell shit down here. Okay, that's not technically true. I can smell shit down here, but it really is sh…"

The gaze narrowed and I holstered the Eagle without finishing. "Yeah, anyway, he's looking a little more cooperative now," I said, nodding toward floating arms and a lack of air bubbles.

The head was jerked back up and shaken briskly by the neck. Water gushed from its mouth and over its chest. "Now"—Niko's fingers tightened around the neck—"you're obviously going to die. Regenerating is not much of an option for you, missing one-third of your body. However." He smiled, and even I felt the ice creep down my spine at the sight of it. "You can die now or you can die later. I think you'd much prefer now."

"Human." The word bubbled through the blood and water. "Worthless meat. I don't fear you."

That was all revenant there. A little bit arrogant and a whole lot stupid. He went back under. "I doubt that he knows anything," Niko said absently as he tossed me his light and used his other hand to draw his shorter sword—the tanto blade. "If he did, Sawney wouldn't have let him fall behind."

"Maybe the revenants are showing some more will now," I offered, catching the flashlight and holding it on the revenant. "They're not that bright and they've got an attention span …" I waggled my other hand back and forth.

"Much like yours, you mean," Niko suggested.

I glared but went on. "Sawney's feeding them some good stuff right now, but I doubt they're much into planning their future. He might be losing some of his control."

"Hmm. Interesting thought. Let us see."

It took a while.

I didn't think it was so much loyalty for Sawney as a hatred of humans. It'd be like a big-eyed lamb coming out of a field, kicking my ass, and making me its bitch. Revenant arrogance just couldn't believe it or give in to it. Not for a long time. Freddy and some friends showed up now and again to carry chunks of newly found fish food away in their mouths.

When it did talk, and with Niko it really was only a matter of time, it didn't have much to say. Yes, they'd taken the patients through here. We knew that. They were already dead when they'd been dropped into the water. It was the best that could be hoped for. As for the sewers and Sawney, it didn't know. Didn't know if he planned to stay or go. Didn't know if this was home or just another look at curb appeal.