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Chapter Thirty-Seven

CARMINE

The subway service tunnel rattles when a train passes above, then goes as silent as a grave.

The smells under New York are complex enough to focus my attention away from the overwhelming thoughts of the Bourbon getting his hands on Luna.

Ancient dirt soaked with high fructose corn syrup.

Human sweat. Three kinds of plastic. A smashed McDonald’s bag with food inside that will never rot.

Rats, living and dead. Shit. Piss. Spit.

These tracks do not have a third rail. They haven’t been used in a century. It is darker than dark. The tunnel is too narrow for raven wings. I have to walk for a bit.

I don’t mind. I can see in the dark. I have walked in the tunnels under Naples without issue.

But they are not this deep. They are not this damp. The screams don’t come from all directions, too far to see, too close to ignore. When I’m in the tunnels under the Spanish Quarter, I am home. I don’t sweat like this. I don’t shake on one side. Fuck.

Slow down before you trip on your dick, bro.

I stop short and—out of a five-hundred-year-old habit—look up for the source of the threat.

Come on, man. The guy on the ceiling thing? It happened one time.

“Where are you?” I turn once, twice, but the sound bounces off the walls and dies. My chest expands to accommodate the rapid pound of my heart. I can barely hear the voice over it.

Down. Look down.

A rat stands on the rusted rail, staring up at me. It doesn’t scurry away or wring its little hands. It is as still as a monk. I know the creature possessing the rodent’s body all too well.

Best I could do under the circumstances. You all right?

A rat’s mouth cannot make human sounds, but this one does. They’re in my ears as squeaks and in my head as words.

“What do you want?”

Just to talk. Have a friendly chat, you know? Like the throwback times.

I walk and it follows.

“We were never friends.”

We were in our enemies era, but we were always two gentlemen of taste. Down deep, we were fam, am I right?

“No.” I know the meaning of every word he’s saying, but this creature is like a piece of tape on the jacket of any culture he finds himself in, picking up expressions like bits of lint.

We could have. We stanned the same things. Had the same collections. We coulda done a collab if you weren’t so greedy with the merch.

A piece of dust falls into my eye. I rub it away. Am I lost? I can’t be lost. I can’t panic and I can’t be lost, but I may be both.

I ain’t mad. Water under the bridge, right? Win some, lose some. I figured you’d get run through at some point. Didn’t think you’d get unalived this soon.

“I am not dead.” A clacking rumble from above drowns out my voice. I should be going up, but is this floor sloping down?

Kinda are? That’s why I said unalived. You’re usually pretty sharp, so… hey… You’re not afraid of tunnels, big powerful guy like you? It’s been five hundred years. Not that I’m saying that’s a long time.

An opening presents itself, and I turn away from the tracks into it. Probably a mistake. I’m probably going to be trapped down here with this fucking rat.

You ever heard the saying, “to a European five hundred miles is a long way, but to an American, five hundred years is a long time?” Here’s a neat trick.

If you really want this thing to land, when you’re talking to an American, you gotta put the European part last, and vice versa.

Gives their little human egos a gotcha at the end.

“Were you always this annoying?” My foot hits something immovable, and I almost fall face-first onto a stone stairway up. Thank the goddess.

I’m watching out for you in case, you know, something’s on the ceiling.

“Rats can’t look up.” The steps are steep and curved at the edges, as if they were made for the men who built the subway, not the ones who rode it.

Workin’ with what I got here. Giving chat. Some witticisms to bring back to your lady.

Four steps up, I freeze, then look back. The rat is trying to climb that first stair, but it’s too high. I go back down, leaving one foot up on the step.

“What did you say?”

She’s American. That little kid’s daughter. Luna? The Strega? The take on five hundreds? You gotta put the part about Europeans last or she’s not gonna lolz.

Raising my foot just enough, I bring it down on the rat, heel first, but the demon leaves and the rodentinstinct takes over in time to save its life.

The rumble comes again. It’s from the top of the stairs. A diffuse gray rectangle appears on the stairway wall. I have never been so relieved to see light.