Page 73 of Taste of Blood

“Unless they had another way out,” I reply.

“Everyone get in here now,” Dante growls over the comms. When all the men are inside, Dante starts barking out orders. “I want this place searched top to bottom to find out how they got out of here. There has to be another exit.”

“There are tunnels in this area,” Joshua offers.

“Then find the entrance,” Dante snaps. “I don’t care if you have to tear the walls out. I want this fucker found.”

We spend the next hour going over every square inch of the warehouse. Dante and Gio head back to their own warehouse, leaving the rest of us on this search and destroy mission.

Zeke and I, along with two of the guys who rode in our van, are in what looks like the office in a corner of the space. We’ve moved all the furniture out and are pulling paneling off the walls and testing the floor for trapdoors when we hear shouting coming from the back of the warehouse.

“We got something!”

We follow the voices to an area where several large metal shelving units line the walls. The units have been toppled over and an axe taken to the wall behind them. And there, clear as day, is a door.

“How the fuck did they get through that and lock it up from this side?” Zeke asks.

“The guy who left,” I reply. It makes sense now. One guy stays behind to cover their escape. I’m even more curious to go to the bar to find out who this guy is. Maybe if our men hadstopped him, we might have caught them before they got away. Doesn’t matter now.

Zeke kicks at the door. “Fuck. Okay, someone get over here and bust this lock.”

One of the guys with an axe makes short work of the lock, smashing the threshold and opening the door to reveal a dark shaft with a narrow staircase leading down.

Zeke orders two men to stay back and watch the warehouse, then heads down the stairs, the flashlight he’s carrying barely cutting through the darkness. He moves it around him then looks up and gives me a thumbs up.

I follow him down into what looks like a narrow tunnel. It’s barely wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side, and the height of the ceiling means most of us will have to hunch over to travel it.

We wait while all the men descend the stairs. “Stay alert, everyone,” Zeke orders when we’re all assembled. “We don’t know what we’ll find in here.”

We follow single-file. No one speaks and we try to keep our footsteps as light as possible, but the faintest sound seems to echo in the tunnel. Maybe that’s because the walls are carved stone. It smells damp and musty but surprisingly doesn’t reek from vermin or trash, so that’s a plus.

After about fifty feet, the floor begins to slope downward, causing the headroom to open up. I’m guessing we’re under the buildings across the street now. We come to an intersection, probably leading back to one of the other buildings, but that way is blocked off.

Zeke glances back at me and motions to keep going. I relay that back to the man behind me with hand signals.

We’ve walked for about twenty minutes when we hear noises ahead. Zeke stops and motions for everyone to remain quiet. Ilisten and can start to make out individual voices, but they’re muffled, as though coming through a wall or a door.

“What do you think?” I whisper to Zeke.

“Let’s try to get closer. But quietly.”

We all move as one, walking on the balls of our feet as we edge toward the voices. Zeke keeps the flashlight pointed at the floor so as not to give away our position. We come to another intersection, and this time both lanes are blocked with heavy metal doors. The voices are louder here, but it’s hard to tell which door they’re coming from.

Zeke presses his ear against the one on the right while I do the same on the left. After a few seconds I can hear the voices clearly on the other side. I glance over at him and point to the door. He joins me, his mouth close when he whispers, “How do we get that door open without getting attacked?”

I look around. Half the men are armed with crossbows while the rest are carrying blades of various kinds, but I’m looking for the guy with the axe. There’s no subtle way of doing this. An axe won’t cut through the metal. There’s also a metal handle but no obvious lock we can pick. It’s probably secured with a bolt from the other side. Even if we manage to get it open, we’ll make so much noise we’ll lose the element of surprise. They’re going to know we’re coming and will be waiting for us, and that means casualties. Dante doesn’t want casualties.

“I wish we knew where this was, topside,” I murmur. “It would be easier to come in that way.”

Zeke looks around and motions to Russell. When he comes forward, Zeke asks him, “Is there a way you can get our physical location?”

“I don’t have anything on me, since normal GPS is blocked down here, but I have an INS system back in the van that would do the trick.”

“Really?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me. “Why would you have something like that?”

He grins. “In this city? You never know when you’re going to be stuck underground.”

“Okay, let’s all head back to the warehouse,” Zeke says, “then you can get this INS device and I’ll send a couple of men down here with you to get the location.”