Rob Thurman - Madhouse

"All clear." Niko's low murmur came drifting up past stone and plaster walls. They once would've been completely covered with plaster and painted. Over the years that plaster had been soaked time and time again and had rotted. Handfuls were gone in some spots and in other areas nothing but stone remained.

There were splatters on the steps, the stone and the filthy plaster. Brown and dried. Blood. One helluva lot of blood. Sawney had picked his cave all right and it was a good one, up until a few revenants had gotten sloppy and poached from the campus. Then they'd actually killed and fed aboveground right at their front door. Sawney was insane, but he was smart. He wouldn't have ordered that or allowed it if he knew. You don't shit in your own backyard; every good two-legged predator knows that. That meant the discipline wasn't as all-encompassing as it seemed, at least not with all of them. It was a good sign. If we could take Sawney, the revenants might scatter. They would definitely be less of a threat if they reverted to typical revenant fighting skills. Every ghoul for himself.

At the bottom of the stairs the brown stains covered the entire floor, from wall to wall. I could picture it. The body, maybe only half dead, of the victim being tossed down the stairs like garbage. If they weren't dead at the top, I hoped like hell they were when they hit the bottom. What kind of world was it when that could be credited as an actual hope?

Sawney's world.

The tunnel wasn't as cramped as I thought it might be, but it made me claustrophobic nonetheless. There were no rooms, no alcoves, nothing—just one long range of tunnel. You could go forward or back, but that was it. There was no spreading out if someone caught you from the front and behind. It wasn't a good tactical position to be in. We were moving at a pace slow enough that I could walk backward with gun ready for any revenant that might be bringing home a doggy bag. It was a very real possibility. We'd chosen night for the assault as we hoped most of the revenants would be out hunting. Sawney might be as well, but if he was, once he caught dinner he'd come home with it. That's all we cared about—nailing him when he did.

If we'd come during the day, they all would've been down here. Not a good prospect for success. Revenants could and did pass during the daylight if they covered up with hooded jackets to hide slick flesh and wore sunglasses to conceal a milky flash of eye. If they kept their head down, they could slide through the crowds, but mixing with the populace was different than killing and dragging a body across campus. Nighttime was best for that sort of work.

This way we'd double our chances of coming across Sawney with considerably fewer revenants at his side. That didn't make the odds in our favor, but it did make them better. I'd take it.

"We're at the first split."

I stopped and turned to see the tunnel break off to the left and right. Both tunnels reeked, but the one to the left did just a little more. I jerked my head in that direction. "That way."

We moved and this time faster as I settled for snatching a glance over my shoulder every few seconds at the tunnel behind us. We had more space between us and the entrance now, as well as two tunnels for the revenants to choose from. They did use both from the smell of it, even if this was their main path of travel.

"He'll know we're coming," Robin said as his fine leather shoes trod silently on the brown, crusted path.

"How do you know that?"

He looked back at me, the stolen earring glittering in the beam of my flashlight, but it was Promise who beat him to the punch with the mildest of sarcasm. "Only because he has every time so far?"

"Good point," I admitted.

"He'll know, but he won't run," Niko said. "This is his true cave. He will not give it up, and in his mind it is not as if he has anything to fear from us."

That was the sad truth. Dead wolves, a skinned boggle, and the fact that he'd eaten a chunk of my chest were all proof of that. He had no reason to run. We were better than cable, the most entertainment he'd had in a long, long time. Several hundred years to be exact. The son of a bitch would probably be glad to see us—cackle insanely in glee. And why not? Where better to do anything insanely than in the subterranean leftovers of an asylum?

Something sparked brightly at the bottom of the wall to the right and I stopped to pick it up. It was an engagement ring. The diamond was small and surrounded by even smaller rubies. Pretty, but for the couple on a budget. I knew the others had seen it; their eyes were as sharp as mine, but they'd passed it by. What could you do? She was gone, whoever she'd been. Gone far from this place and maybe she was no place at all, I didn't know. I did know she wouldn't want proof of her lo…of her existence…hidden down here in the fetid darkness. I put the ring in my pocket. At the very least I could leave it somewhere up top…someplace in the sun. Promise's gaze was the one that turned back this time, her eyes soft. I scowled and looked away. It was corny and stupid, picking up that ring—two things I wasn't. I really wasn't. And I hated that I'd been caught in it.

We walked on and the tunnel seemed to get more and more narrow, but I thought that was more me than actual reality. We'd been underground a lot lately and it reminded me … of what, I wasn't really sure. Abbagor's cave? Although we'd almost died there more than once, I didn't think that was it. It was deeper than that, an abscess aching from a long time ago. No, not Abbagor, but maybe something more terrifying than even he had been.

The Auphe had had me for two years. I couldn't recall a single moment of those years spent in a world separate from this one. But there were times I woke up to the feeling of rock beneath my fingers and the sense of tons of the same hanging overhead. Caves, the monsters loved the goddamn caves.

"Cal."

I drew in a breath of tainted air, trying to clean away what barely qualified as the shadow of a memory, and moved past Promise and Robin to stand beside Niko. "Yeah?"

"We have a room." He indicated the door almost fifty feet down the hall. I couldn't make out any details. It was at the edge of the flashlight beam.

"Okay. I'm ready." With the Desert Eagle and the explosive rounds, I was designated distraction of the day. I needed to keep Sawney's attention on me while Niko put his plan into play. As the Redcap had already acquired a taste for me, it shouldn't be that hard. I went on ahead with Niko close at my back. When I reached the door, I noticed the faded printing on it. hydrotherapy treatment room. I wanted to ask Nik what water had to do with the treatment of mental health, but kept silent as I moved a hand toward the handle. He could be there. Sawney could be right there, and I wasn't going to tip him off. I was ready for this to be over.

The element of surprise was lost with the screech of hinges almost rusted into a solid whole. That didn't mean it hadn't been opened recently. The metal was so old; it would never open easily again. Grimacing, I shoved at the door hard and with Niko's help got it open enough to let a person slip through, and through I went. The room was small and empty except for a water-filled square in the filthy tiled floor. Five feet by five feet, it was too small to be a pool and a little too early in plumbing history to be a whirlpool tub.

"Why is there water in it?" I mused aloud. It was murky and impenetrable and it shouldn't have been there. Whatever it had been used for in asylum days, I would think it would've long dried up over the past hundred years or so. "And what the hell was it for?"

"In less educated days, mental health workers used to plunge people over and over underwater. It was some time before they came to admit that near drowning didn't seem to improve anyone's mood disorder." Niko regarded the flat surface of the water with disdainful repugnance. "I doubt Sawney is using it for a reason any more enlightened."