Kat Richardson - Underground

“Why would Tanker go to a torn-down theater?”

“He didn’t go there,” Fish said, looking up from his conversation with Tall Grass. “He went to the University dock. Grass says Tanker was going to try to get a job on the research vessel’s dock crew. He says Lass and… Sistu followed him. Grass’s pretty freaked out. He says he saw it following Lass like a dog…”

“Shadow of a dog,” Grass corrected. Then he hid his face in his hands and started shaking.

“Oh, shit,” Quinton muttered. “It’s Lass.”

We bundled into the Rover and went after Lass. The three of us who’d seen the bodies had no desire to see another. Ben caught our fear and started blurting nervous questions. I just concentrated on getting us there as fast as possible in the fog that was boiling up from the icy water of the lakes and canal, muttering pleas to whatever gods might bother to listen that we not find another body.

“What’s going on?” Ben demanded. “Who are we chasing?” “Lassiter,” I replied, making the connections. “He’s one of the homeless guys and the monster is trailing him around like a faithful hound. He also sent Quinton and me to Sistu’s lair last night, and neither of us—who spend a ton of time around the Square and thought we knew every inch of it—knew about the back door to the comfort station,” I started, reconstructing my thoughts out loud. “What comfort station?” “The one under Pioneer Square.” I turned a glance at Quinton.

“That’s what the revenant on the tour meant—a place with no comfort, between the tides. What are the chances that Lass, who came to you worried about monsters following him in the underground, would know a bolt-hole you didn’t know about? The hole was camouflaged and there was no evidence anyone had ever used that bit of the underground as a flop. And if Lass—the paranoid—knew about such a snug little hole, why would he be sleeping in the bricks and risking the wrath of Tanker and Bella—whom he is now chasing?”

“How would he get control of Sisiutl?” Fish asked. “There has to be a gift made, not just a favor.”

“A gift? What sort of gift?” I demanded.

“A token from Qamaits to signify his command of—Sistu.”

“Well… if it’s following him like a dog, maybe Qamaits gave him the thing’s leash—it must have a leash of some kind; that’s how these things work,” Ben said.

“Why would he want the stunner if he had the monster’s leash?” Quinton asked.

“If he doesn’t speak Lushootseed, he might not know what the ogress had given him. He might not understand that Sistu meant him no harm since he wouldn’t understand what she told him,” Fish said.

Quinton shook his head. “If Lass understands Lushootseed, that’s news to me.”

“So he wouldn’t understand the monster was a gift, not something stalking him.”

“Probably not. But the stun stick wouldn’t have been much help against that kind of monster. So why did he come to me?”

As we turned in near the oceanography buildings, I made a suggestion. “Given Lassiter’s erratic behavior, I’m not sure he knew it wouldn’t help, or that he understood how Sistu operated. He might have thought it just ate whoever it wanted but hadn’t yet attacked him for some reason.”

“He seems to have gotten the hang of it now,” Quinton said in disgust. “He’s bringing the monster right to Tanker and Bella—he hates them—and you know he’d harm them both if he thought he had the tool to do it.”

“I agree. It’s the known dead who are Lassiter’s victims—those are the ones Sistu killed for him. The others, they were just food for Sistu. The legend says you have to keep the monster fed or the gods get pissed off,” I thought aloud.

“It also says you shouldn’t abuse their gifts,” Fish added as I turned into a parking lot. “Qamaits isn’t a goddess, but she still lent out their pet. A couple of days ago I wouldn’t have taken this seriously, but… I may be changing my mind. These legends are kind of specific. This Lass guy will have to answer to the gods for messing up or there’ll be hell to pay.”

The area was under construction here and there behind the medical center—the inevitable expansion of a growing campus—and once I’d parked the truck, we had to run around the west end of the South Campus Center buildings to get down to San Juan Road and the oceanography dock. My cranky knee protested the whole way.

There was no sign of Lass or Tanker at the dock. Quinton skidded to a halt beside me in the thickening mist seeping off Portage Bay. “Where is he?” he snapped. “That damned Lass…”

“Where did the Showboat used to be?” I asked.

Ben came panting up behind us. “To the west a little… that open area we passed… near the gate. We’d have seen him as we came down the street.”

Fish joined us, looking a little ill from the exertion. He bent and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

A dog yelped and growled in the gathering mist.

“That’s got to be Bella,” Quinton said, pointing east toward the salmon fishery.

I pushed normal aside and bolted forward into the Grey that was for once easier to see as the normal filled with thick white vapor. I ran toward two knots of bright life circling each other in between the hard lines of the fishery’s upright towers. Quinton and Ben followed with Fish trailing behind. As I pounded across the ground, I put my hand behind my back to check my pistol and couldn’t put my hand on it. It was there—I could feel it pressing into the back of my right hip—but I couldn’t grab it and panic spiked through me—it seemed as if I was too far into the Grey to grab hold of something as normal as a gun. If Lass had his stunner I stood a chance—though unpleasant—against him, but I had none against Sisiutl without the gun to drive it back long enough to run like hell, and I didn’t think anyone but Quinton had any other weapons on them.

The dog let out a yelp as a white arc dashed between the two bright figures ahead. One of the knots of light spun and began to dart away. The other started to chase it.

In the whispering and muttering of the Grey I heard someone else call out in the normal. “Lass!” Quinton shouted beside me. “Lass, don’t!”

I slammed back into the normal with a jolt and skidded to a halt just beyond the spawning pool and a few feet from Lass, who was turning to stare at Quinton and the rest of us. I started to try again for the gun, but Quinton put a light warning hand on my elbow, keeping his eyes on Lass the whole time. He took a slow step toward him while Ben and Fish stumbled to swaying stops nearby. The power grid of the Grey hummed with tension and seemed to color even the normal mist red.

Lass, half crouched and tight as a spring, had whirled to stare at us, his eyes darting over each of us in turn. The little shock stick he held arced and crackled spastically as he twitched with fear and drug withdrawal and squeezed it in his unsteady fist.

“Q-man,” he mumbled, as if he’d struggled to put the name and face together.

A cloud of sickly olive green shattered by bolts of orange swirled around him in the Grey, and he seemed to have a pair of dark shadows where Quinton had none. I wondered for an instant about Ben and Fish, behind me, but I didn’t turn to look. Lass straightened up a little, his fear easing a touch at seeing a familiar face. “Man… I—what you want?”

“Where’s Tanker?” Quinton asked.

“I don’t know, man! I was—I don’t know. That dog. That dog, man, it was trying to kill me! All dogs try to kill me. They hate me! They follow me around!”

Quinton eased closer to Lass, the long sweep of his coat meeting the creeping fog and concealing his movement. “The dog’s gone. She won’t be bothering you for a while. I don’t think you’ll need the stunner any more.” He held out his hand, still at a distance. “You can give it back to me now.”