Chapter 16 - Prisoner of War

  I made excellent time as I pressed on. Between all the boosts those crystals had given me, I was in amazing athletic shape now, and I used all of that to move quickly past the train I’d been riding with Amanda. I picked up the blood trail moving deeper into the tunnel from where it started at our train car, and followed it on down.

  The tunnel was a straight shot, and between the two glow sticks I finally had what felt like plenty of illumination. I pushed the speed more than I’d been willing to do when I had the kids with me, but I still kept a careful lookout. There was at least one of those rat-creatures still down in the tunnels, the one that escaped the train attack. Who knew what else might be down there? I knew I needed to watch my steps.

  In spite of all the care I took to watch for potential attackers lurking in the pools of shadow, I still missed seeing them until a spear shot out toward my right side, jabbing me in the ribs.

  “Ow!” I backed away from the attack, whirling toward whoever hit me.

  As I did, I brought my left hand to my ribs. They were sore, but it didn’t feel like the spear did any serious damage. The blow had literally bounced off! I flashed a grin, feeling a sudden boost in confidence. I was apparently spear-proof, now?

  Two small shapes scurried from the shadows. “We hurted it.”

  “Yessss. Now kills it!” the second muttered.

  I still had my hand where the spear ‘stabbed’ me, so they must figure I’d been more badly hurt than I had. That was fine; let them think that. As the pair of attackers advanced, I examined them and was surprised that I suddenly knew a lot more about them than I had before.

  They were the same sort of creature that had attacked the train and killed Amanda. That alone made me want to crack some heads. What shocked me was that I now knew these were tier one creatures, just by looking at them. In the same way reaching tier five let me identify what each crystal did and what rank it was, now I could see what rank the monsters were too, apparently.

  That was a huge boon. My guess was the pill bugs had been tier one, as well. These rat critters ought to be about the same power level as them, then. Not exactly a major challenge for me.

  “You boys might want to find easier prey,” I said. I shifted my grip to place both hands on my spear and hold it in a guard in front of me.

  “No. We eats you!” The nearer one jabbed at me with his spear again.

  I blocked the shot effortlessly. My Agility was high enough that to me, it was like the rat thing was moving in slow motion. Then I threw a hard kick that landed in the center of his chest. He left the ground and flew half a dozen feet back to smash into the concrete wall of the tunnel. It slid to the tunnel floor, definitely down for the count.

  “Nice,” I said, giving my spear a twirl. I made a ‘come at me’ motion with my left hand while staring down the other creature. “Want to try your luck?”

  With a cry of rage that sounded almost comical, coming from a creature that only stood about four feet high, it rushed me. I jabbed out with my spear, but it blocked and sent another blow my way.

  This time, I didn’t bother blocking. I tensed my gut as the strike landed with bruising force right below my ribs. If I hadn’t had Natural Armor as strong as I did, the attack probably would have punched straight through me. As it stood, though? The impact point stung a little. It wasn’t going to slow me down.

  The creature’s eyes got very wide.

  “My turn,” I said, advancing with my spear at the ready.

  It tossed its spear at me. I stopped, taking time to block it more out of instinct than need. The spear went clattering off to the side. But the throw had just been a distraction. While I was blocking, the rat thing was running! It dashed down the tunnel away from me, fading into the dark before I could give chase.

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  “Well, I guess the rest of them are going to know I’m coming, now,” I said. That wasn’t great, but so long as they kept being tier one, I would probably be okay.

  I went over to the one I’d kicked into the wall and was surprised to find it was still breathing. My first impulse was just to stab it and be done. One of these creatures had killed Amanda and this one tried to kill me. I would have been totally within my rights to crush it while it lay there.

  But I wanted answers, too. Maybe this thing could lead me to where they were keeping Amanda. That would be worth letting it live, at least for now. It hadn’t been difficult to take it down once. If it turned on me, I could do the same thing again.

  It reeked of garbage and body odor, so I backed away quickly and poked it with the butt end of my spear a few times until it woke up.

  “Screeeee!” The creature squealed as soon as it saw me looming over it.

  I aimed the spear straight at it. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you unless I have to. The train back that way—someone took bodies from it. Was that you?”

  It sat there panting, eyes very wide open as it stared up at me. I shook the spear, which got its attention. Both its hands went up, like it was trying to fend off my weapon. Not that it would do it much good. It wasn’t strong enough to block my blows.

  “Answer me, or so help me I’ll put you out of your misery right now,” I said.

  “Yes! Ratkin did take. That way!” It pointed deeper into the tunnel.

  “One of those people was important to me. I want her back. You lead me to where the bodies are, you get to live,” I told it. I took a step back to give it a little space. “You turn on me, you die.”

  “Yes yes yes,” it hissed as it scurried back to its feet. His feet, I was pretty sure. “Will take.”

  Well, now I knew what these creatures called themselves, anyway. It said it was a ‘ratkin,’ whatever that was. As names went, it wasn’t especially creative, but it fit. Now that it wasn’t moving so much, I was able to take a good look at the thing, and it really was just like a rat and a human crossed together.

  It stood on two legs, but the hind legs bent in odd ways, more like a rat than a human. The ratkin had fur all over his body, even on his face. The head was basically that of a giant rat. It wore some rags that kept me from seeing the gender for sure, which…was probably something I ought to be grateful for.

  “No tricks,” I said, keeping the spear aimed at the creature. “You try to run and we’ll find out how far I can throw this spear, you get me?”

  “Yes,” he hissed over his shoulder. “I take.”

  “Good enough,” I replied.

  We continued down the passage, the ratkin leading the way. I didn’t trust the creature in the slightest, of course. The first chance he had to run away, lead me into a trap, or trick me into harm’s way, he absolutely would. What I had going for me was I was a lot tougher than the ratkin. If he ran, I’d toss my spear at him and probably take him down with one shot. If he led me into a trap, he’d die first and then I’d deal with whatever else was coming at me.

  He was stuck, and he knew it. I stayed close on his heels, my spear aimed right at his back.

  We pushed ahead another hundred meters before I saw something I wasn’t expecting from up ahead—light! It wasn’t from a chem light, either. This glow was orange and yellow, and flickered like a campfire. Some sort of flame, then. Maybe I was getting close to their nest?

  Noises from up ahead told me that was probably correct. I heard scurrying, squeaking, and the occasional barked order, spoken in tones or words I couldn’t quite hear well enough to understand.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked him.

  “To nest. To bodies.”

  Sure enough, that blood trail I’d been following still marked the ground here and there from where the bodies had been dragged this way. I was headed in the right direction. All I needed to do was get in there, get Amanda, and get back out. Ideally in one piece.

  The light grew brighter, and I realized we were almost to the Kendall Square station. No—this was the Kendall Square station! The tunnel opened up into a wider space that was much brighter than what I’d become used to in the tunnels. The wall on my left vanished, turning into a series of support beams. On the other side of the beams was the southbound set of tracks, with the southbound platform past that. To my right was the northbound platform.

  Both platforms had a bunch of big barrel-style trash cans on them, spread out and filled with something flammable. The orange flames they gave off lit this space and filled with a reeking smoke, although most of the smoke drifted up the stairwells toward the surface.

  Oh, and there were ratkin. Lots of ratkin. I counted at least a few dozen of them, with about half that number lined up on the tracks in front of me, all of them armed with the same sort of sharpened rebar spear I held.

  “I said no tricks or traps,” I warned the ratkin leading me.

  “No trick! I bring!” it cried out.

  Then a booming voice called out from somewhere up on the platform. “What meaning this?”

  I couldn’t see the source of the voice, but the ratkin ahead of me wavered and crouched down when it yelled, so whatever it was, they were afraid of it. Even the one leading me had ducked down out of fear.

  “What was that?” I asked around.

  “Rat King,” the ratkin I’d followed hissed. “Now you die!”