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Crowley stood ready to fight, wondering if he could outrun the half a dozen rough-looking people blocking the way back. In truth, he was getting a little tired of running away from people.
The group paused. One man took a step forward. He was thin, baggy clothes hanging off his wiry frame. He had dark skin, smudged with dirt, but his eyes were bright, narrowed. “You okay, man?” he asked.
Crowley frowned. “I’m not sure. Am I?”
A woman stepped up next to the man who had spoken, brown hair matted and ratty, but her eyes as bright as his. “What’s a British fellow doing running around down here?”
“I’m Clyde, this is Sarah,” the first man said. “You in trouble?”
“My name is Jake. And yeah, I was in a spot of bother, but I think I outran it.”
There was murmuring among the group and then Clyde turned back to Crowley. “There’s been some sketchy looking characters down here.” He flashed a self-deprecating grin. “Some of ours have disappeared. More than usual, I mean. We’re kinda on the defensive.” He slipped his knife away in one oversized pocket of his coat and the others lowered their weapons.
“S’why we don’t go near the tunnels under Bellevue anymore,” said one man at the back.
“The hospital?” Crowley asked. “There are tunnels under there?”
“Anyhow,” Clyde said, deliberately interrupting. “You say you outran your trouble?”
Crowley decided to log that mention of Bellevue for later consideration. He hadn’t considered before what might lurk under the old hospital. “Who are you people? I mean, are you a group or something?” he asked instead.
“Topsiders call us mole people, because we live underground.”
Crowley looked around, wondering where to find the best way out. But curiosity burned. “You said some of yours had gone missing?”
Clyde turned to the others behind him and there was more whispered conversation, then they headed off back down the passage. Only Clyde and Sarah remained. “Want us to lead you back topside? We can talk on the way.”
“Sure, thanks.”
Clyde moved to walked alongside Crowley, with Sarah falling into step beside him. “We lose people for lots of reason,” he said. “But lately it’s been a lot more than usual. It’s got us on edge.”
“Understandable. What do you mean by lately?”
“The last year or so. Usually it’s drugs, booze, jail or...” He drew a finger across his throat. “A few just go. But then a bunch started disappearing. We had to find out where they were going.”
“So where did they go?”
Clyde flashed Crowley a dark look. “Dead. Murdered.”
“By whom?”
“The Revenant.”
Crowley’s heart pulsed an extra beat. His conversation earlier with Jerkwad on the floor of Jazz’s apartment came back in technicolor. The man talking about his boss. Snatches of conversation echoed in Crowley’s mind.
I ain’t ever met him in person, never seen his face... He calls himself the Witchfinder...
But these underlings, they’re sycophants, you know, they creep and scrape around.
But they don’t show much respect... they secretly call him the Revenant.
“You okay, man?” Clyde asked. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“The Revenant?” Crowley asked. “That’s what he’s called?”
“Yep.”
“And he’s real? Not just an urban legend or something?”
“Oh yeah,” Clyde said. “He’s real.”
“Too real,” Sarah added.
“So who is he?”
““No one really knows who or what he is,” Clyde said.
“But we hear stuff,” Sarah said. “We hide, we listen. We talk to each other.”
Clyde sighed, nodded softly, and dropped back a little to let Sarah speak.
She licked her lips, then said, “They say he’s some sort of vampire or soul-sucker. Not like monsters from the old movies. He’s the real thing. And he’s old, been coming and going since New York was called...” She scratched her chin.
“New Amsterdam?” Crowley prompted, the school teacher in him unable to resist.
Sarah nodded eagerly. “Every time he comes back, the dying starts again. They say he wants revenge for his lost love.”
“That’s not the reason,” Clyde said.
“Is he a serial killer?”
“More like an evil sorcerer,” Clyde said. “Or a mad scientist. He wants to be immortal. That’s what this is all about.”
“Can anyone describe him?”
Sarah shook her head. “Clyde follows him some times and spies.”
“From a long way away, and he keeps his face covered. If I went topside I could pass him by in the street and never know it. And that would be fine with me.”
Crowley’s mind whirred. Surely this was all urban myth, it rang like a campfire tale. He tried to think of anything that might connect Jazz to the Revenant, why the man’s cronies were at the reporter’s apartment. He didn’t really believe all the stuff Sarah had told him, but there were always seeds of truth in legends, even those of the modern urban variety. There had to be some connection. Two things Jazz had been investigating were Matthew Price and the bodies in the crypt under Washington Square Park. An unexpected piece dropped into place, but Crowley wasn’t certain if it actually fit or if he was clutching at straws. Clyde had said the disappearances started about a year ago. Wasn’t that when Price said he’d come back to New York from travelling around the country?
Every time he comes back, the dying starts again.
Crowley shook his head. He couldn’t write it off, but it was also easy for confirmation bias to put things together when they didn’t actually mesh. He decided to file that possibility away for later. But he was beginning to think that perhaps Rose had been right all along. So what about the crypt? Lots of bodies, some of them very fresh, several others less than a year old, maybe.
“You guys live underground,” he said. “Do any of these passageways connect to old crypts? Washington Square Park for example.”“
“Haven’t heard about that one,” Clyde said. “But could be. A lot of times, topsiders dig down to the underground by mistake. Other times something opens up on its own, like a crack in the old rock finally busts open.”
On a hunch, Crowley pulled out the scrap of paper he’d found at Jazz’s apartment. “Tell me if you recognize any of these people,” he said, reading by the light of his phone.
They didn’t react to the first couple of names, but when Crowley read out ‘Ricky Gallagher’, both Clyde and Sarah said, “Ricky!”
“You know him?”
“Ricky was a good kid,” Clyde said. He really wanted to get clean. Tried hard. He lived down here a year ago, maybe more. One day he just disappeared like most do. We figured he was dead or in jail. But then he showed up about four months ago.”
Crowley drew a deep breath. The coincidence was too much to ignore. “You remember the name of the company?”
Clyde shook his head. “I don’t, sorry.”
“Sale something?” Sarah offered.
“SaleMed?” Crowley asked, remembering the name of Price’s company.
“That was it!” they both said together.
“How did you know that?” Clyde asked.
“Let’s just say you guys are joining some dots for me.”
“Is that why you were running for your life and ended up down here?” Clyde asked.
“Yes, my friend, I believe it does. Can you remember anything else about the Revenant? No matter how far-fetched or insignificant it might seem.”
“I reckon Sarah told you all of it,” Clyde said.
“There’s one thing.” Sarah scratched her head, the lines of her brow furrowed. “Some say his brother stole something from him and he’s trying to get it back. He can’t be immortal until he does.”
That sounded like fairy tale nonsense but Crowley nodded in thanks. “Fair enough. So any idea where I can find Ricky.”
“Maybe he’s working at that SaleMed place,” Clyde said. “But last we saw him, a few weeks ago, he was going to a meeting. I don’t know where, but if you like we can show you where Ricky went back topside.”
“Okay, that would be great.”
Crowley thought maybe he needed to check out SaleMed in more detail. And he owed Rose an apology too. He didn’t expect to find Ricky Gallagher working happily in his new job. If anything, he suspected he’d already met the poor lad briefly, the top-most corpse of that pile under Washington Square Park. But the more he could learn about him, the better he might be armed with information.
It didn’t take too long going through a bewildering series of old passages before Clyde stopped and said, “This is the place.” He pointed up to a rusty set of iron rungs buried in the bricks that led up to a maintenance cover similar to the one above the Washington Square Park crypt. “You can head up there, but be cautious when you open it up. Make sure no one’s around, they tend to freak out, you know? Or you might trip someone.”
“Okay, I’ll be careful. And thank you, I really appreciate your help.”
“Our pleasure. Best of luck to you.”
Clyde smiled and Sarah dipped her head briefly in farewell, then the two of them slipped away and were quickly swallowed by the darkness. Crowley marveled at their life, their intricate knowledge of these underground passageways and their ability to navigate them in the blackness. His phone was quickly losing charge where he’d been using it as a flashlight and he couldn’t wait to get back above ground.
He climbed the ladder and carefully lifted one edge of the maintenance cover. He looked out and his eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Bloody hell!”