Chapter 17
HARLOW
"Have you ever been down here?" Archer glanced over at me before stepping carefully over a crack in the brick flooring. His voice echoed slightly in the tunnel, eerily sending it back to us.
"Not here specifically," I whispered. "And not for a long time."
"You okay?" he asked. "Five percent of the population of the country suffers from claustrophobia. If you want to turn back, we can."
Of course he'd know a figure like that. Honestly, I was surprised it wasn't higher.
"I'm fine," I said quickly. "These tunnels are creepy, that's all." Not to mention an entire city rested over them. They'd lasted this long, but that didn't mean they wouldn't choose today to collapse.
"I like them," he said, running his hand along the wall beside him. "It's peaceful in here. Almost like the rest of the world doesn't exist anymore. It could end and we'd still be here, safe."
"Safe until we ran out of oxygen," I said. "Which would take…" I guessed he'd know the answer to that too. Or at least be able to quote some study or Internet meme that may or may not be factual.
"We have enough time to get to the surface and see all the billionaires get on their secret spaceship and leave," he said. "If we're lucky, we might get on it too."
I couldn't tell if he was serious or not. "I don't think I want to be on a spaceship with a bunch of billionaires. I'll take my chances with the zombies."
"It's all fun and games until you become one.” He flashed me a smile. "Have you ever eaten brains?"
"As a matter of fact," I said slowly. Not human brains.
I'd cooked one once, using the same recipe as I would for pig brains, but knowing what horrible things went through his mind when he was alive, I didn't want to put that in my mouth.
I served it to my next target though, with no regrets.
He seemed to enjoy it. Until I sliced into his stomach to remove it again. He didn't enjoy that nearly as much.
"They were nice," I added. "But not nice enough to make it my whole life. I'd probably make a terrible zombie anyway."
"I think you'd be a gorgeous zombie," he said. "But it's not your brains I want to eat."
The pulse in my pussy throbbed, but I told her to settle. This was not the time. Whether or not it was the place was debatable.
We reached the end of the tunnel, a locked door blocking the way out.
Archer reached into his pocket and pulled out a lock picking device.
"Where does this lead?" I asked.
"Into the hotel Contessa," he said as he picked the lock and opened the door slowly.
"The other way leads to Grand Central Station." He gestured one way down the tunnel he'd opened, then the other. "These were used back in the day for people to travel between them. Right now though, we're going to the hotel. One of their clients is someone I thought you should meet."
"And by 'meet,' you mean 'help you kill,'" I said. He'd implied that when he told me where to meet him and to dress in black.
"Exactly," he said. "This guy is particularly nasty. Just your cup of tea."
"Oh?" I followed him into the new tunnel.
"He doesn't get his hands dirty, directly," Archer said. "He arranges for his customers to get what they want, per their particular tastes and requirements. He calls himself the Concierge of Pleasure." He curled his lip in disgust. "More like the Concierge of Depravity."
"I've heard of him," I said. "I haven't been able to find out who he really is." I was impressed Archer had.
"His name is Wolfgang Taylor-Francis," Archer said. "No doubt you've heard of him."
I frowned. "He's some kind of Wall Street trader. Friends with a bunch of politicians and people like that. Didn't he speak out about government transparency or something?"
"Exactly." Archer slipped the lock picking tool back into his pocket.
"On the surface, he's squeaky clean. A nice guy.
" He used air quotes. "The kind of man I'd vote for if he ran for office.
But that's just on the surface. Underneath that, he's a snake.
Corrupt as fuck. He uses his reputation to get into places and slide back out of them again, untouched. "
"What the fuck?" I whispered. "I have to admit, I had no idea. Are you sure?"
"As sure as I am that I’m almost finished crocheting a rabbit. I'll have to show you sometime." When I gave him a funny look, he shrugged. "It helps me relax. I can't be about death all of the time."
"I hear you," I said. "For me, it's cooking. Creating a dish from scratch is very satisfying."
"It's the little things that help to keep us grounded," he said. "If we didn't have that, we'd lose ourselves. According to research, people like us often create intricate fantasies and then try to live them out. Crocheting helps to remind me of what's real."
"Most of my intricate fantasies are about finding everyone who hurt my sister," I said.
Others involved paddles and orgasms.
"What will you do after that?" Archer took my hand and we walked slowly down the tunnel toward the Contessa. "When they're all dead. Have you thought about that?"
His hand was firm and warm in mine, reassuring. Some simplicity amid all of the complications.
"Not really," I admitted. "Part of me doesn't think it's possible to find them all. What if they're already dead? What if I never find them?" I exhaled, hard and frustrated.
"Even if I find them all, there's other monsters out there. How can I stop, knowing what I know? Knowing that if I let them slide, they'll hurt more innocent people?"
He squeezed my hand. "Yeah, same. There's always going to be someone. While there's even one of them left, I can't let it go."
"Exactly," I whispered. "There's always going to be another monster waiting in the shadows." Until they were all dead or I was, I'd keep doing what I was doing.
"You're beautiful when you're vengeful," Archer said.
We reached another door, also locked from this side. He pulled out the lock pick and worked this one open.
The second door led into a room that was pitch black except for the light from our phones. It seemed to be a storeroom forgotten by time. To one side, a handful of chairs were covered in dust. What looked like paintings leaned against the opposite wall, just as dusty.
"How did you know about this place?" I asked.
"I have my ways," was all he said. "There should be a stairway up ahead that leads into the back corridors of the hotel. From there, we need to take the service elevator."
"I feel like a kid," I said.
"You crept around in hotels at two o'clock in the morning as a kid?" He moved his phone around, looking for the stairs.
"You'd be surprised," I said dryly. "But no, my sister and I used to play hide and seek. The basement of our building was our favorite place. It was dark, creepy and full of stuff. Sometimes, we'd go down there with a flashlight and a book and curl up for hours and read."
"You have good memories of your sister?" He shone the phone toward me before realizing the light was in my eyes and shining it away. "Sorry."
"I have the best memories." I blinked a couple of times to recover my vision. "Sometimes we'd fight, like siblings do, but mostly we got along. What they did to her— I feel like I let her down."
I was the big sister, it was my job to make sure nothing happened to her. Mine and my parents’, but when they couldn't, I should have. I should have been able to protect her.
Archer pulled me over to him and drew me closer, his hand slipping out of mine and going to my lower back.
"You did not let her down," he whispered fiercely, his mouth an inch from mine. "They did. Your father. Those men. They did that. If you knew what they were planning, you never would have let them near her. You would have done everything you could to stop them. Anything."
"How could I not know?" I argued, without heat or force. "How can I have missed the signs that something was going on? I look at it now and it seemed…obvious. My father was being squirrelly. I should have guessed, I should have known."
"Do. Not. Blame. Yourself." He was insistent. His breath brushed my lips, body pressed against mine. "Men like that, they wouldn't have let you get in their way. They would have killed you or you would have ended up like her. Used and then thrown away." He sounded stabby.
"She and I could have run away," I said.
He was right, I knew that. I couldn't have stopped it any more than I could stop the sun from rising.
That wouldn't lessen the guilt that plagued me.
It wouldn't help me sleep better at night.
It wouldn't stop me from dreaming about her, or the deaths of her tormentors I found and dealt with.
"You could have tried," he said. "That would have ended one of two ways. One, they find you and everything happens the way they wanted it to happen. Or two, you spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder. Maybe trying to get them before they get you."
"I'd take the second one if it meant my sister was still alive," I said without hesitation. It seemed like a small price to pay.
"You might not have had a choice," he said. "You don't know what might have gone down. None of us do. We can make the present and the future the best we can, that's it. I know it sucks, but would she want you to blame yourself?"
"Of course not," I said immediately. "She would have wanted…" I sighed out my nose. "Me to get on with my life and put her behind me. I can't do that either. I can't put her memory to rest until they're all gone to Hades."
Sometimes I wondered if eternal torture was enough, but it wasn't for me to decide.
Nor did I really believe in it. If I could choose, I'd prefer they'd get reincarnated as something nasty and short-lived, like a mosquito.
Or a flea. Maybe a turkey that makes people happy by ending up Christmas dinner.
That was more poetic justice than they deserved.
"Then we'll do what we can to take them down," he said. "You, me, that Boner guy and your computer geek friend. Was he sure about what he saw on the schedule?"
"I saw it too," I said. "Granger Fairfield will be in the city for two nights a week from now. That's when we'll deal with him."
Archer nodded slowly. "Okay. Let's go and deal with Taylor-Francis first. Then we can think about Fairfield." He brushed his lips over mine, soft at first but then deeper and more demanding. Hungry like he'd been holding back for the longest time.
I found myself kissing him back, letting his tongue slide between my lips and tasting my mouth. Then we were both stepping back, catching our breath and turning in the direction of the stairs.
"Let's end this asshole," I said.
"That's my girl," Archer said approvingly. "One dead asshole, coming up."
He gripped my hand again and we headed toward the stairs.