Chapter Twenty-three

“I f the tunnels have been blocked off,” Josef said as they crept along the platform, “how did the ghoul get in here?”

“They’ve spent a thousand years worming into stone crypts. A few bricks won’t stop them.”

“Right.” Josef immediately tried to wipe that image from his mind.

At the end of the platform, they passed the abandoned signal box, its levers still in place. It was impossible not to imagine the last time they were used, the signalman leaving the station at the end of his final shift, the doors closing behind him and everything going dark.

Sometimes, at the front, he’d felt as if the whole world was going dark, that civilization itself was dying in the mud. One day, might everywhere be like this silent, abandoned place?

Alex swept his torch down onto the empty railbed. Was it Josef’s imagination, or did its light seem fainter?

“Good idea to get the gun out,” Alex said mildly. “We don’t know what we’re going to run into.”

“We’ve got an idea,” Josef muttered as Alex crouched down and, with one hand braced on the platform edge, hopped down onto the railbed.

Rather less elegantly, Josef scrambled down after him and pulled the Webley from the back of his waistband. It felt clumsy in his hands, and he wished Alex would use it instead.

Cautiously, they crept along the tunnel until the brickwork ended. After that point, the tunnel split into two, both lined with heavy sections of grey cast iron—presumably installed one by one as the tunnel was dug. They looked reassuringly strong. The leftmost tunnel was lower and dipped steeply down, while the rightward remained level.

“Which way?” Josef asked softly.

Alex wavered, torchlight dithering between the two tunnels. God, it was quiet. All Josef could hear was Alex’s breathing—too fast, too laboured—and the slow drip-drip-drip of water.

Fuck, he wanted to get out of there.

“The left,” Alex decided, indicating the downward sloping tunnel. “That’s where they are.”

Picking their way through the rubble—whoever had ripped up the tracks had not taken much care—they headed left without discussion.

Inside the tunnel, the going was easier, with less debris from the platform underfoot. The ceiling grew lower though, the tunnel narrower, and the downward gradient steep. With each step, they were going deeper and deeper into the earth—into the subterranean world of the ghoul.

Suddenly, the ground began to tremble, and the tunnel filled with a loud, rumbling rattle.

“A train,” Alex said softly. “We’re not far from the other lines, here.”

Josef glanced up into the darkness. It was hard to imagine that they were close to anything, let alone a well-lit train full of people. “There must be a way into the other tunnels,” he guessed. “This place would be useless to the ghoul otherwise.”

“Yes, although I imagine that access is somewhere beyond this point.” Alex had stopped and was playing the torch over a solid wall of brick filling the tunnel before them.

Presumably, this was intended to stop German infiltrators, although why they’d need tunnels when they could simply drop bombs from the air, Josef couldn’t imagine.

“Over here,” Alex said, getting closer to one side of the blockade where it abutted the tunnel wall. When he shone the torchlight on it, Josef could see that several bricks at the bottom had been dislodged and torn away, leaving a narrow gap. A narrow, man-sized gap.

He groaned. “Don’t tell me we’re going through there.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Alex said, crouching down to examine the hole. “Think of me, and my shoulders.”

“Hey, are you calling me scrawny?”

Alex flashed a look at him, all shadows in the dark, save the gleam of his eyes. “Not scrawny. Slender.” He turned back to the hole, shining the light through it. “I happen to find slender men extremely appealing.”

Despite the circumstances, Josef couldn’t stop his smile. “Turns out I rather enjoy a set of broad shoulders.”

All he heard from Alex was a huff of amusement before he said, “Hold the torch, will you? I’ll go first.”

Pulse thumping, he watched as Alex worked his head and shoulders awkwardly into the narrow gap, grimacing as he moved. Obviously in pain. Whatever Lottie and Violet had given him, his shoulder was obviously still bothering him. And perhaps getting worse.

As Alex’s legs and feet disappeared, Josef crouched and shone the light through the hole after him. “All right?” he whispered.

“Yes, come through.”

Shoving the torch ahead of him, Josef wormed his way through the gap headfirst, feeling the rough brick edges snag on his coat. The ground was wet beneath his hands, icy water seeping into the knees of his trousers as he scrambled through.

Alex took his arm, hauling him back to his feet. And he didn’t let go. Josef was grateful for that and crowded closer, pressing his body firmly against Alex’s, relishing his warmth. His sheer human presence. To his delight, Alex wrapped an arm firmly around Josef’s shoulders and pulled him close. Josef went eagerly, sliding his arms around Alex’s middle and holding him tight. In the pitch black, what did it matter? No one could see. In a strange way, down here, they were freer than in the daylight above.

They stood like that for a few long moments, both perhaps needing an anchor in the disorientating dark.

“Fuck,” Josef whispered at last. “It’s dark.”

“How much longer will the batteries last?”

The torch was noticeably dimmer now, its electric brilliance turning honeyed yellow. “I don’t know. Half an hour? Shit, I should have thought to buy spares.”

Alex didn’t answer, his breaths loud in the silence of the tunnel.

“Maybe we should turn back?” Josef suggested, half hopefully and half reluctantly. As much as he hated this fucking tunnel, he knew they were running out of time.

Nobly, Alex said, “You go back. I’ll—”

“Oh, fuck off,” Josef muttered, pressing himself closer, feeling Alex’s arm tighten around him. He gave into it for a moment, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against Alex’s shoulder. He could still smell the poultice and the infection beneath, but for that moment nothing mattered more than the comfort of this closeness, comfort he hoped he was returning.

Briefly, both Alex’s arms went around him, squeezing tight. In an emotional voice, very unlike his usual aristocratic calm, he whispered, “Thank you. My God, I’m glad you’re here even if I wish you were miles away, and safe.”

“You’re definitely going to owe me a pint,” Josef muttered, smothering his suddenly riotous feelings. “A real one, too, not that dishwater piss they serve these days.”

Still in that tremulous, emotional tone, Alex said, “I want nothing more from this world than to buy you a pint, Josef.”

Smiling against his shoulder, Josef said, “You know, my friends call me Joe.”

Alex shifted, and Josef felt his cold fingers touch his cheek, his jaw. He lifted his head.

“Joe,” Alex murmured and touched his lips to Josef’s. “My friend.”

Josef kissed him back, urgently, hungrily and all too aware of time running out. And then they were just hugging, squeezing tight until the squall of emotion passed and they stood, breathing hard, in each other’s arms.

“All right then,” Alex said at last, pulling away. He looked sombre in the fading torch light. “I think we need to conserve the batteries. Besides, we don’t want to advertise our presence.”

Josef stared. “Are you…? Turn off the torch?” It felt like a lifeline, that narrow beam of light. “We’ll be blind.”

“Our eyes will adapt. There might be more light down here than we realise.”

“Under the fucking Thames?”

Alex gave half a smile. “We’re not under the river yet. Let’s save the torch for our escape.”

He was right, of course. Whatever happened next, they’d never get out of here if the torch failed. There was no faulting Alex’s logic, no matter how much the thought of losing the light terrified Josef.

He let out a breath, aware of its wobble. “All right,” he said, pressing the button on the head of the torch.

Darkness consumed them, total and absolute. A thick, claustrophobic blanket of nothing.

But not quite nothing. Alex was still there, one arm tight around Josef. The wool of his coat brushed Josef’s cheek where he pressed his face against Alex’s shoulder. The only thing left in the world.

“We need to give it a few minutes,” Alex said softly, “for our eyes to adapt.”

Josef doubted any amount of time would allow his eyes to adapt to this utter blackness, but he nodded gamely. Then he remembered Alex couldn’t see him, so he said, “Yes, all right.” An unhappy thought struck him, and he added, more softly, “I assume the ghoul can see very well in the dark?”

“Much better than we can,” Alex agreed. “You’ve seen their eyes?”

The sepulchral blue? As if he could forget. “They’re still men, though, aren’t they? I mean, their…bodies?”

“Perhaps. By that point... I don’t know. They’re something other. That’s why—” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “That’s why you need to end this before I’m too far gone. You understand? I want to die a man.”

Josef closed his eyes, as if even in the pitch dark it could keep the thought away. “I know,” he said, trying to sound brave. “I understand. I won’t let that happen to you.”

Whatever it costs me.

Pulling Josef closer, Alex hugged him tightly, and Josef did the same. Astonishing the comfort of holding and being held, even in the foulest of places. Alex’s breath felt warm against Josef’s neck as he ducked his head against his shoulder, and Josef let his fingers brush the hair at the nape of Alex’s neck. As he ran his fingers through the soft strands, he felt Alex contort, a strange unstructured movement of jerks and jolts as the breath left his body in a hiss.

Josef froze. “Are you all right? What was that?”

After a long silence, Alex said, “I don’t know. A…pain.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere. It’s gone now.” He pulled out of Josef’s arms. “Mostly.” Chill fingers touched Josef’s face, tracing his jaw. “See? I told you there’d be some light down here. I’m starting to see your face.”

Josef blinked into the unremitting black, his heart racing. “Are you?”

“Just the outline.” Then he said, “Look, along the tunnel there. Maybe 200 feet? I think it’s the outline of a door.”

The only way Josef knew which way to even look was by feeling for the brick wall behind them. Peering into the darkness, he thought maybe the blackness had some contours. If not light, a paling of the dark. “Yes,” he said, hesitantly. “I think I see it.”

“It must lead into one of the other tunnels. An access passage for maintenance perhaps? That would be why they blocked the tunnel here.” Releasing Josef, he said, “Let’s go that way—”

Suddenly alone in the dark, Josef hissed, “Wait!”

“What?”

He forced back his panic and said, “I, uh, think your eyes have adapted better than mine. You’re going to have to guide me.”

Alex was silent for a moment, then said, “Can you see the door? Tell me the truth.”

“No,” Josef admitted. “That is, perhaps something but… No, Alex, I can’t see a bloody thing.”

Another silence. Then Alex said, with painful bravado, “In that case, it appears my night vision is rather improved.”

“I might not mean—”

“It obviously does ,” Alex cut in. “But no point looking a gift horse in the mouth, is there? Here, take my hand.”

Alex clasped Josef's hand, and he was pathetically relieved to have that lifeline restored.

“Looks like we don’t need the torch,” Alex said lightly. “I’ll be your guide for now.”

For now.

Josef straightened his shoulders. “We’d better get going, then.” Because God only knew how much time Alex had left.

They moved through the darkness quickly, too fast for Josef’s comfort, but Alex seemed certain. And with every step, the air grew colder and danker, the silence broken now and then by a distant rattle of an underground train. And the constant dripping of water.

“It’s probably just condensation,” Alex said, when Josef mentioned it, “rather than the Thames breaking through.”

“Probably?” Josef muttered. Still, Alex’s patrician tones lent authority to everything he said, and, on this occasion, Josef chose to believe him.

“We’re at the side of the tunnel,” Alex said after a few more moments. “Reach out with your right hand and you’ll touch it.”

Gingerly, Josef did so, his fingers scratching across the damp, icy surface of the cast-iron tunnel wall. “How much further to the door?”

“We’re close,” Alex whispered, slowing them to a halt. He shifted, letting go of Josef’s hand, leaving him adrift in the dark. “Stay here. I’m going to open it.”

“What? Wait! They could be right behind it!”

Alex made a sound of impatience. “They’re not.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Apparently, I do.”

Josef swallowed. “Are you...? As Lottie said, are you feeling drawn to them?”

“No,” he said crisply. “Not drawn, exactly. More a certain... impatience to find them.”

“Well, I feel that too,” Josef said, forcing a laugh.

Alex didn’t reciprocate. “I suspect this is rather different.”

There came the sound of a door handle turning, and Josef held his breath. With a rusty squeal, the door opened, dim light blooming into the tunnel. Alex hissed, taking a step back.

The relief Josef felt at the light was squashed by the sight of Alex shading his eyes as if someone had shoved a lamp in his face. “All right?” he asked.

“In a moment,” Alex said stiffly, peering out from behind his hand. “Christ.”

The light, wherever it came from, wasn’t behind the door but somewhere further along the passage beyond. By no definition was it bright. “Your eyes are sensitive,” Josef said worriedly.

“Obviously.” Alex lowered his hand, blinking and squinting. “It’s getting better.”

Josef peered through the door. It led onto a much narrower tunnel, more like a corridor—an access passage for engineers and other workmen, most likely. It had never occurred to Josef that people needed to move about down here, but then he’d never given it much thought. Now that he did, it was obvious that workmen couldn’t simply walk along the train tunnels. “There must be a whole network of maintenance passageways.”

Alex joined him at the doorway, his eyes still narrowed but no longer in apparent pain. “Yes. This one doesn’t look much used, but it appears to lead to more well-travelled areas.”

“A convenient way for the ghoul to move around the city.”

“Quite.” He glanced at Josef. “Keep your weapon to hand.”

With that, Alex set off into the tunnel, Josef following at his heels. It ran for a good few hundred yards before they saw another door on the left side of the passage, and opposite it, a set of stairs leading down deeper. Even in the dim light, Josef could see that the door stood ajar, something blocking it—wedging it open?

Alex slowed, sniffing the air. “They’re here.”

A moment later, Josef caught the scent too. Or rather the stench, the familiar putrid rot he’d first seen at the front. He stopped dead, catching Alex’s arm to halt him too. “Now what?”

Shaking off his hand, Alex kept walking. “Come on.”

Fuck. Josef hurried after him, the gun heavy in his hand.

When Alex reached the door, he crouched down to examine what blocked it, still sniffing the air. For Josef’s part, he was trying not to breathe too deeply. As he came to join Alex, he stopped, flinching back. A man’s leg lay wedged in the door. And only a man’s leg. Even in the dim light, Josef could see that it had been…chewed.

His stomach churned, bile rising into his throat. He’d seen plenty of severed limbs at the front, but this…? “Fuck,” he whispered, jaw clenched against a wave of nausea.

When Alex stood, he looked harrowed. “Sometimes, they will fight over the spoils.”

Yet another image Josef could do without.

“This is fresh,” Alex went on, his expression stiff, haunted. “They’re not far.”

Josef reached out a hand and squeezed his arm. “All right?” He swallowed another rise of bile. “The stink’s getting to me, too.”

Alex lifted his eyes to Josef. “God help me,” he said thickly, “but I only feel…”

“Feel what?”

Eyes dark and full of horror, he rasped, “Hunger.”

Josef’s heart lurched. “Can you…?” His mouth had turned dry, like ash. “Can you control it?”

With a curt nod, Alex said, “Yes, for now. I don’t know how long—” His gaze dropped to the gun Josef held.

It felt like a lead weight, big and ugly in his hand. He’d rather do anything than use it on Alex. Hell, he’d rather use it on himself. “Long enough,” he said firmly. “Come on, they’re nearby. Let’s get this blood and scarper.”

Neither of them touched the human leg, stepping over it as you might step over a pile of horse dung in the street. Once, at the field hospital in Pops, Josef had seen a mound of mangled limbs, left behind after the surgeons had finished their bloody work. The pile of discarded flesh had been covered in flies, and Josef had vomited at the sight. But that had been in the early days of his time at the front, and his stomach had soon grown stronger.

They lived in a world of death. In a country that gaily threw millions of men into the meatgrinder of the salient, was it any surprise that here, beneath the streets of London, human flesh had become food for monsters?

Mankind deserved no better.

Beyond the door rose a narrow flight of stairs, the light at the top growing brighter. They climbed, cautiously, jumping at the sudden thunder of a passing train—closer here, right above their heads. Stupidly, Josef found himself ducking.

At the top of the stairs, an electric light had been fastened to the wall, its yellow light illuminating dark streaks of blood on the stairs. Next to the light, stood another door, also open. Another train thundered nearby, and a draft of warm air pushed through the door. The sort of breeze you might feel standing on a station platform. Only this one was ripe with the foetid stench of rot.

Josef put an arm to his nose, tamping down the desire to puke.

At his side, Alex looked ghastly, pale as bone. As he breathed in, his nostrils flared, and he wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. His eyes were bright and horrified.

From the other side of the door came a soft scrabble of movement, a low hiss.

The hair rose on the back of Josef’s neck as he turned, meeting Alex’s too-bright gaze. And then the light went out.

Josef stumbled backwards, breath catching in horror, because all he could see in the pitch-black tunnel was the sepulchral gleam of Alex’s eyes.