Page 75 of Backpacking through Bedlam

“This way.” There was a subway stop halfway down the block. Dominic pointed at it and started walking, leaving the rest of us to follow. The subway is really the best way to get around New York. They built one of the most comprehensive public transit systems on the planet, and for all that New Yorkers seem to enjoy complaining about it more than they enjoy anything else, the wise ones understand that it’s a gift beyond price. It gives them the freedom of an incredibly dense metro area, and even with the delays that seem to be innate to the system, it’s still faster than taking a car.

The L train ran in a virtually straight line between where we were and where we were going, and both taking it and avoiding to keep ourselves from being followed would have been equally reasonable choices. So I wasn’t overly surprised when Dominic led us down the stairs into the subway station.

I was a bit more confused when he slipped a twenty to the transit cop on duty and waved for the rest of us to follow him through a door marked DO NOT ENTER.

The hallway on the other side was the same industrial concrete as everything else in the New York subway but with exposed piping along the ceiling, bare bulbs lighting the area, and no smell of urine. No matter how much they clean the underground stations, pee runs downward, and what the humans don’t manage to mark as their own, the rats will claim quickly enough. I blinked at him, raising an eyebrow, and waited for someone else to ask.

“Are we supposed to be back here?” asked Sally.

“No,” said Istas. “If we were meant to be in this area, Dominic would not have given money to the policeman. That is called a ‘bribe,’ and sometimes they are used to gain access to places you are not meant to be.”

Sally eyed her. “Okay, lady.”

“I tell you only because you did not seem to know, and if you did know, you were asking the question for no reason, and might need to be bitten. I am making generous assumptions.”

“No one’s getting bitten,” said Ryan hastily. “Istas, honey, sometimes humans have to ask really obvious questions out loud, or they feel like they don’t understand what’s going on and get fussy. We don’t want our allies to be fussy when they’re supposed to be helping us find the kids, remember?”

“I suppose,” said Istas.

“These are the maintenance access corridors,” said Dominic. “They parallel the subway line, and none of the cameras here work.”

“You know that why?” Sally asked.

“Sometimes the local station workers want to smoke, and there’s no smoking allowed in the station, so they come back here to do it,” he said, starting to walk. As will normally happen when someone begins to walk away while still speaking, the rest of us followed him automatically. “So they disabled the cameras to keep from getting into trouble with the authorities. The door’s usually locked unless there’s an officer on duty, so they don’t really have issues with crime in the corridors.”

“How very . . . You know what? No.” I shrugged. “It’s a very human solution to the problem. A-plus, transit workers, thanks for the convenient underground passage.”

“It’s about a mile’s walk to where we’re going, and we’ll get there almost as fast as we would have on the train,” said Dominic.

He would have been right, too, if we hadn’t run into a group of civic electricians when we were a little over halfway there. The corridor was dotted with junctions, other corridors connecting briefly before heading off to other parts of the subway system, and they came around one of those corners, toolboxes in hand and tool belts low on their hips, off to do their jobs. There were five of them. They stopped when they saw us, eyes going wide. Several of their mouths dropped open. I’ve seen more attractive sights, but since I wasn’t sure whether they were about to call for help or not, I wasn’t going to say anything. I settled for trying to look inoffensive.

I didn’t imagine I did a very good job of it. Two heavily tattooed people, a woman in full goth Lolita gear, two men in tactical clothes, and Sally did not, on the whole, a deeply reassuring picture make. Or an inoffensive one. One of the men stepped forward, face drawing into an expression of posturing aggression, while another grabbed for his radio.

“Hey!” said the first, jabbing a finger toward Dominic. “You can’t be down here!”

“Please, just don’t tell anyone and let us pass.” Dominic held his hands up in a gesture that was probably meant to be soothing. “We just want to get to Union Square. If you let us go, we’ll go, and no one has to get hurt.”

“Who said anything about anyone getting h— Hey, why is that lady taking her clothes off?”

I glanced back. Istas was in the process of undoing the many small buttons on her dress, peeling it down her torso to reveal a lacy black bra with little pink ribbons on it. She was an attractive woman. It was still somehow the least titillating striptease I had ever seen, maybe because I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen when she was done.

“Please,” Dominic repeated. “You don’t want to know what happens when she finishes getting naked.”

“I like these shoes,” said Istas. “I don’t want to destroy them. Ryan, can you help me with the zipper?”

“These men didn’t do anything wrong, sweetie,” said Ryan, even as he moved behind her to begin easing her zipper down. “They really don’t deserve this.”

“Deserve what?” asked another of the men. The one who’d reached for his radio was standing silent and open-mouthed, apparently too stunned by what he was seeing to finish calling the authorities.

Thomas sighed heavily, rolling up his left sleeve and extending his arm like he was preparing to give blood. “I would rather not have spent the energy this close to what may be a rather nasty fight,” he said. “But it seems better than allowing our fair lady waheela to have her way with you.”

He pressed the first two fingers of his right hand to the image of a stylized poppy, murmuring something under his breath at the same time. For a moment, the air seemed to grow heavy with the scent of some unidentified flower—then the scent passed, and the men in front of us hit the ground, one by one, falling where they stood.

Behind me, Istas said, somewhat peevishly, “Oh. Sorcery. Ryan, help me zip back up?”

“We need to move,” said Dominic, stepping forward and snagging the radio from the fallen electrician’s hand. “These men were on an assignment for something, and someone’s going to notice when they don’t get it done or report back to their supervisors. Not much farther now.”

“Have you never been caught before?” asked Thomas.