All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [147]
A doorway.
If that’s where Jezebel went, he’d follow. Maybe she was hurt and had crawled in there to rest or hide from more of those things that had jumped them in the alley outside Paxington. Or maybe she had gone in there like some wounded animal to die.
Eliot held his breath and listened for any rumble that might indicate a train. He heard only his heart thudding.
With extreme care, he crept past the yellow safety line. Eliot then eased over the edge onto the channel with the train tracks.
He swallowed and gingerly stepped across the electrified third rail—pressed himself against the cool concrete by the fake shadow.
If a BART train came by now, he’d get pasted.
Eliot inched to the shadow. So close, it was easy to see how it extruded deeper into the wall, a passage that sloped at a steep angle. There were stairs and handrails. He twisted closer to looked straight into it; there was a flicker of amber light at the end . . . a very long way down.
He hesitated on the threshold.
Some part of him screamed that if he went down there, he wasn’t coming back. Ever.
As surely as he knew this could be a one-way trip, though, he also knew Jezebel needed him. Like every daydream he’d ever had: The hero charged in to save his lady in peril, no matter what.
More realistically . . . he knew Jezebel—or more accurately, the part of her that was still Julie Marks—was the key to unraveling the Infernal plots circling about him. She still cared for him. She was still his friend . . . and possibly, hopefully, more.
He pushed into the darkness.
Eliot reached and pulled his pack around. He undid the top flap and opened Lady Dawn’s case. He wanted her handy. When things got this weird, they usually got dangerous, too.
He moved down the stairs.
As he neared the bottom, Eliot smelled moisture and brimstone and mold. He saw red and gleaming gold.
There was a rumble in the distance and a train’s whistle—that wasn’t a single shrill note, but rather a collection of tortured human screams. It got louder. It cut through him and twisted his insides. Eliot wanted to clap his hands over his ears and curl into a ball.
But he’d heard this noise before. In Kino’s Borderlands . . . at the Gates of Perdition.
His father’s words came back to him: “We are monarchs of the domains of Hell, the benevolent kings and queens over the countless souls who are drawn there to worship us.”
Countless souls.
Knowing what the sound might be, though, didn’t make it any less horrific, but Eliot was able to set it aside in his mind. He could be scared and keep moving forward.
He got to the foot of the steep stairs and peeked around the corner.
A room stretched as far as he could see, another train station, but not like upstairs. This place looked like it was from the late nineteenth century. Red and gold tiles covered the floor and had a million cracks, as if the place had survived the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 . . . or maybe it hadn’t and had sunk down here. Columns of carved teak and inlaid ivory stood like a dead forest. There were stained glass windows (bricked up on the other side) and tarnished silver candelabras set out here and there, flickering with smoking candles.
The screams grew to a crescendo, and bright light flashed from within a tunnel and filled one end of the station, illuminating a crisscross of train tracks.
Billows of steam blasted forth, and a train engine appeared, chugging, wheels screeching to a long agonizing halt.
The main cylinder of the engine glowed red. Black smoke billowed from twin stacks. Three coal cars were pulled behind this, and after them were passenger cars with rich wood paneling and gilt scrollwork that curled about picture windows. Red velvet curtains framed those windows and hid the interiors.
Eliot squinted at the first passenger car and saw lettering in ornate silver cursive: Der Nachtzug, Limited.41
With one last massive sigh, the engine came to a full stop