Mind the Gap

Cadge laughed. "Be it ever so humble..."

Jazz flinched. The down-below had become her sanctu-ary, a hiding place, and the United Kingdom behaved like a family, but no matter how long she remained there she re-fused to think of it as home. Once, on the day of her first topside nick, the word had come unbidden into her mind, and she'd vowed to herself that it wouldn't happen again.

Cadge paused and glanced at her. "Hear that?"

She realized she did hear something —had been hearing it for a couple of minutes already. A susurrus of low voices like the hush of a flowing river ran nearby. Now that she paid attention to it, the noise grew louder.

"A crowd, sounds like," Cadge said.

Jazz nodded. They both knew it couldn't really be a crowd —not down here. Which meant it had to be phantoms.

The ghosts seemed to blossom to life around her. In the darkness they were shadows with a hint of ethereal illumina-tion, but in the glow of Cadge's torch they were revealed as true specters.

A Victorian carriage rattled by, drawn by a single horse, a lantern swinging from a hook beside the driver's high seat. Cadge stepped quickly away from the startling sound of horses' hooves but glanced around as though blinded. He heard the phantom near him but could not see it.

A couple of weeks ago such a vision would have terrified Jazz, but now she caught her breath in wonder. There was something almost comforting about them. The Underground was a forgotten home to lost people, and it seemed only right that it would echo with forgotten moments, the dreaming memories of London itself.

A sweet aroma reached her, a mélange of different scents that made her inhale deeply. She shuddered with the delicious odors, closed her eyes tightly to shut off all but her sense of smell. When she opened them again, she stood in a marketplace sprawled across cobblestones. There were carts full of vegetables and stacks of wooden crates overflowing with fruit. A little girl sold fresh flowers from a basket to specters who strolled about investigating the wares of the vendors. The smells were invigorating and such a wonderful change in the damp tunnels whose ordinary odors were rust and sewage.

A man rode by on a creaky antique bicycle with wheels so large and unwieldy it seemed mad to think anyone could keep such a contraption from crashing.

"You see something," Cadge said.

Jazz had almost forgotten him. She blinked and turned to focus on his face. "What?"

"I saw your eyes. You see them, don't you? The things I'm hearing. You see somethin'. More than just glimpses, like you said before."

For a moment she did not breathe. Never trust anyone, that had been her mother's advice. Her rule.

But her mother had never had to create a brand-new life in a brand-new world, and her mother had never met Cadge.

"Sometimes," she said.

Cadge gazed at her with open admiration. "Wish I could see them. Did you smell it too? The fruit?"

Jazz nodded. "Made me hungry."

"I've only got apples and some pears in the bag. We'll go to the market later this week, get ourselves something juicy —oranges or kiwis."

"A pineapple," Jazz said.

Cadge laughed. "You nick a pineapple, where d'you sup-pose you'll hide it while you're slipping off, eh? Bit prickly, I'd think."

Jazz gave him an arch look but said nothing. They shared a quiet laugh and then started along the tunnel again. Around them, the ghosts of London were fading, and Jazz was saddened by their departure.

She shifted the big bag from one shoulder to the other.

"Let's have that, then," Cadge said, gesturing toward the bag. "I'll carry it for a bit."

"I've got it, thanks."

He blinked and looked away, and she realized she'd been too sharp with him. Jazz had bristled at the suggestion that she might not be strong enough to do her part, but Cadge had just been making a clumsy attempt at chivalry.

"You've got enough to carry," she added.

Cadge brightened a little. "Yeah. We'll both be glad to set these down. Mr. F.'s gonna love this torch too."

"We should've nicked some batteries for it," Jazz said.

"Nah. We've got loads, all sizes."

They fell silent then, trudging onward. Cadge led her up onto a platform that had been abandoned for decades, its walls covered in a thick layer of dust and grime, floor scuffed with years of boot and shoe marks left behind by the United Kingdom and perhaps other subterranean travelers. They eschewed the chained gate blocking the way up and instead followed a corridor that led to yet another train track.

Jazz had been astonished when, after just a couple of weeks, she had come to know her way around the labyrinth of abandoned stations, tunnels, and bomb shelters beneath the city.

Across the tracks was a smaller platform, part of the same long-closed station. A rusted metal door set into the far wall of the platform drew her attention. It had a heavy handle that had been left in a raised position, the door open just a few inches for forgotten ages.

As Jazz and Cadge dropped down to the tracks, she could not stop staring at that door.

Cadge stopped to glance back at her. "Jazz?"

It felt as though someone had set a hook in her chest and was drawing her in. She took a step and then paused, fight-ing the urge. Whatever called to her from behind that rusted metal door, it frightened her in a way the ghosts of old London no longer could.

"What's through there?" she asked without looking at Cadge.

"Through where?"

She pointed to the door.

"Dunno. Stairs, I guess. Some kind of emergency exit. Could just be storage. Or toilets. Never know what you're gonna find behind a door down here."

Cadge walked back to Jazz and took her hand. That inti-mate contact allowed her to drag her gaze from the rusty door. She smiled at him halfheartedly, gave his fingers a squeeze, and then pulled her hand away. The boy was sweet, but he was just a boy. If she'd let her hand linger in his, he might get ideas.

"Want to go over there? Have a look?" he asked.

Jazz blinked. The temptation to say yes nearly over-whelmed her.

"No. No, let's go," she said.

Cadge waited for her this time. When she started walk-ing again, he turned off his torch and stored it in his duffel bag. Drains and grates high above them let daylight filter down, along with the sounds of the cars, trucks, and buses growling by above. Somewhere close, a train roared through the Underground. Dust sifted down from the ceiling and a breeze blew along the tunnel. This track might be closed, but others nearby remained in regular use.

A hundred yards farther on, they arrived at the door that led into a staircase down to the sublevel.

The circular stairs were quiet as a tomb, the rock closing in on all sides. Jazz shuddered, feeling a claustrophobia unusual for her.

"What's that?" Cadge said.

Jazz listened, thinking at first that perhaps more phan-tom echoes of London were about to appear.

But then she heard a girl crying out for Harry and recognized the voice.

"Hattie," she said.

They rushed down the last half dozen steps and pulled open the door. The tunnel curved off to the right. The en-trance to Deep Level Shelter 7-K was just around the bend. Above, dim light filtered down from screened vents that went all the way to the surface.

There came another scream, followed by the shouts of angry men and the sound of scuffling. Cadge and Jazz ex-changed a glance, and she saw her fear reflected in his eyes. Turning away, she started along the tunnel. All that re-mained of the former rail line here were occasional railroad ties on top of dirt and stone, and she kept close to the wall to avoid tripping over anything in the gloom.

"Vermin!" a man shouted. "Filthy little vermin."

Jazz dropped her stolen bag and all of its contents and started running. The others needed help. From behind her, she heard Cadge utter her name like a curse and give chase.

She came around the bend in the tunnel and staggered to a halt. Cadge bumped into her and nearly sent the two of them sprawling. Tendrils of gas roiled along the floor of the abandoned tunnel, crawling as though with hideous pur-pose. At first glance, Jazz thought the yellow mist another phantom, a glimpse of some moment out of London's past. But then Hattie came racing toward them, hacking and choking, the gas parting around her legs.

The girl collided with Cadge. He managed to hold her up, but only barely. She began to retch and pushed away from him, dropping to her knees and vomiting.

"The others..." Hattie choked out.

"Go on to the door up to the old Holborn tunnel. Hide in there until I come to fetch you," Cadge told her.

Hattie managed to stagger away.

Jazz pulled her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth and ventured farther into the tunnel, through the slowly rising fog of yellow gas. Cadge came after her and they picked up their pace.

"Nothing but bloody sewer rats, what you are!" they heard a man shout.

The gas thinned, almost a gauzy film over the shadows. The entrance to the United Kingdom's lair stood open, the metal door hanging wide, and that ugly gas roiled up from the throat of the stairwell beyond.

Not far from the door, four men stood around Harry, who lay on the ground. They spat on him, shouted obsceni-ties, and kicked his back and legs and ribs, even as he tried to protect his face and head with his arms, pulling himself into a fetal ball.

"Don't belong down here, rats. Gotta flush you out," one of the men said.

The four of them wore white filter masks over the lower parts of their faces. They'd thrown something down into Deep Level Shelter 7-K —tear gas or worse—to drive Harry and the kids out of there. Jazz didn't know what had hap-pened to the others, but she could only hope they'd gone out the emergency exit while Harry'd gone up the hatch to buy them time.

Harry let out a shout of agony as a heavy boot caught him in the back. He arched his body, letting a fusillade of profanity loose upon his attackers. But words would not drive them off. They only kicked him again, harder. They hadn't yet noticed the two witnesses in the deeper shadows of the tunnel.

"What do we do?" Cadge whispered.

Images of her mother's corpse flashed through Jazz's mind. She saw the blood again, and the message scrawled on the bedroom floor. Her mother's last thoughts had been of her survival. But if she'd reached home while the killers were in the midst of murder, she would never have chosen to run. Nor could she now.

She bolted toward them. One of the men heard her ap-proach and looked up. Jazz stopped short, just near enough to taunt them with her presence.

"Oi! Leave off, fuckers!"

All four of them looked up, and for the first time she got a decent look at them. Three were dressed in boots and work clothes, sleeves rolled up as though they'd just come from the docks. The other wore black trousers and a thin black tie that hung over a white shirt. With the right cap and jacket, he'd have looked like a rich man's chauffeur.

In the eyes of all four of those men, Jazz saw sudden recognition. One by one, they focused not on her and Cadge but on her alone, and they knew her.

The phantoms of the London Underground might not frighten her anymore, but the look in the eyes of those men sent ice shooting through her and dread skittering down the back of her neck. She caught her breath and stood staring back at them.

They stepped away from Harry. On the ground, the old thief coughed and spat up blood and bile. The men watched her with a terrible malice.

"Well, now," said the man with the black tie. He reached up and pulled down his mask —most of the gas had dis-persed—and Jazz uttered the smallest sound, a kind of whimper that she despised.

She recognized him. He had been one of the men the Uncles sometimes sent to watch over her and her mother, to pick up groceries or do a bit of repair on the pipes or the electric. And he had been standing outside her house, on guard, while her mother's killers had been inside. Jazz didn't know his name. In her mind, he was simply one of the BMW men.

He took a step toward her.

"Cadge, run!" she cried.

Jazz turned, caught her foot on a railroad tie, and stum-bled. She risked one glance over her shoulder and saw the men running. One of them tripped and fell, but the others did not hesitate.

She ran. Her breath sounded too loud in her ears, and the walls of the tunnel seemed to be closing in.

They gave chase, shouting to one another as though on a foxhunt. And Jazz knew what happened at the end of the hunt. The cop-per stink of her mother's blood rushed back to her as though she had returned to that death room. Her breath came faster.

Cadge ran just ahead. The only noise he made was his footfalls. As they rounded the bend, legs pumping, dancing amid the remnants of train track, Cadge snatched up his duffel bag.

"Nowhere to run down here, kids!" one of the men called.

Jazz had been thinking almost exactly that a moment be-fore, but now she realized how wrong he was. There were an infinite number of places to hide in the down-below. The men had beaten Harry and scared off the others, but the United Kingdom had scattered. They'd be hiding now, like the rats these men thought they were. Like Hattie. The girl had passed them only moments ago, but Jazz ran by the stairs she and Cadge had come down and the door was now closed firmly. In the shadows, it looked unused.

"You're slow and old, you ugly shits!" Cadge called to their pursuers. "I hope you all have heart attacks and die down here."

"Christ, Cadge," Jazz rasped, running, chest burning with the effort. She'd already been exhausted when they'd walked into this chaos. What was Cadge doing?

When he glanced at her and she saw his expression in the gloom, she understood. He wasn't taunting the men out of amusement, but to make sure they knew he and Jazz hadn't gone through that door. If one of them opened it and found Hattie there, she was dead.

Well done, Cadge.

He started to slow, the extra burden of the duffel weigh-ing on him. Jazz glanced back and saw they'd lengthened the distance between themselves and the thugs. She couldn't even see them now around the bend in the tunnel —could only hear the clomping of their boots. But if Cadge slowed...

"Drop the bag," she whispered.