Chapter 18 - The Labyrinth Beneath the City
The subterranean coal tunnels beneath downtown Chicago were older than living memory. Built during the industrial boom to transport heat and raw materials beneath the freezing winter streets, the narrow brick passages were damp, suffocating, and reeked of iron and stagnant river water.
Water sloshed around Vincent’s tactical boots, rising to mid-calf as they moved deeper into the dark. Nora held Lucy high against her chest, her arms burning with exhaustion, while Frank swept his flashlight beam along the arched brick ceiling, looking for rusted structural reinforcements.
"How far does this track go?" Nora asked between ragged breaths, her ballgown ruined, soaked in black water up to her knees.
"Three miles south to the rail yards near Chinatown," Vincent replied, staying tight behind Mason. "From there, my secondary transport is stationed in a private warehouse. Armored Suburbans. Direct route to the airstrip."
"We're leaving the city?" Nora stopped dead in the cold water, staring at him through the darkness.
Vincent turned to face her. His expression was carved out of granite. "Gabriel has compromised every precinct between the Loop and the North Side. He has five hundred men hunting this grid. I am not gambling your life or Lucy’s on a shootout in our living room. You two are boarding a private transport to Montreal tonight."
"And you?" Nora demanded, her voice rising in panic. "What about you, Vincent?"
"I built this city’s underworld with my bare hands," Vincent said, his voice flat and terrifyingly steady. "I took it from monsters worse than Gabriel. If I run, he hunts us to the ends of the earth. The only way this ends is when one of us stops breathing. That’s how Calder blood works."
"I don't care about Calder blood!" Nora hissed, tears spilling down her pale cheeks in the beam of Mason’s tactical light. "I care about my husband! Lucy needs her father! You don't have to die for a crown you never wanted!"
Lucy shifted in Nora’s arms, sensing the rising terror between them. She rubbed her eyes and looked up at Vincent, her lip trembling.
"Daddy, no fight," Lucy whimpered. "We go home. Watch cartoons."
Vincent swallowed the thick knot in his throat, stepping through the water to pull both of them against his chest. He closed his eyes for five long seconds, inhaling the sweet, innocent scent of baby shampoo that somehow still lingered in Lucy’s hair amidst the soot and sulfur of gunpowder.
"I will come for you," he whispered against Nora’s ear. "I swear on my mother’s soul, Nora. But I have to cut the head off this snake. If I don't, you will never sleep without looking at the window. Lucy will never go to school without an armored escort. I will give you a real life. Even if I have to walk through hell to clear the path."
Before Nora could argue, a sudden metallic clanging echoed from the tunnel behind them.
*Splash. Splash. Splash.*
Dozens of heavy boots were hitting the water at a dead sprint.
"They found the tunnel entrance!" Mason yelled, dropping to one knee in the knee-deep black water and raising his carbine. "Two hundred yards back and closing fast!"
Red tracer fire suddenly illuminated the brick tunnel like a tunnel of fire. The roar of automatic weapons in the confined masonry tube was deafening, the pressure waves threatening to burst their eardrums.
"Go! Run toward the junction switch!" Vincent roared, turning back into the darkness with his Kimber raised, firing steady, controlled rounds into the oncoming swarm of shadows.
Mason threw a smoke grenade backward into the water, unleashing a thick white cloud that blinded the narrow corridor.
"Frank, get them through the gate!" Vincent shouted over the gunfire. "I'm locking the pressure door!"
"Vince, no! The release is on this side!" Frank yelled back.
"Do it, Frank! That's an order!"
Vincent fired his last three rounds, dropping the lead pursuer into the churning, bloody water, before lunging for the rusted iron wheel of the bulkhead gate that separated the coal railway from the high-pressure flood drains.
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With a primal scream, Vincent hauled the heavy iron wheel around. The massive three-inch steel blast door slammed shut with a thunderous *BOOM*, cutting off the mercenaries behind them—and sealing Vincent on the wrong side of the tunnel.
***
