Sierra woke up with a searing white light bursting through her windows. It burned into her tired eyes, carving holes in the back of her brain. She grunted and scrambled out of bed to close her shades, but even with the blinds drawn and a blanket draped over the window, the room was too bright to sleep in. "What the..." Sierra grumbled. She threw on a pair of jeans and stomped down the hall to her brothers' room.
Juan was awake and looked just as irritated as Sierra felt. "What is it, Sierra? Why's the light like that?"
"I don't know, Juan," Sierra said sadly. "It must be Twork. I don't know what else."
"Could be the counter strike from the keepers."
"I don't think so, it seems more like Twork to manipulate the whole city for his use. But who knows?"
"We better get moving, huh?" Juan said, stuffing his wallet and knife into his pockets.
"Yeah, I guess so. What time is it?"
Juan looked at his bedside clock and then shook his head and looked at it again. "It's six o'clock...What?"
"Six?" Sierra said. "What do you mean six? Six AM?"
"Six in the afternoon, Sierra, six PM."
"How..." Sierra was barely able to put all the pieces together. "How is it six and so bright? What's going on out there?"
"We better go now." Juan threw a leather jacket over his heavy metal t-shirt and Sierra returned to her room to get ready. She opened her courier bag to wake Tinibu but it was completely empty. She checked all her drawers and behind her bureau. She picked up all the scattered socks and bras on her floor but found no hunterflies.
"This is ridiculous!" she said out loud. "What's going on?"
Juan appeared at her door. "Whatsa matter?"
"Tinibu's gone," Sierra said.
"'s alright," Juan shrugged. "He's a hunterfly. They their own bosses. He's probably off on some errand. Not to worry."
"You say that, but you look terrified."
A note on the kitchen counter explained in Mrs. Santiago's script handwriting that her and their dad were at the precinct making a report, so Sierra and Juan headed off without having to give any explanation. Outside, the blinding white light beat down on them, banishing all shadows. The streets were eerily deserted. Only occasional cars passed and the B52 downtown bus was nowhere to be seen. "You think they'll still be there?" Sierra asked her brother, wiping sweat off her forehead. The brightness was searing its way into her brain and her whole face was tired from squinting.
"Dunno," said Juan. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a pair of sunglasses. He handed them to Sierra with a disinterested, "Take these," and then put another pair on his own face.
"You carry multiple sunglasses with you? Sheesh! my brother the rockstar!"
They made their way wearily down Gates Ave and were soaked in sweat by the time they reached Fulton.
Sierra was about to step out into the street when Juan put out a hand to stop her. She followed his wide eyes to a pile of clothes on the other side of the intersection. "What's the problem..." she began, but then she saw the motionless hand reaching out from underneath the rags. "Oh." Sierra'd been to her share of open casket funerals, seen more than a few corpses in that waxy, manicured dream world, but something about seeing one in the open, splayed out in the street like a knocked over trashcan—she had to concentrate very hard for a few seconds so she didn't pass out. It was like seeing tigers in zoo all your life and then all the sudden rounding a corner one day and finding a big, burly momma cat read to pounce. They edged past the body, keeping as much distance as they could but the very idea of it lingered with them like a bad smell for the next few blocks.
Flatbush Extension was choked with stranded cars and lost-looking businessmen. People wandered this way and that with glazed over eyes.
"I never thought I'd say this," Sierra said, when they'd made it past the busy intersection and ducked down a side street, "but I miss the darkness."
"Yeah," Juan said. "This is brutal. It's doesn't feel like the sun either, it feels like..."
Sierra stopped dead in her tracks. "Shut up!"
"Huh?"
"Shut. Up."
They both stood perfectly still for a few seconds.
"Sierra," Juan said.
"You hear it?"
"Hear what?"
"It's the buzz."
"What buzz?"
"Just listen."
She had started noticing it when they got near Flatbush, but had figured it was a truck idling somewhere. Now that they'd crossed away from the bustle of lost commuters though, the dull buzzing droned into the foreground. It was unmistakably familiar.
"The searchlight!" yelled Juan. "The one they pissed off the river keepers with."
The buzz grew louder as they approached Borough Hall.
"Where do you think it's coming from?" Sierra asked.
"I dunno," said Juan. "Not the river this time. Seems like it's all around."
"You don't think..." Sierra glanced anxiously at the pale sky. It seemed like it was staring back at her.
Juan followed her gaze. "What the whole sky? Can he do that?"
"Who knows what this guy can do, Juan," said Sierra. A little shudder ran through her body. "Even Biaque couldn't figure out what he was up to."
"Speaking of Biaque," Juan said, flashing his first smile of the day.
Sierra spotted him too, a little hovering cloud in the midst a bustling criss-cross of more confused pedestrians. They hurried across Court Street towards him.
"Sleep in?" Biaque whispered, his wide mouth opening into a toothy grin.
"A little," Sierra said, blushing. "Sorry."
"It's okay, we got held up too."
"What's with the light?" asked Juan.
"It's the searchlight," Biaque said, leading them away from the crowd.
"Yeah, we could hear the buzzing," Sierra said. "But where is it?"
"It's everywhere," Biaque drew a wide circle with his long cloudy arms. His spine and ribs faded slowly into view. "Twork has rigged up the Vault with mirrors on the outside and they're projecting the searchlight beam over all of Brooklyn. That's why there are no shadows."
"Good grief," Sierra said. "First it's pitch black and now unbearable light. The guy has no sense of middle ground?"
"It is psychological warfare," Biaque explained. "Most of the humans are terrified of the black outs. But we of the Invisible City, we need shadows and darkness to do our work. What good are the city lights reflected into the river if they're blown out by the bright white sky? The perpetual light, it mortifies us. This way he has exercised control over both worlds."
They arrived at construction site. An old colonial-style cathedral jutted up from behind rusty scaffoldings and flapping drapes. Biaque ducked beneath the beams and led them towards an inner courtyard. His skeleton had formed fully within the smoke cloud and the beginnings of flesh crept along his fingertips and torso. They walked out into a side courtyard. Winged statues stared accusingly at the empty sky amidst dirt-caked buckets and cement mixers. Buttresses rose and fell from the church walls around them.
Biaque's child-sized jacket, Stetson and guayabera hung from a mahogany coat rack beside an ancient well in the center of the courtyard. He hovered eagerly towards them, pulled his jacket on, patted himself down, adjusted his hat and then looked up at Juan and Sierra. He was smiling, but only slightly. In his deep brown eyes, Sierra recognized a flicker of nervousness. "Are you ready?" Biaque asked.
"Yes," Juan and Sierra said together.
"Good. Vámanos." He nodded his head towards the well.
"Down there?" Sierra said, her eyebrows raised. Juan didn't look impressed either.
"It is one of the entrances to the Underground Realm. Movimiento is waiting for us below."
"And Lucera?" Juan asked.
"Lucera is attending to some other pressing matters," Biaque said, opening his arms into a wide-open embrace. "She will meet us at the top of the Vault."
"I still can't believe we're going into that place," Sierra said. She walked forward with Juan. Biaque wrapped an arm around each of them.
"Me neither," said Juan.
Biaque rose off the ground and then positioned himself directly over the mouth of the well. The light reached farther down into its shaft than it would on any normal day, but somewhere down there it became total darkness. "The truth is," he said, "I can't believe it either. But this is what must be done. I will be there to protect you."
And then they plummeted into the well.
They hurtled deeper and deeper into the darkness. Eventually, Biaque slowed to a gentle drift. Occasional torches sent out fluttering orbs of light, and as Sierra passed them she glimpsed layers of earth and steel—a labyrinth of pipes, wiring and cement that was the literal foundation of Brooklyn. After a while, the metal and gravel gave way to a more organic, rocklike structure around them. Solid yellowed arches spiraled along the passageway on either side of them.
"What is it?" Sierra asked as the tunnel widened into a vast open cavern.
"Bones," Biaque said.
Juan perked up. "Bones! You mean like animal bones? They're huge!"
"We've traveled past the core of the city into the Underground Realm, which is constructed around the fossilized remains of the first gridlions and keepers."
"You mean," Sierra said, "that we are floating down the inside of a huge gridlion skeleton?"
"This is exactly what I mean. This one is called the Passageway of Grandfather Civoran. Or, Civoran Pass for short."
Juan was beside himself. "That is amazing!" he yelled, and the echo bounced back and forth along the ribbed corridor.
Civoran Pass kept growing wider and wider until they finally slowed to a stop inside a vast open hall. From the occasional torches, Sierra figured it to be about three times the size of the high school gymnasium. Biaque let them down on the uneven floors and the clatter of their tennis shoes on bone sent out another cascade of echoes. The air was thick and musty.
"What do we do now?" Juan asked but then something huge let out a magnificent sigh and a great weight shifted in the darkness. Both Santiagos instinctively jumped back towards Biaque.
"It's alright, kids," Biaque laughed. "It's Movimiento."
"Are you sure?" Sierra squinted into the vast chamber. She could just make out a mountainous form leaning forward and then she saw some torchlight reflect off that swinging mane of Movimiento's. "Ah—yes it is." The gridlion's tool-laden cross chain jangled as he lumbered into the torchlight. His sad equine eyes took in Sierra and Juan.
"I see you made it alright," Movimiento said.
"We have safe passage to the Vault entrance?" Biaque asked.
"Yes," said Movimiento. Sierra realized his great, human hands were wrapped around a ferocious looking metal bat that widened out into a tangle of drill bits and fan blades.
"Of course," Biaque chuckled, "when you have your clobberstick, there is never really a need to worry about anything."
"I wish it were so," Movimiento said, "but in the Underground Realm the rules are different. I've only been down here a few times but each visit I somehow end up face to face with my own mortality."
What, Sierra wondered, could make a giant like Movimiento fear his own death?
"We have an escort?" Biaque asked.
Movimiento nodded his long, horse-like face to either side and Sierra realized that several tall, robed figures had emerged around him in the darkness. "A faction of sewer wraiths," Movimiento said, "have agreed to provide protection."
The wraiths glided forward into the torchlight and Sierra let out a gasp. The skull of an elaborately horned forest animal sat on top of each flowing robe. Long, steely blades dangled from their sleeves, as if each hand had been replaced by a set of knives. She counted six of them, each about eight feet tall, but then a seventh, even taller wraith emerged from behind Movimiento. He hovered directly up to Biaque and bowed slightly.
"I am Sarcofaz," hissed the sewer wraith. "I rule the Civoran Pass."
"It is an honor," Biaque said, removing his hat and lowering his head. "I am Biaque, of the Invisible City. This is Juan and Sierra Santiago, humans." The sewer wraith turned his empty eye sockets towards Sierra and Juan and bowed.
"Honored to meet you," Sierra whispered, trying not to sound as terrified as she felt. Juan mumbled something similar and they both lowered their heads like Biaque had.
Sarcofaz turned back to Biaque and raised his shining claw towards a red skulled sewer wraith. "This is my personal bodyguard, Sicorax." Sicorax bowed to Biaque, but Sierra noticed that unlike Sarcofaz, Sicorax kept his hollow eye sockets trained on Biaque's every move. He seemed edgy; his flowing gown swayed constantly as if he couldn't stop fidgeting beneath it.
Sarcofaz continued: "The captain of my guards, Krestlefax, will be scouting ahead of us with his deputies." He leaned closer towards Biaque. "Perhaps you have heard," Sarcofaz hissed, "that like the Invisible City, the Underground Realm is also in the midst of a vicious civil war."
Biaque nodded. "I have heard the rumors, yes. But I did not know the full extent."
"It is an explosion of many eons of vicious, pent up infighting," said Sarcofaz. "But I will not trouble you with the details. I only wish for you to be informed, as you pass through the Realm, that you are passing through the heart of a war that is not your own."
"Understood," Biaque said.
"In that case," the sewer wraith said, turning towards the far end of the chamber, "follow me." He nodded at Sicorax, who fell into place beside him, and they glided into the darkness.
The group silently trudged through the dimly lit corridor. Sarcofaz's wraiths glided along on either side of them. They were winding their way up a gentle incline. Gradually, the bones of Grandfather Civoran gave way to the familiar pipe and cement underbelly of Brooklyn.
"We are coming up towards the foundation of the Vault," Biaque whispered.
"Why are you whispering?" Sierra asked.
Her friend narrowed his eyes and glanced to either side of them. "I'm not sure," he said, still in a hush. "I'm not so trusting of the situation."
"Yeah, something's weird right?" said Sierra. "It's like—tense somehow. Like when my mom and dad have an argument, and the anger just sits there in the air even after they're done."
"There is something heavy in the air," agreed Biaque, "but it is more like the heaviness of a thing that is waiting to happen than the heaviness of something that has already been."
Sierra heard the sound of traffic above them. Twork's never-ending light crept through cracks and grates and sent shafts of bright swirling dust around them. "I'd never thought of that before," Sierra said. "The difference, I mean, between those two kinds of—"
"The entrance to the Vault," announced Sarcofaz in a hoarse whisper. He stood a few feet ahead of them, his sharp claw pointing at a break in the tangle of pipes above their heads. The Vault entrance was one of those airtight chamber doors they have on the submarines in old World War II movies Sierra's dad watched. She wasn't sure which was more terrifying, these creepy underground dead creatures or the idea of confronting the howling Vaultkeep. At a nod from Sarcofaz, Sicorax directed his razor-sharp hands towards the wheel on the massive chamber door. It turned slowly, and then a heavy clanking echoed out and the whole thing swung open with a groan. Sierra squinted up and could just make out a ramp sloping upwards into darkness.
"Don't worry," Biaque whispered to her. "I will be with you. And I have my very own pressure cannons, remember." He chuckled but it was a thin, shaky version of his usual hearty laugh.
"Thanks, B," Sierra said. She scanned her mind quickly along the worried faces of her mom and dad, Lázaro's lost eyes, Robbie's hands on her back as they danced, her bother Jimmy in his all his combat gear. She looked at Juan. He stared grimly back at her. His jaw was clenched tight and his forehead was shiny with sweat.
"You ready?" she said.
"I am," Juan nodded.
"Me too." Sierra walked up to where Sarcofaz hovered. "How do I..." Sierra began, but Movimiento had already reached his huge hand down for her to climb up on to. He lifted her up through the dank sewer air to the lip of the entranceway. A cold breeze was blowing steadily from the darkness. Sierra reached a hand up and took hold of an edge. She hoisted herself onto it, found her footing and turned back to the chamber below.
Juan was climbing onto Movimiento's hand when one of the wraiths let out a horrible growl. Sierra turned around just in time to see Sicorax raise his knifed fingers and lunge across the tunnel at Sarcofaz. The pipes around them bounced the growl back and forth incessantly, and then more wraiths growled and flashed their sharp appendages. Sarcofaz steadied himself and reached back to strike his attacker but his arm was caught behind him by another wraith. A third wraith rushed towards Movimeinto and for a second, Sierra thought she was about to watch her brother get chopped to pieces by those horrible hands. But the gridlion proved much quicker than he looked. He thrust his Juan-carrying hand quickly up into the Vault entrance, almost knocking Sierra over as he dumped her brother beside her. With his other hand, Movimiento swept the clobberstick in front of him, cracking off one of the charging wraith's antlers and sending him stumbling off into a dark corner.
Sicofax and his co-conspirator each get a solid slash across Sarcofaz's robed body, and the ruler of Civoran Pass threw himself away from them. A continent of black blood expanded slowly across his heaving chest. Behind him, Sierra saw Movimiento's mountainous body lunge backward suddenly as another sewer wraith slashed at him. Biaque raised his hands in pressure cannon position at two wraiths that closed in menacingly on him. The momentous thudding roars out from his palms and rippled through the wraiths dangling gowns, but otherwise they seemed unaffected.
"Juan, we have to do something!" Sierra whispered.
"Like what? You wanna go down there and help? You crazy? If Biaque's finger cannon is a breath of fresh air to these dudes, a fat lotta good we're gonna do."
Sierra knew he was right but she couldn't stand looking on while Biaque and Movimiento succumbed to these hideous monsters. If only she had someway to fight.
"Sierra, look!" Juan was tugging on her sleeve and pointing down the torch lit passageway. The shadowy figures of three sewer wraiths were storming down the corridor towards them. "It must be Krestlefax and the advance guard," Juan whispered.
"You think they're on our side?"
"Who knows? But they're coming fast."
Krestlefax raced into the fray, flanked by his two deputies. The captain of the guard was almost as tall as Sarcofaz. His long arms swung furiously to either side of him like scythes as he cut down the two wraiths attacking Movimiento. His deputies lunged in front of Sarcofaz and began clashing blades with Sicorax. The sewer wraiths launched themselves at each other, knife fingers stretched out ahead of them, and clashed in mid air to the sickening sound of sliced flesh and clanging steel.
Movimiento's clobberstick finally found its mark, shattering the skull of one of the wraiths closing in on Biaque. The lifeless shroud collapsed limply as the knives clamored to the ground.
Sarcofaz had collapsed in a heap not far from them. His wounded body rose and fell in quick, desperate breaths. Sicorax retreated to a dark corner and suddenly turned his red skull face up towards where Juan and Sierra were watching from the Vault entrance. Sierra felt her whole body turn cold as the traitorous bodyguard raised his long, skeletal arm towards her. This is it, thought Sierra. I only hope it's quick. But nothing happened. She was about to breath a sigh of relief when the lid to the Vault entrance began to swing shut.
"Juan, it's closing!" Sierra yelled. Her brother stood there, trembling and wide-eyed, his head shaking slowly back and forth. She looked down into the passageway and caught Biaque's terrified face looking up at her just before the lid slammed shut.