Just as Sara raised her hand to knock, the door swung open. Standing just inside the door was a tall, nearly emaciated blond male. Junkie, her instincts whispered, or recently enough ex that it didn't matter. His eyes were the color of washed-out denim and wide with fear.
"I didn't do nothin," The protest was sullen, automatic. He had recognized her just as she had him.
"I bet you say that to all the girls," Sara couldn't resist saying.
"Just the ones with badges," He replied, her humorous response, however black, relaxing him enough to reply in kind.
"Well, since you aren't doing anything, lead me to the body." Sara didn't waste any fake sympathy or political correctness; there wasn't any point. He'd seen enough on the streets not to need either one.
The house was old, built during the early 1800's and remodeled, from the looks of things, into apartments during the bohemian movement of the early sixties. The detectives followed their guide toward the back of the house, and down through what might have been a cold-room or a pantry.
"So Mr. Pyle, what can you tell us," Jake asked as he ducked the pipe bolted to the oak lintel.
"I ain't the plumber. He's up with the building manager, arguing whether or not he's getting paid for the call, since he didn't actually fix anything."
"We'll need to speak with him. Make sure he doesn't leave," Sara wasted a glare on the back of his dirty blonde head.
It was better than thinking about the way this place was playing on her nerves. Each step felt colder than the last, as if she was descending through ice water. The walls seemed to press in, the hum of the electric lights unnaturally loud. Every time Sara moved forward, it was an act of will.
"Yeah, yeah," He replied, oblivious to the detective's ire or the ill will radiating from the walls. He continued to lead them deeper under ground. After several minutes the stairwell opened out into another room. The pipes followed the wall down to a newer, concrete rimmed hole and steel ladder. "This is as far as I go. Body is at the bottom."
"Thanks." Sara said sourly.
"De nada," the blonde shrugged his thin shoulders and started back up the stairs.
"Well, I suppose this is why we get paid the big bucks," Jake tried to joke as he hesitated by the steel rungs.
"Yep." Sara agreed, ignoring the hint of unease in her partner's voice. What could she say anyway? The hair on the back of her neck was standing straight up. She did not want to go down there. Nope, no reassurances about climbing down that hole came to mind.
The rungs were cold, and a little slick from condensation under her hands. Sara flexed her fingers and looked down over her shoulders at the dimly lit service shaft. The body wasn't getting any fresher, they needed to get down there and do their jobs. Face screwed up in a scowl, the detective started down the hole.
If Sara had thought it cold going before, it was positively frigid now. Her breath plumed out white and the rungs were dusted with hoarfrost. Jake was blocking the light above her, making the shaft seem even darker. A sickly sweet smell, reminding her of vomit and sickness, wafted up.
The smell triggered another quick flicker of vision. Cramped in darkness, no room to move, the moans of the sick and the clank of chain. Shit and blood and death. A faint hint of salt under it all, and a monotonous swaying that should have been soothing but wasn't. Then the feeling was gone. Only the cold biting her palms kept Sara descending.
Finally, after far longer than either of them liked, they came to the bottom of the ladder. The light was even worse down here, only two naked bulbs illuminating an arcane mix of pipes and hulking equipment. With a muttered curse Sara pulled her MagLite out of her jacket pocket and thumbed the switch.
The powerful beam cut through the dark, illuminating a patch of stone on the opposite wall. Sara swung the beam around, trying to get a feel for the size of the room. The light bounced around, showing mostly natural stone. There was a long crack running down one wall, glistening with moisture, but that was the only opening. The remaining walls were solid. Whoever the murderer had been, they had to have come and gone by the ladder.
"City didn't waste much money back then." Sara muttered, and then winced. Her voice sounded far to loud in the darkened chamber.
"Yeah, I'll bet we just climbed down the old well shaft for the house. Look at the water marks on the wall; this had to have been a natural aquifer that the city drilled through." Jake paused for a moment, "Or it dried up on its own and then they connected it to the new city line."
"That's all very fascinating," Her tone said plainly that it wasn't really. Sara was all set to add a scathing comment, but the beam from her flashlight moved over something white, half-hidden by the bulk of one of the pumps.
Boots clicking on stone, Sara moved toward that spot of brilliant white, which turned out to be the edge of a wing. She stopped, shone her light around the ground in front of her to make sure she wasn't about to track through any evidence, and then continued forward.
"Oh God," Jake whispered in a voice made thready with horror.
Bound spread-eagled, pun not intended, was a tall, well-muscled Caucasian. He was blonde, the eyes might have been blue, but it was hard to tell with the way they were filmed over and yellowy in the glare of the flashlight. One wing splayed outward, the other at an unnatural angle, clearly broken and tattered as if a beast had chewed it. His mouth, throat, and chest were covered in clotted reddish black. It looked like he had vomited all the blood in his body.
Although it was the last thing in the world she wanted to do, Sara took another step closer, and another. She couldn't do her job from twenty feet away, as much as she might wish that she could. The closer she got, the clearer the details became.
There was gilt embroidery on the robes and where the cloth stopped its fall, the floor was engraved with similar symbols. Well, on second glance, only vaguely so. Looking too long at the runes carved into the floor made her brain feel like it was full of maggots. She averted her eyes from the symbols and continued her circuit of the crime scene.
Taken abstractly, it wasn't the worst thing Sara had seen, but somehow she was still sickened. The very air was thick with wrongness, as if something pure had been defiled.
"And so it has."
The satisfied malice in the voice that oozed out of the darkness made Sara drop one hand to her gun. She thumbed open the safety snap on her holster, ready to clear leather. Sara looked around wildly; searching for the source, until she realized Jake was staring at her in confusion. He hadn't heard a thing.
"Thought I heard something," Sara answered the questioning look. It was the truth. If Jake thought she meant some little sound and not a disembodied voice, so what? He was looking just as spooked as she felt. Telling him that she was hearing voices would not help either of them.
"Hey Pez? Is that… hair?" The hesitation was heavy with the word Jake didn't want to say.
Sara focused on the bindings, which she had assumed were some kind of hemp, more closely. Fed through iron rings that had been set into the floor, and knotted around each limb, was loosely woven rope. A second, more intent, look showed the fibers to be different colors. There were sections of blonde, black, and even a little grey amid the more plentiful brown.
"They were the first to fall." Again the voice came out of the dark. "The brokers of misery are now slaves themselves. Is the irony not delightful?"
For a moment Sara thought the Witchblade was playing with her mind again, but Jake jumped beside her. His flashlight bobbled as he scythed it through the dark, looking for the source. Skin prickling with premonition, Sara turned, but there was nothing behind her.
When Sara turned back to the direction she had been facing, he was suddenly there. Wizened, dusky skin wrinkled and filthy, ancient clothing rotting on what had once been a much larger frame. His hair hung in greyish dreadlocks, framing eyes yellow with madness and disease.
There was no time to react, to show the fear or revulsion she felt. His hand swung upward in that instant of realization that he was there, backhanding the detective with more force than his ancient form should have been capable of.
Sara went backwards to the stone floor, vision black, the taste of blood in her mouth and the ache of new-formed bruises. For a moment she just lay there, trying to remember how to breathe around the pain. She staggered to her feet and shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Damn, it felt like she had been hit by a freight train.