This is part of the first scene from Of Blood and Oil, book 3 of the Not the Same River series. Violet’s sister has gone missing, and the only clue is a shrine dedicated to a dead person filled with photos of them looking not-so-dead on the London Underground.
***
That’s what we were doing on the roof of Baker Street Station. The empty streets only made sense after Eden’s frantic call. There was panic on the underground: vicious, hairy panic.
When the sound of radio static got too close, Daniel grabbed me and Archer, and teleported.
I blinked into the darkness, the scent of rust and summer dirt strong in my nostrils. “Where are we?” I whispered. My hands met cold brick behind me, and something soft brushed the backs of my ankles. I prayed it was a cat.
“Under ground,” he said, like I hadn’t figured out that much for myself.
“No shit, Sherlock,” said Archer, laughing at his own joke.
A faint hum struck up to the left of us, and not so far to the right, a clank-hiss, then the murmur of voices. The electrical whine of a tube train flared up in the darkness, accompanied by two headlights, no more than twenty feet away from us.
“We’re on the tracks?” I said weakly. “Get us out of here.”
The train lumbered forward, and I ran to Daniel, who had inexplicably wandered off with Archer. The last thing I saw before we landed safely on the platform, was Daniel’s deer-in-headlights expression. The train wheezed by. The lights above us thrummed violently, trying to turn themselves on. They flickered, the hum getting louder, almost becoming a growl. Then we saw her. Amethyst.
When the interior of the train lit up, her mouth dropped open. She mouthed and pointed at us, her eyes panicked, her open palm slapping the door.
“Get us on the train then,” I said.
Daniel shook his head. “Too dangerous. If I miss, we’ll get flattened.”
Behind us the growling continued, while the dim lights hummed and flared. On. Off. On. Off. Growling.
***
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