Chapter 32 - The Underworld Below the Bedrock
Cold, stagnant water swallowed Arthur whole.
The impact hit him like a concrete wall, driving every scrap of oxygen from his lungs.
He plunged deep into the subterranean reservoir, the roar of the collapsing ballroom muffled instantly by the freezing murk.
Heavy debris rained down around him, churning the black water into a deadly swirl of sinking marble and pulverized brick.
Arthur kicked furiously toward the surface, fighting against the dead weight of his waterlogged suit.
His left arm hung nearly useless from his dislocated shoulder.
When his head finally broke the surface, he gasped for air, tasting sulfur, raw sewage, and burning industrial coolant.
"Clara!" he coughed, his voice swallowed by the cavernous roar of rushing water.
A faint red flare sparked fifty yards away down a vaulted brick drainage tunnel.
Clara was hauling herself onto a rusted iron catwalk, coughing violently and spitting dark water onto the grate.
Arthur swam through the sludge, dragging himself out of the current with his good arm.
He collapsed beside her on the cold iron, his chest heaving as the distant sounds of structural collapse echoed above.
"The bedrock didn't fall seventy feet," Arthur managed to say, clutching his shoulder in agony. "You knew this overflow canal was here."
Clara wiped wet hair from her face, exposing the porcelain mask of her features in the crimson glow of the emergency flare.
"I built the contingency route three months ago," she said, her voice shaking from the bone-chilling cold. "When I realized your family owned the city’s private demolition permits."
"My family?" Arthur stared at her. "The tactical team up there had Department of Justice insignia."
Clara let out a bitter, blood-flecked laugh.
She reached into the soaked bodice of her gown and pulled out a heavy titanium thumb drive she had palmed before the pendant fell.
"Those weren't federal agents, Arthur," she said, her green eyes piercing through the subterranean gloom.
"Then who were they?"
"They were the clean-up crew," Clara whispered, pointing the flare toward the tunnel wall behind them.
Fresh spray-painted tactical markings glowed on the century-old brickwork.
Arthur leaned closer, his blood running colder than the sewer water.
The stencil on the brick bore a three-headed serpent coiled around a broken gavel.
It was the private family crest of the Sterling Dynasty.
May you like
His own family's oldest, most guarded seal.
"Your father didn't send them to arrest me," Clara said softly, watching his face shatter. "He sent them to erase us both."
