Dust City by Robert Paul Weston

Author:Robert Paul Weston
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Alcohol, Fiction, Animals, Characters and characteristics in literature, Body, Characters in literature, Nature, Drugs, Fairies, Fathers and sons, Substance Abuse, Mind & Spirit, Social Issues, Magic, Adaptations, Juvenile Fiction, Wolves, Friendship, Magick Studies, Action & Adventure, Wolves & Coyotes, General, Fairy Tales & Folklore, Human-animal relationships
ISBN: 9781595142962
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2010-09-30T05:08:29.861961+00:00

Hans, the hedgehog, loads us up. Each pair of us is given a pack. Hans gives ours to Tom, but the moment he feels its weight, Tom thrusts it at me. “Here,” he says. “You better carry it.”

Hans opens a drawer in one of his rusted cabinets. He takes out a series of maps. On each one is an intricate diagram of the City. Only a few landmarks—the reservoir, the cemetery, a couple of the prisons, the skyway to Eden—are labeled with actual words. I recognize Hans’s handwriting from when I watched him tally up the figures in his meticulous ledger. Clearly, he’s responsible for designing these maps as well.

Hans spreads one of them delicately over his desktop. It’s like an artifact in a museum, and that’s precisely how Hans treats it.

“Watch carefully,” he says.

The map is comprised of two pages. There’s the map itself and, at the top, a delicate, tightly rolled overlay of something thin and translucent, like tracing paper. Hans unfurls it, revealing a squirrelly network of lines, crisscrossing all over the city.

“These are the tunnels,” he says. “They’ll take you boys where you need to go—without folks getting suspicious about wolves barreling through the streets.” He taps Dockside gently with his claw. “We’re here, see? Come up as close to the address as you can. Drop the package at the door and get back underground. Simple, right? Don’t talk to folks, don’t accept money from them. That’s all been taken care of. You’re runners. That’s it. Get back here quick, and we’ll have another drop ready to go. Got it?”

We nod.

“Now,” he says. “You see some of these tunnels marked in red? Never use’em. They’re off-limits. You got it?”

We nod.

“They don’t go anywhere anyway. They’re all dead ends. Now, Matt here’ll show you how to get in.”

We turn around and see Matt, propped up against the door frame. He’s wearing the same housecoat that he wore yesterday.

“Follow me,” he says.

He takes us back into the refinery, past the conveyors, to a corner near the password-protected entrance. There’s nothing here but a defunct furnace. Matt tips it sideways with almost no effort at all. It’s just a fake, a shell of the real thing.

Behind it is a hatchway, which Matt yanks open. A stench of staleness wafts out, and we all flinch. There’s nothing down there but darkness and the first thin rungs of a wrought-iron ladder. Squitch and the others go first. Then it’s Tom and me.

But Matt stops us. “I know you two hate each other, but when you’re down there—” He pauses to cough into his sleeve. “When you’re down there, be careful. Look out for one another.”

“Whatever,” says Tom. He pushes past us, but Matt grabs him.

“I mean it,” he says. “All kinds of things can kill you down there. All kinds of things.”

In spite of himself, Tom nods. “Ok, Pop.” He claps me on the shoulder, a little too hard. “We’re a team.”

Then down we go.

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