The Adventures of Mademoiselle Mac 2-Book Bundle by Christopher Ward

visibility impossible. A band of light where you might expect a bumper seemed to guide it down the stony street. Exploring as best I could without being noticed, I looked in slits of windows to observe the workings of this weird place. I was starting to get oriented and found I could fairly easily slip from one hiding place to another. I had no idea what anyone would do if they saw me, but I didn’t want to chance it. Certain passages were quieter and had odd-shaped doors with numbers that suggested homes to me. The streets the trains went through were a little wider, noisier, and there was more activity inside and out of the buildings. Curious as I was to see a Shadow shop, it wasn’t the time or place for souvenir hunting. A siren sounded and a horn blasted repeatedly until a mechanical voice came over a loudspeaker.
    â€œThree point five slide in P 27. Crews blue four and five to P 27. All others avoid area.”
    Within seconds, two groups of helmeted Shadows with shovels, picks, metal wagons, and dull blue flashlights zoomed past and out of sight. My heart resumed beating. I was tucked in a doorway waiting for the commotion to end when two figures approached, one looking very familiar. Beside a standard issue Shadow shape was a beefy hunk of human with more meat on him than a six-pack of Shadows. Blag! What was he doing here? I caught a snatch of conversation as they passed within inches of me.
    â€œ... how do you live like this? Everything falling down around you. Man, I’m no neat freak, but the stench down here could peel paint. What, no cleanser, smokey?”
    I guess I shouldn’t have been shocked to see Blag with one of the Shadows, but it still took me by surprise. I’d kind of felt a bit sorry for him the other night when he’d picked me up and taken me back to CAFTA . Now I felt disgust, or worse. A chillingly familiar voice answered him.
    â€œIt wasn’t always like this, big boy, but it’s getting worse. Four or five slides a day, some bad. Last week a whole passage was blocked and abandoned. But Louche has a plan. Fear not, squarehead.”
    It was the voice of Scar, the bony-handed Shadow from the club. They turned a corner and I followed, slipping in and out of doorways and spaces between buildings. The streets got quieter and the passages narrower, and they walked in single file until reaching a polished metal door recessed in a rock face that could easily have gone unnoticed. They stopped, and while Blag looked around and kicked at some loose stones on the path, Scar hissed the words “Black Mamba” into the door, and it slid open to admit them. For one terrifying moment I thought Blag looked right at me as I leaned out a little to see what they were doing, but then he turned away and passed through the doorway.
    I seemed to be alone. The sounds of activity were in the distance, and even the ever-present sewer reek had faded a bit. I approached the shiny steel entrance to who-knew-where and stared at it. Sealed air-tight like a bank vault, it was perfectly smooth, with no doorknob or window to mar its gleaming surface. There was a small button on one side mounted with a speaker in the rock, and I knew what I had to do. I pushed it, and when a red light went on, I forced my voice as low as possible and barely whispered “Black Mamba.” The door slid open silently, and I stepped inside, grinning.
    What I saw couldn’t have been more different from the stinking underground city just beyond the entrance. All was smooth and metallic instead of rough and rocky. Was that a faint odour of mint? It could have been ether; there was a somewhat chilly, hospital-like feeling to the place. I could see what looked like a satanic supermodel working at a computer in a waiting area. She was dressed in designer black leather and stiletto heels that looked like they could be used for acupuncture. Her hair was pulled straight back from her carved features, and her