Chapter 17 - The Rat King

  There was something up on the platform. Something big, or bigger than the ratkin, anyway. It rose from a pool of shadow near the wall, strutting closer to the light, and I got my first good look at the ‘Rat King.’

  He was another ratkin, at least in terms of shape. He had the same rat head stuck on a furred humanoid body, the same sharp claws and teeth, same tail. But that’s about where the similarities ended.

  This ratkin was a good foot taller than the others. It stood about as high as my shoulders and was stronger-looking, as well. Where most of the ratkin were spindly things, strong but in a wiry sort of way, the King had shoulders like a miniature linebacker.

  Thanks to my new ability to sense someone’s tier level, I could sense his, and that was another difference from the others. Where all the other ratkin I’d seen were tier one, this one was tier four. He was distinctly stronger than the others. Still not as strong as me, at least according to our ranks, but I wasn’t confident enough in how that worked to say he wasn’t a threat. Tier four was only one step below me, after all. Especially with the other ratkin helping him, he might be more than I could handle.

  “What meaning this?” the King asked again. “Who bring live human?”

  “I made him,” I replied, trying for bluster. If I could show him I wasn’t afraid, maybe he’d choose caution over violence. “You have something that belongs to me, and I want it back.”

  The Rat King hissed at me. “One human. Many ratkin.”

  “One human with a lot of crystals,” I shot back. “How many ratkin do you think I can take down before you kill me?”

  The dozen spear-armed ratkin down on the tracks with me advanced a step, raising their weapons threateningly. I braced myself for the attack I knew was coming any moment. I figured I could take down at least a few of these guys and then withdraw, if I had to. Now that I knew where their nest was, I could come back, snipe at them from the shadows, maybe.

  But before they could attack, the King jumped to the edge of the platform and waved his arms. “Stop!”

  The ratkin froze. They didn’t advance any further, so I lowered the tip of my spear just a hair.

  “What human want?” the Rat King asked.

  What I truly wanted was to kill every last one of these disgusting creatures, and I shook with the struggle to keep from saying that aloud.

  They’d killed Amanda. One of them had, anyway. Then they hauled her body down here to their ‘nest.’ I could easily imagine why; they were rats, after all, and dead bodies were a good source of food. That’s half of why I’d come down into this shadowed hell to get her back. I didn’t want to see her become food for the monsters that killed her. Even the idea of it burned in my chest painfully.

  I shook my head to clear those dark thoughts. “You took human bodies from the train. One of them was my girlfriend. I want her back.”

  “Human want dead human?” The King cocked his head sideways like he didn’t understand. “Why?”

  “Because she was mine and you took her from me!” I snarled back.

  The anger leaked into my voice enough that the Rat King took a step back. “You, you, you,” he said, pointing at three of the ratkin guards. “Go get dead human woman.”

  “Is many, King!” one of the ratkin complained.

  The Rat King cuffed him upside the head. “Do as King say!”

  The trio scurried off. I had to wonder if they were really going to bring her or if this was some sort of trick. I wouldn’t put it past them to try something, so I kept my guard up and my spear at the ready.

  The Rat King came to the edge of the platform and peered down at me from above. “We bring. What human do in return?”

  “I’m sorry? What do you mean?” Were we bargaining, now?

  “Ratkin give human ratkin food. What human do for ratkin?”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  We were definitely bargaining. “What do the ratkin need?”

  I could just take her and be done with it. But as we’d been talking I saw more sets of beady eyes staring at me from the shadows, both ahead of me and behind. The dozen ratkin who’d confronted me at the start of this were a small fraction of their nest’s population. I’d been in trouble facing down a few dozen pill bugs at a time. A few dozen ratkin with spears might be a harder battle, especially since I spotted a handful of tier two fighters among the rest.

  It might be wiser to simply give them something in return so I could get away from this place without another fight. But what were they going to ask for?

  The Rat King rubbed his chin with a clawed hand. “What we need? We need so many thing! But you strong human, yes? Dangerous, yes?”

  That was certainly what I’d been trying to imply from the moment I arrived, so I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Then you do ratkin service.”

  “What sort of service?” I asked.

  He grinned at me like he knew he had me. “Ratkin have enemy. You kill it, we give you your mate. Deal, yes?”

  Oh, I had so many questions at this point. Like what sort of enemy was this? Where was it? But the most pressing question was whether they had Amanda’s body in the first place or not. I wanted to see her before I agreed to anything, especially since I had the feeling whatever it was they wanted me to do was dangerous.

  I bent my knees and then jumped. With my new Strength, leaping up from the tracks onto the platform was childishly easy. I landed with a thud just a few steps away from the Rat King and aimed my spear in his direction.

  A trio of ratkin guards, each tier two, spilled out of the shadows and advanced on me, weapons at the ready. I shoved my spear a little closer to their King. “I’d stop right there, if you want your King without extra holes in him.”

  The King made a ‘back off’ gesture to his guards. “Is fine! Back. We deal.” He turned back toward me, eyes narrowing. “We deal, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said, my voice a growl. I held back my temper as best I could, but I knew some of my rage had to be evident on my face. “I want to see her. Then we deal.”

  It only took the three ratkin he’d sent a few minutes to return from their errand. They each dragged a body along behind them, bringing them right in front of us and dropping them there. All three bodies were women, so apparently ratkin could tell our genders apart, anyway. One of them was Amanda.

  My eyes closed as I saw her lying there. Just for a moment; thankfully, I remembered where I was before I let the grief from losing her overwhelm me. I knelt down beside her and touched her face. She was cold, still, her clothes soaked in blood. But it was my Amanda. I’d found her.

  I stood back up and faced the Rat King. “Your people killed her, and now you want to bargain with me for her return? Play your cards carefully, Rat King. I am not in the mood to be messed with.”

  “Is mate, yes?” he asked. “Can see in your face, she was. Mate is important. Mate is like life, yes?”

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “Sorry,” the Rat King replied, bowing his head. “Sorry lost mate. Hurts. See your pain.”

  “I’ll live,” I snapped back. I wanted this over with. If that meant doing something for them, I was fine with that. “What is the task you wanted me to do? The foe that’s too strong for the ratkin to fight?”

  All around me, they hissed at that. I grinned back at them. Ratkin weren’t that different from humans, it seemed. They were mad because I’d called them out. They couldn’t beat this enemy, whatever it was, and they needed my help to take it down. They could be mad, for all I cared.

  “Is true,” the Rat King hissed. He pointed toward a darkened stairwell leading up. “She waits at the top of those stairs. Many legs. Big fangs. Kill many ratkin. She kill us when we go up; she sneak down here and kill us when sleep. Want her dead. You kill, we give you mate. Deal?”

  I’d already seen one creature that resembled that description, back at the Charles/MGH train station. Way up in the ceiling area, there was that big spiderweb and the monstrous creature living in it. What if a similar spider set itself up in Kendall Station? That ought to be right up those stairs. It was a good place for an ambush predator to hang out, too.

  Could I take down something like that? The spider I’d seen before was bigger than me. It would be fast, and I’d want to avoid getting bitten or caught by webs. I was a lot stronger than I’d been before, though. I had a stack of new crystals inside me, powering me up. My Strength, Stamina, and Natural Armor were all tier five. Was that enough to survive this encounter?

  It was either that or trying to take down the entire ratkin nest single-handedly. There were a lot of the creatures, and as much as part of me wanted to go all Anakin Skywalker to their Sand People, I still had enough of a grip on my fury to remember how that ended for the character in question. I wanted to be better than that. Amanda would have been furious with me for even considering it.

  So I gave the Rat King a nod. “We have a deal. But if you try to trick me? If you try to cheat on your end? I will rain down destruction on your people, you understand me?”

  “Ratkin have honor, human,” he replied. “We no cheat deal. You kill her, the thing above, come back with one of her fangs, you take mate with you and go. Leave ratkin in peace.”

  “Good enough,” I said. I turned to look toward the stairs. “Where will I find her?”

  “Top of stairs. Near daylight,” he replied. “Look for webs.”

  Webs, huh? That pretty much cinched what I was up against here, anyway. Knowing who my foe was gave me a serious advantage, assuming I managed to see her before she attacked. A spider would probably want to attack from ambush. If I kept my approach slow and careful, I ought to be able to spot her before she ambushed me.

  That was the best game plan I had, anyway. No, not quite—I had one other idea that might work well in fighting a creature like this, but I wanted to keep that card in my hip pocket in case I needed it.

  “Be seeing you soon,” I said to the Rat King as I walked toward the stairs.

  “Not if she see you first, haha!” he replied.

  The world was ending, magic and monsters were everywhere, and I was making deals with comedian Rat Kings. This day just kept getting better and better.