The bronze cellar doors blew outward with a wet, thunderous boom.
A wall of freezing saltwater and gray harbor fog erupted into the night rain. Rusted iron rivets sheared off their housings, pinging across the granite steps of the Civic Census Annex like stray bullets. The air smelled of 1924 maritime bilges, damp legal parchment, and scorched transmission fluid.
Julian Vance ducked behind the concrete balustrade. His fingers clamped around the 1996 Notary General brass key he had just scooped off the wet stone. Beside him, Thomas Vance did not flinch. The tall man held the black municipal umbrella steady over Julian and Clara, his featureless gray-white face tilted down toward the opening.
“Watch the runoff!” Mac yelled from the curb. His heavy work boots splashed through three inches of street wash. “The whole street’s giving way!”
At the center of the intersection, the flooded asphalt began to groan.
The giant rain puddle covering Old Ferry Road did not splash. It began to spin. First came a lazy swirl of sodden cigarette butts and dead leaves. Then the water turned into a violent funnel, sucking thousands of gallons of black runoff straight down through the roadbed.
Granite sewer grates tore free with sharp metallic shrieks. Concrete curbing cracked like dry peanut shells. A thirty-foot-wide circular void opened in the middle of the street, swallowing the asphalt, the double yellow lines, and the trolley tracks.
