“Talked, mostly. I can’t believe how much we had to talk about. I told him all about being a musician, and he told me about the fan conventions he goes to every year—he made it sound so fun I almost wanted to go myself. Then he talked about being a magus, and about having to destroy his familiar—”
“Wait—he destroyed his familiar? Did it attack him?”
“No, it didn’t, but he said he didn’t want to wait around for it to turn on him or someone else, and he wanted to investigate the binding, see if he could help the Wardens find a solution. I thought Nicolliens thought of their familiars as pets, but to hear him tell it he might as easily have been replacing a tire.”
“Jeremiah’s different.”
“I know. You know, he didn’t even kiss me?”
“Wow. That’s different for you.”
“I know. And yet I know he wants to, and he’s just…waiting for the right moment. And it will be a great moment, too.”
“Viv, I’m so happy for both of you.”
“Don’t be too happy yet. It was only one date. And not even really a date. We ordered pizza.”
“Oh, let me be optimistic on your behalf. When are you seeing him again?”
The elevator door opened, and I saw Iakkhos and Diane waiting outside. I smiled and dodged past them. “Tomorrow night. We’re going to the movies. He said I could choose, but I feel bad dragging him to my usual rom-com.”
“Go see Citizen Kane. It’s playing downtown.”
“No, thanks, I’d rather not feel like slitting my wrists afterward. You made me watch that already, remember?”
I unlocked my door and kicked off my shoes, my feet sinking into the pile of the carpet. “Right, and you hated it. Well, don’t try to second-guess him, because that turned out so well before. Just pick something you like and trust that he wants to get to know you well enough to enjoy it. Then next time it’ll be your turn.”
“You’re so sensible. I gotta go, playing a gig tonight. Wish you could come.”
“I wish I weren’t trapped here. But the party tonight is supposed to be killer.”
“I hope so, for your sake.”
I said goodbye and tossed my phone onto one of the chairs, then went into the bedroom and fell backwards onto the bed. Malcolm was right, my bed was smaller and cozier, but this mattress was so soft I almost decided to ditch the party and snuggle up to watch movies. No, Carlos and Elisabeta would be so disappointed if I didn’t show. I closed my eyes. Just fifteen minutes’ rest, and then I’d get ready. Just fifteen minutes…
A knock sounded at my door. My eyes flew open. I rolled over to check the bedside clock. 8:37. That had been a lot more than fifteen minutes. Cursing, I hopped up and ran to the door. “I’m sorry, I fell—”
There was no one there. Distantly, I heard the knock again. It was coming from the bathroom, the brown marble one off the sitting room. It was more of a thump than a knock, an irregular sound like somebody trying to get out. The comparison made me nervous. Nobody else could be in my room, so…
I looked around for a weapon. The lamps were too bulky for me to hold comfortably. Ditto the chairs. I picked up my water bottle and hefted it. It was full of water and solid, better than nothing. Slowly I crept across the sitting room, twitching every time I heard the thump. My fingers curled around the lever and pressed downward. I took a deep breath, twitched at one last thump, and yanked the door open.
Something black and chitinous swarmed out from behind the toilet. I shrieked as the invader launched itself at my throat.
12
I swung wildly with the water bottle and felt it connect with the thing’s head with a sloshing thunk that vibrated through my bones. It let out a squeal and fell flailing to the floor, thrashing as if in pain. I hoped it was pain. I slammed the water bottle against its head again and again, screaming inarticulate terror. It writhed, squealing, until with a pop its head caved in, and blue ichor oozed out between the cracks. With a final squeal, it went limp.
I stood over it, panting, specks of light filling my vision. I needed to find out where it had come from—and, more importantly, if there were more of them.
I ran back to the bathroom and frantically scanned the walls. It hadn’t come through the shower drain; the monster was too big for that. There wasn’t any water on the floor, so it hadn’t come through the toilet. I looked up. The vent screen dangled over the sink, revealing a gaping black hole where the vent entered the room. Its edges glittered where the thing’s rigid hide had scraped along them. In my imagination, hundreds of its fellows squeezed through, clawing at each other to be the first to get at me. The stink of its body, a sharp, nose-biting smell like paint thinner, filled the little space until it seemed a tangible presence.
I slammed the bathroom door and hauled two chairs over to prop in front of it, lodging one securely beneath the handle so it couldn’t be opened. Then I went to examine the body. It was starting to sag, and more blue ichor seeped from the cracks between the plates covering its stinking body. I knelt to get a better look. A silvery harness looped around its torso, trailing a short length of chain where it had broken its leash. Not just an invader, a familiar, and it had managed to find a way through—
I stood, once again seeing spots. How had it made it through the wards on the building? Someone must have weakened them, but Stirlaugson had already said they wouldn’t do that. So whoever had done it hadn’t had official sanction, and probably meant the custodians harm. I couldn’t think who might fall into that category.
The magi at the conference were all committed to protecting the custodians…unless I was wrong about that. The Wardens never had captured Mitch Hallstrom’s masters, the ones who’d ordered him to start a war by killing Ambrosite magi. And if I was right, the problems with familiars could be caused by Ambrosites trying to prove Nicolliens dangerously wrong in their philosophy. Ambrosites who might think the deaths of a hundred and fifty custodians would be excellent proof.
Don’t overreact. You know nothing about magic. This could be an accident. But where there was one rogue familiar, there could be several—
I bolted for my bedroom and slammed the door to that bathroom shut, propping more chairs against it. Then I searched the room thoroughly, using the flashlight on the keychain Ewan Campbell had given me. I stopped, looking the thing over. It was a weapon too, Ewan had said, and I almost squeezed it to test it before remembering that something this small might have limited power. Between it and my trusty water bottle, currently covered in blue ick, I might be able to make it…somewhere safe. If anywhere in the hotel counted as safe.
I sat on the bed and made myself think logically, though I was shaking from the aftereffects of terror. I knew the distance at which an invader could sense me was less than a quarter mile, probably a lot less, but I didn’t know if a familiar on the street could sense me all the way up here in my suite. So I had to assume the familiar I’d killed had entered the hotel somehow and wandered around until it caught my scent, so to speak. And if one could get in, so could others. There was a good chance the hotel was crawling with them. Which meant nowhere was safe.
I bent and wiped the water bottle off on the carpet—I didn’t want to get the mess all over the bedspread. I could—oh, I was so stupid.
I ran into the sitting room and looked for my phone. There, on the chair where I’d thrown it. My fingers shaking, I called Malcolm. It rang, and rang, and finally went to voicemail. This was no time to worry about not leaving evidence. “Malcolm, an invader—a familiar—got into my hotel room. I killed it, but I think there are more. You need to let the teams know the Grandison may be invaded.”
I shoved my phone into my pocket and regarded the dead thing on the floor. I wondered madly if the Grandison would charge us for the carpet stain. It didn’t look like anything that would come out. I shook my head, dashing irrelevancies away. I needed to figure out what to do next.
Thump. I screamed. Something struck the bathroom door, harder this time. I
backed away from it, watching it shake with the impact. It sounded big, too big to fit through that tiny vent. No more time to dither. I had to get out of there.
I put on my shoes, then kicked them off. They were cute, which meant they weren’t intended for fleeing from monsters. Barefoot was better than tripping and falling. I shoved the keychain and my room key—habits were hard to break—into my other pocket and ran out the door and down the hall toward the elevator.
The hall was as eerily quiet as it always was, but now I couldn’t help feeling like I was in Aliens and the monsters were right on top of me. I passed a ventilation grate and ran faster. I didn’t know where I should go. What I wanted more than anything right now was companionship. If I was going to die horribly, I wanted to do it in company. Which was an awful thing to think, but I wasn’t feeling rational.
I reached Nimisha’s suite and pounded on the door. “Nimisha!” I pounded again. No one came. Either Nimisha was at the party, or she was dead, and either way there was nothing I could do for her. I ran on, knocking on Iakkhos’s door and then Claude’s. No response. I wished I had Malcolm there, not just because I’d be safer, but because he knew how to bypass the locks and I could know for certain that my friends weren’t under attack, or dead.
I rounded the corner and saw the elevator ahead. I could head for the bar, or the Kilimanjaro room where Carlos’s party was. I could even try to get outside and get my car, head back to Abernathy’s where I knew the wards were secure. No, that was a bad idea. Malcolm would come for me, and he needed to know where I was. I’d have to find some safe space here in the hotel.
I skidded to a halt in front of the elevator and mashed the DOWN button hard. My stockings were slippery on the carpet, and I stood flamingo-like on one foot and peeled first one, then the other off. I stuffed those into my pocket atop my phone. Maybe I could make use of them. Or not. I wasn’t MacGyver or the Mythbusters or anything like that. But I hated to get rid of anything that could remotely be considered an advantage.
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. I checked the inside carefully, using my flashlight even though the space was well-lit. Still, I hesitated. Didn’t they always say not to use an elevator in an emergency, like a fire? Though this wasn’t that kind of emergency. Even so…
I looked up at the elevator ceiling, which was made of brass panels about three feet on a side. It was all too easy to imagine those panels knocked down and swarms of invaders diving through to attack and suck the magic out of my battered body.
I backed away from the elevator and began casting about for the stairs. There was a door nearby, narrower than those of the suites, and it had a bright red EXIT sign above it. I pushed it open slowly, listening for the sound of clawed feet on concrete. Nothing.
The stairwell was brightly lit, painted a very pale gray, and freezing cold. It smelled of damp concrete and nothing else, which was reassuring as what I did not need to smell was the acrid scent of a familiar’s body. I checked all around for ventilation shafts and, seeing nothing, let the door close quietly behind me. The concrete chilled my bare feet, but I was willing to endure a little hardship if it got me out of this death trap safely.
I made my way down the stairs as quickly as I dared, glad I’d removed my stockings, which would definitely have made me slip on the steps. My phone began ringing after two flights, and I fumbled it out of my pocket, nearly dropping it as it slipped past the stockings. “Judy. Judy!” I’d been so freaked out it hadn’t even occurred to me to call her.
“Sorry to interrupt your party—”
“No, Judy, listen. I was attacked in my room by a familiar, and there’s another one trapped in my bathroom. I think the hotel is under attack.”
“You what?”
“You need to get the hunting teams over here now.”
“It’s impossible. That place is warded more heavily than St. Paul’s Cathedral, and that was built to take something half the size of a city.”
“I’ve got blue yuck on my hands that says it’s not. Quit arguing and just do it!”
Judy hung up. I chose to believe it was her typical abruptness and not a disbelief in what I’d told her. I put my phone away and continued down the stairs. My toes were growing numb and I’d lost count of how far I’d come. The slap of my bare feet against the concrete echoed faintly through the stairwell.
Below me, a door creaked open. “Hello?” I shouted, picking up the pace. “Who’s there?”
Something scraped along the concrete, and I caught a whiff of paint thinner. I swore and turned to run, tripping and banging my shin against a riser. I regained my footing and took off. Behind me, the scraping grew louder, and a low moaning sound rose above it. My breath was coming too fast, I was seeing spots again, and I could hear it gaining on me.
Just as I reached the door to the next flight up, it caught me. A tendril, blood red and glistening like raw flesh, wrapped around my ankle and pulled my foot out from beneath me. I landed hard and rolled onto my back, kicking to free myself. But it was too late.
A familiar euphoria washed over me, relaxing my muscles. The familiar was bigger than the last one and its silver harness looked too small for its body, like a net bulging with fish where its muscles rippled beneath naked skin. I tilted my head to look at it from a different angle. My vision started to tunnel. It was so beautiful, and I…no, I had to fight. Slowly I withdrew the keychain from my pocket, pointed it at the monster, and squeezed.
A pulse of force erupted from the jolter, knocking the thing backward and freeing me from its grip. It lay on its back at the next landing down, twitching. I staggered to my feet and giggled, turning the jolter over in my hand. That had been amazing. I stepped over the thing’s body—was it dead? I didn’t know how to find out, and if it wasn’t, I needed to get away quickly.
I giggled again and skipped down the steps like I was playing hopscotch on a slope. This euphoria was going to get me killed, but I couldn’t do anything about it, so I might as well enjoy it. One step, two step, red step, no, that was the children’s book. It was like being drunk, only without the furry taste in my mouth.
Now, where was I going? Why didn’t they mark the floor numbers on the doors? I looked at the next door more closely. Oh. They did mark them. I just hadn’t been paying attention. Ten more floors to go to the mezzanine. The buzz was starting to wear off, and I went more quickly, holding the jolter at the ready and hefting the water bottle with my other hand. Nine more floors. Eight.
Above me, distantly, I heard something moan. My old friend, coming to consciousness, or a new one on the prowl? Either way, it was bad news for me. I hurried faster.
My phone rang. I swore, juggling things in my haste to reach it. The jolter fell, I lunged after it, and my phone fell out of my stupid girl pocket and hit the concrete hard, bouncing down several steps to the next landing. The ringing stopped. I ran down the steps and picked it up, cursing again. The screen was shattered and the back had popped off. I tried turning it on and got nothing but a faint blue glow that lasted for a second and then disappeared. I shoved it deep into my pocket—once again I hated leaving anything behind—and rearranged my hold on the jolter.
Thick blue liquid the color of the oracle’s glow dripped from above me to puddle, steaming, on the step below me. I looked up. Another familiar, this one built like a caterpillar with a round circle of teeth where its head should be, clung upside down to the steps above my head. I recognized it; it belonged to Brittany Spinelli. I screamed and ran, heard it fall and land on the steps with a squeal, and then it was after me, slithering along the hand rail.
I couldn’t stay in the stairwell any longer. I threw open the door to the next floor and darted through it, then pulled it shut and held onto it with all my strength. The familiar hit the door with a thump, and then everything was silent. I let go of the handle, trying to calm my breathing, and backed away. Distantly, something sizzled, like bacon on a hot griddle. A blue spot appeared on the door, growing larger and
brighter as the sizzling grew louder. My hands were shaking too much to hold the water bottle, and I set it down, mesmerized by the growing spot. As it grew, I brought the jolter up, holding it in both my shaking hands and aiming it at the center of the spot.
The sizzling faded away. The blue spot was now two feet across and glowed like something radioactive. I held my breath and waited.
The spot exploded outward, blasting in blue chunks in all directions as if the door were made of clay rather than metal. Brittany’s familiar burst through the hole. And I blasted it with the jolter.
It knocked the monster, which screamed in pain, back into the door. I screamed with it and snatched up the bottle to bludgeon it to death, but this one was clearly dead, torn in half from the mouth down. I stood over it, breathing heavily, then screamed again, all my fear and pain finding an outlet.
“Hold on, we’re coming!” Running footsteps sounded in the distance, growing louder as they neared. I realized I was still holding the water bottle in an attack position and lowered it as three people came running around the corner. One of them was Maggie Tennyson from the panel. Another was Vijay Chowdhury. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“It bit her. You need to lie down,” Tennyson said.
I shook my head. “It didn’t get much of a grip. I’m fine now.”
Tennyson and her companions were armed, though it was a weird assortment of weapons: a curved shower curtain rod, the base of a lamp with the cord ripped out, a couple of jolters like mine. “Have you seen anyone else?” Vijay said.
“Just you and a bunch of familiars. What about you?”
“We’ve been working our way down from the seventh floor, looking for anyone who got stranded. Everyone’s gathering in Kilimanjaro from what we hear.” Tennyson waved her phone at me. “They’re sending hunters—they might even be here now.”
I saw the way Tennyson looked at Chowdhury and guessed why they’d been alone together on the seventh floor. None of my business. “Was anyone…killed?”
The Book of Lies Page 14