by Cat Adams
I didn’t smile, snicker, or give any indication that I felt smug as the warden and I walked away, but it wasn’t easy. Dom, however, felt no such reservations. He was grinning from ear to ear as a scowling Eric led him down a narrow hall that branched off to the right of the huge atrium Davis and I were crossing.
I stopped, looking around the place for a second. It was … imposing, with dark green marble veined with black and white, taking up a full two stories. The light fixtures and all of the building details were Art Deco, giving an otherwise cold and functional space just a bit of style.
The warden stopped, waiting for me to catch up before speaking quietly so that only I would hear. “I apologize for Eric’s behavior. He’s a good man, but for good or ill, he believes that high-class criminals do not get the same justice as the poor.”
That really wasn’t a good excuse for his behavior, but I decided I’d try to be gracious anyway. After all, I was a guest at the Needle … and truthfully, I wasn’t positive that Zorn wasn’t right. I’d read about studies done of prison populations—both regular prisons and the special places like the Needle and the Zoo. The inmates were predominantly poor and members of minority groups. What kind of minority depended on what part of the world the prison was in. But the percentages were nearly identical across the board.
Warden Davis changed the subject to my reason for visiting. “Connor Finn is on the twenty-ninth floor in one of our four most secure cells. The wards on that floor are supposed to be checked daily by our in-house mage.” He paused and waited for me to look at him.
“I hope it’s a coincidence that Mage Barton went home sick right after Special Agent Rizzoli called to arrange for your visit. But just in case, I’m sending you up there with a pair of armed escorts, both of them with mage gifts.
“Please be very careful. Connor Finn is an incredibly dangerous man.”
We’d reached a bank of four elevators. Waiting in front of the brushed metal doors were two guards who wore the same uniform as those I’d met at the front gate—but these guys were carrying a lot more hardware, including holstered wands. They were big and strong and looked reassuringly competent. I really hoped that nothing would happen that required their expertise, that they were just going to be intimidating decoration, but it felt good to have them there. Just in case.
“Thank you.” I smiled at Davis. He didn’t smile back.
“I just hope we aren’t both making a terrible mistake.”
Going through the prison was creepy. It wasn’t like on television or in the movies, where guys in jumpsuits behind bars catcall the people walking by. There were no bars, for one thing. Every person in the Needle was in permanent solitary confinement. There was nothing to see but sterile white concrete walls, gleaming polished floors, and the evenly spaced steel doors. Each door had a four-by-six-inch window of wire-and-magic-reinforced glass and was sealed by four separate locks that were evenly spaced down the side away from the hinges.
Video cameras were placed at ten-foot intervals on opposite sides of the hall, angled so that there was overlapping coverage. I doubted there was one inch of space that wasn’t covered by the cameras. There were no dropped ceilings. Instead the lights, wiring, and ductwork were out in the open, clearly visible above our heads. That area, too, was full of surveillance cameras.
It was all very quiet, very impressive, and very depressing.
My escorts took me to a circular meeting room that seemed to be in the center of the twenty-ninth floor. As I stepped over the threshold, I gasped in pain. The room had been built on a powerful magic circle and was ringed with major protection magics.
The room was bisected by a wall that was divided horizontally. The bottom half was cinder block; the top was made of what I assumed was a very thick layer of the kind of glass used to protect the audience at hockey games. There was a chair on my side of the room and one on the other side, each centered within a magical protective circle. Matching microphones and speakers hung overhead. The only entrances were two doors—one behind me and one directly opposite, in the other half of the room. All the walls, including the cinder-block portion of the divider, were painted a cheerful lemon yellow. I doubted anyone on either side of this room ever felt all that cheerful.
The guards with me took positions on either side of the visitor’s chair. I sat down and felt the circle spring to life; the power washed over me in a rush.
I tried to be patient and calm while I waited for them to bring Finn into the room on the opposite side of the glass. Then the door opened and everything changed.
I knew what Connor Finn looked like. I’d seen him in the hologram, after all. But seeing him in person, I was still surprised by his sheer presence. Even wearing the trappings of a prisoner—standard-issue orange coveralls and green rubber flip-flops—he held himself like a king.
The silver circle that glowed around his seat was much more elaborate than the one on my side. It was engraved with symbols meant to block magical power so that no spell of any kind could be worked from inside. His hands and feet were bound in silver-and-steel shackles, and he sat calm and patient as the guards locked the connecting chains to a ring bolted to the floor. Connor Finn smiled, and I fought not to shudder as I remembered the last time I had seen that smile. Then he spoke, and I heard anew the voice that had haunted me as I lay burning on the beach.
“Well, well, Celia Graves, as I live and breathe. I thought you were smarter than this.” He pretended bonhomie, but there was no warmth in his expression.
My return smile could’ve given the man frostbite. “Evidently not.”
He laughed at that. “So, not so smart. But brave. You’d have to be, to come here when you know that so many people would love to make the Needle your permanent home. One wrong move and you’ll be joining me.”
I shrugged, trying to look impassive, as if his words hadn’t hit a nerve.
“I really hoped you would learn your lesson from our previous encounter. Burns are painful enough that they usually make a very effective teaching tool.”
He said it so very casually. I knew then that I’d made a mistake. I’d thought a man who’d been obsessed with a family feud would be obsessed with family, that he’d care what happened to the son who was the last of his line. But Connor Finn wasn’t capable of caring about other people for any reason. It simply wasn’t in his nature. I wondered why he’d killed the Garzas. It certainly wasn’t about the blood feud.
He stared at me, waiting for an answer. “Sometimes I can be a little bit stubborn,” I admitted. He smiled again, looking self-satisfied. I hated that smile.
“You’ve gone to quite a bit of trouble to see me, and now that we’re together, you’re very quiet. What would you like to talk about?”
What did I want to say? My insight of a moment ago changed everything and nothing. So I plowed ahead, hoping that if we kept talking I might stumble onto something important. “You’ve got Garza blood in your veins. If you do this curse of yours, you’ll not only kill Michelle, you’ll be killing yourself and your son as well.”
He gave a snort of what appeared to be real amusement. “You went to all this trouble…” He laughed. “Celia, sweetheart, you’re so cute.” He was feeling superior and oh so smug. It showed in his posture and in the condescending tone of his voice. “Don’t forget I’ve done a bloodline curse against the Garza family before. I didn’t die that time. If I was planning to do another curse like that again, don’t you think I’d take the same precautions?
“Really, how stupid do you think I am?” He shook his head, mocking me by pretending my stupidity was making him sad. “You have one piece of the puzzle and you think you see the whole picture.
“You’re delusional.”
I smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant or happy smile. It was a fuck-you-buddy smile that flashed just a bit of fang. I don’t like condescension. “I may only have one piece of the puzzle, but without it, you won’t get your picture.”
Connor’s amusement
disappeared as if it had been cut off with a switch, replaced instantly by ugly rage. His blue eyes blazed with anger. “You think you can stop me? Better than you have tried. They’re all dead … or dying.” He sneered, an honest-to-God movie-villain sneer. I wanted to laugh, it was so over the top. I knew he was dangerous, deadly, even. But I didn’t care, because in that moment, he was a cartoon.
Apparently, my amusement showed. A slow flush spread from his neck upward; his jaw clenched so hard I could hear his teeth grind. “You are going to die.”
My smile widened. I knew that provoking him was stupid, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. He’d pissed me off so mightily that reason had left the building. “We all die eventually. But if you don’t stop what you’re doing, you’ll go sooner rather than later.”
He snorted in derision. “I will survive. Just as I did before.”
“And what about your son? Will he?”
“Hard choices have to be made. Children die every day.” He spread his hands.
I shook my head. I wasn’t shocked. I know better than most that not all parents love their children, and I was fairly certain that Connor wasn’t capable of loving anyone or anything other than himself. “Bet he’ll just love hearing that.”
Another derisive laugh. “Tell Jack if you like. He won’t believe you. He’s as delusional as you are. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think we’re done here.”
I rose. “I think you’re right,” I said and turned my back to Connor Finn. Despite the protective circles and the thick glass between us, my shoulders were clenched in anticipation of a blow until I walked out the door.
My guards fell silently in beside me. We walked down the hall and into the elevator; the only sound was of our footfalls echoing through the empty corridor.
As I rode down to the main floor, I replayed Finn’s words in my head. He was so damned arrogant—and not without reason. He was brilliant and hugely talented as a mage. He’d accomplished things magically that other men had never even dreamed of. But he was not invincible, and his disdain for others meant that he wasn’t careful about what he said.
“They’re all dead … or dying” was the phrase that stuck in my mind. I thought about my last meeting with Isaac Levy, the man whom I now knew was the Grand Master of the West Coast. I’d brought him a problem that fell into his area of authority. He’d consider it his responsibility to check things out, and he wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Finn was a mage, but Isaac was a mage, too, and, I was guessing, a pretty strong one if he was Isabella’s opposite number. He’d think he could face whatever Connor Finn dished out.
I hoped I was wrong, but every instinct I possessed screamed otherwise. Closing my eyes, I said a silent, desperate prayer. “Please, God. Not Isaac. Please.”
24
We stepped out of the elevator into frantic but well-organized activity. There were probably a hundred guards grouped in a semicircle around Warden Davis, Dom Rizzoli, and Eric Zorn, who was holding a tablet computer.
“What’s going on?” one of my escorts asked the nearest man. He was rewarded with only a glare, so he shut up and we stood still, trying to be inconspicuous.
The warden spoke without a bullhorn, but his voice rang out clearly; I wondered if there was a spell helping him or if he was a natural at projecting. “Listen up, people. We’ve had a major security breach. We have a missing civilian. There’s no time to waste. Break into teams of four. You’ll get your assignments from Assistant Warden Zorn.” Zorn nodded and moved to stand by the exit door.
Davis gestured to a supply clerk who was standing next to a rack loaded with a large number of what looked like the kinds of poles routinely used to check the efficacy of the magic perimeters that surrounded many public buildings. “One member of each team takes a pulse check stick.”
His arm swept to the other side of the atrium, where three women in street clothes—I guessed they were the warden’s office staff—were organizing more racks, this time of body armor and helmets. “Everybody wears full protection. No arguments, no exceptions. Six teams will go to the outer ring. Four to the second.”
He pointed to a small group of men in the equivalent of SWAT gear. “Specialists will be checking the minefield. Everyone else will be going through the building, room by room, floor by floor. We’re checking for anything out of the ordinary, and particularly for any flaws in either physical or magical protections. And everybody keep your eyes open.
“The missing man is a mage, Isaac Levy. Levy arrived yesterday as a visitor and was last seen walking out the inner gate with Mage Barton. There’s no record of him actually leaving the site. Any questions? All right. Move, people.”
They moved. So did I, forcing my way through the milling mass until I reached Dom Rizzoli. My two guards disappeared somewhere along the way. “What happened?”
“Celia. You’re all right?” He looked so relieved to see me that I wondered just what was going on and what he’d thought might have happened to me.
I nodded.
“I told Warden Davis what you’d said about the outer rings. He decided we should check it out in person. So Davis, Zorn, and I took a couple of pulse sticks and an ATV and rode out to check the outer ring. It’s down. So’s the second ring. And when we came back, one of the gate guards asked about a visitor who’d come in yesterday to meet with the staff mage. Apparently Isaac seemed pretty agitated when he arrived but was calm and relaxed when he left. Not a big deal, by any means, but the guard overheard Isaac saying there were problems with the wards. The gate guy says he reported it, but when he tried to show us, we found that there’s no record in the computer. So now the place is on full lockdown and red alert until they figure out the full extent of the problem and get it fixed.”
“Isaac is missing, Dom,” I said, and filled him in on my call from Gilda. “Are they sure he left?” I realized I was shaking. Damn Finn. Damn him anyway.
“The guard says he left under his own steam, and there’s video to prove it.” Then Dom thought about it some more and sighed. “They don’t spray people leaving the facility. After all, it’s a prison for mages, not spawn. And besides, no spawn should be able to get in through the wards.”
But the wards were down, I thought. I didn’t say anything. There was no point—and besides, Dom was already thinking it, too.
“Look, nobody knows anything for sure, Celia. I’m sorry, I know it doesn’t look good, and I know he’s your friend.”
“Dom, Finn is involved in this.”
“Celia, that’s just not possible.”
“He told me. I said I’d stop him, and he said, ‘Better than you have tried. They’re all dead … or dying.’”
Dom gave me a long look. “There’s no way to be sure that he was talking about Isaac.”
I glared at him and he sighed again.
“Fine. Maybe you’re right. But there’s no way to prove it.”
My answer was colorful and unprintable. Dom didn’t argue, just hustled me down the hall to the reception area outside Warden Davis’s office.
I had rarely felt more helpless in my life. Using my vampire abilities, I could hear the radio behind the closed door of the warden’s office. Most of the information being relayed back was bad: perimeters down everywhere, the minefield completely disabled—both physical and metaphysical defenses down.
When I heard they’d discovered Isaac, I jumped to my feet and started pacing. Dom shot me a startled look but said nothing. The security team was bringing Isaac to the infirmary; he was in bad shape according to their reports. Once the lockdown was lifted, if Isaac was stable enough, they’d attempt a helicopter evacuation.
The sweep of the lower floors was complete by the time they brought him in from the minefield, so Warden Davis let Dom and me go to the infirmary—with an armed escort, of course. I didn’t care that we were under guard; I’d be there when Isaac arrived and could see for myself how he was and hear anything he might have to say.
The infirmary was a
large rectangular room with white walls and an acoustical tile ceiling. It held only four beds, two on each of the long walls. Each sat in its own spell circle and was equipped with full metal restraints. Surrounding the beds were a variety of machines, large and small, only some of which looked familiar from my own hospital stays, as well as the expected cabinets for medical supplies and other equipment.
At one end of the room was a large table equipped with computers as well as a large interactive clear plastic touch screen.
The man in charge was Dr. Halston. Middle-aged, tall, and slender, he had thinning dark hair that he wore in an oiled comb-over. The skin of his face and hands was smooth and baby soft, with no sign that he’d ever needed to shave or that he’d used his hands for anything as mundane as physical labor. His white lab coat was pristine, and it was clear from the first moment that our entrance into his domain was an unwelcome invasion.
“This is unacceptable.” He glared at me and Dom. Before either of us could say anything, Halston flicked one hand, dismissing us. “There is no waiting room, but my office is through that door.” He pointed a manicured finger. “Go.”
I could tell that there was no point in arguing with him.
Halston’s office was spartan, physically and psychically cold, without a single picture or personal item in view. The screen saver on his computer was the standard factory-installed image. I found the whole effect disturbingly impersonal.
Time passed slowly. We waited without talking for hours. I could hear things going on, the guards standing outside the office door wore radios, but there was nothing worth discussing with Dom.
Finally the door opened and the doctor stepped wearily through. He stripped off his jacket, dropping it into a plastic bin that opened with a foot pedal, and said, “I’ve got him stable enough to travel. I’ve set up a magical barrier that will protect his wounds from any further contamination. He needs surgery as soon as possible, so I’ve arranged to fly him to UCLA Medical Center. The medevac chopper will arrive in five minutes.” I opened my mouth to speak but Halston held up one hand, forestalling me.