Redlisted

by Sara Beaman

  What knife?

  He leans in. “Go,” he whispers.

  I stare at him, frozen in place.

  “Run.”

  I shake my head no.

  “Now.”

  An overwhelming sense of déjà vu falls over me—the sense that I’ve dreamed this before, that I know what will happen if I just...

  take off towards the door at a sprint. I glance back for just a second as I reach the hallway. Adam is swinging at Desmond’s head with his sledgehammer; Aya is running after me.

  “Haruko, stop her!”

  I start climbing the ramp as fast as my legs will take me. Two sets of footsteps are at my heels; then the sickening sounds of combat ensue. I look back to catch a glimpse of Haruko slashing at Aya. Aya ducks, trips her, and brings the pickaxe up through her left eye. Haruko screams and drops to her knees.

  Adam emerges from the door to the chamber, opens his palm with his teeth, and flings blood at Aya from behind. She wavers for a moment, struggling against the compulsion to sleep, then slumps to the floor.

  Adam sprints up the ramp, grabbing my forearm as he overtakes me and dragging me along.

  Is Desmond dead?

  “No. He’ll be back up in minutes. So will Aya, and you’ve seen how fast she can run. We need to find a place to hide.”

  And then what?

  “I don’t know.”

  We reach the door at the top of the ramps. Throwing them open, we find ourselves faced with four possible routes of escape fanning out at sixty-degree angles. Adam chooses the second one to the left and pulls me behind him. He’s not as fast as Aya or even Haruko, but soon I’m having trouble catching my breath and my legs are turning into gelatin.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he says, keeping his voice level and precise. “First we need to find Desmond’s office.”

  How will we do that?

  “I remember the room number. It’s two-twelve. We’ll find it.”

  We turn a corner. He releases my arm.

  What then?

  “Haruko told me he has a panic room. If we can get inside first, he won’t be able to open the door.”

  I nod.

  “Then I’ll try to call Julian. I think he knows where the garage is—he’s been here so many times, he must know. We’ll try to get there and steal a car.”

  How the hell are we going to pull that off?

  “It’s the best I can come up with, okay?”

  We pass a metal door to our right. Adam glances at the nameplate next to the knob. “These are the three-hundreds,” he says. “The two-hundreds should be one row up...”

  We reach another crossroads, this one leading off in six directions. I hear footsteps approaching in the distance, echoing off the bare walls, but it’s impossible to tell where the sound is coming from. I breathe shakily through my nose, trying to keep from vomiting.

  Adam gestures to our right, and we set off down another narrow passage. The footsteps are getting louder, ringing off the concrete walls with increasing sharpness. At the next intersection, we find another corridor with doors lining both walls. The nameplate next to the closest door reads 434.

  “Shit,” Adam says. “We need to double back.”

  We run back down the narrow corridor to the six-way intersection. Far down the hall we took from the ramps, Desmond is waiting for us. He lifts his right hand and fires three shots. Two miss; one hits Adam in the stomach. He winces, stumbling forward. I catch him before he can tumble to the ground and pull him out of the intersection.

  We turn right. I pull Adam behind me, propelled by nothing but adrenaline and determination, Behind us, Desmond rounds the corner just as we emerge in the two-hundred corridor. We reach office two-twelve. I reach for the doorknob, but it won’t turn.

  “Move,” Adam says, readying the sledgehammer.

  He swings at the door twice, splintering the hardwood. As he’s preparing the third blow, Desmond fires. The shot goes straight through Adam’s skull, spraying gray matter and blood everywhere.

  Adam crumples to the concrete. I scream.

  No—no—no time to think.

  I throw myself against the door, barreling into the office. I put the handle of the box in my teeth, then crouch to the ground, hook my hands underneath Adam’s armpits and drag him behind me. I don’t even notice how heavy he is. I have to get him inside that room.

  “I’m not going to harm you, girl,” Desmond calls from the hallway. “So long as you give me that box.”

  I haul Adam across the floor of the office to the door of the panic room. It’s reinforced steel, like the door to a bank vault. There’s a keypad on the wall by its side. I must need to enter a code in order to get inside.

  God fucking damn it. Of course I need to enter a code.

  “Kate? Is that your name?” Desmond’s voice is closer now. “Kate, you don’t understand how terrible Mnemosyne is. She’s a tyrant. She deserves to die.”

  Wait. I had Mirabel’s powers before. I controlled the deer. Maybe I have Adam’s powers now? I can’t read minds, but...

  I reach out and cover the keypad with my right hand, close my eyes and try to focus.

  “You would do well not to place too much trust in her progeny, Kate,” Desmond says. “They’re all liars and manipulators of the worst sort. Especially Dr. Radcliffe.”

  My eyelids flutter as the number flashes into my mind’s eye. One eight nine three. I punch the numbers into the matrix; the door clicks and slides open.

  “Wait—how on earth did you—“

  I shove Adam over the threshold, scoop up the box and jump inside the panic room. I whirl around and pull the door closed behind me; it slams shut with a satisfying click.

  I sink to my hands and knees, exhausted.

  I take a look at Adam. It’s a mistake. He’s bleeding out from the head wound. He must be dead.

  I collapse next to him, sobbing.

  29

  Initiation

  {Kate}

  When I finally look up once more, I notice a television hanging from a mount on the ceiling of the panic room. It’s hooked up to a closed-circuit camera displaying a feed of Desmond’s office. He’s standing out there, waiting for me, leaning against his desk with his arms folded across his chest.

  I grit my teeth. I need to come up with a plan. I try to remind myself that Adam might be alive—after all, didn’t he tell me that the only way to kill a revenant is to destroy its heart? I can’t understand how he could survive what just happened, but nevertheless, I’ll have to believe that he can.

  I fumble around in Adam’s pockets, eventually finding his phone in the back pocket of his jeans. Somehow, even this deep underground, it’s getting a signal. He had wanted to call Julian. Maybe Julian’s number is in his contacts? I take a look; it is. I press the talk button twice, dialing the number, and hold the phone to my ear.

  Wait. What am I doing, trying to call someone on the phone? I’m mute!

  I cut the call and only barely manage not to throw the phone against the wall in a fit of rage.

  Desmond looks up and speaks to the camera.

  “You should know that the chamber is hermetically sealed,” he says. “Your air supply will run out in a matter of hours. A day at most.”

  I gnaw on a cuticle. I wish he’d go back to waiting quietly.

  “You have two choices, Kate. Open the door or die.”

  I cover my ears, thinking, trying to ignore him. Do centuries-old vampires answer text messages? Somehow I can’t imagine Julian having a cell phone...

  “If you open the door, I will do nothing to harm you. I promise.” He stands, still staring directly into the camera lens.

  I shake my head no, although I know he can’t see me.

  “Eventually the panic program will reset. I will be able to get inside,” he says. “And I will get the head, and Dr. Radcliffe’s blood. If you resist me your death will mean nothing.”

  Fuck him. I’d rather die here than listen t
o him.

  I look through Adam’s recent calls. The night we left Tara’s estate he made a call to an unidentified ten-digit number. A number I’ve seen before.

  The image of a white business card flashes into my head. All that’s written on it is a ten-digit phone number—the same number in Adam’s recent calls. That red-headed teenage girl, Conspiracy Theory. She gave it to me at the coffee shop, said to call if I ever got into trouble...

  I punch a text message into Adam’s phone. It takes forever; my hands are shaking and it’s difficult to read the tiny letters in the dim light of the panic room.

  Conspiracy? Its pageslave. Im in trouble.

  I hit Send.

  I wait. Desmond inspects his fingernails. The puddle of blood on the floor seeps slowly outward from Adam’s head wound.

  The phone buzzes.

  PageSlave? Where are you? Why are you using Adam’s phone?

  My heart leaps into my throat.

  Red hook, I type. Ghouls and crazy Warden trying to kill me. Help.

  Just a moment later her reply appears: Wait. You’re with Adam in Red Hook? Is he there?

  Yes. But he passed out.

  Desmond runs a hand through his hair.

  I wait.

  Do you have the head? Conspiracy asks.

  What? How the hell does she know about that?

  Oh God. What if she’s on Mirabel’s side? I gnaw on a knuckle. What do I do?

  Are you there?

  Oh, fuck it. If she is with Mirabel, I’m not telling her anything she doesn’t already know.

  Yes, I reply. Its with me.

  Okay. Hold on.

  What? Hold on? Now? What the hell does she need to do that’s more important than this?

  It takes her over a minute to reply.

  Here’s what you’re going to need to do. It might sound weird, but you’re going to have to trust me.

  I laugh through my nose, two little sniffs. Nothing is weird to me anymore.

  First, you’ll need to drink some of Adam’s blood. Enough to fill an 8oz glass.

  OK done, I type without hesitation.

  Right. I won’t ask. Now you need to lure those ghouls to the warden who’s trying to kill you.

  How?

  I deduce the answer for myself just before her message hits the screen.

  Use the head.

  I pocket the phone and pick up the box.

  It is black, held shut with steel hardware, a heavy combination lock hooked into a latch on the top. I hold the lock in my palm and close my eyes, reaching out to the mind of the object, hoping it will share its secret code with me.

  It comes easily. Two, thirteen, forty-three. I spin the dial, pull the body of the lock free from the hook, and throw the box open.

  Mnemosyne’s head is covered in a shroud of crimson silk. I reach inside and pull it out with both hands. Her face is turned towards mine; I can almost feel her observing me from beneath her heavy veil. As I remove the shroud, a voice crackles between my ears.

  What do you think you’re doing, little mortal?

  I nearly drop the head, unprepared for the interrogation.

  I’m trying to help Adam! I tell her. To help him save you from being incinerated by Desmond Schuster!

  I hear a sound like laughter.

  My lips tighten across my teeth. Tell me what to do.

  If you require my assistance, establish the circuit, she tells me, her tone somehow both didactic and mocking despite simply being the idea of a voice. Place your fingers on my temples.

  I turn the head outwards, place the heels of my hands at the nape of her neck, and slide my middle fingers into the hollows by her eyes. The effect is immediate; I have the sense of being in two places at once, which somehow makes both locations feel more distant, less real.

  This is nothing, she insists, sensing my apprehension. Close your eyes and it will begin in earnest.

  I can’t disobey.

  Within seconds, my awareness of my body recedes. My consciousness—our combined consciousness—begins to fill the space around us, spreading out from the panic room until it fills the entire basement complex. I see Desmond in his office; Haruko, passed out on the ramp to the incinerator room; a mountain of bodies in a seminar room; and Aya, in the garage, getting into a car. She’s going to escape! I want to reach out and grab her, to beat her unconscious—

  We could, Mnemosyne informs me. In a sense.

  I consider this for a moment. Could we do it to Desmond?

  Of course not, she says. He’s a Warden.

  Our perspective continues to expand, floating upwards to fill the residence in the Drowned Lands, where Mirabel’s presence swarms like a hive of bees. The ghouls are combing the grounds, searching for an entrance to the compound. The doppelganger is washing Haruko’s blood off the floor to the elevator room.

  We need to get the ghouls down here, I think, feeling somewhat insane. We can’t fight Desmond otherwise.

  I snap back into myself.

  Mnemosyne blinks; her lips twitch. She speaks in a breathless whisper—a real voice, not just the concept of one.

  “If only it were that simple. They are Mirabel’s to command. It would be your will against hers.” She frowns. “Do you honestly think yourself worthy to stand against her?”

  I take a deep breath.

  Don’t be ridiculous, I tell her with all the defiance I can put behind a thought. I’m the only one who is.

  Mnemosyne laughs. “Very well. We shall see.”

  We extend ourselves outward again.

  We whisper the secret code into the ears of the swarm, and they come. Ten of them fit into the elevator at once; the first of them wait patiently for the rest of them to arrive. Once they have descended from the residence, they begin to fan out, scouring the hallways. They’re so organized it’s terrifying. How does she manage to control them all so precisely? How can she split her mind in so many directions at once?

  “Pull yourself together, mortal!” Mnemosyne says. “You will not fail me!”

  I can’t tell whether that’s a vote of confidence or a threat.

  “Attack her now. Once the horde spreads out, it will be far more difficult.”

  But how? I bite down on my lower lip.

  “Command them. Force them to heed your word.”

  I think back to the encounter I had with the deer—oh, God, and the fight I had with Gabriel—

  “Don’t start dwelling on your failures now, girl. I can’t abide self-pity.”

  I swallow hard and push out at the ghouls with my mind. Listen to me! You’re mine now!

  The ghouls look up with a start, their heterogeneous bodies all performing the exact same gesture.

  “Who are you?” their voices call in response.

  Mnemosyne frowns. “That wasn’t enough. Push harder.”

  I can’t think of anything to say.

  “Well, hurry up. You need to say something.”

  Say something. Something commanding.

  I’m the boss now. You obey me and no one else!

  The ghouls flinch, then start convulsing as if an electric current had passed through them. For a second I think I’ve done it, but then my vision begins to darken, my sense of place begins to erode...

  ...and then I’m back at the SpiraCom headquarters, back in remedial training, sitting in front of the cathode-ray tube television on a hard metal folding chair.

  “Katherine Avery,” Mirabel says from behind the screen. “Surely you’re aware that stealing is against SpiraCom policy.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and cover my ears. Shut up. You’re not here. I’m not listening to you.

  Yet somehow I can still see and hear her. “Do you really think you can make me go away so easily?”

  Mnemosyne, help me, please, please make her be quiet...

  “She won’t be able to help you with this, I’m afraid. She’s never been able to tell me what to do. I am Julian’s daughter, after all.” She smiles with bared te
eth.

  It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. I don’t really need her help. You’re nothing. You’re just a figment of my imagination.

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  I do.

  “But it’s absurd.”

  I don’t care.

  “I’m right here in front of you—“

  No, you’re not. You’re hiding in your tower in Atlanta like the coward you are.

  “You little—I’m not a coward!”

  I stand, pick up the television, and begin hauling it to the nearest window.

  “Katherine Avery! Put me down! What are you—“

  The plug pops out of the socket. Summoning all my strength, I hurl the television through the glass. It shatters against the asphalt below.

  “You’ll live to regret what you’ve done to me,” I swear through the broken portal.

  With that my consciousness filters back in to the basement complex. The ghouls have turned on each other, fighting for one another’s blood.

  What do you think you’re doing!

  They stand stock still. Their eyes start to glaze over again.

  Stop!

  Shuffling their feet reluctantly, they begin to file into little haphazard rows.

  Get over here! I demand. Find me! Quickly!

  Desmond’s eyes widen as he hears the sound of the horde approaching. For a few moments, he listens with a distant look on his face, as if he can’t or won’t comprehend what he is hearing. As they close in, he runs over and pounds on the door to the panic room.

  “Let me in! Oh God—how did they get inside?” He glances behind himself, trembling. “You have to let me in, Kate!” He grasps for an authoritative tone and fails.

  The ghouls are only a few hundred feet away now; the concrete walls amplify their erratic footsteps to the volume of a stampede.

  “You did this, didn’t you?! You’re working with her!” He begins to laugh. “Of course you are, you look just like her! You must be one of her doubles!” He punches the keypad.

  I feel a pang of guilt over the prospect of letting him get eaten alive. No—of eating him alive. The ghouls are under my control, after all...

  “Don’t you dare even think of letting him in here,” Mnemosyne hisses.