On top of it all, his stupid rebellion had just forced him to betray everything his family stood for. He’d never wanted his denial of their fate to harm them. Hell, harm his family? He might just have harmed the whole world. Morgan wasn’t likely to be a kindly overlord, and he didn’t want to even imagine the damage she could do with all four Talismans, even though he wasn’t quite sure how the brief formation of a Pentacle in the sky fit. His name would probably go down in history as the ultimate traitor. Benedict Arnold had nothing on him.
But he couldn’t wallow. Right now, they had to get out of here before Boris Karloff and the guy with dead blue eyes came back. He had no illusion that those two would let Greta and Lan go just because he’d told them what they wanted him to know. Far from it. They’d lost their usefulness. And Boris-baby loved his work a little too much.
“So,” he began. Her expression got fearful. Better go slowly. Not too slowly though. “Maybe I can help us get out of here if you could cut me down.” He clattered the chain between his shackles, and raised his brows in encouragement.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Greta said, her voice serious and determined.
That was good.
“I’m going to try the light on my chains first. Then I can maybe lift you up, and we can get your chain off the hook.”
“No, no,” he said quickly. “We don’t have time. Do mine. You…you won’t be able to lift me. I’m two hundred pounds, minimum, more like two-fifteen.”
“That is so not the reason you are saying that. And if you don’t have faith that I won’t hurt myself, how can I try it on you?”
“But, really, I—”
“Nope. Not happening.” She looked up at the chain between her manacles that looped over the meat hook. “I could take out the hook rather than the chain, but I’d probably bonk myself on the head with one of those spiked points.”
“Greta, listen to me.” He tried not to sound desperate, but he couldn’t let her do this. “Exposing those delicate, vulnerable wrists to—”
“Be quiet, you’ll break my concentration,” she muttered, even as she closed her eyes.
He shut his mouth, feeling helpless.
Her eyes opened a moment later. Lan was in no danger of speaking at that point. He hadn’t seen her when she’d actually been cutting the hole in the wall. She’d been turned away. But now he could see that her blue eyes glowed with some kind of inner light. Not a figure of speech, real inner light. They were opaque with it. She looked like one of those aliens in an old sci-fi movie.
She turned her alien gaze up toward her chains. One palm poured out light that drew down into a searing white line. The line wavered, causing smoky devastation wherever it touched. The acrid smell of burning metal flooded the room again. She can control it, he thought in relief. The laser steadied as it crossed the metal links between the handcuffs. The clatter of the chain as it split and fell broke her concentration. The laser disappeared.
“Ouch,” she yelped as the still-hot, cut ends of the chain touched her bare arm. She held the cuffs out away from her. A red weal raised on her arm.
“Damn it, Greta,” he hissed. “You should have tried it on me.”
She ignored him and grinned. “Did you see that? I did it.”
“And burned yourself.”
She looked down, still careful to hold the metal out away from her body. “Yeah. Wish I had some ice.” Then she looked up at him, determined. “At least I didn’t burn a hole in you. Now how am I going to cool this down fast?” She looked around the bare freezer. “Nada.”
“We can’t wait anyway. They’ll be back any minute. You’ve got to do me.”
She looked worried. “These chains will burn you when I lift you.” She was so damned cute when she chewed her lip. “Maybe your clothes will protect you.” She came up and put her arms around him. She had no idea how heavy two hundred pounds plus of man was. He gritted his teeth as the hot metal touched his jeans. They’d protect him for a few seconds. She got her hips under her and bent at the knees to heave him up.
Nothing, of course.
She got a better grip and heaved again, grunting. Nada. She looked stricken as she stepped back. Good thing, too. He’d bet his jeans had new holes in the back of the thighs.
“Sorry. I thought I could—”
“No way you could lift two hundred pounds of dead weight. So just do it.” He could see the panic start to rise in her eyes. “I’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “You’re already great at this.”
She glanced over to the scarred wall where she’d first tried to cut the square, with its zigzags of blackened metal.
“No, no. That was then. You’ve got it down now. Besides, we don’t have any choice.” He saw her take a deep breath and grit her teeth. The girl had what they used to call ‘moxie’ in old movies. “Get the chain as close to the cuffs as you can.”
“Okay.” She took some deep breaths and closed her eyes. Her shoulders relaxed. When she opened them, they were suffused with that blue glow. She kept her hands balled into fists until she raised them above her head. Lan took a deep breath himself. Escape or fry, this was happening, and he had absolutely no control over the outcome. It was all Greta’s show.
Greta opened her palms and the light snapped out like Luke’s lightsaber. “Don’t move,” she said, and her voice seemed to echo like she was in a sound chamber.
Shit. He definitely was not moving.
Heat washed over him as the blades of light dipped toward his wrists. He felt one chain detach, but he didn’t move. The other chain split in two and the links in the middle fell to the ground, clipping him on the shoulder on their way by. A searing pain settled in their wake.
“Oh, my God,” Greta exclaimed. The beams of light snapped off and she ran over to him, slapping his shoulder. “You’re on fire. I knew I shouldn’t have tried this.”
He joined her, gritting his teeth against the pain as he slapped out the small flames in his shirt. Damn! “What else were we going to do?” The flames disappeared, leaving reddened flesh visible through the charred hole in his shirt. “I’m fine,” he lied.
But he better be good enough because he could hear footsteps outside in the corridor. Thank God for heightened senses.
He lunged for his flute, abandoning the holster, and grabbed her hand. The familiar jolt of electric attraction was comforting. They could do this. They were meant to be together. “They’re coming.” He went to the square she’d cut in the wall and kicked at it with one boot. It came loose, but didn’t fall out. Was there a wall on the other side? He stepped up and pried it back. Cool air rushed in. Good. He pulled until the muscles in his shoulders were likely to pop and the square came free.
“Get going.” He gathered her in and practically shoved her through the opening then dove after her.
After the glare of the fluorescents in the metal freezer, the complete darkness in the next room blinded him but there was no time to let his eyes adjust. He stumbled forward, hitting his knee on something. A soft light suffused the room. Greta stood in the middle of what turned out to be a storeroom. She was glowing.
“I was wrong. That’s really useful,” he muttered and they dashed for the door.
Both of them heard the freezer door in the room they’d just left snap open. “Fuck. What the hell happened here?” Jason said.
Lanyon pulled open the door to the storeroom, knowing it probably led out into the same corridor their captors had just used. He just hoped to God they were already in the freezer.
Hallway empty.
“Looks like someone developed a power,” Hardwick replied in that creepy voice he had.
Lan needed to buy some time. He took three running strides and slammed the freezer door, locking it in place. It wouldn’t take them long to follow Lan and Greta’s escape route, though. And he had no illusions that Greta could muster her laser fast enough to be a weapon against someone with guns or pain, or who knew what other weapon. Or even that she would. G
reta was not a battle-hardened soldier. Not that he was. But he’d been under attack before. She hadn’t. He wondered if she had the temperament to actually kill a human being with her light.
He turned. And was nearly blinded by Greta’s laser. She was applying it to the doorknob of the storeroom.
“That should hold them in a while,” she said. But her eyes were frightened.
“Come on. They might have a way to call reinforcements.”
They hurried down the corridor.
“Where are we, do you think?” she asked, already breathless.
“I’m guessing underground. I haven’t seen any windows.”
They came out into…a kitchen. A commercial-looking kitchen lighted only by an occasional work light, and…a green exit sign.
“Of course.” Greta exclaimed as they dashed for the exit through a sea of stainless steel industrial ranges and griddles and sinks. “We were in the freezer of a restaurant.”
They hit the exit doors.
And nothing happened. The bars that were supposed to open the steel doors rattled up and down uselessly as the remnants of Greta’s and Lan’s chains that clanked against them. “Fuck!” Lan roared in frustration. What to do? He looked around.
“I can do it,” Greta said, chest heaving. “Just let me catch my breath.”
“No time.” He took her hand and headed for the swinging doors on the other side of the kitchen. She might just fuse the locks, which wouldn’t be helpful. Besides, he wasn’t sure how much energy it was taking to do that laser thing. She was looking pale and drawn.
They pushed through. Lan thought he’d see the restaurant proper, but it was a vast room lighted only by dim work lights above a sort of stage. The carpet had huge, garish flowers in orange and gold. Really fancy chandeliers made of tubes of glass or plastic or something loomed over the room. Dim tables and toppled chairs formed an obstacle course ahead of them. Ballroom? Conference center? At least they wouldn’t need Greta’s light to get to the bank of elevators he saw in the distance.
“Come on,” she said, surprising him as she wove through the debris.
He took off after her. Damn, but he didn’t want to wait around for an elevator. There was no way Jason and Hardwick were the only Clan members around here. Wherever ‘here’ was. No convenient green exit signs to indicate other doors though.
Greta slapped the elevator call button. It didn’t light. Ominous. She started bouncing on her feet. “Doesn’t mean the elevator’s not working,” she muttered. “Come on, come on.”
Lan turned his back, searching the room. You couldn’t have a conference center where the only exits were a bank of elevators. What would happen in a fire? “There,” he said, pointing.
Several doors were partially concealed behind heavy draperies. He took Greta’s arm. These babies better not be welded shut.
They weren’t.
As they practically fell through the doors, Lan heard crashing behind him. He chanced a glance back and saw Jason stumbling into the ballroom at the far side. Damn. He didn’t see Hardwick, but that was no guarantee of safety. He really didn’t want to learn how far Hardwick could throw his pain-wave shit.
Chains clanking, they headed down a corridor lined with what looked like meeting rooms. The plaques had fancy Egyptian names like ‘King Tut’, ‘Nefertiti’, ‘Ramses I, II and III’. What the hell? This was some kind of an abandoned conference center.
He knew Jason was right on their heels, though he couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of his heart and his breathing. There had to be a way out of here. If they could get out in the open, maybe they had a chance. None of the rooms had windows. So they had to find a stairway or something.
Around the next bend there was another bank of elevators. This one had lighted call buttons. Jackpot.
He banged his palm against the button. If they could get an elevator before Jason caught up with them, they were out of here. “Come on. Come on,” he muttered under his breath.
Greta bent over, putting her palms on her knees. “We’re okay,” she gasped.
That was when Jason rounded the corner. He had a gun.
“That’s it, you fucks. This little performance is over.”
Lanyon moved in front of Greta and held his hands up. He still clutched his flute, though what good it would do he had no idea. “Okay,” he growled. “Don’t get excited.”
“How the fuck did you get loose?” Jason said, glancing up to Lan’s dangling chains.
No way was Lan telling him about Greta’s powers. “Want to play twenty questions?”
The searing pain in his thigh was followed by a barking sound. He staggered back with the impact. Shit.
“You’re going to do whatever I want or you and your little friend here are going to be in all kinds of hurt.”
Lan put his hand down to his thigh and felt the warm, wet ooze between his fingers. “Leave her alone,” he gasped, feeling for Greta behind him. How the hell could he protect her?
“Lan!” Greta cried. She came around him and gasped as she saw the blood.
Lan managed to straighten. “I’m okay,” he said. Greta’s face was next to his. He saw her look of horror morph into anger and then uncertainty.
Then her eyes glowed blue.
“No, no,” he shook his head at her. But she drew herself up. Her face went calm. “He’s got a gun,” Lan pleaded.
“Step away from him, honey. Maybe you can convince me not to put the next bullet in his shoulder. Shoulder wounds are real bad.”
*
Everything was glowing blue. Greta had never experienced a flash of rage as intense as when she realized Jason had shot Lanyon. Could she use that anger to turn around right here in the elevator lobby, with its stupid glowing green signs that said ‘west elevators’, to draw on her power and kill this creep? If she’d known how to do this laser thing earlier, would she have killed both him and that terrible Hardwick guy for what they did to Lanyon?
God, she didn’t know. She’d been the kind of kid who’d nursed birds with broken wings until she could find someone to take them to a shelter. She’d never been allowed pets, but she couldn’t stand to watch those commercials with maltreated animals in them. She’d given tons of money to no-kill shelters. Could she kill a human being? Even one as horrible as Jason?
Probably not. She might as well admit it right here. She looked up at Lan as he shook his head and whispered “No.” What was he talking about?
Oh. She felt the power coursing up through that rod in her spine. She realized that it wasn’t Lan and the room around her that was glowing blue. It was her eyes.
She straightened. Jason didn’t have to know she wouldn’t kill him. She was an actress, after all. And a damned good one.
She turned, and the red laser flashed out of the palm of her hand as she let it roam over the wall. A trail of small flames was left in its wake.
“Hey,” Jason yelled, looking around wildly. “What’s that?”
She brought it down, buzzing softly to within inches of his neck. He went still.
“Starlight,” she said. She smiled at him. That would creep him out. “Concentrated starlight.” She had no idea whether that was true. But it sounded dramatic. Flames washed across the wall. The place was beginning to fill with smoke. They didn’t have much time. “If you’re wondering if you can shoot me before I carve you up like a side of beef, I wouldn’t think so.”
Jason’s light blue eyes got big.
“So why don’t you just drop the gun?” she asked sweetly.
When he hesitated, she brought the light an inch closer to his neck. He’d feel the heat. The laser was burning a hole in the door to the ‘Thutmosis Room’ behind him. “Ooh, if you shot me, I might jerk or something. That would be bad, I bet.”
“Jesus,” he muttered. The gun hit the carpet with a thud.
“Lan, you okay?” she asked. They needed to get him to a hospital. She wouldn’t think about how badly he could be bleeding. He’d be
okay. Weren’t people in movies always okay if they just got hit in the thigh?
“Yeah.” But his voice didn’t sound right. “I’ll get the gun.”
“Then we need to find something to tie him up with,” Greta decided. She could laser some strips out of the draperies. Was there time? The fire was taking hold.
Lan started for the gun. Behind them, the elevator dinged.
Oh, no. They were about to get company.
“Let’s get to the stairwell,” Lan choked. He apparently didn’t trust himself to bend down and pick up the gun. He kicked it as far away as he could manage.
Yeah, time to go. She flipped the laser off and they stumbled past the elevators just as they were opening. Lan’s hand was covered with blood now. It was soaking his jeans. Had it hit an artery? Could he keep running?
“Hey, what’s going on?” They heard multiple voices behind them. “Get an extinguisher.”
“No, Goddamnit, get the prisoners!”
They were too close!
The exit sign loomed ahead in an area that had light coming in from the right. Would this door be locked, too? This place was a maze. She imagined them running from locked door to locked door, like rats in a trap. And the cats were right behind them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‡
Lan saw the stairwell on the left, across from a bright, big room. It had one of those doors that had a long, narrow window in it, cross-hatched with wire. He could make it up the steps, even though he was feeling pretty light-headed, distant from himself. If they could get to the ground floor, at least escape was a possibility.
The door turned out to be in a huge open area where the corridor ended. Greta pushed ahead and shoved at it. It opened, thank God.
Noise behind him. He looked to the right. About ten guys were surging up from some kind of a cafeteria or lounge or something over at the far end of the big space, a woman or two as well. This part of the complex looked lived-in. Behind him, Jason, another man and a woman careened around the corner from the elevators and started yelling as they surged along the corridor. The place was pandemonium.
The Magic's in the Music (Magic Series Book 5) Page 27