by Karen Chance
My breathing, which had picked up speed to match my heart-attack-in-progress, suddenly caught in my throat.
And then slowly, so freaking slowly, my hand felt around the water-slick bricks beneath me. And pulled my box out from under my left leg, where it had somehow ended up. And began to raise it, trying to keep it out of the light, so that the shiny surface didn’t reflect anything.
Like the flash that suddenly flared across my vision, like a small red sun.
It dropped, rattling against the boards overhead. And then fell through a crack between two of them. And splashed in the mud in front of me.
Because the guy had stopped to light a cigar and had just dropped his lighter.
I looked up, in heart-clenching panic, and met a pair of narrowed blue eyes looking down. For all of a second, before the man’s face flushed and his mouth started to open. And I jammed a corner of the box against the underside of his shoe.
And then sat back against the building with my eyes closed, and just concentrated on breathing for a minute.
I could feel the mud squelching beneath me, and the rain coursing down the spaces between the bricks onto my back. But the coat was waterproof, and I wasn’t standing in a lashing torrent, so my brain seemed to be able to handle it. Like the box in my hands, which was smooth and shiny and slick, but also solid and unchanging. Reassuring.
Like Rosier’s presence would be right now, strange as that sounded.
He’d lived through this era; he’d know what to do.
Assuming I could find him.
I looked around, my heart back in my throat, where it should just stay and save me some effort, I thought viciously. And then I felt it, the other box, hidden under a fold of the coat, where I’d dropped it and then sat on it. I hugged it to my chest in dizzying relief.
And a second later, I was hugging the guy who popped out of it and onto the street beside me, which would have been great, which would have been awesome.
Except he wasn’t Rosier.
Chapter Twenty
For a second, I looked at him and he looked at me, a small wiry guy with a patchy reddish beard and abundant acne. And then he took off, scrambling out from under the stairs and into the blaze of light in the alley, which seemed to confuse him. He stopped, dropped into a crouch, and looked around wildly, this way and that. And then abruptly took off again, running toward the street.
Only to stop after a few strides, because that way was blocked. War mages had clustered in the opening to the bigger road, leather-coated bulks of solidity that were fortunately facing the street, not us, at the moment. But that could change any second, as the guy seemed to realize. He swung back around, only to find himself facing the building that constituted the other end of the alley, with bricked-up windows and no convenient fire escape.
Well, that’s why I’m still sitting here, I thought, as he joined me again.
“Wot’s all this?” he asked, gesturing around.
“War mages looking for me.”
“Why? Wot you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Wot a coincidence,” he told me. “I ’ave also been maliciously persecuted and unfairly detained.”
“How about that.”
He looked at the box I’d just let him out of, which I was currently shaking. And turning upside down. And beating on the bottom of, like a stubborn ketchup bottle, only nothing else came out.
“Wot’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“Naw, now that’s not right, is it?” he asked. “That’s not nuffing. That’s one of them traps the Circle uses on people. I oughter know!”
“Yes. Yes, it is,” I said, frowning at it. And then beating on it some more, not that it seemed to help.
“Wot’s in there, then?”
“Nothing,” I said, looking up at him in frustration.
“You like that word, don’t ya?” He tilted his head to the side. “But if there’s nuffing in it, why are you bothering wi’ it?”
“Because there’s supposed to be something in it! Or someone.”
“Like who?”
“Like a demon.”
“A demon?” The man looked me over again, assessing. “Wot you doin’ with one o’ them?”
“Nothing right now!” I glared at the mages at the end of the street. “They switched boxes on me. He isn’t in here!”
“Well, o’ course he in’t,” Red told me. “They never put no demons in those.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Naw, why would they? When they c’n just ring up the old demon council, tell ’em to come pick up their wayward boy?”
“The . . . council?”
He nodded. “The Corps patrols humans, which demons ain’t. They got a treaty with the council. Says if one o’ their kind gets out o’ line, the Corps calls ’em up, and they come for ’em. Unless the demon makes ’em mad in the meantime, and he ‘dies trying ter escape,’ wot has been know ter—”
He broke off when my nails sank into his wrist. “Where would they keep him?”
“Wot?”
“The demon! Where would they keep him until the council comes for him?”
“In maximum security, most like. They don’t like demons.”
“And where is that?”
The guy looked upward. “Top floor, but you’ll never get in.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause I’m going to have that coat, ain’t I?” he asked, and I suddenly realized he was holding something out at me.
It was a knife. A small pocket variety, which he seemed to have pulled out of nowhere. “How did you get a knife in there?” I asked, looking from him to the box.
“The Circle don’t know everyfing, does it? Now hand it over.”
“What?”
“The coat!”
“Why?” I looked at him. “You’ve got a coat.”
And he did. It was a pretty nice one for a thief, being thick wool and fairly new. In fact, it looked better than mine.
“It looks better than mine,” I pointed out.
“It ain’t the looks I care ’bout, is it?”
“What, then?”
“You never mind! You just give it—”
“Get your hands off me or I’ll scream.”
“You scream, ’n they’ll be down on the both of us!”
“Which would be inconvenient for you, wouldn’t it?”
He glared at me. But the hand on the front of my coat loosened. And then dropped away entirely, because he really didn’t seem to want to deal with the war mages again.
I could sympathize.
“Tell me what you want it for, and maybe I’ll give it to you,” I offered.
He scowled. And then his eyes narrowed. “Maybe we could work together, at that.”
“How?”
“That’s a big coat. Too big for a little girl like you. Big enough for two maybe, if we work it right.”
“Why would we want to do that?”
“’Cause it gets us inside the wards, don’t it?”
I looked up at the door, which was still slightly open from where the mage had left it. “There aren’t any wards.”
“Not on the door,” he said impatiently. “The inner wards. The ones they got on the upper floors. The ones on all the ’spensive and dangerous things they steal from people like you ’n me.”
I didn’t know how I felt about being lumped in with the criminal element, but at the moment I couldn’t really argue the point.
“The coat gets you through those?”
He nodded. “’Course, it don’t usually matter. Too many war mages prowling around for it to matter. More a time-saving device for them than anythin’ else.” He looked over his shoulder. “But seems like you got ’em all riled up. Seems like you got most of ’
em out combing the streets for you. Which means there’s a skeleton crew in there, and that means—”
He jumped me. And the next thing I knew, my back was against his chest, and his knife was pressing against my throat. Hard enough that, if I screamed, I’d slice my own windpipe.
“—this is my main chance,” he hissed in my ear.
“I thought we were going to work together,” I said, very carefully.
“You know that old sayin’ about honor ’tween thieves?”
I nodded.
“I ain’t never had no truck with it.”
I tapped him in the leg with the trap.
“Neither have I,” I said.
And a second later I was up the stairs and back into HQ.
• • •
The place was not deserted. There were people everywhere. Everywhere. It looked like our little escape had put them on high alert, and that meant halls packed with every war mage in the place.
And that went double for the stairs.
They only ones I saw were at the far end of the entrance hall, almost lost in gloom. Of course, I thought, before dodging into a side room to avoid being seen. And then slowly starting down the hall, throwing up the hood on the coat and ducking into more rooms whenever anyone started my way, praying there was nobody in them.
There wasn’t.
Maybe because they looked like the sort of administrative offices any police department needs, and which closed in time for everyone to get home for dinner. There was also a library, filled with musty old books but no readers, and the Victorian version of a break room, complete with a fireplace, a few scarred old tables, and some dented tea-making things. And a hand-lettered sign, in ornate Victorian script: PLEASE RETURN SOILED DISHES TO BASEMENT FOR WASHING UP.
I looked at it. And then I looked out the door at the stairs, which were momentarily empty. And then I ran for them, scurrying down the hall silently—bare feet are good for something, after all—and reached the landing without anyone screaming for my head. But I didn’t go up, because I wouldn’t have made it one flight.
I went down.
Like most basements, this one was dank and dark and ugly. And filled with things like a belching furnace, a bunch of old furniture, and a pyramid of barrels piled in a corner almost ceiling high. But it also had a small area reserved for a kitchen, which, judging by the part of the floor that was tiled, had originally been much larger.
It didn’t surprise me. The place had a converted house feel to it, with the kind of small touches that a police force, even an unusual police force, wouldn’t have bothered with. Like the mahogany paneling in the library. And the curlicues on the bannisters and stair railings. And the quality of the wood floors, which were scuffed and weathered now, especially in the main hall, but which had been inlaid with a delicate border design at some time in the past.
And if this had once been a gentleman’s residence, it should have an item, one of the must-haves of the nineteenth century. One my old governess had often bewailed the lack of in the farmhouse where I grew up, because it meant she had to go down to the kitchen to make her evening tea. And sure enough, the remnants of the kitchen area had a sink, some shelves, a huge old iron stove it looked like nobody ever used . . .
And a dumbwaiter set into a wall.
A huge grin broke out on my face.
And then faded as soon as I realized two things; it was small, like really small, and it was hand-cranked.
Well, crap.
I thought about it for a second, biting my lip, but there was just no choice. There might be another way upstairs, but I didn’t have time to find it. If the demon council reached Rosier before I did . . .
I didn’t think it would be a good idea for them to reach him before I did.
So I let Red out.
“Ha!” he said, slashing at me with his little knife, making me jump back.
And smack him in the arm with the trap.
He winked out, and I leaned against the wall, kicking my heels against the water-stained plaster for a few minutes.
I let him out again.
“Ha!” he said, and lunged for me.
Back inside he went.
I tapped my toe, wishing I had shoes. The floor was like ice, and it was leeching my body heat. I started trading off feet, so at least one stayed warm, and waited another few minutes.
“Are we going to keep this up all night?” Red asked when I let him out again.
“That’s up to you. I need your help. In return, I’ll help you.”
“How?” He crossed his skinny arms and sneered at me.
“I need to get upstairs, to get my partner back. But the stairs are full of mages. I’ll never make it.”
“Not as a twist,” he agreed.
“What?”
“A twist and twirl.”
“What?”
He rolled his eyes. “A girl. There’s no women in the Corps. Everybody knows that.”
“There have to be a few.”
“I ain’t never seen one. And I think I’d a’ noticed.” He leered at me.
“So, like I said, I can’t get up the stairs—”
“But I bet I could,” he said eagerly. “You give me the coat and I’ll get yer man out—yer demon. You ’ave my word.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I have a better idea.”
“Then get someone else to help you wi’ it, ’cause I got better things ter—”
Back he went.
“Cut that out!” he told me when I released him again, a minute later.
“Then stop wasting my time! We do it my way or not at all, and you can go back in here for good for all I care.”
He glared at me sullenly. But he didn’t say anything or try to attack me again, so I guessed that was something. “Here’s the plan,” I told him quickly. “I get into this box—”
“Wot?”
“Don’t interrupt me. And then you put it on the dumbwaiter—”
“Wot?”
“I said, no interruptions! And then you crank me up to the top level. The coat will bypass the wards, if they can even read me in here, which I doubt. And then—”
“And then you sit there, ’cause there’s nobody ter let you out!”
“I can let myself out.”
His eyes abruptly narrowed. “All right. Now I know yer telling me porkies.”
“What?”
“Porky pies.”
“Do you speak English?”
“Lies! Ain’t nobody c’n do that!”
“I can,” I said impatiently. “Or if not, I’m about to trap myself in a box in the most secure level of war mage HQ.”
He thought about that for a minute. And then his eyes brightened. “Y’know, I know some people who would be real interested—”
“We can talk about that later. Right now, I need you to get me up there.”
“And wot do I get?”
“The coat. As soon as I’m up, I’ll drop it back down the shaft. I won’t need it anymore. Then you can see if your run up the stairs works for you or not.”
“And how do you get back out, wi’ no coat?”
“My demon friend will get me out. He can shift us into the demon realm—”
“Then why ain’t he already done it?”
“Because he won’t leave me! That’s why I have to get to him—he doesn’t know I’m out!”
Red mulled this over.
“I’ll also need your coat,” I added.
His hand closed on the neck. “Fer wot?”
“It’s cold.”
He just looked at me some more. And then decided he didn’t care. He shrugged out of the nice wool number, but caught my arm when I went to grab it. “If you do get out o’ here, return it to the Bull and Bollocks. I’ll se
e you don’t lose by it.”
“What?”
“It’s . . .” He looked awkward. “It’s just . . . me mum made it fer me, and she’s . . . not here anymore, and . . .” He looked at me. “Y’tell anyone I said that, ’n I’ll cut yer throat!”
“No, I . . . just never heard that name before,” I told him.
“Wot name?”
“The pub name.”
“Y’ never heard o’ the Bull?” He looked astounded.
I shook my head. “Is it any good?”
“Good?” The incredulousness grew. “It’s where hope dies, and then sobers up and kicks you in the bollocks. But if yer itchin’ fer a job or trying ter lay low, ain’t no better place.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I told him.
He nodded and shrugged out of the coat. And I took a deep breath, wondering for the eighty-seventh time today if I was crazy. And for the eighty-eighth, I decided I really didn’t want to know.
“Here goes nothing,” I told him. And a second later, the kitchen winked out, and there was only darkness.
Chapter Twenty-one
The dark, dark world of nothingness inside the snare was a lot less comforting this time, maybe because I wasn’t quite as punch-drunk. In fact, it was seriously creepy, a noiseless, frictionless, lightless cage that wasn’t a cage, since I couldn’t even feel any walls around me. I stared at the dark and tried not to imagine that it was staring back.
I assumed that the Circle knocked most people out before they put them in these things, unless they were planning on taking them out shortly for questioning. I stared around some more. And wondered if they ever forgot. And then I wondered if they ever “forgot.”
It was more than a little disturbing that I wouldn’t be willing to offer odds either way.
But there was nothing to do but wait. And worry, because there was no way to tell time in here. Or to tell if I would “rematerialize,” or whatever it was I’d been doing, inside the tiny, tiny space of the dumbwaiter. Because that would be . . . bad. Really bad. Cassie-breaks-every-bone-in-her-body bad. But I hadn’t materialized on the table before; I’d hit the ground in front of it, so presumably . . .