by Steve McHugh
“Don’t tell him anything until we’re off the island.”
“Exactly. I’m glad you see things my way. I’d hate for Alan to serve more time because he decided to lose his temper. You should know we’re having a few technical problems today, radios have been shutting off and the like. There’s no problem with safety, but you do what you’re told, when you’re told, am I making myself clear?”
My paranoia alarm went off again, but outwardly I remained calm. “Of course. So what’s the plan?”
“One of our guards will escort Alan to you and your friends. You’ll pick him up and return here. The guard’s name is Walker. He’s been here for many years. In fact I believe he and Alan have created a good friendship over the years. Not normally something I encourage, but it can’t be helped when you see someone every single day for years and years at a time. Obviously, on the lower levels it would be a lot more than just discouraged, but we rotate the guards every few days there anyway.”
“I want to be taken to Alan,” I told him to his obvious surprise.
“That’s an unusual request. We don’t normally allow civilians onto the prison floors. Can I ask why?”
“I want to be there when he’s taken from the prison. I know that Olivia trusts you, and I have no reason to believe you’re anything other than you appear to be. But I’ve had people who are meant to be Avalon employees try to kill me. And they will try to kill Alan too if they think he’s no longer of use. I want to escort him out of the prison to ensure his safety.”
“You don’t trust my people?” he asked, anger creeping into his voice.
“Right now, I don’t trust anyone who I haven’t known for a long time. It’s nothing personal, although I’m sure it feels it. And for that I am sorry. But the request stands. I want to be there to escort Alan from his cell.”
The warden stared at me for what felt like minutes. “I’ll arrange it. But only because Olivia trusts you, and therefore so do I.”
His comment stung a little. Maybe I should trust him to have good people, just like I trust Olivia, but I couldn’t. “Thank you for this.”
“Don’t thank me. Olivia called and asked for this favor. She’s a formidable woman, and one I owe a lot to. I wasn’t about to turn down her request. Have you ever been here before?”
“Not for a long time, but yes.”
“Were you a prisoner here?”
“No, just dropping off some deliveries. I visited a few inmates.”
“Of those you dropped off. Any still here?”
“I imagine so.”
“Be careful then. Some of these people hold grudges. And level one or level ten, it doesn’t matter if you cross the wrong person and they stick a knife in your spine.”
CHAPTER 20
We had to go through a lot of security before we were even allowed on the lift to take us down to Alan’s level. All weapons were passed over to a quartermaster, who issued each of us a little sticker, something Remy was the least happy to comply with.
Each floor of the prison was set out in a similar way. There were two sections of cells, each facing away from the other. Each section was four cells high and twenty-five cells long, meaning a hundred prisoners could be housed here at any time. There was a sizeable empty gap between the two sections, an area where prisoners could congregate. A set of double doors at the far end of the main hall led to various other rooms such as showers, recreation rooms, and the hall where prisoners ate. The higher floors were allowed excursions to the island itself once a week in a purpose-built area behind the prison entrance. I’d asked why Alan couldn’t be brought to us there, and was told that the second floor was using it and it would be unwise to change their routine.
The lift doors opened, and I for one was grateful that I no longer had to listen to the guard’s incessant humming of a butchered tune. I glanced up at the lights on the ceiling—massive black disks that absorbed and poured natural light into the floor, and on occasion the guards even made it rain for the prisoners.
“Prisoners, back to your cells, please,” a guard said over the intercom.
I watched as the prisoners in the center of the floor made their way back to their cells.
“While I’ll open Alan’s cell, do not touch the bars on any other cell doors,” the guard told us.
“Why?” asked Mac.
“We have a security measure that only guards and the prisoner inside can touch the bars once the cell is in use. Anyone else touching the cell will receive a rather unpleasant shock. Just so you’re aware, this high up, males and females are integrated. We stop that on floor four. It used to be true of all floors, but a number of males were being killed and we decided it safer to separate them. Most of the very dangerous female prisoners are housed elsewhere.”
“Most?” Ellie questioned.
“A few on the lower levels refused to leave. We don’t send guards down there. They tend to . . . umm . . .”
“Never return?” Mac offered.
“Yes. Or when they do come back, they’re very much not the same. It’s just safer to avoid the whole bottom floors altogether. They rule themselves for the most part.”
“Why hasn’t anyone ever tried to claim it back?” I asked. “Starve them out, or gas them, something?”
“A previous warden tried several of the methods, but some of the people down there are immune to various gases, even without their abilities. As for starving them out . . . it ended badly.”
“Some of them ate the others, didn’t they?” Mac said.
Walker nodded. “There are people down there in charge who made a deal with the current warden. They gain a measure of autonomy and they give us no reasons to go back down there except to deliver supplies as needed. It’s worked for over a decade now.”
Thoughts of who might be in charge down there swirled around my mind. I probably helped put some of them there.
The prisoners had all returned to their cells, and Walker led us up three sets of stairs to the top row of cells. “Alan’s is the fifth down here.” He turned to a keypad on the wall and inserted a card before putting in several numbers that he hid from view.
There was a slight buzzing noise and then silence.
“Alan’s cell is open,” Walker told everyone. “Before you go there are other things you should be aware of. Each prisoner on the sixth floor and above wears a sorcerer’s band, so they are unable to access their abilities, but that doesn’t mean these people aren’t dangerous given the right set of circumstances.”
“You think some of these might attack Nate?” Ellie asked.
“Oh, no, not at all,” the guard quickly clarified. “But it’s something you should be aware of. It would also be best if only one of you went down to the cell. Other inmates may not like seeing large numbers of strangers.”
“I’ll go,” I said and walked down to the fifth cell. I stopped outside and took in what had been Alan’s home for ten years. It was ten by ten, with a single bed, a toilet and sink, and a small desk and chair. Photos adorned the walls.
Alan was lying on his bed, looking up at the wall. He wore the regulation green uniform for prisoners at The Hole, and appeared to have not shaved for several weeks.
He looked over at me and sighed. “Oh great, why did I think it wouldn’t be long before you showed up? Fuck off; I’ve only got a few weeks left.”
“Yeah, well, you get to come play outside today.”
“Every time you get me involved in something, I end up having bad things happen to me. Can’t you just piss off and leave me be? Seriously, you’re a walking curse.”
“I wish I could, Alan. Can I come in?”
“It’s a prison cell not a fucking show room. I’m a prisoner. You can do whatever the fuck you like.”
“I see being here hasn’t improved your personality much.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, should I be all smiles and sparkles? Should I jump up out of bed and sing a musical number? The guards brought in Wicked for us to listen to t
he other week; I think I do a rousing version of ‘Defying Gravity.’” He leapt off the bed and looked about to sing.
“Fine. You don’t have to be happy to see me. But I need your help.”
Alan sat back down. “Look, Nathan, I’d like to. I really would. But I can’t. I don’t even know if I’m meant to be talking to you, that was never one of the rules, but I sure as hell can’t leave this fucking shit heap.”
“Call me Nate,” I said. “And why not?”
“Nate? You’ve gone all modern.”
“You never answered my question.”
“I’ve been told to keep my mouth shut, Nate.” There was some fear in his voice. It wasn’t something I heard a lot from him.
“What’s happening, Alan?” I asked slowly, not wanting to say something that might set Alan off. If he was afraid of something, I was certain it was something I needed to be wary of.
“About two months ago, Fiona comes here telling me that she’s discovered something about the Reavers. I tell her to drop it, that it’s not worth looking into. She told me that she’d heard rumors that I knew where Felix was, that the Reavers had started searching for him. I told her I had no idea what the hell she was talking about, but she still made me promise never to reveal his location.” The fear was back, but it was joined with a lot of anger. Whether that anger was directed just at those who had blackmailed him, or also at me for turning up, I wasn’t sure.
“About six weeks later,” he continued after a slight pause, “a guard told me that he was a Reaver and that I either stopped my wife from searching into the group, or something bad would happen. Apparently she really struck a nerve, so I told him to go fuck himself. A few days ago he comes to me with photos of my wife’s body lying in our house. He told me that she’s still alive, but if I wanted her to stay that way I was to ensure I didn’t help anyone coming here to ask for it.” Alan stood and punched the wall and faced away from me. “They hurt her, Nate. They hurt Fiona.” He voice was almost breaking.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Fuck your sorry,” he snapped, and turned back to me, rage filling his face. He rubbed his eyes and spat into the toilet. “If they’ve gone after Fiona again because you turned up—”
“Lucie is guarding her,” I interrupted.
Alan paused. “I liked Lucie. Okay, so Fiona is safe.” The relief in his voice was palpable.
Alan splashed water on his face and returned to sitting on his bed.
“They don’t know that you’re aware of Felix’s location?” I asked.
“Putting myself in here made me somewhat bulletproof. They can’t kill me, it would bring a lot of awkward questions their way, but they can hurt the people I love. I always figured they assumed that I knew who might know Felix’s location, but they’ve never actually asked me. That was until two days ago, when they came to me to ask who knew where he was. I gave them your name. Figured you could take care of yourself, sorry about that.”
“That explains why they switched from wanting me dead to believing I knew where Felix was. They attacked a bunch of us in Camelot. Thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Do you know the name of the corrupt guard?”
“Livius. I assume by now he already knows you’re here.”
“One guard? I think we’re okay then. It’s why I had the warden let me come to you instead of you coming to me. I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“Livius is still going to do something.”
“Whatever he does, we’ll handle it.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
I told him about the people I’d brought with me.
“You always had the habit of picking good allies, Nate.”
“Present company excluded, I assume.”
Alan laughed and the tension melted from his shoulders. “The Reavers don’t want us getting to Felix, but they really want to know where he is.”
“Because they know he’s keeping tabs on them?”
“How’d you know that? Yes, he’s been using his mind magic to observe the Reavers. He’s been doing it for . . . well, since before I got myself locked up. No idea why they suddenly want to find him though.”
“Why hasn’t he told anyone?”
“Haven’t spoken to him in over a decade. He was still searching for those in charge at the time. He made it sound like a bit of a maze, and didn’t want to go after them prematurely. Also, Avalon still wants him dead, so he’s unlikely to want to let them know where he is.”
The fact that Felix had been searching for them for so long meant that the Reavers had been planning something for a long time. I was angry that I had assumed they’d gone, angry that they’d been allowed to continue unabated. But more than anything, I should have gotten Alan to tell me where Felix was. Someone should have known all of this was going to happen. “So, are you coming with me then? I’d like to find Felix and then go kick the shit out the Reavers.”
“That I can do. What guard is with you?”
I shrugged. “Walker, I don’t know his first name.”
“Seriously?” Alan pushed me aside slightly and glanced down toward the guard.
I thought I detected a slight sigh of relief from Alan. “Anthony. He’s a nice guy.”
Alan walked off toward the guard, while I walked behind him. He shook Anthony’s hand and then said hello to Remy, Ellie, and Mac. He stared at Remy for a few seconds.
“Yes?” Remy snapped.
“You work with my wife, don’t you? She’s mentioned you before. I always wondered, how long ago did you piss the witch off ?”
“Few centuries now, why?”
“I was always curious about what you’d done to piss off a witch so much.”
“They were going for full-blown fox, they just weren’t very good.”
“Thank heavens for incompetent villains. May they always fuck up in the simplest of ways.”
“Amen to that,” I said as I rejoined everyone.
“Are you ready to leave?” Anthony asked Alan.
“I’ll decide when we get topside.”
Anthony glanced at me, but didn’t say anything else; instead he took us back to the lift and once we were all inside, the lift ascended. And then it stopped almost immediately.
“What’s going on?” Ellie asked.
“I don’t know,” Anthony admitted. He opened a panel near the doors, which contained a small monitor with a keypad beneath it. He tapped a few of the keys and the monitor flickered to life, showing another guard.
“Hello, Anthony,” the guard said. “Need help, do we?”
“Don’t be an ass. Just figure out what’s happened and get us out of here.”
“I know what’s happened. I switched off the elevator.”
“Why would you do that?” Anthony demanded.
“Livius,” Alan said through gritted teeth. “I wondered how long it would be before you showed up.”
“Alan, do you remember what I told you? I said you kept your mouth shut and you’d be allowed to see your wife again. Guess you just don’t love her enough. I didn’t expect to have so many people to get rid of, but the more the merrier.”
“She’s safer than we are. When I get out of here, I’m going to tear you in half,” Alan said.
“Best of luck with that,” Livius said, and the screen went blank.
“So, Livius, he’s one of the Reavers, I assume,” Mac asked.
Alan nodded. “He arrived a few years after I did. Never spoke to me until a few weeks ago.”
The lift began to move down. I glanced over at the numbered buttons on the door panel as each number lit up briefly in turn.
“We’re going to level ten,” Anthony said. “This is very bad.”
“We’ll still have our abilities though, right?” Ellie said. “We’re not wearing sorcerer’s bands, so we’ll be fine. The prisoners still have the bands on, yes?”
Anthony shook his head. “We blanket the whole lower floors wi
th runes. The second those doors open, you’re going to be no better than any other human.”
I glanced down at my glyphs as they flickered on my arms. The lift stopped and my magic vanished. I expected the effects of the venom to rush back into me, making me drop to the ground, but instead it started with a dull ache.
“Oh, I have more information for you,” Livius’s voice sounded from the small speaker. “By now you’re probably aware that this lift is going to the tenth floor. When you get there, you have ten seconds to get off the lift or the explosives I’ve placed under the floor will detonate. Also, the internal cameras and systems are offline; it’s been glitching all day. I’m sure the warden told you.”
“How many guards have you hurt to do this?” Anthony demanded.
“No one important. I imagine it won’t take long for someone to notice what’s happened, but I’ll be gone by then, can’t really keep this job after this. Bet you wish you’d gone to the armory to get a weapon, eh, Anthony? Too late now. Bye.” He signed off and the lift began moving again.
“I’m really beginning to hate that bastard,” Mac said.
“Why are the guards unarmed in this place?” Remy asked.
“Because if an inmate got hold of a weapon . . . ,” Anthony said, leaving how bad it would be unsaid.
After what felt like a lifetime, the lift came to a halt and the doors opened. All six of us rushed out of the lift as soon as possible, the doors closing behind us. Immediately outside of the lift on all but the top three floors was a security checkpoint. It consisted of a bulletproof glass window that allowed the guards to watch the prisoners, along with a locked armory and three-foot-thick steel door that led to the prison floor.
Once past the door, the stairs led down into a holding area that was separated off from the rest of the prison floor by several feet of concrete walls. The guards might not stay down here, but they still needed to be able to access the floor on occasion; to bring food or aid as required.
