by G A Chase
Though Myles had said he wanted to be filled in, taking time to learn the details of whatever backup plan might be in place didn’t sound productive to their quest. “Can you still get us into the basement?”
“I can,” Joe said, “but if Luther is locked in his office, I doubt the elevators will be running. It’s a long climb up thirty-four floors.”
Kendell felt her biceps. “Especially if we have to lug all our music equipment up to the top. Once we’re up there, I can focus the band’s energy, but I can’t force the sound to cross dimensions.”
Myles lifted his cane. “That’s why you brought me. Each of those totems holds a soul prevented from entering Guinee. Since the magic is voodoo in origin, I can use this staff to focus your gathered music like a beacon into hell that only the spirits in the totems will hear. Once they latch onto the signal, you can pull them back to our reality.”
At the entrance to the underground parking lot, Kendell stared up at the building. “Too bad Sanguine doesn’t still have her wings. She could just fly the instruments up there.”
Joe stood beside her. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what you’re talking about. We’ll figure out some way to get the elevators working.”
Minerva’s VW was parked alongside the solid metal door, which looked like it had come out of a World War II submarine. Polly stuck her head out of the side window. “Sounds like we finally get to do that gig up top while gazing out at the city.”
Kendell inspected the back end of the van. It was stuffed with instruments and amplifiers. “All we have to do is lug all the equipment up to the top of the building. Stay here with the girls until we figure out a better solution.”
Polly looked all too happy to leave the specifics of transportation to someone else. “Sanguine should be along any minute. She wanted to make a reconnaissance of the garage to make sure we weren’t followed.”
“Smart girl.” Joe unlocked the door with some gadget out of his pack. The hatch opened with a whoosh as if the building had been deprived of air. Though the equipment was running as usual, the room was completely dark. Joe pulled out his military flashlight and began searching the room. “I kind of doubt this is going to take just turning on a light switch.”
Sanguine stepped over the threshold and pulled the hatch shut. “If we’re going to be at this for more than a minute, it might be best if we didn’t advertise our presence.”
Kendell stayed at Myles’s side but addressed Sanguine. “If Colin is using magic to run this building, I guess it’s up to us to figure out how to power up an elevator. You and I have spent the most time in hell. Any ideas?”
“You were alone with him up in his office. What did you see?”
Kendell squeezed Myles’s hand. “Don’t remind me. He had all kinds of control panels. You know, the old-school type with dials and levers and gauges. Nothing was computerized.”
“Makes sense,” Joe said. “This building was constructed in the 1960s. Most of New Orleans hasn’t been updated in a generation.”
Myles could tell from the passing of the buck that no one had any ideas for getting upstairs. He turned to Kendell. “Tell the band to start bringing in the equipment. Joe and I can head up the stairs. There has to be an override among the motors and pulleys at the top of the building.”
Joe headed to the stairwell. “Best idea I’ve heard so far. Good old-fashioned wrenching and jury-rigging. Now you’re talking my kind of magic. Grab my pack.”
Kendell pulled Myles into her arms. “Just be safe.”
“Colin’s in another dimension. I’ll be fine.”
“I meant, don’t fall down the elevator shaft.”
He chuckled. Physical danger in the real world hadn’t been a worry in so long he’d forgotten about the typical warning. “Knowing Joe, he’ll insist on taking on any dangerous aspect of this. Have everyone ready.”
The paramilitary pack Joe carried with him hadn’t looked that bad while they were on the street, but when Myles went to lift it, he nearly dislocated his shoulder. He handed it over as they began their climb. “What the hell have you got in this thing?”
“This and that. Think of it as a Boy Scout backpack on steroids. If we can’t get the elevator working with what I’ve got, we’ll at least be able to repel down the shaft.”
The hike up the stairs winded Myles, but he didn’t dare complain as he followed Joe, who was lugging his gear. They passed the entrance to the circular restaurant and continued to the elevator control room at the top of the building.
“I’m surprised this isn’t sealed off with warning labels all over the place.”
Joe pulled a small crowbar from his pack. “It’s more secure than it looks. I broke into my fair share of rooftop control rooms as a kid.” He shoved the sharpened end between the door and the frame and snapped the lock as if it were a toothpick.
“Jesus.” Myles found the warning labels he’d expected. Red and yellow Danger High Voltage signs covered every surface. “I might be inclined to leave the jury-rigging to you.”
“Check for a cabinet labeled Relays. It’ll be the only one without a warning label. I’ll need some heavy-gauge wire and any connectors you can find. Most of this equipment is to tell the elevators where to go. That back wall is the real fun part. We’ll need a power source to tap into. Luther hates relying on outside sources of electricity, but he also believes in redundancy. Somewhere back there, you should find a steel cage marked ‘City Power.’ Don’t open it.”
Myles squeezed past the huge drums layered with steel cables. “No worries. I’m not touching a damn thing in here.”
The spare parts cabinet was filled with boxes of electronic equipment from another era. “How do they even get replacement parts for this thing?”
“You’re looking at it. When those run out, they pretty much have to find another old building to loot. Any luck finding some wire?”
At the bottom of the cabinet sat spools of wire in various colors. “Yep. I’ll bring you the heaviest gauge before looking for the city’s power.”
When he got back, Joe had already pulled out the bottom and top relays and one partway down. The far bank of electronic equipment had the Danger sign removed. Seeing him there was like watching MacGyver in action.
“I figure we only need to go from the basement to the top floor,” Joe said.
“What about that other one?”
He pointed at it with his wire cutters. “Luther’s office. I can’t do much for you once everyone’s upstairs, so I thought I’d use that time to see if I could release Luther. In spite of Kendell’s misgivings, he might come in handy.”
Myles figured he, and everyone else, had given in to Kendell’s positive assumptions about Delphine enough times to earn a little goodwill when it came to Luther. “How pissed do you think he’ll be at Colin?”
“I’ll let you know. I’m very curious about his reaction. Either he really is working with Colin—in which case, I’ll see his alarm at me freeing him—or he’ll prove to be our ace in the hole.”
Myles set down the heavy spool. “What next?”
“Take these cutters and measure out some cable from that junction box to the city’s power. Be generous in your measuring.”
Myles had worked enough construction jobs in his time to know the drill. Unless a foreman was trying to save money, such jobs generally required fast-and-dirty work, and being too short with a measurement was a yelling offense.
By the time Joe had finished, the panel looked like a wall covered in spaghetti that had been thrown in a fit of rage. “It’s not pretty, but it should work. All the same, you might want to retreat to the stairwell when I throw the breaker.”
Myles stood well back but within eyesight of Joe.
“Here goes nothing.” Joe used a wooden broom handle to throw the huge lever. Sparks lit up the panel he’d been working on, but nothing caught fire. “Go down to the restaurant and the elevators. Use number three to go get the others. Maybe it woul
d be good if you all came up together. I’ll stay here and keep this running for as long as I can.”
Myles ran down the stairs. The center elevator had its doors open. Gingerly, he hit the button for the basement. He held his breath for the whole ride down.
He barely waited for the doors to open. “Come on, everyone in. I’m not sure our fix has more than one lift in it.”
* * *
Kendell helped set up the equipment onstage. She needed every person present to make the magic happen, but she didn’t have to like it. They’d all risked their necks too many times on her behalf. Just once, it would be nice to take care of matters on my own.
Myles set up a chair in front of the stage, facing away from the band, then plugged the equipment into the floor outlets. “You do what you do, and I’ll do what I do. We’ll call those lost souls out of hell.”
Despite the fact that she wanted to keep him safe, his presence reassured her. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a pain. I don’t know what’s going on with me lately. When I listen to the words that come out of my mouth, I sound like Sanguine.”
He gave her a kiss before taking his seat. “You’ve both spent way too much time in hell.”
She returned to the stage and strapped on her black guitar before turning to the band. “I know it’s not the loud, in-your-face music we usually play, but I want to go with ‘Jar of Hearts.’ Polly’s sweet voice should do it justice.”
As they began playing, Myles held his cane out to the side like a supernatural microphone. The green stone under the silver skull began to glow. Sanguine spun around the room like a temptress gypsy enticing the spirits from the beyond. Only Joe was missing from the gathering. Kendell assumed he was standing watch in some shadowy spot in case their breaking and entering should be discovered.
The eight blue-glass jars pulled at her soul. She pulled right back with her music. Polly’s soft, lilting voice worked wonders at calming the distrusting spirits. Instead of materializing all across the room and roof, the eight totems lined up in front of Myles like schoolchildren treated to a class outing.
Once the song ended and all the voodoo totems were fully present, Kendell felt drained, but she was also exhilarated. The combination of her music and Myles’s cane had created magic capable of combating Colin on his own turf. They’d won, and he’d lost—pure and simple.
Sanguine went to the totems and touched them as if making sure they were real. “Completely solid. Not a hologram in the bunch. Colin must be pissing nails right now.”
Kendell really wished she could accept victory without the nagging doubt. “With his time standing still, he would have had plenty of opportunity to bust into our dimension. So why isn’t he here?”
“He was trapped in one time, something like two months in our past,” Sanguine said. “Like getting you through Guinee, he would have had to match up when he was with when we are now, and our time is a moving target. That’s a lot to figure out. Personally, until I see otherwise, I’m taking these little wooden dudes as an indication we’re finally one step ahead.”
Kendell desperately hoped Sanguine was right and their victory wasn’t just another misdirection from Colin. “If I’ve learned anything from chasing Colin, it’s when he is ahead, he’ll do everything he can to maintain that advantage. I’ve never seen him gloat in victory. We’ve stolen his ability to direct the paranormal power he’s gathered, but he’s still got all that energy right under our feet.”
“Precisely so.” Luther was standing by the elevator next to Joe. “I congratulate you on a clever victory. You’ve succeeded where I failed, but our villain is far from contained.”
Kendell glared at Luther, then Joe, and finally at Myles. “I thought we weren’t including him.”
Myles didn’t look in the least bit contrite. “Joe convinced me Luther would be more of an asset than a threat. His being held prisoner kind of tips the argument against him working for Colin.”
Luther walked to the stage as if he owned the place, which, Kendell had to remind herself, he did. “I understand your misgivings. They are not unfounded. Colin, like Lincoln Laroque and Baron Malveaux before him, has been a generous contributor to the upkeep and expansion of this facility. That does not, however, give him the control he believes he’s due. When he approached me about utilizing the objects in my care, I turned him down.”
Kendell didn’t find his argument convincing. “Then how did he gain control? He’d need to do more than just break in.”
“The funny thing is, entering is the one concession I do grant him. He doesn’t have free rein, of course, but anytime he wishes, he’s welcome to meet with me. Apparently, even that small opening was all he needed.”
“I think you owe us an explanation,” Joe said.
“The guard station phone in the downstairs lobby hooks directly to my office—no matter the dimension. Embassies aren’t much use if those inside them can’t contact their home offices, so from the moment I heard Colin was banished to hell, I’d been expecting his call. Originally, he claimed to simply want the totems back. As he spent more time up here, we started arguing about his demand for access to the objects in my care. Finally, he acquiesced to only having use of this old restaurant. He explained the power here was better than what he had available in his office.”
The explanation only slightly eased Kendell’s suspicions. Colin had conned her plenty of times, but she wasn’t a professional at chicanery like Luther. “And you couldn’t tell what he was up to, or warned us? Hell, even Delphine could have been of use. These totems do belong to her. A little heads-up might have saved everyone a lot of hellish work.”
“Once he established control up here, the first thing he did was completely cut me off. I couldn’t even call my secretary. Which, as I thought about it, was kind of odd. She should have noticed something was wrong. We have procedures in place in case of attack. As she wasn’t at her desk when Joe rescued me, I have to assume she was working with Colin. That man has a way with women.”
Kendell went hot with anger. “He’s a manipulative bastard who deserves his hell. You won’t get any arguments from me on that point. You know what you’ve got here. What can he accomplish without the totems?”
“Quite a lot, I’m afraid. Though depriving him of his most obvious tools will send him back to the drawing board.”
* * *
Colin was certain his head was about to explode. He hadn’t been this angry since the day he woke up in hell. Without anyone to yell at, however, he drove the anger down like the earth compressing coal into diamonds.
“Nicely played, little witch. I’ll confess, I didn’t see that one coming.”
He stared around the empty room and rooftop. Without the totems, he had bigger problems than a guitar-playing girl with delusions of godlike powers. He didn’t need to wait around to see that the sun had stopped moving across the sky. With his paranormal reactor, he’d managed to double the normal observation of time. A day took only twelve hours. Though he could have increased time’s passage even further, he didn’t dare overshoot Kendell’s time frame.
Without the totems, however, all that lovely power had nowhere to vent. Every gauge related to energy storage was heading toward red.
He turned to the streetcar control panel and cranked up every car to full speed—a whopping ten miles per hour. The main power-generation gauge hardly noticed the increased demand.
“Fuck it.” He returned to the main board and flipped off the limiters that regulated how much power went to any given city utility then ran to the windows to see his city in fast motion. At forty miles per hour, two of the streetcars jumped their tracks as they missed their turns. Decatur Street lit up like a Christmas tree just before blowing out half of its streetlights.
“Damn it!” He raced back to the main board and reinstituted the limiters.
Like a madman, he hunted around the panels for something else to power up. “Yes!” Though the hurricane was long gone, the pump stations were still
online. Water was slowly being drained from the catch basins around the city. He cranked up the lumbering pumps to full capacity. So long as time remained at a standstill, there would be enough water in the system to prevent the old machinery from burning out.
He glanced back at his power supply. The building was still kicking out electricity like a runaway nuclear reactor, but the overall demand had slowed down the overheating of the storage units to something almost reasonable. “Hell won’t be exploding today.”
With the latest crisis averted, he turned back to the window. Late afternoon on a windless day wasn’t the worst time to be stuck in, but Kendell and her cohorts would once again be slipping away into the future. He’d been so close he could taste victory, and that had made him careless. He glared at his pocket watch with the gold cufflink wired to the battery. As the minute hand moved, he could practically see her escaping his grasp. “I might have lost my fishing pole, but the hook is still set, and I’m still holding the reel.”
He wasn’t about to contemplate failure, but he needed a new plan. Kendell had come too close to discovering his last resort. Blowing hell to pieces would make for an interesting afterlife, but he wasn’t ready to push the detonation button just yet.
A walk usually helped clear his head, especially after a near-death experience. He pushed the button for the elevator, expecting it to open immediately. When it didn’t, he backed up to check the location needle that pointed to the basement. “So you weren’t working alone, I see. I can’t imagine any of your bandmates or that dolt of a boyfriend would have the first idea of how to hotwire an elevator. With Luther stashed away, that doesn’t leave many people who might understand 1960s technology.”
He pulled out the sheet of paper he kept in his pocket for recording his observations. So far, he had Kendell, her four fellow band members, Sanguine, and Myles as the core gang. Of their secondary helpers, only the lanky dude they called the professor seemed in any way mechanically oriented, but he didn’t seem the type to risk his neck. Had Delphine been playing with her spells to free the elevator, she’d have encountered one of his fire wraiths hiding in the ceiling of the lift. That left only the dark question mark. Someone understood the workings of the World Trade Center, probably had military training, based on his stealth, and was good with tools.
