“Anyone go in or out?” I asked as we approached.
“Just Susanna,” Angus said. “She went inside to make sure we’d be alone. Sato went with her.”
“Where’s Merrow?”
Angus pointed back toward the market. “Talking on her widget last time I saw her. She’d better get here soon or we’re going in without her.”
“Hey,” Mason nudged me. “I’m glad you brought your sword.”
“I felt naked without it.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I couldn’t help but picture myself naked. With Mason. The startled look on his face made me wonder if the same idea passed through his mind too.
“I mean, I just couldn’t leave it.”
Cue the awkward silence.
“I’m going to walk the perimeter,” Angus mumbled. “I’ll take the dervish.”
“I stays with Kyra-lady!” Jacoby protested, but Angus grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him away.
“Not too subtle, is he?” I said.
Mason tugged me deeper into the shadows of an old oak tree until my back pressed against the rough bark.
He kissed me, hard—hands gripping my hips as if he was afraid to let them go. After a moment, he stopped and pulled me into a hug. I reveled in the feel of his hard body pressed against mine from head all the way down to thighs. My nose found the hollow under his chin, and I breathed him in.
His breath tickled my ear, and he said, “I’ve been wanting to do that all day. While I was stone, I had time to think about what you said. And when this is over…”
I pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t jinx it.”
“Right.” He kissed my finger, and I slipped it inside his mouth. The heat of his tongue on the sensitive pad of my finger almost undid me.
“If you schoolchildren are finished necking in the woods, can we get on with this?” Merrow’s voice was sharp and pitched so it didn’t carry.
Mason grinned. “Yes, ma’am. We’re coming.”
I fought down the urge to giggle.
Mason stole one last kiss. “I still wish you hadn’t put your sword into stasis. Never know when you’re going to need that kind of power.”
“It’s sharp enough to cut off heads. That will have to do.”
“Do you at least have your null bracelet?”
I patted my pocket. I wouldn’t put it on unless I had to. It protected me from magic overload, but it also stopped me from using my magic. I didn’t know what we were walking into, and I wanted to be ready for anything.
“I just want you to be safe.” Mason’s arm closed around me again, and he whispered into my ear. “I wish you were far away from this mess.”
I pushed him back so I could look him in the eye. “Well, I’d rather be here with you.”
He nodded and we emerged from the shadows to face Merrow and Sato. Angus returned with Jacoby, who seemed overly excited.
“He’s jumping at every leaf blown by the wind.” Angus scratched his beard and considered the dervish. “You sure it’s a good idea to bring him?”
“We need Errol to get inside, and Jacoby to get him out fast. As soon as the security is broken, he’s out of there. I’ll make sure.”
Angus nodded. “Well, I’ll be waiting right over there for him.” He headed to the old oak, and within a moment, his brambly hair and beard camouflaged him against the tree.
The door to Penfield building opened and Susanna poked her head out.
“Come on!” She beckoned, but Merrow made us pause.
“I want to be clear. Sato and I are here as witnesses only.”
“We got it,” Mason said, not hiding his derision. “You won’t get your hands bloody, but won’t stop us from bloodying ours.”
Merrow pursed her lips like she would argue, but then nodded.
“Come on!” Susanna hissed again. Her eyes darted up and down the lane that ran around the building. Terra had long ago reclaimed the running track and football field behind the old gymnasium. They were now nothing but weeds. But the market filled the front acreage of the campus, and unwanted witnesses could come from that way at any time.
“I told Hakim that I was giving you a demonstration in my lab. It’s not unusual, even in the evening, so we’re clear.” Susanna held the door open and we all filed in.
“Not good enough,” Merrow said. She strode forward to face the guard who sat behind his small desk and tapped him on the head.
“Hey!” he said before his eyes rolled to white and his head lolled against the wall.
“What did you do?” Susanna touched Hakim’s cheek, but he didn’t wake.
“Just a sleep spell.” Merrow said. “He’ll wake in a few hours feeling refreshed but not remembering us at all.” I marveled at this level of accuracy in Merrow’s spell casting.
“We just need to do something about these cameras.” Merrow continued. “There can be no record that we were here.”
“Errol, can you disable the cameras from here?”
The bodach grumbled.
“He said no, but he’ll scramble the signal so all they’ll get is static,” I said. The lights flickered as Errol pushed out his magic.
Sato turned to me with a frown. “You understood him?”
“Sort of. Not his words. It’s more like he can speak right into my head.”
“Interesting.”
I didn’t like the way Sato studied my bodach, and I decided to keep an eye on him.
“I want to see your lab first,” Merrow said. “You have more of those bloodstone abominations?”
“Yes. This way.” Susanna led us to the stairwell and down one floor to her basement lab. “I locked them away after you told me what they really are.” She glanced at me, smiling shyly as if I could forgive her crimes. I was thinking about it. I wanted to believe that Susanna’s crimes were due to ignorance.
She opened a cabinet with a key and took out a glass jar filled with the black stones.
“So many!” Merrow hissed.
“Gerard was pleased with my progress to, you know, make the gargoyles,” Susanna said, “and he insisted these would take my work to the next level. I don’t know where he got them from. Or even if he knows what they are.”
“He knows.” Mason’s tone was flat and hard. He stood by the blazing alembic and turned in a slow circle to take in the whole lab with the shelf full of terra cotta gargoyles.
“You stupid, arrogant…” He cut off his words but his eyes flashed. “You have no idea what kind of power you’re playing with.”
Susanna smiled mildly. “But I guess you do. Rumor says you made a few gargoyles in your time. That stink of arrogance you smell is coming off of yourself. If you think that no one can replicate your design…”
“Can and should are different concepts. Look them up.” Mason’s hands tightened on the edge of the table, and I thought he was ready to break something.
“Whatever.” Susanna looked shaken but she wasn’t backing down. “Maybe those beads are what you say they are, but that doesn’t mean my research is a total wash. When this is done, I’ll find another way to create life.”
Mason spoke through a clenched jaw. “When this is over, I’m going to dismantle your lab and get you barred from ever practicing alchemy again.”
Even in the dim light, I could see all the color drain from Susanna’s face. Time to take things down a notch.
“Let’s just see Gerard’s lab and get out of here,” I said. We moved off down the hall and I grabbed Mason’s arm, holding him back.
“What the hell are you doing? We need her!”
“She’s making gargoyles,” he hissed.
“You knew that already.”
“I didn’t really believe it, but when I saw her set up…she could actually pull it off. I won’t let that happen.” His expression was grim.
“I agree. But let’s play nice until we get the evidence against Gerard. I don’t want to spook her.”
“Fine.”
We stopped outside the small lab that I’d seen on my first visit.
“You told me this is only a front, that Gerard’s real lab was somewhere else,” I said.
“It is. But we go through here.” Susanna led us through the pristine workspace that Gerard used to greet officials to a door at the far end. She unlocked it with a key from her belt, and it opened inward to darkness. The smell of damp earth rose from the opening. She flicked on a switch and revealed stairs leading downward.
We followed again. The walls were rough cement pocked with holes. The wooden stairs creaked as we descended to another hallway. Jacoby clung to my pant leg as we stood at the bottom of the staircase, staring into the gloom.
Susanna flicked another switch and a bare bulb lit the tunnel.
“This leads to one of the old dormitories,” she said.
“Are there more of these?” I asked, fascinated. Why had I never heard of these tunnels?
Susanna shook her head. “There used to be tunnels under all the buildings. Students used them to get to class during the winter so they wouldn’t have to go out in the snow. And for other after-hours pursuits. They called it booty-call lane.” She smiled.
“When the sports complex was built, they destroyed most of the tunnel system. This is the only one left. There was an exit that came out near the old arena that way.” She pointed to the left. “But the outside door is rusted shut. We’re going that way.” She pointed down the longer hall to the right. “To Stewart Hall.”
“But that’s all boarded up. There’s nothing there,” I said.
“Is that right?” Susanna turned and headed down the tunnel.
Stewart Hall was a crumbling old building at the east end of the market. Not even squatters lived there anymore, not since the stories of ghost spiders started circulating. Apparently, the spiders were as big as cats, but only those with an affinity for magic could see them. I’d checked it out some years ago and found nothing. The alchemists bought the building and said they would restore it, but then left it boarded up and vacant. At the time, I’d wondered if the stories were a setup to keep people away from Stewart Hall.
The tunnel cut straight through to another door at the far end. This one looked serviceable, with a rusted railing and six steps of broken concrete leading up to it, but we turned off before that, down another short tunnel that led to more doors. These were once painted blue and now were crisscrossed with scars of rust and locked with a padlock.
“This is as far as I can take you. I don’t have a key,” Susanna said, pointing to the lock. “And on the other side, there is another door with a security pad. You’ll have to get through it somehow.”
“We’ll manage,” I said. “Thank you for this.” Susanna smiled and backed away, but didn’t leave. I turned to Mason.
“Can you break the lock?”
He nodded. I felt the shift in his magic as he turned one fisted hand to stone. Then he bashed the lock. Its rusted hasp gave way. The door swung open on silent hinges. On the other side, the tunnel changed dramatically. Gone were the pockmarked cement walls with streaks of rust and water damage. The floor and walls gleamed white under a track of bright overhead lights that ran all the way to another set of doors about twenty meters in.
These had no apparent handle or locking mechanism. To the left of the doors was a keypad and scanner.
“Errol, can you disable this?” I asked.
“And the camera.” Mason pointed to an opaque window above the door.
“Right. The camera too.”
Jacoby stepped forward. Errol stood on the bear’s head and stretched towards the digital panel. He wasn’t quite tall enough to reach, but he didn’t need to touch it. He pointed his walking twig, and I keened the magic zap from its end. The panel went dark.
“Mfglbt.”
I got an image of a computer recording device in my head.
“I think he says that he needs to disable the camera from inside.”
The doors hadn’t opened. I looked to Mason, who shrugged and took a heavy knife from his belt to pry the doors open. He worked at it for several minutes until a crack appeared. I waited for an alarm to sound, but apparently Errol had done his job.
Merrow and Sato hung back. She signaled to me.
“I will hide us with glamor now.” She moved closer to Sato. “Remember, we are here only to observe. If you find trouble on the other side of those doors, we can’t help you.”
Won’t help us, I thought but only nodded. Susanna hadn’t taken off yet, and she watched from a short distance away as Mason worked at the doors. When he pried them open a bit, we each grabbed one side and dragged the panels wide. Jacoby helped on my side, then ducked through before I could stop him.
We stepped into an underground lab filled with high-tech alchemy machines. Another kind of blazing alembic filled the center of the room. Instead of a globe, wires were attached to a tall glass tube, big enough to hold a human. In the corners stood several dead-eyed golems. Like the others, they looked only vaguely humanoid.
Even if I couldn’t see Merrow beneath her glamor, I could always sense her. I turned to face her. “Do you see those? That’s the GenPort logo on their foreheads. What more evidence do you need?”
Merrow refused to break cover and remained silent.
Mason frowned as he examined the blazing alembic. “This is very similar to how we made gargoyles, back in the day.”
I moved closer to examine one of the creatures. Its blank face only hinted at features. Shadows hid the sightless indentations where eyes should be. Were these the empty shells waiting to be imbued with life? I reached out with my keening, and felt…
The golem’s head jerked up.
“Mason!” I screamed. Too late. Powerful arms shot out and grabbed my shoulders, lifting me inches off the ground. I fought, kicking out, but my feet hit the golem with little impact. It locked my arms against my sides, restricting my breath. I stopped struggling.
The room fell quiet. Golems restrained Mason, Jacoby and Susanna. Two more blocked the way out, and behind them a third, inner door slid shut. The golems stood unmoving as if now that they had caught the intruders, they were waiting for their next instructions.
“Jacoby! Get out now!” My yell was more of a wheeze as the golem squeezed the breath out of me.
Jacoby ported away but hit the wall. He tried again, rebounding off the far wall. Then he panicked, shrieking and bouncing around the room as he tried to port away and couldn’t.
“Stop!” I wheezed. The room was protected by a ward.
I shifted in the golem’s grasp as I found more air.
“Jacoby! Stop!” The dervish hit the wall one more time and fell to the ground, panting. Smoke rose from his ears.
Not good.
“It’s okay, come here.” I said in a soothing voice. Jacoby stared at the golem behind me with wide eyes. “Look at me.” I forced his gaze to mine. “That’s right. Just look right at me. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Right about then, the clapping started.
A tall, gaunt man stepped from the small room off the far end of the lab. If I’d expected anyone, it was Gerard Golovin, but I didn’t recognize this man. He had a wide mouth over a weak chin. Graying brown hair swooped back from his prominent forehead, and his dark eyes glittered with something between glee and insanity.
“Well, that was entertaining.” He continued to clap, encouraging an invisible audience. “Thank you for bringing me such wonderfully magic creatures.” He stepped over to Jacoby and smiled down at him.
“You’re welcome,” Susanna said. I gaped as the golem released her, and she stepped away. “I told you she’d come. She’s got a hero complex, you know
.” She turned to me and smiled her angelic smile. “This is for Joran.”
Chapter
26
Susanna sauntered over to the door, passing freely between the two golem guards before turning back to me. Her pretty, cherubic face took on a new, hard demeanor.
“You’re not the hero anymore, Kyra. It’s all about perspective. Gerard is a great man. He’s the hero in this story now.”
“Clearly being a hero isn’t something you’ve ever worried about.” I glared back. How could I have been so stupid to fall for her innocent girl act?
Susanna held a hand over her heart. “You crush me. I thought we were friends. No worries. We’re all five-by-five. See ya!”
She turned to leave, then stopped. “Oh, Pierre, there are two more of them lurking behind a glamor somewhere. Watch your back.” She pressed the panel beside the door. It slid open and then shut behind her.
Pierre! I glanced at Mason, still locked in the golem’s grip. His face was a portrait of fury. Pierre had conspired with his ex-wife to murder his child. Pierre had hunted him for years, and now he’d found him.
The room fell silent except for a clicking sound from the massive machine as Pierre fiddled with a dial.
Mason broke the silence. “Are you working for Gerard Golovin?” He pitched his voice low and deadly.
Pierre turned, his expression dark. “I don’t work for anyone. Golovin and I have an arrangement. I make him a few gargoyles,” he waved at the golems, “and he gets me this.”
He turned to the machine with the tall tube. For the first time, I noticed that a long wire connected it to a metal plate with a twelve-inch arm sticking straight up in the air. On the end of that was a clamp that pinched Mason’s bloodstone.
“It’s strange and annoying that I could make all those tiny bloodstones for Gerard, so he could create his ugly golems, but I never found the trick to breaking this one. It is truly an extraordinary thing.” He caressed the bloodstone like it was a precious gem.
“You’ll never break it,” Mason said. “I’ve tried a hundred different ways to destroy it, even knowing that I might set Polina free, but I couldn’t. And you’re only half the alchemist I am.”
Dervishes Don't Dance: A Paranormal Suspense Novel with a Touch of Romance (Valkyrie Bestiary Book 2) Page 22
