Part 20 (2/2)

”The hospital's all changed shape,” I said. I sounded bored and put-upon. I sounded b.i.t.c.hy. I didn't care. ”You're trapped. You can't get out.”

”And it's free,” David said. ”I can still feel it a little. It's so angry.”

”Just stay where you are,” I said. ”I'm in the hospital too. We're going down to put the rider back where it belongs.”

”You're here?”

”I'm here,” I said.

”Where?” he said. ”I think I'm on the fifth floor. Maybe the third. I don't know. But I can get to you. I can-”

”Stay where you are! Do you understand me? Don't move. Go find a chair and just sit in it!” I was shouting now. Screaming into the phone. I was losing it. I didn't care about that either.

The line was silent for three or four seconds. When David spoke again, he sounded like he'd stepped back a few feet.

”Right,” he said. ”Got it.”

I dropped the connection and stuffed my phone back into the pack. The others were looking at me. Ex and Aubrey seemed shocked. Chogyi Jake, sympathetic. Kim turned away and wouldn't meet my eyes. An inhumanly high-pitched scream came from somewhere behind us, like a bat being pressed to death, then stopped with a loud, electrical pop.

”We waiting for something?” I asked.

Kim swiped her card through the reader. The red glow turned green. We headed underground. Our footsteps echoed in the stairwell, and no one spoke. Each small, cramped flight brought us closer to the fallout shelter and the civil defense ward, and I walked down the steps like I was in a bad dream. I didn't want to go, but I was going. I'd always thought of horror as the thing from the movies, the scary monster that jumps out from dark corners. I'd been wrong. Horror is doing something terrible because you have to. Killing your best friend, for instance. I kept walking, kept pressing myself forward. If I stopped, I didn't think I'd be able to start again. I couldn't stand to look back at Chogyi Jake-his graceful walk, the smile that always waited just at the edge of his mouth, the glitter of joy and amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes. Even now, they were there. Muted, maybe. Dimmed. The idea that I would lose him here, tonight, was literally inconceivable; my mind kept skittering off it, defeated. He was so alive, so sure of himself. We'd go home after this, back to the condo, and he'd make green tea, the way he always had. He'd gently call me on my bulls.h.i.+t. I couldn't imagine any other outcome.

Breaking up with Aubrey had been easy compared to this. It had been right. I'd been prepared, sure of myself, and in control. And anyway, he was just going back to his ex-wife. I was letting Aubrey go. He wasn't dying.

I was going to kill Chogyi Jake.

Or maybe it wouldn't work; maybe we'd get lucky and the coffin would have been blown to slivers. Maybe the ground itself would refuse to take the rider again. Chogyi Jake would be spared, and then . . .

And then.

When we reached the end of the last flight, I looked out the door. I'd expected it to be like places we'd been before, all storage and ducts and laundry services, but the subbas.e.m.e.nt looked a lot like the upper floors. Hallways twisted in nearly organic curves, the walls studded with signs directing us to Medical Records, Nuclear Medicine, Oncology, Pathology, or Facilities Management. The closed doors wore warnings against radiation and biohazards and intrusion by unauthorized personnel, along with the occasional taped-up Dilbert cartoon. Everything told us where we should go and where not to, the architecture itself pus.h.i.+ng us like cattle in a slaughterhouse run. Just by looking, I couldn't tell if the magic affecting the rest of the building had warped the nature of the s.p.a.ces here, or if they'd always been like this.

”We should be okay,” Kim said. ”There aren't any patient care units down here. They try to keep the beds up where there's some sunlight.”

I nodded. Ex set off down one corridor as if he knew where he was going. I followed. I didn't notice particularly that Chogyi Jake had come to walk at my side. I didn't know how he could radiate calm, but he did. I looked over at him, then away. I heard him take in a long, slow breath and then let it out. In anyone else, it would have been a sigh. From him, it was just an invitation to breathe with him. I found myself walking in step, our feet swinging in the same arcs, our arms s.h.i.+fting like we were twins. And some part of the peace he carried with him began to seep through my anguish and despair. I wanted to reach out, put my arm around him, rest my head on his shoulder, and beg him not to do this thing. I didn't. I just tried to enjoy the walking.

I was so involved in myself, I didn't see the trap until we were in it.

The waiting area outside Nuclear Medicine looked like it had been lifted out of an airport. Rows of plastic-upholstered seats joined together at the hips stared at a dead television screen. An intake desk lurked behind a set of vertical security bars, rolled down for the night like it was a street-front shop in the bad part of town. Everything smelled like carpet shampoo. Just beyond, a set of double doors in fake blond wood paneling warned that people with pacemakers should remain outside. Ex was walking in the front of the group, and so he was the first to stop when the door swung open.

Five men came out toward us. Two wore the scrubs and lanyard ID cards of nurses, two had the cop-reminiscent uniforms of security guards, and one-a huge man with full-body tattoos, a shaved head, and easily a dozen st.i.tches in his scalp-was in the breezy gown of a patient. Their eyes glowed cold blue-white, their clothing and hair floated. In the waiting room, the television stuttered and came on, the images a sickening montage that I'd seen before. Slaughter and brutality and the joy of the killing mob. The walls had changed. Instead of the carefully soothing paint and bright posters, they were bare concrete, stained by water and blood and time.

”Did you think I wouldn't find you?” all five men asked at once. ”Did you think you could hide? I've got you in my guts.”

I looked back over my shoulder. If we could run . . . Six other people-four men and two women-were behind us. Their eyes glowed too. One of the security guards drew his pistol.

”You are in one flesh, slave girl. I have come to take it from you and eat what comes out: you and her and all the others you travel with.” The voice was a chorus, but among the various voices, there was something else. Something more. The sweet, silky voice of the man from my dream with his hat and his old-fas.h.i.+oned suit. His voice grew out of all the others put together, and the effect made my skin crawl.

The little pocket of paper against my skin flared painfully, and I saw the others-Chogyi Jake, Ex, Aubrey, Kim-flinch at the same moment I did. The glowing-eyed mob grunted in frustration, and the guard raised his gun. Years of action flicks had trained me to expect a deep, authoritative boom, but the report was small and dry as a firecracker. I heard the bullet hiss past me, but I was already in motion, my body sprinting forward with a scream that tore the air. The other guard drew his own gun, and the three unarmed men moved toward me like blockers on a football field. Someone behind me screamed, but I couldn't look back. Another pistol report came, and I rolled my weight, twisting my body and pus.h.i.+ng my fist and qi together into one of the nurses' chests. I felt his ribs give way, but the other two were on me, their weight dragging me down.

The last time, when the rider had still been trapped, the mob had been made from men and women. Rage-crazed, yes, but only normal people. Now I felt the power of the rider surging through the hands of its tools, burning cold and implacable as hate. I was on my knees, arms twisted back and locked. If I tried to rise up, my elbows would break. Behind me, Kim screamed, and Chogyi Jake moaned. The two security guards stepped close, the paired pistols aiming at my head. I pressed out my qi in a scream. I might as well have kept silent.

Something loud happened, and for half a second I thought they'd shot me. The guard standing to my left crumpled, black blood spilling down his legs, and his eyes flickering white to blue to black. The guard standing to my right whirled just as the explosion came again. He went down in a heap. A new voice rang out in the hallway, familiar and unexpected and obvious.

”I've got enough ammunition to take down every one you put up, y'b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” David Souder yelled. ”I don't want to, but push me and you know I will.” He racked another round in his shotgun and stepped forward. Resting the barrel on the shoulder of the shaved-headed patient who had my right arm in a lock.

”You let them go or I will,” he said.

The room was silent. David's eyes were bright and gla.s.sy and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with a fear that I recognized. He didn't know whether he was bluffing either. I took two deep, fast breaths, gathering my will into a ball of invisible power, and pressed it out through my right hand. I could feel the rider inside the patient's flesh, a cold pressure pus.h.i.+ng back at me.

”Kill them, then,” the mob said at once, and each of them smiled. David's face went pale.

”Let go,” I said, and the man holding me shuddered. The eerie glow went out of his eyes and he dropped my hand, stumbling back.

”What the h.e.l.l, man,” he said, his hands out toward David's shotgun as if his fingers would stop the round. ”What the h.e.l.l?”

I felt a short rush of pleasure. I could still break the rider's hold on these people the way I had with Kim that first time. I could take back what it had stolen. It wasn't strong enough to keep them. Not yet.

The television screamed in frustration, then popped, scattering sparks like a firework. The pressure on my other arm faltered, and I pulled myself free. Three men lay at my feet. The two security guards; one bleeding badly from the side, the other curled up in a fetal ball in a spreading pool of blood. The nurse I'd punched was fighting hard to draw breath, a white foam at the corner of his mouth. Their eyes were human. Their pain was human. When I looked back over my shoulder, the glow had gone from the back rank of the mob too. And the walls were painted again. The rider's influence had been withdrawn. Kim had blood on her mouth. Chogyi Jake was on his hands and knees, standing up slowly. The woman who'd been kicking him stepped forward to help him up.

”We need to get these three to the ER,” I said. ”Ex, can you-”

”Jayne,” Aubrey said. ”We have to go.”

I pointed to the fallen security guards.

”They've been shotgunned,” I yelled. ”They could die!”

”They could,” Ex said, coming toward me. ”But we have someplace we need to be, and the rider's getting reinforcements.”

I looked around, a sense of powerlessness was.h.i.+ng through me. Chogyi Jake looked stunned, Ex grim. Aubrey and Kim stood with their backs together, unconsciously preparing for another wave of attacks. I turned to the shaved-headed man, pointing a finger at his chest.

”You,” I said. ”Get them help. You understand? You get them help, or I will track you down and finish the job!”

”Yeah, all right, lady,” the man said. He had a low growl of a voice, a bear that had been punched in the throat too many times. ”Whatever you say.”

I turned to David.

”You just can't follow simple directions, can you?” I said.

”Apparently not,” he said. His voice was shaky, his face pale. Chances were good he'd just killed two men. The first time I'd seen anyone killed, I couldn't stop vomiting. He was holding together better than that, at least.

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