38. TALIESIN #2
“What next?” whispers Rory.
De Vaux tilts his head forward, his posture resetting into its usual elegant alignment. “Next? We travel to the absolute depths of this hellish hole once again. To solitary.”
???
The air heats with every foot we descend. The smell of mold and sweat permeates the walls.
Deep down in this basement is where Quo keeps the ones who need to be broken, or those who are already too broken to release upon the population—as I imagine this London guy is.
Will he be violent? A danger to Rory?
I won’t let him hurt her.
But what will we find?
Five, six weeks in the hole? Shit, the guy is probably fully bugged-out.
My heart rate calms as we get further toward solitary, but I’m still twitchy.
Francois's magic doesn’t account for things like cameras, and unseen trouble.
We’re approaching the solitary confinement corridor when I hear a rhythmic swish.
I grab Francois by the shoulder. “Stop!”
He stiffens, looking at my hand as if I’ve wiped shit on him. “Do not touch me, Wolf. I have the situation entirely under control.”
“Shut your stupid mouth,” I hiss, aggressively pulling him and Rory back into a recessed doorway.
“Hear that? It’s a floor polisher, which means Spigot is working the block.
The guy is deaf as a fucking post. Try whispering your little magic spells to a man who can’t hear you, and he’ll hit a wall alarm before you can even blink your hypno eyes. ”
Before Francois can open his mouth to argue, Spigot rounds the corner, pushing his heavy industrial buffer. We slam ourselves deep into the alcove shadows. I grunt softly, hoisting Imran’s skeletal frame higher on my shoulders.
The custodian hums tunelessly, moving away from us.
“This way,” I hiss, leading our group in the opposite direction the second the buffer blocks the sound of our feet.
We round a sharp corner.
Straight into another guard.
“Bevan?” She looks up at me, her chest heaving with surprise. “What the fuck is going on?” She has a thick, unmistakable Ashgrave accent.
Francois’s fingers instantly twitch, his knuckles flaring with that sickly green aura, but I throw my arm out to block him. “Wait. Who the hell are you?”
“That’s Officer Peek,” Aurora whispers, stepping up beside me.
Peek gives a tight, nervous nod, her eyes darting down the dark corridor. “Bea sends her regards.”
What?
“How do you know that name?” I demand.
“She wanted someone from the Unbound in here. Just to observe though. I’m not supposed to interfere.” Her eyes move to Rory, saddening with a flash of guilt. “I’m sorry about what happened to you.”
This is a hell of a lot to take in. Can we actually trust a guard, Unbound or not? I step closer into her personal space. “Give me your connection code.”
Anyone tied up with the Unbound Resistance has a fourteen-digit number memorized. She recites her digits. It all seems legit.
Fuck it.
“We have a way out, Peek,” I tell her. “Can you help us?”
“What the fuck? You’re insane. You know you can’t cross the Null-wards,” Peek shakes her head, looking legit concerned.
“Let us worry about the wards,” Rory replies. “For now, we need to get London out of solitary.”
Peek breathes out a long, slow sigh, closes her eyes for a second, then opens them.
“Sounds fucking stupid to me, but it’s on your heads.
You can take my pass to get into solitary, and your best bet after that is the old infirmary annex.
The automated sensors over there are malfunctioning.
You can walk right through the side exit door into the courtyard without a single alarm triggering.
But you’ll have to knock me out first so the Warden doesn’t string me up. ”
“My absolute pleasure,” Francois growls, stepping forward with a glint in his eye.
“Wait, I’ll do it,” I hiss, stopping his advance with a heavy elbow to his ribs. I look at Peek. “How hard do you want it?”
Peek stares directly into my face. “Middle of the road, Bevan. Enough to show a convincing bruise for the Warden, but I’d highly prefer to keep my teeth inside my head, if it’s all the same to you.”
“I could simply induce a localized coma,” Francois suggests, his voice dripping with helpful condescension. “It is remarkably efficient, entirely painless, and requires zero physical exertion on my part.”
Her eyes widen. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t want no magic voodoo shit,” she snaps, pointing a rigid finger at his chest.
“One of you just do it,” Aurora mutters, her eyes darting toward the corridor behind us. “None of us are getting any younger.”
As Peek grimaces, I plant my feet and throw a short, perfectly controlled hook, managing to keep Imran securely balanced on my back. She hits the floor with a satisfying, limp thud.
Francois stares down at her unconscious form, his lip curling in disgust as he looks at my reddening knuckles. “I suppose I should be impressed you didn’t use a club like a complete Neanderthal.”
Aurora gives him a deserved eye roll, as I put Peek’s keycard in my pocket. “Let’s move, isolation is down here, next door on the right.”
We move through the final security door and I instantly feel the hum of the Null-magic getting stronger.
The wards are vibrating in my teeth—a high-frequency pressure that makes my stomach do a slow, nauseating roll.
Francois doesn’t seem to care; he just glides through the suppression field like he’s walking through a summer breeze.
“Voilà. Qui cherche, trouve.”
“Seek and you shall find,” I mutter.
But just who are we going to find?
The dead-end landing has three doors off it, each with a narrow slot for food to be delivered. There are no windows. Just the gloom of the amber safety lights.
“Coming to play, are we?”
A creepy, sing-song voice rasps from behind the metal of the middle door. It’s dry, cracked, and far too cheerful for a man in a hole. “That soft-shoe shuffle makes me think this is going to be fun!”
My hand goes to my shiv. Francois stills beside me, his eyes narrowing.
“Now let’s see,” the voice giggles. “From the sound of your footsteps, we’ve got a clodhopper, a secret shadow, and then, wait…”
For three beats, the only sound is the heavy thrum of the wards.
“Oh! Fe, fi, fo, fum… I smell the blood of… Kitten?”
“London!” Rory pushes forward, pulling out of my grasp. “Get the door unlocked, assholes.”
Juggling Imran, I shove past her, putting myself between her and the door as Frank swipes the card.
The lock clicks open.
Inside, a wild-looking creature stands on one leg, effortlessly juggling bundles of torn and knotted orange cloth. He blinks at the light, grimaces, then catches all five fabric balls with one hand.
Rory elbows past me and runs in to hug the strange dude. His head tilts back and he lets out a joyful chuckle. “Wow, Kitten. Let me look atcha!”
I put an arm out to drag Aurora back.
This man is a loose cannon, and I’ve seen enough of those explode in Ashgrave to know the blast radius. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I see bright green, feral eyes scowling at me.
A low, rumbling growl starts in his chest—a sound more animal than human.
Rory doesn’t flinch; she just strokes his shoulder. “It’s OK, London, they’re with me. But we have to get going. We’re breaking out—sound good?”
He pauses, considering. “Well, I don’t have any engagements planned. So guess what, Kitten? I’ll join you to tiptoe through the tulips!”
He grabs Aurora by the waist and whirls her, with manic energy, in a dizzying circle. “So, what grand adventure do you have for me, darling?”
Francois’s hand snaps out, his fingers clamping around London’s wrist. I see the flicker of cold power in de Vaux’s gaze. “Put her down.”
London stops and turns, staring at the Frenchman with an intensity that borders on clinical. “Mate! You’ve got a touch of the old yikes about you.” He cocks his head. “Dunno what, but bloody interesting. I’m going to call you Shivery Shane.”
Francois lets go, his eyes narrowing at Aurora. “This is the man you insisted would be of assistance, ma petite? Perhaps it would be better if he were left in his confinement.”
“London is with us,” Aurora says firmly, though she looks a bit dizzy. “I want him on the team.”
“Aww, Kitten.”
“Then let us conclude this farce,” Francois scoffs, already turning toward the exit. “We have a schedule to keep.”
Yeah, one problem at a time.
The most pressing of which is getting the fuck out of here.
London waves at me. “Hello, Burly Bert. Did you know your backpack is a boy?”
Fucking idiot.
We move back toward the main corridor. I’m breathing hard now, the exertion of carrying Imran and the remnants of Francois’s toxin in my blood making my vision swim. Imran’s head is lolling on my shoulder, his breathing coming in shallow, terrifying hitches.
But nothing stops us.
We’re getting close to the wards now. Their magic tang brings bile to my throat.
"Stop," Francois hisses, raising a hand.
Rory nearly walks into my back, her breath hitching. London is humming something that sounds like a funeral march.
A red light begins to pulse from the ceiling panels—not the siren, but a silent alarm. Then I hear the distant, heavy thud-thud-thud of a Rapid Response Team hitting the floor above us.
“They know,” I growl, pulling my shiv and backing into the wall, shielding Imran with my own body. “We’re going to get fucking trapped down here.”