Chapter 20
The stairwell door clanged shut behind us with the hollow finality of a prison gate. My ears rang in the sudden silence, every ragged breath echoing off concrete walls as we listened for pursuit.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and frowned at the no signal display. In fact, the damn thing looked like it was scrambled. Had I fallen on it? I held it up for Angel to see the screen. “Broken?” I whispered.
He shook his head. “Just Veil shit.”
Angel kept his Glock trained on the door while backing us down the nearest flight of stairs. Emergency lights flickered overhead as if the electricity couldn’t quite keep running. We tiptoed down, trying to keep the sound from reverberating and alerting whatever the fuck that was to our presence.
We descended three levels, pausing at each door. One to the building, which wouldn’t budge and the other to the parking garage, which also wouldn’t open. Was the only way out through the beast awaiting us above?
The faint sound of voices echoed through the stairwell. Angel and I froze, though he had his weapon down, held in a two-handed grip for caution.
“Take my Taser,” Angel hissed.
“That sounds like people. I’m not going to Tase regular people.”
“Lots of things sound like people,” Angel whispered. “Doesn’t mean they won’t eat us.”
“Kinky.”
“Only you’d think so,” Angel sighed.
“Hello?” I called. “Someone there?” Angel huffed beside me, as if resigned to my inevitable death wish.
“Hello?” someone called back, voice muffled. “Is someone there?”
“SED agents,” I called down.
“Please help! We can’t get out.”
“Sounds like people to me,” I grumbled to Angel, then, “We’re coming,” I shouted as I raced down the stairs.
Angel cursed behind me but followed.
We skidded to a stop at the bottom landing after a half dozen more flights.
The emergency lights cast strobe-like flashes over the scene.
The fire door to the garage bent inward, as if Hulk himself had smashed a fist in the center, wedging the door closed but bowing the center in our direction.
The warped gap gave us a glimpse of a panicked woman’s face and the little girl she held.
“Fuck,” I cursed and ran to the door, grabbing the edge of the bowed section as if I could somehow strong-arm the thing open.
Angel holstered his Glock and wedged his fingers into the gap. We both yanked for a half second, the sound of the metal screaming, but it only moved a few centimeters.
“Help!” The woman begged. “Take my daughter, please. Get her out.”
But there wasn’t enough room for the toddler to fit through.
A man crouched in front of them, facing the open parking garage, as if somehow he could protect them from whatever came from out there.
I couldn’t see past them, as the lights behind us cast them in shadow.
Nothing beyond flickered, but I heard the faint thudding of footsteps, much like we’d experienced above.
Shit. Was one of those giant beasts down here too, or was it the same one?
I yanked out my utility knife and dug it into a part of the doorframe where the metal appeared wedged, trying to make a lever. “You pull while I try to unhook this part,” I told Angel.
“On three,” Angel growled as he curled his fingers around the bent edge. “One.”
I forced the knife deeper between the crack, wiggling it into the tiny space between the doorframe and the metal door, getting it lodged a good inch deep. The damn thing would either help unstick the door or break trying.
“Two,” Angel said as the little girl whimpered, her mother shushing her as the man kept a lookout.
“Three,” Angel added, his muscles straining as I used my entire body weight on the knife.
The metal screamed, a sound that made the family on the other side gasp in fear, but the door groaned, opening awkwardly inward as if it weren’t meant to move that way at all.
I tucked the knife away and grabbed onto the edge with Angel, the two of us pulling together, though my strength wasn’t nearly a tenth of his. Something roared in the distance, sounding more like a T. rex than anything I recognized from nature.
“Holy fuck,” I muttered, dripping sweat as Angel and I pulled again, the door scraping metal on concrete and opening a narrow space.
“One more time,” Angel said as the sound of something stomping our way sped up.
“Holy fuck,” I cursed again and pulled with everything I had. The man and woman on the other side pushed, adding to the leverage, and the door flew open, sending both Angel and me reeling back a few feet and jamming itself against the wall.
The trio rushed through the door.
“Anyone hurt?” I asked, glancing over them in the dim light.
The man appeared to be bleeding from a head wound, but both the young woman and the child seemed to be dusty and uninjured.
The woman clutched her daughter to her chest, both of them trembling.
The man pressed a bloody cloth to his forehead, trying to stem the cut.
“Let’s get everyone clear, and then we can look them over,” Angel said, ushering us all toward the stairs up.
Since we were on the bottom level, I wasn’t certain where else we would go, but another roar raged, sounding closer, the ground shaking with every step.
Angel grabbed my arm, putting himself behind me as we took up the rear, racing to the stairs.
We made it three steps when the door behind us exploded inward with the front end of a sedan hurtling through the opening like a missile.
Time slowed as my gut flipped over in terror.
I activated the shield rune in half a heartbeat, hoping to cover Angel too, as metal screeched, sparks flying from the car forced through an opening too small for it.
Angel cried out from his half-step behind me, and for a moment I feared the car had hit him.
But the sedan crumpled against my shield, the force driving us both backward to fall on our asses on the bottom steps.
My bones vibrated with the impact, and I clung to the shield, praying for once my magic didn’t fail us.
The car wedged itself half in the doorway, part of it melted against my shield like some sort of movie magic, crumpling it to molten metal.
At least the damn thing stopped moving, though something grabbed the car from the other side of the doorway and tugged on it, trying to drag it free.
Angel curled himself around me as if he’d planned to take the brunt of the hit, but the shield glowed silver behind him, a visible barrier, at least to me.
Then I smelled burning flesh.
Angel gritted his teeth and gripped my hand hard enough to hurt. I blinked past the flickering lights to see the rune I’d traced on the back of his hand smoldering, skin black underneath his ruined glove.
“Fuck, Angel!” I cried, ripping my hand out of his. The shield vanished. Had I done that? “I’m so sorry.”
“Not the time,” Angel said, leaping to his feet.
An instant later, the car was yanked backward with a wailing scream out of the hole, pieces wedging into the door and pulling off as it vanished back through the opening.
Angel tugged me to my feet and shoved me in front of him.
We both flew up the stairs, scrambling after the fleeing trio as a giant eye filled the doorway.
“Move!” Angel barked.
We all bolted, the trio in front of me, Angel half a step behind.
Our footfalls echoed like drumbeats, pounding in beat with my racing heart. We took the stairs two at a time, the creature’s roar shaking the entire structure. The little girl’s sneaker squeaked on a step ahead of us, her mother dragging her upward by one arm.
The next two levels flickered with hazy lights and hung with smoky shadows that made me push the group to keep moving.
How many floors had we gone down the first time?
I couldn’t remember anymore, as they all looked the same.
The third, absent any of that strange magical smoke, made me pause.
The Level 3 door stood slightly ajar, daylight bleeding through the crack. Normal, beautiful, boring daylight.
“Wait,” I called. The trio stopped. “This level is free of magic,” I told Angel, wincing at his burned hand and how he cradled it in his uninjured one. “Maybe we can get out here?” I tiptoed to the fire door, but Angel slipped in front of me, gazing through the crack in the door.
“I think I see regular daylight,” Angel said. He opened the door, careful to ease it gently to mute any noise, and peered out.
My heart hammered with fear the entire time he stood there.
“Looks clear,” Angel said after what felt like an hour but was probably only a few seconds.
He quietly opened the door, even as the entire stairwell shook from the rage of the monster below.
“Let’s see if we can get a signal and reach someone for an extraction.
” His gaze fell on me and darted away. “You take the rear. Close the door behind you. I’ll take the front.
” He looked at the family. “Keep close and quiet. We’ll get you out. ”
“Thank you,” the woman whispered.
Angel led the way, carefully picking his path across the parking garage, weaving around pillars and cars, pausing every few yards to listen for further movement. It wasn’t until we had crossed the eerie, fogged center ramps going up and down that my headset buzzed with static.
“Anyone read us?” I called quietly, hoping for a hit. Nothing.
“Might be too far from the team,” Angel whispered. “Switch channels and try again as we move toward the open end.”
I nodded, flipping through to listen for any chatter beyond the static as we hustled toward the opening, blue sky beyond feeling like nirvana.
Halfway across, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
A text, which meant I had a signal. I yanked my phone out and stared at a texted image of Peanut Butter from Ivan. We were back in the human realm and close enough for a signal.
Thank fuck.