Chapter 20 #2
The cameras, though, were not so distractible, and I kept my head down as I scanned for a chair. “There,” I said in relief, and Lev waited by the wall when I went to get it.
“I’m not riding in a wheelchair,” Cameron protested when I returned with it, the woman white-faced as she gripped Lev’s arm. “I can walk.”
“Pretend you need it.” He almost pushed her into it. “It will help us get out of here,” he said as she glared up at him.
Her gaze went to her feet, and finally she relented. “You are such a bullshitter,” she grumbled, and Lev took control of the handles. The wheels had never been locked, and with the slow, steady pace of an orderly paid by the hour, he angled the chair to the huge revolving door.
Pluck dove for his new amulet when the setting sun hit me, and I tucked myself in behind Lev, shuffling in the revolving door’s half circle…
…until we were outside.
I almost ran into Lev when he made a quick right.
People lined the drop-off zone and a man with a bullhorn shouted garbled instructions, mostly ignored.
The scent of broken rock, oil, and gas was thick.
Dust billowed from the rubble to haze the sun, and a few car alarms continued to sound.
A flashlight-lit triage had formed on the lawn, and my relief twined with Pluck’s when I realized it was only minor scrapes and bruises.
There was no line of covered bodies, and I stifled a memory of the disaster at the auditorium.
“Everyone with a patient wristband needs to be inside,” the man insisted, ignored. “There’s no evacuation at this time, but we are asking visitors to leave and for arriving off-duty employees to report to their managers for instructions.”
“We’re all the way in C lot,” Lev said, frustrated at the people in his way. “Petra’s luck strikes again. The car ahead of me got the last spot in the parking structure.”
Cameron managed a smile, but I failed to see the upside. A hundred and fifty people had thought themselves lucky for having snagged a spot so close, and now their cars were totaled.
My skin prickled at the pool of dross now flooding the nearby parking lot.
Tires were already beginning to rot as the freed potential energy began to break on everything.
A veritable whirlpool of it spun like a shining galaxy over the drain, and I winced at the coming damage to St. Unoc’s infrastructure on the way to the desert.
Behind us was a growing knot of angry people. I reached for Herm’s burner phone, quickly texting both Benedict and Herm that we were okay, that we’d gotten Cameron free but Thoth had blown one of the hospital vaults and we were on the way to Herm’s safe house.
Safe house, I mused, and Pluck bubbled a sour, worried agreement. Safe for me. Safe for Benedict. I wasn’t sure how Aasta would react to two more “mistakes” seeking refuge in the dark.
Dross, Pluck warned as we began to go downhill, and I swung my stick to intercept the hotly glowing mass.
“Little bump,” Lev warned as he worked Cameron up onto the sidewalk.
The heat of the day blew in from the desert, and both the sound of the bullhorn and the smell of burning gas and oil began to fade.
I shook my stick to try to get rid of the dross, but it clung to it, and I carried it like a sword, unwilling to chance it sliding down to my grip and burning my knuckles.
More dross, Pluck fizzed again, and I spun the stick to catch it. I must have missed some, because a fluttering of broken threads seemed to brush me and I tripped on the sidewalk.
“You okay?” Lev half turned to me, eyebrows high in question.
“Dross,” I said, annoyed. There hadn’t even been a crack in the sidewalk. I’d tripped on my own feet. Flustered, I walked beside them with my stick pointed downward and at the ready.
“It broke on you?” Cameron squinted at me in disbelief. “Thoth was telling the truth?”
Pluck bubbled in guilt, and I absently soothed him. “Yeah,” I said, unable to look at her.
Lev’s pace was even and smooth. “She’s been developing some new skills he doesn’t know about.”
That woman is watching you. Pluck’s thoughts fizzed through mine in a sharp warning.
My head snapped up, and I flushed, trying to hide my stick when the woman at the bench set to the side amid the tended cacti and succulents saw it. Dross slid down the staff, burning when it found me, and I yelped, flinging the glowing stuff everywhere when I shook my hand.
“Weaver,” the woman said bitterly as we rolled past. The hatred in the single word shivered through me. She’s going to remember me…
“That stick is attracting attention,” Lev said. “Can you leave it, Grady?”
“Soon as you leave your lodestone,” I shot back. I needed it. I needed it and the other four to catch Thoth. The sticks had to be balanced, and they needed to be held by the right people.
“Point taken.” Lev grimaced, his gaze fixed on the parking lot ahead. Solar panels made a shading roof, and Pluck’s relief was almost palpable.
Dross, Pluck fizzed, and I jerked, shifting direction only to come down on more dross.
I jerked free as my ankle burned, but I knew it was too late when a fluttering of threads brushed through my soul and my hair snagged on a low tree branch.
Frustrated, I extricated myself. Where the devil was it coming from?
“Oh, my God,” Cameron whispered, and I followed her horrified gaze to a pipe at the edge of the lot spewing a flood of glowing energy only a magic user could see. It was the outlet to the whirlpool above, and it was eddying through the cars like an ill fog on its way to the desert.
“Ah, yeah.” Lev slowed, brow furrowed. “I think my car is still free of it. Let’s take the long way.”
“This is stupid,” Cameron said as Lev angled up the cracked sidewalk skirting the entire lot. “Lev, let me use your phone. One call to DC and I can clear this up.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said cheerfully. “I ditched my phone at the beginning of this raid.”
“Raid,” she echoed, her gaze going to my pocket. “Grady?”
I shook my head, and the woman tightened in frustration.
“Marshal Owens?” Lev said smoothly. “You are an endangered species. We have to wait for the wind to blow the right way before you make your statement. You talk now, Thoth will know where you are and snuff you. We have to catch him first.”
Cameron’s gaze fixed on Lev in disbelief. “He wouldn’t dare.”
“It’s a risk we don’t need to take.” Lev slowed to get over an uneven spot. “Not when we have a place to find refuge and wait for the drugs in your system to work their way out.”
Petra…Pluck fizzed, and a drop of fire hit my shoulder.
“Damn it, how do you people live like this! Off! Get it off!” I shrieked as the dross burned, and Lev ducked, my stick narrowly missing hitting him as I pulled it from me.
Panting, I stared at the length of reddish wood and the dross clinging to it, afraid to move.
There was no spiderweb of threads snapping against me, but it had been a lot.
Lev looked me up and down before pushing Cameron back into motion. “If you’re done?” he said dryly.
Sheepish, I started to follow, dragging the stick on the ground to wipe the dross off—jerking to a halt when I ran into Lev. “Hey,” I complained.
Perhaps we should go the other way, Pluck muttered, hiding himself deeper.
I followed Lev’s attention to the parking lot, every last thought I had vanishing at the rumble of a van door opening. It was Dana, Herm, and Ryan, as yet oblivious to our presence. I took a breath to shout that we had rescued Cameron, choking on it when Pluck fizzed a heady warning.
We haven’t done anything wrong, I thought when Marty got out as well, but my defiance faltered when Herm spotted me and jiggled Ryan’s elbow.
“Turn around,” Lev said, but it was too late, and Marty froze, lips open as she stared at us.
Don’t you dare leave that amulet, I thought when Pluck’s frustration twined about my own, making it ten times worse. I don’t need defending.
That’s a matter of interpretation, he fizzed icily.
Lev exhaled long and slow. Never taking his eyes from them, he locked the wheels of Cameron’s chair, lodestone glinting. “Dana. Just who we were coming to see. Good news. Petra and Pluck woke Cameron up.”
Dana’s expression was grim. “Looks like that’s not all the weaver did,” she said as Herm reached for his phone. “Surrender your lodestones,” she added, her gaze rising to the dust and sirens behind us. “All of you. Don’t make this difficult.”
“Dana, it wasn’t her,” Ryan said persuasively. “I’ve known Petra her entire life. She wouldn’t harm anyone, much less do it with dross. She woke the marshal!”
And yet I thought his smile looked forced. “Thoth broke the vault when I was getting Cameron out,” I said.
“Something I distinctly told you not to do,” Dana said, and Cameron sputtered.
“You told her to leave me trapped in there?” Cameron said, clearly not liking being in a chair when everyone else was standing. “Ms. Vean, I am the lead investigator. Petra and Pluck are not suspects. This is Thoth’s doing. All of it.”
“You saw this?” Dana asked. “You saw him break the vaults?”
“No,” Cameron admitted. “But he has an agenda and he liked to talk about it. You need to get on board.”
“He’s here?” Marty shrank back. Her hand was wrapped around her new lodestone, the square chunk of moldavite now hanging around her neck on a length of silver.
“I doubt it.” Ryan moved to stand protectively beside Marty. “There’s too much dross.”
Herm was inching away, expression worried as he motioned me to do the same.
“So, Ms. Vean. First thing I’d like to know is why you took steps to keep me in my coma.” Cameron struggled to a stand. Lev lurched forward, halting when the woman glared at him.
“You were attacked by shadow,” Dana said. “I’m not going to let another one near you lest they try to finish the job.”
“I’m not trying to kill Cameron!” I shouted, and Marty went pale, gaze searching the outskirts of the parking lot.