Taken

“Are we going to get to Anne first?” Variam said.

“Yeah, but not by much.” I glanced through the futures in which we turned back. Crystal was still pursuing with Lyle trailing after, Onyx was behind them both but catching up fast, and I still couldn’t pick Vitus out of the tangle. “Okay, this is going to get messy real fast. Vitus is up ahead and he wants Anne, but he’ll be going after us second. Crystal wants to silence us, make sure we don’t get out to spread the story. Lyle probably has no idea what’s going on, so he’s sticking next to Crystal. And Onyx . . . my guess is he’s here to kill everyone. Vitus, Crystal, me, and anyone who doesn’t get out of the way fast enough.”

“What’s the plan?” Luna asked.

“There isn’t one,” I said.

Luna and Variam looked at each other. I realised they were waiting for me to tell them what to do and felt a flash of frustration. Couldn’t they tell I was making this up as I went along?

But they were looking to me to lead them, and even if I didn’t know what I was doing I had to act as though I did. I tried to think of what would put Luna and Variam at the least risk. “All right,” I said. “I’ll go in and get Anne. You two hold the entrance as long as you can, then fall back. If we get separated work your way out of the maze back to the top floor of the house to the long corridor where we entered. I’ll meet you there and we can get out.”

“I’m going with—” Variam started to say.

“No,” I said instantly. “Look, if these guys all attack us at once we’re finished. Our only chance is to hold them as far away as we can. If we can keep them busy with each other, we can get away in the confusion. Crystal’s key will get us out if we can make it to the door.”

A shape loomed out of the darkness ahead of us and a moment later the skeletal bushes opened up into a clearing. Before us was a small building, its foundations sunk into the ancient mud and its upper level reaching up into the shadows. We’d reached the centre of the hedgemaze.

There was only one way in: a crosshatched metal door, stiff from long disuse. “Hold this door until you’re in danger and then get out,” I said as I got to work on it. “Try to delay Crystal long enough for Onyx to catch up, but if you can’t, or once the fighting gets serious, run.” The door scraped open and I turned to look at Luna and Variam. “Got it?”

Luna looked around nervously at the dead clearing. “Okay.”

“Fine,” Variam said. “But if you’re not back in five minutes, I’m going after—”

“If I’m not back in five minutes it probably means Anne and I are both dead. In that case, get out. There’s a second way out through the hedgemaze around the back.”

Variam scowled. Luna was watching the clearing. There was maybe thirty feet of muddy ground between the edge of the hedgemaze and the building, and the air was ominously silent. With my divination I could sense Crystal hurrying closer with Onyx on her heels. If Luna and Variam hid inside the door they’d have some cover, but not much.

“Alex?” Luna said. The clearing was quiet, but I knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. “Hurry, okay?”

I walked into the darkness.

*  *  *

The inside of the building was cramped and decaying. Pieces of wall crunched under my feet and I had to turn sideways to squeeze through the single corridor, yet somehow as I picked my way through the debris I knew this little old building was the heart of Fountain Reach. All the space and luxury outside were just for show. The corridor bent around, then inward.

The room within was lined floor to ceiling with cracked grey tiles, and it stank. The air was heavy with a kind of sickly rich coppery smell that made me hold my breath. My foot slipped underneath me as I took the first step in, and I put my hand against the wall to steady myself. The tiles were cold. The place seemed to be darker than outside and only as my eyes adjusted did I start to make out the features of the room: the bathtub in the corner, the counters along one side, and the metal table in the centre. Lying on the metal table was a body.

As soon as I saw that I rushed to the table, my shoes skidding on the floor. The body on the table was Anne, and as I saw her my heart sank. Her head was hanging back off the edge of the table, and her throat had been messily cut open. “Oh no,” I whispered under my breath. I touched Anne’s skin to find that it was cool. I looked into the futures in which I put my ear to her chest and listened and couldn’t find anything. I’ve seen people with cut throats and I knew Anne’s wound had to be fatal, but I still clung to a sliver of hope. I’d seen her survive lethal wounds before. There were straps holding Anne to the table and I started pulling them open. “Come on,” I whispered to myself. “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead . . .” The straps were sticky, but I was able to get them off. “Anne, if you can hear me, now would be—”

Anne sat up with a gasp and I nearly jumped out of my skin. She looked blindly from left to right in a panic and I caught her. “Easy! It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Anne clutched at my arm. “Where is he?” Her voice was raspy but recovering and the ugly slash across her throat was healing as I watched, new skin growing across the wound with a flicker of green light.

“He’s not here,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “We’re . . .” I trailed off. Anne was staring past me and as I turned I saw that she was looking at the bathtub. Something flickered on my precognition and I suddenly realised what I’d slipped on earlier. The floor was covered in patches of that dark, sticky liquid and it was spread all over the room . . . and filling the bathtub. And it was there that the smell was coming from.

“Oh,” I said quietly.

The liquid in the bathtub stirred, dark ripples spreading and lapping at the edge. Something broke the surface, rivulets of blood trickling from the head as it turned slowly to face us. For a moment it held itself motionless and then the rest of the creature rose slowly and steadily out of the bath, coming fully into view as streams of blood splashed off the shoulders to splatter on the floor. It was a human body, wasted and twisted and skin pale from lack of light, but with pieces missing. The muscles were spaced unevenly around the spindly frame, too strong in places and too weak in others, and the arms were longer than they should have been, hanging below the knees. For all that, though, it could almost have passed as a man except for the face. There were no eyes in the sockets, only a pair of gaping black voids. The mouth opened, toothless, to let loose a hissing, sighing breath.

The creature that had once been Vitus Aubuchon stared sightlessly at us.

I moved first, half-dragging Anne in a rush for the door, but fast as I was Vitus was faster. There was a weird twisting, warping sensation and suddenly Vitus was standing blocking the exit, his breath making a cloud in the air