old fieldstone held up the ceiling, supplemented by modern pipe supports. File boxes, dingy office furniture, and old displays, getting older the farther I went, that had once been upstairs filled the space.
“That looks promising,” I whispered when the concrete floor became dry, dusty tile, and I found what looked like an old shower stall. Squinting, I looked over the tattered shower curtain and a broken commode that looked as if it hadn’t seen water since the Turn. Across from them were two tall lockers, dented and with the latches broken.
Excited, I went back into the mess behind me to find something to stand on. The rolling chair on casters was out, but the heavy wooden crate with PLANETS stenciled on it was ideal.
I finally got the box in place and scrambled up. “Please move,” I begged the gods of irony, and my breath slipped out when the thin panel of glass shifted upward, the strips of metal grinding on the tracks.
Cold air bathed my face. The night was calm, the hum of the interstate traffic faint and distant. There was a raggedy foundation bush in front of me, but I could see the empty parking lot to my left, and an open field and woods to my right. It would be a tight squeeze, but I was fairly sure both Winona and I could make it. Once outside, we could be halfway to somewhere before they knew we were gone.
I took one last breath of freedom, then pulled the window shut lest the fresher air give me away. As I stepped awkwardly from the crate, my cold ankles twinged. Time to get Winona.
My pace back through the dark, winding basement was faster, and I stopped at the umbrella stand holding a set of “planet poles,” picking out the thickest, shortest one as an unbalanced club. It slid from the rest with a soft scrape, and my pulse quickened. I might not have any magic, but I could still knock heads, and I hefted it, feeling empowered.
More slowly, I moved in the brighter gloom, seeing the empty counters and softly glowing lights from the machines as I crept by the three lumps sleeping on low cots. Jennifer’s curtain was gone. Gerald was on his back, set apart from the two women, his mouth hanging open and snoring slightly. My grip on my stick tightened. I had a thought to bean him one in his sleep, but then the rest would wake up. No telling what Chris would pull out of her magic book to hit us with. If we could do this with no one the wiser, then all the better.
Winona sat up from the floor as I hesitated over Gerald. Her eyes threw back the glow from the machines, like a cat’s, and I froze. She was okay. Leaving the sleeping thugs behind, I crossed the room to her. Winona didn’t stand, instead scooted to the door on her butt, and I wondered if they’d hurt her. “Are you okay?” I barely breathed as I crouched beside her.
“I’m fine,” she said, and our fingers touched through the mesh. “My feet make so much damned noise, it’s better if I don’t get up.” Her ugly face smiled, making me shiver. “I heard you get out. I thought you’d left me.”
I gave her fingers a quick squeeze, then pulled back. “I was finding a way out.” I looked behind me to the sleeping people. “You heard all that? How come they didn’t?”
She shrugged. “I can hear everything.”
Impatience slowly tightened from my toes to my aching head. “Eloy?” I asked.
Winona brought her eerie cat gaze back from the cots. “He left after they soldered a new lock on the cage. They put charmed silver on me, too. I can’t tap a line now.”
I exhaled in dismay, and I spun on my heel, still in a crouch as I looked at the empty counters. There was a bolt cutter somewhere, but it would be noisy to look. “Key?” I asked hopefully, and Winona made an ugly face.
“Chris has it.”
“Dart gun?” I whispered, and she shook her head.
“Eloy.”
I frowned. Figured. He was probably waiting in the bushes somewhere playing soldier. It might be better to get her out of her cage first, then worry about getting her charmed silver off.
“Okay,” I said as I put my lips next to the mesh. “I’m going to pick the lock. The window is in the back at an old shower. Left is the parking lot, right is the woods. Once you’re there, keep running. They’ll never catch you.”
“What about you?” she insisted, and I cringed, thinking she was too loud.
“I’ll be right behind,” I said, trying to smile. “But if things go wrong and I can’t run—”
“I’ll pick you up,” she said, her head down as she scratched at her middle.
I took a breath to protest, then blinked when she appeared to push her entire hand inside herself. It was her pouch, and I stared when she pulled out a pair of wire clippers.
“Where did you get that?” I hissed, shocked, and she grinned her sharp-canine grin at me.
“They left it out,” she said. “I fell on it and no one noticed. I wasn’t going to take the zip strip off until I knew we were escaping.”
She held the clippers out through the mesh, and I took them, thinking cutting the mesh would be easier than trying to jimmy the lock—provided that it wasn’t noisy. Eager, I awkwardly angled the business end of the clippers back through the wires and around her wristband. It was only one of the cheap plastic-coated zip strips that the I.S. used, not like my industrial-strength band, and it wouldn’t fry her brain when it came off. With a soft thump, the sharp metal pushed through, and Winona sighed in relief.
“Thanks,” she said as she rubbed her wrist. “I never thought I’d miss being able to touch a ley line like that.” Her eyes went past me, and determination made her fierce. “You came back for me. We leave together, or not at all.”
Grateful, I reached my fingers through the bars and gave her fingers a quick squeeze. She wasn’t that ugly, once you got used to her. “Thanks. Keep watch, okay? Monitors, too.”
She flicked her gaze over my shoulder and nodded.
The wire was the thinnest where the mesh was attached to the door frame, and starting at the bottom, I clipped the wires one by one, hesitating after each thumping click. It was almost absurdly easy, and it wasn’t three minutes before I stood and passed the clippers back through to her and she tucked them away, not even making a lump on her middle. Grabbing the long edge of the L I’d cut, I leaned back and let my weight bend the mesh up so Winona could slip out.
Her hooves clicked, and I held my breath as she moved slowly and erratically, trying to give her pace an uneven sound. Shoulders tense, she slid out sideways, exhaling when she was finally free. Smiling, I eased the mesh back down and took a relieved breath.
“Son of a bitch!” a feminine voice exclaimed.
Winona’s eyes focused over my shoulder, then widened. I spun to see a shadowy figure sitting up on a cot. “Run!” I shouted, but they were between us and the window, and I didn’t know if there was another, more circular way in between all the junk down here.
“Oh no!” Jennifer cried, and my chest clenched when Gerald snorted awake, rolling onto the floor and reaching for something under his cot.
I snatched the pipe and took up a stance. Beside me, Winona had her head down and her fingers in her pouch.
A boom of sound exploded with a burst of light, and I cowered as every scrap of paper within a six-foot radius burst into flame. Holy crap, the woman had power!
“Go! Go!” I shouted as the two women shrieked and Gerald stood in his underwear in openmouthed awe. The files were burning, the toilet paper was char, and smoke was coming from Chris’s precious machine. We had three seconds to get by them, tops.
Winona lurched into motion, apparently as shocked as I was at what she’d done, and she scuttled out past the cots, her hooves clacking merrily.
“My research!” Chris screamed, her complexion red in the light from the flames as she reached for it. “Get my notes. No, get them!” she cried out, pointing at us as we ran for the darkness, but all Jennifer did was sit on her bed and wail, her hair mussed and her chest heaving, scared to death.
Gerald lumbered to his feet with a small rifle in his grip. Winona made a horrified squeal and ran for the dark as he lurched over Jennifer’s cot and came at me.
