one of them crackled and crunched under our feet. It sounded like we were stomping our way across a giant field of cellophane.
“Shh!” Daniel squeezed my hand and stopped, gesturing with his other hand. I glanced around for a big tree to hide behind, but all the trees were slimmer than I was. So I dropped to a crouch, pulling Daniel down with me.
He dropped my hand, reached inside his jacket, and took out his gun, a 9mm Glock. He nudged my arm, then gestured with the gun. Fifty yards away, a potbellied norm in a fluorescent orange hunter’s hat stepped through the brush, holding a rifle in both hands. He was looking away from us, so as quietly as possible, we stretched out flat on the ground. My nostrils filled with the dusty, loamy smell of dead leaves, and I pinched my nose to keep from sneezing. My heart pounded so loudly I couldn’t tell whether the hunter was moving closer or farther away.
After what felt like an hour, Daniel tapped my arm. “He’s gone,” he whispered. “But he went the way we were heading. We’ll have to go around the long way.”
I thought of Maria, locked away somewhere north of us, and every way seemed like the long way. We half ran, trying to be quiet, stopping every few yards to listen. Daniel kept the Glock out, but we didn’t see the hunter —whatever he was hunting—again. Twenty minutes later, we emerged from the woods onto another road. Daniel paused, looking left, then right. “I think it’s this way,” he said, turning right.
We kept inside the woods, following the road. Twice we heard a car coming, and twice we dove for the ground. Finally, we rounded a curve, and there sat a blue Toyota with New Hampshire plates.
“Okay,” Daniel said, holstering his pistol, “according to my buddy, the key’s under a trio of rocks next to a birch tree.”
“There’s a birch tree,” I said.
Daniel jogged over to it. “And here’s the key,” he said, coming back a minute later. He opened the passenger door with a flourish. “Welcome to New Hampshire!”
So far, so good. We’d made it in. Now all we had to do was find Maria, avoid whatever traps Gravett had set, and make it out alive.
26
GRAVETT BIOTECH WAS A FORTRESS, A COMPOUND IN THE middle of the woods surrounded by eight-foot walls topped with razor wire.
“How are we going to get in?” I said, looking at the high wall.
“You’re a shapeshifter. Can’t you turn into a bird or something and fly over?”
“I could. But then I’d be stuck in bird form for several hours, which wouldn’t help get you in—or Maria out.” Besides, I didn’t want to shift on the day of the full moon, not after what had happened during the panther shift. No eating people today—not if I could avoid it. We’d have to find a norm way inside.
We ran alongside the wall, keeping low. Getting in would be the easy part. Gravett must be all in favor of welcoming me inside. It was getting out again that was going to be tough.
“Look!” I pointed to a place up ahead, where the trees stood close to the wall; the branches of one huge pine tree reached right across it. “I can climb up there, then drop to the other side.”
Daniel shook his head. “Won’t work,” he said. “The branches are too thin when they get close enough to the wall. They won’t hold your weight.”
“I’m going to try.” I ran to the base of the tree and put my arms around the trunk. It was sticky and smelled like pitch. I tried to shinny up it, but I couldn’t get a foothold. And when I gripped the trunk with my knees, I couldn’t figure out how to move upward.
Daniel caught up to me, panting. “Give me a boost,” I said.
“Vicky. It’s. Not—” he said between pants. But when he saw my expression he laced his fingers into a kind of step. I put my foot in his hands, and he boosted me up so that I could grab hold of one of the lower branches. From there, I pulled myself up until I was sitting on the branch where it met the trunk.
I was only about ten feet off the ground, but it felt higher. I could see far into the Gravett Biotech complex. Six brick buildings stood around a central courtyard. At the far side of the courtyard, almost directly across from my perch, was a barred gate. There was a gatehouse next to it, but from here I couldn’t see whether it was occupied by a guard. We had to assume it was. Everything was still—no patrols, no guard dogs, nothing. No people in lab coats bustling around with clipboards. The stillness worried me. It was like the place was holding its breath, waiting for me to make my move.
Surprised at how unsteady my legs felt, I grasped the trunk, inching upward along it, until I stood at my full height on the branch. The tree seemed to shake with my own trembling. At chest level, another branch grew parallel to the one I stood on. I clutched the branch with both hands and took one step, sideways, toward the wall. So far, so good. Another couple of steps, and my confidence grew. But the branch began to thin, and the farther I moved from the trunk, the more it bent. This branch would snap or dump me before I got past the wall. From where I stood, I could just about jump onto the wall—to be sliced up by razor wire.
Then I had an idea. Clutching the higher branch with one hand, I shrugged off my leather jacket and dropped it to Daniel on the ground. “Toss that up so it covers the wire on top of the wall.” He lined himself up with the branch and flung the jacket upward, hanging on to one sleeve. The first try, he missed, and the jacket slid down the wall.
On the second try, he got it. The jacket landed on a length of razor wire, flattening it. I’d have to jump carefully to make sure I hit the narrow strip protected by the jacket. I inched outward on the branch.
“Wait a minute,” Daniel called. He took off his own jacket and threw it onto the wall next to mine. “Okay,” he said, “I think you can do it.”
I wanted to close my eyes, but I didn’t. I kept them on my target, a four-foot-wide safety zone of leather. I took a deep breath, thought about Maria—and jumped.
FIVE MINUTES LATER, DANIEL HAD JOINED ME INSIDE THE wall. “She’s in Building Four,” he said. “That’s what the report we got from New Hampshire said.”
“Which one’s Building Four?”
“Let’s find out.”
As I’d seen from the tree, the complex held half a dozen buildings. We dashed from the shelter of the wall to the nearest one. The place was still deserted. It was Saturday, but it seemed like there’d be more activity, more excitement, after they’d stolen a possible Cerddorion child. The wide-open stillness of the place made me nervous. It couldn’t have felt more like a trap if they’d plunked down a big open cage in the middle of the lawn with a sign that read ENTER HERE.
Still, if there were no obstacles to getting in and finding Maria, at least they were making half of our job easy for us.
We edged along the side of the building until we got to the corner. Turning that corner would bring us into the courtyard, where we’d be in view of the other buildings. Daniel held up his hand, indicating I should wait. He pulled his pistol and held it pointing upward. Then he disappeared around the corner.
I squinched my eyes tight shut, waiting for the pop of gunshots. All was quiet—that eternal, unrelenting silence. In a moment, Daniel reappeared. “This is Building Three,” he whispered. “Four is the next one over.”
I nodded, and we backtracked until we stood behind Building Four. Again, Daniel went around the corner to check out the front of the building. I waited for him to motion me to join him, but when he returned, he took my arm and pulled me back. “This one’s guarded,” he said.
“How many?”
“Just one that I saw. A guy in a lab coat. I can’t tell if he’s armed.”
Someone was in the building—good. I’d make the bastard take us to Maria. And we could use him as a hostage if we had to.
“Let’s get him,” I said.
We went for speed, bursting around the corner and through the front door. Daniel pointed his gun, but I’d jumped the guy and had him pinned to the floor before Daniel could yell
“Nice tackle.”
“Thanks.” I twisted Mr. Lab Coat’s arm behind his back. “Where’s Maria Santini?” I asked, twisting it
