“You’re hurt.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Temoc said between breaths. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll worry about you if I want.”
“No time. Others have heard the fight. They will come soon. Find the door.”
Caleb wrapped one arm around his father, counted to three, and lifted him off the table. The old man swayed, but steadied on his feet, and spat blood to the floor. “Find it.”
“Fine.” Caleb stepped back, and examined the room. There was, of course, no door in the wall through which Kopil had led him on the night of the Seven Leaf crisis. No door, and nothing that could hide a door: no bookcase, no trophy stand, no glyphs Caleb could see. The room was blank and featureless, its walls an even grey.
He closed his eyes, but saw no trace of Craft. “I walked through this wall.”
Teo prodded the blank stone with her hands, and struck it with a broken chair leg. The wall did not sound hollow. “Nothing’s hidden here. You’re sure this is the right place? I can think of twenty rooms in the pyramid that look just like this.”
“Of course it’s the right place.”
“I’m not calling you a liar. Relax.” She paced around the demon’s corpse, over puddles of sizzling blood. “It must be here. Otherwise why set a demon to guard this room? To defend the table?”
“More demons are coming,” Temoc said. “Up the stairs.”
“They can use the stairs,” Caleb said, then checked himself. “Of course they can use the stairs. Do you see any controls anywhere?”
“Only the usual ones, for the lights. You say you walked through this wall? In this conference room?”
“Yes.” In the hall outside, he heard a sound like the world’s largest centipede crossing a tile floor.
“The door will hold them,” Temoc said. “But not for long.”
Could Kopil have opened a gate between two points in space, and closed it, just to disorient Caleb and save himself an elevator ride?
No. Kopil was a miser. He didn’t like to fly—too wasteful. He barely left the RKC pyramid. He wouldn’t go tearing holes in the world for his own amusement. Any passage he built for himself would be reusable.
“We should leave,” Temoc said. “There must be other ways to the altar.”
Something much larger than a dog scraped at the conference room door.
Caleb’s mind caught the end of a thread. “Teo, what did you just ask me?”
“I asked you if you were sure this was the right room. If that was the right wall.”
“I don’t think it is. I don’t think there was a wall there to walk through.”
“What?”
The scraping grew louder and insistent. Wood splintered beneath hooked claws and bladed fingers.
“You said this looked like any other room in the pyramid, but it doesn’t. Even my little office has carvings and decorations all over the place. These walls are blank stone.”
“So they redecorated.”
“They did more than that. When I was here, I never saw any walls. And no one but Mal entered or left by the door.”
Temoc’s eyebrows rose.
“Teo,” Caleb said. “Turn off the lights,”
“What?”
“The overheads. Turn them off. There should be one light on the center of the table, that’s all. One light so bright you can’t see the walls.”
“Caleb—”
“Do it. Please.”
A heavy weight struck the doors, which shuddered but held firm. A demon’s cry scoured the air.
Teo ran to a bank of dials on the wall, and turned them at random until the lights dimmed.
“More!”
Lights flickered, flared, cut out. Caleb could still see the wall. “Make the center light stronger.”
Her fingers flew. Twice more demons struck the doors. Wood splintered near the latch. “Here!” Teo spun the second-smallest dial clockwise. The table’s spotlight brightened to surgical brilliance. The world twisted.
The walls vanished.
The doors broke open. Beyond, ranks of eyes burned with ruby fire.
“Teo!”
She leapt over the dead demon’s claw, sprinted toward him, and grabbed his hand as he grabbed Temoc’s. Together, they ran into the dark. The fiends followed after.
45
The demons pursued on many legs—distortions in darkness, closing at an insectine gallop.
Caleb, Teo, and Temoc fled through shadows beneath the universe. They should long since have reached the King in Red’s apartment, but the farther they ran, the closer night drew around them.
The path was closed, apparently, on the far end. Caleb tried to remember what Kopil had done to open the way on the night the water ran black, but his memories blurred together.
The conference room’s walls existed as long as he could see them. Maybe the other door could not open while he knew it wasn’t there.
The demons’ footsteps grew louder.
“Close your eyes,” Caleb shouted.
“What?” Teo snapped back.
“Close them. Close them, or we’re stuck here.”
Their grips on his hands tightened.
Caleb closed his eyes.
Space was a net of flame; universes hung like water droplets at its intersections. The net spun and warped. Worlds merged, broke, reformed in fractal patterns.
Caleb let go of his father’s hand, reached out, and touched a smooth brass doorknob. He turned the knob, the latch gave, and he tumbled onto a red carpet.
Temoc and Teo staggered into the room after him. Demon footfalls pursued from the darkness beyond the door.
Caleb slammed the closet shut. He waited for a few heartbeats, then opened it again. Suits, robes, shirts, ties and expensive shoes had replaced the void.
“So this is where the monster sleeps,” Temoc said.
The room looked as Caleb had last seen it: round bed unmade, books stacked beside the armchair, piles of paperwork teetering on end tables.
“This doesn’t look like a monster’s room,” Teo said once she found her breath. “Doesn’t look like his, either. I don’t know what I would have pictured. Something cleaner.”
“He’s a busy man,” Caleb said. “Skeleton. Thing.” He wiped sweat from his eyes. “You want him to spend his days cleaning?”
“Or get maid service. A team of zombies could scour this place in five minutes.”
Temoc pursed his lips, and turned away.
“What?”
“You would rather exploit another’s body than dirty your own hands with work,” Temoc said. “I find that interesting.” He wandered away into the kitchen.
“Caleb,” Teo said, when Temoc was out of sight.
“Hm?”
She had flushed red, and her brows drew low over glaring eyes. “Your father.”
“Trust me, I know.”
