Damn Him to Hell

toward the door before anyone could react. “Paddy, once you get inside, keep a lookout for us, please?”

“Clancy, don’t be an ass!” Andre warned, blocking my path.

“I can clock you in one,” I told him. “I don’t want to, but I will. You don’t know what Sarah is, but I do. Trust me on this—you don’t want to leave her in there and find out.”

He’d seen our tattoos. He’d seen Max in my mirror after Max died, and he’d been there when I’d whacked Dane with my flaming compact. There was a lot he didn’t know, like about Max being Dane now, but he knew I wasn’t normal. Still, he glared.

“How can you find Sarah if Paddy can’t?”

“I have no friggin’ idea,” I admitted. “But she’s less likely to fry me than Frank. So get over it and let me by.”

Got him smack in the old curiosity with the word fry.

Andre had once explained his weird prescience as the ability to add two and two and find three. I could see the wheels in his head spinning now, but I didn’t intend to linger while he added up Sarah’s husband dying, her mother being neutralized behind jail cell bars, and similar incidents. I jerked on my hood and gloves as a futile security precaution and opened the door.

Lieutenant Schwartz didn’t generally approve of my pressure tactics, but he was an old-fashioned gentleman who looked out for me when others didn’t. He accompanied me back up the hill to our respective apartments. Technically, we both worked on the same side of the law. Maybe he harbored some foolish hope that in return for keeping me safe, Senator Dane would coerce the police into giving him another promotion.

I didn’t disillusion the poor guy. We all had dreams.

I twitched uneasily at that thought. My dream of someday being a judge would be in serious jeopardy if Acme caught me trespassing. I reassured myself that Max’s clearance made my activities perfectly legal—unless I took up body snatching or got mad and nuked a chemist.

As we reached Pearl’s place, Schwartz removed a glove and glanced at his watch. “Be down here in twenty minutes. Pretend you’re a research scientist or something, will you?”

“You’re a good liar, Schwartz.” Leaving him with that ambiguous compliment, I trotted up to my apartment with all the agility of an overweight turtle. I should have shucked the suit downstairs.

I shut Milo in the kitchen with his food and litter box. He gave me the evil eye, but I could worry about only so many things at once. Bill and Sarah had to come first.

Scientist. Crap. What did a scientist wear? Nervously, I dragged my heavy, hair into a clip on top of my head. I’d bought suits at a consignment store for my law clerk gig, but I didn’t think scientists wore pinstripes. Blazers, maybe. Khakis. Button-down shirts. I had those from law school days. I added the dark-plastic-framed reading glasses I used to wear before Saturn Daddy fixed my eyes. I donned a pair of sensible pumps. All I needed was a tablet computer, which I couldn’t afford. A backbone of steel would have been convenient as well.

After finding Max in my mirror, I was still wary around reflective surfaces, but I did a quick double check, added some pale lipstick, and toned down my natural Persian bronze with too-light face powder I’d bought out of a bargain basket. I wouldn’t fool my friends, but maybe I could trick a security guard or two who didn’t really know what I looked like.

I debated returning the hazmat to Andre’s bomb shelter but figured I didn’t have time for arguing with Cora. So I left it to be delivered later and made tomato-mozzarella-basil sandwiches for me and Schwartz.

He accepted his gratefully when I ran out to his unmarked vehicle right on time. Cop cars are never really unmarked. Security would recognize the official plates and extra antennas.

“Will Paddy stay sane enough to help us?” I asked before tearing into my bread, hoping to stifle my fear by feeding my hunger.

Schwartz frowned. “I’ve been wondering about that, too. Did he suddenly get sane or has he been sane all along?”

“Huh, so it’s not just me he’s been fooling? Doesn’t exactly make him trustworthy.” Max hadn’t been worried about the family eccentric—did he believe Paddy was crazy, too?

“He’s all we’ve got,” the good lieutenant said with a shrug. “Just don’t do anything that will cost me my job.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you’ve got orphans in Haiti to support.” I hated being reminded that Schwartz didn’t think me capable of behaving responsibly. He was probably right. I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. I can’t save the world. I know that. I was having a hard time saving myself. But here I was anyway.

We drove straight through the lingering remnants of the gas cloud, down Edgewater, past the swiveling streetlights and sleeping gargoyles. Schwartz pulled the car up to the police barricade blocking the plant driveway at the end of the street, waved his badge, and cruised on through to Acme’s security gate while I tried to appear innocuous.

The guard handed us clip-on passes and waved us past after checking his log to verify the senator had called in about a guest pass. I cringed at knowing that respect came from having friends in high places.

Losing a boyfriend had been a hard way to gain a senator. Even after it turned out that Max had been using me as a spy, he had still rated as one of the good guys, and the sex had been incredible. I was sooo not getting it on with Max in his cousin’s body, though. That was just too freaky.

As a consequence of my vowing to lay off both Max and Andre, even the respectable lieutenant was starting to look good. And I hated cops.

Acme’s reception area was unassuming, at best. Old linoleum-tile floors, a spindly banana-type plant near the front window, a wooden desk guarding the hallways leading off left and right—straight out of the fifties or an old people’s home.

Obviously, the Vanderventers didn’t spend their money on decor. Schwartz again flashed his badge, and the nondescript receptionist gave us directions to command central, or whatever cops called it.

“Best if I don’t show my face to anyone who knows me,” Schwartz murmured, steering me down a dark corridor of closed office doors and veering from the directions given.

“Watch it, or your Dudley Do-Rightness will wash off,” I warned. My smart mouth hid a variety of fears.

Schwartz was a hunk and a half, but his shining armor was seriously out of place in the world I lived in. Maybe I could grow into his world—after I swallowed my terror and rescued Sarah and Bill. I checked directional signs and decided labs would be a good starting point.

“Someone has to uphold the laws,” he muttered, shoving his muscled arm in front of me and checking around a corner before letting me proceed. The entry-level floor seemed to be mostly gray walls leading to manufacturing facilities. “Place is weirdly empty, isn’t it?”

“Saturday,” I reminded him. “Who in here would be working weekends besides security?”

“Paddy should know. It would help if he’d carry a phone. The crazy old coot gives me the creeps.”

For closemouthed Schwartz, that was an I-wanta-be-friends moment. And it worked. I studied him with interest. After all, he had great abs and I’d been without sex way too long. He was looking back. But this wasn’t the time for overtures of that sort. I hid my gap-toothed smile, and we both glanced away at the same time.

Following signs, we took the stairs down. We’d been directed to an office on the top floor, so we were safely heading in the opposite direction of authority. I just hoped we weren’t aiming for a nest of vipers. I’d had some pretty hazardous encounters with Vanderventer security in the past.

The ozone stink seemed stronger in the stairwell, but I didn’t notice any green gas. I kept checking myself to be certain I didn’t somehow start disappearing like Tim or shifting like Sarah. The ozone and rattling metal steps gave me cold shivers.

At the bottom of the stairs, we found another corridor, this one of concrete blocks painted two shades of beige. Signs indicated Lab A was on the right, Lab B on the left. Voices carried down the corridor from the left.

Confronted by the peril of what we were doing, knowing Bill was strong enough to take care of himself, I had a WTF-am-I-doing-here moment until I recalled Sarah’s condition. To avoid nuclear damnation, we had to find her.

Which meant going where the people were. Grimacing, I turned left. Schwartz grabbed my elbow. We had a brief, silent wrestling match that I was going to lose unless I used dirty fighting. Not wanting to actually hurt one of the good guys was a deterrent to violence.