Angelfire

TWENTY-FOUR

CAL

Howard didn’t lead us back through the business district. He swung east toward the lake and up through the rail yards to Grant Park. It was nothing like I remembered it. The defunct trains had become a neighborhood on useless wheels. Boxcars, passenger cars, cabooses, even engines had been converted for human use. It had to beat trying to maintain a household in a twenty-five-story walk-up.

The park’s lawns, which once seemed to go on forever and had been dotted with picnickers, volleyball games, and joggers, were now divided into farm plots, tent towns, and graveyards littered with sad little markers. There were no flowers, but some of the graves seemed to have collected piles of offerings: bows, feathers, ribbons, other odds and ends.

It was easier going here, oddly enough, because the people seemed not to care about us. Neither Magritte nor Howard, shambling along smothered in his sweatsuit, aroused any particular interest. Maybe it was because an armed group of normals with two twists in tow merely looked like a successful hunting party. Whatever the reason, they looked at us; they looked away, they went about their business. And, I noticed distractedly, there seemed to be a lot of business going on in some quarters.

“Balbo Market,” said Howard, apparently catching my curiosity about the busy clumps of tents, stalls, and makeshift wagons. “People gotta eat, and they gotta have stuff, y’know, so …” He waved an arm at the small but bustling throng.

I slowed my pace a little to watch the patrons of Balbo Market interact. I saw haggling, items changing hands, hands being shaken in accord. Adaptation passing for normalcy.

“Life finds a way,” murmured Goldie.

I focused my attention on the cluttered path ahead. I couldn’t yet see the Black Tower through the combination of fey red haze and smoke, but the closer we got to it, the tighter my nerves twisted.

I distracted them with a study of Howard Russo. Who was this guy, really? Was he the victim of circumstance who bravely allowed Enid and others to escape Primal’s grasp, or was he the weasel who sold out flares and a handful of musicians to save his own hide? Was he both? Was there any way to find out before we walked into Primal’s fortress? Was there any way to find out what Primal was?

“Howard, the devas that Primal keeps-are they his allies or his slaves?”

Howard glanced up at me from inside his hood, his mirror lenses nearly blinding me. “I didn’t sell those people.”

“Chill, Howie,” said Colleen. “Cal’s just trying to get at the truth.”

“Is Primal a group of flares?” I asked bluntly.

The lenses flashed at me again. “Primal is Primal. But it likes the devas.”

“Why? What does ‘it’ want with them?”

“Not sure,” Howard said.

“Maybe the question is backward,” suggested Colleen. “Maybe the question is: What do the flares want with Primal?”

I shook my head. “We’ve never known flares to be devious or dangerous.”

“But they could be, couldn’t they? I mean, look at the pull the Source has on them. Alice, Faun.”

The memory of losing Faun raised an ache in my heart. It carried its own freight of agony, on top of reminding me of what I’d gone through with Tina. “Faun and Alice weren’t…” I hesitated.

“I think evil is the word you’re searching for,” Goldie said baldly.

“They weren’t evil. They were tortured, pulled between opposing forces. Look, this conversation is pointless.”

“Is it?” Colleen asked. “If we knew how the flares figured in this, we’d have a lot better idea what to expect once we’re inside. What d’you think they’re gonna do, Cal? Give us a hero’s welcome?”

I guess I had expected that-or at least that we’d be viewed as a rescue party.

“Colleen may be right,” said Doc. “What if this is the way these flares protect themselves from the Source? Might they not take us as a threat?”

I turned my attention back to Howard. “Is Primal protecting the flares, Howard?”

He considered it, his mouth puckering. “They’re safe there. Safer than they’d be anywhere else.”

“And what does Primal get out of it?”

“Shit.” Colleen gripped my arm so tightly I knew I’d bruise. “We’re forgetting something. Primal’s a tweak. Maybe even a flare. He’d have to have some way of protecting himself from the Source.”

One Voice in front of many. A mutual protection society, very much like Enid and Magritte’s. We wouldn’t be heroes; we’d be invaders.

“Tweak?” echoed Howard.

“Like you,” said Goldie, “or Magritte.”

“Primal’s not like any of us,” Howard said, and my blood congealed in my veins.

“Shit,” Colleen said again. “This sucks.”

She could hear the flare voices, but only faintly. And she could drive them almost completely from her head if she kept one of Enid’s songs in mind. Enid, wrapped in Magritte’s flare shielding, heard nothing. He sweated the situation anyway.

“This doesn’t seem right-me hangin’ while you get into this up to your armpits. If I went in with you-”

Cal was adamant. “You can’t. If you went in, you might never come out.” He glanced at Magritte. “Either of you. We don’t know what might happen if you went in there before your contract is voided. I’d rather not find out.”

Enid took a deep breath and stared up at the Tower. In the strange gleam of Chicago daylight, its darkened windows and steel frame spat iridescence back at the sun. “Yeah,” he said. “Me neither.”

The front doors of the Chicago Media Group were massive, glass-and-brass revolving mechanisms set in two ranks with a ten-foot windbreak between. We watched them for several minutes from the half-shattered lobby of a building across the street. No one came in or out.

“We go?” Howard asked from beside me.

“No time like the present.” I patted the copy of Enid’s contract I carried in an inside pocket of my jacket and turned to Doc. “You’re our backup contingency plan. If this is a trap, or if something goes wrong, you may be our only way out.”

Doc nodded grimly and worried the hilt of a knife that had never been used for anything but cutting bandages.

Colleen put her hand over his, stopping the nervous clenching of his fingers. “Don’t cut yourself on that thing, Viktor. It’d be pretty embarrassing if I had to patch you up.”

He smiled faintly. “I will try not to cut myself. Good luck.”

Colleen smiled and squeezed her odd collection of charms. I noticed there was a silver cross among them now. Funny. I hadn’t thought she was particularly religious. “I’ll see you later,” she answered, and started for the street, leaping nimbly over a fall of broken glass and mortar.

Howard and I followed, leaving Goldie behind to make his good-byes. We’d reached the great doors by the time he came loping up behind us. They weren’t guarded, and in my eagerness to get in, I simply put my hand out to give one of them a push.

“No! No!” Howard howled, and Colleen threw a body block, bowling me over. When she hauled me upright, she and Howard and Goldie were all talking at once.

“What the hell was that for?” I asked.

“Didn’t you see it?” Colleen flung an arm at the doors. “See what?” asked Goldie, glancing from me to Colleen. “Can’t just walk in,” Howard lectured. “There’s proto -

cols.” He swung away and shuffled over behind a pillar. “See what?” Goldie asked again.

Colleen squinted at the doors. “The … the force field.”

I grabbed her arm and physically moved her out of my way, trying to keep an eye on what Howard was doing. He was peering at a mail slot centered in a brass plate. He poked the end of one finger into the slot, then jumped as if he’d been shocked and stuck the finger in his mouth to suck on it.

Strange. “I don’t see anything,” I said.

Goldie shook his head. “Me neither.”

“Whoa. Well, neither do I now, but a second ago there was this … Well, it looked kind of like a curtain of static electricity. Yellow and green and all …” She made a circular motion with her hand.

“Wax on, wax off?”

She threw Goldie a dirty look. “Staticky.”

Howard had shuffled back to us. “Okay. Now we go in.” He led the way, turning the doors as if they were made of balsa wood instead of thick, tempered glass. I will forever be amazed at how much strength is contained in a grunter’s body.

We crossed the windbreak and went through the second door into the foyer. It was a huge, vaulted chamber, harshly lit by sun filtered through the ruby veil. Banks of elevators lay in the semidarkness beyond, useless now; twin escalators, reduced to toothy staircases, led to the second floor.

I looked up as we entered the hall, our footsteps tapping out echoes on the gray marble underfoot. The upper floor was dimly lit by globes of light much like the ones Goldie produced. These were the color of dying embers and filled the upper reaches of the building with a dull, red gleam that made me think of volcanoes, lava lamps, and hell.

In the center of the floor the artfully combined letters CMG-apparently the Chicago Media Group logo-were inlaid in solid brass. Howard squatted in the middle of the logo with an expression of resignation on his face. “We wait.”

“You’re kidding,” said Colleen. “Wait for what?”

“For me.”

We glanced up in unison toward the farther of the two escalators. A man was descending. He was dressed in a long, silk Chinese robe, his hands hidden among the billows of fabric in that archetypal pose that probably had little reality outside of Saturday morning cartoons and old Charlie Chan movies. On his head was an extravagantly tall hat of the same fabric and pattern. His face was heavily made up, more like a kabuki dancer than a Chinese noble. He even sported a Fu Manchu mustache. In spite of that, he did not look the least bit Asian.

“Trick or treat,” Howard singsonged. He looked back over his shoulder at me, his mouth wriggling with what I would have said was derision on a fully human face.

The faux Chinaman set foot on the marble and glided to meet us, his feet moving invisibly under the robe. It dragged the floor in a soft whisper. He stopped in front of us. “I am Clay,” he announced, then cocked an eye at Howard. “You’ve brought… friends?”

Howard nodded and pointed at me. “Cal here wants to talk to Primal. Cal’s a lawyer.”

Clay’s eyes wobbled up to meet mine. They were strange eyes. One of them seemed to focus in a different place than its mate. They held an expression of perpetual surprise, probably because of the curved eyebrows penciled in arcs above them. “A lawyer? Why does a lawyer want to see Primal?”

“He wants to … er … serve notice,” Howard informed him.

“Notice? What sort of notice? I need more specifics, Cal…?” His brows rose with the inflection of this voice. “Griffin. Cal Griffin.”

“Ah, Cal Griffin, attorney at law. Do you have a business card?”

I glanced at Howard, who looked the other way. Primal had interesting taste in toadies. “Sorry, I seem to have left them in my other pants. Primal has a musician under contract named Enid Blindman.”

Clay’s eyes fluttered and his lips formed a wordless O. “You’ve heard of him.”

“Oh, my, yes. Everyone here has heard of Enid. Primal’s been waiting for him to come home. He thought he might be in the neighborhood. Have you brought Enid home, Mr. Griffin?”

“That’s an issue I need to raise with Primal.”

We locked eyes for a moment, then Clay’s lips curved into a smile. “By all means, come up. I’ll announce you.”

We followed him up the escalator into a broad second-floor gallery, then turned the corner, mounted a second escalator and climbed to the third floor. He turned left down a wide, marbled hallway, Howard moving just behind him, the rest of us walking three abreast like a trio of gunslingers.

“Freaky,” mumbled Colleen. “I feel like I’m in a production of the Wizard of Oz.”

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than Goldie began intoning the chant of the Witch’s Guard, “All we owe, we owe her,” under his breath.

“Wrong scene, Goldman,” Colleen murmured.

He switched to a mumbled rendition of “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” I glanced at him sharply. His eyes glittered and a grin was tugging at the corners of his mouth, giving me vertigo.

The end of the corridor disappeared into red twilight. Up ahead I could see people moving back and forth across intersecting halls. We traveled all the way to the end of the north-south corridor and turned left toward the front of the building, which gave us every opportunity to see the denizens of Primal’s domain up close.

“Normals,” murmured Goldie.

They seemed to be. Among the dozen or so people we saw roaming the corridor, not one was a tweak. At least, not as far as we could tell. Just like the rest of the Loop. At the same time, Howard’s presence didn’t seem to cause them any pause at all. He had pushed off his hood, fully displaying his distinctive features, but no one had given him any but the most cursory notice.

We reached a point in the east-west corridor where a huge set of wooden doors, decorated with the CMG logo, halted our progress. Clay did an about-face and looked from me to Colleen to Goldie. “Do you need to bring your people with you or shall they stay outside?”

“They’re not my ‘people,’ ” I said. “They’re my friends. We stay together.”

His eyes repeated the journey from Colleen’s face to Goldie’s. “I see. In that case, they may enter.”

I steeled myself for my first sight of the monster that might be Primal, and followed Clay into the room. Somewhere in the back of my mind I think I actually expected to enter a boardroom-the sort of regal wood, chrome, and glass chamber that Ely Stern had favored, decorated to intimidate or impress. But this was a grotto, a cavern, dimly lit, seemingly boundless, a place the dragon-Stern would comfortably hang out in now, if he still lived. The walls and ceiling were invisible, obscured by gloom and glistening streamers of what looked like wet silk. Woven among those were strands of something like silver Christmas garland. Some of the banners hung so low I had to duck to avoid them. Eerie light in shades of blue and green oozed from unseen sources overhead.

There were people here, collected in small groups and draped in long, strangely kinetic shadows. Their voices made soft, pink noise like the murmur of moving water. I thought of the Indian Caves at Olentangy and was surprised at the depth of my longing for the place. As we passed through the chamber, a wave of silence followed in our wake.

“It’s like an underwater cocktail party … or a disco,” murmured Colleen. “All it needs is the damn glitter ball.”

I barely heard her over the trip-hammering of my own heart. Looking up, I had found the source of the spectral light. Floating high up amid the trailing banners were several flares, gleaming emerald and aquamarine. They watched us, lazy-eyed, and drifted aimlessly, as if their only purpose here was to light Primal’s world. I found myself trying to make out the features, coloring, and clothing hidden beneath Saint Elmo’s fire. Hoping to surprise something familiar and beloved.

“Wraiths,” whispered Goldie. “They’re like lost souls.”

Colleen peered up at them. “Really? They look downright comfy to me. Well, as comfy as you can be on a leash.”

I didn’t have time to ask what she meant. Our progress through the long, cavernous room had stopped. I looked up to where Clay stood waiting for us. There was nothing there at first, only an inky, sticky blackness that filled the northeast corner of the room. But the blackness eddied and, as if on cue, light sprung up around it, revealing a dais, a throne, and the undisputed Emperor of the Red Zone.

Suddenly I was Alice. Having just eaten the wrong side of the mushroom, I was too small. I would have to flood the room with giant tears to get face-to-face with Primal. He was immense-seated, he was at least ten feet tall-and gave the impression of great mass. He was human in form, but his naked, coiled body gleamed blue-black, as if it were carved out of solid obsidian. It reflected the tendrils of light in the room and gave up a kinetic radiance of its own. Beneath the skin-or whatever passed for skin-delicate traceries of red pulsed, like neon tattoos, like veins full of luminous blood. His face had the smooth, perfect features of a pharaoh’s death mask, frozen but for the eyes. Those were the size of baseballs and bright as burnished brass. He was horrible and he was beautiful, and I was confused and disturbed by the paradox.

And the eyes were on me. On us.

Beside me, Colleen had come up short, her stance changing subtly, as if she meant to spring or run. She drew in a hissing breath and exhaled, “Holy shit.”

I don’t know if Primal heard her, but Clay did, and raised a hand to his mouth to hide a grin.

Primal spoke. In a voice like rocks being crushed, he asked, “What amuses you, monkey?” The aurora brilliance increased, spiking with reds. I didn’t see the lips move or the eyes blink.

Clay’s entire demeanor changed. His face went flat and colorless, as if made of wax, and he groveled-literally, groveled-rubbing his hands together in their obscuring sleeves, twisting his head sideways like a beaten dog. “I’m not amused, Primal. I’m pleased. Pleased that you have such… presence. You really wow ’em. It, eh, it tickles me a bit.”

“Tickles you?” Primal repeated. Without preamble, he swung one huge arm in a sweeping arc. A flash of bloodred light rolled down the length of the arm, caught Clay under the chin, and tossed him a good six feet through the air.

Colleen shouted, flipped open her jacket and reached for the crossbow strapped to her hip. I grabbed her arm hard, stopping her.

Amid derisive laughter, Clay unfolded slowly upright, like a paper doll. He shook off hurt and derision alike, straightened his robe, and turned toward us, a smile on his lips. His hat was gone and blood from his nose had run over lips and chin to stain the silk.

“You’ve ruined your outfit,” purred Primal. “Why don’t you go change into something else?”

Clay merely nodded and bobbled away, stopping only to pick up his hat. The rest of the people in the room ignored him. Their attention was on us again.

“Howard Russo.”

The grunter, who’d turned to watch Clay disappear, swung around and squinted up at the being on the throne. “Yessir.”

“You’ve come to honor your contract, have you?”

“Nosir.”

“No?” The voice was like smooth, musing thunder. “Then why have you come?”

“Brought friends to see you.”

“You don’t have friends, you wizened little toad. According to my information, these are the friends of Enid Blindman.”

“Oh. Yessir.”

“And where is Mr. Blindman?”

Howard’s eyes squinted to wrinkled slits. “Don’ know. Around. Haven’t seen him since-”

“Yesterday,” said Primal.

Howard blinked. “Yessir. Yesterday.”

He’d actually seen him about fifteen minutes ago. That was encouraging. It meant there were holes in Primal’s information.

The brass eyes swung to me. “You’re a lawyer.”

“That’s correct. I represent Enid Blindman and Howard Russo,” I said, and heard Howard mew in surprise. “Represent, Mr. Griffin?”

“You are the holder of a contract of which they are cosignatories. Recent events have caused revisions to that contract which neither of my clients have approved. Those alterations have resulted in severe penalties.”

Primal’s eyes seemed to glow brighter momentarily. “The Source Project,” he said.

“Oh, God,” Goldie murmured, and Colleen took a quick step closer to me.

“I’m … surprised you’ve heard of it.” I lied. Surprise didn’t begin to cover it. “How did you come by your intelligence?”

Primal laughed-boulders rolling down a hill. “My intelligence,” he repeated. “Let’s just say that… there was a leak.”

My throat had gone bone hard and dry. “What do you know about the Source?”

He put a massive hand over the perfect, unmoving mouth. “Mum’s the word, Mr. Griffin. Why do you care?”

“I believe the Source Project is responsible for… the changes in the environment.”

“You mean the hocus-pocus.” He waved an arm over his head. Neon pulsed wildly in the pattern of veins, and the hand extruded a smear of ruddiness that was nothing like light. It was viscous, gelatinous, and it hung in the darkness over his head, gleaming dully, before drifting downward.

The room around us gave up an audible sigh. I could feel people pressing forward, straining toward the oily gleam. The flares, high up in their tinsel forest, were drawn to it, too. The tide of desire was palpable; they wanted to lap it up, to bathe in it.

My gaze was drawn unwillingly upward to where the aqua glow of flares met Primal’s crimson and altered hue, becoming muddy, opaque, the color of clotting blood. I pulled my eyes away.

“I realize all this, of course,” Primal said, forcing my attention back to him. “My more superstitious people call it the Dark, or the Storm, or any one of a hundred other folksy and inaccurate things. It’s not dark. It’s blindingly bright.”

“And is that why you hide from it?” asked Goldie. He pushed himself up next to me, and I glanced at his face. He was sweating, pale-like an alcoholic fighting DTs.

Primal sat up just a little straighter. “And who, exactly, are you?”

“I’m irrelevant. You’re hiding from the Source, aren’t you? Pretty much the way the rest of us are.”

“Ridiculous.” Clay’s voice came from behind us.

We turned in unison to see him working his way through the cavernous room. He had, indeed, changed into something else. He had changed into a mime, replete with whiteface, Alice Cooper eyes, beret, white gloves, and leotard.

“Oh, jeez,” muttered Colleen.

“Primal is afraid of no one.” Clay came to a gliding stop in the same place Primal had bowled him over, as if it were policy to place himself in harm’s way. There was a smile painted on his face. I doubted it was echoed beneath the paint.

“Thank you, monkey,” Primal told him. “Your new attire suits you.”

Clay struck a dramatic pose, pointing a finger at Colleen. “The bitch doesn’t like it.”

“The bitch has a name,” said Colleen tartly. “Colleen. That’s Queen Colleen to you, monkey boy.”

“You dislike mimes, Colleen?” Primal inquired.

“Doesn’t everybody?” Colleen asked. “The only thing I hate more than mimes is clowns. They give me the creeps.”

Clay postured exaggeratedly, making a sad mime face, and for a moment, in the slow eddy of light and dark, the weirdly watery luminance of the flares, the strangeness of the room and conversation, I was sure I’d been tossed head first into a Fellini film.

“She’s scrappy, isn’t she?” Primal observed. “You could learn something from this young woman, Clay. She seems to have found the balls you misplaced.”

Clay was silent, his mime face smiling sadly into the insult.

Primal watched him for a moment more, then turned back to me. “So, you represent Misters Russo and Blindman, and you want to strike a compromise on their contract with us.”

“Actually, I’m here to effect their release from it.” “Release. I see. And why would I consider releasing either of them?”

“Quite simply because you have no choice. The contract is no longer binding. I’m here simply to inform you of that fact.”

All sound in the room stopped as if everyone in it had suddenly held their breath. Primal sat back in his throne and underwent a metamorphosis. His obsidian skin flushed with color until it seemed his entire body was cut from garnet.

“What do you mean, no longer binding? They signed the contract, Mr. Griffin. We signed the contract.”

“No. No one signed this contract,” I said, drawing the papers out of my jacket. I held them up before Primal’s bright gaze, which followed them as if they were a mesmerist’s charm. “This document and the stipulations in it have changed since the original was signed. Drastically. Those changes invalidate the agreement. In addition, I seriously doubt that you personally signed the original contract. If I’m not mistaken, you didn’t exist before the Change. At least not as you are now.”

I glanced down at the signatures on the page. “This contract was signed by Daniel Freemont, Glenford Blaker, and Shirley Cross. Are you one or more of those individuals?”

Primal changed aspect again, seeming to grow and inflate, his body blazing golden and glorious. “I AM PRIMAL.”

The voice was immense, room-shaking. Primal’s shadowy courtiers drew back in fear and Howard Russo cringed and quivered against my legs. I was struck with the absurd image of Dorothy and her three stalwarts quaking before the Wizard of Oz. Life imitates art. Except that I wasn’t going to rattle, cower, or shed my straw innards on Primal’s throne room floor.

“Irrelevant,” I said. “The legal fact remains: this contract is invalid. It is no longer binding on either Enid Blindman or Howard Russo.” I nudged Howard out from behind me and held the contract out to him. “Howard Russo, are you prepared to void this contract on behalf of yourself and your client?”

Howard blinked up at me and lifted an uncertain hand. Primal said, “DON’T,” with a voice in which wind howled and trees collapsed.

Howard squinted at the contract so hard his eyes watered. For a moment I thought he might run and hide. Instead he snatched the pages from my hand.

“DON’T.”

Howard stepped out of my shadow, faced the gleaming giant, held up the contract, and ripped it in two. It gave up a flash of sickly green light that lingered like the after-image of fireworks before weeping to the floor. This time the damn thing stayed torn. Howard grasped it with new vigor and ripped it again and again into tiny pieces. He flung them to the floor and danced on them. Then he pointed a finger up at Primal and said, “ Done with you! I am done with you!”

I steeled myself for an explosion from Primal-the tirade of a thwarted tyrant. Instead he sat back in his throne with a sound like the roll of low thunder. His eyes, half lidded, looked like twin suns. He guttered toward garnet. “So…” was all he said, and raised an arm the size of a tree trunk. Red mist cascaded down it. Howard flinched back a step, but there was no menace in Primal’s movement. “Not so hasty. This contract is voided, but might we not strike a new deal?”

Howard glanced at me, then back to Primal. “What deal?”

“I still want Enid Blindman. I still want… devas.” He might have been announcing that he craved chocolate. “Why?” I asked.

“I like having my very own pantheon of little gods and goddesses. I like the way they gleam through the darkness. They soothe my troubled breast.” He folded a ruby hand to where a heart might have beat were he human. “They… light up my life.”

“Wow,” said Goldie. “I’m impressed. Half-assed literary allusions, bad song title puns. We could be twins. I think you and the flares protect each other.”

“You again. You’re annoying. You realize that, don’t you?”

“Protection. Isn’t that why you’ve enslaved the flares… and the musicians?” Goldie pressed.

“There are no slaves here. The flares, as you call them, are my guests. The musicians… are in protective custody.” “Why?” I asked.

“Their music is dangerous-to themselves and to others. Surely you’ve realized that. You’ve seen what Enid’s music does. It not only depletes him, it bends things. Reshapes them. Makes them hideous. I don’t like hideous things.” He rolled a glance toward Howard, who bared his teeth. “I bring the musicians here and I channel their abilities. So they can’t hurt themselves or anyone else. A noble cause, don’t you “You use them to imprison the flares,” Goldie accused.

I put a hand on his arm and squeezed, my eyes on Primal.

“The music only feeds back because of the contract.” Primal’s perfect head moved slowly back and forth. “Because of the Source.”

“No. The Source gave the music power; the contract made it dangerous.”

For the first time, Primal’s lips moved, showing teeth that might have been made of diamonds. “Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?”

I ignored the question. “No one’s going to cut a deal with you.”

“Oh, Howard will. Howard’s always ready to make a deal. And Howard wants what’s best for his client… and for himself. He’ll convince Enid to stay under contract.”

“Fuck you,” said Howard, then turned and shuffled toward the door.

“You haven’t heard what I’m offering you in return.”

Howard wheeled, beating at his chest with balled fists. “Can you take this back? Make me human? You can’t do that. Nobody can do that.” He flipped Primal a pointed gesture and trundled away.

“I think we got what we came for,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Goldie shook himself as if we were waking from sleep. “What we came for,” he murmured. “No, no, we don’t have that.” He stepped in front of me and looked up into the full blast of Primal’s gaze. “The seventh floor.”

Primal seemed to freeze, and Clay said, “There’s nothing on the seventh floor.”

“Yes, there is,” Goldie insisted. “There is.”

I tried to pull him back. “Goldie, come on. We’re done here.” I ignored the wraiths hovering around us. Ignored what leaving them here in this state might mean. We had to go on. If we could break the Source, this trap, too, might be sprung.

Goldie shook me off. “There’s something on the seventh floor, Cal. Something he doesn’t want us to see.”

Primal opened his mouth and an earthquake rolled out. “GET OUT!”

Goldie’s aura was suddenly bright enough to make me blink. There was an even more dazzling concentration of light building up in his hands. I lunged at him, grabbing his forearms, desperate to keep him from doing something deadly. He turned his head to look at me. The moment our eyes touched, I was struck with the stark, horrific image of Tina, floating like a Lorelei in an aquarium, listless, almost lifeless, her eyes empty, her fine, pale hair fanned out on the ether. One prisoner among many.

The seventh floor.

I let go of Goldie. His lightning went off like a fragment of Armageddon, filling the room with stark white flash-fire. I was blinded. He shoved me toward the door.

I heard Colleen shouting behind us, heard Primal roaring, Clay shrieking. Then we were in the hall and the doors closed, shutting the cacophony out. Through the sparks that danced in front of my eyes I expected to see guards, armed and ready to bring us down. What I saw was a guard’s boot just visible around the corner to the main corridor.

Howard, standing at the corner, looked down and nudged it out of sight with one foot, then straightened his sweats. “Not dead,” he told me pointedly. “Just… inconvenienced.”

Goldie shoved past me, heading for the fire escape. “We don’t have time,” he said. “We’ve got to go.”

I snagged his jacket. “Not that way.”

He swung around to face me, eyes desperate. “Tina.”

“Not now.” I redoubled my grip on his arm and started moving him toward the intersecting corridor where Howard waited impatiently.

He struggled in my grasp. “Cal, for God’s sake! He’s got Tina!”

“How, Goldie?” I kept him moving. “How’d he get her? The Source has Tina. This isn’t the Source. “

“You don’t know that! None of us knows that!”

“This is not the Source,” I repeated, and told myself I believed it, though I found I didn’t want to.

I’d just marched him around the corner when Howard looked up and said, “Where’s the girl?”

I spun around. Colleen was nowhere in sight. We’d left her behind.

Goldie picked that moment to bolt. He caught me completely by surprise, bowling Howard and me both over and onto the floor. From the darkness of the hallway I watched him disappear around the corner. A second later there was a wash of red light and the fire door slammed.

I scrambled to my feet, pulling Howard up after me. I took a step toward the cross corridor, then realized I didn’t know which direction I should go. Colleen was still in Pri-mal’s lair. Goldie … and maybe Tina…

Goldie’s vision washed back over me, making my legs quake.

Howard tugged on my jacket. “I’ll get the girl,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the throne room. “You go for the crazy guy.”

Hesitation gone, I flew around the corner after Goldie, through the fire door, and out onto the escape. I felt the cadence of Goldie’s frantic steps as a dull vibration in the concrete and steel. I looked up. The stairs seemed to zigzag into infinity; I only needed to go as far as the seventh floor. I sprinted, taking two steps at a time.

On the seventh-floor landing the fire door hung open. I didn’t stop to think. I dove into the gloom and dodged swiftly down the hall to the left, guided only by the tentative light from the open fire exit. Within seconds that had dwindled to nothing. I slowed, put my back to the inner wall, and listened.

Nothing.

I moved cautiously along, keeping my back to the wall. When I’d sidled about ten feet I paused again to listen. Still nothing.

“Goldie?”

Behind me the fire door slammed shut, leaving me in total darkness. Someone was behind me in the hallway. My heart rate spiked. I turned back the way I’d come, slipping my sword from its sheath.

“Goldie?”

The building around me seemed to moan softly. Hair rose up on the back of my neck and I was overwhelmed by the sudden conviction that something very unlike Goldie faced me down the hallway. The darkness stirred and shifted. I pivoted and ran, keeping one hand on the inner wall.

Three doors slipped by beneath my trailing fingers. Then the wall fell suddenly away. I turned right. Remembering the escalator core, I shifted to the opposite side of the hall. Four more doors slid by before the wall fell away again. I turned left and stopped.

Ahead of me the corridor glowed a strange, dim green, like light through many layers of thick glass. The walls themselves were black and seemed to be dripping with some kind of viscous fluid that flowed in every direction, unconstrained by gravity. Just beneath the surface, gleaming green runnels of light wriggled as if sentient. Like the veins beneath Primal’s skin.

Behind the walls, or maybe trapped within the walls, amorphous shapes moved languorously and gave up a light of their own. Flares, caught like butterflies in a giant’s display case. There seemed to be dozens of them.

I stood immobile in the middle of my own nightmare-a dreamscape I’d walked right into, in spite of the steps I had taken (or thought I had taken) to avoid it. Colleen was four floors down in God knew what kind of predicament. Goldie was somewhere ahead of me in this maze. My thoughts eddied there, floating with the disembodied shapes behind the thick, translucent walls.

A great sigh breathed over me. I looked ahead, my eyes filling to the brim with the glow of fey light. Without meaning to, I moved forward, feeling a horrible, palpable sense of deja vu.

My worst nightmare.

I moved deeper into the labyrinth, reached another juncture, turned another corner. I heard my name called again, only this time it sounded in my head.

“Cal…”

A gleaming shape wavered behind the wall just ahead of me. It seemed to draw nearer to the barrier, taking on more and more definition. The shape was human, but every limb gleamed with spectral light, and the hair, so white it was almost blue, floated in a bright banner from the head. It moved with the grace of a swan, closer and closer to the barrier.

I moved closer, too, until I had nowhere to go. I pressed my hands against the icy wall and looked into a delicate face with huge, azure eyes, the features blurred by the glass but still recognizable.

“Oh, God,” I sighed, and wept.