Redlisted (39 page)

“In any
event. We must act quickly. I’ve been watching the horde
upstairs through the surveillance system. I can scarcely believe how
rapidly they adapt, shrugging off such potent manifestations of the
blood...”

“Do you
think we’ll be able to make it if we run away, though?”
Haruko asks. “Won’t she just follow us to the next
outpost?“

“Who said
anything about running?”

“We can’t
stay here,” Adam says. “What exactly is it that you’re
planning to do?”

“Let’s
not speak of it until we reach the chamber,” Desmond says. He
takes the key from his pocket and begins turning it over and over in
his palm. “I must wait to say more until she is no longer able
to intervene.”

We continue into
the complex. The sound of our footsteps echoes off the bare white
walls.

Adam looks through
a half-window on one of the office doors, frowning. “Desmond,
where is everyone?”

“I’ve
seen to it that we’re alone,” he says.

The hairs on my
arms stand on end. Something is wrong here. Really wrong. Desmond has
the aura of a cult leader that just gave everyone the Kool-Aid. I
give Adam a desperate look.

He ignores me and
keeps walking.

Adam! What
the...

Desmond pushes
open a door. On the other side is a passage that slopes gently
downward. It’s warmer here, and there’s a soft whirring
in the air that offsets the quiet.

“As I said,
I’ve never been able to account for how we lost the head,”
he says. “I understand Aya’s suspicions all too well. I
have come to wonder if I can trust my comrades any longer. No—I
no longer wonder. I’ve considered it at length and I... I can’t
understand how she could have stolen the artifact without assistance.
She must have had an accomplice within our ranks. At least one. Maybe
more.”

I grab Adam’s
arm and try to pull him back up the ramp.
Adam,
listen to what he’s saying! He killed them all! Do something!

He frowns. “What
is it?”

My heart sinks.
Goddamn
it. You can’t hear me, can you.

“Are you
trying to tell me something?”

I pantomime
shooting a gun at Desmond’s head.

He takes out his
pistol, points it at the ground, and pulls the trigger. Click.

“Come on,”
he whispers. “We’ll think of something.”

We continue down
the ramp, which turns right at a sixty-degree angle. I shove up the
sleeves of my shirt—the heat is intense.

“I’ve
never trusted Mirabel,” Desmond continues. “I’ve
been campaigning for a century for the Wardens to cut ties with her,
to disavow her techniques and come up with another way to conceal
ourselves from the prying eyes of the breathers. But now...” He
squeezes each of the fingers on his right hand with his thumb one at
a time, popping the knuckles. “It’s up to us now to do
what is necessary. To do the only thing that’s left to be
done.”

We reach the end
of the slope. Desmond takes out the silver key and unlocks the door.
He steps inside first; the rest of us file in behind him, Adam taking
up the rear.

The chamber is
massive, dark, and perfectly triangular. The walls are all black,
polished to an obsidian gleam. At first glance they appear to be
featureless, totally flat; but as I focus my eyes I can see hairline
features running throughout in a purposeful design, geometrically
precise, like the filigrees in a mosque. The floor is set with a
mandala of intersecting equilateral triangles, their interstices
growing smaller and smaller towards the center. An intense warmth
from beneath the floor penetrates through the soles of my sneakers.

“Wait here,”
Desmond says.

He crosses to the
far side of the room, disappearing into the blackness. Perhaps a
minute later, he returns, wheeling a cart in front of him. On the
cart rests a granite tomb with a circular depression in its lid.

“As Dr.
Radcliffe and Haruko are already aware, this is the tomb of
Mnemosyne,” he says. “Almost a hundred years ago, after
Julian Radcliffe beheaded her, Mnemosyne’s four favored
lieutenants created this artifact and sealed her body in it. It will
only open when given a blood offering from someone of her House.”

Adam gives me a
look I can’t decipher.

“Beneath our
feet is an incinerator,” Desmond continues. “We will use
it to destroy her—both her body and her head.”

Haruko’s
mouth falls open. “Desmond—we—we can’t just
destroy one of the ancestors. Not without the President’s
permission.”

“The
President won’t listen to reason.”

“He can’t
keep backing Mirabel after what she’s done! She raised horde of
ghouls, for Christ’s sake. We need to get Mnemosyne to Chicago
and talk to the administration—“

“I’ve
already spoken with both the President and the Speaker on this
matter. There is nothing left to say.”

Haruko takes a
deep breath.

“He’s
right,” Aya says. “We should destroy her. As long as
she’s still around, it’s just a matter of time before
Mirabel –“

“You killed
the trainees, didn’t you?” Haruko interjects. “They
were trying to take the body to Chicago, weren’t they?”

“Haruko,
love... “

She sneers.
“Don’t.”

“Sometimes
the necessary course of action is painful,” he says.

She doesn’t
reply.

“In order to
open the coffin, I will need to disable the wards on the facility,”
Desmond says. “They’re strong enough to prevent even
mechanical manifestations.” He looks to Adam, forces a smile.
“Before I do that, I need to know I can rely on your support,
Dr. Radcliffe.”

“You don’t
need his support,” Aya says. “All you need is his blood.”

Haruko readies her
machete. “Over my dead body.”

“Haruko,
wait,” Adam says. “I’ll do it. It’s fine.
Okay? No one needs to get hurt.” He laughs. “Let’s
just disable the wards and then I’ll make the offering.”

“Thank you
for being so reasonable.” Desmond removes a calculator-like
device from his back pocket and punches in a long sequence of
characters. Somewhere above us sirens start to sound.

“Well?”
Desmond says, gesturing to the tomb.

“Right,”
Adam says, again laughing inappropriately. He turns to me. “Kate,
could you... give me my knife?”

What knife?

He leans in. “Go,”
he whispers.

I stare at him,
frozen in place.

“Run.”

I shake my head
no.

“
Now.
”

An overwhelming
sense of déjà vu falls over me—the sense that
I’ve dreamed this before, that I know what will happen if I
just...

take off towards
the door at a sprint. I glance back for just a second as I reach the
hallway. Adam is swinging at Desmond’s head with his
sledgehammer; Aya is running after me.

“Haruko,
stop her!”

I start climbing
the ramp as fast as my legs will take me. Two sets of footsteps are
at my heels; then the sickening sounds of combat ensue. I look back
to catch a glimpse of Haruko slashing at Aya. Aya ducks, trips her,
and brings the pickaxe up through her left eye. Haruko screams and
drops to her knees.

Adam emerges from
the door to the chamber, opens his palm with his teeth, and flings
blood at Aya from behind. She wavers for a moment, struggling against
the compulsion to sleep, then slumps to the floor.

Adam sprints up
the ramp, grabbing my forearm as he overtakes me and dragging me
along.

Is Desmond
dead?

“No. He’ll
be back up in minutes. So will Aya, and you’ve seen how fast
she can run. We need to find a place to hide.”

And then what?

“I don’t
know.”

We reach the door
at the top of the ramps. Throwing them open, we find ourselves faced
with four possible routes of escape fanning out at sixty-degree
angles. Adam chooses the second one to the left and pulls me behind
him. He’s not as fast as Aya or even Haruko, but soon I’m
having trouble catching my breath and my legs are turning into
gelatin.

“Here’s
what we’re going to do,” he says, keeping his voice level
and precise. “First we need to find Desmond’s office.”

How will we do
that?

“I remember
the room number. It’s two-twelve. We’ll find it.”

We turn a corner.
He releases my arm.

What then?

“Haruko told
me he has a panic room. If we can get inside first, he won’t be
able to open the door.”

I nod.

“Then I’ll
try to call Julian. I think he knows where the garage is—he’s
been here so many times, he must know. We’ll try to get there
and steal a car.”

How the hell
are we going to pull that off?

“It’s
the best I can come up with, okay?”

We pass a metal
door to our right. Adam glances at the nameplate next to the knob.
“These are the three-hundreds,” he says. “The
two-hundreds should be one row up...”

We reach another
crossroads, this one leading off in six directions. I hear footsteps
approaching in the distance, echoing off the bare walls, but it’s
impossible to tell where the sound is coming from. I breathe shakily
through my nose, trying to keep from vomiting.

Adam gestures to
our right, and we set off down another narrow passage. The footsteps
are getting louder, ringing off the concrete walls with increasing
sharpness. At the next intersection, we find another corridor with
doors lining both walls. The nameplate next to the closest door reads
434.

“Shit,”
Adam says. “We need to double back.”

We run back down
the narrow corridor to the six-way intersection. Far down the hall we
took from the ramps, Desmond is waiting for us. He lifts his right
hand and fires three shots. Two miss; one hits Adam in the stomach.
He winces, stumbling forward. I catch him before he can tumble to the
ground and pull him out of the intersection.

We turn right. I
pull Adam behind me, propelled by nothing but adrenaline and
determination, Behind us, Desmond rounds the corner just as we emerge
in the two-hundred corridor. We reach office two-twelve. I reach for
the doorknob, but it won’t turn.

“Move,”
Adam says, readying the sledgehammer.

He swings at the
door twice, splintering the hardwood. As he’s preparing the
third blow, Desmond fires. The shot goes straight through Adam’s
skull, spraying gray matter and blood everywhere.

Adam crumples to
the concrete. I scream.

No—no—no
time to think.

I throw myself
against the door, barreling into the office. I put the handle of the
box in my teeth, then crouch to the ground, hook my hands underneath
Adam’s armpits and drag him behind me. I don’t even
notice how heavy he is. I have to get him inside that room.

“I’m
not going to harm you, girl,” Desmond calls from the hallway.
“So long as you give me that box.”

I haul Adam across
the floor of the office to the door of the panic room. It’s
reinforced steel, like the door to a bank vault. There’s a
keypad on the wall by its side. I must need to enter a code in order
to get inside.

God fucking damn
it. Of course I need to enter a code.

“Kate? Is
that your name?” Desmond’s voice is closer now. “Kate,
you don’t understand how terrible Mnemosyne is. She’s a
tyrant. She deserves to die.”

Wait. I had
Mirabel’s powers before. I controlled the deer. Maybe I have
Adam’s powers now? I can’t read minds, but...

I reach out and
cover the keypad with my right hand, close my eyes and try to focus.