The Magic's in the Music (Magic Series Book 5) (38 page)

“Tris, you’re up,”
Michael said. They’d loaded guns and Kevlar vests into the delivery truck Kemble had produced for them by changing the logistics of a linen supply service computer. Tris still considered Kemble’s command of the byways of the Internet and coding of any system you could name nothing short of miraculous. Stacks of towels and white uniforms they’d thrown out of the truck littered the concrete floor.

“You got it,” Tris said shortly. The family had agreed he was the only one with the requisite skill to drive the truck. Tris was just glad to have something concrete to do.

Maggie stood over the two guys who had brought the truck to the empty warehouse. He hated taking Maggie into danger like this. But she’d calmed them within an inch of their life. They might look dead, but they’d wake in a couple of hours, feeling like they’d had a week in Acapulco and ready to rumble.

Tris helped her up into the truck. Kemble and Michael helped their women inside the back. “Okay, Tammy. Your turn.” Tris hoisted his little sister up and she scrambled in. She wasn’t so little these days. She’d grown into a woman while the family was fighting Clan and looking for Talismans. She was wearing an absurd, orangey-red dress with a flouncy skirt. It kinda matched her hair. Hardly an outfit for storming a casino, but what girl had camouflage fatigues in her closet? It was a shame she’d been robbed of any normal teen years. They’d all given things up, but maybe Tammy most of all. No sleepovers, no dances, no boyfriends for Senior to frighten. Her life was more than sheltered; it was cut off just above the root.

Kemble and Dev hopped up into the dark of the delivery van and Tris pulled down the sliding door. He jumped into the cab. Michael climbed into the passenger seat. Showtime.

Tris started the engine, pulled off the break and slipped the truck into gear. “You getting a better read on them?”

Michael’s eyes flickered. The truck pulled out into the alley behind the warehouse. Sunset was coming on. They were a couple of miles from the Luxor, off the strip in the industrial district. “They’re on the southwest side of the hotel building. So definitely in that separate conference area that’s mostly below ground.”

“Hey, that’s good,” Kee exclaimed.

“Yeah, fits right in the plan.”

‡

Lan was so
proud of Greta. She’d kept up her laser until she was nearly exhausted. And there was a neat square about three feet high in the wall of the abandoned freezer. Right now it was still filled with metal, but he was pretty sure the square could be kicked out. “Good job, Greta. You’ve really got the hang of this thing.”

“We don’t know where it goes,” she fretted. “It could lead nowhere. Or there could just be cement outside the metal.”

“And if there is, we know what to do about it.” He tried to sound confident, reassuring despite how he felt inside. He was so screwed. Six ways from Sunday, screwed. It was his fault Greta was in this mess. He’d gotten dragged into everything he’d tried so hard and so long to avoid. He had a power and so did Greta, even if he wasn’t sure exactly how to make his stupid power useful. Even now an urgently throbbing base and a trembling flute ran through his brain like a movie score. That meant that Destiny had landed on him like the house landing on the Wicked Witch of the West in the
Wizard of Oz
. No escape. Worse, he liked Greta. That was the nail in the coffin. If they got out of here, if there was a dawn on the far side of this black night, he’d try to do right by her, but she’d gotten a raw deal. She’d have to give up everything. And all she got in return was him. The whole thing gave him a sick feeling in his gut.

On top of it all, his stupid rebellion had just forced him to betray everything his family stood for. He’d never wanted his denial of their fate to harm them. Hell, harm his family? He might just have harmed the whole world. Morgan wasn’t likely to be a kindly overlord, and he didn’t want to even imagine the damage she could do with all four Talismans, even though he wasn’t quite sure how the brief formation of a Pentacle in the sky fit. His name would probably go down in history as the ultimate traitor. Benedict Arnold had nothing on him.

But he couldn’t wallow. Right now, they had to get out of here before Boris Karloff and the guy with dead blue eyes came back. He had no illusion that those two would let Greta and Lan go just because he’d told them what they wanted him to know. Far from it. They’d lost their usefulness. And Boris-baby loved his work a little too much.

“So,” he began. Her expression got fearful. Better go slowly. Not too slowly though. “Maybe I can help us get out of here if you could cut me down.” He clattered the chain between his shackles, and raised his brows in encouragement.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Greta said, her voice serious and determined.

That was good.

“I’m going to try the light on my chains first. Then I can maybe lift you up, and we can get your chain off the hook.”

“No, no,” he said quickly. “We don’t have time. Do mine. You…you won’t be able to lift me. I’m two hundred pounds, minimum, more like two-fifteen.”

“That is so not the reason you are saying that. And if you don’t have faith that I won’t hurt myself, how can I try it on you?”

“But, really, I—”

“Nope. Not happening.” She looked up at the chain between her manacles that looped over the meat hook. “I could take out the hook rather than the chain, but I’d probably bonk myself on the head with one of those spiked points.”

“Greta, listen to me.” He tried not to sound desperate, but he couldn’t let her do this. “Exposing those delicate, vulnerable wrists to—”

“Be quiet, you’ll break my concentration,” she muttered, even as she closed her eyes.

He shut his mouth, feeling helpless.

Her eyes opened a moment later. Lan was in no danger of speaking at that point. He hadn’t seen her when she’d actually been cutting the hole in the wall. She’d been turned away. But now he could see that her blue eyes glowed with some kind of inner light. Not a figure of speech, real inner light. They were opaque with it. She looked like one of those aliens in an old sci-fi movie.

She turned her alien gaze up toward her chains. One palm poured out light that drew down into a searing white line. The line wavered, causing smoky devastation wherever it touched. The acrid smell of burning metal flooded the room again.
She can control it
, he thought in relief. The laser steadied as it crossed the metal links between the handcuffs. The clatter of the chain as it split and fell broke her concentration. The laser disappeared.

“Ouch,” she yelped as the still-hot, cut ends of the chain touched her bare arm. She held the cuffs out away from her. A red weal raised on her arm.

“Damn it, Greta,” he hissed. “You should have tried it on me.”

She ignored him and grinned. “Did you see that? I did it.”

“And burned yourself.”

She looked down, still careful to hold the metal out away from her body. “Yeah. Wish I had some ice.” Then she looked up at him, determined. “At least I didn’t burn a hole in you. Now how am I going to cool this down fast?” She looked around the bare freezer. “Nada.”

“We can’t wait anyway. They’ll be back any minute. You’ve got to do me.”

She looked worried. “These chains will burn you when I lift you.” She was so damned cute when she chewed her lip. “Maybe your clothes will protect you.” She came up and put her arms around him. She had no idea how heavy two hundred pounds plus of man was. He gritted his teeth as the hot metal touched his jeans. They’d protect him for a few seconds. She got her hips under her and bent at the knees to heave him up.

Nothing, of course.

She got a better grip and heaved again, grunting.
Nada.
She looked stricken as she stepped back. Good thing, too. He’d bet his jeans had new holes in the back of the thighs.

“Sorry. I thought I could—”

“No way you could lift two hundred pounds of dead weight. So just do it.” He could see the panic start to rise in her eyes. “I’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “You’re already great at this.”

She glanced over to the scarred wall where she’d first tried to cut the square, with its zigzags of blackened metal.

“No, no. That was then. You’ve got it down now. Besides, we don’t have any choice.” He saw her take a deep breath and grit her teeth. The girl had what they used to call ‘moxie’ in old movies. “Get the chain as close to the cuffs as you can.”

“Okay.” She took some deep breaths and closed her eyes. Her shoulders relaxed. When she opened them, they were suffused with that blue glow. She kept her hands balled into fists until she raised them above her head. Lan took a deep breath himself. Escape or fry, this was happening, and he had absolutely no control over the outcome. It was all Greta’s show.

Greta opened her palms and the light snapped out like Luke’s lightsaber. “Don’t move,” she said, and her voice seemed to echo like she was in a sound chamber.

Shit.
He definitely was not moving.

Heat washed over him as the blades of light dipped toward his wrists. He felt one chain detach, but he didn’t move. The other chain split in two and the links in the middle fell to the ground, clipping him on the shoulder on their way by. A searing pain settled in their wake.

“Oh, my God,” Greta exclaimed. The beams of light snapped off and she ran over to him, slapping his shoulder. “You’re on fire. I knew I shouldn’t have tried this.”

He joined her, gritting his teeth against the pain as he slapped out the small flames in his shirt.
Damn!
“What else were we going to do?” The flames disappeared, leaving reddened flesh visible through the charred hole in his shirt. “I’m fine,” he lied.

But he better be good enough because he could hear footsteps outside in the corridor. Thank God for heightened senses.

He lunged for his flute, abandoning the holster, and grabbed her hand. The familiar jolt of electric attraction was comforting. They could do this. They were meant to be together. “They’re coming.” He went to the square she’d cut in the wall and kicked at it with one boot. It came loose, but didn’t fall out. Was there a wall on the other side? He stepped up and pried it back. Cool air rushed in. Good. He pulled until the muscles in his shoulders were likely to pop and the square came free.

“Get going.” He gathered her in and practically shoved her through the opening then dove after her.

After the glare of the fluorescents in the metal freezer, the complete darkness in the next room blinded him but there was no time to let his eyes adjust. He stumbled forward, hitting his knee on something. A soft light suffused the room. Greta stood in the middle of what turned out to be a storeroom. She was glowing.

“I was wrong. That’s really useful,” he muttered and they dashed for the door.

Both of them heard the freezer door in the room they’d just left snap open. “Fuck. What the hell happened here?” Jason said.

Lanyon pulled open the door to the storeroom, knowing it probably led out into the same corridor their captors had just used. He just hoped to God they were already in the freezer.

Hallway empty.

“Looks like someone developed a power,” Hardwick replied in that creepy voice he had.

Lan needed to buy some time. He took three running strides and slammed the freezer door, locking it in place. It wouldn’t take them long to follow Lan and Greta’s escape route, though. And he had no illusions that Greta could muster her laser fast enough to be a weapon against someone with guns or pain, or who knew what other weapon. Or even that she would. Greta was not a battle-hardened soldier. Not that he was. But he’d been under attack before. She hadn’t. He wondered if she had the temperament to actually kill a human being with her light.

He turned. And was nearly blinded by Greta’s laser. She was applying it to the doorknob of the storeroom.

“That should hold them in a while,” she said. But her eyes were frightened.

“Come on. They might have a way to call reinforcements.”

They hurried down the corridor.

“Where are we, do you think?” she asked, already breathless.

“I’m guessing underground. I haven’t seen any windows.”

They came out into…a kitchen. A commercial-looking kitchen lighted only by an occasional work light, and…a green exit sign.

“Of course.” Greta exclaimed as they dashed for the exit through a sea of stainless steel industrial ranges and griddles and sinks. “We were in the freezer of a restaurant.”

They hit the exit doors.

And nothing happened. The bars that were supposed to open the steel doors rattled up and down uselessly as the remnants of Greta’s and Lan’s chains that clanked against them. “Fuck!” Lan roared in frustration. What to do? He looked around.

“I can do it,” Greta said, chest heaving. “Just let me catch my breath.”

“No time.” He took her hand and headed for the swinging doors on the other side of the kitchen. She might just fuse the locks, which wouldn’t be helpful. Besides, he wasn’t sure how much energy it was taking to do that laser thing. She was looking pale and drawn.