The Magic's in the Music (Magic Series Book 5) (39 page)

They pushed through. Lan thought he’d see the restaurant proper, but it was a vast room lighted only by dim work lights above a sort of stage. The carpet had huge, garish flowers in orange and gold. Really fancy chandeliers made of tubes of glass or plastic or something loomed over the room. Dim tables and toppled chairs formed an obstacle course ahead of them. Ballroom? Conference center? At least they wouldn’t need Greta’s light to get to the bank of elevators he saw in the distance.

“Come on,” she said, surprising him as she wove through the debris.

He took off after her. Damn, but he didn’t want to wait around for an elevator. There was no way Jason and Hardwick were the only Clan members around here. Wherever ‘here’ was. No convenient green exit signs to indicate other doors though.

Greta slapped the elevator call button. It didn’t light. Ominous. She started bouncing on her feet. “Doesn’t mean the elevator’s not working,” she muttered. “Come on, come on.”

Lan turned his back, searching the room. You couldn’t have a conference center where the only exits were a bank of elevators. What would happen in a fire? “There,” he said, pointing.

Several doors were partially concealed behind heavy draperies. He took Greta’s arm. These babies better not be welded shut.

They weren’t.

As they practically fell through the doors, Lan heard crashing behind him. He chanced a glance back and saw Jason stumbling into the ballroom at the far side. Damn. He didn’t see Hardwick, but that was no guarantee of safety. He really didn’t want to learn how far Hardwick could throw his pain-wave shit.

Chains clanking, they headed down a corridor lined with what looked like meeting rooms. The plaques had fancy Egyptian names like ‘King Tut’, ‘Nefertiti’, ‘Ramses I, II and III’. What the hell? This was some kind of an abandoned conference center.

He knew Jason was right on their heels, though he couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of his heart and his breathing. There had to be a way out of here. If they could get out in the open, maybe they had a chance. None of the rooms had windows. So they had to find a stairway or something.

Around the next bend there was another bank of elevators. This one had lighted call buttons. Jackpot.

He banged his palm against the button. If they could get an elevator before Jason caught up with them, they were out of here. “Come on. Come on,” he muttered under his breath.

Greta bent over, putting her palms on her knees. “We’re okay,” she gasped.

That was when Jason rounded the corner. He had a gun.

“That’s it, you fucks. This little performance is over.”

Lanyon moved in front of Greta and held his hands up. He still clutched his flute, though what good it would do he had no idea. “Okay,” he growled. “Don’t get excited.”

“How the fuck did you get loose?” Jason said, glancing up to Lan’s dangling chains.

No way was Lan telling him about Greta’s powers. “Want to play twenty questions?”

The searing pain in his thigh was followed by a barking sound. He staggered back with the impact.
Shit.

“You’re going to do whatever I want or you and your little friend here are going to be in all kinds of hurt.”

Lan put his hand down to his thigh and felt the warm, wet ooze between his fingers. “Leave her alone,” he gasped, feeling for Greta behind him. How the hell could he protect her?

“Lan!” Greta cried. She came around him and gasped as she saw the blood.

Lan managed to straighten. “I’m okay,” he said. Greta’s face was next to his. He saw her look of horror morph into anger and then uncertainty.

Then her eyes glowed blue.

“No, no,” he shook his head at her. But she drew herself up. Her face went calm. “He’s got a gun,” Lan pleaded.

“Step away from him, honey. Maybe you can convince me not to put the next bullet in his shoulder. Shoulder wounds are real bad.”

*

Everything was glowing
blue. Greta had never experienced a flash of rage as intense as when she realized Jason had shot Lanyon. Could she use that anger to turn around right here in the elevator lobby, with its stupid glowing green signs that said ‘west elevators’, to draw on her power and kill this creep? If she’d known how to do this laser thing earlier, would she have killed both him and that terrible Hardwick guy for what they did to Lanyon?

God, she didn’t know. She’d been the kind of kid who’d nursed birds with broken wings until she could find someone to take them to a shelter. She’d never been allowed pets, but she couldn’t stand to watch those commercials with maltreated animals in them. She’d given tons of money to no-kill shelters. Could she kill a human being? Even one as horrible as Jason?

Probably not. She might as well admit it right here. She looked up at Lan as he shook his head and whispered “No.” What was he talking about?

Oh.
She felt the power coursing up through that rod in her spine. She realized that it wasn’t Lan and the room around her that was glowing blue. It was her eyes.

She straightened. Jason didn’t have to know she wouldn’t kill him. She was an actress, after all. And a damned good one.

She turned, and the red laser flashed out of the palm of her hand as she let it roam over the wall. A trail of small flames was left in its wake.

“Hey,” Jason yelled, looking around wildly. “What’s that?”

She brought it down, buzzing softly to within inches of his neck. He went still.

“Starlight,” she said. She smiled at him. That would creep him out. “Concentrated starlight.” She had no idea whether that was true. But it sounded dramatic. Flames washed across the wall. The place was beginning to fill with smoke. They didn’t have much time. “If you’re wondering if you can shoot me before I carve you up like a side of beef, I wouldn’t think so.”

Jason’s light blue eyes got big.

“So why don’t you just drop the gun?” she asked sweetly.

When he hesitated, she brought the light an inch closer to his neck. He’d feel the heat. The laser was burning a hole in the door to the ‘Thutmosis Room’ behind him. “Ooh, if you shot me, I might jerk or something. That would be bad, I bet.”

“Jesus,” he muttered. The gun hit the carpet with a thud.

“Lan, you okay?” she asked. They needed to get him to a hospital. She wouldn’t think about how badly he could be bleeding. He’d be okay. Weren’t people in movies always okay if they just got hit in the thigh?

“Yeah.” But his voice didn’t sound right. “I’ll get the gun.”

“Then we need to find something to tie him up with,” Greta decided. She could laser some strips out of the draperies. Was there time? The fire was taking hold.

Lan started for the gun. Behind them, the elevator dinged.

Oh, no.
They were about to get company.

“Let’s get to the stairwell,” Lan choked. He apparently didn’t trust himself to bend down and pick up the gun. He kicked it as far away as he could manage.

Yeah, time to go. She flipped the laser off and they stumbled past the elevators just as they were opening. Lan’s hand was covered with blood now. It was soaking his jeans. Had it hit an artery? Could he keep running?

“Hey, what’s going on?” They heard multiple voices behind them. “Get an extinguisher.”

“No, Goddamnit, get the prisoners!”

They were too close!

The exit sign loomed ahead in an area that had light coming in from the right. Would this door be locked, too? This place was a maze. She imagined them running from locked door to locked door, like rats in a trap. And the cats were right behind them.

‡

Lan saw the
stairwell on the left, across from a bright, big room. It had one of those doors that had a long, narrow window in it, cross-hatched with wire. He could make it up the steps, even though he was feeling pretty light-headed, distant from himself. If they could get to the ground floor, at least escape was a possibility.

The door turned out to be in a huge open area where the corridor ended. Greta pushed ahead and shoved at it. It opened, thank God.

Noise behind him. He looked to the right. About ten guys were surging up from some kind of a cafeteria or lounge or something over at the far end of the big space, a woman or two as well. This part of the complex looked lived-in. Behind him, Jason, another man and a woman careened around the corner from the elevators and started yelling as they surged along the corridor. The place was pandemonium.

Aw, shit.

“Be careful of the girl…” Jason shouted. “Lasers.”

Lan saw Greta start to raise her light. He couldn’t let her. She’d have to get out front, expose herself. Who knew what powers they had? Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hardwick.
Double fuck.

“I got this,” he said. “Get up the stairs.” She looked rebellious. “I’m right behind you.”

He shoved her forward and pulled the door shut, leaning against it. He felt Greta pounding on it.

“Get up the stairs,” he yelled. The guys from the lounge were almost on him.

“Hardwick,” Jason commanded.

Lan put the flute to his lips. It was like he was looking at himself from someplace about ten feet above. The pain from his thigh felt far away. Everything slowed. He knew how this worked. You were desperate. Some power popped out. He was either the Pied Piper or Joshua at the walls of Jericho. And maybe he had some control over this. If so, he chose the Pied Piper. He’d love to come walking into The Breakers trailing members of the Clan. Hero. Valuable to the family.

Sounds good. Funny, that was a joke. He let go a note, all the while thinking about being able to quiet the angry faces and surging bodies.

Sound crashed over him. He could see the waves distorting the atmosphere as they reverberated outward from his body. He throbbed with the note, but his ears didn’t hurt. The people from the cafeteria fell back through the big arch, covering their ears. Jason and his companions staggered backward. The walls began to shake. Drywall buckled. Ceiling tiles fell.

Damn. Guess I got Jericho.
He pulled his lips from the flute.

But it didn’t matter. The sound just rolled on, working at some subliminal level even though the conscious mind couldn’t hear it anymore. Everything was shaking like it was an earthquake. He was not in control of this at all.

Shit. Greta.

He turned into the door and heaved himself through it. Cement stairs led upward.

“Lan,” Greta shouted from the top of the flight. He started up as she scurried down.

“No, no. Keep going,” he croaked. The metal handrail vibrated under his hand as he tried to pull himself up. He felt like his boots had lead toes. His left leg felt almost numb. The shaking was getting worse. Behind him, shrieks rose above the crashing sounds.

“I will not,” Greta shouted over the din. The whole stairwell was shaking now. She put her arm under his shoulder to help haul him up the stairs. He looked up. There were a lot of fucking stairs.

*

“Over there.” Michael
pointed.

Tris felt his spin tingle. Very near here, but below street level, was the last place Michael had Found Lan and Greta. Tris pulled the ’88 Isuzu delivery van up to the loading dock. A single light illuminated a concrete platform, about ten feet higher than the driveway that fronted an industrial looking building. But there was plenty of light. The neon of Las Vegas glared in full display, from the green-lit tower of the MGM Grand to the golden pyramid and the Sphinx of the Luxor itself. The loading dock stood at the back of the hotels, off a side street and away from the glitter of the Strip. It had a forlorn look, with broken wooden pallets and crushed cardboard boxes littering the platform. Abandoned. A little shudder went through the truck.