House Immortal (31 page)

“Quinten!” I got three steps out of the elevator into the dust when a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.

“Run, run!” Quinten said.

We hauled it into the elevator and Gloria worked the controls. It was an old freight lift, mechanics and gears, pulleys and chain. It clattered and rumbled, starting up.

“Did you see him?” I asked Quinten.

“Cover your ears,” he said.

Which was a weird answer, but then it all clicked. He had a lot of different medical compounds and chemicals in that bag he'd packed. If he didn't have something that was already a bomb, he was sure to have packed something that could pretty quickly become a bomb.

I covered my ears.

The blast hit. Sound and impact almost simultaneous. Dust and rock smothered out the air, stung my eyes, and covered me in grit. I prayed the mechanics would withstand it. The elevator shuddered like an animal that just had its jugular cut.

But it kept rising, grinding, cranking up and up.

Quinten was saying something, but I couldn't hear him after that blast. Gloria shook her head at him, pressing her fingers over her lips. Quinten shut up.

Neds and Abraham were covered in a thick layer of dust. I supposed we all were, but they had seen Gloria's signal and weren't talking.

The elevator hopped to a stop. Gloria pulled the cage door open and walked out into a concrete enclosure with a single steel door at the end of it.

She took a second to bat the dust off her shoulders, head, face, and hands.

We all stepped out of the elevator, Abraham under his own power.

“Which wire do I cut?” I asked Quinten.

He glanced at me, then at the elevator gears that were exposed. He pointed. “That should work.”

I nodded, reached over, wrapped my hand around the cable chain, and pulled.

Not as easy as it looked, but I am an uncommonly strong woman. It finally gave under my insistence.

“It won't stop him,” Left Ned said. “He'll keep coming until he's dead.”

“Just trying to buy us some time,” I said as we jogged to where Gloria was picking the lock on the steel door.

“No key?” I asked.

“Never had one,” she said.

“Let me.” Right Ned flicked a ready-all out of his pocket and a slim knife out of the other.

Gloria moved aside and Neds got busy with the lock. Right Ned gave a little “aha” and had it sprung in less than three seconds.

“Three seconds? You're losing your touch, Harris,” I said.

“Want me to reset it so you can give it a try?”

“There's no time for this, children,” Quinten said.

Neds stepped back and pulled his jacket hood up so that at a casual glance, you wouldn't suppose he had two heads.

I adjusted my scarf and took a look at Abraham. He had his hands in his pockets and, with the dust and scruff,
even the stitches on his face were difficult to see unless a person got close enough.

Quinten and Gloria left their heads bare, which was a good move. Five people all hooded up might be more than a little coincidental.

She opened the door and we all stepped through.

The light wind and clear, sunny day made me want to gulp down big lungfuls of the cleaness of it. I'm not claustrophobic, but that run through the tunnels had my shoulders creeping up.

The elevator had left us in an alley between two buildings—one must be a restaurant from the smell of hot oil and fish that was coming from it.

Right or left? Left was darker, leading to a narrow cross street and another jag of alleys. Right was light, a busy street, maybe a park beyond it.

Abraham strode off to the right.

“He'll see us,” Quinten said.

“He'll expect us to hide,” Abraham answered.

“What about cameras?” Gloria asked.

“I know someone who will help us with that,” he said. “Hurry. He'll find a way out of that tunnel, even if he has to climb the elevator shaft.”

“Who?” I asked. “Who do you know who can help with the cameras?”

But by then, he was at the end of the alley and striding out into full and open
daylight.