Simply Irresistible (27 page)

The door opened, revealing a herd of animals on the floor outside. Vivian couldn’t see beyond the cats and the ferret. Toto was still leaning on her leg, and the rabbit was blocking their exit by refusing to move.

Dex picked it up. “Everyone, into the kitchen.”

The cats dispersed, and none of them went in the same direction. The ferret took its time. Once it was gone, Dex set the rabbit on the floor outside the elevator. He turned around, picked up the box, and set it outside, next to the other two boxes. Then he picked up Portia and carried her out.

“I have to feed diem now,” he said. “Their reward for being good. When I’m done, I’ll show you around.”

He and Portia turned left, disappearing down a long hallway. Sadie gave Vivian a worried look, as if she was preventing Sadie from doing her duty.

“It’s all right,” Vivian said. “I’m coming.”

Sadie woofed softly, then hurried after the others, with Toto at her heels. Vivian left the elevator slowly.

The room she stepped into was huge. It wasn’t a room so much as a great hall or an antechamber. The ceiling—several stories above her—glittered with its own light, as if a hundred stars had been captured against its darkness.

A large corridor opened to her left. The wall, black and shiny, curved away from her on the right, widening as she stepped into the great hall. A series of lamps, designed to resemble torches, flickered against the blackness, their fake flame reflected in the surface.

More lights illuminated five steps that led into the hall proper. Vivian walked toward them.

The great hall wasn’t really a hall. It curved, the walls protecting it on all sides. More stairs led down to another level. A car was parked there. Vivian saw its rounded hood and oddly shaped headlights, and found herself thinking of the Batmobile.

She supposed it wasn’t unlikely for Dex to have a tricked-up car a la James Bond. After all, Dex had said he had a lot of enemies, and he had taken a lot of his ideas from comic books. Clearly this place was based on the Bat Cave, and Professor X’s secret rooms, and all those hidden chambers that showed up in various superhero myths.

It just startled her. The house above—way above, if that elevator ride had been any indication—had seemed so normal. So single-guy chic.

This wasn’t normal at all.

A desk, also made of the same shiny black material, protruded from the far right wall. A black leather chair, pushed up against it, was nearly invisible until she came upon it.

Computer screens receded into the wall, all of them dark. She saw no keyboards, so she touched one of the screens. It instantly turned white.

“Unauthorized access,” said an androgynous voice. It echoed throughout the entire chamber, and probably down the corridor. “Security breach. Security breach. Securi—”

And then, as quickly as it started, the voice stopped. Vivian heard a clunk, and then Dex’s voice, sounding small, said, “I’ll show you around, Viv. Just give me a minute. Don’t touch anything else.”

The screen before her was still white. Gradually it faded to black again. Vivian clutched her hands behind her back, resisting the urge to touch the other screens. She didn’t even know how to answer Dex.

Instead, she walked toward the steps leading to the car. She passed a cabinet, its front covered in smoky glass. She thought she saw clothing inside, but she couldn’t be sure. She wanted to cup her hand against the glass, block out the ambient light so that she could see inside, but after that last encounter with the screen, she knew better.

Vivian shivered. The temperature down here left a lot to be desired. She wasn’t wearing warm clothing, and she had nothing else with her. She hoped that somewhere down that long, mysterious corridor, Dex had a blanket. Or a sweater. Or a thermostat.

Then she reached the stairs and looked down. The car wasn’t some cartoonish contraption, with rocket jets instead of a combustion engine and wings that made it soar across canyons. It was a 1930s Packard convertible, an old-fashioned, stylish car, the kind people thought of—or at least the kind she thought of—when she thought of elegant vehicles.

The Packard was black too, and just as shiny as the walls around it. The roof was down, and the leather seats looked new. But the interior, right down to the wood radio in the dash, all dated from the period. As she peered inside, she realized that the gearshift was slightly worn, and the leather padding on the driver’s door had a small rip in it.

“Like it?” Dex’s voice sounded loud, and it echoed, overlapping itself before fading away.

Vivian turned guiltily, clasping her hands even tighter behind her back. “It’s beautiful. What’s it doing down here?”

Dex was standing at the top of the second flight of stairs, near the cabinet. He looked sad, and smaller than he had in his house. “It draws too much attention these days, and it doesn’t really like the rainy weather. I don’t have the money to detail it every time a bit of rust shows up.”

Sadie walked up behind him, then sat down. She looked tired and wary, as if just being down here made her nervous.

“Animals fed?” Vivian asked.

“And shown to their rooms,” Dex said.

He wasn’t smiling and she couldn’t tell if he’d made a joke. She wouldn’t put it past him to have a bedroom for each creature he brought down.

“Let me show you around,” he said. “Come on.”

He led the way up the stairs. When Vivian reached the top, Sadie stood too, as if Vivian were one of the dog’s charges. Nurse Ratched had come down the hallway, tail switching. She looked like she was hunting for trouble.

“No, Ratchey,” Dex said. “You know this area is off-limits.”

The cat sat down as if she had understood him and proceeded to clean her face with her right paw. She looked regal amid the shiny black stone, as if the entire place had been built for her.

Sadie walked to the edge of the great hall, blocking Nurse Ratched’s ability to come any farther inside. Dex led Vivian past the cabinet and the computer system as if they weren’t even there.

“This is security, as you already know.” He grinned at her. She shrugged. She hadn’t meant to set it off.

“Regular security?” she asked. “Not magical security?”

“No, there’s magical too,” he said. “No magic spells—at least spells that I know can be done— can reach down here. This place is fortified with rock that prevents magical conductivity, and it’s got some magical shielding. The normal security is for regular people. There are a few outside entrances. I did manage to do this inside a neighborhood.”

“With all the zoning clear, and the permits?” She couldn’t restrain the grin, but he didn’t smile back at her.

“I did the first version of this around the time everyone was building bomb shelters. No one thought it was strange.”

She nodded, then thought of something. “How come no one thinks it’s strange that you haven’t gotten older?”

“You know,” he said in a conversational tone, as if he was speaking to someone he didn’t know well, “the men in my family look a lot alike. Everyone always said I look like Uncle Dexter. I was named for him too.”

Vivian laughed. He slipped his arm around her and led her to the corridor.

Sadie stepped aside to let them pass, yet she still managed to block Nurse Ratched. The cat glared at the dog, then turned away from the great room, as if she’d been interested in Dex all along. Nurse Ratched led him down the corridor, her tail high.

Sadie followed Vivian, toenails clicking on the black floor. Vivian didn’t see any of the other animals. She had no idea where they could have gotten to.

The corridor went on for a long distance with no visible doors on either side. The ceiling was not as high as the great chamber’s, but it was higher than any ceiling Vivian had ever seen in a corridor before.

“How come you didn’t bring the Fates here?” she asked Dex.

“I thought about it,” Dex said. “I didn’t want them that close.”

“And you were afraid they’d blow this place’s cover.” The phrase was not one that Vivian normally used. She had to have plucked it, word for word, from Dex’s brain.

He looked at her, startled. “There are a lot of ways out of here. Even if I disabled the elevator, the Fates would have found the other exits. And probably at the wrong moment, if I know those women.”

“This place is very important to you,” Vivian said.

Not as much as it used to be
. The sentence came to her, as clearly as if he’d spoken. If he hadn’t been right beside her, and if she hadn’t been watching his lips, she would have thought that he had spoken.

“It’s my safe place,” he said as the corridor dead-ended into a
T
. The wall in front of Vivian was the same shiny black material, but to her right, the black had been replaced by normal white walls. To her left, the corridor continued, the same black color, the same monotonous walls.

He led her into the white-painted corridor. Or rather, Nurse Ratched led all of them. The cat picked up her pace, trotting forward as if she’d seen a bird.

The ceiling here was at normal height, and Vivian felt relieved. She had no idea that high ceilings made her nervous, but apparently they did. Or maybe it was the way she expected spaces to be— and this place did not conform to those expectations.

Doors opened off this corridor. The first room nearest the black corridor was filled with ancient computer equipment. She recognized the remains of a Mac Plus, an Apple //e, and several IBM clones. A Kaypro sat on top of a heap of wires and discarded disk drives as if it had won a game of king of the hill. Old CDs, manuals, and floppy disks were scattered on a desktop, and in the middle of them, two cats slept as if it were the most comfortable place on Earth.

The next room held the remains of an even older computer system. Vivian recognized this one— which filled the entire room—from 1960s Disney movies and the documentaries she’d seen on the space program. She had no idea what that computer—which had component parts taller than she was—was called, but she could see the slots where the punch cards went.

In fact, there was a stack of punch cards holding the door open.

No cats were in that room, but the ferret was sniffing its way toward the back as if it hadn’t seen the area before.

The third door was open, and the light was on. The room held cushioned beds and medical equipment, including a refrigerator. Portia was the only occupant. She was asleep on one of the beds, her breathing labored.

“Is she going to be all right?” Vivian asked.

“It took her a lot to get down here,” Dex said. “But she’s got a fighter’s spirit.”

It wasn’t quite a yes, but it was better than an absolute no. Vivian wondered how he could open his heart to all these creatures, knowing the odds. But the odds didn’t seem to bother Dex. What bothered him was how the animals got treated in the first place.

Dex didn’t let Vivian linger anywhere. Each room seemed to have its own purpose. One of them held filing cabinets. Another held more cabinets— smaller than the one out front. Each cabinet seemed to hold a variety of bizarre weapons, from a Buck Rogeresque ray gun to a giant plastic green hammer.

She was about to ask what the weapons were for when the corridor turned a final time. This time it opened onto a sunken living room, complete with big-screen TV, two couches, several love seats, and a dozen upholstered chairs.

Each piece of furniture, including the large television set, had its own animal—or two or three. The older cats had claimed the most comfortable chairs, leaving the younger ones to glare at each other on the couches and love seats. Toto had curled up on an ottoman. His tail wagged when he heard Dex’s voice, but his eyes remained closed.

All the animals had the contented look of the recently fed. Vivian’s stomach growled. She’d been hungry for a while now.

The kitchen was up three steps, to the left of the living room. The kitchen floor was littered with pet dishes. Only the rabbit remained inside, crouching against one of the cabinets.

“I have a pizza in,” Dex said. “It’s frozen. I hope that’s all right.”

Vivian was a pizza snob, but at the moment, she was so hungry she would eat paper slathered with tomato sauce and covered with mozzarella cheese.

“In the meantime,” Dex said, “let’s start going through these boxes. I’ll put them on the table.”

Vivian felt her stomach tighten. She didn’t want to look at Aunt Eugenia’s papers. She hadn’t wanted to look from the beginning. If she looked at them, then Eugenia—who had seemed so wonderful, so powerful, so strong—was gone forever.

“Viv,” Dex said, his expression gentle, “she wanted you to see these.”

“I know,” Vivian said.

“Then the best thing you can do for her is to honor her wishes. From the way you described her and the things I’ve felt through you, she cared about you very much. She wanted you to have these things right away.”

“I know.” Vivian sounded like a three-year-old. She felt like one too; she wanted to stamp her feet and refuse to help Dex.

He slipped his hand in hers and led her to the dining room table. Unlike the house upstairs, the hideaway was neat. Either it meant he didn’t use it often, or that there was yet another side to Dex— an organized one, the one who was in charge when he was working.

“I have a really good sound system down here,” he said. “Care to hear anything while we’re working?”

“Got any Mozart?” Vivian asked. “I’m in the mood for precision.”

He looked at her, frowning just a bit. “Bach’s more precise.”

“I know,” Vivian said. “But I want a bit of emotion too.”

Dex smiled. He went to the wall, pressed a few buttons, and a Mozart rondo filled the room.

“How’d you do that?”

“Science,” he said. “A five-hundred-disk CD player hooked up to the internal system.”

She shook her head. And here she’d been expecting more magic. She would have to learn that Dex didn’t use his powers idly. She wondered how someone could avoid using his powers when they made things so much easier than doing actual work.

“I’m going to get the boxes,” Dex said. “Would you mind pouring me a Sprite? There’s other stuff in the fridge too. Whatever you want.”