Slawter (12 page)

Silence. Bill-E is staring at me, torn between hero worship, terror, and doubt. Juni doesn’t know what to think or say. She’s probably heard all sorts in her time, but nothing like this. She’s trying to think of a gentle way of denying what I’m saying, without insulting or enraging me.

“It’s OK,” I smile. “You can say I’m crazy. I won’t mind.”

“People roll out that word too swiftly,” Juni objects. “It’s an easy fall-back. I try never to make such gross generalizations. But...”

“. . . in this case you’ll make an exception,” I finish for her.

She grins shakily. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“But you were thinking it, right?”

She tilts her head uncertainly. “We have a lot to discuss. This goes back a long way. You have deep-rooted issues we’ll have to work through, one at a time. To begin with —”

“Do you believe in magic?” I interrupt.

“No,” Juni says plainly.

“What if I could convince you?”

“How?”

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I knew words alone wouldn’t be enough. I haven’t done anything magical since melting the pen, but I’m sure magic is still in the air, surrounding me, waiting to be channeled. It had better be, or else I really will look like a loon!

“Is that worth a lot?” I ask, pointing at the watch on her wrist.

“No,” she frowns.

“Does it matter to you? Would you miss it if you lost it?”

“Not really. Where is this going, Grubbs?”

“You’ll see.” I fix my gaze on the watch, willing it to melt. I’m anticipating a struggle, but almost as soon as I focus, the watch liquefies and drips off Juni’s hand.

“Ow!” Juni yelps, leaping to her feet and rubbing her wrist. “It’s hot!”

“Sorry!” I jump up too. “Are you OK? Do you want me to get some ice or —”

“I’m fine,” Juni snaps, then quits rubbing, stares at the red mark left behind by the melted metal, then at the puddle on the floor, then at me. “Grubbs... what the hell?” she croaks.

“That was just for openers,” I beam, confidence bubbling up. “Have you ever wanted to fly?”

In the end we don’t fly. Juni isn’t ready to open the window and soar over the buildings of Slawter. I’m not either, really. But we levitate a bit, to prove that the melting watch wasn’t a hoax, that this is real magic, not some stage trick.

“This is incredible!” Juni laughs as I make the light switch on and off just by looking at it, while juggling six pairs of balled-up socks without touching them.

“Totally amazing is what it is!” Bill-E gasps. “Could I do that too?”

“Maybe,” I say, flicking the light on and off a few more times, then letting the socks drop. “Dervish said lots of people have magical potential. They just don’t know it. The magic’s thick in the air around us here, but you and the others aren’t aware of it. I am, because I fought demons and part of my mind — the part that’s magic — opened up. If you could open that part of
your
mind, I bet you could do everything I can.”

“I need to get me a demon to whup,” Bill-E mutters.

“Of course, it could all be in my head,” Juni says. “You could have slipped me hallucinogenic substances. I might be imagining the watch, floating, the socks.”

Bill-E wrinkles his nose. “You couldn’t hallucinate the smell of Grubbs’s socks!” he says and we all laugh.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” I ask Juni.

“No,” she sighs. “But I want to keep an open mind, like you advised. That means not accepting your story about demons even if the magic is real.” She looks at me earnestly. “One doesn’t verify the other. I haven’t seen any evidence of demons yet.”

“You don’t need to!” I groan. “If demons aren’t real, where am I getting my power from?”

“I have no idea,” Juni says. “You might be generating it naturally, subconsciously. The demons might simply be your way of rationalizing your powers.” She holds up a hand as I start to argue. “I’m not saying that
is
the case — just that it
might
be.”

Juni sits back, a troubled look on her face. “Actually, I can’t tell you how much I hope that the demons
are
a product of your imagination. For Emmet’s sake, Kik’s, and the others.”

“I know,” I mutter. “I wish they weren’t real too. But they are.”

She licks her lips, frowning deeply, trying to get a handle on what I’m telling her. “I need proof,” she finally says. “I’m not sure what you want me to do, but I can’t do anything until I’ve seen direct evidence.”

“I want you to help Dervish,” I tell her. “Chuda Sool has some sort mind lock on him. I want you to help me break it. You can do that without believing in demons, can’t you?”

“Perhaps,” she says. “But I don’t want to go anywhere near your uncle’s mind until I know for sure what I’m dealing with.”

“I think I
can
prove it,” I say softly, lowering my gaze. “But it could be dangerous. The sort of dangerous where we all die horribly if things go wrong.”

“I’m prepared to take that risk,” Juni says evenly.

“Me too,” Bill-E pipes up bravely, though the squeak in his voice betrays his fear.

I nod reluctantly. “Demons don’t appear out of thin air. They have to be summoned. Their universe has to merge with ours. A window or tunnel between worlds has to be opened. If Lord Loss and the other demon were real, there has to be a place where they crossed. A secret place. A place nobody but their human partners can get into.”

“The D workshops,” Bill-E and Juni say at the exact same time.

“Got it in one,” I chuckle bleakly.

Juni keeps saying she must be crazy for going along with this, it’s a mad plan, she should have her head examined. But the magic unnerved her. She’s confused, not in complete control. I should give her a day to think things over and clear her head. But she might not play ball if I did. She might start rationalizing and analyzing, and decide nobody in her position should break into a building. Worse — she might tell Davida what I believe and tip our enemies off. So I rush her along, allowing her no time to think.

It’s impossible to sneak up on the D warehouse, no matter what time you come. Large, powerful lights are trained on all sides of the building at night. You can’t approach it without your shadow preceding you, growing like a giant’s the closer you get.

But I’ve got magic on my side. I could have performed any number of miracles in our room to convince Juni of my power. I didn’t randomly choose to experiment on the lightbulb. Studying the lights from the shelter of the closest building to the warehouse. Juni and Bill-E are quiet behind me. I can’t see all the lights from here, but I can imagine them.

Not sure if I have the strength to do this. Just have to try and hope for the best. Focusing, I close my eyes, keeping the picture of the lights vivid in my thoughts. I visualize the lights flaring and going out, all at once, like a flashbulb on a camera. Call on the magic. Try to extend it to the lights. Doubting if I can really —

Bill-E gasps. Then a chuckle. “Coolio!”

I open my eyes to darkness. “Let’s go,” I hiss, starting forward, not sure how much time we’ll have.

“Oh my,” Juni says breathlessly. But she runs after me with Bill-E, along for the ride even if she doesn’t truly want to be.

The guards come out of their hut with strong flashlights. We drop to our stomachs as their beams sweep the surrounding area. I think about quenching the flashlights, but that would really stir up their suspicions.

Lying on the cool ground, head down. I hear one of the guards on his walkie-talkie, checking if the lights are out all over. He doesn’t sound worried. The guards sweep the area a few more times with their flashlights, then return to the hut. One keeps his flashlight trained on the door of the D. There’s no way we could get in through it without being seen. So it’s just as well that I didn’t plan on entering that way.

Rising, I hurry forward, trying not to make any noise, heading for a point about three-quarters of the way along the side of the warehouse, where it’s nice and dark, where we can’t be easily seen by the guards.

I rest when I get to the wall, panting heavily, more from fear than the run. Juni and Bill-E arrive moments later. Bill-E’s puffing hard — he’s not as in shape as me. I can see their faces in the light of the moon and stars. Bill-E looks scared but excited. Juni’s just scared. Funny, but I feel like the adult here.

“What now?” Bill-E asks when he gets his breath back.

“The Indian rope trick,” I grin, then try to make a length of rope appear, dangling from the roof. Nothing happens. I try again, this time demanding the rope to simply appear on the ground. Nothing.

I frown, wondering if I used up all my magic quenching the lights. But then I recall my fight with Artery and Vein. Dervish supplied the weapons, laid them on the floor of the secret cellar, axes, swords, and so on. He wouldn’t have gone to all that effort if we could have simply made weapons appear. Maybe magic doesn’t work that way and objects can’t be created out of thin air.

So the roof’s out. Fine. Time for Plan B.

I focus on the wall. Bare blocks, cemented tightly together. No chinks. Can’t tell how thick they are, but I imagine the wall’s more than a single block deep. I place my left hand on the nearest block and concentrate. Not sure if I can melt stone like metal, but I give it a go.

The block doesn’t melt. I try again but still it holds. I sigh — looks like I’ve run out of ideas. But as I lean forward, trying to think of some other way in, my fingers gouge into the stone. It’s like putting my hand in mud. I make a half-fist and scoop out a handful of mushy material. I smile at the muck, then at Juni and Bill-E. “You two clear the mess away,” I tell them. “I’ll get to work on the rest of the blocks.”

“Be careful,” Bill-E whispers. “We don’t want the wall collapsing.”

“No worries,” I snort. “Grubbs Grady’s on top of the situation!”

“This is madness,” Juni mutters, but digs her fingers into the semi-melted block and begins scooping it out.

It takes fifteen minutes to gouge a hole big enough for us to fit through. It feels like hours. All the time I’m aware of the threat of the lights snapping back on, the guards sighting us, everything coming undone.

But the darkness holds and at last I melt through the third and final layer of blocks. I poke my head through the gap and switch on the flashlight I brought with me. This looks like an ordinary props room — puppets and molds lying around, tools, mannequins, bits of material, tubes of glue. I switch off the flashlight and slide forward. Juni follows, then Bill-E.

Bill-E’s frowning when he steps in. He looks back at the hole. “What are we going to do about that?” he asks. “If they see it when the lights come on...”

“We just have to hope they don’t.”

“And when we leave?” he persists. “They’ll know we’ve been here.”

“I’ll try to make the stones solid again and put them back,” I tell him. “But if I can’t, don’t worry. If I’m right, and we’re dealing with demons, we’re not going to hang around like horror movie victims, waiting for them to get wise to us.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Juni asks. “If there aren’t any demons?”

“Then we’ll wind up in a heap of trouble,” I chuckle. “But it’ll be trouble of the butt-kicking, job-losing kind, and trouble like that I don’t mind so much.”

“So what now?” Bill-E asks, glancing around.

“We wander. Explore as much of the building as we can. Keep going until we find something strange or run out of rooms.”

“Perhaps one of us should remain here, to alert the others if the guards find the hole,” Bill-E suggests.

“How?” I grunt.

“Phone.” He roots out his mobile, flicks it on, frowns, shakes it, then scowls. “No signal. Damn.”

“It’s probably better if we stay together anyway,” Juni says, then lets out an uneasy breath. “I’ve never done anything like this. I never even stole candy from a store when I was a child. I’ve always respected the law.”

“Welcome to the underworld, baby!” Bill-E chortles, trying to sound like a 1930s gangster.

“No more talking,” I whisper.

We advance.

Fresh Meat

W
E don’t spot any security cameras. I guess Chuda Sool or his superiors thought the armed guards outside would provide enough protection. Or there are hidden cameras we can’t see. Or they didn’t think anyone who found their way in would be able to get out.

Winding through the building, one ordinary room giving way to another. Lots of weird, demon-shaped puppets on display, but the work of human hands. Cleverly constructed, but hardly hewn in the fires of hell. Plastic, metal, rubber — not flesh, bone, blood.

I try not to lose confidence as we push further into the warehouse. It’s logical that they’d have an outer ring of genuine workshops. While this place is off-limits, some of the crew — like Dervish — have been allowed into parts of it. This is camouflage. Things will be different further in.

I hope.

I fear.

We come to a massive steel door unlike any of the others we’ve encountered. The full height of the ceiling and ten feet wide. There’s a small digital screen on the right-hand side, the outline of a hand printed on it.

“Fingerprint controlled,” Bill-E notes, rapping the door with his knuckles. He reaches out to press his hand on the screen.

“Wait,” I stop him. “It might sound an alarm if an intruder touches it.”

Bill-E lowers his hand. “We gonna melt our way through the wall, boss?”

“Reckon so, kemosabe.”

I lay my fingers on the blocks to the right of the door. Focus my magic and tell the stone to melt. Push forward to scoop out the first handful of molten rock.

It’s solid.

I try again — no luck. Rubbing my fingers together, trying to figure it out. It can’t be that I’m running low on juice — there’s more magic in the air here than outside. I can feel it practically crackling around me. Just to be sure, I make myself rise a foot and a half off the ground. No problem.

“Something wrong?” Juni asks, eyeing me nervously as I float in the air.

“The wall’s protected,” I tell her, smoothly descending. “It’s been charged with magic, or there’s magic pushing out from within. I can’t melt it.”