Ahead of me the corridor glowed a strange, dim green, like light through many layers of thick glass. The walls themselves were black and seemed to be dripping with some kind of viscous fluid that flowed in every direction, unconstrained by gravity. Just beneath the surface, gleaming green runnels of light wriggled as if sentient. Like the veins beneath Primal’s skin.
Behind the walls, or maybe trapped within the walls, amorphous shapes moved languorously and gave up a light of their own. Flares, caught like butterflies in a giant’s display case. There seemed to be dozens of them.
I stood immobile in the middle of my own nightmare-a dreamscape I’d walked right into, in spite of the steps I had taken (or thought I had taken) to avoid it. Colleen was four floors down in God knew what kind of predicament. Goldie was somewhere ahead of me in this maze. My thoughts eddied there, floating with the disembodied shapes behind the thick, translucent walls.
A great sigh breathed over me. I looked ahead, my eyes filling to the brim with the glow of fey light. Without meaning to, I moved forward, feeling a horrible, palpable sense of deja vu.
My worst nightmare.
I moved deeper into the labyrinth, reached another juncture, turned another corner. I heard my name called again, only this time it sounded in my head.
“Cal…”
A gleaming shape wavered behind the wall just ahead of me. It seemed to draw nearer to the barrier, taking on more and more definition. The shape was human, but every limb gleamed with spectral light, and the hair, so white it was almost blue, floated in a bright banner from the head. It moved with the grace of a swan, closer and closer to the barrier.
I moved closer, too, until I had nowhere to go. I pressed my hands against the icy wall and looked into a delicate face with huge, azure eyes, the features blurred by the glass but still recognizable.
“Oh, God,” I sighed, and wept.
TWENTY-FIVE
COLLEEN
One thing I’ll say for Goldman-he doesn’t do things by halves. He’d let loose the fireball to end all fireballs and then skeedaddled. In the flash of white light, I saw everyone around me frozen in the act of shielding their eyes. All except Primal. He was just frozen, staring into the blast as if it were no brighter than a candle.
In the speckled darkness after, I did a full 180 and headed for the doors. But there were people in the way, milling, shoving. I pinballed off of them, trying to stay upright and moving toward the doors. I shouted for Cal, for Goldie, even for Russo, but I was drowned out.
I was somewhere near the doors (I thought) when a pair of hands took hold of my shoulder and spun me around. “Cal?”
“Sorry,” said a voice in my ear. “But your friends seem to have left you behind.”
Clay. I turned my head, trying to see him through the purple and green blotches in front of my eyes. In the flare light, his whiteface gleamed moonlike. The eyes were black craters.
“They’ll come back for me,” I said.
Painted lips curved upward into an exaggerated smile.
“Of course they will. And when they do …” He cocked his head back toward the far corner of the room, toward Primal.
Primal was still sitting godlike in his throne, while his toadies milled around him and his flares floated above him on their neon tethers. His head was turning from side to side, the wolf-yellow eyes raking the walls of the place as if he could see through them.
God. Maybe he could.
Clay leaned in, bringing his face close to mine. He was sweating, little beads of perspiration standing out all over his face, making him look like he was wearing a veneer of gleaming bubble bath. “You want to save your friends, don’t you?”
“Duh.”
“I could help you persuade Primal to let them go-at least your lawyer friend and the little gnome. That Goldman fellow’s behavior was just plain insulting. Primal will have to deal with him. He can’t afford to appear soft or weak, after all.”
“What can I do? I’m not a deva or a tweaked musician. I don’t have anything Primal would want.”
“No, but Primal’s not the only one here with… wants.”
I glanced at him sharply. His eyes, still trained on me, had a glassy, intent look that suddenly and uncomfortably reminded me of the look Rory used to get when we …
I shit-canned the thought. “Oh, really? And exactly what would you get me? You’re just a bootlicker-and a fashion disaster, I might add.”
His hand bit into my upper arm, right through the leather. “I lick no one’s boots. There are other centers of power in this place. One of them is right down the hall… in my rooms.” He gestured with his head.
Following his eyes, I realized we were literally on top of the exit. If I could get out into the hall…
“Yeah, right. Look, you’re a grunt.” I flicked my gaze toward the far corner of the room. “Primal’s the power in this place. If I want to save anybody’s ass, I’ll kiss his, not yours.”
I brought my eyes back to his face and got the shock of my life. The whiteface was running. Little rivers meandered down his cheeks, leaving trails of naked flesh that were green-white and glowing.
He realized I was staring at him and raised a hand to his cheek. His white gloves came back smudged with paint. Beneath the translucent gleam of his cheek, I could see the fine tracery of blue-green veins.
Clay was a flare.
But he didn’t fly, I argued with myself, and his eyes were wrong. He seemed more like an attempted flare, as if the Change had lost interest before it was done with him.
“You glow in the dark,” I observed, and licked my lips. I wasn’t trying to be sexy. They were just suddenly parched.
Clay smiled, no smirked, and pulled off one of his gloves. The hand gleamed like moonlit snow. The next second, he shocked the hell out of me by putting the shining hand over my left breast.
Flesh crawling, I knocked it away.
Rage contorted the mime face before he slammed the door open and dragged me out into the hall. The guards were gone. I imagined they were in pursuit of Goldie and Cal. Clay didn’t seem to notice their absence. I coiled to run, but he yanked me off balance and shoved me against the wall, his face only inches from mine. The crossbow bit into my hip.
“Here’s the deaclass="underline" Primal’s a little touchy about… the seventh floor. If he catches your boys-and he will- they’re toast. Literally. Unless I intercede for them. Now, why don’t you slip down to my rooms with me for a while? I’m sure we can negotiate something.”
I thought of Viktor and suddenly wanted out of this madhouse so badly I could taste it. At that moment I would’ve cut off a finger or an ear or gotten a tattoo to be back in the Preserve. Anything to send us all back.
“What’ll it be … Colleen?” he murmured, and my skin crept at the sound of my name.
Damn me, I considered it, but I knew better than to believe the creep had any real influence with Primal. He was a pet. “What’ll it be? Well, it won’t be you, glow-boy.”
Anger, sudden, dark, and real, twisted the whitewashed face. There was surprise under the rage, as if he hadn’t expected me to reject him. He grabbed at my breast again, but I twisted sideways and his fingers clawed the thick denim of my shirt, wringing it. His fingernails dug painfully into my skin.
“You stupid bitch.” His voice was soft, velvety, the whole outrage of rejection boiled down to a sticky syrup. “You just threw away your only bargaining chip, you know that? You want out of here, I’m the one you have to go through, not Primal. He doesn’t give a shit about your kind.” He gave me a fierce, feral grin and shook me so hard my head thumped the wall. “I do.”