“Inspectre,” I said, “I can’t.” My stomach was balled into a painful knot and I felt like I wanted to throw up. My brain was going in two different directions. “I can’t do that… to either side. If the Enchancellors would just listen to reason…”
“Reason?” Allorah exploded. “How long have you been in the field? Maybe a year…? And you want to tell me what’s reasonable…”
I looked to Jane off in the crowd, my eyes begging her for some kind of guidance. Should I? I wanted to ask. Jane shook her head and her eyes were full of understanding.
I turned back to Allorah. “I understand what you’ve been through,” I said, “but I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
One of the other Enchancellors spoke up, a senior member of Greater & Lesser Arcana. “Son, what makes them so special that you feel so strongly about protecting them?”
“Well,” I said, knowing how bad it would sound, “they kind of see me as their savior. It’s some sort of prophecy in one of their books…”
Allorah laughed out loud. “So you’re the Chosen One now, are you? Somebody has a superiority complex. Chosen Ones, prophecies… I’ve heard it all before. It’s the stuff of fiction.”
“That may be,” I said, “but that doesn’t change where I stand. Look, just because something is prophetic or religious or what have you doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea whether you believe in it or not. Take the Ten Commandments, for instance. Thou shalt not kill. Seems a pretty good rule to live by, if you can help it, no matter what your belief system is. Do I really think I’m a savior? Right now, I don’t seem to be doing so hot on that account, but I do know this… If I let you know where those vampires are, especially you, Allorah… this city will be a graveyard. I can’t allow that.”
Allorah took in a deep breath. “Then you’ve made your choice… and I’ve made mine.” She looked at the four Shadowers guarding me. “Take him out of here.”
The four men lifted me up, a little rougher than before, their hands digging into my arms as they pulled me up the stairs leading toward the back of the room.
“Inspectre…?” I said, trying to turn around. The Inspectre was on his feet and crossing to Allorah.
The crowd was in an uproar now. Whether they were for me or against me, I wasn’t sure, but from the way I was being manhandled, I had an idea.
“For goodness’ sake,” the Inspectre shouted. “Allorah, where are they going with him?”
“For goodness’ sake, Argyle?” I heard her say. “Goodness has nothing to do with him. He’s chosen his stance. There’s nothing for him but pain and misery. And Thaniel Graydon will hold him just fine while we decide what to do.”
My heart sank at the mention of that name. The Thaniel Graydon Center, the floating prison barge named for the F.O.G. agent who brought down the necromantic Benjamin Franklin centuries ago. Some of the more bizarre and paranormal offenders in New York were kept out there. Just the idea of being held at the floating prison made me weak in the knees. Still, given the alternative of starting a major bloodbath in the streets of New York? I could live with it. That was, if I could live through my stay there.
28
During the entire trip out to the Thaniel Graydon Center, the rain pelted down hard on the security boat, the staccato beat slowly driving me crazy. The captain of the boat found the prison barge, which was constantly in motion, out on the Hudson River, the distant Lego-like stack of structure growing larger by the second as we approached, the old refurbished shipping crates matching the same red, blues, and yellows of the toy bricks.
While the Shadowers went inside to check me in, I was left out in the freezing downpour in a small open pen just inside the docking station. As dreary as the place was on my last visit, the fact that I was now on the receiving end of punishment amped up the drear factor by ten. I was soaked to the bone by the time the Shadower team left, not one of them looking me in the eye. A solitary guard built like The Thing led me inside a small, bare room that held only a single bench. On top of that was a folded orange jumpsuit.
“Anyone ever tell you that you look like that bald guy from The Shield, only with a mustache?” I asked, filling the deafening silence of the room with small talk.
The guard just stood there.
“Strip down,” he said, folding his arms across his chest, “and put that on.”
“Do you think you could turn away?” I asked.
The guard smiled. “Feeling modest, are we?” he asked. “Tough shit. Just put the clothes on.”
I stripped down as I had been told and put on the jumpsuit. Despite the fact that I was in common prison garb, I was thankful that it was dry and didn’t weigh a ton like my own waterlogged duds. The guard threw a clear plastic bag at me. “Gather your belongings and leave them on the bench. They’ll be checked in later.”
“Oh, good,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll have a nice moldy sheen to them when I get them back.”
The guard looked pissed. “Are you finished?” he asked.
I nodded, for once making the wise decision to shut the hell up.
“One last thing,” the guard said, stepping out of the room. When he reappeared he was holding what looked like a brown leather version of a sleeves-only straight jacket. Long buckles hung from the back of it. “In you go, sunshine.”
“Are you for real?” I said, feeling claustrophobic just looking at it.
“Do I look like the kind of guy who kids around?” he said, coming toward me. One of his meaty hands spun me around until my back was to him.
“Where the hell do you even get restraints like those?”
“We have a shop that puts this shit together,” the guard said, sliding my arms into the sleeves and working the straps across my back. “A lot of special cases come through here. We have several other residents who also trigger powers off their hands, so this is fairly standard issue.” He leaned in close and whispered into my ear. “Guess that don’t make you all that unique and precious a snowflake, now, does it?”
The metal clasps of the straps dug into my back as he pulled them tight. I was surprised to see that the two sleeves were actually connected in the center, making one continuous tube and limiting any use of my hands considerably.
“Comfy?” he said, patting me on the shoulder.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Right at home.”
“Speaking of home,” he said, shoving me toward the door. “Let’s get you settled in, shall we? Then you can meet the neighbors.”
As the guard led me off into the heart of the Thaniel Graydon Center, I shuddered. I could already think of a few “neighbors” I really didn’t want to run into here.
When the guard threw me in my cell and locked it down, the trauma of the past few hours finally caught up with me. Dismayed as I was by the confining starkness of my new home, my body started to shut down and I fell asleep within minutes of the guard walking away. I welcomed it because then I didn’t have to think about my friends, the bind I was in, or vampires.
I awoke hours later to a rapping on my cell bars, still exhausted and building up a nice wave of depression. Another guard just as big as the last one started unlocking my cell, telling me that the Inspectre was here to see me. The thought of having a visitor actually made me feel a little better. The guard let me out of my cell and escorted me through a labyrinthine maze of corridors for what seemed like forever. We were moving into an area of the Thaniel Graydon I hadn’t even been in before.
“Where the hell are we going?” I asked, finding it hard to walk with the dull rocking of the ship throwing off my every step. “I haven’t seen another prisoner in forever.”