Lockwood shifted where he lay; his hand touched my shoulder. “We’ll follow your lead, Lucy, when we’re in there. Anything you pick up, just tell us.”
“First,” Kipps said drily, “there’s the small matter of getting in.”
A rough, stony escarpment led down to the level of the fields. We took this inch by inch, so as not to send pebbles tumbling, but once on the flat ground we picked up the pace again. The compound floated ahead of us in its island of light. No one was visible, which gave us heart, though in truth there was little chance of anyone under the floodlights seeing us as we drew near. Looking out into the dark, they’d have been almost blind.
I was right about the Visitors, too. We were able to curve between the softly glowing forms, keeping at a distance, and never once did any of them stir. They were scarcely more than pillars of creamy light, except for one, in which traces of a bearded face could still be seen. Then we were past them. Drawing near the darkest portion of the boundary fence, we flung ourselves down.
A minute went by, during which we allowed our heart rates to slow. The grass was cold; I was pressed between its blackness and the blackness of the sky. When I looked up, I could see the loops of wire a few inches from my face and, beyond, the backs of buildings. They were more substantial than they’d appeared from the woods; taller, larger in extent. The sides near us were very dark, but you could see that some of the structures were connected by passages. These were basically metal-ribbed tubes, with canvas sides that shuddered gently in the wind. It was silent; the place might have been abandoned.
“George,” Lockwood ordered, “cut us in.”
Snip, snip. George put the wire cutters into operation. With deft precision he cut five or six strands of wire, close to the ground, so that a stiff flap was formed. He pushed it experimentally with a hand. “We can squeeze through,” he said. “Then it falls back. No one will see.”
“Needs to be bigger,” Lockwood whispered. “In case we have to exit in a hurry.”
“Psst!” It was a sound like an elegant snake. That was Holly, giving the alarm. We flung ourselves flat again, covering our silver rapiers with our bodies. Boots crunched on gravel, coming around the side of the nearest building. We lay in the dark grass, faces pressed to the earth, while someone passed a few feet beyond the fence. The footsteps rounded a corner and faded.
Cautiously, I raised my head and pushed my curtain of hair aside. “All clear.”
The others levered themselves up. “Not bad, Cubbins,” Kipps breathed. “I never thought you could flatten yourself like that. At all, in fact.”
“I never thought you could make witty comments,” George said. “And I was right.” He resumed snipping at the wire. Soon he had cut free a mailbox-shaped patch of mesh, shoulder-width, just high enough to squeeze through with a backpack on. He dragged it aside. No sooner had he done so than Lockwood was wriggling through the space. Even with his coat, his slim, spare form slipped through without difficulty. In a moment he was up and crouching, looking all around. He gave the signal. One after the other, with varying degrees of deftness, we followed him onto forbidden ground.
“Memorize this spot,” Lockwood whispered. “The hole’s midway between those two black posts. Now—Lucy, any idea which way we should go?”
The psychic hum was louder than ever; I could feel it in the depths of my ears, in the soles of my feet, in everything in between. I took a few steps in one direction, then in the other, keeping my eyes closed, listening to the pattern of the sound.
“It’s nearby,” I said. “When I go to the left, it feels stronger.”
With infinite stealth we inched toward the left-hand corner of the building, where light from the center of the compound spilled across the gravel. The wall rose above us like a corrugated metal cliff, black, featureless, and cold. By unspoken assent, I was at the head of the line. When I reached the corner, I peered slowly around—and almost cried out in pain at the thrum of psychic power that struck me in the face.
Away across an expanse of lit gravel stood a construction that I immediately knew to be the heart of the complex. In some ways it was no different from the other buildings—like a monstrous metal barn with a broad curved roof. But a ribbed passageway ran to it from the shed we stood by, and I could see another beyond. They were like spokes running to a hub. The central hangar had no windows, but a pair of double doors stood open at one end, facing the fence. Out of those doors streamed a soft and hazy light—and, with it, that blast of psychic power. Three or four men in white lab coats stood in the light. They held things in their hands, but I could not tell what these were. None of them moved. No one came in or out.
I leaned back in; let Lockwood take a look. “That’s where it’s all happening,” I whispered. “Whatever it is.”
He squinted out into the dark. “There’s a gap in the boundary fence there—a missing panel—look, just beyond where the men are standing. What’s that for?”
“So they can drive something in?”
“Why not use the gate by the road?”
I didn’t have an answer to that. Craning my head around further, I noticed something else: a door in the building we stood by. It was made of smooth metal, with a tight rubber seal, and was just a few yards away. There was no clue as to what was behind it.
I showed Lockwood. “It’s an option.”
He hesitated. “I don’t know. Risky. Might be half the Rotwell team in there.”
“What, then? Can’t just stroll out under the floodlights, can we?”
“No….”
“Lockwood!” That was Holly, at the end of the line. She was indicating frantically behind her. Two men, dark-clothed, with equipment shining at their belts, had appeared around the far end of the building. Right now they were staring out into the night, where the pale lights of the Vikings flickered far out across the fields. They were talking, laughing, blissfully unaware of us—but the instant they looked our way, all that would change. We’d be silhouetted against the light.
“Quick, quick!” Lockwood was ushering us around the corner. We had the exact same problem here: the men by the open barn doors would see us if they chose to look up.
We collided against the door. Lockwood grasped the handle, turned it, pushed it open a crack.
“Quick! Quick! In, in, in!”
Ever seen a line of newly hatched ducklings jump one after the other into a stream? Not knowing what was coming, but with no choice but to follow the others, and to leap and hope? That was us, going through that door. Holly, Kipps, George—then Lockwood and me. We were through, fast as blinking, and the seal shut behind us.
It was the decisive action. Once through, we could never take it back.
The good news first. Our arrival caused no outcry, no sudden alarm or attack. We were in a dimly lit chamber and, though it had plenty of horrors in it, no one from the Rotwell Institute was there. The corrugated sides of the building rose in a gentle arch high overhead. Soft lights hung on the walls, electric wires trailing between them. The floor was boarded with cheap wood. A partition wall at the far end of the room opened to another room, but this one would do for now. It was a laboratory.
Three long metal tables ran the length of the space, with chairs and shelved carts between them. On these, neatly separated by lengths of chain, sat an extraordinary variety of apparatuses: silver-glass flasks, tubes and beakers, loops of iron piping, flaring Bunsen burners, crackling electromagnetic coils. Some of the flasks were small, others of colossal size, and all glowed with supernatural energy. You could see the Sources that powered them pressed against the dirty glass—yellowed jawbones, femurs, ribs, and craniums, and rusted lumps of metal that had once been helmets, sword hilts, or arm-rings. These were psychic artifacts of the battle that had taken place here, and the ghosts that clung to them were visible, too. Every container glowed with other-light, with eerie blues and yellows, with darkly sinister greens. The walls of the room swam with conflicting colors. And all the vessels were being experimented on—heated, compressed, electrocuted, frozen….Plasm swirled against silver-glass: I caught a glimpse of twisted faces, impossibly contorted, pluming around and around. The vessels were sealed; I could not hear the imprisoned voices, but I certainly sensed their screams.