"You're free to go." He did not move, but simply sat on the floor.
I went to the next cell. The woman watched me while I unlocked and opened the door, but did not move.
"Come on. You have a chance to escape. Get out while you can."
She stood calmly, brushing down her grey overall. Then came to the door. As she reached the door I stepped back, but she came close and pressed her hand to my cheek.
Her eyes glowed lilac, momentarily.
She shook her head. "So much brightness…" Then she jerked as if in spasm, her eyes opening wide so that the whites were exposed in a ring around the dark of the pupil. I tried to thrust her hand away, but it was as if it were welded to the skin.
She leaned close, whispering into my ear. "The sun will rise, and they shall fall."
"The what?"
She snatched her hand back and cradled it as if it had been burned. Then she slipped past me and ran into the dark.
"What did she say?" asked Raffmir?
"I'm not sure…"
The sun shall rise – I had heard that before somewhere. Where was it? Shaking my head, I went to the cell opposite and unlocked the door. I didn't open it, but moved to the next, unlocking each of them along one side and then back along the other so that they could all escape if they wished. When they were all unlocked, I dropped the key on the sticky headless corpses in the centre of the corridor.
"We've done what we can. Let's go."
Raffmir shook his head and strode away, illuminating each cell as he passed. As I followed after, people began hesitantly to leave their cells, slipping away into the dark, unsure of whether our intentions were friendly or not.
I wasn't sure of that myself.
As we passed further along the corridor, there was another block of cells, empty this time apart from two. In one a young woman sat staring at the blank wall opposite, while in the other the inmate, an old man, raged against the glass, hammering and banging, screaming incoherently. I watched for a moment as we passed. There were smears on the glass where the man's hands bled. I couldn't tell whether he was raging at us, at his imprisonment, or at something else. Either way, it was too late to return for the key.
"What will happen to the ones that do not escape?" I asked Raffmir. "Honestly?"
He continued walking.
"Raffmir?"
He didn't stop but continued to a set of double doors at the end of the corridor.
"There is a purge mechanism," he said. "It is a gas, a combination of nerve agents, iron… other things."
"Can they trigger it remotely?"
"I believe so, but it will only affect the cells that are occupied and locked. The gas affects fey and human alike. It is quick."
"And painless?"
"I did not ask about the pain," said Raffmir.
"It seems to me," I said, "that there are a lot of things you didn't ask about."
We passed through a further set of doors, not locked and freely swinging, into an open area. As we entered, a man retreated into one of the rooms leading off the open area. Each room had heavy glass walls facing the corridor so that what transpired there could be observed from outside the room. The glass did not have the reinforcement of iron used for containment. To our left and right were large rooms with complex overhead lighting and a central raised table. They looked like operating theatres. In the dim light, I could see three men conversing urgently in the theatre to our left. In the centre was a room fitted out as a laboratory, with fridges, shelves of chemicals, racks of test tubes, microscopes and other scientific apparatus. I turned back to the room that was occupied. I could hear urgent words being spoken. As one of the men moved aside, I could see there was a figure lying on the central table.
It was Alex.
Tightening my grip on the hilt of my sword, I made for the door. Raffmir slipped quickly in ahead of me. He swung open the door and entered slowly, relaxed and calm.
"Dr Watkins. So nice to see you again," he said.
There was uproar from the other two men as they questioned the gaunt figure between them. "You know him? But he's one of them! How could you know him?"
Dr Watkins held up his delicately thin-boned hand to quell the clamour, but it was Raffmir who spoke.
"To answer your questions, yes, I know him and he knows me. No, I'm not one of them, I am something else, and he knows me because I am a trustee of the foundation."
"A trustee?" The two men spoke together.
"Yes." Raffmir wandered around the room, picking up objects and examining them. "I must say that it is most interesting to see all this first-hand, after reading so many dull reports." He affected a yawn, raising his hand to his mouth airily.
Impatient with his games, I raised my sword and stepped forward into the room. The men retreated, and in the confusion there was the briefest of struggles around Raffmir. When it resolved, Raffmir held high the wrist of a pale bald man, showing a hypodermic syringe, the needle bright in the white glow of his aura.
"What have we here?" He twisted the man's arm, eliciting a gasp of pain, his cheeks flushing harsh red against the pale skin.
"It's only a sedative," said the man, the curl of a lie in his voice.
"Ah, well. Nothing to worry about then, Mr…" said Raffmir.
"Todren. I'm the consultant anaesthetist."
Raffmir spun easily, lifting the man under the chin against the wall, pinning him there while he seized the hand with the syringe. The other man began to step forward, but Raffmir glanced sideways, halting him.
Without effort, Raffmir twisted the hand holding the needle down so that it was over his thigh, while the man tried to jerk free.
"You may feel a prick," said Raffmir, and slowly pushed the needle into his thigh. The man struggled and yelled, but Raffmir steadily emptied the syringe into his leg. When it was done, he jerked it out and tossed it on to the floor, leaving the man standing, breathless.
"Fuck," said the man. Then his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell forward on to the floor. He jerked once, twice and then lay still.
"It appears that Mr Todren is having a nap," said Raffmir. "Any other bright ideas?"
The other two shook their heads and backed away, eyes wide. I raised the sword again and they reversed into the wall, their eyes focusing on the red smears down the blade. I reached Alex's side and placed my hand on her forehead. It was dry and warm. She was alive.
"What's wrong with her?" I asked Watkins.
He wrung his hands, "She has a rare genetic disorder, instability in the…"
"No, you fool, why isn't she awake?" I tried to keep the anger from my voice.
"Oh, she was given a pre-med by the nurses. We didn't want her to be distressed throughout the procedure."
I was tempted to kill him right then. He talked about the procedure as if he was removing an ingrowing toenail. Instead they had been planning to try an experimental drug that would end my daughter's life.
"Alex? Can you hear me, sweetheart?" I stroked back the dark curls from her face. There was no reaction. "How long until she wakes?"
"It was only a small dose. She is physically quite well, I assure you."
That left an open question. "And mentally?"
The other man spoke. "Mentally she is traumatised. Her recent experiences have left deep mental scars."
"And who are you?"
"I am Professor Petrokos – Alexandra's psychologist. She has been able to show some progress, but so far she's unable to come to terms with the violence of her actions. She claims that there's something inside her that made her do it. She's externalising the guilt, you see?"
"Or there really is something inside her?" I suggested.
He smiled, uncertain, and shook his head. "We've done full body scans of all the patients, and there's nothing inside them that shouldn't be there. It's some kind of common delusion, you see?"