“I just got hit with another sending,” I said. I rushed back out to the hall. Whoever did the sending was accurate. I didn’t have an elevator. I had a shaft. Far below, flashlight beams swept in wild patterns through the cage of the shaft as the brownies ran up. I pulled open the metal gate. The elevator car was in the basement. “Get out of there, Meryl!” I called.
She was at my side in an instant and surveyed the cables in the open shaft. “You’re kidding.”
I held out my hand. “Time’s wasting.”
“Hold on.” She ran back into the apartment and returned with a pair of canvas gloves. “I saw these on the counter. They’ll protect your hands some.”
“Thanks.” I pulled on the gloves.
Meryl hugged me from behind, one arm over my left shoulder, the other under my right arm. Her body shield flared around us. “Go!”
I jumped and grabbed the nearest cable. Momentum carried our weight across the shaft. “I’m sliding,” I said.
“I thought that was the plan,” Meryl said to the back of my head.
I relaxed my grip, and we started down. Meryl chanted behind me, and a thick mist billowed around us as she created a druid fog. The flashlight beams of the brownies drew closer. The brownies shouted as the fog obscured their vision. The gloves were coming off, and I grabbed the cable tighter. We jerked to a stop, my shoulders threatening to dislocate. We hung in the fog as a half dozen brownies on the stairs circled obliviously around us. I settled my hands deeper into the gloves when they passed and let go again. We spiraled around the cable the last three floors and hit the top of the elevator. Meryl’s body shield bounced us off the mechanics of the lift, and we rolled apart. The hatch on the elevator popped open. Meryl thrust essence-charged hands at the opening.
“Hurry up before they realize you’re gone,” a deep voice said.
Through the elevator hatch, a dwarf I didn’t know stared up at us. I gave Meryl a shrug and jumped. I landed on my feet and held my hands up to break Meryl’s fall. I didn’t need to. She grabbed the edge of the opening and swung herself through, landing with a lot more grace than I had.
“This way,” said the dwarf. He darted out of the propped-open gate, and we followed him through a twisting basement corridor. Another dwarf stood at a door, gesturing us in. We ran through to a sizable room with several couches arranged around a wide shallow bronze vessel of water. A scrying pool. Someone slammed the door shut. “I thought you guys moved,” I said.
“That’s what everyone was supposed to think,” the first dwarf said. He joined his partner in pushing a large bookcase out of the way to expose a short, finished opening in the wall. “Through here. Don’t stop until you get to the car.”
“Whoa, whoa. Who the hell are you people?’ I asked.
The dwarf threw me an annoyed look. “Does this look like a party? Everything you need to know is in the car. Get moving.”
We moved toward the opening, but the dwarf held his hand in front of Meryl. “She can’t go.”
I glared at him. “What the hell? I’m not leaving her here.”
“No, go ahead,” Meryl said.
“What!”
She nodded. “No, really. I’ll be fine. I’ll scrub your essence trail and slow them down.”
“No,” I said.
She turned back to the door. “Just go, Grey. They’re not after me. You’re going to screw up whoever did this for you. Move!”
I hesitated. The dwarf sighed heavily and pushed me. I fell through the opening, and someone grabbed my arm. I looked back at Meryl’s retreating figure. “Get Joe for me, Meryl!”
The bookcase slid back in place. I jerked my arm away. A flashlight clicked on. In the backwash of light, another dwarf smiled at me. “Hey, Grey. Fancy meeting you here.”
Banjo turned and walked away. “Will you please tell me what’s going on? Is this Moke’s doing?” I asked.
Banjo and Moke had helped me out of a tight spot a few weeks earlier. Moke’s troll essence was still bonded to me from the experience. “No, he’s taking care of one of the bridges. This is just a side job I picked up from an old friend,” Banjo said over his shoulder.
He led the way in the dark through some kind of rough tunnel. My sense of direction told me we were somewhere behind my building under the street. “Side job for who?” I asked.
“Whom,” Banjo said. We passed through another opening into a dark basement. “You don’t need to know. Keeps things safer that way.”
“Did you foresee this?” I asked.
Banjo was one of the best seers in the Boston, or at least claimed to be. Dwarves were damned good at scrying. “Parts of it,” he said. He pointed to a door. “That’s the exit. Car’s waiting.”
I gave up. My experience with Banjo was that if I didn’t pay for his predictions, I wasn’t going to get them. I opened the door. “Thanks. Tell Moke I said hi.”
“He’ll be flattered, I’m sure. Mind your—” I stumbled in a pothole but kept my feet. Banjo shrugged. “Step.” He closed the door.
I was in the alley behind the building next to mine. A black car with diplomatic plates idled in the lane. The rear door opened on the passenger side.
“You arrived faster than I anticipated,” Eorla said.
35
“The early warning you sent helped,” I said, as the driver gunned it up the alley.
Eorla tilted her head. “I sent no warning.”
I shook my head in exasperation. “Great. Whatever. What the hell is going on?”
Eorla glanced out the window as we crossed Old Northern Avenue. Fire lit the night sky in several places. “The Guild either overplayed or underplayed its hand. I haven’t decided.”
“The Guild? That’s the Guild in my apartment building?”
She nodded. “Of course. Didn’t your security system fail? Who else has the knowledge and ability to do that?”
“Is this because of what happened at Eagan’s?”
Eorla placed a delicate hand on my thigh. “Bastian told you before that happened that the Guild was working through legal channels to arrest you. With the unrest caused by the commissioner’s death, they panicked that they might lose you.”
We slowed as we turned onto Congress Street. Brownie security guards were marching on a group of elves in the street after curfew. Eorla pursed her lips as she assessed the scene. “Overplayed, I think. They started something with these people and have lost control.”
“Eorla, I do not have any idea what you are talking about,” I said.
She shifted on the seat. “The Guild was using the Dead to flush out Bergin Vize. The solitaries were hiding him at the power plant.”
“Danu’s blood, Eorla. Are you saying the Guild blew up the power plant?”
She nodded. “There was an emergency evacuation of the human staff a short time ago. It was an excuse to clear the building, of course. That’s when I knew the Guild was moving. They were hoping to capture both of you in the confusion.”
“So, the Consortium is kidnapping me instead,” I said.
Eorla turned to me with amused insult. “The Consortium has no idea I’m here. I’m helping you move across the board, Connor. You are free to get out of this car anytime you please, but do remember you are free to do that because I made it possible.”
Bemused, I shook my head. “Why are you doing this?”
She shrugged. “For the same reason I investigated the Taint. Maeve and Donor are playing a far more dangerous game than I think any of us understand. I truly believe keeping their power in equilibrium is the only thing keeping us all safe.”
“So Maeve gets Vize, and I go on the run from her and the Elven King,” I said.
Eorla chuckled. “You know better than that, Connor. You tried to capture Bergin for years. I doubt Ryan macGoren can. No, it would not surprise me at all if Bergin is sitting in another car somewhere nearby having this same conversation with someone equally interested in the game.”