Marsden reached through the thin barrier between normal and Grey and hauled me out. “Quicker.”
“What are you—?” I started, furious and disgusted and hurting, but he clapped a hard hand over my mouth.
“We have minutes. Only minutes. You’ll have to bear it and save your man. I’ll manage the guards.”
He nodded toward a heavy wooden door in the wall—the portal to an ancient cell. A metal observation plate hung slightly open in the door’s surface. I peeped in, checking for other humans. I could have slipped through, but I couldn’t leave with Will that way, and I was willing to bet there was no keyhole on the other side.
The room within was dark except for the shaft of dusty light that fell through the observation door. I shifted around, trying to see into the gloom without obscuring the light. “Will?” I whispered.
I could hear a shuffling noise beyond the door. I pulled back and studied the door for further traps. A blue gleam shone though the planks between the ancient bulks of wood. There was something magical on the other side. Another shock hit and I slipped painfully into the Grey, trying to get a better look at the spell in the cell.
It was a tangle, meant to hold someone or something in place for a few minutes. Just like one of Mara’s, the heart of the spell was a braided ring of thorny bramble. The whole mess was tied to the foot of the door, so anyone sneaking in or sidling to the door for a peek outside would be stuck to the door itself. Admirable ingenuity, but I cursed Simeon bin Salah nonetheless. The working zone of the spell was almost a foot wide, which would make it hard to open the door with it in place. I fell back into normal, feeling the pressure of time and the stabbing aches of the dying, wondering how I was going to get past this.
Down the hall I heard a thump and a slithering sound as another death-shock hit me. It wasn’t as bad this time—it was farther away—but it still doubled me up. I didn’t want to look, but I cast a quick glance over my shoulder. I couldn’t see any bodies on the ground but I could see stains that shone with the same bright white light and liquid red as the second guard’s blood. My stomach rolled, but I pushed my sense of horror aside. When the vampires woke, they’d smell the blood and be on us like hounds on a rabbit. And I wouldn’t have been surprised if some of the lower ranks and demi-vamps slept down here in the catacombs. I had to move faster no matter how it hurt, but I also had to be careful.
I couldn’t use tools well in the Grey—normal things became difficult to hold—so I had to do it like a normal person. I knelt down on the floor and passed the knife under the door, hooking the threads that held the tangle in place and slicing through them. I felt a tiny electric jolt as each one parted. Not sure where Will was in the room, I didn’t want to move the tangle until I had the door open.
I shuffled Dad’s puzzle until a key shape clicked into place that buzzed happily. I looked around as I put the key into the lock and saw Marsden trotting back to me.
“What’re you dawdlin’ for?” Marsden demanded. “Get ’im and get a move on!”
“There’s a spell tangle on the inside of the door. Give me your cane.”
His face creased into a scowl, but he pulled the cane out and flicked it straight. I unlocked the door, the mechanism rolling freely to my odd key. Then we both heaved on the heavy door, pulling it open to its widest.
I took the cane and probed for the tangle, not sure if the magic would be conducted by the stick or if the cane might become gripped in the trap. I felt the trap bloom and clutch the cane, which yanked away from my grip and stood upright in the middle of the doorway. But the trap was sprung, and Marsden and I rushed into the cell and stopped short.
Will cowered in the farthest corner, the watery light from the corridor barely glinting off his filthy hair. His clothes were dirty, torn, and bloodied and he’d lost his glasses. The smell in the tiny, unventilated space was worse than the sewer: blood and waste and unwashed clothes stiff with fear sweat and dirt. I took a step toward Will as Marsden turned back toward the door—the blind man standing lookout.
Will turned and scrabbled at the wall with his bandaged right hand as if he could claw his way out, muttering, “No, no. please, no more. ”
“Will, it’s Harper. I’m getting you out of here,” I said, walking closer, relieved that I could see the bulk of his left hand swathed in a startling white bandage—they hadn’t cut it off. The visions I’d had in Los Angeles must have been exaggerated by Simeon’s “new techniques.” At least I hoped so, hoped that the odd shape under the bandage was indeed his own whole, living hand.
“Harper?” he questioned, peering in my direction against the light, which made me a black blot in the doorway. Then Will panicked, throwing himself against the wall and cringing into a ball, covering his face with both unwieldy hands, wrappings extending up his arms as far as I could see. The sight of those bandages almost brought me to my knees, but the worst was when he started crying. “Get away, get away! How can you do this? Just kill me and get it over with. Dear God, please. ”
I threw myself down on the icy floor beside him and grabbed his face between my hands, brushing his weakly flailing arms away. I didn’t know what they’d done to him to make him so hysterical, but it must have been awful. He battered at my arms and head without strength, trying to rear away, but stopped by the unyielding stones of the cell.
“It really is me,” I said, my voice low and calm as I could manage as I held him, willing him to look at me, to hear me and believe me. I pushed on every compulsion I could think of, on every bit of persuasion and hope. “And I really am here to save you from this place. I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to take you back to Michael. We’re going to get you out of here.”
“No! No! You’re that. witch. That. monster! You can’t trick me anymore. I know Harper’s not coming.”
I thought fast and talked faster. “We met at an auction at the Ingstrom Shipwrights warehouse. You sold me a cabinet and a chair. We had dinner at Dan’s Beach House. I got arrested. You got mad. Do you remember that?”
Marsden hissed, “Get a move on!”
I ignored him and kept my attention on Will.
Will whipped his head back and forth in my grasp. He didn’t quite believe me, but there was a submerged gleam of hope in his eyes and his cold, shut-down aura flickered with a pale green and blue flame like a will-o’-the-wisp. I had to feed that hope or he’d never come willingly, and we couldn’t possibly carry him.
“On our next-to-last date you gave me a puzzle ball that used to be on a newel post in an old house,” I reminded him. I knew Alice wouldn’t have told him such things—she’d been hacked up in her jars by then. “The last time we met was at Endolyne Joe’s. We broke up because I’m not like you—because I’m broken and I see monsters.”
He sobbed for breath and collapsed into my arms, his head falling hard onto my chest. “I. saw them. I should have believed you.”
“It’s OK. You don’t have to believe any of it, but you do have to come with me. We’re taking you to Michael and you’ll be safe. Now get up and come with us. We have to go fast.”
“I can’t.”
“You’ll have to.”
He cringed tighter against me. I shot a look at Marsden and hoped he could figure out that I needed his help.
“I can’t walk,” Will cried.
Marsden came over to us, his neck bent so his hair covered his face. “They’ve cut the bottoms of his feet,” he muttered to me. “Done worse to his hands and arms. Bled him like a pig. We’ll have to support ’im. And we must go. I can hear something coming.”
CHAPTER 48
I could hear it when I concentrated: a storm of rapid footsteps from several directions and the wind-rush of leathery wings beating the air. Ignoring his fears and injuries, I hoisted Will up and supported his left shoulder with my right. Marsden took his other side. Will whimpered but did his best to move with us as we hauled him toward the door.