Chaos Choreography (InCryptid, #5)(85)

The hall was effectively featureless, leaving me nowhere to hide except the obvious. I whirled and tried the knob of the nearest door. Locked. I tiptoed as quickly as I could back down the hall, my heart hammering against my ribs. I wasn’t unarmed—I hadn’t voluntarily gone anywhere without a weapon since my eleventh birthday party—but if this came down to a fight, I couldn’t be sure that I was going to win. I didn’t know what was coming down that hall, and my parents didn’t raise me to charge in blind when there was any other option.

The second knob turned under my hand. I pushed the door open, not letting go of the knob, since I didn’t want it to bang against the wall, and ducked inside. The room was dark, but that didn’t matter as much as getting out of the hall.

Easing the door most of the way closed, I braced myself against it, ear to the wood, and listened.

The footsteps got louder. A female voice, muffled by the semi-closed door and distorted by the hallway, said, “I thought we’d be done by now.”

I couldn’t recognize the speaker, not with the way the environment was working against me, but I could pick up on her tone. She was pissed.

“I told you, this isn’t an exact science.” The second voice belonged to a man. Apart from that, I couldn’t say. “Sometimes it takes four, sometimes it takes fourteen. There’s a reason we brought back the last five seasons.”

“Yeah, ratings, and that arrogant bitch insisting we had to stick to the Top Twenty format even when we weren’t having auditions. Why does she have so much pull with the network?”

“She’s the face of the show. They need to keep her happy.” The man’s voice was calm, even reasonable: he was clearly the one in charge, and doing his part to manage his companion’s mood.

I was glad I was hidden, and no one could see the relief in my expression. The only person who could be described as “the face of the show” was Brenna—even Adrian wasn’t as recognized as she was, and wouldn’t be identified as quickly on the street. Brenna had been instrumental in putting together the All-Star season, but she hadn’t been part of the plan to sacrifice us to the snake god. I’d already been pretty sure of that. Having it confirmed was still reassuring. For one thing, it meant there wasn’t an entire nest of dragons arrayed against me.

“This is all pointless. We could use anybody.”

“This particular snake god prefers talented sacrifices. Young people at the height of their powers. We give it what it wants, and it will give us what we want. Feeding it the staff would just anger it. You just need to have patience.”

“I don’t want to have patience. I want to have results.”

“Soon,” said the man.

Their footsteps faded off down the hall, leaving me and the mouse alone in the dark. I started to ease the door open, to look after them, and froze as I realized that it wasn’t that dark anymore.

The wall behind me was glowing. Nothing that glows—apart from stars on a ceiling, or glow sticks at a rave—has ever been a good thing.

Well, crap.





Seventeen




“The difference between a last stand and a Tuesday afternoon is all in how many bullets you had at the start.”

—Frances Brown

Somewhere below the Crier Theater, woefully underprepared for whatever’s about to burst through that glowing wall

THERE WAS TIME TO RUN: I was at the door, and a step would see me in the hall, putting more distance and some barriers between me and whatever was coming through the wall. But there’d be nothing to stop it from following me out, and more, something that could pass through solid stone might be the answer to the question that had been gnawing at us all. Where were the bodies going?

I was about to find out.

“Get down,” I hissed, pulling the pistol from the small of my back. The mouse obeyed without hesitation, tiny claws digging into me as it ran down my front. The light from the wall got brighter. I tensed, readying myself for whatever happened next.

The light began consolidating into straight lines, one about seven feet up from the floor, the others descending from its ends. I realized what it was a bare second before the middle went black and someone stumbled into the room.

The semi-spectral door continued to glow, but it wasn’t enough for me to see what I was aiming at. I took aim anyway, clicking off the safety with a swipe of my thumb. The newcomer straightened, head snapping toward the sound. Then it spoke, calm and clear and far more collected than I was feeling at the moment.

“Verity Alice Price, if you shoot me, your father is going to tan your hide.”

“Grandma?!” I started lowering my gun. Then I stopped, eyes narrowing, and took more careful aim. “Prove it.”

“For your sixth birthday I got you a ballerina Barbie and a bear trap. A real bear trap. No bear, though. Your mother thanked me for the thought, but said a real bear would have been a bit much, given you were no bigger than a whisper, and she didn’t want you getting eaten.”

“Grandma!” This time I clicked the safety back into place before lowering my pistol and shoving it into the waistband of my yoga pants. “Are you hurt? What are you doing down here? How are you down here?”

“Can I ask one?” For the first time, I heard the weariness in her tone. “Where is down here? I’ve been trying every door and egress charm I had on me, and most of them opened on dimensions you don’t want to visit. I was down to my last three options. If this hadn’t worked, I would have needed to go back to Naga for another set, and that could have taken months.”