A Drop of Night(24)

And I snap the trip wire. I barely feel it. A slight tug against my ankle, and the speakers cut out. The hall goes silent. Almost.

Under the thumping of the blood in my ears, I hear something—a hurried ticking, like a pocket watch. Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick, somewhere in the walls.



I stand perfectly still, trying to place the origin of the sound. It seems to be coming from everywhere at once, rippling through the huge space.

“Uh—” I look down at the severed wire, coiled on the marble. “Guys?”

A sharp clank. The sound intensifies, thumping now, rolling along the paneling. I imagine the hall as a huge aquarium; there’s a squid just beyond the walls, its tentacles batting along the glass. Lilly sees the wire at my feet. She looks up at me from where she’s crouched on the floor, wide-eyed.

“What did you do?” she whispers. “Anouk, he said we shouldn’t move, he said we’d die—”

The rumbling stops. It’s replaced by a gentle, shimmering hum.

My head snaps around. The sound is coming from the far end of the hall.

Ssssss. A hiss, like Penny dragging her mangy toy crocodile over the floor by its tail. Like fingernails sliding through a groove, sand pouring through an hourglass.

Will and Jules turn slowly. Lilly stands, twisting toward the sound. I stare, paralyzed.

At first it looks like a thin strip of mirror, two hundred feet away, stretching from one side of the hall to the other. Except the mirror is rising. And now it’s coming closer.

“Anouk, what did you do—?” Jules starts.

It’s not a mirror. It’s a wire. A single glinting wire, skimming approximately five feet above the floor. Not fast. Not slow. I stare at it, transfixed. And now it reaches a tall oriental vase and slices through it like butter.

My skin turns to ice.

“Duck!” I scream. “Duck, duck, get DOWN!”

I slam to the floor. Flip onto my back. The wire sings over me. The others are sprawled in a circle around me, shoes squeaking against the tile eyes of the butterfly. “We need to get out of here,” I say, panicking. “We need to—”

I push myself onto my palms. At the far end of the hall is a door. Huge, gilded, set in an ornate marble frame. It seems to be glowing dimly in the shadows. I hop to my feet. Will is right behind me.

“Move!” I shout. “Get to the door!”

I glance over my shoulder. The wire has reached the end of the hall. It pauses. Another clank, reverberating down through the expanse. And it’s coming back. Two feet lower. Twice as fast.

Lilly’s on her feet now. Jules isn’t.

“Run!” I scream. “Get up, run!”

Will heads for Jules, jerks him upright, and we’re off, sprinting down the center of the hall. In front of us, three new wires emerge from above the golden door and drop down, shooting along the tracks on either wall. All different heights.

Lilly shrieks, looks like she wants to turn around. But the other wire is still approaching from behind.

“Watch the ones ahead and I’ll watch our backs!” I yell at her, and we run together, me stumbling over my feet trying to look back over my shoulder. The original wire is moving faster than the others. I see it shimmering ten feet away, speeding toward us. I fall and pull Lilly with me. Wriggle onto my back, knocking my elbow hard on the floor. The wire passes a hair’s breadth above my nose. I’m up again, leaping the second wire, ducking under the third. Lilly’s not with me anymore. She’s wailing, on and on, like a siren, but where? Is she hurt? I can’t see anything. I can’t look back.

A fourth wire is coming toward me, three feet above the floor. It slices through chairs, another vase. It’s vibrating, shivering back and forth, blindingly fast. Will is ahead of me. He’s running straight for it. And there’s another wire. A fifth wire I didn’t see, sliding low over the floor. He’s going to duck the high wire and the low one is going to take off the soles of his feet.

“Will, look down—” I whisper.

He’s four feet away.

“Will, jump!”

A second before the wire catches him, he sees it. Leaps. The one following it dips down. And somehow he’s turning, spinning onto his back, still in the air, slipping over both wires. He hits the floor, rolls, and he’s running again, full speed for the golden doors.

The hall is a grid of wires now. Nine. Ten. Dropping out of the wall above the doors and speeding toward us. They’re not following a pattern. Some are going forward, some back. Some shift in their tracks, clacking a foot higher. I don’t know where anyone is, can barely see in the blackness.

“Jam the tracks!” someone’s shrieking. “We need to jam them!”

It’s Lilly, behind me.

I drag myself across the floor toward the wall. Look up.

“What is this place . . .” I breathe.

What I thought were decorative inlays in the panels is a network of grooves, a complex track system going up about six feet. The wires are attached to wooden nubs. I watch one of them buzzing along its track toward me. There’s a clicking sound. It’s like it knows I’m here. The wire shifts into a new lane a foot lower.

This place was designed to kill.

“Anouk!”

I duck the wire. Spin. Lilly’s heaving something onto her shoulder—a chair. She throws it at the nearest wire and for an instant I want to scream at her. The chair touches the wire. It’s intersected neatly. Butchered chair legs come sliding across the floor toward me.