Betrayed by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #5)(37)

“For Magorah’s sake!” I yelped. “Don’t drive that thing around like it’s a race car! You’ll arouse suspicion.”

“All right, all right,” Rylan groused, slowing down to a more reasonable speed. “I wasn’t going to drive the whole way like that. Just having some fun. Has becoming a mage apprentice turned you into a stick in the mud, Naya? I don’t remember you being this uptight.”

I said nothing for a long moment as he made his way to the compound. Was Rylan right? Was I turning into an uptight bitch, worrying and criticizing at every turn, unwilling to enjoy life anymore?

“I think the fact that my friends are trapped inside that bunker and are in danger of being blown up is reason enough for me to be uptight,” I finally said. “You could cut me some slack on that end.”

“That’s true.” Rylan paused. “I guess things are a bit different for me, as a former Resistance soldier. We lost members all the time, charged into dangerous situations knowing that some of us might not come back. I learned pretty fast that if you didn’t keep your sense of humor about you, you could quickly fall into depression.”

“I see.” And the thing was, I did. Enforcers saw their fair share of death too, both amongst our own ranks and the citizens we protected. But it wasn’t the same thing as going into battle, and we certainly weren’t fighting all the time. Part of me wanted to ask Rylan more about his experiences in the Resistance, but this wasn’t the time. And besides, I feared that conversation would open up a can of worms I wasn’t ready to deal with.

Rylan came to a stop outside the gate. The sun had fully set now, only wisps of color lighting the sky, and darkness was settling over the compound. He turned toward the booth just as the guard within rolled down his window.

“Evening, Captain,” the guard said. He was a short, sallow-faced man wearing the same uniform as Rylan, but with less decorative embroidery.

“Good evening, Private,” Rylan said. “Anything to report?”

“No, sir. No suspicious activity up here at the front gate that I’ve been able to see. The day guard captain might know differently, but I haven’t heard anything on the radio, so I doubt it.”

“Thank you, soldier. Do you know where I can find the captain now?”

“I believe he’s down below, meeting with the director. Do you need me to radio him?”

“No, thanks. I’ll talk to him myself.”

Nodding, the guard turned away to pull on a lever. The gate began to slide open smoothly, and I let out a sigh of relief as Rylan passed through.

“So how are you getting inside, exactly?” I asked as he drove the vehicle up the long dirt road and headed toward a garage. Elnos and I had observed a surprising number of people coming and going from this seemingly unimportant structure, so we had already suspected that it held the entrance to the bunker. But with no way to breach the wards, our theory had been impossible to confirm.

“Watch and learn.”

“Good evening, Captain,” a guard said as he approached the running vehicle. I half expected him to salute, but he didn’t, likely because they were keeping up appearances around here.

“Good evening,” Rylan replied, and the two launched into a brief conversation. The guard pulled a small remote and pressed a button, and the garage door rolled up on well-oiled hinges, exposing around a dozen vehicles—mostly industrial—that sat within. Rylan guided the car inside, and parked it in one of the spots set alongside the left wall. I looked around as best as I could through his eyes as he got out of the car, but didn’t see anything suspicious—it looked like a regular company garage.

Rylan pulled out the captain’s key ring as he headed to the back wall of the garage. He stopped in front of an unmarked grey door, then tried several of the keys on the ring. The third one worked, and the door revealed a dimly lit stairwell that shot steeply beneath the ground.

“So that’s where they’ve hidden the entrance,” I mused as Rylan descended, closing the door firmly behind him.

“I always hated this part,” Rylan admitted as descended the stairs. “It feels like I’m on my way to hell.”

“Maybe you are, for what you’ve done.”

“Ha-ha.” He didn’t sound amused. “At least I’m by myself. It’s worse when you’ve got people behind you. If someone stumbles and bumps into you, or pushes you intentionally, you’ll go bouncing down this thing and break every bone in your body along the way.”

“Ouch,” I said, rubbing my left arm as I imagined crashing down this set of endless stairs. Yes, shifters could heal, but that amount of damage could be debilitating. Because we healed so quickly, our bones had to be set fast if we didn’t have the energy to shift. Otherwise, they healed incorrectly, and could leave us crippled unless they were broken and reset again. I’d witnessed such things myself, and it was not pretty.

It took some ten minutes for Rylan to reach the bottom of the stairwell. Toward the end, the tunnel grew brighter, light from the landing filtering upward. Four Resistance soldiers waited there, dressed in full Resistance uniform, their red armbands proudly displayed. Down here, there was no need to hide their true colors. They also carried pistols in addition to the swords strapped at their belts.

“Wish I had one of those,” Rylan remarked. “Seems odd that the captain wasn’t carrying one, but he probably doesn’t want to scare the populace. Maybe he keeps it in his office.”