The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(85)
“On it,” Bentley’s voice crackled. “Cormie’s looking for fire exits.”
“What I need right now is that service elevator. Our deadline just got a little tighter.”
I jogged down a maintenance corridor, past a corkboard still displaying yellowed bulletins from ten years ago.
“Take the first left,” Bentley said after a moment’s pause, “then a short right.”
The service elevator was big enough to deliver a grand piano. Dirty canvas padding covered the walls, and a scuffed rubber mat lined the floor. I hit the button for twelve and the doors rumbled shut, the cage springing to life with a wheezing groan.
I thought back to every fire drill I had sat through as a kid, and how they had hammered it into my head that the one thing you never, ever do in a fire is use the elevators. Of course, I was pretty sure “don’t pick a fight with a crew of sorcerers who already kicked your ass once this week” was also on the list of things you shouldn’t do. I wasn’t setting any safety records tonight.
Right about now, Jennifer would be sending the empty main elevator up to the Klondike, giving me the chance to slip around and get the element of surprise. At least, I hoped so. It was the only advantage I was going to get.
I held my breath. The elevator chimed.
Top floor, end of the line.
Forty-Two
The doors ground open, too loud for my liking, on a dark and empty kitchen. Fat blending bowls and double-decker ovens gathered dust. They’d been abandoned for years. I dropped low, crawl-walking around the counters with my shotgun held tight to my chest. Light streamed in through a service window to my left. Hearing voices, I slowly peeked up and over, into the lounge beyond.
The Klondike Room really was a marvel of Old Vegas. I could imagine Sinatra singing on the scallop-walled stage with an approving crowd spread among the plush red velvet chairs and low glass cocktail tables. Toward the back, near the great brass doors of the main elevator, tables set with faded white cloth waited for a steak dinner that would never arrive.
Tonight’s performance was nothing so elegant. The Etruscan Box sat on a black marble pillar at center stage. Swirls and sigils in bone-white chalk adorned the wooden slats around it. Hundreds of candles flooded the room with flickering light, set out on every table and ledge in patterns that hinted at some mad geometric design. On the only table without a candle, set up on stage squarely before the Box, sat five little pouches.
“I can’t believe he’s this f*cking stupid,” Meadow said, planted in front in front of the elevator doors. Tiny glowing numbers inched their way upward, the empty cage making its way to the top floor.
“I can’t believe he got past your traps,” Sheldon said from the stage, kneeling as he put the final touches on a painted glyph. “It’s almost like you’re more interested in torturing people than building an effective security system.”
“Ms. Carmichael,” Meadow said, “please tell Sheldon that if his idiot brother hadn’t f*cked things up, we wouldn’t even be in this situation. And Tony would still be alive.”
“Lauren,” Sheldon said as he stood up and brushed the dust from his slacks, “please tell Little Miss Torquemada that if she’d spend more time acting like a professional and less time acting like something out of a horror movie—”
“Both of you, quiet,” Lauren said. She stood, imperious and regal, a step behind Meadow. Her hands wavered in the candlelight, slow and sinuous, fingertips trailing luminous green mist.
Meadow turned her head, the light catching her ravaged face, and I held my breath. A vicious scar ran from her forehead to her jaw, carving off a lop of skin at the side of her nose. A string of tape and sutures held her raw, red flesh together.
“He dies slow,” she hissed, “him and anyone with him.”
Lauren narrowed her eyes, concentrating on the elevator door. “He dies, period, and we get back to work.”
Three against one is a sucker’s bet. Odds were I’d be dead in the next ten minutes. Jennifer and me together, we might have taken them, but I’m a firm believer in contingency plans. Mine sat snug in my hip pocket, right next to my deck of cards.
If you can’t change the odds, you can always change the game.
“Is Jenny safe?” I whispered as loud as I dared, hoping the earpiece would pick it up.
“She’s here with me,” Margaux said. “Fire department’s on the way, and they’ve cleared Fremont Street. You can see the flames in the windows, up to the third floor and climbing fast.”
“You have to leave,” Bentley cut in. “Now, Daniel. Cormie says there’s an old fire escape on the west side of the building, but it stops at the eighth floor. You don’t have much time!”
I took the earpiece and stuffed it in my shirt pocket. No distractions. My breath slowed. My pupils dilated, showing me the room in a spray of color, the winds of magic tracing the world in violet and gold. When we had fought at Spengler’s house, they got the drop on me. Things were different now.
They’d probably kill me, but I’d make damn sure they bled for their victory.
The elevator let out a merry chime. Before the doors were even halfway open, Lauren unleashed a torrent of bilious green fog, spilling from her hands like a flamethrower’s plume and flooding the elevator cage with acidic death. She was just realizing her mistake, looking at the steaming, pitted ruins of an empty elevator, when I burst through the swinging kitchen door and blasted them with the shotgun.