“Angelica,” he said softly.
The red-eyed boy stepped up to the bars. “Getting out of here, Krysty,” he told her. “Going to be okay.”
The red-haired female’s eyes met Kaa’s.
But instead of the warmth and affection that he felt
at first sight of her, upon seeing him, she radiated anxiety, even fear. Her reaction shocked him and was painful to his heart.
He unlocked her cage and let her out.
“You know me,” he said to her.
“I know you.”
“And you are Angelica,” he said, “the one promised me by fate.”
She didn’t deny it. Her emerald eyes stared straight into his. Apparently she had overcome her fear.
Touching her chin lightly, he turned her face to the torchlight so he could see it better. Her red hair slithered around his wrist, seizing it with amazing power. It surprised him, but he didn’t jerk back his hand.
“Come, Angelica,” he said, “I will show you our brand-new world.”
Doc WAS SURE that he was dead. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t feel anything.
Finally, he thought. The ordeal of his fragmented, torturous existence was finally over.
Then a hand shook him.
“Get up, Doc.”
It wasn’t God, calling him to the Throne of Judgment.
It was Mildred Wyeth.
He awoke with his cheek resting in the conduit’s water channel. It was very dark. He tried to sit up and couldn’t manage it in the narrow space. He pulled himself up to his feet using the cables mounted along the walls as handholds.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Explosion,” J.B. said. “Must’ve gone off right over the tunnel. If you can move, let’s go.”
“I can move.”
They soon discovered that the stickles who’d been in front of them hadn’t been so lucky. The concussion of the explosion had torn them apart. The tunnel dripped with their fluids, and the channel was clogged with their limp bodies. The friends had to walk on the corpses to get by them.
“I didn’t count them,” J.B. said, “but I think all of the stickies ahead of us bought the farm.”
More explosions rocked the conduit behind them. However, the detonations were farther away this time and didn’t have the same stunning effect. They continued on at top speed until they could see golden light at the end of the conduit, then they proceeded with caution. The passage opened onto a low-ceilinged room crammed with electrical boards, fuse panels, pipes, air ducts and long-dead machinery. The cables in the conduit fanned out over a broad wall lit by torches. Along the floor were stacked sealed cans of paint, solvent and cleaners, reminders of a time when everything still ran and had to be maintained.
J.B. kicked one of the cans, and something sloshed inside.
“I think we’re in the hotel,” he said, taking a torch off the wall. “Let’s find out where.”
He opened the door at the end of the long room and faced a dripping concrete corridor, much like the one they had seen when they were taken to the cooler. As they headed down the hall, they quickly confirmed their location. They saw the plastic lilies wired to the doors of Baron Elijah’s crypts.
“The elevator is that way,” Mildred said.
As they neared it, they could hear the noise from the lobby rolling down the empty shaft: people screaming, gunfire. There was no sign of sec men. Apparently they were all upstairs, righting for their lives.
J.B. rounded die last corner with the Armalite’s butt against his shoulder. He swept the sights across the fronts of the elevators. The good news was there were no targets, norm or stickie. The bad news was that both sides of the shaft were empty. The elevator that still worked wasn’t on this floor. Then he saw the door to the power plant standing ajar. He waved for Mildred and Doc to follow him, but cautiously.
When J.B. barged into the power room, the slaves jerked their heads up from the wheel’s spokes.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Everybody relax.”
Doc and Mildred took up positions just inside the doorway.
“Unlock us so we can fight,” one of the slaves said.
“It’s the sec man,” Mildred said, “the one who turned us in. Hardly recognized him under all that grease.”