As soon as they cleared the mob in Edo Castletown, Skeeter and the girl tugging at his hand broke into a dead run. Cocheta led him through Victoria Station and Urbs Romae, through Valhalla, down toward the construction site, which was ominously silent. There should’ve been an ear-splitting roar of saws, drills, and pneumatic hammers echoing off the distant ceiling, but they found only silence and a deserted construction zone, tasks left abandoned on every side. The timing of the attack on Bergitta left Skeeter scowling. With the antics at Primary to preoccupy station security and most of the tourists, nobody was likely to notice the work stoppage. Or the disappearance of one down-timer from her job scrubbing bathroom floor tiles.
“Hurry, Skeeter!”
Cocheta didn’t need to urge him again. He’d seen enough to leave his whole throat dry with fear. “Which way did they take her?”
“Through there!” Cocheta pointed to a corridor that led into a portion of the station where new Residential apartments were being assembled, back in another of the caverns in which the station had been built. Clearly, they were taking her where nobody could hear the screams. He was just about to ask Cocheta to get word to someone in Security, preferably Wally Klontz, when someone shouted his name.
“Skeeter! Wait!”
A whole group of down-timers pounded his way, with Kynan Rhys Gower in the lead. The Welsh soldier carried his war mallet. Molly was hot on his heels. Where she’d obtained that lethal little top-break revolver, Skeeter wasn’t sure. Maybe she’d brought it with her from London. Or liberated it from Ann Vinh Mulhaney’s firing range—or some tourist’s pocket. Eigil Bjarneson towered over the whole onrushing contingent of angry Found Ones. He’d managed to reclaim his sword from Security after getting out of jail. Or quite possibly he’d just broken out and reconfiscated it? Skeeter wouldn’t have wanted to argue with Eigil in this mood, if he’d been working the Security desk, which was probably in chaos anyway, after Bull’s arrest . . .