Chapter 203: Is That for Us?

The lamps went red.

All down the corridor, the long white tubes blinked out and came back red. A siren started up somewhere above the ceiling, low at first, then climbing until Blair felt it in her teeth.

Daemus looked up. "Is that for us?"

Jack was already running.

Cold fingers closed around Blair’s hand. Killian’s palm was dry against her greasy one, and he gripped hard. He pulled, and she ran with him. Behind them, the radio crackled once more and was lost under the siren.

Her wet shoes slapped the tile. The torch banged against her wrist on its cord. Ahead of her, Daemus ran with Heather clutched to his chest, the pink quilt flapping around his knees. Heather’s head bounced on his shoulder. She slept through it.

They passed the storeroom. The ward door came up on the right.

Blair’s feet slowed.

Through its small window, red light washed over the rows of glass. At the far end, a shape lay curled under a blanket.

Killian’s grip tightened. "Human."

He pulled. She went.

Jack reached the corner first and stopped dead. Daemus pulled up behind him so hard his sneakers shrieked on the tile.

Blair came around the corner on Killian’s heels and saw why.

At the end of the next corridor stood the door with the small square window. The way out. Between it and them, a row of steel doors ran down the left wall. They were opening, one after another, each with a hiss.

Something came out of the first one on all fours.

It unfolded as it stood. Gray skin. Arms so long its knuckles brushed the floor. Smooth skin where its eyes should have been. Its jaw was split down the middle, all the way to the throat.

A second one came out behind it. Then three more. Then more, until the corridor between them and the door was full of long gray bodies swaying in the red light.

"What the fuck are those?!" Daemus yelled.

Killian went very still beside her. His tongue flicked out once. He stepped half a pace forward, and his shoulder came between her and the corridor.

The blind faces turned toward the corner.

Jack stepped out in front. His wings flared wide.

The front row shrank from him. They pressed back against the walls and ducked their heads, hissing through their split jaws. The ones behind kept pushing forward, and the corridor stayed full.

"Stay behind me," Jack said.

The hissing changed.

It turned into a word. One creature rasped it, then the next, then all of them, the sound running down the corridor from one split mouth to the next.

"Vra’kash."

Every blind face had turned past Jack. Toward her.

Blair’s heart slammed once.

They came.

They slid along the walls, out past the tips of Jack’s wings. Their long fingers scraped the tile. Jack swept one wing down, and the nearest folded back with a shriek. Two more slid into its place.

One came low under the edge of his wing. Its sealed face stopped a foot from Blair’s knees. It breathed in, long and slow.

Daemus stepped in front of Blair with Heather still in his arms. A growl rolled up out of his chest.

"Vra’kash."

The word went into her. Her chest closed around it. Something under her ribs pulled tight, then tighter, toward the gray bodies.

She coughed.

It tore out of her and bent her double. Something hot filled her mouth. She caught it in her hand. When she took the hand away, her black palm was wet and red.

"Bunny?"

The lamps tipped sideways. Her knees went.

"Take her." Daemus’s voice came from very far off.

Killian’s fingers slid out of hers. She saw him catch an armful of pink quilt, his arms rigid, Heather’s face turning into his shirt.

Then Daemus’s arms closed around her, and the red light went dark.

**

Daemus went down on one knee with her.

She was limp and light. Her head fell back against his arm. Blood shone at the corner of her mouth. He wiped it away with his thumb. It welled straight back.

"Bunny." His voice cracked. "Bunny, come on."

He pulled her in against his chest and tucked her head under his chin. Her wet hair soaked his collar. Her breath came shallow and wet against his throat, and he counted every one.

In front of them, Jack’s wings beat once, twice, and drove the front of the crowd back. The back of it pressed forward. The gap closed a foot at a time.

Killian stood over Daemus with Heather in his arms. His face was white. Heather sighed against his shirt and slept on.

At the far end of the corridor, the door with the small square window banged open.

People came through it. Six of them, in gray uniforms, carrying long steel poles with a loop of wire at the end of each.

The siren stopped.

The lamps flickered and came back white.

The creatures went still all at once. Every blind face swung away from Blair, toward the gray uniforms.

The staff walked into them, poles held low, unhurried. A loop dropped over a gray neck and tugged, and the creature went where it was pulled. The rest shrank from the poles and slid back through their steel doors, one after another. The doors hissed shut behind them. The last one went in slowly, its long fingers trailing over the tile until the steel closed.

Six gray uniforms stood in the white corridor between them and the way out. They turned. The poles came up.

Jack’s eyes went from one gray uniform to the next. He folded his wings halfway. Daemus got to his feet with Blair in his arms. The growl started again, deep in his chest.

High on the wall above the door, a black screen blinked on. A man sat in it, in a dark robe, the hood drawn low over his face. Behind him was a white wall.

He leaned toward something below the screen.

"Let them go."