The Collected Christopher Connery Page 11

  “Mr. Graves!” she shouted over her shoulder. “This way!”

  “I’m coming! Just –” Another explosion from the kitchen sent Arthur stumbling and cursing after her. Slowing down just long enough to grab Arthur’s arm, Gail shoved him into the maze then stepped into the cool darkness herself.

  What had formerly been a collection of twisting hallways was now a single steep descending staircase and Gail had to sit down hard to keep from falling head over ass down it. Ahead of her, she heard Arthur gasp and catch himself on the wall.

  Slowly, so as not to jar Nia’s no doubt sore head, Gail looked back over her shoulder. Only darkness. She wondered what would happen if she tried to walk out again. Would she be back in the burning dining room or somewhere else entirely? Thankfully, she was good at keeping a stranglehold on the sort of suicidal curiosity and faced forward again.

  “Damn,” Arthur breathed, sitting down heavily a step below them. “Was that real? Could that have hurt us?”

  “I think it did hurt us, one of us at least.” Holding the Nia tight around the waist, Gail tried to squint through the dark to see how bad a knock she had taken.

  “No but also yes,” Nia offered belatedly in a hazy voice. “I mean, no, it wasn’t real in the most easily understood sense of the word, but yes, it could have hurt us.”

  “It did hurt you.” Gail tried to move some of Nia’s hair out of the way.

  Nia shook her head, but the wince that followed spoiled her denial. “I’m quite – I will be fine. The kitchen isn’t on fire in our reality – the real reality – but the barriers between that reality and Connery’s illusion are stronger than you might think.” Her voice was a little slurred, like she’d had too much to drink.

  Arthur cursed. “I was hoping it was just like a dream. We could just pinch ourselves and wake up.”

  “No, it’s not like a dream. Our bodies are here and we’re as much observed by the outside world as anything else in the illusion, that is, not at all or not nearly at all – wait, that’s not quite what I meant.”

  A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of Gail’s mouth. “How hard did you hit your head, princess?”

  “No, no, listen.” Nia tried to bat Gail’s hands away, but kept missing. “There are illusions that only affect the subjects’ minds, but this isn’t one of them. This – once you’re in an illusion like this, you become part of it. They’re like – think of them as tiny self-contained universes.”

  Gail tried to imagine it and failed. “How is that possible?”

  “Well, the theory involves alternate realities and pockets of – ow!”

  “There it is.” Gail gently prodded the sore spot on Nia’s head, feeling her fingers come away sticky with blood. “You should patch yourself up before we get moving again.”

  “It’s nothing. The point I was trying to make was that while a great deal of research has been put into illusion magic, the results are always painfully philosophical. It’s interesting, of course, but hardly helpful to anyone wanting a practical understanding of the magic. Though I suppose it would be difficult to discuss alternate universes and pocket realities without becoming a trifle philosophical...”

  “You can tell me all about it later, but now, you better fix your head. You’re wandering.”

  “I…” Nia was silent for a moment, then, “Yes, I suppose I am,” she admitted softly.

  “Do the magic, Nia,” said Arthur, putting a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “We need you at your best.”

  “Yes, all right.” Nia fumbled in the pocket of her dressing gown for Gail’s notebook and pen.

  “Don’t you need a light?” Gail asked as the pen began scratching across the paper.

  “Not if you don’t distract me. There. Done.” Taking a deep breath, she pressed the paper over the lump on her head. Gail felt her entire body tremble, then she sighed and let the paper drop.

  “You’ve still got a bit a bump,” said Gail, poking it.

  “Ow! Will you stop that? The spell wasn’t large enough to heal it entirely, but it’s much better, I promise.”

  Gail was having trouble making out Nia’s face in the gloom, but she did sound less bleary and pain-drunk.

  “Don’t scare me like that, Ni,” Arthur said with no heat behind the words. Then, “But this place can kill us?”

  “Yes.”

  “But what would… happen to us?”

  “Illusions like this are naturally unstable, so it will eventually break down on its own if not reinforced. It could maintain its integrity for a year, maybe two, before it began to collapse. Then our bodies would return fully to our reality.”

  “And before that?”

  “Have you ever had a moment where you tripped over nothing and couldn’t understand why? The hotel staff will be having that feeling a great deal until the pocket universe collapses.”

  While she supposed there was something to be said for becoming a good ghost story, Gail wanted a bit more out of life than that. “In that case, I guess we better find Connery before anything else tries to kill us.” She moved to continue down the stairs, but Nia caught her wrist.

  “Wait a moment, are you feeling better, detective? You seemed quite… unwell before.”

  Gail had almost forgotten her vicious headache. She could still feel a little tension in her temples, but that was all. “No, I’m okay. It must have been the fire that set it off. It’s better now.” She looked at Arthur. “What about you, doc? Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m absolutely fine, but what did you call me?”

  “Good, good,” Nia interjected. “Now, our best strategy is to reach Mister Connery as quickly as possible.”

  “And how are we going to do that?” asked Arthur, forgetting the ‘doc’ business for the time being. “This place is impossible to navigate.”

  “Not if we’re clever,” Nia replied. “Connery is dead, so he cannot actively alter the spell while we’re inside it. If we can keep him from getting into our minds again, all we have to worry about are the static traps he set before he died. And best of all, he won’t be able to change the hiding place, which means once we figure out where he is, he won’t be able to escape.”

  “And he could if he were alive?”

  “Oh, certainly.”

  Another reason why a dead Connery is better than any other kind of Connery. But all Gail said was, “So there’ll be more traps?”

  “Without question.”

  “Great,” said Arthur.

  “Spectacular,” Gail agreed.

  Nia ignored them both. “But the pertinent question is where did Connery choose to hide himself?”

  For several moments, they all fell into silent thought, Gail pointedly not listening to the odd shuffling sound she heard in the distance. All right, if she had to hide something in a hotel, where would she put it? Somewhere guests were unlikely to go. Somewhere people would get in and out of as quickly as possible. “The basement.”

  “The basement?”

  “Yeah, a place like this will have to have a watertight basement for the boiler and overflow storage.” Almost every proper building in New Crossbridge had a basement, even if they were mostly just structural liabilities these days. Back when the sun shone hard and hot enough to blister, the basements had been essential shelter, but now the underground belonged mostly to the water and the rats. There were a few times Gail had chased suspects down into the abandoned subway tunnels and at their deepest point, they were little more than poisonous black rivers. She could remember creeping through damp darkness, listening to unlucky rats drowning in the distance.

  Sometimes she had nightmares about it.

  She shook off the dark memories. This was no time to dwell on bad dreams. “A fancy place like this has the money for regular water-proofing, so their basement will be usable. It’ll have lots of dark dry spaces to hide things in and most people will get in and out as quickly as they can.” To clarify, she added, “Basements are creepy.”

>   “Sounds perfect!” Gail could tell Nia was beaming even in the darkness. “And easy to find.” She was silent for a moment and Gail heard the pen hurrying across the paper again. “There. That should show us the way. Now, we must stay together. We’re much easier prey alone.”

  “Connery always did like easy prey,” Gail said dryly. She jumped when Nia took her hand, but the Illuminator only held on more tightly.

  “I told you, detective, we can’t afford to get separated. You too, Arthur.”

  Gail heard a put-upon sigh from the darkness in front of them, but Arthur must have taken Nia’s other hand because she continued, “If we run into any more traps, find cover and let me handle it. Let’s go. We don’t want to keep Mr. Connery waiting.”

  Feeling like she was on one of an outing back at the children’s home, Gail let Nia lead the way down the staircase, which – for the moment – was wide enough for the three of them to walk side by side. At least Nia didn’t crush her fingers like the guardians at the home. They’d always held on like they thought she’d bolt at any moment.

  Okay, so that was probably because she’d run away seven times before she hit her sixteenth birthday and aged out, but she didn’t think that was an excuse for nearly breaking her hands.

  “Down we go!” Nia’s bright voice echoed in the strange space as hand in hand they descended into the darkness again.

  20

  Gail Lin

  They went down until Gail was pretty sure there couldn’t be any more down left. Worse, the stairs were getting narrower and more uneven with every step.

  “Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Arthur whispered. Gail didn’t blame him. Normal speaking voices rang weirdly down here.

  “Of course it’s the right way,” Nia replied, but there was an edge of… maybe not quite doubt, but definitely not undoubt in her voice. “This spell should guide us straight to the basement.”

  “Well, it’s just the one stair,” said Gail as optimistically as she could. “So we’ve got to get there eventually…” She trailed off as the solid wall beside her changed to a long twisting hallway, lit by the same type of floor lamp found in every room in the hotel. Judging Arthur’s muttered cursing, the same transformation had taken place on his side.

  Then the stairs in front of them split apart as though they were no more solid than paper. One half twisted back on itself, scuttling back the way they had come while the other continued down into the dark.

  Gail sighed. “Me and my big mouth.”

  But Nia didn’t seem annoyed. In fact, she was watching the transformation with fascination. “This is incredible!”

  “What’s so incredible about it?” asked Gail. “I mean, besides the lamps. That’s a nice touch, I guess.”

  “Labyrinths are static by nature. No matter their complexity, they must be designed, built, and then left alone. Any tampering after the fact could undermine the entire structure, but Connery seems to have found a way to create flexibility without compromising stability. A labyrinth that can respond to internal stimuli! I couldn’t even begin to explain how he did it without further –”

  She was interrupted by a roar from somewhere below them.

  “What the hell was that?” Arthur gasped, stumbling back a step.

  “It sounded like someone doing unbound magic,” Nia said softly.

  “ – a waterfall.”

  “ – a huge rat.”

  They all looked at each other.

  “Well, whatever it sounds like, I know it makes me want to get the hell out of here.” Gail pulled back on Nia’s hand.

  “It might be just a trick,” said Nia, though she was now holding on to Gail with a grip that would have put even the most cautious children’s home guardian to shame. “Connery may be trying to scare us away from his hiding place.”

  “Connery’s a showman, but he doesn’t go in for bluster. Whatever’s down there means business.”

  “But –”

  “Shhh!” Arthur said suddenly. “Be quiet! Can you hear that?”

  Gail listened hard, but all she could hear was the buzz her own ears made to counter the sudden silence. She was about to say so when – footsteps. Heavy footsteps. Coming up the stairs.

  For a moment, Gail was sure she knew that tread. They belonged to Mr. Johnson, a “teacher” at the children’s home who mostly taught the kids how to be afraid of his heavy hand and, judging by the way the teenage girls and boys shrank from him, other things as well. The one bit of luck Gail had in that place was that he had fallen down the stairs and broken his neck before she’d been old enough to catch his eye. But it looked like her luck had run out at last.

  Then she blinked and the sense of familiarity vanished. The steps didn’t sound anything like Mr. Johnson’s. They didn’t sound like anything specific at all. Sometimes they were chaotic and pounding like the footsteps of many running children and the next they were soft and measured like a woman with a stately confident stride. And something else too. Singing? Then they were just the dragging and stumbling tread of a dying animal.

  “Huh,” she said. “That’s weird. What do you think that’s supposed to – hey, are you two all right?”

  Stupid question really. Arthur was slumped on the stairs, his free arm bent over his head and Nia was standing absolutely still, half-leaning toward the sound and half-twisted away like a startled bird.

  We’re not hearing the same thing. Maybe it was because she was a layman and the illusion couldn’t get into her head as well as it could the magician’s, but the moment the thought crossed her mind, she was sure she was right.

  And whatever was making those noises was coming closer.

  “Okay, new plan,” she said, reaching around Nia and using all her strength to drag Arthur to his feet. “We’re getting the hell out of here and finding another way.”

  Arthur stared at her, a terrible dark fear in his eyes, but something of what she said must have gotten through to him because he didn’t resist when she pulled him toward the corridor nearest to her. Nia, unfortunately, was another matter entirely. When Gail tried to pull her with them, she balked and nearly slipped her hand free.

  Gail grabbed her wrist. “Hey! I don’t know what you think is down there, princess, but I am sure you don’t want to meet it.”

  Nia didn’t answer and she didn’t move.

  Cursing, Gail pulled Arthur around until he was standing in the hallway, under the light of one of the lamps. “Hey, doc, doc, do you hear me, doc?”

  For a second, Arthur just gaped like a rat frozen in the glare of a flashlight, but then some sense drifted back into his eyes. “Can you stop calling me that?”

  Gail almost laughed in relief, but something was still coming out of the deep and Nia was trying to twist out of her grip again. “Look, I’ve got to get your sister. I need you to stand here and not move. I don’t care what you hear or see or taste. You need to stay right here. Got it?”

  Arthur’s eyes sharpened. “Nia’s in trouble?”

  “Yeah, and I’m going to get her, but you need to stay here. I can’t be looking after both of you.”

  A deep breath was the only answer she got, but then he obediently sat against the wall and covered his head with his arms. She figured he was about as safe from Connery’s head-screwing as he was going to get.

  Not letting herself worry, Gail turned to Nia and caught the Illuminator around the waist. Nia tried to elbow her – not very effectively – and for a second Gail was sure she was about to get a faceful of fire or whatever magicians threw at people they didn’t want touching them. But then Nia went limp like a wind-up doll with a broken key.

  “Nia, I don’t know what you’re hearing down there, but it’s not real, okay?”

  “I know.” The voice was so small and trembling that for a moment Gail wasn’t sure she’d heard right. “But…”

  “But you wish it was?”

  Nia didn’t answer. Instead she twisted around and crushed herself against Gail.


  “Whoa, okay, look, you’re fine, okay? You’re fine.”

  “I know it’s not real,” Nia choked out. “It’s not, but it’s still…” Her voice broke and Gail realized she was crying. The same woman who had faced down a murderous gutted woman without so much as a tremor was crying into her shoulder because of some sound in the darkness.

  What the hell are you hearing? What the hell happened to you?

  Realizing that standing there like an idiot probably wasn’t helping, Gail moved her hands up over Nia’s ears and started babbling about the first thing she could think of, hoping she could block out the worst of the sound from below. Of course the first thing she thought to say was, “So you believe me about Connery being an asshole now?”

  Nia laughed through her tears. “I never doubted that, thank you very much.”

  “Okay, but I think I’m required to keep saying it. I’m pretty sure that’s why they hired me to come with you.”

  Nia lifted her too bright eyes to Gail’s face. “They sent you with us so you could regularly remind us that Mister Connery is an asshole?”

  “It’s a full-time job.”

  This time Nia’s laugh stumbled over a shuddering breath.

  “Are you okay?” Gail asked, though she had no idea what she was going to do if the answer was no.

  “For the moment.” Nia looked around. “Where’s Arthur?”

  “Waiting for us.”

  “We should go. We should be together.” But still she hesitated, her hands white-knuckled in Gail’s shirt. “Detective, do you think you could… I fear that if I…”

  Gail thought she knew what Nia meant. “Here.” Pulling Nia’s head against her shoulder again, so whatever she was hearing would at least be muffled by Gail’s batshit terrified heartbeat, she grabbed the tattered sleeve of Nia’s dressing gown and tore off another strip of fabric.

  “Oh, my poor dressing gown,” Nia said through a hiccup. “That was handmade, you know.”

  “It’s doing you more good this way,” Gail replied as she helped Nia wrap the cloth over her head and down around her ears. “Anyway, you could still wear it without the sleeve.”