“Take the stairs.” Nieve tore past the elevators, one of which was rapidly descending. The flashing lights on the panel above the door indicated its non-stop plunge past the second floor, first floor . . . .
“Whatever you say mistress.”
She thought he was teasing, but casting a sidelong glance at him as she ran, saw that he was put-out. Really put-out.
“I wasn’t serious, you know? About that familiar business.”
“It’s not that.”
“The fern seed? I had to think of something. He was going to dump that acid stuff on me.”
“Not that, either. But I can see why your gran entrusted them to me.”
The elevator sounded a soft ding as it arrived. They had put some distance between themselves and the elevators, although not enough. No place to hide, the best they could do was press themselves up against the wall of the corridor. When the door slid open, Mortimer Twisden’s fiancée, Sarah, stepped out, unaccompanied, and marched toward Murdeth’s office. Luckily, she was intent on her errand and didn’t glance their way. Her brisk walk, heels clacking on the tiled floor, reminded Nieve of her mother leaving the house to attend the wake. She felt a stab of anxiety, as if she’d been poked in the stomach with a sharp stick. Why was Sophie mixed up in all this? It was bewildering. She hadn’t looked at all comfortable sitting in the operating theatre, but she had been there, in bad company, closely observing that odious operation. Was her mother going to start experimenting on people, too? Quickly, Nieve squelched the thought. It wouldn’t help.
“So what’s the problem?” she said to Lias. “How did I mess up?”
“You spoke my name. With all those dead to hear it. They’ll call to me now, they’ll come for me.”
She gaped at him. “Dead people can’t hear. Or speak.”
“They can.”
“News to me. Anyway, those people aren’t dead.”
“They are.”
“Not.”
“What are they then?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t figured that out yet.”
“You’re daft.”
“Yeah? And you’re a taran, whatever that is. Not the sharpest tool, would be my guess.”
“’Tis a spirit.” He spoke softly and in all seriousness.
She gave him a shrewd look, then stuck out a finger and prodded him in the ribs, sharply. “You feel pretty solid to me.”
“Ow, get away! I’m a failed spirit.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, let’s go. If we don’t get out of here soon you might just have some success at it.”
When they arrived at the stairwell, they found the entrance boarded-up. The thick sheet of plywood nailed over it was covered with graffiti, the usual crazy and rude slogans, among which, painted in puffy red and black lettering, was: SEPTICLOPS RULE!!!
“Septiclops are too goamless to rule,” Lias said.
“No such thing. It’ll be some soccer team with a dumb name.”
“Aye, and they’ll use a head for a ball.”
As they hurried toward the only other exit, a door at the far end of the corridor, she said, “This has got to lead to the underground parking. There’ll be more stairs, another elevator. Once we’re back in the main part of the hospital we can go for help, tell them what’s going on. Julie will back us up. Not all of the doctors and nurses have been . . . whatever’s been done to them.”
“Overtaken,” said Lias softly, hanging back a little as they arrived at the door and Nieve pushed through.
She stepped out cautiously and scanned the area, mindful of any lurking dangers in the parking garage.
Except that there was no parking garage.
What she saw was a street, a long street with ancient-looking houses lining both sides, wonky houses, scrunched together and leaning into one another like a mouthful of crooked, snaggled teeth. The top floors of the houses leaned so far over the street that they touched the ones leaning over on the other side, creating an unusual, cloistered archway. In the moonlight, or rather with her moon-bright vision, dimmer but still in force, the houses seemed to waver as if they weren’t quite solid enough.
“Every one of them haunted, too,” said Lias, coming up beside her.
“You should feel right at home then.” She tried to sound jokey, but the unexpected sight had unsettled her. “This must be an old part of the city I’ve never heard about. So we’re not underground after all.”