Authors: Matt Forbeck
Vegas Knights (27 page)
Powi let go of my hand, and I immediately missed that sensation. "If you have any better ideas, feel free to share them," she said.
Bill held out his hand to me. "Give me my bracelet. We'll get out our guns and shoot our way through them."
Powi raised a hand to stop me. "No, we will not. Those guards are only doing their jobs."
"Just like the ones upstairs?" Bill said, his voice trembling. "The ones who nearly killed me?"
"That woman had a gun," I said. "Not a Taser. Not pepper spray. We go up there and start shooting, we could all end up dead."
"We can make their bullets go away," Bill said. "They can't say that for themselves."
"Can you honestly stop a barrage of bullets coming at you from three or four different directions at once?" said Powi. "If so, you're a far better magician than you seem."
"Let's just go stealth and find another way out," I said.
"Where?" said Bill. "How? This place is crawling with security. We should call Gaviota for help."
He reached into his pocket and came up empty. "Shit. We left our phones on the roof – along with all our money!"
"We left most of it back in the suite," I said.
"You know what I mean. Dammit!"
"Hey, you're still breathing," Powi said.
Bill stuck out his hand at her. "Give me your phone."
"So you can call the Cabal over here and get us caught in a full-scale battle? Forget it."
He moved to grab her, and I stepped between them. "Come on, Bill," I said. "She's on our side."
"She called us over here and then handed us to that witch!"
Powi didn't back down an inch. "That's my grandma you're talking about."
"Stop," I said. "Both of you. Bickering about this doesn't get us what we all want: out of here."
"It's about as useful as anything else," Bill said. He fell silent for a moment. "I'm – I'm sorry. I just – let's get out of here, all right? Somehow?"
"There aren't any cameras down here," Powi said. "That's why I brought us here. We could just wait them out here. Go stealth and sneak out later when their guard is down."
"And what do we do if they sweep down here?" asked Bill.
"Just go stealth until they leave."
"Can other magicians see us then?" Bill asked. "Because I could see both of you just fine."
"That's because you were part of the spell with us," Powi said. She grimaced. "If they sent a magician down here, though, she might spot us. Especially if she was a diviner like your dad."
"Where's that lead?" I asked, pointing at the rusty door.
Powi shrugged. "I don't know. I've never asked."
"Can't hurt to try it," I said. "Right?"
Bill shuddered. "I don't know, Jackson. That door's barred on this side. It looks like it's meant to force whatever's behind it to stay there."
"All the more reason no one would look for us beyond it." I liked this idea more every moment I thought about it.
Powi walked over to it and touched it with her fingers. She pressed her hand against it hard. "It's been treated to keep anything from phasing through it."
I ignored Bill's sigh of relief and walked over to stand next to Powi. "The metal might be phase proofed," I said. "What about the wall next to it?"
I pressed up against the cement wall, and my hand went right through it. I drew it back and looked at the others.
Somewhere up the ramp, a woman was shouting orders. "Fan out! Search everything! A thousand-dollar bonus to whoever finds them!"
"Come on," I said to Powi and Bill. "What do we have to lose? We get caught, they'll kill Bill for sure."
"You don't have to come with me," Bill said. "I'll go – by myself. I'll be fine."
He might have been a decent poker player, but away from the table and shook up like this he was a rotten liar. "Ain't no way you're leaving me behind, brother."
I glanced at Powi, and she shook her head. "No way I'm going back right now. There can't be anything down there more frightening than Grandma."
I pressed my hand through the wall, right where I'd done it before, and then I followed it through.
On the other side, there was nothing but blackness. I could hear water dripping somewhere off in the distance, but otherwise the place I found myself in was as dark and silent as a tomb.
Bill bumped into me from behind and stumbled forward to the ground. He knocked me forward a bit, but I kept on my feet. We both moved out a bit farther so that Powi wouldn't smack into us as well. I put my hands out in front of me and moved cautiously, afraid that every step might throw me into an unseen pit.
As if confirming my fears, Powi came through and immediately tumbled forward into some sort of hole. I heard her squeal in fear and then smack into the ground not too far below.
"Ow!" she said. "What the hell? Why didn't either one of your warn me about the drop?"
"What drop?" I said.
"The one Powi and I fell into," Bill said. His voice came from lower than I would have expected. "I would have twisted my ankle if I hadn't grabbed on to you as I fell."
"Guess I missed it." Not wanting to find the drop-off the hard way, I froze. "Anyone got a light?"
"I'd use my phone if I still had one," said Bill. "You got yours, Powi?"
"Sure," she said, "but I have something far better than that."
Something near her voice lit up, and the beam blinded me as my eyes adjusted to the brightness. As I blinked at the light, I saw that it projected from the palm of her hand. As she turned her hand, the beam of light moved with it.
"Cool," said Bill. "How do you do that?"
"Pick a sunny spot somewhere away from here and move the light from it over to your hand," she said. "Nothing to it."
"Easy for you to say," Bill said.
It didn't sound too hard in theory, so I decided to try it. I thought about the roof of the Thunderbird, right in the center of the helipad, and I imagined pressing my hand against its hot, gray surface. As I did, my hand started to glow.
I pointed my palm away and swept my surroundings with it. We were in a long cement tunnel tall and wide enough that you could drive a truck through it. The floor sloped to a shallow trench in the center, through which a slow trickle of water flowed. Trash and debris of all sorts littered the place as far in either direction as my handlight's beam could reach.
"Oh my god! Jackson!" said Bill.
My handlight caught Bill staring up at me, and he winced at the sudden light. "What?" I said.
"Look at you!" he said.
"What?" I played the beam from my handlight on my arms, chest, and face. "Am I bleeding?"
Powi turned her handlight on me and gasped. "No," she said. "You're flying."
I looked down between my feet and saw four feet of nothing between me and the cement floor. I was so surprised I fell right out of the air.
"Ouch!" I landed on my butt, hard.
Powi and Bill gawked at me until I sat up and said, "I had no idea."
Then they started laughing. They cackled until tears rolled down their cheeks.
"I've never seen anything so funny in my life," Powi said. "You just hung there in the air like Wile E. Coyote!"
"Until he looked down!" Bill said once he could catch his breath. "Priceless!"
"Real funny," I said as I got to my feet. Despite the growing bruise on my backside, I couldn't help but smile.
Then someone started pounding on the other side of the rusty door. A short set of cement stairs led right up to it, which we'd missed entirely by cutting around the doorway. The door vibrated from the blows, and the thumping echoed down the tunnel in both directions.
"Someone's down there," a voice on the other side of the door said. "Get a set of keys over here, now!"
Bill, Powi, and I turned and ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
"This sucks in so many ways I've lost count," Bill said as we raced down the storm tunnel.
Far behind us, the door opened. "There!" someone shouted.
Gunfire cracked the stillness of the tunnels. I heard the bullets ricochet off the walls and ceiling and sail past us.
"Put out the lights!" Bill said. "They're shooting at the lights!"
"But then we won't be able to see," I said. I held my handlight in front of my body to try to shield the light from the people shooting at us. In this otherwise pitchdark tunnel, though, it didn't take much at all for them to see the glow of the light reflecting off the cement around us, and they kept firing.
"Over there!" Powi said. Her handlight played on a series of wide rectangular holes cut into the bottom of the right wall. She focused on one of them, and Bill ducked through it. I chased after him, and she followed behind us.
"They cut parallel tunnels in case one of them gets clogged," I said. "These holes let the water flow between them when that happens."
"How do you know stuff like that?" Powi asked.
"If you were living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, you might develop an interest in how places get rid of excess water too."
"Shh!" Bill said. "Let's not let them track us by sound instead of light – and let's get the hell out of here either way."
I spotted another set of crossflow holes and led the others through them. "Where does this go?" I whispered to Powi.
She shrugged as we trotted down the new tunnel. "There's a whole network of these under the city to deal with flash floods. We could wind up anywhere."
"Just keep moving, dammit," Bill said. "We'll figure out where we are when we get there."
I pulled Bill's bracelet out of my pocket and handed it to him. He hauled a pistol out of it.
"Still got that silenced one?" I asked. The tunnel forked in front of us, and Powi led us into the one that bent to the right.
Bill yanked that gun out of the bracelet too and handed it to me. Then he turned the bracelet inside out and slid it over his wrist.
"Do you really need those?" Powi asked.
"You've got one." Bill nodded at the gun she still toted in her hand. "And people are shooting at us. I think it's time."
I checked the action on Gaviota's gun and chambered a bullet. I didn't want to shoot anyone, but I wanted to be shot even less.
We wound our way through the tunnels, taking turns whenever we could. At one point, sunlight streamed through a large grate high over our heads, and I could hear the steady thrum of traffic. I called a halt there.
"I think we've lost them," I said.
"Don't bet on it," said Powi. "Grandma's tenacious. She'll find us eventually."
Her phone beeped. "Voice mail," she said, pulling it out of her pocket. "It's from Grandma."
Bill groaned. "I'm sure it says, 'Come home with the heads of those boys, honey, and all is forgiven.'"
She ignored him and listened to the message. She gasped in horror, then hit the speakerphone button and replayed it. "You're going to want to hear this."
Mamaci's voice played over the tinny speaker, echoing in the tunnel. "Powaqa. Mr Weiss detected our attempt to sacrifice his pawn, and he has decided to launch his scheme now rather than wait for us to try to stop him again. The battle has begun, and we must launch our final assault tonight."
The old woman's voice broke as she swallowed her pride. "Please leave those boys and come back to take your place at my side. In the face of this threat, all is forgiven. I need you, Powaqa. We must face Mr Weiss as one, with everything we have, or he will destroy us."
Mamaci sighed. "I only hope you get this message in time. Come home. Please."
Tears streamed down Powi's face as she broke the connection. "I did everything I could for you two. I have to go back to her. Now."
"After what she did?" Bill was ready to say more, but I shushed him with a savage glare.
I put my arm around Powi, and she leaned into it. "You did more for us than we deserved. We'll get you back to her." I looked up at the sunlight streaming through the grate high above us. "Just as soon as we figure out how to get out of here."
Bill growled and threw up his hands. "All right," he said. "I think you're nuts to go back to that woman, but I'm not ungrateful for how you saved my life. We'll get you home – and then I'm going back to Bootleggers to fight for the other side."
Powi gave me a sidelong hug and then pushed away. "Whatever," she said to Bill as she stared all around. "After all those turns, I don't have any idea where we are anyhow."
"You got GPS on that thing?" I pointed at her phone.
She shook her head. "I live here. I know the city. Why would I need directions?"
"Every cell phone has GPS. You just need the right program to use it. Let me see it."
She handed her phone to me, and I was able to get a good enough connection to download a GPS program and figure out where we were. "Right next to the Wynn golf course," I said.
"So where do we go from here?" she asked.
I pointed in the direction we'd been heading. "We got turned around. That's north, which is the way to the Thunderbird, but there's no guarantee we can get there from here. They don't have maps of the storm sewers on this thing."
"Let's give it a shot anyhow," Bill said. "It's the right direction at least, even if it does mean heading straight back toward the people who were shooting at us."
"I'm sure Grandma has ordered them all back to the Thunderbird by now to help prepare for the assault," Powi said.
"Sure," I said. "If they can get a signal down here. I think the only reason we got one now is because we're standing under that grate. As soon as we move on, it's going to go away."
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