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“Fuck this!” I opened the door, having to edge around Jarman’s body. The sprinklers were on in the hallway, too. Evans was still sitting with his back to the wall. He’d pulled his mask down, as if he couldn’t get enough air.

“Where did it go?” I asked.

“Down the fire stairs, end of the hall.” He had to raise his voice over the sound of fire alarms, but his voice was dull, distant. Maybe later if I was good, I could go into shock, too.

I didn’t hear the door open behind me, but Ramirez yelled, “Anita!”

I half-turned as I ran for the door. “I’m taking the stairs, you take the elevators.”

He yelled, “Anita!”

I turned, and he tossed one of the cell phones to me. I caught it one-handed awkwardly against my chest.

“If I get to ground and haven’t found it, I’ll call,” he said.

I nodded, jamming the phone into my back pocket, running for the door. I found it. I had the Browning out now. There was no oxygen-filled room now. We’d see if bullets worked as well as knives. I pushed the heavy fire door with my whole body, until it was flat against the wall, and I knew the thing wasn’t behind the door. Then I hesitated on the concrete landing. The sprinklers were going in here, too, like waterfalls down the concrete steps. The fire alarms filled the space with high-pitched echoes. I looked up at the rising stairs, then down. I had no idea which way it had gone. It could have gotten off on any floor above or below me.

Dammit, I needed to find this thing. I wasn’t sure why it felt so urgent that it not get away, but I’d been right about the coming dark and the corpses. I’d trust my judgment. They were just animated corpses, just a kind I’d never seen before. But they were dead, and I was a necromancer. Technically, I could control any form of the walking dead. I could sometimes sense a vampire when it was near. I took a breath and centered myself in a solid line, drew my power in, flung it out, searching, my back to the door, the water pouring down on me, the scream of the fire alarms so piercing it was hard to think. I sent that “magic” outward, up the stairs, down the stairs like an invisible line of fog.

I jerked upright. I’d felt something like a pull on the end of a fishing line. Down, it had gone down. If I was wrong, there was nothing I could do about it. But I didn’t think I was wrong. I started running down the wet cement steps, one hand on the banister to catch myself when I slipped, the other with the gun pointed upward. There was a woman crumpled outside the next landing, lying across the door, motionless, but breathing. I turned her face to the side so she wouldn’t be drowned in the sprinklers, and kept going. Down, it was going down, and it wasn’t taking time to feed. It was running, running away from us, running away from me.

I got to my feet, sliding on the wet steps, only my death grip on the slippery metal banister catching me before I fell. I lost my connection to the creature when I slipped. I just couldn’t hold the concentration and do everything else. The sprinklers stopped abruptly, but the fire alarms went on and on, more piercing without the water to muffle it. I pushed to my feet and started running again. Very distant, far down below, there was a scream. I vaulted the next turn of banister, sliding down the wet metal, almost going head first over the next turn of railing. I was going as fast as I could, faster than was safe. I ran and slid and stumbled down the stairs, and all the time the growing sense that I was going to be too late. That no matter how fast I ran, I wouldn’t get there in time.

40

I COULDN’T REGAIN the link with the thing without stopping and concentrating. I made the decision to keep chasing, and hoped I didn’t miss it as I ran past the doors. Besides, on the 19th floor there was a huddled group of water-soaked patients with a nurse. They all pointed wordlessly down. At 17 there was a man with a bouquet of flowers with a bloody lip that babbled at me and pointed down. The door opened on 14, and a nurse in a pink smock rushed out and ran into me.