Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [32]
“I’ve got a secret! I’ve got a secret!”
Standing, I search and find that the voice seems to be coming from near where the police shield is projected on the wall. I touch, but find no pattern in the rough stucco. The voice continues even as I search, perhaps more gleefully. I do not believe that it knows I can hear it.
“I’ve got a secret! I’ve got a see-cret!”
Finally, my voice low, I say, “No one ever keeps a secret as well as a child.”
The chant stops, startled, then begins again more hesitantly, “I’ve got…a secret. I’ve…got a secret.”
“There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses,” I taunt.
“My secret!” the voice insists. “I’ve got a secret!”
“He’s a wonderful talker, who has the art of telling you nothing in a great harangue,” I suggest.
“I’ve got a secret! I do! I do!”
I turn away, yawning. “The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”
“Believe me! I’ve got a secret! You’d love to have my secret. Would! I’ve got a secret!”
I do not turn from studying the ceiling, apparently enraptured by vague patterns in the stucco. The voice from the wall cannot bear my indifference.
“Here. I’ll share,” it teases. “Press the blue diamonds on the center of the shield.”
I hasten over and press. The wall starts to slide.
“I told you. I’ve got a secret!” the smug voice says.
I pat the wall as I step through the revealed door and hear the voice resume happily, “I’ve got a secret!”
The corridor is comfortably wide and dimly lit, even after the door slides shut behind me, from recessed panels. I follow it until it ends in another door. Through a one-way panel, I see that I am at the edge of the reception area. An officer has just brought in a group of vandals.
Heart leaping, I recognize Abalone, Peep, and Chocolate. My Pack!
As I watch, Peep and Chocolate start an argument, shoving and pushing each other. A few officers move to break them apart and are drawn into the scuffle. Under the cover of the distraction, Abalone reaches and touches a few icons on a desktop computer. Bells begin to chime from various workstations. A few more taps and drawers begin to fly open and shut. Suddenly, it begins to rain.
As chaos reigns, Abalone begins to slip off down the corridor toward the secretaries. I choose that moment to step out in front of her.
Her face shows her astonishment, but she merely indicates a side exit. I run, stopping only to scoop up my dragons from a desktop. As my hand touches them, the lights go out and a horrid cackling surges from the speakers. The rain falls harder. We vanish into the kind streets.
When we have run far enough, we stop and change our appearances some. Then Abalone takes us to a computerized restaurant, where she thrills the little wolves by making the vending machines spit out food on command.
“Wizard!” Peep laughs around a pink coconut snowball. “Really flipping!”
Abalone bows with an ironic grin, but I can tell she is pleased. For her own reasons, she rarely displayed her talents before the Pack and this homage thrills her. After eating, we send them off to the Jungle with promises to meet again.
Happy as I am with Abalone’s rescue, I am still puzzled as to what went wrong. My initial unworthy thought that she set me up is gone. Once they are well fed and we are on our way home, Betwixt and Between are able to offer me some answers.
“There we were, no shit,” Betwixt says, “in the interrogation room, tossed on a ledge with the junk from your bag, a red tag hung around the base of our necks. They’d finished with the ID cards and the other stuff and Martinez lifted us in his heavy hands. ‘Wonder why a pretty dish like that is hauling a bit of junk like this around?’ says he.”
“Betwixt!” Between exclaims. “You’re overdoing it.”
“He did say it, didn’t he?” Betwixt challenges.
“Well, yeah, but he was a jerk.”
“So, let me finish!” His red eyes gleaming, Betwixt continues, “The rookie tosses us a few times, ‘Hollow body,’ he muses, flipping open his switchblade, ‘Drugs?’ The point was right at our belly when Chen came in