Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [83]
I try to smile back, but my eyes are busy searching the cluster of guards. I see neither Jersey nor Margarita and as my anticipation is turning into dread, a sharp voice calls out.
“Sarah, amiga, what is all this? These people your friends?”
I almost laugh in my relief, but cannot find an answer for all her questions. Settling for a nod, I look at Abalone.
“Yes,” she says. “We’ve come for her. You’re calling Sarah ‘friend,’ lady. You friend enough to give us some help?”
Several of the guards glower at her, but Margarita ignores them and nods. “You get what you want, anyway. I see that, Blue Mouth. If I can get it, she can have it.”
“We want the key to Dr. Kravis’s rooms.”
“Dr. Kravis?” Margarita looks genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know what you asking.”
“Don’t screw around…” Abalone growls, but I grasp her arm and put my finger to her lips.
Looking at Margarita, I rub a hand over my bald scalp, then motion a taller, overweight figure, ending by holding my nose and grimacing.
Margarita watches my mime anxiously, her expression shifting from confusion to relief.
“Oh, Jersey—why didn’t you say so? I don’t have the key, but I can show you where one should be.”
Abalone studies her closely. “Okay, but no funny stuff.”
Margarita nods and only squares her shoulders when there is a rumble of anger from the prisoners behind her. Edelweiss shuts them up by examining the clip in the tranq pistol she holds.
“Full. And I got another. Understand?”
Once we’re out of the larder, Margarita turns to Abalone.
“Look, Boca Blue, you gotta get outta here fast. When they not get an answer, they be here pronto. We keep near hundred-percent communications silence, but there are checks. When they not get an answer, they be here faster than a cheetah with a bee on his butt, comprende?”
“Got you,” Abalone replies, letting Margarita through to a room that smells of men’s socks and is decorated with video monitors and a computer terminal. “Why do you care?”
Margarita opens a panel by touching it with her thumbprint. “Maybe I like her. Maybe I just don’t like what I’ve learned about here. Maybe both. Don’t worry about me ratting. If you let me, I’ll take one of the gravs and get outta here when you do. If I stay, I’m gonna be dog meat, first by my ‘chums’ and then by the boss.”
“Okay,” Abalone says. “If Head Wolf agrees.”
She takes the key card Margarita gives her. “You come and wait with the Pack, lady. Sarah and I will go and get this Jersey.”
Head Wolf only gestures and Midline comes with us. Professor Isabella turns and joins us without requesting the permission which Head Wolf grants anyhow with a fond smile and a royal wave of his slender hand. Apparently, they have reached an agreement of sorts.
We run back to the third floor, Margarita’s warning giving us new urgency. I send Athena soaring ahead, but the caution is unnecessary. No one meets us and once Abalone has cut off the intercom, only silence greets us.
Snatching the key card from Abalone, I unlock the door, but Midline shoves me back before I can open it, a low growling warning me not to cross him. But when he cautiously opens the door, nothing comes out after us but a wave of acrid body odor.
Midline enters first. I listen for Jersey’s indignant cry at the invasion, but the only voice is Midline’s.
“Sarah, come quick.”
I hurry in, knowing that the others follow. Midline motions me to a side door and steps back to let me pass him. When I cry out, a wordless, inarticulate thing, his hand is on my shoulder and somehow I find in it courage to advance.
Jersey lies sprawled on his bed, sheets and blankets neatly folded over a chest that no longer rises or falls. His eyes are closed, but I doubt that his death was peaceful, for his expression is twisted in a rictus of dismay.
On the bedside table are a few sheets of paper and a computer disk. As I bend to touch Jersey, as if somehow I can change what has happened, I see an ampule and an injector on the floor.
“C’mon, Sarah, you can’t help him,” Midline says, then his hand leaves my shoulder. “Hey, these got your name