Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [117]
“Pick a direction, any direction,” she told herself, trying to remember where the sound of breaking glass had come from. A man’s guttural bellow echoed from down the hallway. “Okay, pick that direction.” Staying against the rough-papered wall, she moved down the hallway, flinching when her shoulder came into contact with the corners of framed pictures. Bruises were going to be the least of her concerns when this was all over, but it bothered her no end that she couldn’t add a medical rider to her contracts to cover hospital bills. Or at least a nice long visit to Jay, the masseur who worked down the block but was too expensive to indulge in.
Focus, you idiot.
There was light coming out from under the double doors at the end of the hallway. Not steady, clean light from overhead fixtures, or even the flickering glow of sunlight through office windows. This light was colored, like an aurora borealis, shifting blue to red to green to yellow without any particular pattern. And every now and then, an angry spark of metallic silver sizzled through, burning a jagged line in the carpet and leaving the smell of burned fibers and ozone hanging in the air.
Guess I’ve found my ghost. Or one really, really pissed, heavily charged mage. She pondered a moment about which would be worse, forcing herself to move closer to the door against every instinct which told her to turn tail and run.
The door handle was cool, causing her to jump a little. She didn’t know why she had been braced for it to be hot, but apparently she had. Closing her hand around it more firmly, she turned, and pushed the door open.
To her surprise, it swung freely, causing her to stumble a little over the threshold. And there she stopped, caught in the scene that met her eyes.
This had once been a beautiful office, filled with heavy wood desks and upholstered chairs, and decorated with high-ticket artwork. All the furniture was crashed against the far wall now, the frames and canvasses of the artwork shattered against it like so much storm wrack. The plush carpeting was zigzagged with burn marks, and the air was filled with acrid smoke and the smell of charred wires. A step farther into the room, and all that was wiped out under the load of another unmistakable odor—burnt flesh. A figure lay sprawled facedown on the carpeting, the blue blazer jacket identifying him as building security. God, she thought. Not Rafe. Please… One arm was outstretched, as though trying to grab at whatever had fried him. The skin was bubbled and crisped until you couldn’t tell if the person had been white or black or Asian. Another leg lay half under a chair…unattached to a body. Three legs, total. And another arm, heavily muscled, flung over a desk, blood pooling where it lay. Body part…the bodyguards Sergei had mentioned? Wren felt something gag at the back of her throat, and fought to keep it down. Throwing up wouldn’t help anyone, and now was not the time to have screaming hysterics. Later. Assuming she was still around to enjoy them.
The swirl of building energy brought her attention up, off the body, to the others remaining in the room.
“Oh, shit.” She thought she whispered it. It might have been a whimper, though.
An older man she assumed was Frants was backed up against the wall, his nose bleeding and probably broken. His white dress shirt was shredded, as though something with claws had raked across the front, and there was blood dripping down one arm as well. A woman huddled at his feet as though she had been tossed there and then forgotten. Her hair was wildly disheveled, covering her face, but her body was perfectly still, like a mouse hiding from a hawk. Neither had so much as glanced