Valerian looks at Kit. “Do you have a way to disable him, temporarily? If we walk into that building and it turns out that he lied, I want him alive to regret it.”
Kit looks thoughtful for a second, then grins. “If you don’t like spiders, you might want to look away.”
I don’t know about Valerian, but I jerk my gaze away and put my hands over my ears for good measure.
Even through my palms, I can hear Wrakar yelling in horror. He swears on everything from his mother’s remains to his own life that he didn’t lie to us, and begs for Kit to stop whatever it is she’s doing.
Eventually, Wrakar’s vocal cords must give out, because instead of screaming, he just produces a prolonged hoarse croak.
“There,” Kit says eventually. “He’s not going anywhere.”
When I turn, I see what I sort of expected—and it’s still extremely disturbing. The necromancer’s ghost-pale face is sticking out of a giant silk cocoon of the type spiders use to wrap their prey.
“So,” I say, my voice shaky. “What’s the plan?”
“We go in,” Valerian says. “I make sure they can’t see us. When we know which one is the High Priest, we apprehend him while I make sure the others are none the wiser. I then make him tell us how to disable the bomb, and we do just that. Afterward, I can make it so that Icelus kill each other, or maybe we knock them out one by one.” He looks at me. “Which do you prefer?”
“Knocking them out is safer,” I say. “We don’t know what powers they have. They might hurt us in the process of attacking one another.”
Nodding, Valerian lands the car smack in the middle of the hub, which I’m pretty sure is illegal. Ignoring the gates all around us, we sprint for the elevator, where I smash the button for the hundredth floor.
A quick ride later, the elevator doors ding open and we exit—straight into a horde of Icelus.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
This floor is clearly meant to be rented out for big parties, like weddings and Jubilees, but that’s not how it’s being used at the moment. Far from it.
A row of hospital beds stands where dining tables usually would. On the beds are comatose people who must be sleeping—I know because my newfound REM sleep sense can detect many of them dreaming.
Next to each bed stands an Icelus member. They’re all wearing the masks from the werewolf’s dream and holding intricately designed daggers, their attention on the podium where the wedding band would typically be.
Following their gazes, I audibly exhale.
A black-clad figure stands with his or her back to us, fiddling with an unfamiliar device.
My heartbeat skyrockets.
It’s not that hard to guess what’s happening. The figure is the High Priest, and the beeping device is the reactor-turned-bomb. Most concerning, on the screen where the married couple would usually watch a video collage is a digital clock counting down seconds.
Everyone stares at the remaining time.
Ten minutes and ten seconds.
Do you think it’s until the explosion? I message Valerian. Or the moment they should run upstairs if they mean to escape via the gates?
Let’s assume time to explosion, he replies. I wouldn’t put it past these fanatics to blow themselves up for their deity.
Oh, yeah. I forgot about the deity part. These idiots worship Phobetor—or Collywobbles, as far as Valerian’s concerned.
The countdown hits ten minutes exactly.
It must be some critical milestone in whatever’s about to happen because the walls all around the room turn into screens displaying a slideshow of horror-movie-worthy images.
Wait a second. I’ve seen something like this before. It was—
The black-clad High Priest turns from the bomb to face the Icelus members and announces in a booming voice, “The first sacrifice.”
A thin elf in a drekavac mask stabs the sleeper nearest him.
My jaw drops open—but not from the violence I’ve just witnessed.
I know the High Priest, know that Darth Vader-like mask and voice.
It’s Doctor Cipactli, the gnome who works at the sleep clinic I nearly put Mom in.
Puck.
She could’ve been that sacrifice.
Speaking of sacrifices, they now make a macabre kind of sense. The sleepers must be having nightmares, so the Icelus fanatics probably think that killing someone in that state will bring them closer to the nightmare deity, or some nonsense like that.
Cipactli’s clinic is where I’ve seen those subdream-like images, too.
Hold on.
I scan the sleepers.
Yep. Gertrude, the gangrene-giver from the New York Council, is right there. Poor wretch. We’re not exactly pals, but I don’t want her to be a sacrifice to a made-up god.
Another sleeper, on a bed near Gertrude, catches my eye.
It’s Cadmael, Itzel’s grandfather.
Focusing my REM sleep radar power on him tells me he’s dreaming, so he’s alive for now.
I wish Itzel were here so I could reassure her.
Frantically opening my VR, I write everything I’ve just realized for Valerian, adding that Doctor Cipactli studies nightmares—a natural subject of interest for a worshiper of a deity like Collywobbles.