It was wholly unimpressive—just a concrete tunnel with a pool at the end. After surviving a near devouring, I’d frankly hoped for a little more.
Ethan unzipped an agent’s bag as the rest of the group pulled off their masks. “Sorry, that was a little more harrowing than intended. But it makes a nice warmup for a prison riot.”
“What the hell was it?” Devi asked. “I couldn’t see anything.”
Still shivering from the cold, I shook my head. “I don’t know. It was like a giant eel or snake the diameter of a barrel. It had spiked ridges down its back and horns.”
Ethan let out a long breath. “Misiginebig.”
“Michigan what?” I asked.
“A horned serpent, one of the legendary beasts of the lake. Good thing we got out of the water when we did.” He pulled a map from the bag and looked straight at me. “Do you really talk to ghosts?”
I shrugged. “Yes, apparently. It’s new.”
“Well, it saved our life, so I’d keep at it.” He unrolled the map on a dry patch of ground, though it was immediately dampened by water dripping from his clothes. “This is a plan of Bentham. This corridor isn’t on the map, but we’ll pop out in a closed-off room, here.” He pointed to one of the many rings on the map.
With no time for pride, I said, “I have no idea what I’m looking at.”
He nodded. “Okay. They call Bentham the donut because it’s shaped like a ring. The prison cells are on the outside. There is the mirrored glass observation tower in the center. The guards in the tower can see into all the cells, but the prisoners don’t know whether they’re being watched.”
Right. I recalled seeing this in my vision when I used the onyx talisman.
Ethan looked up. “The design is called a panopticon. It dates from before CCTV and video camera were invented. It was manned by unsleeping demons who were always watching.”
Jaxson crossed his arms. “Considering recent events, it might be best to go back to demons.”
Ignoring Jax, Ethan traced his fingers over the map. “We have to get to the operations center in the control tower here. From there, we can end the lockdown and let the rest of the archmages and agents in. We’ll also be able to initiate riot suppression protocols.”
“Let me guess—Dragan has people guarding it,” I said.
Ethan nodded. “Someone would have had to overrun the guards in the tower to release the prisoners in the first place. You can bet the rioters have it secured.”
“So how do we get there?” Devi asked.
Ethan pointed to the control room. “Well, the problem is that the tower doesn’t actually reach the ground. It hangs on struts over the exercise courtyard so that watchers can monitor from above. We’ll have to cross a bridge on the eighth floor to get to it, but that means we need to go through one of the cell blocks to get there.”
“So fight our way there, and then fight our way in,” Jaxson grunted.
Ethan shrugged and rolled up the map, then passed us each a potion bomb. “With Savannah’s ability to shape darkness, we might be able to sneak in. I have a feeling that the place is going to be a madhouse.”