The Undead Pool

His words trailed off as the silver doors parted and the unmistakable scent of fresh air and broken concrete poured into the elevator and down the shaft. Almost immediately the doors began to close, and I put a hand out, stopping them. All three of us looked out into the alien-seeming, broken building as the wind pushed my hair back. The walls between us and the horizon were gone, and though there was still a ceiling, the Cincy skyline spread before us in magnificence unimpeded. Fluorescent lights, some on, some not, hung from the ceiling in a once-regular pattern. Desks and office equipment were shoved into haphazard piles. In one corner by the edge, a huge pile of stuff stretched to the ceiling. It had to be at least forty feet in diameter and was made of desks, pieces of wallboard, and twisted rebar. It looked like a nest.

Bancroft did this? “Maybe we should keep the hard hats on,” I whispered. Between us and the clutter was a much more modest barrier of desks, and behind it with their backs to us crouched two officers and Edden. Almost at our feet and clearly waiting to be taken down were two ominous, coat-covered bodies. The ambulance crew and stretcher were nowhere I could see, but the second elevator was going down.

They’re removing bodies, I thought, inching in front of Trent.

“I don’t know if I’ve got enough magic for this,” Trent said, and Edden turned, still in a crouch. When I gave him a little wave, he frowned and gestured brusquely for us to join him.

“You think?” Jenks darted out, immediately lost in the wind and glare bouncing into the open floor from the nearby building.

“Get over here!” Edden all but hissed, and we jolted into motion, hunched as we half ran. Rebar and wallboard littered the carpet squares, and cool air still flowed from the air ducts. Bancroft’s voice was coming from the weird “nest,” shouting about the sun and having to go deeper.

“Oh, thank God,” Trent breathed when we got closer. “There’s Landon. He looks okay.”

I pulled my gaze away from the covered bodies. Okay was a matter of interpretation. The young man was sitting on the floor, jaw clenched and eyes darting. Doctor Tessel? I wondered, eyes going back to the bodies by the elevator. Not good.

“What took you so long?” Edden demanded as I stepped over the thick extension cord snaking through the rubble to power the monitor the two officers were staring at.

“Took us so long?” I said, peeved as I sat on a prone file cabinet. “We had to romance our way over the bridge and bull our way up the elevator.” Miffed, I sat hunched over on the cabinet to stay hidden. “I swear, Edden, if you keep ignoring my calls—”

“I told them to let you through!” Edden said, and the two officers fiddling with the equipment shrugged as if it wasn’t their fault. Immediately my anger vanished, and seeing it, Edden sighed. “Mr. Kalamack, it isn’t safe up here. I understand your relationship to Bancroft and I appreciate the offer, but I’d feel better if you’d go back downstairs.”

Trent gingerly sat beside me, checking to see that his head was below the level of the piled desks. Reaching out across the space, the two men shook hands. “I’ve known him all my life and I think I can help.” But doubt was creeping into his eyes as he followed Bancroft’s voice over the demolished floor open to the wind on two sides. I was starting to have serious doubts myself. The man sounded nuts.

Landon stirred. Stubble shrouded his face, thicker than Trent’s and somehow ugly. “I can’t believe you brought her,” he said, his voice flat and his eyes malevolent. “Are you intentionally being contrary, or is this the famed Kalamack pride I’m seeing?”

Trent’s expression darkened, but it was Edden who shoved between us, his face red as he exclaimed, “Landon, you’re here as a courtesy! One more word, and you go down with the next body. Got it?”

The elevator dinged, and everyone looked as the plainclothes man and two of the officers came out of the second elevator. Lips tight, Landon averted his eyes, his show of contriteness just that. “Sir?” the man from downstairs asked as he looked at me.

Edden’s frown deepened. “Just take the bodies down,” he muttered. “And someone post a memo that Rachel Morgan can see me any time the thought enters her head, okay?”

Mollified, I eased closer to Trent, watching Landon closely as Edden took his hard hat off to run a hand over his hair. He looked tired as he put it back on and turned to the nest. Behind him, one of the bodies was lifted onto a gurney and taken downstairs. “I don’t know what you think you can do, Mr. Kalamack. We brought in Bancroft and Landon early this morning for breaking curfew, releasing them once we realized they were collecting data about the waves. We didn’t know Bancroft was, ah . . . an elven holy man.”

It had been hard for him to say, and I understood. How do you easily acknowledge a religion that’s been in hiding for two thousand years?