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“Radu?”
“He’s trapped in the basement. That’s why I need to get down there. Then I can—”
“Do nothing,” Ray said savagely. “’Cause then you’ll be trapped, too, in a basement full of—what the hell. Why don’t we call ’em what they are? They’re freaking zombies! Vampire zombies, which doesn’t even make sense—I mean, who does that?”
“A necromancer. A powerful one.”
“No. Uh-uh. They try to co-opt babies when they can, or they used to anyway, but this is different.”
“Because the guys in there are masters?”
“Because the guys in there are dead! I told you, DEAD dead. And you know how fast our bodies decay. We make terrible zombies! Everybody knows that. We’re falling apart within hours.”
I blinked, because something had finally made sense. “Yeah. But what if someone doesn’t need hours, or at least not many of them? You’re also a lot stronger, and faster, than a human.”
“But zombies take a lot of power to create, like a LOT of power. You gonna throw that away for a couple hours?”
“If the prize is big enough.” I just didn’t know what the prize was supposed to be. This was a working base, not a treasure house. And even if it had been…the Senate practically defined revenge. What was here that was worth that kind of risk?
“Look, whatever, okay?” Ray said. “Point is, there’s a ton of them down there. You’ll never even get to Radu, and if you do, you’ll never get—”
“There’s also a portal,” I told him.
He stopped struggling. “What?”
“You’re the portal king. You must know about it.”
“Know about—wait. What?”
“The Senate’s portal—”
His eyes widened. “The big boy is here?”
“What big boy?”
“What big boy?” Ray stared at me like I was slow. “It’s only the biggest damned portal in existence! Connects to I don’t even know how many lines! And you’re telling me that it’s been here all the time?”
“I don’t know about—”
“Wait. That can’t be right.” His eyes narrowed. “They’d need a ley line sink for something like that, and they don’t got one here. That’s why everybody always assumed it was at the consul’s place upstate.”
“Which it probably is!” I said, exasperated. “I didn’t say they had that portal, I said they had a portal. It connects Central to the consul’s residence in case of an emergency.” And if ever anything had qualified…
“But—” He looked outraged. “Those slimy sons of bitches! They told me they didn’t have one here! Said it was for security reasons!”
I gave him a look, and dragged him off the pillar. “Would you tell you it was here?”
Ray thought for a second. “Okay, point.” He looked at me and his demeanor became more businesslike, as if talking about something he understood had calmed him. “But that don’t matter, ’cause you’re not gonna get to it.”
“I will once I get to a weapons locker.”
He shook his head. “That won’t do any good. They’re behind wards.”
“What kind?”
“The kind that shocked the crap outta me when I tried to break in. They need a guard’s touch to open. And there ain’t any more guards. Or if there are, they’re being real quiet. I hadn’t heard anyone for maybe fifteen minutes when you—why are you still dragging me in there?”
“I have an idea.”
