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“Catalina?” Mom asked.
Finally. “Where are you?”
“I am in an office in Dr. Amandi’s lab.” Her voice was eerily calm. My mother had gone into that serene place she always visited just before she lined up a shot through her scope.
“Where are your guards?”
“Tyler called from the airport. His car didn’t show up.”
Tyler was Pete’s son.
“I sent the guys to pick him up. That was an hour ago. They’re not answering their phones and I can’t reach the house. My phone isn’t working. I am using their landline. There is an armored vehicle in the parking lot. They’ve been sitting there for ten minutes, and nobody has gotten out.”
They’d found her.
“It’s Xavier.” Xavier wouldn’t have passed up a chance to catch my mother. He would come in person and probably not alone. “Arkan is attacking us. Our phones are compromised.”
“Ah. That explains things.”
My voice was flat and calm. “Xavier will wait for you to come out, but he’s impatient. He will come into the lab to get you.”
“Staying put isn’t an option.”
“No.”
I crunched through our options. The Woman’s Hospital had a large campus, sprawling between Greenbriar and Fannin Street and cut off by Old Spanish Trail in the north. I was still at least fifteen minutes away. Even if she hid in the building, they would find her. And if I pulled into that parking lot, Xavier would hurl the nearest lamppost through my windshield. I had to get Mom and get out alive.
What was around the Woman’s Hospital? On the east side of Fannin, it was all medical buildings. On the west side, across Greenbriar, there was . . . Yes. That would work.
“Mom, can you cross to a different building without exiting into the parking lot?”
“Hold on.” I heard a door open. My mother said something. A male voice answered.
She came back on the line. “Yes.”
“I need you to get away from that building and cross Greenbriar to the Office of Records. Big building shaped like a quill. Go in there and tell them that I’m coming to set up an appointment and that you are waiting for me. Don’t leave the building no matter what happens. They won’t help you if you step one foot outside, but they will defend the building and they won’t allow anyone to take you out of there.”
The Office of Records kept the database of the Houses and magic users. It was a neutral institution, incorruptible and independent of all other powers in Texas, magic and civilian. It was stewarded by the Keeper of Records, whom I’d met only once and had hoped to never meet again. Nobody in their right mind would attack the Office of Records. Xavier wasn’t in his right mind, and if we were very lucky, he’d try.
Mom spoke to someone. “Okay. On my way.”
The call ended.
She would have to walk south through the medical complex and then cross Greenbriar out of the view of the parking lot, and then cross another large parking lot in front of the Office of Records. Her top speed was about five miles per hour. I wanted to step on the gas and knock the cars in front of me out of the way, so I could drive faster. Instead, I carefully steered Rhino out of the construction zone and veered through traffic, fighting for every second.
The short tower of black glass thrust from the middle of a giant lot, its lines elegant and flowing, a perfect imitation of a feathered quill. The dark building of the Arena of Trials loomed ominously behind it.
I hadn’t spoken to Mom since I’d called her. Her cell phone was about as useful as a brick. I had no idea if she’d made it.
Please be there.
“Do we go in together or do you want to take the car?” I asked Cornelius.
“Together,” he said. “We’re more vulnerable on our own.”
“Agreed.”
I had given him an out, and he’d refused to take it. I’d expected as much.
I pulled into the center row, as close as I could get to the entrance, but all of the front parking spots were taken, and we had a lot of distance to cover on foot. Driving up to the doors was out of the question. The Office of Records maintained a clear kill zone around their tower and driving into it immediately made you a target.
Cornelius handed me a DA Rattler, a compact submachine gun, one of Linus’ special editions. He picked up a tactical shotgun, and we exited the vehicle.
Fifty yards to the building. The space between my shoulder blades vibrated with tension. I strained so hard to listen for a marlin spike whistling through the air, I almost heard it in my head.
The doors slid open in front of us. Cornelius, Gus, and I entered the cavernous lobby, and I quietly exhaled. It looked just as I remembered: black granite walls, grey granite floor with a shimmering gold inlay of a magic circle in the center, and a black granite desk to the right with a lone guard behind it. But no Mom.
