“If the shoe fits …” Link shrugged.
“You’re talking, but all I hear is blah, blah, blah,” Angelique said.
Link wanted to run inside and find Rid, but he waited until everyone else went in, including Lucille, who trotted after Sampson.
Inside, the stark white walls reminded Link of a hospital, minus all the doctors and nurses rushing around. This place was dead silent. At the end of the short hallway, there was a door with some weird strips of plastic hanging in front of it on one side and another long hallway on the other.
Link pointed at the curtain of plastic. “Looks like a car wash.”
John looked up at the sign above the doorway: RESTRICTED ACCESS. TRIALS IN PROGRESS. “I’m guessing it isn’t.” He turned to Angelique. “Which way?”
The Cataclyst nodded toward the long hall. “I wasn’t at the top of my game when I followed the old lady out of this dump. But I don’t remember seeing a door like that one.”
“I think we should go this way,” Liv said, separating the car wash flaps.
Angelique noticed the sign above the door as she walked through. “I can’t wait to burn this place down.”
“Not until we find Rid,” Link reminded her.
John rested his forehead against the wall and closed his eyes.
“You okay, man?” Link asked.
“Of course he’s not okay,” Liv said. “He shouldn’t be here. I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for him.”
“I’m all right. I just need a minute.” John took a deep breath. “It was a long time ago, and I’m a different person now.”
Link knew it was true, but watching John come face to face with his past wasn’t easy. Especially not for Liv, who seemed to feel everything John felt.
Floyd grabbed Link’s hand. “Come on. Follow Angelique. They’ll catch up.” It was a casual gesture, and Floyd was dragging him along more than actually holding his hand in a romantic way. But it still felt wrong now that he was so close to finding Ridley. Link pushed the flaps aside, using it as an excuse to let go of Floyd’s hand.
When Link stepped into the dim room, it took a moment for him to process what he was seeing.
Some kind of weird hospital room, full of glowing machines and fancy medical equipment—and rows of gurneys. But that wasn’t the part that made Link’s stomach turn.
Every single gurney had a person sleeping on it—at least, Link hoped they were sleeping.
The people lay hooked up to IVs and heart rate monitors, unmoving.
“Are they Mortals?” Floyd asked, skirting past a woman with an oxygen mask strapped over her nose and mouth.
Angelique examined one of the IV bags. “Doubtful. From what I overheard, Silas only used Mortals in the early trials. He hates them too much to waste his time experimenting on them this far into the process. He says they dilute the results.”
Liv inspected another bag. “She’s right. The bags are labeled with the type of Caster they are attached to.” She pointed at a line of black script. “This one’s a Sybil.”
Sampson read the label on another. “Cypher.”
“Diviner,” Floyd said, reading the one closest to her. “It’s like a Noah’s Ark of Casters in here.”
John stayed close to the wall, avoiding the bodies laid out like meat on slabs. He was practically hyperventilating. Liv glanced over at him and he nodded at her, encouraging her to keep looking around.
Necro seemed spooked, too, and she stuck close to Liv, who was opening drawers and reading the labels on every vial and container she could find.
Liv opened a drawer and took out a stack of notebooks. “Score.”
“Whatcha got there?” Link asked.
She flipped through the pages of tiny handwriting and what looked to Link like math equations. “Notebooks and scientific logs. They must belong to whoever is conducting the experiments.”
Link watched one of the blinking monitors, the zigzagged line of the girl’s heartbeat stretching across the screen. “Hey, Liv. What’s that blue stuff?”
A stream of glowing blue liquid rose from the IV in the girl’s arm, filling a clear plastic bag hanging from an IV pole next to her bed. It reminded him of the glow of fireflies lighting up dark summer nights.
Angelique cringed and staggered back, as if she wanted to get as far away from the glowing blue stuff as possible.
“I didn’t think Silas could be as sick as Abraham,” John said softly. “But he’s worse.”
Angelique regained her composure, but she didn’t get any closer to the IV. “Something I know firsthand.”
Floyd walked over to the IV tube. “Is the blue liquid Silas is pumping out of her—”
“Her power,” Liv finished, holding up the notebook. “It’s all in the lab notes. Silas isn’t wasting his time with genetics anymore. Now he’s playing God.”
Angelique fluttered her fingers. “Then that makes me the woman who is going to destroy Heaven. Burn it down, technically.” She paused. “Which is fine with me.”
“Let’s stop talkin’ about burnin’ the place down till we find my girlfriend, okay?” Link asked.
Liv walked over to the shelves of metal canisters labeled with Caster powers, like NECROMANCY, DIVINATION, ILLUSION, PALIMPSESTRY. “Can you store power in containers like these? I think he’s stockpiling.”
John shook his head. “I grew up listening to enough of Abraham and Silas’ crazy theories to know that. Power is a living entity, and it can only survive inside a living organism. It’s a symbiotic relationship.”