Page 55 of Demon's Bluff

That, he noticed, and I felt his gaze land on me even as the door to the cells opened and a woman officer came out. Her smile was tired but honest as she went to greet him. Scott’s attention returned to her.

The door to the holding area was arching closed. I had one chance.

I gathered my resolve.“Corrumpo,”I whispered, throwing another jolt of energy across the room. Scott spun, crouching as the gold and red ball smashed into the window, imploding it inward instead of out.

The officer’s hand went to her sidearm as she shoved Scott behind her. Scott hit the dirty tile, a shimmering field of purple and green rising up from an undrawn circle to protect them from the falling glass. The counter attendant shrieked in alarm and dropped out of sight.

Desperate, I lurched for the door, just managing to get my hand in between it and the jam. Shoving it open, I slipped inside and pulled it shut.

“What happened?” someone shouted from the cells, and I pressed upagainst the yellow wall, my fear real as two uniformed officers ran toward me.

“It’s a drive-by spelling,” I said, hand shaking as I pointed at the closed door. “They need you out there. Front window is busted. I think someone’s hurt!”

They pushed past me. I got a glimpse of the officer helping Scott up off the floor. Glass made an obvious ring around them where his circle had been, and I yanked the door to close it.

“Hey!” Scott shouted as our eyes met, and then I had the door shut.

“Sub frigido.”I touched the door panel, a smirk finding me as a thin trace of ice ran from it. Frozen shut. If they broke the lock to get through, I wouldn’t be liable for damages.

I turned, stifling a shudder at the cells lining the corridor. “Elyse!”

“You havegotto be kidding me…” came a high voice, and then stronger, “Here!”

I jogged past the holding cells, feeling like a kid looking for their mom in a grocery store as I paused at each opening, scanning for a familiar face. An alarm buzzed from deeper in the building, and someone began pounding on the door.

“Elyse?” I called again, and then an arm waved from between the bars. “Thank God. Why did you tell them who you were? Scott is here.”

“Scott?” she echoed, seeming insufferably young and questionably innocent in a pair of thin gray sweats and an equally ugly pair of white sneakers. They’d let her keep my jacket against the chill, and there was a strap of charmed silver about her wrist.

“I didn’t tell them who I was,” she protested in a high voice as I tried to remember what the spell to unlock a cell in an emergency was. “They said a woman had come to bail me out. I thought it was Vivian.”

“You let them print you,” I said.Apertus,I thought, and nothing happened.

“I didn’t have a choice! You really think I want Vivian showing up here? She thinks I’m at coven camp.” Elyse hesitated. “I am at coven camp.”

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes,I tried next, glancing down the hall at a sudden pull of power. Little rills of purple and gold energy were slipping around the door, massing into a dangerous field. My spell wouldn’t last much longer. “Coven camp? You really call it that?”Adaperire!I thought desperately, and in a sudden tinkling, every lock in the hall broke under the demon curse—including the one I’d put on the door to the holding cells.Son of a moss wipe…

“Out!” I shouted as the main door slammed open. Scott was silhouetted in a smoky haze, the light bright behind him.

“Oh, shit,” Elyse whispered, then bolted out of the cell.

“Stop!” someone shouted, and suddenly the entire hall was full of fleeing people.

“Not that way!” I grabbed Elyse’s arm and pulled her free of the mass exodus. “We have to get out of here before they lock down the building,” I said as the escaping detainees flooded the wider hall in a doomed attempt for the street.

She looked desperate, and I tugged her in the opposite direction, pulse fast as we jogged up a narrow corridor. Multiple alarms were going off and people were shouting. I jumped at the thump of a spell taking someone down.

“It’s a dead end,” Elyse said bitterly as we found the locked fire door, and the three people who had come with us skidded to a halt.

“Just…trust me.” Hands shaking, I punched in a code. It would tell them where we were, but we had a ten-second head start. I could do a lot with ten seconds.

Elyse’s eyes widened as the door alarm went off, and I shoved it open. “You know the code?” she asked as the people with us fled onto the seldom-used loading dock, exuberant with the promise of freedom.

“I used to work here. No, wait!”

But she didn’t listen, and she followed them as they made the long jump to the pavement. Grimacing, I shot a bolt of raw energy at the camera, then took the awkward jump as well, grabbing her arm and yanking her back and down to crouch against the cold cement behind us. There wasa metal lip just overhead. It was only a few feet wide. I prayed it would be enough. This was not where I had intended to wait out the next two minutes, but our ten-second window was gone.

“Shut up!” I hissed as Elyse struggled, and her hot retort died at the sudden scuffing of shoes above us.

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