Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) (60 page)

He
grabbed a wet towel and threw it over his shoulder, then stepped back outside, moving with greater confidence now that he was warm and had a cover.  Two staff members passed him, a woman and a man.  The woman averted her gaze completely, and the man looked like he wanted to ask Spencer his name, but then Spencer cut down another hallway quickly.

At last, he came upon a floor plan mounted on the wall, meant for reference in case of evacuation.  He raked his eyes over it, closed his eyes a couple times to memorize them, like looking away in flash cards,
then looking at them again, closing his eyes and painting the maps on the canvas on the back of his eyelids, opening them again to fill in the gaps where his previous mind-map went wrong.  He did this for twenty seconds or so, then moved on.

Stepping around another corner, Spencer came upon a wall-mounted phone.  He lifted it, and
dialed 9, the number in Russia usually associated with an operator.  “Front desk,” said a helpful female voice.

Spencer closed his eyes, and tried to focus on his best Russian. 
“Yes, one of the fellows who just came in through the front ordered vodka to his room, but I think I wrote the room number down wrong.  Their name slips my mind.  Could you give me their room number?”

“The men who just came in?”

“Yes, there were some men who just showed up out front about ten minutes ago.  There were four of them, I think.”

“Um, let me check.”

While he waited, Spencer glanced up and down the hall.  An old man came walking by, slowly pushing a cart full of cleaning supplies, masking tape, duct tape, a small toolbox, a flashlight, and a brown bag that probably contained his lunch.  Spencer nodded curtly to him in greeting, but didn’t smile.  Smiling too big or too often wasn’t as welcome in Russia as it was in the States, he’d learned.

“Yes,” she came back.  “I have those names.  Metvei Lermontov,
up on fifteen, suite 1507.”

Lermontov
.  An alias, no doubt.  “That’s him.  His name slipped my mind.  Thank you.  Wait, what’s your name again?”

“Alyona.”

“Thank you, Alyona,” he said, and hung up.

Spencer moved through the halls, following the map he’
d memorized, cutting across the kitchen, which was occupied by two bored-looking cooks wiping down the ovens.  He passed a cooler with a glass window, through which he spotted a 2-liter Coca-Cola bottle.  He walked by it, paused, took a couple steps back and snatched a bottle from the cooler, opened it, and emptied the contents into a nearby sink.

There was a butcher knife nearby, which he used to cut a hole in the bottom very quickly, then stuffed in the wet towel he’d taken from the locker room and
went back in search of the man pushing the cart full of cleaning supplies.  He found him just down the hall, wiping the windows.  “Excuse me, but I believe I saw that you had some duct tape?  Could I borrow the roll?  Thank you.”  Spencer turned and cut through the kitchen once more.

The
last corridor was long and dark; lights switched off to save power at night.  The hall terminated at a large red door.  One brawny, square-jawed man stood guard at the door, dressed in the same style of horse-logo red jacket Spencer was wearing.  He looked at Spencer a little funny and opened his mouth, probably about to ask who he was, when Spencer said, “Alyona says we need to have Gregor up on twelve immediately.  I know he’s in the locker room, could you go find him?”  The guard didn’t know what to say to that, just held a limp hand up and stared at Spencer, befuddled, as he walked through the door. 
Open Sesame
.

Through it,
Spencer stepped out of the staff-only section and came into the main floor.  Wide, white marble floors reflected the light of four giant crystal chandeliers, beneath which was a giant desk with a female worker and two security officers lounging and watching TV.  Two huge marble pillars climbed up to the high ceiling, which had a mural of half-naked people in robes—it looked like a copy of one of those old murals of antiquity that had serious religious significance.  Spencer couldn’t place it, and didn’t bother trying.

He
came to the elevator exactly where it ought to have been, according to his mind-map.  Cameras were above each door, looking down at him like a watchful parent.  The up and down buttons didn’t light up when he punched them.  There was a tiny slit just above them, and he thought,
Card clearance?
  Spencer took out the wallet he’d stolen, rummaged through it, and pulled out a card with a golden horse on it, set against the tri-colored flag of Russia.  He slipped it into the slit in the wall, and the elevator buttons lit up.  He tapped the button to go up.  Not a second later, a soft chime went off, and the doors to his right opened.  He stepped inside, and punched the button for the fifteenth floor.

Her fears crowded around her like old friends.  Kaley didn’t know where they came from, but she wished they would go back.  It was a sinking feeling.  Something…icky. 
It’s him
, she knew. 
He’s getting closer to something
. 
Or someone
.  The water was churning angrily around her, though no one else saw—not the two cops standing outside, not the librarian, and not Officer Bauer.  And Kaley had the vertigo, exactly as she had while on the school bus, when she’d felt pulled along those arteries and web lines that only she and Shan could detect, when she’d been pulled into Zakhar’s house to face Spencer again.

No!
she thought, fighting it. 
I’m through with that
. 
I’m done with him
. 
That part of my life is over
.  Before, she had almost wanted to return to Russia, to check on the kids if nothing else.  But having seen what effect her time with Spencer had had on her, she didn’t want to ever see him again. 
It was him that poisoned me,
him
that made me do to Laquanda what I
…
what I
…

One of the officers outside chuckled.  He actually chuckled!  They were past believing the threat
was real, Kaley could sense, and now they were just chitchatting, shootin’ the shit.  They couldn’t possibly fathom what was going on all around them.  The police officer speaking with Bauer couldn’t know about the twisted, geometry-defying hand now coming out of the whirlpool on the wall behind him, touching at his neck, passing through it, and almost finding purchase.  The officer reached back and smacked the back of his neck, as if detecting a gnat.

Kaley thought of Mrs. Cartwright. 
Oh
…
oh God
…
you’re going to let it happen again, aren’t you?  You’re really going to let it happen
.

Then, Kaley heard her sister’s voice as loudly as if sh
e were in the room.  “No, Kaley, you
are
going to let it happen.  Because you’re weak.”

A knife in her chest.  “Shan…why do you keep saying that, girl?  Haven’t I always protected you?  Haven’t I always done—”

“Not always,” she said.

“When have I ever not—”
Then, all at once, Kaley was assaulted a terrible, familiar pain.  Tearing, wrenching, thrusting…and someone above her, relishing her fear.  It was Dmitry, tearing off Shannon’s clothes and…

Kaley forced it away.

“That’s…Shannon…that’s not fair.  That’s—not—fair!  You know it’s not fair.  How could you do that to me?  How could you say that?”

“How could
you
, Kaley?”

“Shannon, I’ve only ever trie
d to protect you.  At all costs.  You know that.  You above all people know, because you can
feel it in me
!”  No response.  Then, Kaley felt a horrible cold, like the winds of Siberia all around her.  There was an emptiness inside of her, a hole that nothing could fill.  She had lost an arm, a leg, or an eye.  Something integral, something that had been there her whole life, was gone.  The Connection…it was lost.  It was done suddenly and without ceremony.  Severed, and hatefully so.

“Sh-Shannon?” she whispered.  “Shan?”

Silence.

The bell had
rung more than ten minutes ago.  The school day was over.  Kaley could hear kids running cheerily down the halls, eager to get home and watch TV, play Xbox, play some basketball, or dive into piles of dead leaves raked in by their parents.

“Shannon?”  Tears were streaming.  Kaley could barely croak out the name.  “Sh
-Shannon?  Speak to me, girl.  Ya hear?  You speak to me, now.  Shannon?”  The heart had been ripped out of her chest.  All was lost.

All was lost.

Kaley’s vision became blurred.  She blinked and wiped away the tears.  When she opened her eyes again, she was standing in the elevator beside her most hated adversary.  Just like that, it had happened.

“Well, look who it is,” Spencer said, smiling down on her.
  “Why so glum, chum?  Turn that frown,” he put two fingers to the edge of his lips, and turned it up, “upside-down.”

Kaley
wasn’t in two worlds as before.  Now, she was wholly here, in an elevator somewhere in Chelyabinsk.  It hardly mattered how anymore.  She accepted it.  Still, she felt winded, as if she’d just finished sprinting.  Teleporting across the Atlantic Ocean didn’t come completely without exhaustion.  She looked down.  She still held
The Art of War
in her hands, and her brain was reaching for something to connect it to.

Kaley
looked up at Spencer, mouth agape, trying to breathe in enough air to fill the void in her.  Spencer looked different.  Paler, and with a red jacket.  Yet, he somehow he remained the same.  A constant.  He was still the same foul creature as before, dripping in dark triumph and self-appreciation.  And the elevator…yes, it was an elevator they were in…its walls were tainted by his presence.  They could never be cleaned, not now that he’d been in here.  Kaley smelled it on him more than ever now, the death and insanity and not-quite-rightness.  A deranged animal, redolent with rabies and viciousness.

However, besides this taint, the elevator seemed fine.  That is, there were no puddles of water on the ceiling,
none on the walls, and none in the floor.  No stray voices from the Deep.  No geometry-defying limbs licking out. 
No nothing
, she thought numbly. 
Just the elevator
.

Knowing that the Others were not close
gave her no comfort. 
They’re not gone
.  So where were they, then?  Hiding?  That didn’t seem to jibe with their previous methods of constantly prodding and testing the boundaries of the foam.

“What…?”  She swallowed the words.  Her lungs felt like they would collapse.  “What’ve…what’ve you…done?”

“Me?  Nothin’,” Spencer said, pulling out the same pistol he’d shot Zakhar with, and then wrapping what looked like an empty Coke bottle around its nozzle—a Coke bottle with a large towel or small pillow stuffed inside.  “Least, nothin’
here
.  Not yet.”  The madman didn’t appear to be surprised by her sudden appearance.  As a matter of fact, he had the look of a man who had quite been expecting her.

Spencer
had a roll of duct tape in his hands, and started wrapping it around the gun’s muzzle, attaching it to the Coke bottle.  “Where’ve
you
been, little girl?  You missed all the good stuff.”

“I doubt it,” Kaley said.  Then, she pressed him again.  “What have you done?  Why am I here?”

“Why are any of us here?”

“You know what I mean!”  In a moment of brazen stupidity, she reached out and shoved the monster, who didn’t become wroth with her this time, only looked mildly humored and continued his taping.
  “I don’t just show up anywhere around you unless…”

“Unless there’s somethin’ goin’ on with me?”  He shook his head.  “
You think that’s how it works?  Uh-uh.  You got it all twisted, little girl.  You and Shannon only come searching for me when there’s somethin’ wrong with
you
.  You come to ol’ Uncle Spence whenever you’re in trouble, because you’re not strong enough to do what’s necessary on your own.”

“What do you mean?  There’s nothing wrong with
us.”

Spencer looked down at her and smiled, keeping his secret as the door chimed and he
stepped out into a wide hallway with red carpet and
faux
lit torches in wall sconces.  The corridor was quiet and vacant, not a soul stirring.  Spencer found a small garbage bin and placed it between the elevator doors, so that they couldn’t close, then moved down the hall.  The first door they passed was bright red with a golden horse engraved on it.  It was room 1503.

Spencer
finished duct-taping the muzzle, bit the tape to tear it, and tossed the rest of the roll to the floor like refuse.

“Did you hear me?” she said.  “I said there’s nothing—”

“Oh, I heard you,” Spencer whispered.  He was checking the numbers on each of the doors, slowing his pace as he came to the end of the hallway.  Kaley was following him.  “I just don’t think it’s gonna do any good answerin’ you.  You’re not ready to hear the answers.  Savvy?  Now keep you’re fucking voice down.”  He came to a complete stop at the hall’s T-junction, peeked around the corner.  Kaley couldn’t feel her Connection to Shannon anymore, nor could she see the frothing, flowing water of the Deep all around, but, regrettably, she could still not help but see into the psychopath’s mind.