“Angels,” she whispered.
I frowned. My adrenaline was up; the fight had made me edgy and restless. I was not in the mood for this. “What?”
“The angels,” she murmured again, and I saw she had only a few teeth left in her head. “The ones you want. The one’s you’re looking for. The pretty ones.” One hand rose like a limp fish and pointed behind her. I squinted across the floor. A door sat against the far wall, barely visible in the shadows, looking like the entrance to a stairwell. “Near the sky,” she whispered, as if in a daze. “The angels. They have to be near the sky.”
“Upstairs?” Ember asked, but the human turned and shuffled back into the darkness, muttering to herself. I listened to her footsteps fade away, listened to her babble softly to herself, until the sounds were swallowed by the blackness, leaving us alone.
“Crazy humans,” I muttered, and resisted the urge to brush imaginary loony off my jacket. “Well, at least we know where we’re going.”
Sick-looking, emaciated people gave us blank stares as we crossed the open floor, giggling uncontrollably, or talking to themselves in hushed voices. No one tried to stop or harass us again, except for some crazy old guy who grinned and made a lewd comment to Ember. She whirled on him, bristling. The soldier quickly grabbed her, stopping her midlunge and halting whatever she was planning to do, which was probably kick the old codger in his withered jewels. I snickered, almost sorry he’d stopped her, but by that time, we had reached the other side of the room and I pushed open the door.
A wave of dry, stale heat billowed through the opening, and a rusted metal staircase ascended into utter darkness.
“How far do you think we should go?” Ember asked once we had all stepped through the door, crowding the bottom of the stairs. It was even hotter here than the casino. My hair stuck to my neck, and even though I didn’t mind the heat, I could feel sweat running down my back through my shirt.
“All the way,” I answered, shining the light up the tube. “As far as we can.”
So we climbed. Up several flights in blistering, oven-like temperatures, Ember and the soldier trailing behind me. We met no one else; it was just our footsteps echoing up the shaft. I assumed the heat and utter darkness kept most junkies out of the stairwell at night, though the tube still reeked of piss and garbage and other things.
And then, quite suddenly, we couldn’t go any farther. The stairwell ended at another simple metal door that creaked as I pushed it back, shining the light through the opening.
We’d reached the end of the hotel’s construction. Beyond the door, half walls and rotting wooden frames created a labyrinth of metal and iron. Carefully, we eased inside, brushing aside ragged plastic sheets that hung everywhere, fluttering in the hot wind. I glanced up, and saw that the roof was open to the sky, though it was impossible to see the stars through the haze of the city. I could breathe easier, though, just being this close without the stink of human filth and craziness clogging my nose. If I were two runaway hatchlings, this was where I would go.
“What are we looking for?” St. George asked as we maneuvered our way across the floor. The wood groaned under our feet, and I stepped lightly over beams and rusty metal screws. Hopefully nothing would give way beneath us; the floor looked pretty rotten.
“Two kids,” I told him. “Hatchlings. Probably no older than either of you.” I brushed aside a sheet and ducked under a low-hanging beam, poking the light into dark corners. “If you find either of them, let me handle it. They’re going to be terrified of strangers, of anyone who could be from Talon. I don’t want them running off before I—”
Something lunged from around the corner, swinging a metal pipe at my face.
I jerked back. The pipe missed crushing my skull by about an inch but hit my arm instead, knocking the flashlight from my grasp. It went spinning across the floor in dizzying circles, as the attacker raised the weapon and came at me again.
“Wait!” I dodged and backed swiftly away, ducking around a beam. The pipe smacked into the wood a microsecond later, raising a hollow thud and a billow of dust. “Wait just a second,” I said as my attacker followed me around the beam, holding the pipe like a baseball bat. It swung at me again, and I dodged out of the way. “Will you relax? I’m not here to hurt you. Just listen to me.”
The others started forward, and I gave them a sharp look. “Don’t move!” I snapped, and thankfully, they froze. “Stay right there, both of you,” I insisted, holding out an arm, the universal gesture of let’s all calm the fuck down. “Everyone relax.”
The person with the pipe hesitated, shooting fearful looks between the three of us. A girl, I realized. Lithe and graceful, even as dirty as she was, with big blue eyes and silver-blond hair to the middle of her back. She wore a ratty T-shirt and baggy cargo jeans, and looked like she had slept in them for a while.
And she was definitely a hatchling, a teenager in human form. A little older than the ones I normally saw, wide-eyed and fresh out of training, but a hatchling nonetheless. The tightness in my chest eased a little, and I let out a furtive breath of relief. We’d found her before the Order did. That was all that mattered.
Panting, the girl backed up, still holding the pipe out in front of her. “Who are you?” she asked in a trembling voice. “What do you want?” Her voice, though it shook with fear, was low and cool, her words clear. Raising the pipe again, she gave us a fierce look. “I swear, I am not going back.”
“Easy.” I edged forward with one hand still outstretched, keeping my movements slow and unthreatening. “Take it easy,” I said again. “You’re safe. We’re not from Talon.”
She eyed me warily but visibly relaxed. The weapon hovered between us, dropping a few inches, but didn’t lower completely. “If you’re not from Talon, who are you?” the girl demanded. “How did you know about this place?”
“My name is Cobalt.” I offered my real name without hesitation. More people knew Cobalt, who he was and what he’d done. And even if this girl didn’t, Cobalt was a dragon name, subtly reminding her that we were alike. “And I’m sort of in the business of finding people like you. People who want out. I can help,” I went on, easing forward again. “I can take you somewhere safe, someplace Talon won’t be able to find you. But you have to trust me.”