“Baz, wait!” It’s Penelope. I ignore her. Philippa is close. She must be— the bag is getting harder to hold on to. If I let go of it, it will smash into one of these brick walls and destroy the tape recorder. Fucking Bunce and her spells.
Most of the doors down here aren’t locked. Most of the rooms are empty.
When I get to the end of the hall, the bag pulls me flat against a door. I have to arch my neck up to breathe. I pry my arm free and try the door. It’s locked.
My wand is already in my hand. “Open Sesame!”
I try the knob again, and the bag pushes the door open, hauling me in.
It’s a dark room. Philippa is here. Her hands are tied. And a man is holding a wand to her head.
“Drop your wand,” he says. “Now.”
68
SIMON
“Honestly,” Jamie Salisbury says. “I’m fine.”
I suppose he looks fine. He’s watching music videos. He’s got a pot of tea and a stack of dirty dishes. There’s a bed down here. “Maybe you could call your mum,” I say, “and tell her that.”
“I will,” Jamie says, “as soon as Smith—”
“Smith won’t let you call your mum?”
“It’s not that simple—”
“Simon”—Penelope is pulling on my arm—“we can’t let Baz run off.”
I turn to her. “Where’d he go?”
Shepard is standing in the doorway. “Down the hall and out of sight.”
“Fuck.” I run after Penny—out the door, into the passageway. It’s a properly creepy basement. One step up from the Catacombs. We run past a bunch of empty rooms and round the corner. Penny gets to the last doorway and stops—I run into her back.
There’s an old man standing inside the room with a wand to Baz’s head.
“Drop your wands.”
69
BAZ
“Drop your wands,” the man says.
And instead Penelope Bunce raises her fist. “K.O.!”
The man slumps to the ground.
“Evander!” Salisbury shouts.
“For fuck’s sake, Bunce, you could have killed me.” I pick up my wand and rub my temple. I wonder if I have enough blood in me to bruise.
“But I didn’t,” she says. “Who’s Evander?”
Salisbury’s kneeling over the fallen man—who I’m fairly certain is the same person who runs the door at Smith-Richards’s meetings. “It’s Smith’s godfather,” he says, distressed. “Did you kill him?”
“No.” Penny puts her hands on her hips. “Not intentionally.”
Evander Feverfew is an older white guy, around 60 maybe, with longish grey hair, a diamond earring, and an elaborately tooled leather wand holster on his belt. Shepard stoops to pick Feverfew’s wand up from the floor and hands it to Penelope. She tucks it in her waistband.
I let them fuss over him—I need to get to Philippa. The duffel bag is hauling me deeper into the room, where Smith’s godfather shoved her. She’s lying on her side on the floor, arms and legs tied. She’s still so small. She still reminds me of a mouse …
When she sees me, she tries to squirm away.
“Pippa…” I say. Should I untie her first, or—No. I just need to— I fall on my knees before her and unzip my bag. The tape recorder tries to sail out; I catch it. It pulls my arms straight and my body forward.
Philippa sees the tape recorder, and her eyes get wider. She’s crying now.
Kicking the floor to get away from me.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say. “I promise!”
She twists her face away from me.
“I have your voice, Pippa. I—” Circe, what am I waiting for? There’s nothing I can say or explain. I hold the tape recorder out and press play.
There’s a staticky sound, and then Philippa’s squeaky little voice rings out from the speaker. “Hiya, Simoooooooooooon!”
The last syllable disintegrates into a long squeak. Then there’s a sound like a record being played backwards. Like a little girl talking very quickly, in reverse.
Lying on the floor, Philippa gasps—and swallows and swallows. The noise gets higher and more chaotic, like a high-pitched waterfall.
Then the tape snaps to a stop. The squealing ends, and Philippa’s head falls to the floor. The tug has gone out of the tape recorder. I drop it.
“Pippa…” I say, scooting forward to free her hands. Simon is already working on her ankles.