The Angel said, “Give me the radio.”
Pash unbuckled a real wireless radio from her belt and tossed it to the Angel, who caught it neatly, even though her hands were still shaking. She tapped something into it and held it up to her ear and said, “This is the Messenger. Holding pattern downstairs, please.” Then: “Yes, we know,” and “Yes, we know. These are unusual circumstances.” Then: “Yes, but if you’re so hot on protocol, why aren’t you letting our designated lifeguard extract us from the building?” Then: “That’s ridiculous.”
At the second Yes, we know Camilla scrambled to her feet. She seized a stack of chairs and shook them out in front of the doorway that led through to the cloakroom. Pash immediately raised and trained a gun on her, which made Nona gasp in indignation, but Camilla didn’t stop. The Angel was saying, “Get me the commander on the line,” and then: “You do realise one gunshot in here and you’re in front of a tribunal—that Hope’s in front of a tribunal? We don’t—yes, we know we can’t countermand—look, don’t you dare— We’ve got my dog in here! No, we will not put on a gas mask, this is a coup—Fine. If you come up those stairs the lifeguard will shoot you. Messenger out.”
The Angel lowered the radio. She said dolefully, “Fuck.”
Pash went to the teacher’s desk and threw it over. Everything on top—the paper clips and the pencil sharpener and the whiteboard erasers and the collection of paper animals—scattered to the floor in an almighty whump. Then she vaulted behind it—the Angel moved to her—and Pash drew her gun from the strap off her back. Camilla looked at her and said, “How many?”
“Nine, ten. No gunfire, but maybe electrics,” said Pash, purely on automatic, and then she blustered: “Don’t fucking talk to me, Hect. The moment the commander hears about this, your ass is grass, and there’ll be no Crown to save you.”
“Do you want my help to get out of here,” said Camilla, “or not?”
“I don’t bloody need your help,” said Pash, at the same moment that the Angel said, “Yes. We can’t let Merv Wing take us, not now. I did—I did call for you to be shot though.”
“No problem,” said Camilla levelly. “So long as I can let out some deferred aggression.”
“You’re a minion and you’ve been bloody lying to We Suffer this whole time about what you can do,” said Pash hotly. “The commander never said shit about you coming back from a bullet, you or the lich. I would put another one in your brain right now, for science, only I don’t want to waste my ammo.”
“Guess we’ve all lied to each other,” said Camilla.
Pash looked to the Angel and said pleadingly, “Aim, for fuck’s sake, what if she turns around and snaps your neck—”
“Nona, please go into the kitchen now,” said the Angel. “For your safety, not to get you out of the way.”
“I don’t want to leave Camilla,” said Nona
A window broke somewhere on the floor below. Camilla was already drawing Nona behind the desk. They all crouched down in the dark behind the desk with its nice particle-board smell. It was so quiet that for a moment Nona thought Cam had been wrong, that there couldn’t be ten or eleven people coming for them, that the whole building was far too quiet. Noodle started to softly scratch behind the staffroom kitchen door and then Aim said, “Noodle. Danger,” and he stopped, and he clacked away from the door.
Camilla was saying, “Quickly. Isn’t there somewhere else she could go? She could take the dog.”
Looking at the staffroom kitchen door made Nona look at the other door, the one to the other corridor down the hall, and she remembered all at once and said, “Hot Sauce! Where’s Hot Sauce?”
The Angel said, “Pash locked her in the generator room. They’d have to get through here to get to her.”
“I want Hot Sauce,” said Nona.
Pash had her head crooked out from the side of the desk, watching the shut door. She said tersely, “I don’t want the lich running around.”
Camilla said calmly, “Make up your mind,” and the Angel said feebly, “Nona, Hot Sauce wasn’t … she saw, you see … she was in the room, when…”
There was a distant crash—a glittery, soft sound like glass caving in.
“That’s the door,” said Camilla.
Pash suddenly said, “Oh my God, I’ve changed my mind, okay? The lich goes through the door. No distractions. Get out of here.”