Corinne’s vision slanted sideways, and she thought she might collapse, but Wilkey was propelling her forcefully down the corridor now. The doors on either side went by in aching streaks of gray, blurring as her eyes filled with tears. They twisted through corridors and doors that led to more corridors. She told herself that Ada was still behind her, that they were still together, that Haversham and the HPA didn’t stand a chance. She repeated it again and again in her head. A mantra punctuated by every agonizing footfall.
They went through a doorway at the end of a long corridor that opened into a large, low-ceilinged room. The sharp smell of disinfectant assaulted her nostrils. This room was brighter than the corridors, with bright medical lamps that glared off the white tile and stainless steel surfaces. The brilliance temporarily blinded Corinne, and they were several steps into the room before she recovered. Once she did, the only thing she could really see was the man a few feet away from her. His face was so skeletal that for a split second she thought he was dead—but no, his gray smock moved barely with the slow rise and fall of his chest. He was strapped to a hospital bed, the buckles cutting into his skin. There was a tube inserted in his bruised arm, bright red with flowing blood. In a bed next to his, strapped down in the same manner, was a woman. Her chest heaved with rattling breaths, and her damp, tangled hair covered most of her ashen face. The tube in the woman’s pallid arm was connected somehow to the man’s via a small machine between their beds that whirred and hummed like a phonograph with no record. A second tube in the woman’s thigh trailed down beside the bed, draining crimson into a metal canister.
The woman’s eyes opened suddenly, and she let out a scream that reverberated through Corinne’s bones. She held the cry so long that Wilkey stomped over to her bed, still dragging Corinne by the arm. He took a rag, spotted with blood, from a nearby table and shoved it into the woman’s mouth. Her strangled scream continued, even through the gag, and her wild gaze met Corinne’s. The madness in her eyes, birthed of pain and terror and rage, made Corinne feel weak at the knees. She was perversely grateful when Wilkey pulled her away, continuing their trek through the room. There were at least two dozen beds, but the rest had sheets pulled over their occupants. This wasn’t a hospital. It was a graveyard.
Corinne felt she owed it to them, somehow, to not look away, but her eyes fluttered downward of their own accord. Her shoes clomped on the floor, and she could almost see her reflection in the scrubbed white tiles.
When they finally passed through a doorway into a smaller room, it was a strange relief to be pushed inside, where there was blessed concrete under her feet. She didn’t know exactly what she had expected to find, but the empty table with its four wooden chairs was not it. Overhead, a single bulb gave off a dull yellow glow, flickering intermittently. Corinne thought vaguely of Dante and his inferno again. They had traded one circle of hell for the next. Very faintly, she could still hear the woman’s muffled screams.
Agent Wilkey made her sit in one of the chairs facing the door. Ada dropped into the chair beside her and laid her head down on the rough grain of the wood. Though she was trying to hide it, Corinne could see that she was flushed and shaking. Corinne wasn’t in much better shape herself. She wished she could reach out and take Ada’s hand, give some comfort, draw some in return. Agent Pierce left the room, and Agent Wilkey stood in the corner, arms crossed, humming to himself. Corinne briefly tried to summon an illusion for him—something clawed and bloodthirsty—but it was an impossible task and she knew it. If she didn’t speak any words first to prepare his mind, then she couldn’t make him see anything. The attempt made her feel slightly better, though.
After a few minutes that might as well have been decades, the door opened again. Corinne recognized Dr. Knox from Jackson’s imitation of him. The squat, spectacled man in his pristine white coat seemed out of place in the dank room. He wiped a handkerchief across his shiny bald head and shut the door behind him. The room still held the barest scent of disinfectant. Agent Pierce had not come back.
“This is disappointing,” Knox said to Wilkey, tucking the handkerchief into his pocket and sitting down across from Ada and Corinne. “I expressly instructed you to bring Temple too. I’ve been told he’s showing signs of abilities well outside the norm of his affliction. I need him for the next phase.”
“We’ll pick him up later, when the streets are quieter,” Wilkey said from the corner. “We know exactly where he is.”
Corinne caught Ada’s eye as she straightened suddenly. Agent Wilkey saw the movement and smiled blithely at both of them.
“Interesting setup you have at the Cast Iron,” he said. “I’m assuming that basement was part of the Underground Railroad?”
Corinne’s chest was tight. No one outside the Cast Iron was supposed to know that the basement even existed. The blueprints gave no indication. City inspectors had no records of it.
“Take off the gags,” Dr. Knox said. “We can get started with these two, at least.”