and see what I can see. Meet here in fifteen and we'll go with whatever option is left to us."
Elyssa gripped my hand and squeezed three times. I love you. It was our top-secret code.
I squeezed back and smiled. "Kick ass, baby."
She raised an eyebrow. "Don't I always?"
I motioned to Bella and led her to the exit of the dumpster corral. The area was clear. We sneaked down the stairs. The same groups of noms were still below, partying it up, somehow oblivious to the battle raging topside. One kid with a mop of curly hair offered us a toke on a joint the size of a cigar as we passed. I waved him off.
"How interesting," Bella said as we made our way down a side hall. "Instead of donkeys, these kids turn into vampires."
"Donkeys?"
She led me around a corner and shook her head. "Kids these days."
"Did I miss some reference?"
She rolled the wand between her fingers in an absent-minded motion. "What do you think about Harry?"
Women and their ability to change the subject. "You mean Shelton?"
"Who else, dear?"
"Uh, well, he's quite a character." I wasn't sure what she was getting at. "I mean, I think you can trust him even though he definitely has secrets."
"Hmm." Bella stopped all of a sudden, and I almost bowled her over. The hall terminated in a stone wall. The short Arcane said a few words, and let go of her wand. Instead of falling, it hovered in midair. She thumped the narrow end, spinning it. It spun slower and slower until, like a compass drawn to the north, pointed right at the wall.
"It must be on this level," she said. "Or it would point down."
"Illusion?" I asked.
She picked up a loose bit of mortar and tossed it at the wall. It bounced off with a convincing thunk. "It could be a solid illusion." She sighed. "I could use the path-finding spell I used under El Dorado, but it might give us away to the Arcane."
"Maybe there's an easier way," I said, walking the remaining length of the hall while trailing my fingers down it. A third of the way on the other side of the corridor, my fingers went through the stone. "Aha!"
"Excellent work, Justin." Bella patted me on the arm. "Sometimes, we Arcanes forget there are many ways to skin a goat."
"Are there really that many ways?"
She nodded and walked toward the fake wall. "But one way is usually better than the others." She held a finger to her lips and vanished into the fake wall.
I followed. We'd gone about a hundred yards down the dark passage when the rumbling growl of what sounded like a wounded animal echoed off the stone walls. My eyes met Bella's glowing peepers. I motioned her behind me and crept to the corner. Light flickered from beneath a closed door. The handle turned without noise and I eased it open. Inside was a laboratory straight out of a mad scientist's wet dreams.
Opened crates were scattered everywhere. A large stack of them leaned ponderously against the wall next to the entrance. I saw a partially disassembled gray man strapped to a worktable in the corner to our left. Metal cages, all empty from what I could tell, cluttered the back of the room.
Dash sat before a large aluminum table, manipulating a three-dimensional holograph of the courtyard upstairs, zooming in and out to look at two groups of Templars, which looked like they were pinned behind one of the stone buildings in the courtyard. He circled a group of vampires in the image and they glowed. As he dragged his finger from one location to the other, I saw one of the vampires touch a headset and motion for his group to go to the location.
Good god, it's like a freaking video game.
As Dash zoomed into another area, I saw inert bodies of black-armored Templars mingled with those of vampires in an open space between the building and the vampire army. I realized if I could take over Dash's display, I could pinpoint all the enemy locations. Not only that, but I could tell them to move into strategically bad areas to give the Templars an even better chance at beating them.
I whispered my idea to Bella. She jabbed a finger at a huge Tesla coil in the center of the room, streaks of black and white energy racing around its edges as it occasionally gave off a burst of radiance in all directions.