pleasing and in no way approved by the Underwriters Laboratory. I could feel the beat driving my feet, felt the base changing the rhythm of my heart, filling my head.
Still, I wasn’t getting there.
Suddenly Geoffrey appeared. He handed me a couple of green star-shaped pills and a bottle of water, putting another into my backpack. “This is what you need. Don’t take anything from anyone but me.”
“What is it?” I asked a little suspiciously. Was this an attempt by him to derail my planned attack on the Makers?
“It’s a metaphor, silly girl, a little energy in reserve, a little push over the edge. A little confidence. You can do it,” he said. “And there’s this.”
He opened a long, thin, flat, brown polished wooden box with an ornate latch and hinges. Inside was a replica of a Time Lord’s sonic screwdriver.
I laughed, shrugged, and clipped it behind my trowel. Might as well take it; I needed good wishes and encouragement. “Thanks. But why do you say not to take anything from anyone but you? The crowd is cool; this is inside my space. No one but me, nothing to be afraid of.”
“Not anymore. And those guys . . .” he nodded to a couple of the large cone-orange intruder types standing on the sidelines, craning, looking. “Those guys are big trouble.”
“Oh, shit.”
“This is no longer your own private preserve. It could be the same as the others—someone sent by the Makers; they may be getting worried about you. In any case, they’ve found a way in. Did you eat anything at the Castle, ever? Take anything from there?”
“Not beside the—oh.” I remembered long ago, I’d taken the lighter and two joints and drunk a beer with the Administrator.
“Ah, there’s the problem,” Geoffrey said. “The clock is not only ticking, Zoe; it’s sped up. You got about fifteen minutes now. Get busy, child.”
I blinked and realized if Fatima could know about the Hulk, Geoffrey could know the Chemical Brothers lyrics. I nodded. “You got anything that can slow those thugs down?”
The two guys were starting to press through the crowd and not in a “May I?” fashion. Just the feel of them let me know he was right. They weren’t me; they didn’t belong here. “Slow them down a lot?”
Geoffrey smiled, a secret, nasty smile. Maybe there was a little more werewolf from his father’s side affecting him than he thought. Maybe I was affecting his afterlife more than either of us wanted to admit. “I’m yours to command.”
I suppressed a shiver. I didn’t need any more distractions now. “Just keep the collateral damage down, ’kay?”
“You just take the pills and get to work.”
The BPM kicked into the 160–180 range. I swallowed the pills. The music went past 200 BPM, to 500 . . .
I began to dance. Things started to blur, lights began to trail, and I began to see the individual bands of light prism and sparkle. I began to taste the music and feel numbers as parts of me began to melt away.
I have to see if Geoffrey has any more of this, I thought giddily. I’ve never taken anything this good, have never been able to afford it, and now I have my own private chemist who is turning out some seriously good shit . . .
I started to feel nauseous, a little throw-up in the back of my throat. Only to be expected, I thought, a small price to pay for this—
I turned inside out. My brain split in half.
I was outside the club—or was it above?—watching things unfold there. There was a blank area beyond that indicated where I needed to get to. Geoffrey was using moves straight out of a Hong Kong action film, keeping the bad guys at bay. It was like being outside of two different theaters, watching two different plays, while I was simultaneously acting and directing them. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt, if I said it was easy. It felt as if my skull were being cracked open, but the fact that I could do it at all gave me the motivation to keep going, see how far I could take it.
I couldn’t stay here; I needed to get to that ominous blank space. I reached out for the dragons. “Quarrel, Yuan, Naserian? If you could get me where I need to go, and I’ll take it from there.”
“We will escort you, Hellbender,” Yuan said.
“No, I need to be stealthier than that. They see you guys, my