the tracks. In the shadows, Garreth waited.
Thank fates.
I’d known he’d do everything he could to be there, but that didn’t account for the Maker discovering his deception and stopping him. The fact that my brother was still safe was an enormous relief. Every minute he still lived seemed like a gift.
“Good work,” he murmured. “Let’s go. There are guards that patrol the perimeter, but we can avoid them if we go over them by climbing on the coal conveyor belts.”
He led us around the building toward the huge iron structures, which looked like spindly bridges leading from a long-abandoned pile of coal toward the building that housed the turbines. Garreth began to climb, and we followed. The conveyor belt had been derelict for decades, and parts of it appeared to have rusted away entirely. I placed my hands carefully, not wanting to tear the damned thing down by accident.
When we reached the top of the structure, Garreth led the way toward the main building. We moved quickly and quietly, not breathing a word as we passed over the guard patrolling below. The man never looked up, and we avoided him easily.
Finally, we reached the shadows of the building. The conveyor belt broke off, damaged at some point in the building’s past, and Garreth hung over the side to inspect the ground for passing guards. After a moment, he looked up at us. “All clear. We can go.”
Garreth led the way. We climbed down the iron supports and landed lightly on the ground, then ran for the small door tucked halfway behind some wild bushes. When we reached it, we slipped between the prickly bushes and the wall, finding a bit of cover in the deep shadows there.
Garreth spoke quietly. “There are nearly two dozen demons here, all working for the Maker. But the place is so big that we might not see any until we reach the Moon Stones, which he keeps guarded.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Which way?”
“They’re stored at the far end, in the old control room. We need to make our way through the main part of the building and up to the northwest corner. That’s where we’ll find the safe.”
I looked at Eve, who nodded. Garreth had told us about the safe, and Eve had packed every potion she could think of to deal with it.
“Good. Let’s go.” Garreth turned and pressed his hand to the door. Magic flared, and the door unlocked. He pulled it open and slipped inside.
We followed, entering the cavernous interior of the main part of the building. It was an enormous rectangular room, the broken glass ceiling soaring over one hundred feet high. Massive square pillars marched along the sides of the huge room, supporting the roof, and three enormous steel turbines sat in the middle of the space, long since gone silent and still.
The dark air echoed with the shadows of the past. This place had once been responsible for providing most of the electricity to London. Now, it lay quiet and disused by everyone…except for the miserable bastard who had made it his headquarters.
Garreth jerked his head to the side, indicating the direction we should go. We set off single file, Garreth in the lead and me at the rear. Eve had a potion bomb clutched in her hand, ready to throw.
We stuck to the shadows at the side of the wall as we ran, our footsteps silent. We were nearly to the end when a guard appeared in front of us. He was a tall, slender man with magic that smelled like old, wet towels. Shock slackened his jaw as he stared at us, and then he charged.
Garreth and I worked in concert, as if we’d been doing this together for years. My brother stuck his leg out to trip the man, and I grabbed him by the collar, landing a blow to his cheek that knocked him unconscious immediately. I dragged the body to a nook in the wall where we could hide him, and the others followed.
“I’ve got his shoes,” Garreth murmured.
“Keep guard,” I whispered to Eve, and she nodded.
While Garreth tied the shoelaces together, I pulled the man’s belt off and bound his wrists, then tore a strip off his shirt to gag him. Within thirty seconds, he was trussed up and left behind. There was every possibility we’d have to kill some of the demons, and that didn’t bother me, but I’d prefer not to kill the humans unless I had to.
We set off again, eventually