Sorta depressing, really. I mean, of all the possible aesthetic choices out there, airports must generally rank in the top five or ten most bland. But I guess they’re cost-effective. That counts for more and more when it comes to beauty. Sure, all the marble and Corinthian columns and soaring spaces were beautiful, but where do they fall on a cost-assessment worksheet?
The ghost of style still haunts the bits of the original Union Station that have been permitted to stand, but, looking around the place, I couldn’t help but get the same feeling I had when I looked at the Coliseum in Rome, or the Parthenon in Athens—that once, it had been a place of splendor. Once. But a long, long time ago.
“Which way are the lockers?” Michael asked quietly.
I nodded toward the northeast end of the building and started walking. The ticketing counters were closed, except for one, whose clerk was probably in a back room somewhere. There weren’t a lot of people walking around. Late at night train stations in general don’t seem to explode with activity. Particularly not in weather like ours. One harried customer-service representative from Amtrak was dealing with a small knot of angry-looking travelers who had probably just been stranded in town by the storm. She was trying to get them a hotel. Good luck. The airport had been closed since yesterday, and the hotels would be doing a brisk business already.
“You know your way around the station,” Michael commented.
“Trains are faster than buses and safer than planes,” I said. “I took a plane to Portland once, and the pilot lost his radio and computer and so on. Had to land without instruments or communications. We were lucky it was a clear day.”
“Statistically, it’s still the safest—” he began.
“Not for wizards it isn’t,” I told him seriously. “I’ve had flights that went smoothly. A couple of them just had little problems. But after that trip to Portland…” I shook my head. “There were kids on that plane. I’m going to live a long time. I can take a little longer to get there. Hey, Joe,” I said to a silver-haired janitor, walking by with a wheeled cart of cleaning supplies.
“Harry,” Joe said, nodding with a small smile as he passed by.
“I’ve been here a lot lately,” I said to Michael. “Traveling to support the Paranet, mostly. Plus Warden stuff.” I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t want the job, but I’ll be damned if I’ll do it half-assed.”
Michael looked back at the janitor thoughtfully for a moment, and then at me. “What’s that like?”
“Wardening?” I asked. I shrugged. “I’ve got four other Wardens who are, I guess, under my command.” I made air quotes around the word. “In Atlanta, Dallas, New York, and Boston. But I mostly just stay out of their way and let them do their jobs, give them help when they need it. They’re kids. Grew up hard in the war, though that didn’t give them brains enough to keep from looking up to me.”
Mouse suddenly stopped in his tracks.
Me too. I didn’t rubberneck around. Instead I focused on the dog.
Mouse’s ears twitched like individual radar dishes. His nose quivered. One paw came up off the ground, but the dog only looked around him uncertainly.
“Lassie would have smelled something,” I told him. “She would have given a clear, concise warning. One bark for gruffs, two barks for Nickelheads.”
Mouse gave me a reproachful glance, put his paw back down, and sneezed.
“He’s right,” Michael said quietly. “Something is watching us.”
“When isn’t it?” I muttered, glancing around. I didn’t see anything. My highly tuned investigative instincts didn’t see anything either. I hate feeling like Han Solo in a world of Jedi. “I’m supposed to be the Jedi,” I muttered aloud.
“What’s that?” Michael asked.
The station’s lights went out. All of them. At exactly the same time.
The emergency lights, which are supposed to come on instantly, didn’t.
Beside me Michael’s coat rustled and something clicked several times. Presumably he was trying his flashlight, and presumably it didn’t work.
That wasn’t good. Magic could interfere with the function of technology, but that was more of a Murphy effect: Things that naturally could go wrong tended to go wrong a lot more often. It didn’t behave in a predictable or uniform fashion. It didn’t shut down lights, emergency lights, and battery-powered flashlights all at the same time.
I didn’t know what could do that.
“Harry?” Michael asked.
Mouse pressed up against my leg, and I felt his warning growl vibrating through his chest.