She was right. We're not in a little trouble. We're in a whole lot.
Somebody, Jez thought with a strange, quiet certainty, is going to die here.
Lily was still talking. "And now let me introduce my associates, who've done so much to make this all possible." She gestured at someone hidden in the hall to come forward. "This is Azarius. I think you've met."
It was the vampire Jez had fought on the platform. He was tall, with dark skin and a look of authority.
"And this," Lily said, smiling, "is someone you've also met." She gestured again, and a second figure appeared in the doorway. It was Pierce Holt.
He was smiling faintly, his aristocratic face drawn in lines of genteel triumph. He waved one slender hand at them, his eyes as cold as Lily's.
Morgead gave an inarticulate roar and tried to lunge at him.
He only succeeded in falling on the floor, a struggling body in a cocoon of bast. Lily and Azarius both laughed. Pierce just looked scornful.
"You really didn't guess?" he said. "You're so stupid, Morgead. Coming out this morning to meet me, so trusting, so naive-I thought you were smarter. I'm disappointed."
"No, you're dead," Morgead raged from the floor. He was staring at Pierce, black hair falling over his forehead and into green eyes that were blazing with rage. "You are dead when this is over! You betrayed the gang. You're complete scum. You're-"
"Shut him up," Lily said, and one of the thugs kicked Morgead in the head.
He must really be out of power, Jez thought, wincing. Or he'd have blasted Pierce then.
"I'm smart," Pierce was saying. "And I'm going to survive. I knew something was fishy when she"- he nodded toward Jez without looking at her- "said she had a deal with Hunter Redfern. It didn't sound right-and then the way she was so worried about that vermin kid. So I made a few calls, and I found out the truth."
"You realize that your friend there is working with Circle Daybreak," Lily interrupted. She was also looking at Morgead and ignoring Jez. "She lied to you and tricked you. She was trying to get the Wild Power for them."
Morgead snarled something inarticulate.
"And she's not just a Daybreaker," Pierce said. Finally he looked at Jez, and it was with venomous spite.
"She's a mutant abomination. She's half vermin. She should have been drowned at birth."
'You should have been drowned at birth," Morgead said through locked teeth.
Lily had been watching in amusement, but now she waved one hand. "Okay, enough fun and games.
Down to business." Two of the thugs sat Morgead back up, and Lily walked to the middle of the room.
She looked at each of them in turn, Jez last. "I've only got one question for you," she said in her cool, quiet voice. "Which human is the Wild Power?"
Jez stared at her.
She doesn't know. She knows almost everything else, but not that. And if she can't find out...
Jez gave Hugh and Claire one long, intense look, telling them to keep silent. Then she looked back at Lily.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Lily hit her.
It was a pretty good blow, but nothing to compare with what Jez got when she was in a fight. Jez laughed, a natural laugh of surprise and scorn.
Lily's hawklike golden eyes went icy.
"You think this is funny?" she said, still quietly. "My father sent me to get the Wild Power, and that's just what I'm going to do. Even if it means tearing you and your vampire boyfriend to pieces, mutant."
"Yeah, well, suppose I don't know? Did you ever think of that? Then I can't tell, no matter what you and your little..." Jez glanced at Pierce and Azarius. "Your little hobgoblins do."
Lily's porcelain skin was flushing with fury. It brought out faint scars on one side of her face that Jez hadn't noticed before, like mostly-healed burn marks. "Look, you little freak-" Then she turned to the thugs. "Teach her a lesson."
Things were exciting for a while. Jez could hear Claire and Hugh yelling and Morgead snarling while the hobgoblins beat her up. She hardly felt the blows herself. She was in a place where they didn't matter.
When they finally got tired and stopped, Lily walked up to her again.
"Now," she said sweetly, "has your memory gotten any better."
Jez looked at her from under a swelling eyelid. "I can't tell you something I don't know."
Lily opened her mouth, but before she could speak, a new voice cut in.
"She doesn't have to tell you," Hugh said. "Ill tell you. It's me."
Lily swiveled slowly to look at him.
He was sitting up straight inside his cocoon of bonds, his face calm under the dried blood. His gray eyes were clear and straightforward. He didn't look afraid.
Oh, Hugh, Jez thought. Her heart was beating slow and hard and her eyes prickled.
Lily glanced at Azarius.
He shrugged. "Sure, it could be. I told you, it could be either of them. They were both at the station when the flash came and the train stopped."
"Hmm," Lily said, a sound like a cat purring to dinner. She moved toward Hugh. He didn't look away from her, didn't flinch.
But beside him, Claire gave a convulsive wiggle.
She had been watching everything with a desperate, dazed expression. Jez was sure she didn't understand a quarter of what was going on. But now she suddenly lost the muddled look. Her dark eyes sparked and she looked like the Claire who'd taunted Jez a hundred times in the hallway back home.
'I don't know what you're talking about," she said to Hugh. "You know perfectly well it's me." She turned to Lily. Tm the Wild Power."