"Mayday, Mayday!"

The pain was exquisite. After nine hundred years, Douxie had thought he'd known all of the ways in which he might wish to die of pain. Drowning? Been there. Burned at the stake? Done that. Run out into the sunlight, defenseless? Old hat.

None of them compared at the moment to the white-hot agony of having a limb forcibly removed.

He swallowed a sob and let Jim open the door.

One foot in front of the other. One goal: escape.

He had no idea how they were going to do it.

Area 49-B was allegedly in the middle of nowhere in the Nevada desert. It was certainly hot enough and bright enough for that. (A distant thought that sounded giggly and high occurred to him: he really wanted a pair of sunglasses right now.)

"I was captured in Maine," he informed Jim, fighting against loopiness as they both flattened themselves against the side of the building, trying to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible. "We were checking on some of Stephen King's things. Girl I was with, name of Zoe-"

"Shh!" Jim hissed, trying to shush him. Had he been loud? Douxie didn't think he'd been loud.

"If I could call her, she might be able to get us out of here." He hoped Zoe hadn't changed her number. It had been fourteen years. Surely she'd have kept it, knowing that he knew it, that he'd call her if he ever got free.

Well, now he was free, but he still didn't have a phone.

"My girlfriend," Jim breathed, "Claire. She's a shadowmancer. She could portal right to us, and get us out of here. If she knew we were free."

"Brilliant," Douxie said as Jim peeked around the next corner. "We still need a phone."

"Crap!" Jim ducked back as a blast of blue shot through the corner of the building right where his head had been.

Douxie sighed. "Hold this," he said, handing his hand to Jim, and strode forward. As Jim juggled the object, the ground shifted beneath Douxie, like he was on a boat. Or drunk. Or maybe there was an earthquake, but he knew it was all in his head. Nonetheless, "Magna Torna Truess!" knocked their attackers, all five of them, back and out.

Douxie turned back to Jim, smiling even as the world continued pitching around him. He wanted to throw up. Oh, lovely, he realized as he stumbled forward and nearly fell. The nausea state. "Come on," Douxie managed through clenched teeth and the need to empty the meager contents of his stomach. "We need to find a phone and put out a mayday call or two."

"...Right," Jim said after a second, staring. Then, "Are you going to be okay?"

"Jury's still out on that," Douxie admitted. He gulped hot dry air, trying to keep both blood and bile where they belonged. "I hate the desert. Come on, let's go."

"I think I'm carrying you," Jim said, and did just that, heaving Douxie up over one shoulder.

"You watch the front," Douxie mumbled against Jim's shoulder blade. "I'll keep an eye behind us."

He felt, as much as heard, the rumbled laugh he got in response.