Chapter 23
Dragging my leg through the crazy maze thingie, I tried not to make a sound, tried not to leave a trail. Little hard though. My leg had two geyser blood spurts and it hurt like (as Angel would say) h-e-double hockey sticks. I really should've stopped to tend to my wounds, found something in these shafts to wrap my legs, put pressure on them, but the unfriendly noises increased beneath me with every twist and turn I took in the ventilation ducts. I needed to get out of here. Get out of here now. And I should've been out of here ten minutes ago. My internal GPS had some sort of blinders on and I felt like I was spinning circles.
Craning my head around a corner and down a long pipe that forked out in three ways at the end of it, I recognized this particular channel. A burst of excitement shot through me and the pain in my leg subsided momentarily. I'd definitely been down this pipe before. And I think it was the way out.
I crawled over insulation, frigid metal grates. Knocked my noggin on a few pipes squeezing through a more narrow section. I saw a familiar line of pipe work. Then I saw the jacket I'd left near my entrance so that my windbreaker wouldn't brush against every pipeline and give me away. I could almost taste freedom when a familiar voice halted my escape.
"It ees a disaster! Everthing vas running smoothly till jer idiots decide to move dem. Now. Now dere's no more movie. No more!"
Dmitri?
"Your precious movie will be back on schedule for production within the next week," sneered another familiar voice. "Find another actor for the little one and focus on publicity."
"Ve already publicize! Ve release movie next March. Ve need to shoot de rest of eet!"
I heard a large sigh and several murmurings. The voices were close. But where? And I knew that other voice. Where did I know it from?
My brain tried to signal me to keep moving. Get out of this place. Go get the flock. But my body slowly turned, drawn to the voices like an ill-fated magnet.
I crawled backward through the shaft, then went down an off-shoot I'd not yet traversed. Minutes later, I found myself gawking through a grate at a conference room, staring at way too may familiar faces. Faces I thought I'd never see again.
Dmitri continued his expressive tirade. But it wasn't Dmitri. He had the same voice and the same annoying laugh, but the thick Greek moustache and beard that concealed half his face was gone. As was the thick curly black hair. And his size fifteen extra large body was reduced to a triple X.
I looked around the room, my throat constricting to the width of one of Nudge's fancy coffee stirrers. Mr. Chu sat stiffly in an over-sized black chair, annoyance plastered on his features. Brigid stood to his left (big surprise – I would never trust her) and white coats dotted the outskirts of the room like skinny Oompa Loompas waiting to roll out the next deviant child. The Uber-Director was there too – who I thought was dead. Maybe they just created a strong facsimile.
The familiar voice spoke again and as soon as she uttered my name, I looked down and caught her completely discernible eyes.
"Max… we've been waiting for you." Anne Walker tried to affect a maternal grin.
Just then, the grate slid out from under me. I smacked the floor and tried not to yelp, but pain seared through my leg with fresh injury.
"Jes, Maxeemum Ride. Vee have been anxiously avaiting jur arrival."
My old German nemesis Ter Borcht stabbed a syringe in my leg. A swirling wind rushed through my head.
And then everything went black.
A/N: Couldn't help it... Ter Borcht's my fav baddie. :) Reviews much appreciated!
