He snickered. ‘He couldn’t hug you if he tried. Not anymore.’
That was ominous.
The troll pressed a button on the wall. A red light flashed above the door, and somewhere deep in the building a siren chirped once.
‘Isolation escort protocol activated,’ the speaker announced. ‘All inmates remain secured. Movement suspended.’
Jesus. They’d locked down a whole wing just because I wanted a chat.
Pritchard looked green, terrified that someone somewhere would realise that Connection or not,technically,I shouldn’t be here. Robbie’s bribes were holding though, and I wondered how many palms he’d had to grease to achieve this.
The door opened.
Beyond it, the corridor was narrower still, the bricks darker. There was less light down here; I supposed they didn’t have any vampyrs currently in isolation.
Pritchard’s bouncing had stopped. Even he had the sense to be cautious.
Every door we passed had two locks. One mechanical. One electronic. Etched around each frame were thin, pale lines that caught the light: ward-sigils carved into stone. Not paint. Not chalk. Permanent.
One door had scorch marks around the edges.
‘That one tried to burn through?’ I asked, automatically whispering in the crushing quiet.
Pritchard nodded rapidly. ‘Fire elemental. He didn’t get out, obviously. The doors are fireproof.’
‘Course they are,’ I muttered.
We kept going, and finallywe reached the end of the corridor, where the last door was thicker than the rest, reinforced with dark plates.
Pritchard gulped, and his voice came out smaller, nerves showing. ‘Right. Well. That’s him. That’s Bolton.’
‘Open it,’ I said.
He swallowed again but obediently raised his card, put his thumb on the scanner, followed by his other thumb. Then he spoke into the voice plate. ‘Officer Pritchard. Isolation access. Escorting Inspector Wise.’
After a long pause, the speaker crackled.
‘Permission granted. You may open the slot.’
It turned out that the ‘slot’ was a metal shutter covering an opening big enough to see in, but not big enough that any man could get out.
Pritchard pulled it down and thumbed me forward.
Before I could move, Robbie edged in front of me, his huge body a wall, ready to rip someone’s arms off if they so much as breathed wrong in my direction. He peered in, assessed the situation, and stepped back for me to do my thing.
Pushing down the ripple of irritation that had arisen at his protection, I met his eyes and shook my head fractionally. We couldn’t afford for him to pipe Bolton,not with Pritchard here and any number of cameras fixed on us.
He dipped his chin, and I moved around him to focus on the second prisoner we were here to see. I peered into the small slot.
The prison cell was concrete-chic. A cot bolted to the floor. A toilet in the corner with no seat and no privacy. A camera in the ceiling, the red light blinking like a heartbeat.
In the centre of it all, Shaun Bolton sat cross-legged on the ground, head bowed like a penitent.
I understood why the guard had made the crack about him hugging me: he was in a straitjacket.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Inspector Wise,’ Bolton greeted warmly, like we were friends who’d bumped into each other during a shopping trip instead of me being his arresting officer. He had rich red hair and a jawline that usually came from plastic surgery or vampyr-turned perfection.
