Gallagher nodded, accepting my gratitude with the same grave formality with which he approached important events in his life. “Now, we really must go. And we’re damn lucky it’s Sunday.”
“It is?” I’d lost track of the days in isolation, but the empty parking lots we passed as we moved from shadow to shadow supported his declaration. The Savage Spectacle was closed on Sundays, which meant it would be operating on minimum manning until nearly dawn.
We would get no better chance to make our move.
We stuck to the shadows, which Gallagher’sfear deargheritage let him fade into almost seamlessly, and we were nearly to the main building when we saw the first handler on patrol. He carried a flashlight and an automatic rifle, as well as the usual stun gun and remote control, and while he peered into every shadow, he only walked on the well-lit sidewalk. He didn’t expect to find trouble, because he never had before.
“Stay here,” Gallagher whispered, and before I could argue, he disappeared into the shadows entirely.
A second later, he reached into the light. The guard grunted as he was pulled off his feet and into the dark. His grunt of surprise became a wet gurgle, followed by the gristly sound of ripping flesh. I flinched as something thumped to the ground. An empty, bloodstained shoe tumbled onto the sidewalk.
Then Gallagher was suddenly beside me, holding the dead guard’s remote control and his employee ID, which had a bar code across the bottom. “Will this be of any use?”
“With any luck, it’ll open the door to the control room.”
He huffed. “No door lock has ever kept me out.”
“But plenty of broken door locks have set off alarms. We’ll use the card.”
We headed for the main building, skirting pools of light along the sidewalk to tread in darkness. Gallagher faded into it so well that at times I couldn’t even tell if he was still next to me. The grass beneath my feet was dry and crisp, and sharp in places, with fall in full swing. The night was cold and clear. Every breath seemed to invigorate me, and the fact that I couldn’t be paralyzed or shocked into compliance gave me more confidence in our mission than I probably should have had.
At the back of the building, I used the dead guard’s ID to unlock the door, and we stepped inside, traversing the marble silently on bare feet. “Where’s the control room?” Gallagher whispered.
I led the way down one dark hallway and into another, avoiding cameras as much as possible, until we stood outside the locked control room door. “You can’t kill whoever’s in here,” I whispered, as I held up the stolen ID card. “We need him to disarm all the other collars.”
“You mean I can’t kill himuntilhe’s disarmed the other collars.”
I nodded because that was as much of a compromise as I was going to get out of Gallagher. We’d taken over the menagerie with minimal blood spilled, but that wouldn’t be possible at the Spectacle, in part because we weren’t merely taking it over.
We were putting it out of business.
“I need you to get ahold of the guard before he can raise an alert. Ready?”
Gallagher nodded.
I held the ID badge beneath the scanner built into the wall. The door beeped softly, and there was a metallic scraping sound as the bolt slid back. I opened the door just as the guard swiveled toward us in his chair.
Gallagher rushed past me. The guard’s eyes widened. He tried to stand, but Gallagher grabbed him by the neck and lifted him six inches off the floor. “Delilah, confiscate his devices.”
While the guard clawed at Gallagher’s hand, trying in vain to breathe, I plucked the pistol, stun gun and remote control from his belt, then pulled the communication headset from his head and turned it off.
Gallagher set the guard down, and as the man bent over, coughing and gasping I saw that his name tag read Petit.
“Petit,” I said, as Gallagher pushed the door closed behind us. “If you want to live, sit down at your desk and disable the collars.” No need to tell him that cooperating wouldn’t actually save his life.
“How did you get in here?” he gasped, rubbing his throat.
“Disable the collars,” Gallagher growled. “Now.”
Petit took a step back and bumped his chair, which rolled toward the console. “Which ones?”
“All of them.” I glanced at the wall full of live camera feeds, watching for any sign that Pagano’s body had been discovered. “Turn them all off.”
The guard glanced nervously from me to Gallagher, then back. “I can’t.”
“Bullshit,” Gallagher growled.
“No, seriously. It doesn’t work that way, for this very reason. It’s a fail-safe. I can turn them off one at a time, but not all at once. And turning off more than three in a five-minute period sets off an alarm.”
