Chapter 7: The Cold Room

The lights went out at eleven.

All of them went at once, the hall lamps and the fire-lit windows and the little green exit signs.

I was standing at Corbin's elbow in the east corridor, and I heard him say one quiet word that I didn't catch.

"Stay close," he said.

"I'm closer than I want to be."

"Good."

Glass broke at the far end of the corridor.

Something heavy hit the floorboards with a wet, metallic hiss, and then another, and then four more in a row.

I smelled hot metal.

"Silver," Corbin said. "Back."

The nets came across the ceiling in a long flat sheet, thrown from the windows by wolves I couldn't see.

They were silver wire, thin and bright, and they settled over us in a tangle.

I dropped to my knees and the wire missed me by a hand.

It didn't miss Corbin.

It fell across his shoulders and down his back, and his shirt began to smoke.

He didn't scream.

He made a sound through his teeth that I felt in my stomach.

"Corbin."

"Go," he said. "The cellar door, behind you."

I got up and got my hands under the net and pulled.

It burned my palms, and the welts came up red, and I kept pulling.

Together we dragged it off him, and I got an arm under his shoulders and he leaned on me.

He was heavy.

He was shaking, and his skin through the ruined shirt was giving off heat I could feel on my face.

I got the cellar door open with my hip and we fell through into the dark.

The stone steps were cold and the air smelled of dust and old wine.

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