Fear Her Wrath II: Crucible of Glass

Chapter 25

"I don't like this, Sarah," said the officer from harbor patrol.

"I told you, Bakshi, it's on the level. The warden knows she's coming. Just get us there."

"I got kids, Sarah. I don't like toeing the line like this."

Sergeant Corrigan gave an exasperated roll of her eyes.

"Well, then keep your mouth shut and drive the damn boat. The sooner you drop us off, the sooner you can wash your hands of this."

It took a lot of forceful cajoling, but Bakshi finally gave in and turned the ignition key. The outboard motor started to grumble—as though in agreement with the man at the helm—and soon we were cruising away from the Chilltern Banks piers and towards Rothko Island. I was perched in the rear of the boat, looking back at the Fen as though I didn't quite trust it to behave itself while I was gone.

"No sightings of any known freaks during the past 24 hours," said Corrigan, reading my thoughts. "Even that Whippowil character seems to have gone to ground. You should think about taking a break after tonight."

"You wouldn't," I said, finally prying my eyes away from the Fen to look at my partner in vigilante justice.

"True," said Corrigan with a wry smile. "But I wouldn't be helping you at all if I wasn't a bit of a hypocrite."

I laughed, and for a while we were both silent, listening to the hum of the engine and the tossing of the waves. It was one of the first passably warm nights we'd had this spring, and it was nice to be out on the lake, even if it was for vigilante business.

"Find anything out about that gorilla?" I asked suddenly.

Corrigan shook her head.

"Nothing concrete—except that he's no ordinary gorilla. No big surprise there. Sloane said the keeper at the primate exhibit muttered something about the 'Galt Foundation's dirty work' when he handed him over."

"Aren't the Galt Foundation those sketchy 'we're-totally-not-still-eugenicists' people with that evil looking building on Ingram Street that looks like it was designed by Albert Speer?"

"Exactly. You can follow up that one if you want. I'm not touching it."

"Good choice," said Bakshi. "And if you guys don't mind, I would rather not have to overhear anything I'll need to forget, if you get me."

"We'll save it, Bakshi," said Corrigan, who was obviously enjoying the discomfort we were causing. "Besides, we're almost there."

Rothko Island was barely more than a long, jagged rock in the middle of the lake which Eugene Rothko's old mansion clung to like a lichen. A lot had changed since I'd last been here. From the outside, the mad chemical magnate's former residence still looked like an opulent Victorian manor—an anachronism even when it was built—but they'd put a high wall topped with barbed wire around the perimeter and installed bars on every window. The prisoners were kept in the panopticon wing—the vast rotunda where Rothko had once kept an eye on the doings of all his servants from behind a one-way mirror. The various support facilities—the psychiatrist's office, the infirmary, the armory—were relegated to the northeast wing, which was long and rectangular, with tall, ominous windows that looked down on us as we approached the main entrance.

"Corrigan," said the sergeant, holding up her badge. "The one in the cape's with me. The warden's expecting us."

The guards made much less fuss than Bakshi had. They let me skip the metal detectors and didn't say anything when I wrote "Nightwrath" just beneath Corrigan's name in the prison's guestbook and put my Twitter handle for a phone number. It was another reminder that things were going to be different, at least for a while—that the New Imperium had decided to tolerate the vigilante that was running amok in their city. I wasn't sure whether I liked this new status quo or not.