Fear Her Wrath III: It Runs on Blood

Chapter 7

I rode with the Psychopomp out to Rothko Island—or as he preferred to call it, the Depths of Tartarus. With the terrible reception down in the sewers, I could get only occasional updates from Ellie, but none of it sounded good. The gist was that Psychosis was gone, and he'd taken several other prisoners along with him. When we finally made it to the island, I found a gaping hole in the prison's perimeter wall, and another in the Victorian brickwork of the mansion's panopticon wing. It was just large enough an opening for an eight-foot gorilla to duck through without knocking off his spiked Prussian helmet. Storming past the bewildered guards posted at the aperture, I found Corrigan—still wearing makeup for her date with my dad—talking seriously with Theophilus Lily, Dr. Ellis Oluwole, and Blum, the prison's head of security. Two more guards were standing a little ways off, pretending not to listen in on the conversation. Looking up, I saw that five of the glass cells on the scond level of the panopticon wing had been smashed, including Simon's. All the prisoners who hadn't escaped were at the front of their cells, staring down at us.

"Ah, Night-Wrath," said Warden Lily, slipping into his usual charming manner. "I see you have—."

But I had already brushed past him and gone straight for Corrigan.

"What happened?" I demanded. "My friend says Psychosis is gone. Like, completely gone. That's not supposed to happen."

"Well, it did," said Corrigan. "Two heavily-armed men in doll masks made sure of that. And the gorilla. You can see how they got in. Your friend's call got here just a few minutes too late. There was some kind of scheduling error tonight that Theo didn't catch until the escape was already in progress, so there were only two guards doing the rounds in the panopticon. One got beaten to a pulp by the gorilla. The other—"

"Okay, but who got away?" I said impatiently.

"I'm getting to that," said Corrigan. "The other went straight to Eric Colborne's cell and smashed through the glass. We think the two escapes were unrelated—the guard just took his chance on springing Icemane in the chaos, hoping it would pay off. It might. If we don't catch him."

"You still haven't told me who got away."

Corrigan looked at Warden Lily, who cleared his throat.

"Mr. Mallory, of course, was their main target," said the warden. "He departed in the company of Miss Connelly, Miss Baker, and Mr. Massaro—uh, Purgatorio, as he prefers. Mr. Colborne left with the, um... assistance of Barnes. All the other guests remain in their cells."

"That's... almost something," I said bitterly.

"Iris Baker left against her will," said Corrigan. "At least, that's what the security footage shows. Josie practically begged to be taken along. They raided the armory on their way out and got Psychosis's armor, Josie's suicide vest, and the mask Nika Artemesia made for Purgatorio. Then they were gone."

Oh, in case you're wondering, the prison's "armory" was really just Warden Lily's personal trophy room of confiscated gear in the northeast wing. Corrigan had warned him against keeping the prisoner's stuff so close to hand instead tossing it in the incinerator. Tonight, she'd been proven right.

"Josie Connelly has developed an unfortunate emotional attachment to Mallory," said Dr. Oluwole. "Which the lieutenant encouraged against my professional judgment."

"Yeah, well, she's not the only one who doesn't think much of your professional judgment," I said, rounding on the prison's resident alienist. "Honestly, I'm surprised your pet freak is still safely locked up. Did Psychosis double-cross you, or did he just forget to release Glassface on his way out?"

"Pardon me, vigilante," said Dr. Oluwole scornfully. "But I'm not in the habit of accepting insults from—."

"Oh right, I forgot how fragile your ego was," I sneered. I turned to Warden Lily. "This 'scheduling error' with the guards was his fault. You'll see. Check the security cameras. There's no way this was an accident."