Othermoon Read Online Free PDF Page B

her voice echo
     back. “Stairs. Up or down?”
    “Not up,” I said between breaths as we came pounding up behind Siku. “Upstairs will
     be nothing but long hallways of locked hotel rooms.”
    “Down we go,” said November. And down she went.
    As London and Siku followed, I cast a glance down the long hall. The door we’d come
     through was shuddering, as if from blows. “I think we pissed them off,” I said.
    We sped down the metal stairs, as silently as they allowed. Ten stairs down and turn,
     then ten more and turn. We did that four times before we found London stock-still
     on a landing with her ear pressed against a door marked LL1. Caleb and I looked at
     each other and mouthed at the same time: “Lower Lobby One.”
    “Footsteps out there. Lots,” she said.
    “Go anyway,” I said. “This is a busy hotel. Most people won’t care what we’re doing.
     Look for a sign to the parking garage.”
    She yanked the door open, and we stepped out into another hallway, much like the first,
     only this one had people in it. Two men in white gave me pause until I realized they
     were kitchen staff, hustling a wheeled cart with a half-eaten lobster, an empty champagne
     bottle, and crumb-covered plates in one direction. Farther down the hall, three women
     wearing white tutus and swan-feathered headdresses were walking away from us, spooning
     yogurt into their mouths and chattering.
    “Kitchens must be that way.” Caleb pointed in the direction the men were going with
     the cart.
    “Theater dressing rooms that way.” I pointed toward the vanishing ladies in the tutus.
    “I hear they’ve got a cool magic show at this hotel,” said November. “I vote we go
     in the theater direction.”
    We all drew back as a man in enormous green shoes, purple fright wig, and a big red
     nose clomped past us chewing on a drumstick. His bare arms rippled with smooth muscle,
     and his red shirt was covered in orange pompoms that helped hide a built-in harness
     circling his waist.
    “Acrobat clowns?” Siku whispered.
    “Welcome to Vegas,” said Caleb.
    “The kitchens will be close to some kind of delivery dock or place where trucks drop
     off supplies,” said London. “We could slip out of the building that way.”
    “Plus, kitchens usually have cupcakes and pastries in them,” said Siku.
    “We will need a snack for the road. . . .” November was being persuaded.
    “No doubt we can get out of the building via the kitchens,” I said. “But that’s the
     obvious way to go.”
    “The Tribunal will probably send someone to that delivery area to watch for us,” Caleb
     finished my thought. “If they haven’t already.”
    “To the theater!” November scuttled off down the hallway, Siku in tow. “I want a tutu!”
    “I want big green shoes,” said Siku.
    As we hustled after them, I noticed Caleb scanning the ceiling. “Cameras?” I said.
    He shrugged. “It’s Vegas. They’re everywhere.”
    “You think the Tribunal might’ve hacked into them?”
    “Lazar’s almost as good with a computer as he is with a rifle,” Caleb said, his voice
     thickening with anger as he said his half-brother’s name. “It’s possible.”
    “You think Lazar’s here?” I hadn’t had a chance yet to tell Caleb that it had been
     Lazar who stole my DNA, or about his useless apology.
    “I hope so,” Caleb said. “Because this time he won’t get away alive.”
    We were passing the women in the tutus. As Caleb spoke, one of them swiveled her head
     to stare at him with eyes painted like elaborate black-and-silver wings.
    “Ssh,” I said. “I know you’re angry, but this isn’t the time to talk about this, let
     alone confront Lazar or anyone. . . .”
    “He killed my mother, Dez,” Caleb said. He lowered his voice, but that only made it
     darker, more deadly. “How would you feel if he killed yours?”
    That shut me up. I squeezed his arm and let it go. I’d always been able to tell Caleb
     everything, and once