Draycos didn't reply. "I know it's dangerous," Jack went on. "But right now I can't think of anything else to try. If you'd rather, I'm willing to wait a bit and see if we come up with something else."
"No," the dragon said. "If we are to make our escape, we must do so at once. Neverlin already knows about me, though it would appear he hasn't passed that knowledge on to the rest of the Malison Ring."
"But if they contact him and he spills the beans, it's all over," Jack agreed grimly. "First thing they'd do is move us someplace where none of these tricks would work."
"So let us do it," Draycos decided. "Put your back against the wall."
Jack shifted around and pressed his back against the side of the cell. He felt the dragon shift around on his skin, lifting his two-dimensional form through the extra dimension and leaning over the barrier.
For a moment nothing happened. Then, all at once, there was a sudden movement against Jack's back, and Draycos was gone.
Jack took a careful breath. There was no way of knowing whether or not the trick had been successful. Still, it had felt about the same as the time it had happened accidentally. He hoped that meant Draycos was all right.
Jack had just moved away from the wall when, across the room, the two guards quietly collapsed onto the floor.
Jack stared at them in disbelief. Draycos hadn't even made it out of the office yet. How could he have—?
And then, as Jack's suddenly sluggish brain tried to figure it out, he caught a hint of a familiar odor wafting toward him.
Someone was pumping sopor mist into the room.
Jack twisted back around, holding his breath as he pounded three quick times against the sidewall. If he and Draycos fell asleep before they could get back together, the commandant wouldn't need Neverlin or anyone else to tell him something strange was going on.
Jack had lifted his hand to hit the wall again when the universe went dark.
CHAPTER 3
The room beside Jack's cell was a cramped junior staffers' office, with desks and chairs for three people and a single window opening out the rear of the building. Draycos had only just started looking for something to attract the guards' attention when he heard Jack's pounding on the wall.
He leaped across the room and pressed one ear against the door. Had the mercenaries decided to begin the interrogation?
And then, seeping in under the door, he caught a whiff of something he'd smelled once back at the Whinyard's Edge training camp. It was sopor gas, a weapon used to put enemies to sleep.
Quickly, he took a deep breath, filling his lungs to full capacity before the gas could become thick enough to affect him. Then, carefully, he eased the door open a crack.
The two guards across the outer room were already asleep, lying crumpled on the floor. No one else was visible. Frowning, he pulled the door the rest of the way open and slipped around the corner to look into the cell. Jack was alone, and fast asleep.
There was no time now to try to figure out what was going on. He had to get Jack out of here, and the sleeping guards across the outer room were his best chance of doing that. If one of them had a key, he could perhaps get Jack out through the office window before he himself ran out of air.
He was crouching for a leap across the room when there was a click and the outer double doors began to swing open.
Draycos twisted around, darting instead back into the office. He flicked his tail at the edge of the door as he passed, trying to swing it closed.
But he missed, and then it was too late. He felt the subtle air currents as the far door swung all the way open, and heard the soft sounds of someone jogging quickly toward Jack's cell.
For a moment the footsteps seemed to falter. Then, they continued on.
Only now they seemed to be coming straight toward the half-open office door.
There was no time for anything clever. Draycos leaped to the far side of one of the desks, landing as silently as he could. He wormed his body past the chair and ducked out of sight.
He was barely in time. The steps paused, and the office door swung all the way open.
Draycos froze in place. Now, too late, he wondered if the intruder might have an infrared scanner that would penetrate the material of the desk. The other stood in the doorway for perhaps five seconds, and Draycos caught the slightly sinister hiss of a full-helmet gas mask. Then, to his relief, the footsteps headed away toward Jack's cell.
Silently, Draycos rose from his hiding place and padded back to the door. With the other's full attention on Jack, it was time for him to make his move. He eased one eye around the edge of the door—
And felt his tail stiffen in stunned surprise.
It wasn't Arthur Neverlin or one of his Brummgan thugs, as he'd first feared. Nor was it some local Malison Ring soldier who'd decided to go ahead and start Jack's interrogation on his own. It was, instead, possibly the last person Draycos would ever have expected to see again.
It was Alison Kayna.
A kaleidoscope of memories rippled through his mind as he ducked back out of sight. Alison had been the very best of the teenaged recruits whom Jack had joined in his infiltration of the Whinyard's Edge. She'd been smart, resourceful, and far more skilled than a raw recruit should have been. Especially one who was no older than Jack himself.
She and Jack had also been among the handful of those recruits who'd been marked for death. Only by working together had they managed to escape.
Now, against all odds, here she was in the middle of a Malison Ring office.
And for some reason she was trying to get to Jack.
The cell door snicked open. Draycos cased forward for another look, his brain and muscles frozen with indecision. He didn't have nearly enough air left for a long fight. But if Alison intended to harm his host, it was Draycos's duty to do whatever he could to prevent that.
Yet why would Alison want to hurt Jack?
There was another rustle of cloth, and Alison emerged from the cell, Jack's sleeping form slung over her shoulder in a variant of a Shontine hunter's lift. Staggering a little under his weight, she hurried toward the exit.
There was no way Draycos could follow them out, at least not without Alison spotting him. Fortunately, it also didn't look as if she intended Jack any immediate harm. That she could have done right there in the cell.
Which suggested that she'd come in here to help him escape.
There were a lot of questions Draycos didn't have answers for. But the ache in his lungs was an urgent reminder that he wouldn't be answering questions or doing anything else if he didn't get himself to fresh air.
A quick slash of his claws shredded the lock mechanism on the office window. It probably also set off a dozen alarms, but he doubted now that anyone in the building was in any condition to hear them. A tug on the sash and he was outside. Hitting the ground, he spun around and leaped upward onto the roof.
He paused there a moment to gasp in a few lungfuls of air. Then he set off toward the front of the building, wondering if there were other security cameras up here besides the four he'd dealt with.
But whether there were or not, he had no time to look for them. If Alison got Jack to a vehicle before he could overtake her, he might never see the boy again. Certainly not before his six-hour time limit ended and he died.
Fortunately, a burdened fourteen-year-old girl was considerably slower than an unburdened K'da. Draycos was at the parapet, searching the street and nearby buildings for signs of trouble, when Alison and Jack emerged through the front door.