Free Afterparty by Daryl Gregory Page B

got out of the car, and Ollie looked at me without recognition, her face pinched and nervous, ready to run. Then I said her name, and she hopped up, began walking quickly toward us.
    Dr. Gloria said, “Bobby’s right, we shouldn’t be helping her escape. It isn’t fair to her. She’s better off in the ward.”
    “She’s a grown woman. She can go back whenever she wants, and God knows she can get out whenever she wants.”
    Ollie touched me on the arm like a runner tagging safe. Neither of us were huggers. She slid into the backseat, and I followed her in.
    Bobby said, “Hi, Ollie!” Overdoing the cheerfulness.
    She closed her eyes, pressed a hand into her forehead. Still shaky, coming down off the meds.
    “Turn up the heat, Bobby,” I said. He pulled into the street, and I said to Ollie, “How you doing?”
    Her eyes slid across my face, unable to gain traction. “I’ll be better when we’re away from the hospital.”
    “So no problems getting out, Doctor … Srinigar?”
    She touched the badge she wore on a lanyard and allowed herself a half smile. Hospital security had never been a problem for Ollie. She lifted pass cards, security badges, and keys, then kept them hidden in her mattress. We used to go for midnight runs to the kitchen and raid the fridges. She could unlock most doors with the twist of a wire coat hanger, but only with her eyes closed, doing it by feel. My job was to point her at the doors and guide her back to the NAT ward. I had no idea how she’d managed to get out of the building on her own and navigate three blocks, even after twelve hours off the meds. But here she was.
    “Did you bring any of your Alisprazole?” I asked.
    “About a dozen pills.”
    Dr. G said, “She should stay on her meds. Going off now—”
    “She’ll be fine,” I told the doctor.
    “Lyda…,” Dr. G chided.
    I breathed in. To Ollie I said, “We don’t have to do this. You can stay on them. I can talk to my dealer and get more when we need them.”
    “I thought you needed me,” Ollie said. “Immediately.”
    “I do.”
    “So I thought we’d do a jumpstart.”
    “No!” Dr. G said. “Absolutely not!”
    “Unless you’ve got five or six days to let my system flush out,” Ollie said.
    “I kind of need you tonight,” I said.
    The car exploded with subjective light. “I will not participate in this!” Dr. Gloria declared. I heard a shriek of metal, and then a rush of wind. I yelled, thinking, stupidly, that Bobby had also been blinded and crashed the car.
    Ollie yelled, “Lyda! What’s going on?” Bobby shouted too.
    I opened my eyes a sliver. Dr. G’s wings were at full extension, and the tips had ripped a ragged hole in the top of the car. The wind roared. The doctor brought her wings down and then shot into the sky.
    “Hypocrite,” I said. I’d thrown an arm over my eyes, and I was crying from the blast of light. I still felt the wind whipping through the exit hole.
    “Are you all right?” Ollie asked. “Was that your—?”
    “Give me a second,” I said.
    There is no wind, I told myself. No hole. No furious angel.
    I sat back against the seat, eyes closed. The sound of the wind died down, became the hum of the tires. Bobby, still upset, kept asking me if he should pull over.
    “I’m fine,” I told him. “Just stay on the road.”
    After several minutes I said to Ollie, “So. This thing.”
    She said, “What do you need me to do?”
    While we rode into Toronto I told her about Fayza, the storefront church, the printer inside. How Fayza was waiting for me to test the communion wafers. Hootan had insisted on taking half the box to bring to Fayza, and if she decided to check them herself she’d find nothing but water and flour.
    “I need that printer,” I said. “And the precursor packs.”
    “That’s why you had me get out? To break into a strip mall?”
    There was one other thing. But it depended on what happened with the printer.
    “I can’t do it without you,” I