Free 39 Clues _ Cahills vs. Vespers [03] The Dead of Night by Peter Lerangis

. . . this will hold . . . !” he shouted.
    With a sickening
ping
, the metal flew into the shaft like a flicked toothpick. Alistair doubled over in pain. “My hand!”
    The bed frame jerked down. Phoenix’s heart skipped a beat. “Keep pushing!” Reagan shouted.
    Nellie and Fiske raced to his side. Their added strength allowed Phoenix to duck away and grab the other pole.
    “You’ll kill yourself!” Alistair warned. “The pressure is too great!”
    Ignoring him, Phoenix reached into the gap. He stuck one end of the pole into a depression in the metal frame of the dumbwaiter. Carefully he slid the other end into a small hole in the wall frame.
    It held. Barely.
    The dumbwaiter began to vibrate violently. A coil of acrid black smoke rose from below.
    And then the motor went dead.
    Phoenix leaned his head into the gap and stared upward. A dull greenish-white light emitted from a wall opening about twelve feet above. “I see them!” he said.
    “Go!” Reagan urged.
    Gripping the dumbwaiter roof, Phoenix hoisted himself upward, into the darkness. He planted his feet on the roof and began shimmying up the elevator cable. He could see Reagan below him, following close behind.
    Phoenix had never been able to climb more than five feet on the rope in gym class. It felt as if someone had plunged knives into his biceps. “I . . . can’t!”
    “You will!” Inches below him, Reagan managed to reach up with one hand, gather the soles of both of his feet, and give them a powerful shove.
    Phoenix vaulted upward and tumbled through the wall opening and onto a cold tile floor.
    He sprang to his feet, blinded momentarily by the fluorescent lights overhead. He was in a long room lined with file cabinets. “We did it, Reagan!”
    Reagan jumped into the room, landing in a crouch. “Don’t just stand there — get ’em!”
    She raced past Phoenix. He blinked away the brightness. At the far wall, two people sat at a bank of computers, facing away from them.
    Phoenix followed, his blood pumping. The people weren’t moving. Now he could see over their shoulders, to the monitors. Each was divided into multiple views: the two prison rooms below. The corridor outside the cell. The dumbwaiter shaft.
    His stomach sank.
They’ve been watching us all along!
    That was when he realized that another image on the screen was
this room
— Phoenix and Reagan running toward a camera like a mirror.
    The two Vespers rose calmly and turned. They were wearing gas masks.
    “Stop, drop, and roll!” Reagan shouted, throwing herself to the floor.
    Phoenix nearly barreled into her. Plumes of smoke swirled out of gas jets in the wall, surrounding them both.
    And all went black.

“I smell sheep, no?”
    The voice came from just outside the cell door, high-pitched and lilting. Amy opened her eyes and realized she’d fallen asleep. All she could manage was a groggy “Huh?”
    A gray-haired woman appeared outside the door, silhouetted in the harsh fluorescent light. “You have been consorting with sheep earlier this day.”
    Amy suddenly remembered they hadn’t had a chance to change since their encounter with the Wyomings. “Um, yes, sort of.”
    Dan rose from his thin mattress. He stared uncomprehendingly at the shadowy woman. “Don’t tell me. The Ghost of Christmas Past?”
    She opened a shapeless cloth coat and pulled out an ID card. “Amato,” she said. “Luna Amato. Interpol. Perhaps you heard of me? I asked your friends to give you a message. A large boy. And one who is into the rapping music. No? Ah, well, no matter. We meet anyway.”
    Amy cocked her head curiously. The woman had a brusque, matter-of-fact manner, but there was a glint of kindness in her eyes.
    Or maybe that was wishful thinking.
    “If you came to yell at us, too late,” Dan said. “Milos Vanek beat you to it.”
    “I come to transfer you. I trust you will not miss these chambers?” Amato pulled a key and two sets of handcuffs from her coat pocket. She unlocked