“If you say so.”
He was too far away to continue the conversation. Will strode through the entrance with casual confidence. He walked past a couple of students and down the main hall, wondering where he would find the basement stairs. A young man at the front desk stopped him with a question. “What are you looking for?”
“Professor Dugas,” said Will immediately.
“His office is over at the Engineering building.”
“Sorry, I meant Salsbury—Professor Salsbury.”
The other student, who Will didn’t recognize, shook his head. “Sorry, he isn’t in today. All the staff are in a meeting at Administration.”
God damn it, just leave me alone, thought Will. He didn’t want to have to start disabling people before he even got started. “I’ll just leave a note on his door. Do you know where it is?”
“Second floor. You’ll see the signs.”
Will thanked him and headed down the hall, breathing a sigh of relief. He wanted to be out of sight before the soldiers entered and chaos ensued. The main stairs were off to the right, halfway down the main corridor, and now that he thought about it, they were probably the best place to start looking. They provided access to all the upper floors, so it seemed logical that the basement stairs probably originated in the same area.
Once there, he decided it was less than obvious. The stairs were wide enough for three students to walk abreast, and they led upward only, stopping solidly on the ground level. On either side of the stairs were side doors that led into maintenance areas and closets respectively. A man looked up at him curiously as he looked into the maintenance room. Will nodded and ducked out. “Wrong turn.”
There were two other doors, but neither of them led to anything. Maybe the basement stairs start in the maintenance area. If it’s only used for storage, that might make sense. Moving back to that door, he cracked it until he caught sight of the man within. He seemed to be working on something. Will’s sleep spell sent him sagging to the floor. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. Down the hall, he could hear a commotion as the soldiers entered the front doors of the building and made their announcements.
Shit, if they find him sleeping, that will arouse their suspicion, he realized. Glancing around the room, Will took stock. On the opposite side of the room were two double doors leading somewhere. On the left side were lockers and a rack for storing cleaning implements and supplies; to the right was a cluttered desk and an old ratty chair. Perfect.
Sleep spells didn’t keep the target in an enforced slumber, but right after the spell took effect the subject tended to be very hard to wake. Will got a grip underneath the worker’s arms and dragged him over to the desk. Lifting him up high enough to settle into the chair was difficult, but he managed it, though he was grateful that the man was relatively skinny. From there he simply arranged the fellow with his head on his arms, leaning over the desk. The soldiers would hopefully assume he had fallen asleep on the job.
He could hear loud steps in the hall, so he moved on to the double doors, since there was no other obvious exit. It was a relief when he saw a modest stair behind them, leading downward. There was no light, so once he closed the doors behind him, he had to adjust his vision. Simply increasing his light sensitivity wouldn’t do, for there was no light. He had to change to heart-light before he could brave the stairs.
Will was halfway down the stairs when he had an unsettling thought. How often does anyone come down here? If the answer was almost never, and the area was unlit, well that made it an almost perfect place for vampires to hide. His heart rate doubled in the span of seconds. Damn it, stay calm, he told himself. His pounding heart ignored him.
He’d already used his sleep spell and he’d meant to replace it, but now he wondered if another sleep spell was really the right choice. Taking several steps back up the stairs, he constructed an Ethelgren’s Illumination without debating it further. His fear of vampires was far greater than his fear of soldiers.
Better prepared, he slowly descended. There was no door at the bottom, just an opening into a large room interspersed with heavy stone pillars to support the building above. As he looked around, he realized that the size of the area was deceptive. There were crates stacked up here and there, along with dusty pieces of furniture and other items that were no longer in use. The effect of all that was to give the impression of walls, when in fact it was merely an interruption of his line of sight. As he moved farther in it was apparent that the basement was fully as large as the floor above, and it was a single room.
The stone pillars that supported the multilevel building above were massive, approximately ten feet in width and scattered no more than twenty feet apart. Between those and the sheer amount of stuff stored between them, the open basement was more of a labyrinth.
“How the hell am I going to find it in all this junk?” he muttered quietly. It could be in a box, or a display case, or buried under any number of things. The sheer size of the area he needed to search was daunting. If I ever need to protect something important, I’m going to hide it in a place like this. Locks can’t stop me, but this has me completely flummoxed.
He decided to work outward until he reached one of the outer walls, then make a rough circuit of the entire area. After that he would cut across a few times. He probably wouldn’t find the relic, but if it was in something obvious, he might get lucky. If not, he would at least have a mental image of the layout and the various regions of junk to be searched.
There were also the soldiers to consider. They’ll do the upper floors, knowing they won’t find anything, just to be thorough. Once those are done, they’ll cordon off the lower level and make a serious search of the basement. He didn’t actually know any of that for sure, but it seemed like the wisest course. Either way, they would likely be coming down before he found what he was looking for, so he would need to figure out where he would hide.
Inside something was a bad idea, whereas standing against a blank wall was probably the best. An empty section of wall wouldn’t be searched, and the chameleon spell would work best there. Moving forward, he began inspecting the area around him, with an eye for both the relic and an empty section of wall.
He almost forgot his fear of finding vampires. Almost.
Looking up, he saw something odd protruding from the low ceiling. In the gray on gray of his current vision, it took a moment to sort out what he was seeing. It looked something like a pile of rags, or it would have if it had been lying on the ground, but this was the ceiling.
Then it moved, and he saw a hand. His mouth went dry. Fuck!
It was a mass of vampires, huddled together on the ceiling, clinging there by their fingertips, as though gravity wasn’t really a concern. Will froze in place, his eyes glued to the enemy above. Are they asleep? He was alone, so it seemed improbable that they would have feared to attack him.
Then he saw a face; its eyes blinked slowly as it watched him. They were perfectly aware of his presence. They don’t know I can see them in the dark, he realized. And they’re probably thinking I’ll leave. If they kill me it would give away their hiding place, in the middle of the day, so they couldn’t relocate to someplace safer.