"Self-knowledge," Magda said.

Mort nodded. "Self-knowledge."

Flannery touched his ear and said, "We have a decision. If it won't harm Sanderson, we'd prefer she try to break out of the silver-lined one."

"I'll leave the choice up to her, as long as we are clear that it's not an order," I said.

"I understand it is my choice," she said, still giving me that blank look that I knew could be hiding almost any thought or feeling. I knew one thing: Whatever was going on behind her blue-gray eyes, if she said she could break out of both cells, then she could.

"Is there anything in the cells that will hurt Magda other than the silver in the paint?" Socrates asked.

"What do you mean?" Flannery asked.

"Is anything booby-trapped?"

It was an excellent question. "I knew I brought you along for a reason, because you ask better questions than I do."

He smiled at the compliment but gave serious eyes back to the other man. "Is there anything in the cell that we need to know about before we put one of our people inside it?"

"What Socrates said," I said.

"We are trying to create a jail that will hold the supernatural. A regular jail cell would not be booby-trapped, and neither is this one," Flannery said.

"Promise?" I said.

He gave a small smile. "Promise."

I looked at Magda. "It's up to you."

She smiled then, and just walked into the silver-coated cell.

"You can't use any of your weapons to break out, because we'd confiscate them from a real prisoner," Mort said.

"Understood," she said. She just stood there calmly, waiting for them to close the door.

Flannery gave the signal and the door started to swing shut. I watched her as long as I could, but her expression never changed. The door closed with a whoosh instead of a clang. I didn't understand exactly how the door worked, or where the lock was, but I didn't like having one of my people on the wrong side of it.

I leaned into Nicky and asked, "Would just standing surrounded by that much silver hurt?"

"Not unless it touches our skin," he whispered back.

Socrates leaned in close and said, "It would still be unnerving as hell."

"Nothing unnerves Magda," Nicky said.

I agreed, but I still stared at the door and prayed, Don't let her get hurt proving this point.

44.

THE HALLWAY SEEMED very quiet after the door shut. It was almost like that hush before a storm, or like that moment when you close the door to the gun room behind you and you're in that little air lock room between the gun shop and the firing range where both doors must be closed before you can open the one that leads to the actual firing line. At the gun range you can hear the gunshots from the next room, but they're muffled both from the door and the room's soundproofing and the ear protection you're already wearing, but you know that on the other side of that last door it's going to be loud and full of potentially deadly things.

It was quiet for several minutes, so that Brennan said, "She's not getting out of there."

Something hit the door so hard the metal rang. Brennan jumped, and he wasn't the only one. "Magda was looking the door over, figuring out where best to apply force," Socrates said.

The metal rang again, and there was an almost whining sound with the next blow. "What is that?" I asked.

"The metal protesting," Nicky said.

A spot in the door began to bow outward. I realized that Magda was kicking the door over and over again in the exact same spot. Had she figured out the lock mechanism? Had she spotted the weakest point on the metal? Or had she just chosen a spot and started pounding at it? I'd ask her later.

Nicky looked at our three hosts and asked, "What are you going to do when she gets out?"

Donnie showed a Taser in her hand. I shook my head. "Nope, we didn't negotiate for you hitting Magda with a Taser."

The door began to crumple outward where she was kicking it. Mort asked, "Would a Taser slow her down?"

"Do they affect us? Yes. But not through a heavy jacket and sweater," Nicky said.

"And if the Taser just causes them pain but doesn't stop them, you better have another idea," I said.

"Pepper spray," Donnie said.

"If it wouldn't work on a bear, don't try it on a lycanthrope," I said.

"We don't have bears in Ireland."

"America has bears and it's not that pepper spray in their eyes might not work, but your chances of getting it in their eyes before they claw you badly are pretty small. Same goes for wereanimals-you'll never make it."

The metal door looked like a bubble was growing in it, a rapidly thinning bubble. It wasn't a question of if, but when she'd break through, and they still didn't have a secondary plan. Lucky it wasn't a real bad guy busting the door.

"What are you going to do?" Nicky asked.

"Flash-bang," Mort said.

"It would disorient her, but then what?" Nicky asked.

"We subdue her," he said.

"How?" Socrates asked.

Mort pulled out what looked like a small black stick in his hand; one sharp movement downward and the "stick" telescoped out into a baton. It was an ASP, which was like a thin club and you could use it like one; it was good for pressure points and just a policeman's little helper.

"Are you seriously going to try to subdue Magda with an ASP?" Socrates asked.

"Yes."

The door shuddered.

"You haven't tried hand-to-hand with one of us yet."

"No. Why?"

"When she comes through the door, if Nicky or Anita tells her to put on a show . . . you'll have your answer." Socrates said it and started moving back down the hallway. He was right. If they were really going to be swinging at her and she was going to be dodging and maybe swinging back, farther away was going to be better.

Nicky took my arm and started backing us both away from the door. The door didn't fall down like it would in the movies. It bowed outward and I think she peeled it partway out of the doorframe, because I got a glimpse of her hair and face, a shoulder through the opening. I was strong, but not strong enough to look at that door and think, I'll just kick it until it breaks. That was like superhero strong, supernatural strong.

Donnie, Brennan, and Mort had their ASPs out and ready. Flannery had backed down the hallway in the other direction. Since I couldn't see a door on that side, he was still trapped with a potentially pissed werelion.

Magda shoved her shoulder into the opening she'd made at the edge of the door and wall, braced her hand on the doorframe, and just shoved. If I'd been either of the three waiting humans I might have jumped the gun and tried to hit her then, but they didn't, because we were all on the same side, or they were just too amazed at what she was doing to move. Either way, she was about to come out.

Nicky called out, "Magda, don't hurt them much!"

Her eyes flicked up to see more of the hallway. She shoved one last time hard, the metal screaming with the force of it, electronics sparking around her. Mort braced and did a little bounce on the balls of his feet, some kind of martial arts training. Brennan looked like he was about to box, and Donnie was just ready. I don't know how much of it Magda actually saw, but she gave that snarling smile that I'd started thinking of as a werelion kind of thing. She looked like she was going to push at the door again, but instead she ducked back into the room.

Mort stayed ready, so did Brennan, so did Donnie, but nothing happened. The hallway and the cell with its peeled-open door were quiet except for the sparking of the electronics that Magda had damaged when she opened the door.

Flannery yelled, "She's coming!"

If I'd done the math, I'd have said that Magda couldn't have leaped through the narrow opening she'd made, but I wasn't doing the math. She came through that improbable opening in a blur that even I couldn't follow. It was more a sense of movement like I saw her behind my eyes where you see dreams . . . or nightmares.

45.

THE BLUR THAT was Magda hit the wall opposite the door and bounced back. Mort was the only one fast enough to hit the floor, so she went over him, but she hit Donnie and Brennan both. If we hadn't told her not to hurt them, they'd have been done, but not hurting someone in a fight is harder than it sounds. Pulling your punch takes more skill than landing one, but even pulled they both went flying. Brennan hit the wall beside the other cell. Donnie slid across the floor and caught herself against the wall, but rolled to her feet and was in a fighting stance before Magda was on her again, which was pretty damn impressive.

Mort actually hit Magda as she came over him to go for Donnie again. It didn't hurt her, but it threw off her leap and made her use the wall to turn and come back for him. I could see Mort as he fought with the blur that I knew was Magda. He was trying to land a blow, any blow, with the baton in his hand. I didn't understand how he was avoiding her blows, but I knew he was, because his other arm was coming up and he was moving like he was fighting. I started to be able to see her moving, but it was still like watching the afterimage as if you saw where she'd been, not where she was, because your eye just couldn't comprehend the speed. Mort had to be seeing her better than I did, because he was blocking her blows. It was like they were sparring, but it was movie-special-effects sparring, because no one moved like this in real life. It was like watching magic.

Donnie tried to back Mort up, and she got a few hits with her baton, but she seemed to have more trouble timing her blows with Magda's movements. Twice she almost hit Mort, because he moved with Magda and by the time Donnie swung she had a different target, one she didn't want to hit. It was like Mort and Magda were dancing and Donnie was trying to cut in.

Brennan staggered as he got up off the floor from where he'd fallen. He was shaken, maybe hurt. If you don't know how to fall, you shouldn't spar. Magda hadn't meant to hurt him, but she'd trusted that he knew how to keep himself safe.

Mort bent backward at the waist, so Magda swept over him. Donnie tried to come from the other side and Magda reacted to it, but Donnie was immediately on the defensive. "Don't try to see her. Feel it," Mort said, as he avoided Magda's blows and Donnie waded in and got shoved out of the way again.

Donnie said, "What do you mean, don't see her?"

Brennan tried to join the fight, but whatever had happened in the initial rush made him too slow. His baton vanished from his hand in a movement so quick that he was left staring at his empty hand as if it had literally vanished instead of Magda grabbing it and spinning away with it.

Mort finally hit her and he didn't expect to, so he connected harder than he'd planned. Magda slowed down enough that I saw her face clearly and the bright red at her cheek. He'd bled her. There was a second where he saw it, too, and his face showed that he was sorry, but she touched the blood on her face and then spun toward him with that blurring speed, and if I'd thought the fight was furiously fast before, I'd been wrong. Mort could not keep her from hitting him; no human could have.

Donnie moved in to help but was sent staggering back with blood on her own face. This had gone far enough. Apparently Brennan thought so, too, because he drew his sidearm and pointed it at the fight. Magda was moving too fast for him to be certain of hitting her and not Mort, and we were standing on the other side of the fight. There were too many friendly targets in the hallway. Fuck.

46.

DONNIE YELLED, "BRENNAN, stand down!"

I had my gun in my hand and hadn't meant to draw it. Brennan couldn't get a solid target on the moving fight, but all I had to do was hit him. I yelled, "Brennan, down, put it down, now!"

Donnie stood up taller and was suddenly all I could see down the barrel of the gun. I lowered it and aimed at the ruined cell. "Donnie, down, floor!"

"Don't shoot him," she said.

"Disarm him, Donnie, or we will," Socrates said.

Flannery moved at the other end of the hallway. "Brennan, holster your weapon."

"It's the only way to stop it," Brennan said.

Mort fell to the floor and Magda knelt over him, the baton coming down. Nicky yelled, "Magda!" and his beast's energy filled the hallway in a skin-trembling rush. She hesitated, looking at him with eyes gone to lion orange. Socrates was already moving down the hallway in his own dark blur of speed, but he wasn't as fast as Magda. Nicky had chosen not to rush the fight, afraid he'd spook Brennan more. Nicky put his body in front of mine to shield me, so that I didn't see what happened next. The gunshot was thunderous in the hallway. You forget how loud it is without ear protection.

I tried to move around Nicky, but he kept his body firm in front of mine. Damn it! "What's happening?"

He moved enough that I could see around him, but he kept one arm sort of back so that he kept me swept mostly behind him. But I could see Magda helping Mort to his feet. Donnie was holding a gun in her hand, but I could still see her own gun in its holster at her side. Maybe she had a backup, but I was betting it was Brennan's gun. Had she disarmed him before Socrates could?

Flannery had Brennan up against the wall, talking low and urgently to him. The younger man wasn't fighting to get away, but he wasn't happy either. Socrates was standing beside Donnie and Flannery.

"What the fuck just happened?" I asked.

"Donnie and Flannery disarmed him before Socrates got there," Nicky said.

I still had my own gun out. I let out the last of a breath I hadn't even realized I was holding and holstered it.

The door behind us opened and I almost went for my gun again, but it was Edward and Nolan. I started to breathe again and tried to relax, but that wasn't happening completely. We needed out of this hallway, or I did.

"I thought Forrester had trained you up better than that, Blake," Nolan said; he was angry and looking for a target. I wasn't sure why that target wasn't Brennan, but if he wanted to fight, that was fine with me.