Mary Robb - Down the Rabbit Hole

“We can admire the architecture later.” Eve had been studying it as well. Doors, windows, exits. She doubted her quarry would rabbit—a loss of control and power—but she wanted the layout.

“Cop face—no bullshit, straight out.”

“Sorry, I’m thinking about sex with McNab.”

“I could learn to hate you,” Eve threatened, and rang the bell.

Palm plate, cams, police locks, she noted. She stared stony-eyed ahead until the voice came through the intercom.

“Please state your business.”

Not a computer, she thought. Not with that squeaky tone. So, at least two to take on.

“NYPSD. We need to speak with Doctor Bright.”

“Doctor Bright’s unavailable. Go away, and come back later.”

“You can open the door, or I’ll stand right here until I get a warrant to open it myself.”

And if he didn’t, she’d use the warrant she already had. But the door opened a crack. She had to look down a half a foot to meet the eyes of the man with a wild thatch of brown hair. Those eyes had the pinkish tint of a funky junkie.

“The doctor can’t talk to you now.”

Eve solved the first problem by getting her foot in the door, nudging it open a little wider. “Who are you?”

“I’m Dorbert Mouse. Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Eve Dallas.” Dormouse. It suited. “Why don’t you tell Doctor Bright I’m here, along with Detective Peabody?”

“Because he can’t be interrupted when he’s communing with the Other Side!”

The quick excitability spoke of something in addition to the funk.

“He needs to commune with us.” Eve nudged the door wider still and saw the brightly colored painting of a hookah-smoking caterpillar curled on a toadstool.

“Nobody invited you! Go away!”

“Look Mouse—or is that Dormouse?”

His pink-rimmed eyes filled with rage. His nose twitched manically. “You can’t see my whiskers! They’re not for you to see.”

He kicked her, the move so unexpected his foot connected with her shin before she anticipated it. Then he ran, bolting up the steps.

“Shit. Call the e-team in for backup,” Eve ordered, and pulled her weapon as she gave chase.

He bounded up, with her and her aching shin in pursuit, and Peabody coming up behind her shouting for the e-team to move in.

He made a fast turn on the second-floor landing and vanished. But not before Eve caught the movement of a wall panel sliding shut.

She tugged at it, got nothing, then ran her fingers along the carved chair rail. When the panel slid open again, she grabbed a statue of a white rabbit with an oversized pocket watch and used it to prop the panel open.

Inside, in half light, she saw crooked steps leading up, and leading down. She closed her eyes for a moment, heard the sound of feet scrambling.

“Up,” she said. “Watch your step.”

She went up two at a time and caught sight of the shin-kicker darting down an oddly slanted corridor toward a closed door. Blue light leaked under it.

At a full run she hit the door seconds after he scurried through and went in low, weapon sweeping.

Mouse jumped up and down in the blue light, the blue fog, squealing about his whiskers. A woman with long, dark hair giggled and twirled just outside the fog. She stopped when she saw Eve, and her face filled with rage.

“Off with her head!”

To Eve’s bemusement, the woman hefted fisted hands over her head as if brandishing an axe, then charged.

Because there was yet another woman—older, sitting in a chair blanketed with that blue mist, her head cocked under a feathered hat, her eyes glazed and glassy, Eve took the quickest route.

Two short, hard left jabs put the charging woman down.

“Stay out of this blue stuff, Peabody.”

She caught a movement, saw through the blue curtain the tall, thin man in a purple top hat. Eyes wild, and yes, she supposed, mad with it.

She pivoted toward him as the world went as mad as his eyes.

Lights flashed, bright, multicolored lightning, while crazed laughter boomed. The floor seemed to tip right, then left, as she struggled to keep her balance. Images bloomed in the fog—a grinning cat, the caterpillar that puffed out more smoke, a fat white rabbit with a glinting pocket watch.

And the man in the top hat, who chortled gleefully while he poured tea into cups.

A pretty blue bottle sat on a table, a white light beaming on it. A large label dangled from it.

It said: Drink Me.

And it was tempting.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Peabody step forward, start to reach out. And snapping back, Eve grabbed her arm, yanked.

“Don’t.”

“But it says!”

She saw now they’d stepped too close, that the fog twined around them. Feeling light-headed, she shoved Peabody clear, stumbled back.

She thought she heard voices echoing, and running feet pounding. More coming to the party.

She barely swallowed down the giggle that rose to her throat and aimed her stunner at what she hoped was the man in the hat and not some illusion.

“Turn this shit off, now, or I’ll put you down.”

“No need,” Roarke said, and the flashing lights fell with a resounding crash—or so it seemed to Eve. The mist crawled back on tiny blue feet to be swallowed up by a gaping mouth in the floor.

“Shit. Shit. I inhaled.”

“You’ll be all right.” Roarke hauled the man in the hat away from some sort of computer. The computer became a fat cat that yawned and stretched, then curled up to sleep.

“Mind taking him?” Roarke passed the Mad Hatter to Callendar.

“No prob. Hey, asshole.”

“You’re not the White Queen.”

“No. I’m an e-bitch goddess. Illegals coming in, McNabber. I’m bringing in the wagon for this group.”

“Yeah, good.” He was on the floor, cuddling Peabody, who patted his cheek and smiled dreamily.

“Hi, sweetie! Want to have lots and lots of sex?”

“Yeah, that’d be frosty. How about we get you some air first? What the hell’s in that stuff?” he asked Roarke.

“A wild trip, I’d say, but hardly fatal, as the three of these had their share. Best call in the MTs.”

“Aw, man, don’t call them.” Eve waved the idea away with her stunner; Roarke gently took it from her. “I’m fine, we’re all fine. Got the bad guys. Somebody oughta do something with the lady over there. She is out of it.”

“The MTs will see to her.” But his wife was Roarke’s priority.

“Okay, good. She prolly thinks she’s talking to a dead relative.”

Roarke put a supporting arm around her waist and led her out.

“I gotta secure the scene and investigate.”

“The Illegals detectives can handle that part now.” He thought about telling her to mind the stairs, then just solved it by picking her up.

“You’re so pretty. The mouse kicked me in the shin.” Giggling, she kicked her feet. “I fell down the rabbit hole.”

“So it would seem.”

“I didn’t like it. I like being here with you better.”

She was placid enough sitting on his lap while an MT examined her. And perfectly cooperative when he bundled her into the car. As he drove, he could see her start to come back by the way her body lost that pliancy and her eyes started to clear.

“And there you are. Take this.”

“What. Jesus.” She shoved at her hair, and the raging headache under her skull, knocking off the snowflake hat she knew she hadn’t put on for the trip to Bright’s.

“It’s for the headache the medicals promised you’d have when you started coming down. And drink this.” He passed her a bottle of water as he continued to drive downtown. “Just water. You’ll be dehydrated a bit.”

Her throat felt as though she’d swallowed sand. She took the stupid pill, guzzled the water. “Bright.”