The Panic Button

It turned out the panic button did not call the police. Wendy pressed it at 11:58 and the floor of the Hex and Bean simply stopped being the floor. She landed on a different floor, a older one, flagstone, in a room she had never seen behind a door she had wiped down a thousand times. The cafe had a back room. The back room was full of people. The people were all regulars, and they were all looking at her with the specific guilt of a surprise party that has gone slightly wrong. "We were going to tell you," said the man who always ordered the bottomless filter coffee and never seemed to leave. "After your probation." "My probation ended in March." "Yes," he agreed. "Well." He gestured at the room, at the maps and the wards and the very large weapon mounted over the fireplace. "Surprise. The cafe is also other things. And you, it seems, are also other things, or Moira wouldn't have warned you." Wendy sat down on the nearest crate. It was a long way from the bus stop.