by Logan Jacobs
“Of course you can,” I insisted. “Why wouldn’t you make it?”
Darwin shook his head and refused to say anything else.
“Freya won’t go anywhere without you,” I reminded him.
“She was willing to leave Motown without me,” Darwin pointed out. “She may miss me at first, but she’d be okay.”
“We’d all miss you,” I replied and realized I wasn’t exaggerating.
We were in the shadow of the building by then, and I could see the guard on duty just inside the glass door. He watched our approach with one hand on his crossbow and it was hard to find fault with his nervousness. The only thing he knew about us was that we weren’t regulars at the D.M.
“There’s still a lot of tension,” I observed.
“And it’s about to get worse,” Darwin added as he scanned the area.
I followed his gaze toward the edge of the building where a small group of protesters had appeared. They must have climbed over the barricades, and for a moment, I wondered why the police hadn’t stopped them. Then the sounds of a brawl filtered toward us from the front of the building and the scene suddenly made sense. These mage supporters had snuck away while the others were locked in a fight with the police. What I wasn’t sure about was whether they simply planned to leave on their own, or if they had an eye toward more trouble.
Darwin and I stopped and watched the group for a few seconds as they peered around the park. After some indecision, the handful of people started toward the snow dusted grass. Once the escapees had opted to move away from the building, we started to move again, on a straight line toward the back door. We trotted across the packed snow rather than following the curving path of the sidewalk, and we were close to the steps when we heard more yelling behind us.
We turned around in time to see that a private carriage had pulled up and a well-dressed couple had stepped onto the sidewalk. The pair started across the snowy field toward the back door as the carriage pulled away, but several of the one-time protesters had seen them as well. The couple were apparently recognized and several shouts of ‘evil tech’ went up as the pack moved toward the couple. The man and woman tried to hurry across the snow, but neither wore shoes designed for a hasty retreat across an icy surface. The woman almost fell twice, and then they were surrounded by the protesters.
“Shit,” Darwin muttered as he watched the unfolding scene.
“Guard’s not doing anything,” I noted as I looked back at the glass door. The guard still stood just inside the door and that’s apparently where he had decided he would remain.
“Guess it’s up to us then,” Darwin huffed as he started toward the ring of protesters.
“I guess you’re right, old man,” I replied with a grin.
And then the woman screamed, the man went down, and the protesters were yelling about blood money.
Chapter 5
The first thing I noticed was the bright splash of blood on the snow. Against the bright white, the red stain was hard to miss. The trail of blood led back to the man from the carriage, who was doubled over on his knees with an arm wrapped around his stomach. His companion, a woman in her thirties with thick auburn hair and a heart shaped face, tried to push one of the protesters away with one hand while she protected her pearl necklace with the other.
The faces of the protesters were filled with anger and rage, and it was obvious that they weren’t going to be satisfied with only hurling a few insults. Darwin jumped into the fray first and grabbed the arm of a man who had been lining up to punch the man on the ground. With a quick twist, the ex-trooper had the man in a hammerlock, and a kick to the back of the knees left the attacker crouching on a patch of ice.
I ducked a swinging punch and retaliated with a hard jab and an uppercut that sent a man who reeked of fish tumbling into a snow drift. When I looked up, I saw that Darwin was trading jabs with another protester while the woman from the carriage tried to help her companion to his feet. I was happy to see that the blood came from the well-dressed man’s head and not his chest, but it still seemed like he’d lost too much.
The other protesters noticed that their attack was no longer the straightforward beat down they had envisioned, and the two women in the group quickly ran away after they spat on the woman from the carriage. That just left two men in front of me, one of whom was overweight and already red in the face from exertion, and a slender man with a cleft lip. Both started toward me, and I started to reach for the revolver when we all heard a soft grunt and the sound of something hitting the snow. A quick glance revealed that Darwin had taken down another protester, and the last two men exchanged looks. After a moment, they followed after the women.
“We need to get him inside,” I said as I steadied the well-dressed man with my shoulder.
The man was probably ten years older than his companion, though he didn’t yet have the small lines around the corners of his eyes or the edge of his lips. His hair was a lighter shade of brown, though one whole side was now red. His breathing was normal, though, and his eyes were open and steady if filled with pain. He slumped against me and let me half-carry him along the sidewalk toward the D.M. building.
The guard finally emerged, just long enough to hold the door open for our little group. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t tried to help, since he certainly looked fit and he carried a small arsenal of bolts for the crossbow, so even if he hadn’t wanted to physically fight, he could have defended the couple. It seemed odd, but at least he’d had enough sense to find someone in the building who knew something about healing wounds, a short woman in a paint splattered smock who pointed us to the guard’s chair.
The healer cleaned the wound with an astringent that smelled suspiciously like vinegar then studied the man’s head more closely. While she worked, the man’s companion crouched on the floor next to him and held his hand.
“You’ll have a headache the rest of the day, but you’ll survive,” the healer proclaimed. “You were lucky.”
“We were lucky,” the woman said as she looked at me and Darwin. “Thank you so much!”
“We were happy to help,” I replied as I tried not to look at the guard who had chosen to ignore the whole thing.
“If there’s anything you need…” the woman continued.
“We’re fine,” I assured her.
I spotted the doors to the stairwell then and saw the board that listed the various offices. The print wasn’t very large for most of the entries, but a few were important enough to earn a larger font. Joker Riley’s company was part of that group, and I saw that it was listed as being in the penthouse suite.
“Y’all stay safe,” I added as I started toward the door to the stairwell.
The guard cleared his throat and stepped in front of me and Darwin before we’d made it more than two steps further inside. I studied him as he shifted uncomfortably in front of us, from his blue-black hair to the scuffed tips of his boots.
“Sorry, but only those with business in the building are allowed inside,” the guard declared.
“Reggie!” the woman exclaimed in disbelief.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the guard replied. “But those are my orders. No strangers without proper identification, and no leaving my station for anything.”
Which explained why he hadn’t leapt into the fight. Maybe.
Darwin pulled the now crumpled paper from his pocket and handed it to the guard. Reggie read it all the way through at least five times before he finally handed it back to the ex-trooper and stepped out of our way.
“Top floor,” Reggie called out unhelpfully as we opened the door to the stairwell.
The door clanged shut behind us as we started up the well-worn steps. The stairwell was dimly lit and not much warmer than the air outside. I found it hard to believe that Joker Riley climbed these steps every day and decided there had to be at least one other staircase in the building, one that was well-lit, heated, and didn’t smell like teen-aged-boy sweat.
By th
e time we reached the top, I had one arm over my nose and mouth and was trying very hard not to breathe until it was absolutely necessary. Darwin held Riley’s wrinkled note over his face, though I noticed that his eyes had started to water as well.
“Thank God,” Darwin muttered when we reached the top.
I tugged on the door handle but nothing happened.
“Shit,” I muttered as I tugged again.
“I am not walking back downstairs through that stench,” Darwin warned.
I rattled the door handle again and then yanked as hard as I could. The door squealed in protest, but didn’t budge. I gave it a hard kick, and uttered a few more curse words. Luckily, all the noise was heard by someone on the other side of the door. It opened just wide enough for a young man with an acne scarred face to peer around the edge of the door at us.
“Joker Riley sent us,” I said as I grabbed the edge of the door before the man could close it again.
Darwin waved the note in the young man’s face as I pushed the Riley Capital employee out of the way and burst into a small lobby filled with filing cabinets and fresh air. The young man finally accepted the piece of paper that Darwin thrust into his face again, though unlike Reggie, he only had to read it once to accept that we were there on the boss’ okay.
“Why didn’t you use the front stairs?” the kid asked in genuine confusion.
“The guard didn’t tell us about any front stairs,” I grumbled.
“We’re supposed to talk to Tessa,” Darwin added as he pointed at the note again.
“Oh, sure,” the young man replied with a nod. “I’ll show you to her office.”
We passed more filing cabinets and stacks of boxes, all squeezed in between rows of antique desks. A few desks were occupied, but most of the other employees scurried around the floor with stacks of paper and harried expressions. A few looked startled to see us, but most barely registered our arrival.
Our guide led us through another heavy door, this one in steel gray, and then we were in the section reserved for the bosses and their guests. The hard floor and running employees gave way to thick carpet and a pair of pleasant looking women who walked quietly and slowly across the floor toward a glass door with the name Riley Capital etched in gold letters. The two women preceded us through the door with only the barest acknowledgement, and then they turned into a brightly lit office filled with more hothouse flowers and a pair of well polished desks.
Our guide led us deeper into the Riley Capital domain, past more offices, each larger than the last, with thicker carpets and bigger desks to fill the space. Most were occupied, and the occupants were all busy reading through papers or writing notes. Only one man even bothered to look up as we walked past, and he had such a far away expression in his eyes I wasn’t sure he actually saw us.
We reached the end of the hall and found ourselves at a closed door where a tasteful plaque identified it as the offices of Joker Riley, President. Our guide tapped quickly on the door, then opened it and ushered us inside. The room we stepped into was large and sunny, with two windows that overlooked the park. It was painted a dark brown, though the colorful rug in red and blue and the pale wood of the desk kept the room from feeling dark.
A young woman about my age sat behind the desk, and she looked politely at our guide though she gave Darwin and I a more intense stare. She was pretty though not quite beautiful, with wavy brown hair that fell to her shoulders and sharp brown eyes that studied us with expert precision. Her nose was a bit too long for her face and her eyes a hair too close together, and I decided the red in her cheeks wasn’t from having to dash through the cold.
“Mr. Riley sent them,” our guide offered as he held up the letter that Darwin had passed along.
The kid set the letter on the desk in front of the woman, then quickly retreated into the hall. The woman watched him disappear with a small frown, but she turned her attention to the letter, which drew a sniff and then a sigh.
“Let me guess, you have additional instructions for tomorrow’s run,” she complained.
I pulled Riley’s other letter from my pocket and held it out toward the woman. She scowled at the paper, but after a moment, she grudgingly accepted it. It only took her a moment to scan the missive, which drew another sniff of disdain.
“I wish he wouldn’t keep making these changes,” the woman declared in a whiny voice. “We’re already near capacity. I’ll have to find some extra weight we can leave behind.”
“He said you would know what to do,” Darwin suggested in his most respectful tone.
The woman sighed again, stood up, and moved toward a second door to the left. That one was closed, but she opened it and stepped inside another large office. We couldn’t see much from our spot near her desk, and though I was curious to see what Joker’s personal domain looked like, the woman hadn’t invited us to follow her. I glanced at Darwin, and as casually as we could, we stepped closer to the now open door.
The office on the other side of the door was massive with enough room for a desk the size of a boat, a wall of bookshelves, and enough strategically placed chairs to hold multiple conferences at the same time. The wood paneling was inlaid with sparkling stones and gilded with gold, and all of the fabric I could see, from the edge of the drapery to the thick chair cushions, was heavy and in colors that were only found in the most expensive fabrics. There was even a large oil painting of Joker Riley on the wall behind the desk that showed him standing next to a collection of old technology, like a car and a tractor, while he studied a model of a train engine. The chunk of gold ore displayed on his desk could have funded our entire expedition to the west coast and left us with enough to buy a small farm when we got there.
While I peeked at the display of Joker’s wealth, the woman, whom I assumed was Tessa, had slipped behind the desk and opened one of the drawers. She pulled a metal lockbox from the drawer and opened it with a key she kept in the pocket of her skirt. She removed several sheets of paper, then relocked the box and returned it to the drawer.
When she started to stand up, Darwin and I shuffled back toward the secretary’s desk as quietly as we could. I didn’t think we made any noise on the thick rug, but Tessa looked at us like she knew what we had done as soon as she stepped back into her own office. She gave us a disapproving sniff as she closed the door to Joker’s office, then returned to her own desk with the pages in hand.
“What are the names of the people who will be on the train?” the secretary asked as she sat down.
“Um, Hex Theriot, Sorcha Callan, Charles Darwin, and Freya Darwin,” I replied.
She quickly penned each name onto one of the sheets of paper, then wrote something on a fifth sheet of paper. She pulled a stamp and ink pad from her own desk, and stamped each sheet twice with the company name. Beneath the stamps, the secretary signed and dated the sheet, then blew on the paper to dry the ink.
“Did Mr. Riley tell you what time the train is scheduled to leave?” Tessa asked as she returned the stamp and ink pad to their drawer.
“He did,” I said quickly. “And he also mentioned we should get there an hour early.”
“Good,” the secretary replied as she held out the sheets of paper. “There’s one pass for each person and a livestock pass for the horses and dog. You’ll have to show those to the guards at the station as well as the conductor before you board.”
“Oh, uh, thanks,” I said as I studied the passes. They were rather elaborate, with a picture of a man holding up the world on his shoulders at the top of the page and the name Scranton-Barre Railroad Company just beneath that. A very curvy script had been used to declare that the holder of this pass was entitled to ride on the train at the time and place named below. The secretary had written our names on each pass, as well as the date and time for the next train ride.
“I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun,” the secretary declared in a tone that left no doubt she believed exactly the opposite.
“So, is there an easier way
to get out of the building?” Darwin asked. “The stairs we used led us to the back offices. I gather there’s some front stairs somewhere?”
“Why did you use the back stairs?” the secretary snickered. “That stairwell stinks and no one will go near it.”
“The guard at the door didn’t say anything,” I replied as I tucked the passes into an interior pocket for safe keeping.
The secretary tsked, though I wasn’t sure whether it was us or the guard who was being reprimanded. She considered us for another moment and then stood up from her desk.
“There’s actually a side door that the owners sometimes use,” Tessa announced. “The door is hidden so almost no one knows it’s there. You should be able to slip away without anyone noticing.”
“That would be great,” I declared. “We haven’t had the best luck around this building.”
“Oh, that,” Tessa said dismissively as she stalked across the carpet toward her door. “Such silly people.”
“Such angry people,” Darwin murmured.
“There’s no reason for that,” the secretary sniffed as she opened the door. “When the plan was originally suggested it included links to river services such as the local barges. But they refused to participate, and that representative of theirs outright declared that they would never have anything to do with the rail.”
“Maybe they thought it wouldn’t get this far,” I suggested as we followed the woman along another long hallway.
“What? Because of the mages?” Tessa snickered. “They’re too busy worrying about their coastal cities to be bothered with anything in the middle.”
“But isn’t there an appointed mage?” Darwin asked. “That would seem to suggest they have some interest in the area.”
“That was done about twenty years ago, and only because the local businesses all contributed a rather sizeable chunk of money to send to the Magesterium,” the secretary explained. “They asked for a mage that could help protect the city. So far, the most helpful mage we’ve had has been Hiram because he knows enough to stay out of the way of business and focus on actual mage problems like hideous mutants.”