by J Jordan
“We may have started off on the wrong foot. I’m afraid I’ve given the wrong impression. Why are you cowering like that?”
“Why did you bring a gun to an interrogation?”
“Oh, this,” said Agent Salinger, looking down at his holstered weapon. “This is for later.”
He continued to clean his glasses. The blue light from his eyes was reflected on the table.
“Does this ever happen to you? Magical surges always bring out the color in my eyes. I have to wear sunglasses when it happens, lest I scare off the neighbors again. Twice it’s happened now. And when I do wear them, everyone looks at me like my head’s gone missing. But I guess that beats running in fear.”
Romney tried for a casual smile. It didn’t seem to work. The agent’s eyes really were glowing.
“Just me then,” he said, replacing his glasses. “Very good.”
Agent Salinger took a moment to pick up the thread of his conversation. His cool smile returned.
“Devon Reymus would need an outsider, a newcomer, someone with literally no idea what he’s doing, a man easily controlled. No offense meant on that one, but you really have no idea what you’re doing. You’ve upset a great balance in being here, something that both sides will now try to exploit. We cannot let that happen. Once they move, that balance cannot be restored. Not without tremendous effort from both sides. So, it is up to us to restore it. We must act now.
“I offer you a chance to walk away from this game unscathed—you, Cora, Tykeso, and Victoria. For this, I ask that you join us in taking Devon out. That is the only way we can restore the balance. We must strike tonight, while there is an opportunity.”
Romney’s expression had changed very little since the failed casual smile. It looked like the respectful grimace reserved for jokes in poor taste.
“I have a few questions first.”
Agent Salinger nodded.
“Of course you do. But we must act quickly. Each moment spent here loses our advantage.”
“Okay,” said Romney, “I have a lot of questions, but maybe we can save a few for later.”
“All right,” said Agent Salinger, checking his watch, “I’ll do my best to answer what I can.”
“Okay. Who are you? Who are you working for? Who are ‘they?’ Are you working with the bank tellers from the First Ontaran? How do you know them? And I get that this ‘game’ is dangerous and that it involves magical objects, but what is the ‘game?’ How many sides are playing? How long has all of this been going on? Why do your eyes glow around magic? I haven’t seen anybody else do that. How do we get out of here? What did you mean by saving the gun for later? What is your plan? What are we doing?”
Agent Salinger had been looking down at his watch the entire time. He looked up.
“Dirk Salinger. I’ll explain the rest later. We have to go.”
He fished a small key ring from his sleeve and opened Romney’s cuffs. Then the agent helped him to his feet. Romney tried pulling away from Salinger’s grasp, then saw the pistol in his other hand. Salinger was holding it by the barrel.
“Take it. It is loaded and the safety is off. Keep your finger out of the trigger guard until you’re ready to shoot. And please don’t shoot me. I don’t think that needs to be said.”
Romney took the pistol and regarded it.
“What do I do?”
“Point it at my back and say things like ‘Stay away’ and ‘I’ll shoot him right here and now, so help me Goddess.’ Let them know you mean business.”
“Wait, I’m taking you hostage? This is gonna make it worse.”
“Don’t worry about that right now. I will have everything cleared up before the morning. Just follow me and act the part. Within reason, of course.”
Salinger opened the door and stepped into the hall. He beckoned Romney to follow.
“How are we getting Cora and Tykeso out? And Victoria?”
“Those details are being handled, don’t you worry. Now, come along. And get a little wily, would you? You have to make them believe it.”
Romney took a deep breath, pressed the gun into Salinger’s back, and followed him down the hall.
◆◆◆
Special Agent Morden Blackbourne would later comment that he had seen some very strange things in his thirty years with the Ontaran Intelligence Bureau, but nothing quite as odd as what he saw that night.
He was in the secondary wing of the Lanvale office, code-named Red Barracks, walking the halls as he read over Arindale Kinsey’s report on Balvance. He was on his way to the holding cells to check on her progress. It was standard procedure.
He would later admit that it took him longer than it should have to notice the spectacle unfolding in the hallway. OIB agents were backing away from Agent Salinger as he walked rigidly down the hall, his hands in the air, shouting something about a gun. Blackbourne remembered laughing off the strange behavior until Romney Balvance peeked around his armpit and said something to the effect of “It’s really loaded and I’ll do him right here if you come one step closer.”
This was an amateurish approach to kidnapping. The fear in his eyes made the whole thing unconvincing.
Blackbourne had dropped the report on the floor and had pulled his sidearm in one smooth motion. This act, Blackbourne remembered, had an unexpected effect on Agent Salinger. The Camerran said something like “Bloody hells” under his breath and lunged for the regional director. As Salinger closed the gap, Blackbourne could see Romney retreating down the hall, pistol flailing in the air. He was holding it with all four fingers around the grip. Blackbourne found this whole situation to be odd. He had always assumed that Kinsey was the more athletic of the two partners, until he saw Agent Salinger leap into a flying kick.
It was an impressive sight, he would say in retrospect. Salinger’s long leg unfolding in perfect form. It was impressive even if the general effect was strange. It wasn’t every day you saw a lanky man in a suit deliver a flying kick with dress shoes on, even in their line of work. It was definitely a first for Morden Blackbourne.
And, most impressive of all, the kick landed squarely on Blackbourne’s face. He remembered thinking a lot of things before the darkness closed in on him.
He remembered thinking he would need to set his nose after this.
Balvance was a true master criminal, but his talent was not in his abilities to steal or to evade capture. Romney’s talents came from those around him. Sure, Balvance had his own set of skills. But it was always someone else coming to his rescue, and always in the nick of time. Romney Balvance had no ties to any criminal organization, despite Kinsey’s suggestions.
No one knew Romney Balvance, and yet he seemed to have a network of people looking out for him. Something larger was going on, Blackbourne decided, as he tumbled backward to the floor. He had made a note to apologize to Kinsey as his head careened against the gritty tile. She was absolutely right about Romney Balvance. He was dangerous. He had made a second note to look up Dirk Salinger in their database when he regained consciousness. He would not remember these details until much later.
When Blackbourne did come to, he was relieved to see Agents Yaldarra and Kinsey helping him to his feet. He was much less relieved when he heard that Balvance had forced Salinger into a cruiser and was headed for downtown Lanvale. Agent Kinsey knew where he was headed.
“Take what you need,” he said. “Stop Balvance at all costs.”
And then he remembered something. It had to do with hitting his head against the floor. It had to do with head injuries. It was important to treat them before they got worse.
The Reymus Collection, Revisited
The city of Lanvale hummed. Its people moved down sidewalks, in search of something to help them unwind. A fancy dinner, perhaps, or maybe a lounge chair and a good crime serial waiting at home. Cars crawled down main streets toward the same ends, inching ever closer to their destinations, stopped at every light. Lanvale’s many drivers wrenched their steering wheels
and made rude gestures when someone cut them off without a turn signal or when they sped through an intersection on a red light. Despite the shake-up from earlier that day, the city of Lanvale had found its evening rhythm.
It was a truly impressive sight. One might even write a song about it. It would have some profound beginning part about the harmonies found in nature, something like “The wheel in the sky keeps on turning.” Yes, that would do nicely. Now, let’s imagine a young musician perched on a windowsill, plucking out the tune on her guitar and singing the words quietly to herself. The soft, dulcet tones would be lost in maelstrom of noise outside her perch, but it didn’t matter. The song was for Lanvale. She would give pause to look out at the city, a city uniquely hers, capable of beautiful moments like this one. An intricate and extraordinary machine in perfect balance. Her heart would swell at the thought. A tear would escape her eye.
And then a high-performance sedan would redline through an intersection, right by her window, threading the needle through rush hour traffic, leaving a wake of blaring horns and foulest curses. Inside this sedan would be a man wearing sunglasses at night, his foot planted firmly on the gas, and another man clutching a gun and the dashboard, both for dear life. These details would ruin the peaceful mood.
Dirk Salinger was a terribly good driver. Terrible, because he weaved through traffic without a turn signal and sped through an intersection at a red light, well above the posted limits. But he was good at it. He hadn’t crashed once on his way to the Reymus Building. They arrived in record time.
Of course, he lost points for bursting through the ticket gate into the parking garage. The signs said, very clearly, that the garage was closed for the evening. He received another deduction when his unmarked cruiser swerved to a halt before a door labeled “Authorized Access Only.” The Reymus security guard standing by the door was on full alert. The guard’s hand moved to the holster at his side.
“It’s fine,” said Salinger, opening the driver’s side door. “I’ll do the talking.”
Romney stepped out of the passenger side, the side facing the guard, his head still in flux from the car ride. The guard drew his weapon. A taser, killer bee yellow with black stripes.
“Stay where you are. Don’t move.”
Romney complied with the order. Salinger moved around the front of the car and approached the guard, as if he hadn’t heard the command. The guard turned his weapon on Salinger, then yelped when Salinger kicked it from his hands. The taser went up, hung briefly in the air, then came down into Salinger’s open palm. The guard retreated from Salinger and reached for his pepper spray, but Salinger was already lining up the shot. Two prongs leapt from the front of the gun and sank into the guard’s right shoulder. He seized in place for long seconds, then collapsed onto the concrete and was still. Romney looked down at him. At least he was still breathing.
“Where did you learn that?”
“A friend taught me,” said Salinger. “You can learn all kinds of things from people you know. Speaking of which, your friends are waiting inside.”
He motioned for Romney to join him at the door, where he creaked it open and peered inside. He raised a cautionary finger, then slipped inside. There were the sounds of punching and kicking, and the “oof” sounds of two security guards being kicked and punched by an unexpected guest. The sounds died down and Salinger opened the door completely. A guard tumbled out and landed on his face. His partner was already prone in the door way. Salinger waved Romney through, his cool patience wearing thin.
“Where did you—”
“Same friend. We haven’t all night, Mr. Balvance.”
Salinger led him through an empty service tunnel to a set of double doors on the right. He cracked the left one open and peered into the room beyond. Then he opened it and ushered Romney through. They navigated a hall of offices, ducked low through a cubicle farm, and stopped at the next set of double doors. Salinger darted through, clotheslined a patrolling guard, then punched him on the ground for good measure. With this complete, he motioned for Romney to come through. They walked briskly through another hallway, this one with the familiar marble floor. They paused at an opening, peeked out at either side, then moved for the lobby.
The lone receptionist ignored them from her resting place on the keyboard. Romney could see a small bunch of red feathers sprouting from a silver quill buried in her shoulder. The open email on her screen read “Hello, I am requesting a transfer back to day shivy85no6fli80h84u6oi5uo.” A woman in dark clothing emerged from under the desk, dart gun drawn. She was also wearing sunglasses at night, though hers were wraparound style. Much less fashionable than Salinger’s. He raised a clenched fist, placed it over his heart, then bowed to her. She lowered her weapon and did the same.
“Lady Rella. A pleasure.”
“Sir Dirk,” she said. “The pleasure is mine.”
She looked to Romney and all of the courtesy was lost in an instant. Her wraparound shades came off, revealing her red-rimmed eyes. They had improved considerably, thanks to the eye drops, but Romney wouldn’t have this information until much later.
“Your friends are on the way. Lady Rikka is also bringing the stone and the rings from Hirna Andrea. You will need more if you plan to take on Devon and his arsenal.”
“Which we prepared for,” said Salinger. “There is an empty floor below his roost. You should be able to access Devon’s collection through a maintenance hatch on that floor. Of course, the hatch will be concealed, and you won’t be able to access the floor from any elevator.”
“No elevator reaches the top twenty floors except for the middle one over there,” said Rella. “It’s tied directly into Mila’s computers, so that’s out of the picture. And the stairs don’t go past the top three floors, not to mention the security cameras running all the way up. So those are out too.”
“So how exactly are we getting in there if there’s no way up?”
“Well, I kept this part a secret from Lady Rella,” said Salinger, looking to her with a comforting smile that said she wasn’t going to like it. Her grimace said she already knew what he was suggesting.
“You can’t access the maintenance hatch without alerting Mila unless you take a direct route,” she explained. “No one will see us if we come in low enough.”
“The parachutes are in the van outside,” said Salinger. “You probably saw them on your way in.”
“I did.”
“Come in low enough,” Romney repeated, though it didn’t make sense. The word “parachutes” came back. There was something off about the statement, something he didn’t like.
“I didn’t pack the scaling equipment because it would take too long,” said Salinger. “And you likely wouldn’t have the strength to fight afterward. This conserves time and energy.”
“Yes,” Rella conceded. “I see. This is the only way.”
“It is?”
Rella was coming around to the idea. Whatever it was. She looked to Romney, a smile crawling its way across her face. It seemed like an odd time to smile.
“Very well. You’re with me, Mr. Balvance.”
Rella was already holding the front door open for him.
“Where are we going?”
“The KR Tower, down the street,” she explained. “It should give us enough height to make it through, while keeping under their line of sight. Do you take a small?”
“I’m a solid medium,” said Romney. “But hang on a second. What’s the plan exactly?”
“Have you ever gone Tandem Base jumping before?”
Romney stopped in his tracks. He had never jumped off anything taller than a couch in his life. Rella’s grin did little to comfort him.
“It’s just like skydiving, but with a smaller margin for error.”
“Is this really the only way to get into the top floors?”
Rella slowed her pace a moment to think about it.
“Yes,” she said, “I’m afraid Sir Dirk is right. The elevator is out, sin
ce Mila is watching. The stairs are out, since they don’t reach the top floors. Climbing the side would take too long. We would be exhausted at the end, and there’s an even greater chance we’d fall to our deaths that way. Base jumping is the safest way to get through their defenses undetected.”
Her smile lingered on his dress shirt. She was looking at his collar in particular.
“You should be little spoon.”
“I’m a well-built medium.”
“We’ll see.”
◆◆◆
Another car sped down Lanvale streets, destination—the Reymus Building. This one had an elf in the driver’s seat with standard eyeglasses on, which had been glued together the night before. The elf in the passenger seat was white-knuckling his armrest and giving her directions in the calmest voice he could muster. The third elf, bracing against the roof in the back seat, was in full tactical gear.
Rikka Candrata had thought it a bad idea to let Cora Queldin drive her personal ’78 Huntsmaster GT through downtown Lanvale. And, until this moment, she didn’t know her lovingly restored muscle car could reach speeds over a hundred miles per hour. At least, not without a full jug of antifreeze and a long time-out. But Cora was racing down the streets toward Reymus Plaza and tapping the far end of the speedometer in the process.
It would be a night full of surprises for everyone involved.
“Cora, it’s coming up. Please slow down,” said Tykeso, pushing his foot into the floorboard with reckless abandon.
With a jerk of the steering wheel, Cora threw the ’78 Huntsmaster GT into a power slide over a median, and across the visitor parking lot, coming to a stop within the VIP spot for a Mr. Thomas Helmsman, director of the industry research division. She was over the line on the right side.
“That was . . . that was awesome,” said Rikka, taking a moment to gather her thoughts.
“And loud,” added Tykeso. “They have to know we’re here by now.”