“I’m getting really tired of Agent Bitch,” I said, glad I’d never turned my phone on yesterday.
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Look for the building directory.”
I wandered around. The reception area was a museum full of expensive artwork. A sculptured glass chandelier the size of a buffalo lit the space. Or would have, if it was on. I checked by the left bank of elevators, circling around the lobby back to the reception desk. I shook my head at Price.
He went behind the desk. “Computers are probably password protected. Use the landline. Call your sister.”
“You don’t think her phone is tapped?”
“Might be, but I doubt they’ll be listening to her in real time. You, on the other hand, have caught Arnow’s interest. She’ll be paying close attention.”
It was almost reasonable, and I didn’t really have any other options, so I did as told. Taylor sounded groggy. “What time is it?” she mumbled.
I checked the massive clock embedded into the far wall. “Just after noon.” We hadn’t gone to bed until four in the morning, and Price and I had left the house around nine. “We’re at Franklin Watley. Where is Josh’s office?”
Silence met my question, then in a choked voice she answered, “Twenty-fifth floor. Room 2562.”
“Go back to sleep,” I said, knowing full well she wouldn’t. I dropped the phone back into the cradle before she could ask any questions and relayed the information to Price.
“Why aren’t there any security guards?” I asked, following him to the elevators. I hated riding in them, but walking up twenty-five floors didn’t seem like a good option either. Especially with Price. At least our time trapped in a small box would be short. I hoped, anyhow.
“Even guards have to follow snow emergency protocol. Everyone has to go home so they don’t get stranded and starve or freeze to death if the power goes down.”
Made sense. He hit the elevator button. Nothing happened. He hit it again. And again. Because if once doesn’t work once, more times will make it happen. I smirked. He didn’t see.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, keeping the laughter from my voice.
“They must have locked the elevators down as a precaution. Stairs it is. Let’s go,” he said, striding off down the hallway to the stairs’ entrance.
Price was breathing a little rough by the time we reached the tenth floor. I was just getting warmed up. I’ve been known to take the stairs down to the Bottoms and back. Work takes a girl where it takes her. And she’s got to follow. I don’t have a car, and the train doesn’t run down there.
I’d left him two floors behind by the twentieth landing, and I don’t know where he was when I got to twenty-five. I pushed through the fire door into a long, plush hallway. Every sixth light was on. It was like walking into a mausoleum. Not that I’d ever been in one, but this place seemed like dead people ought to be stacked up to the rafters.
A sign said Room 2562 was off to the left. I headed that way, turning through a maze of gloomy corridors until I found his office. I reached out to try the handle and stopped. The door wasn’t latched. I pushed it wider. The space inside was brighter than the hallway. His outer wall was all glass and gave an excellent view of the crater. Or would have, if it wasn’t totally white outside. The snow had increased since we came in.
I switched on the light. His office looked like you might expect: piles of papers, ledgers, notebooks, and folders littering most surfaces. He had a big mahogany L-shaped desk and one of those leather chairs with little rivets making a diamond pattern all over it. Bookshelves lined one wall with a little seating area with a table and chairs off to the right. As offices went, it was huge.
It had already been searched.
Josh was nothing if not a clean freak. You could move a magazine sideways on his coffee table and he’d have to come straighten it, usually in less than a minute. He had radar for that kind of thing. Even though things looked neat enough for an ordinary person, the lopsided stacks of papers and disorganized tchotchkes would have sent Josh around the bend.
I went to his desk. I had no idea what I was looking for. I checked out the trace. He’d been here within the last twenty-four hours. It was probably the last place he’d been before he’d gone home and been attacked. Others had followed, but I didn’t recognize their trace.
“Do you have bionic legs or something?” Price asked as he strode in. “Remind me not to try to run you down on foot.”
I would do no such thing. Hopefully when I started running, he’d never catch me. “The door was open,” I said. “The place has been searched. Josh would never leave his office like this.”
Price’s attention sharpened, and he went into cop mode. “What makes you say that?”
“Let’s just say he could walk through a mud bog without getting a drop on him,” I said. “He doesn’t do untidy.” I gestured around me. “This is downright messy. He’d go into convulsions before he left it like this.”
He surveyed the room. “The FBI would have seized everything. I’m a little surprised they haven’t cleaned him out already.”
“Maybe Franklin Watley was looking for evidence or sensitive documents. They had to know he was being investigated. If he was embezzling, presumably it was through work.”
“The question is, did they find what they were looking for?”
“Actually, the question is, what are we looking for?” I asked. “And don’t go all Velma on me and say clues. ’Cause duh. What constitutes a clue?”
“We’ll know it when we see it,” he said, most unhelpfully.
“Gee, thanks, Velma.” I sat down at the desk. I was looking for whatever hadn’t been found. Josh has always been a straight arrow and not particularly imaginative, but he apparently had another side, which meant I should be looking for good hiding places.
I pulled out all the drawers and turned them over, then felt around the drawer cavities for hidden compartments or documents taped inside. I decided I needed to be thorough and I got down on the floor and looked inside.
I didn’t find any secret writing or codes or hidden compartments, but I was beginning to sense a distinct pulse of magic. Except it seemed to come and go. At first I thought I was imagining things, but it kept happening. I stood up and blinked into trace mode, but didn’t see anything except the usual—trails of people coming and going, and a couple of knickknacks holding charm spells. I could usually see evidence of magic in trace mode. There was a safe behind a picture on the wall with a magical lock, but Price and his badge made quick work of that. There wasn’t much inside; some folders, cash, and a velvet box with a diamond and emerald necklace. I’m pretty sure that was destined for Taylor’s neck.
Price left the necklace and cash, and shoved the papers into a satchel he found in the small coat closet. Josh even had a private bathroom. Price disappeared in there to check for anything hidden in the toilet or behind the sink. I doubted he’d find anything. That’s where cops always look. Crooks, too. We all watch the same movies.
That sense of subtle magic kept chewing at me. I paced slowly around the room. The further from the desk I got, the weaker it got. I frowned. There weren’t a lot of tracers who’d even feel it. He must have paid a lot for whatever it was. Nobody else knew it was here, either. If he’d done it—whatever it was—with company consent, they’d have already popped it open. Probably. I was pretty sure the company had done the search. Nothing was damaged. Someone breaking in wouldn’t have cared what sort of mess they left.
I zigzagged back toward the desk, trying to get a better sense of the source of magic.
“What are you doing?” Price asked from the bathroom doorway.
I held up a hand and kept moving. I stopped each time the pulse faded and then inched forward when it returned. The closer I got, the more it quieted. Curiouser and curiouse
r. Not to mention fucking impressive.
I worked my way to a spot just about where his chair would be if he decided to prop his feet up and look out the window. Not that Josh ever did. He never slowed down enough to just look at the scenery.
The magic quieted. I stepped away from the spot, and it began again. I stepped back on. Stopped.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell you’re doing?” Price demanded. He’d come up to stand on the other side of the desk.
“There’s something in the floor,” I said. I fished in my pocket for my knife. I flicked it open and kneeled down. The rug fought back against the cutting. As soon as I stuck my blade through it, I got stuck. It was like someone had grabbed it in a vise. Magic tingled in my fingers, heating the knife to red-hot. I yanked my hand away and shook it.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing I can’t fix,” I said and dug out one of my nulls. It was a marble, just like the two I’d used when we’d run from the goons, but this one was a hell of a lot stronger.
I set it down in the middle of the dead spot and activated it. There was nothing to see, but I could feel my magic spread out like a sponge and suck up the other spell until it was all gone. I kept a finger on the null, palming another in my other hand. The absorbed magic sizzled up through me and I channeled it back into the second marble. Most tracers couldn’t do that, either. Like I said, I’m special. I grimaced inwardly. Sort of like meat in the supermarket that’s about to go rancid and they put it on sale to get rid of it. Having the power I did hadn’t been much of a blessing, to say the least. It hadn’t helped me find out who killed my mother or what happened to my father. I pushed the thought away. Those were old problems.
When it was done, I put the spent null back into my pocket and started slicing the carpet again. This time it separated easily. I pulled a flap back and cut through the padding. Underneath was a flat panel. It had no handle. Probably opening it with the proper magic would have popped it up. I pried it up with the tip of my blade. By this time, Price had come around the desk to squat beside me. Way too close for comfort.
I’m not sure what I was expecting to be inside. The compartment was only about eight inches deep and about a foot square. A navy-blue canvas bag fit neatly inside.
Price pulled it out. “We’ll take it with us. Let’s get out of here.”
I didn’t argue. I was ready to be out of the building. I was not really cut out to be a burglar. I’m too nervous to steal.
I put the carpet back together as well as I could and rolled the chair on top of it. Anybody making a search of the place was sure to find it, but it wouldn’t be obvious to someone just looking in.
Price shut the door behind us, and the lock clicked. It was reinforced with magic that activated as soon as the lock snicked shut.
We wandered back toward the stairs, taking two different wrong turns and ending up near the elevators. We had just gone past them when one of them dinged. I looked at Price.
“I thought they were shut down?”
He pushed me toward the staircase, handing me the bag of stuff we’d collected from the office and the one from the floor safe. “Get going. I’ll catch up.” He turned and drew his gun.
I didn’t know if I should stay or go. Not that Price couldn’t take care of himself. With my hands full, I couldn’t grab my gun, so I started running.
I had only made it halfway down the hallway when a man and a woman came out of the stairwell. I dug to a halt. Magic vibrated off them. I didn’t know if it was shielding or weapons, but I knew for certain they were Tyet. There’s a look, cold and snakelike, that a lot of them get. Like they are cold-blooded and don’t care who they kill. These two had it in spades.
They saw me about the same time I saw them. “Stay where you are,” the woman said.
Unlike Special Agent Sandra Arnow, this woman was dressed for snow. She wore tall boots over tightfitting ski pants, and a matching gray ski jacket with neon green striping. Her hair was a short cap of brown. She only stood about five foot two, but I didn’t make the mistake of thinking that made her an easy target. Her companion was about as tall as Price, but had a shaved head and shoulders that seemed to brush both walls at once. There was no way I was getting around the two of them.
That left me with staying there and waiting for them to grab me, or hauling ass back to Price. I chose Price. Hard to believe he is actually the safer choice in any version of reality.
I turned the corner to the elevators and stopped just in time to not barrel into Price. He stooped over an unconscious man, rifling his pockets. He looked up at me.
“Company,” I said and leaped for the elevator. It was still open, thanks to the fact that the door kept bouncing off the unconscious guy’s foot.
I was in before Price. He’s the size of a bull and came through the doorway just when the other two started shooting. So how the hell was I the one to get shot?
The bullet seared my left side and knocked me against the wall. Price shoved me down to the floor and the door finally closed. I’d already punched the lobby button. We lurched downward. I hoped to hell there wasn’t anybody waiting for us when we got there.
Price dropped down beside me. I was hyperventilating. My body had seized so tight that it was turning into one big cramp. I could hardly think. All I could do was feel the spreading heat of my blood as it leaked out of my skin, and pain. Whoa fuck, the pain was beyond words.
“Let me look.”
He pulled my hand from my side. Apparently I was trying to stop the bleeding. Or maybe I was hoping to stop the bullet, long after it hit me. Brains can be stupid.
Before I knew what else he was going to do, he pushed me onto my side. I squeaked and let out a cry that sounded like a raccoon caught in a trap.
“It’s through and through,” he said. “We can’t do much now. We have to get out of the building. Can you walk?”
Well, duh. It’s not like riding the elevator up and down was an option. It’s not like I wanted to get shot again.
“Help me up.” I sounded like I had a bad cold. That’s when I realized I was crying. I couldn’t stop it either, any more than I could stop bleeding.
Price put his arm around me. I grabbed his shoulder to steady myself. The bags were still looped over my arms. As the elevator reached the lobby, he maneuvered me off to the side to make me less of a target. Like that helped before. Maybe this time it would work.
I didn’t dare leave blood behind. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a blood null. Magic flooded outward in a scalding wave. Price about jumped out of his skin.
“What the hell?”
“I’m burning my blood trace. We should go. It might cook us too.” The spell might think the stuff in our bodies needed frying, too.
Another thing a lot of tracers can’t do. It’s actually a tinker trick. I didn’t like having to rely on a tinker, though, so I figured out how to do it for myself. The only problem was that it was pretty obvious when I used it, and there wasn’t much finesse to it. What blood it found, it liked to cook, whether or not a person was still using it.
Price pulled us out into the empty lobby. He dragged me toward the doors. I was already drenched with sweat and could barely catch a breath. My head was spinning and it took all my concentration to control the null. I had no idea what my feet were doing.
I vaguely noticed the doors were still closed. I guess the Tyet goons didn’t want anyone to notice they’d broken in either. If they had broken in. Maybe they had a key. Price didn’t waste time using his badge to open them up, but popped off six or eight shots. I expected a hail of glass, but the doors held, the bullet holes pocking the right one in a long oval. Price kicked out the glass and it folded down like crumpled paper. He swung me up in his arms and carried me out to the snowmobile. He knocked the helmets off and settled me on
the back, then swung aboard, and we roared off. I hoped he’d managed to keep the two bags, otherwise I’d gotten shot for nothing.
I slumped against him, deactivating the null. I was pretty sure it had scabbed up the bullet’s entry and exit wounds. My clothes were stuck to my side and felt crusty. I made myself put it into my pocket.
I don’t remember a lot after that. Price took a corner sharp, and I slid off. At least the snow was deep and soft. I couldn’t even feel the cold. He said something that sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher—mawawaw wawa mawawa.
He put me back on snowmobile, this time in the front. I flopped forward like a rag doll. The bullet holes had cracked open, and I could feel blood seeping. The ride seemed to go on forever. It didn’t even thrill me to have Price all wrapped around me. Apparently if you get shot, you don’t care much about sex. Who knew?
At some point it turned abruptly dark and the growl of the motor died. I was vaguely aware of Price lifting me again. Pain lanced through my gut. He talked to me, I guess. It didn’t make much sense. He was probably telling me to pull up my big-girl panties. I started to giggle, only it came out like I was choking. I couldn’t pull up my big-girl panties; I was wearing Taylor’s boy shorts underwear. I know, it wasn’t funny.
We went inside a building, and Price laid me down on something soft. A couch? A bed? Where were we, anyway? He disappeared, and I sank down into gray. The next thing I knew, I heard scissors and then something tugged against my side. Fire seared my skin. I yelped and twisted away. Something heavy landed on my shoulder and pain exploded in my side. I’m pretty sure I screamed. I know I cried like a baby.
I’ve heard that when you’re in a lot of pain, after a while it just gets monotonous and it doesn’t seem that bad. Fuck that. I don’t know what Price was doing to me, but it felt like he was kneading dough—I was the dough in that metaphor. It hurt on a level I don’t even have words for. I passed out sometime in the middle of his ministrations.
Trace of Magic: 1 (The Diamond City Magic Novels) Page 10