Heart of the Thief

by Katerina Martinez

  The stone immediately burst to life, and the room filled with light and color. Shifting, strobing patterns emerged in front of me, making me jerk away from them. When the patterns and the light settled, I realized I was looking at something like… a floating, holographic blueprint.

  “No way,” I said.

  Axel nodded. “This is Eliphas’ penthouse… mansion.”

  “Penthouse mansion? They make those?”

  “They don’t. It’s not a thing, but when you’re at skill at magic as he is there’s nothing out of your reach.” He waved his hands around, and the blueprint shifted and moved with them. “I thought you would like to go over the information we’ve been able to gather before tomorrow’s briefing.”

  “Briefing?”

  “Of course. Now that you have your team, the next step is to figure out a plan on how to pull this heist off… or did you think you could skip that part?”

  “Kinda,” I shrugged. “Your dad is sending me on a suicide mission, so as far as I’m concerned, the longer I can push it back, the better.”

  “You have a week. In exactly one week, Eliphas will find himself no longer the owner of the drowned queen’s treasures.”

  “Either that, or you’ll have another four of dead bodies to dump into the lake with concrete boots.”

  Axel glowered at me, but said nothing.

  “What?” I asked. “Isn’t that what you guys do?”

  “I don’t appreciate your sarcasm, your tone, or generally anything you have to say. From now on, I want you to keep your mouth shut unless you’re going to say something helpful.”

  There was that… thing again. That feeling. I wasn’t sure what it was or where it was coming from, but there was something else, too. Axel’s entire demeanor had changed. A second ago he was mister ask permission, talking to me about having manners. Now he was ordering me around like I was an underling on his payroll.

  Something was up, and I wasn’t gonna just let it fester; not if we were going to be working together.

  “Alright,” I said, placing my hands on my hips, “What’s up with you?”

  “Up with me?” he cocked an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. I may not know you very well, but we’ve been in each other’s presence for at least twenty four hours, and I’ve noticed a change in the way you’re behaving.”

  Axel visibly stiffened. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about how you’ve been all over the place ever since we went out hunting Necromancers. Did I do something to piss you off?”

  “You do and say a lot of things that piss me off.”

  “Alright, I can be more specific. Did I specifically say something that pinched some kind of nerve inside of you? Because I’m gonna be straight with you, if you want to be a part of this team, I need you to perform. Not just that. I need to know that when it comes down to it, that you’ve got my back. If we don’t have each other’s backs, we’re gonna die in a week, or worse. I don’t know about you, but I’d very much love to live past this whole screwed up thing.”

  Axel swallowed several times in silence. I could see something happening behind his clear, blue eyes—something like a storm. I wanted to push, I felt almost compelled to try and get in a little deeper, to really see who this guy was. But even a Psionic would’ve had a hard time cracking his brain open and reading its secrets.

  His entire façade was as solid as a rock.

  “I would, too,” he said.

  “Good.” I walked a couple of steps closer to him, enough to show a little warmth. “Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  I nodded. “I’ll try and be a little less… smart-mouthed around you. I’ll really try to hold back. In return, you can drop the macho, always gotta be in control, attitude and start treating me like an equal.”

  He angled his head to the side. “Is that what you see when I talk to you?”

  “Kinda, yeah. I get that you’re the boss’ son, I get that you’re probably a powerful mage, but you don’t have to act like we’re all faceless subordinates. If we’re gonna pull this off, we’re gonna have to get real intimate.”

  “Intimate…”

  “For the heist,” I corrected, “For the heist.”

  “Right,” he said, nodding. “Okay. I accept your terms.”

  I took his hand and shook it. “Alright… so, how about you call us up some energy drinks and some cheese burgers?”

  He frowned. “Cheese burgers?”

  “Well, yeah. I need to figure out how to break into Eliphas’ vault. That’s probably gonna take me all night.”

  “But you said us.”

  “Yeah, because you’re gonna help me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I probably only got an hour or two of sleep that night, but when I slept, I dreamt of fire and storms. I was on a rickety ship being violently rocked by black waves fifty feet high, and being dragged along by brutal, unending currents. Lightning whipped repeatedly against massive, churning clouds that rolled across the ocean as far as the eye could see. All around me was dark hopelessness, an endless ocean of storms threatening to deliver a slow, agonizing death at any moment.

  And there, inside that darkness, a single light—a flame, winking in the distance. It called to me, beckoned me to hold on, to push a little deeper, to reach for it. But I couldn’t. The wind, the rain, the lightning, they were like hands clawing at my throat, and squeezing. I couldn’t breathe, I could barely think.

  The light faded away, swallowed up by the horizon, and then I was alone again.

  The dream stuck with me for a long time after I’d woken up. I was used to dreams fading away after a time, slipping through my fingers like water. This one was different. This one felt real, like I was there, on that ship. But that wasn’t what made it stand out from other dreams. I’d had it before, many times, and it was always the same.

  Axel was the one who came to fetch me sometime after breakfast had been delivered to my room. I’d spent the better part of the night pouring through the information he had on the Magistrate’s penthouse. It turns out he didn’t just have the blueprints of the place—he had a walking tour.

  Someone had infiltrated the penthouse, had explored as much of it as they’d been able to, and had given that memory to Axel for him to share with me. By the time I was done, I knew so much about the penthouse, it was like I lived there myself. So, working purely on caffeine, I headed into a specially prepared briefing room where I found Danvers, RJ, and Karim all waiting for me.

  Karim glanced up from his little porcelain cup, mid-drink, and cocked an eyebrow. “Her highness joins us at last,” he said.

  “Yes, well, I had a long night,” I said, setting a pad and pen down on the table. It had come to me blank, now it was covered in scribbled notes.

  Danvers tried to catch a peek. “Someone’s been busy,” she said.

  Axel took a seat at the table and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “She has our plan,” he said.

  RJ’s eyebrows twitched. He leaned forward. “Quicker you tell us what you have in mind, the better,” he said, “Wouldn’t want these people to have to try and keep me in here longer than I have to be.”

  Axel looked across at RJ, then gave me his attention again.

  “Alright,” I said, “This is a heist. Not just any heist, but the heist, and the person we’re stealing from is no punk. His defenses are tight, there are a bunch of problems we’re gonna have to overcome if we want a shot at pulling this off.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Karim said, “But that’s generally the reason why people formulate plans?”

  “Yes… if you’d let me get to that.”

  He put his hands up. “Yep, go on.”

  I nodded. “This is going to be a lot easier if we save the questions for the end, so for now, just listen.”

  I pulled the little garnet stone out of my pocket and placed it on the table. Axel reached for it and
tapped it with his fingertips, making the stone instantly spring to life. Light-beams shot across the room. At first, they danced wildly in the air, but then they came together to create moving images I could control with a sweep of my hand.

  “Our target is the Atlantis,” I said, using the floating map in the room to let the others around me see what I was talking about. “The Atlantis is one of the oldest buildings in the city. The Magister not only owns the building, but he owns the penthouse suite, too. Even though it’s an impressive apartment on its own, the whole place is more like a mansion once you get inside. Twelve bedrooms, four bathrooms, a kitchen, a library, a study, a huge dining room… the place where we’ll all be corralled into will be the ballroom.”

  “A ballroom?” RJ asked. “How in the hell did they fit a ballroom into a penthouse?”

  “Magic,” I said, “I’ll explain it all at the end. Anyway, the ballroom is where all of Eliphas’ guests are gonna be on the night of; the night of, being Halloween. Apart from the Magister’s catering staff, there are gonna be Legionnaires posted at almost every door into and out of the ballroom. No one is gonna be allowed to roam the mansion for any reason. Turns out one of the Magister’s wonderful qualities is his crippling paranoia of having his apartment infiltrated by thieves and assassins.”

  “What about strippers and… weird British guys?” Danvers chided.

  I scowled, then shuffled the blueprint of the apartment around. “As far as I’ve been able to tell, the vault is behind this door. It’s sixty feet from the ballroom, and well out of range of any bathrooms, so if we’re caught hanging around there, it’s game over—but that’s where we have to be. Eliphas isn’t gonna be anywhere near it, and while I expect there to be at least one Legionnaire watching over it, that’s nothing we can’t handle.”

  I now pushed deeper with the map, moving out of blueprint mode and into first person mode. By moving my hands around, I was able to give the team the same walking tour of Eliphas’ apartment I’d gotten. I was able to show them the real dimensions of the ballroom we would be in, the length of the corridor leading up to the vault door—the vault door itself.

  It was every bit like any other vault door; made of several layers of thick metal, and imposing as hell. A giant pentacle had been etched into the front, with runes running along its edges and inside it.

  I didn’t need to be standing in front of it to understand just how powerful that door was. A lot of care had gone into designing it, and to be clear, it had been designed for one thing alone; to keep people like me out.

  “Hold on, back up,” Karim said, “Go back to the ballroom.”

  I did as he asked and moved the frame of reference back a few steps, reentering the place where a whole host of high-powered mages would be hanging out six days from now. It really was something to look at. The ceiling wasn’t as high as you’d expect from a ballroom, but there was a little dip in the main floor to give the room that extra sense of height. Massive, wall-to-ceiling windows ran along the entire length of the room, giving a glorious view of the New York city skyline.

  “There,” Karim said, pointing at one of the walls. “Do you see them?”

  “See what?” Danvers asked, “The wall?”

  “There’s writing on the wall,” RJ said, “Those magic runes?”

  I nodded. “Anti-magic, actually. The entire room is a no-magic zone. And if anyone really is strong enough to break through and reach for the Tempest despite the security measures in place, then you can bet every single Legionnaire in attendance will fall on them like bricks.”

  “So… how are we supposed to do anything if we can’t use magic?” Karim asked.

  “That’s where Danvers comes in…” I said, “But I’ll get to that. On the night of the event, Axel and I will join the party as guests. At the same time, Danvers and Karim will be watching us through surveillance feeds we’ll have installed the night before. RJ, meanwhile, will work on our escape route. The entire operation shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes from the moment we enter the party. We’ll each be wearing ear-pieces we can communicate through the entire time.”

  “How am I gonna be your escape route?” RJ asked.

  “Once we have what we came for, we’re gonna make our escape through the roof instead of going back through the party. You’re gonna be waiting for us with a window cleaning basket that you’ll have to pull up from the ground.”

  “You can’t bring that thing up that by remote?” he asked.

  “Some buildings use drones, now,” Danvers put in.

  “The pulley is manually operated,” I said, “You’re the strongest of all of us; you’ll get it up there in no time, and speed is gonna be important. Everything is going to be timed.”

  “Wait, you’re gonna escape with the man’s treasures in a basket down the side of the building?” Karim asked, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, “Did a four-year-old think this plan up? I mean, doesn’t your father have helicopters? And how the hell are you supposed to carry everything?”

  “My father does have helicopters,” Axel said, “And jets, and boats. But a helicopter will draw too much attention. The basket is silent, at least, and we can use one on the other side of the building to avoid passing directly in front of the Magister’s ballroom.”

  RJ leaned forward again. “Alright, but how you gonna get a whole bunch of loot out of the building in a basket? I don’t know how much weight those things can hold, but it’ll be a stretch carrying… what, three of us plus gold? That ain’t gonna work out.”

  “Not to bring up the obvious,” Karim put in, “But there’s also the tiny issue of not being able to use magic… is that not bothering anyone else?”

  “The anti-magic field only works inside the ballroom,” I said, “Outside, we’ll be able to use magic just fine, though we should still be sparing—Legionnaires may still be able to sense us. As for the weight problem, the gold, the stuff in Eliphas’ vault, it won’t weigh us down. Danvers?”

  Cassidy dropped a delicate black clutch bag on the table. It was elegant, sleek, and fashionable—exactly the kind of innocuous thing someone would accompany a beautiful dress with. “This is my pride and joy, boys,” she said, “A purse to satisfy every woman’s needs.”

  “Does it shoot lasers that kill mages?” Karim asked, “Because that’s probably what we’ll need to get out of this.”

  “It doesn’t,” she said, softly caressing the material with her fingertips, “But…” she slipped her fingers into the handbag, then her hand, then her arm, all the way up to the shoulder. It all disappeared. She then pulled her hand out and opened the bag’s mouth, pulling it apart to show how the opening could stretch to fit a basketball if it needed to.

  “What the hell is that?” RJ asked.

  “This is how we’re gonna get the vault’s contents out.”

  “In there? How?”

  A proud grin swept across her lips. “Infinite storage. I made it myself.”

  “That’s not all she’s gonna bring to the table, either,” I said, “There’s a way to get past the anti-magic runes. Cassidy can turn spells into powders and potions that’ll work even in an anti-magic field. All we have to do is smuggle them inside before the event.”

  Silence moved through the room like the shadow of a cloud. Karim shook his head. “I’m sorry, you know that’ll work, how?”

  “I don’t know it’ll work,” Danvers said, “I think it’ll work, and we have six days to figure it out. One thing I know for sure, any mages in the room shouldn’t be able to detect the magic being used.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “That’s for me to know, and for you to never find out. Just trust me.”

  “Fantastic,” Karim sighed.

  “There are a couple of other things we need to iron out, but for now, that’s the plan. Axel and I will go in as guests while, Karim and Danvers infiltrate the control room. Then the two of us will sneak out of the ballroom, crack the va
ult’s ward, empty the vault, and make our escape through the roof where RJ will be waiting with the window cleaning basket. Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”

  “Shouldn’t…” RJ said, “Nothing’s ever that simple.”

  “No, which is why we’re gonna prepare for just about every possible eventuality. We have six days to get ready. Can we do this?”

  Danvers grinned and nodded. RJ didn’t look so sure, but he nodded too. Karim stared at all of us like we were mad. He shrugged. “I guess I’ve always wanted to try death out myself,” he said, “I’ve heard it’s better than heroin.”

  I looked at Axel. “And you?” I asked.

  He stared at me for a long moment. “I think you have a decent plan,” he said, “It can do with some work, but if anyone has a chance at succeeding here, you do.”

  “Any chance I can get that in writing? I’ll need a good reference after this is done.”

  “Pull this off, and you’ll never have to work another day in your life.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  You know it’s gonna be a good day when the head of a crime syndicate summons you up to his office. And by summon, I mean led at gunpoint by a couple of douchebags with assault rifles and itchy trigger fingers. Still, my cool head prevailed, even as I marched along what felt like the green mile.

  The guard knocked on the door, waited for Asmodius to acknowledge him, and then opened it for me to step through. “Move,” the guard snarled.

  “Yeah,” I said, staring at him, “I got that.”

  I walked through the door and into the dark office beyond it. All the curtains had been drawn, blocking the afternoon sunlight almost completely. At the back of the room, behind the mahogany desk the size of a truck, a fireplace crackled and popped, filling the room with warmth and a false sense of comfort.

  I approached the desk, walking for what felt like hours before I finally reached it. Asmodius stood by the fire behind the desk with a drink in his hand, watching the flames consume the logs. I waited for a moment while the mob boss brooded and scanned the room around me, nodding at its impressiveness.