“Nothing.”
“Very well. Close the door on your way out.”
Monq left quietly. For once.
Glen reported to the Sovereign’s office as requested.
“Come in,” Rev said.
Glen stepped through the open doorway and stood in front of the Sovereign’s desk. “I got a call that you wanted to see me?”
“Indeed, Sir Catch. I need you on a run down. Falcon is away without leave. I need you to find him and bring him back here.”
Rev opened a drawer and withdrew a plastic zip baggy containing three sedative syringes dosed for a human, but sized to fit in a tranq pistol.
Glen reached out to accept the proferred bag, but did so with a frown.
“Is there a problem?” Rev asked.
“Speaking freely, sir?”
“Go for it.”
“Well, I’m not sure I understand why you’re suggesting that I hunt down a knight, sedate him, and drag him back here against his will. When did we become prisoners of The Order?”
“Dr. Monq and I have reason to be concerned for Falcon’s state of mind.”
“The last time I was in this office you were concerned about my state of mind. Does that mean I’m not free to leave if I want?”
Rev stopped multitasking and looked at Glen. “You’re not asking because you’re considering giving up your commission.”
“No, sir. It just doesn’t feel right. The idea of tranquing a knight, especially not one who practically became a legend when he was still a kid. A trainee.”
“That’s exactly why we’re sending you after him. We need to get him back here and help him heal. He’s valuable to us, but he’s also valued by us.” He looked Glen over thoughtfully before saying, “You up for this, Catch? If not, I can get somebody…”
“I am. When do I go?” He put the baggy in the inside pocket of his jacket.
“You’re going to be working with the new tracker. She’ll decide. Here she comes now.”
Rev motioned someone inside. Glen turned toward the door in time to see Rosie stepping inside, looking wary.
“This is your new tracker?” Glen laughed bitterly while he looked at the carpet and shook his head. “Of course she is.”
Rosie looked at Rev. “I’m working with him?”
Rev looked between Glen and Rosie. “Is there a problem?”
They turned to him and said, “No!” emphatically and in unison.
Glen walked toward the door without glancing at her again. “Let me know when you’re ready to go.”
It took Glen less than three minutes to get to Monq’s office.
“Did you arrange to get me stuck on a mission with Rosie?”
Monq chuckled, shaking his head. “No. I know it’s easy to mistake me for a god, but the arrangement was made entirely by fate.”
“What’s so funny?”
“Just curious how things work out sometimes. You’d almost think there really was an unseen intelligence at work trying to create opportunities for people to sort things through.”
“Since when do scientists believe in fate?”
“I’m a scientist AND magician. Not to mention philosopher, inventor, and physician. If pressed, you’d have to call me a renaissance man.”
“What I would have to call you would earn me a week in the stockade.”
Monq giggled. “You can say what you want in here without repercussions. Even if your comments about me take a derogatory turn. You should know that by now. Call me what you want.” Glen sat down and clammed up. “What? No schoolyard rejoinders?” Glen sat back, pulled his arms over his chest, and glowered. “Very well. Tell me about the assignment.”
Glen’s knee began to judder. He looked around the room for a few seconds like he was deciding whether to continue pouting. “You know Falcon’s AWOL?”
“Yes. I do know that.”
“The Sovereign wants me to go get him.” Glen stopped and looked at Monq. “Or, since you’re a magician, maybe you could just pull him out of a hat.”
Monq nodded. “I could, but where would be either the fun or the lesson in that for you? And how does that involve the Storm girl?”
“Will you stop calling her that!?!”
“All right. What would you like me to call her?”
“Rosie. That’s what everybody calls her.”
“Really? Why does everybody call her that?”
“It was a grandmother’s nickname. The one Deliverance was, um, in love with.”
Monq removed his glasses and began to clean them. “That’s deeply personal trivia. I wonder if she knows you remember such details.”
“Who knows what she knows? Who cares what she knows? What I need you to know is that her name is Rosie. Calling her ‘the Storm girl’ sounds stupid.”
“Very well. From here on Rosie is Rosie.” Glen wished his little victory didn’t feel so empty. “But before we leave this subject behind, why does it matter so much to you that I call her Rosie?”
Glen’s eyes glinted. “Oh no you don’t.”
“You’re right. I have work to do. We’ll talk about it at dinner tonight. Seven o’clock. Don’t be late.”
Monq turned back to his work. When he looked up again, Glen was gone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Glen never made it to dinner. An hour after he left Monq’s office he got a text from Rosie.
ROSIE: Ready to go.
GLEN: Where do you want to meet?
“How about here?” she asked after she appeared right in front of him where he stood in the kitchen of his temporary quarters.
Out of reflex, he jumped. It had been a long time since he’d been in the practice of expecting Rosie’s surprise arrivals.
“Crap, Rosie. What are you doing? This is my private space.”
“What’s so private about it?”
“What’s so private is that I’m not expecting people to just pop in, literally, unannounced. I could have been undressed or engaged in something really private.”
She raised her chin and looked around. “It wouldn’t be anything I haven’t seen before.”
“The fact that you can defy physics doesn’t give you a right to go anywhere you please.”
“It does when I’m on a mission. I’m on company time right now.”
Glen sighed because he knew there was no point in arguing. “You have the handcuffs?”
Rosie laughed. “The purple fuzzy ones? I’d forgotten all about those. No. They belong to my mother. You got a rubber band?”
Glen shook his head. “Just rubbers.”
“Funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.” She made a face he didn’t recognize. “I can get a rubber band from Farnsworth.”
“Okay. While we’re at it, I need to get into Falcon’s place. Since I don’t know him, I need something of his.”
Glen snorted. “Like a dog? You need to sniff his shorts?”
“When did you get to be so vulgar?”
“Vulgar.” He shook his head. “That wasn’t even close. I’ve seen real vulgarity.”
“Good for you. I’m sure someone somewhere would like to hear about it.”
She took hold of his shirt sleeve and before he could register that he might be dizzy, they were standing in the Operations Office.
“You did not take me through the passes without securing me!” he said. “You could have lost me!”
“Please. I’m not going to lose you going from one floor at J.U. to another.”
Glen glared at her.
“Can I help you?” Farnsworth asked.
They both looked at her like they’d forgotten why they were there.
“You got handcuffs?” Glen asked.
Farnsworth cleared her throat. “Well, that’s not usually the sort of thing I arrange…”
“No. No. No,” Glen said. “They’re for making sure she doesn’t lose me. Losing people in the passes may run in her family and I don’t want to be the next victim. I have
a feeling she wouldn’t search as hard for me.”
Rosie glowered.
“You know,” Farnsworth looked around, “after the aliens were here, I think we did requisition some in case we were ever put in the position of needing to secure prisoners. Just a minute.”
She picked up the in-house phone. “Do you have any handcuffs down there?” She paused. “Hysterical. No. I’m serious. I’m sending Sir Catch and Ms. Storm right now. Give them what they need.” She paused, said, “Uh-huh,” then hung up.
“You know where armory is, I assume?”
Glen gave her a look that said, “Duh,” as clearly as if it had been spoken. Since he had served as temporary Sovereign of J.U., he knew every inch of the facility. “Thank you, Ms. Far… I mean, Mrs. Farthing.”
She smiled prettily. “You’re welcome. You kids have fun.”
Glen gaped at her. “We’re not having fun. We’re on a mission.”
“There’s no reason why you can’t work and have fun.”
Glen could think of plenty of reasons why he couldn’t have fun with Rosie. He could scarcely tolerate the idea of working with her. But rather than go into that with Farnsworth, he simply nodded and walked away.
He made a point of going through the door first. He didn’t want to give Rosie even the tiniest courtesy or gesture of respect. As far as he was concerned she’d ruined his life and was continuing to do so.
When he stopped outside in the hall, she almost ran into him. He turned around and, while he looked down at her, she was trying to remember if he’d been that tall the last time they’d stood so close together.
“Why don’t you get the Sovereign’s admin to let you into Falcon’s apartment while I go get handcuffs?” Glen said.
“Okay,” she said. “Do you want to meet back here?”
“Here would be fine,” Glen said evenly through clenched teeth.
She let out a huff of breath and disappeared, shaking her head.
Fifteen minutes later Glen was standing in the same spot where he’d agreed to meet Rosie thinking that just a mere two days before he would have laughed at anyone who might have suggested that he would voluntarily allow himself to be handcuffed to her. If the circumstances that had brought about that turn of events was due to fate, as Monq had suggested, then fate had a wry sense of humor.
He jumped when Rosie appeared beside him, but refused to give her the satisfaction of saying anything about it.
“So. Where is he?” Glen asked.
“Still in New York.”
“Did you take something that belongs to him?”
She shook her head. “Didn’t need to. I got a sense of him.” She looked at the handcuffs he was holding. “So get dressed. Did you bring a barf bag?”
She was referring to the fact that he used to get nauseous in the passes.
“Just make it fast. And try to bring us out somewhere where we won’t be noticed either for poofing into existence or for being handcuffed together.”
She eyed him. “I will try to be careful. In the spirit of give and take, you need to lose the authoritative tone. I don’t work for you personally.”
“You don’t work for me personally. The thought of that is too preposterous for imagination. But I’m the knight in charge of this run down. You’re the tracker. We’re not a team. You’re assisting me.”
“Oh really?”
“We don’t have time to massage your ego, Missy.”
“Missy!?!”
Glen snapped a handcuff onto his left wrist and held it dangling in the air until she took it and attached the other half to her right wrist.
She grinned, knowing he was going to hate the next two minutes. “And away we go,” she said cheerfully.
They emerged from the passes at 6th and Houston. Glen looked green enough that Rosie felt too sorry for him to taunt him about it.
“You got the key?”
He unzipped a small outer pocket of his jacket, withdrew the key and handed it to her as he leaned back against a brick wall. While she unlocked the cuffs, he said, “We’re taking a whister back.”
“We’d have to do that anyway, Glen. Falcon is human. One hundred percent.”
“Yeah. Forgot.”
“Hey. There’s a Chipotle. If we don’t spot him right away, let’s get a chicken burrito.”
Glen barely suppressed gagging. “You didn’t eat before we left?”
“I guess I was focused on the job.”
“Speaking of that, why is Litha taking a leave?”
“I guess they want to give me siblings.”
Glen nodded. “Well, you’ve got some big shoes to fill. She’s got quite a reputation.”
“Trying to make me doubt myself on the first day of a new job? That’s not nice.”
“Just sayin’.”
“Whatever.” She pulled the crystal necklace from inside her shirt.
“What’s that?”
“Secret weapon.”
“Seriously.”
“Why do you question everything I say? It belonged to my mother. It was a gift from Deliverance.”
“Demon magic? You’re using demon magic!”
He was beginning to irritate her.
“Glen! How do you think my mother’s shoes got so big?”
“All right. Settle down.” He looked around. “Why are we here?”
“He’s around here somewhere.”
“Around here somewhere,” Glen repeated. “That’s a big help.”
“Look. I’m not supposed to do your job for you. I’m supposed to get you within striking distance. And I have.”
“What are you talking about? I can’t ‘strike’ what I can’t see.”
“You’ve never done this before, have you?”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“For that matter, why did they pick you for this job? Why aren’t you with a team?”
Glen pressed his lips together. “Let’s just get through this. Okay?”
Rosie studied Glen’s reaction and the fact that he’d tensed in response to a question that should have been innocent chit chat. Among Order personnel, that was.
“Okay. I think he’s over that way.”
“You can’t pinpoint where he is.”
“There could be as much as a five minute delay. Or so.”
“Five minutes? Great. You could put Falcon down anywhere in Manhattan and he could get far away in five minutes.”
Rosie shrugged. “Is what it is and that’s better than any alternative that The Order knows of.”
Glen crossed his arms in front of him and said, “Which way?”
“I think he’s over there,” she said.
Glen looked in the direction where she was pointing. It was the Film Forum, which was a mostly foreign film venue for Greenwich Village movie buffs.
“Deux Amis,” he said. “A French movie. Yeah. That’s it.”
His long legs started eating up the distance as he strode toward the theater.
She hurried to catch up. “What? No ‘good job, tracker’?”
Ignoring her, he kept walking past the row of bicycles chained up outside. It appeared that ticket sales were inside. He pulled open the door and let it close behind him, leaving Rosie standing on the sidewalk. She huffed, but followed him in. When she caught up, he was standing in front of the cashier saying, “Deux Amis. Deux s'il vous plaît.“
“Wow. That popcorn smells good,” she said. Glen acted as if she hadn’t spoken. When he stepped away with the tickets, Rosie caught him by the arm and said under her breath, “What if he’s in there, Glen? Are you going to tranq him in the middle of a movie theater? Then what? Carry him out and hope that either nobody notices or nobody cares enough to say anything?”
“I see your point.” Glen stood there juddering his fingers against his thigh for a minute. Then he started moving toward the entrance to the movie in progress.
“What are you going to do?” she said.
He stopped lo
ng enough to say, “I’m going to ask questions first and shoot later. I’m going to tell him that I’ve been sent to bring him back and ask him to come with us.”
Rosie cocked her head. “That’s so perfectly reasonable that I’m kind of impressed.”
Glen gave her a smile that was pure meanness. “The last thing I’m trying to do here is impress you, Elora Rose.”
“Okay. That’s it. That was the last time I’m going to try to be nice to you. That was it. Right there.”
“Good. Because you trying to be nice to me feels all kinds of false and sort of makes my skin crawl.”
“Not going to dignify that by responding.”
Another mean smile. “You just did,” he said as he let the door close in her face.
Rosie followed him inside. She glanced at the screen while waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Glen was standing in the back, scanning the theater. It wasn’t full by any means, which made it easier to spot Falcon sitting in the middle, about ten rows back from the front.
Glen pointed. Rosie nodded. She went down the left aisle. He went down the right. Falcon was the only moviegoer sitting in that row, which made it convenient for his pursuers. Rosie sat down on Falcon’s left side at the same time Glen sat down on his right.
Falcon’s gaze remained steadfastly locked on the screen as he continued eating popcorn as if they weren’t there. When Rosie couldn’t stand it a minute longer, she reached over and snatched a handful from his bucket.
Falcon looked at her. “Get your own,” was all he said before returning his attention to the show.
“Kris,” Glen said. “They sent me after you. You’re not in trouble, but if you need to take some leave time, there’s a process. Come back to J.U. so we can straighten this out. Then you can take a leave of absence if you want.”
Falcon shook his head no.
“Why not?” Glen asked.
“I don’t want to be there right now. I’ll go back when I’m ready.”
“Yeah. Well, here’s the thing. The Sovereign wants you back now. I don’t have to tell you what that means. It means you don’t have a choice. And neither do I.”
Knights of Black Swan, Books 7-9 (Knights of Black Swan Box Set Book 3) Page 73