by Anton Strout
“If they were subtle, they wouldn’t be cultists, would they?” Connor said, and started down the hall cautiously. “I suspect we’ll find out soon enough what they stand for. You might want to have your negotiating tool ready.”
I pulled my bat free and hid it under my coat once it was extended. “Should be lethal enough if it comes to it, I think.”
“Just follow my lead, kid. Don’t be overhasty to use it, all right? If things get hairy in there, I’ll give you a signal.”
“Right,” I said.
My body was cold from the accumulated sweat of the downtown chase, but it was also a reaction to my discomfort with the situation. The idea of pulling my bat in defense against a group of humans, regardless of their fanaticism, didn’t sit well with me. Beating a bookcase to death was one thing. Attacking humans was another. I tried not to overanalyze the situation, wanting to take things as they came.
The frosted glass doors at the end of the hall gave no hint as to what went on behind them, but the letters “S.D.L.”-this time over a foot high-marked the entrance. Connor crouched and pressed his ear to the door, listening carefully while I tried to center myself with several deep breaths.
“I can’t hear anything,” he said. “They must be soundproofed, or else it’s a lot quieter in there than we’re expecting.”
“Maybe we should pull ourselves together before going in,” I said, tucking my shirt in. “It’s an office building, after all.”
“Fine, Mr. Blackwell,” Connor said.
He stood up, straightened his tie, and ran his fingers through his sandy mop of white-striped hair, which did nothing to change the frantic-looking muss. I checked my grip on the bat as I smoothed down my coat for lack of a tie to straighten.Appearance is everything, Quimbley had told me in one of the early seminars. If you looked calm and composed upon entering the unknown, it went a long way toward controlling whatever situation might arise.
“You ready?” Connor asked.
I shook my head.
“We’re never ready,” I said. “Doesn’t mean I’m not going through that door, though.”
“Good,” Connor said, clapping me on the shoulder. “And remember, no caving anyone’s skull in unless I tell you to.”
I paled at his suggestion, hoping it wouldn’t come to that.
I was prepared for a lot of things when it came to cultists and the dark arts, but what we saw when Connor threw open the doors took me totally by surprise.
12
Connor and I stepped into the spacious waiting area of a normal-looking office space. The furniture in the main reception area was sleek, silver, and modern. The walls were covered almost completely by inspirational posters showing kittens clinging to tree branches begging the workers toHANG ON, BABY! Other posters thanked God it was Friday. Motivational quotes were written across posters of dazzling sunsets and peaceful oceans. Hundreds of memos were plastered on a large bulletin board, many of which carried official-looking seals from the state of New York. Dozens of workers toiled away at desks, and each desk had its own pile of paperwork that threatened to topple over and bury the person working there. It was a little comforting that their office looked as overburdened as ours.
I recognized the mark of it all.
“Government work.”
Connor tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the wall directly behind the reception desk. “They’ve got to be kidding.”
The letters on the wall were the same style as the ones listed out on the directory and the ones on the glass doors, except this time they spelled out the full name of the operation.
The Sectarian Defense League.
The receptionist sitting just below them at the desk was a heavyset woman with welcoming eyes and straight black hair pulled back so hard it stretched her face. She looked up from her magazine and noticed us for the first time. She smiled pleasantly…for a cultist.
“Can I help you?” she asked with the hushed tone of a librarian.
There seemed to be no need for the hysteria or theatrics that I was prepared to engage in, and I relaxed momentarily-even though I was still confused by what purpose this office served. These were businesspeople, reasonable office folk who could be dealt with in a civil manner. Things could proceed calmly.
And thingswould have proceeded calmly had I given Connor a chance to speak, but the cultist who had been swinging the kukri at us was too fresh in my mind and I snapped. This was where he had come. We were dealing with practitioners of the occult here and I rushed toward the desk.
“You’re damn right you can help us!” I said with menace. “We’ve come for the fish.”
The woman stared back, perplexed. I could tell she had no idea what I was talking about, but shehad to know something.
“Which fish is that exactly?” she asked nervously. Her smile faltered.
“You know what fish!” I said, and threw my jacket open, freeing the bat. I whacked it hard against the reception desk. The woman jumped back, startled, and nearly toppled over in her chair.
“Simon,” Connor said, reaching for my arm, “calm down.”
It was already far too late for calm. Every last person who had been working at the desks had leapt up and surrounded us. At first glance this assortment of temps and assistants had looked like any other group of office workers, but now I could see the raving fanaticism in their eyes. These were a determined-looking bunch of extremists that hid behind a thin veil of office pleasantries and seventy-dollar ties. We had to do something to gain control of the situation I had so hastily created…and fast. The mob of angry workers had us boxed in.
“Sorry about that little outburst,” Connor said, making direct eye contact with the receptionist. His grip on my arm became viselike. He pushed down until my arm and the bat slipped out of view below the counter. “My friend here’s a little…overtired. You see…we’re here on behalf of the D.E.A.”
“But we’re environmentally friendly!” the woman pleaded, still eyeing me with nervous fear. “We recycle. We don’t dump any contaminants. Honestly!”
In general the Inspectre didn’t like us throwing around the name of the Department, but we were still recognized by the city government and allowed to invoke that status if we thought it might have some sway.
“Not the Department of Environmental Affairs or the Drug Enforcement Agency,” I said bitterly. “The Department of Extraordinary Affairs.”
As soon as the words left my lips, the crowd around us snarled and began chanting in ever-increasing volume, drowning out Connor’s further attempts at reasonable negotiation. I moved back to back with Connor and surveyed the room for any signs of escape. With a bout of hopefulness, I noticed the mob of workers thinning in one particular direction and I thought this might be our chance to make a quick exit. Before I could grab Connor and drag him toward it, however, I saw the reason for the crowd’s dispersal.
A tall, shapely blonde plowed her way toward us with a clipboard in her hands. Her attractiveness and my chivalry aside, I wanted to smack theI know something you don’t know look right off her pretty blond head.
“I’m afraid you two will have to leave…” she shouted over the noise of the crowd. “Now.”
A clearing formed around the three of us, and the workers backed off slowly. They feared this woman. It wasn’t apparent why, but I surmised that it would be wise for Connor and me to fear her as well. She looked fresh faced, and definitely not any older than me, yet she commanded the respect of everyone around her.
Connor stepped forward.
“We’re not leaving until we get what we came here for,” he shouted over the snarling crowd. “One of your people took something that doesn’t belong to him. We want it back.”
She checked the pages on her clipboard. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. You see, we were merely recovering what was already ours.”
“That artifact belongs to Irene Blatt!” I shouted.
“I assure you it did not,” the woman said, staring at
us with beautiful but cold eyes. “Now, you can leave here the hard way or the easy way.”
The fanatics howled like caged animals all around us, waiting for any sign of resistance on our part as an excuse to tear us into bite-sized pieces.
“What’s all the commotion out here?” a cheery male voice boomed out from behind the crowd. Every office worker’s head turned, but none of them broke from their positions. At first I refused to chance a look, afraid to turn away from the menacing crowd even with the bat in my hands. After a moment, though, curiosity got the better of me and I snuck a peek toward the movement off to my right. I searched the crowd and locked on to a dark-haired European gentleman who appeared to be drifting through the throng toward us.
“Jane!” he called out to the woman with the clipboard. His voice held a hint of an accent, and at my best guess it sounded Slavic. “This is what I pay you for, isn’t it? To tell me what’s going on? So tell me…whatis going on?”
Jane shifted uncomfortably, and I detected a bit of fear mixed with the anger in her eyes. “That’s what I was trying to ascertain, sir, before our band of village idiots jumped up from their desks and decided to go all pit-bull.”
The man glowered at the crowd and they all averted their eyes as they shuffled away apologetically. The circle around me, Connor, and Jane widened even further.They’re acting like a big, dumb collective puppy, I thought, and I stifled the urge to laugh. I was watching an angry mob being scolded like a household pet and I wondered where Jane kept the rolled-up newspaper to bat them on the nose when they stepped out of line.
The man pushed past Jane, who was smiling smugly from behind her clipboard. Her boss stood an impressive six inches taller than any of us. He cast his eyes on me, smirking as he gave the bat in my hands a good look up and down, and then he turned his focus to Connor. “You seem like the rational one of this duo. Would you care to explain what he’s doing brandishing a bat in our offices like Joe DiMaggio?”
“We’ve come for the fish,” Connor said calmly. “And we’re not leaving without it.”
“Who the hellare you?” I asked sharply. I refused to be casually dismissed.
Jane stepped forward and poked me in the chest with a corner of her clipboard. “Watch it, mister. You are addressing the chairman of the Sectarian Defense League, Faisal Bane, and you two are trespassing. This is a government office registered with the City of New York. Whatever misapprehension you may be operating under, I’m informing you that we’re a legitimate organization in this town.” She stared at me in silence for several seconds, then said, “You can put the bat away.”
“Jane…” Faisal said sternly. “Never mind that. Bring me up to speed.”
She turned to face him, and I saw a hint of fear in the woman’s eyes. “Err, I’m not sure who these gentlemen are, Mr. Bane. The unarmed gentleman was arguing some claim for…” She scanned the clipboard with her index finger. “Item one-six-eight.”
Faisal Bane snatched the clipboard from her without taking his eyes off us and she flinched. His eyes danced for a moment as he read the listing. “I see. So would either of you two gentlemen care to explain why you feel the need to act in such a barbaric manner in our office?”
Connor nodded and pulled out his ID.
“We’re with the Department of Extraordinary Affairs, Bane. Property belonging to one of our clients was removed from her apartment earlier today by someone we tracked back to this office. The wooden fish.”
Faisal Bane glanced at the clipboard again. “Ms. Blatt? She’s with you, is she? Interesting. I thought she was…” He stopped himself and grinned. “Well, let’s just say I thought she was elsewhere.”
Faisal Bane and his minions knew something about Irene’s death, and I had trouble holding back my anger.
“What do you know about her disappearance?” I asked.
Faisal smiled at me with false politeness and handed the clipboard back to Jane. “Nothing whatsoever.”
“If you’re responsible for what’s happened to her-” I started, but Connor put his hand on my shoulder and interrupted.
“What is this place?” he demanded.
“Perhaps I can answer that,” a familiar voice offered from somewhere by the main entrance. A man stood at the doors. Just yesterday, I had watched him talking on the television in the front corner of the Lovecraft. It was none other than the D.E.A.’s strongest protector and the Mayor’s Office’s talking head, David Davidson. In person, the gray at his temples was more pronounced, and although he wore the smiling face of a politician in his midforties, his eyes looked much older.
“Davidson!” Connor said. “Thank God! What the hell’s going on here? Who are these people?”
“Easy now,” Davidson replied in that even way of his. Like magic weaving its spell, I could hear the soothing quality of his voice-it was no wonder he was a natural political liaison. The Mayor had relied on him for years to smooth over problem after problem that came through City Hall. I didn’t know if his abilities came from any sort of special power, but the fact remained that Davidson had a natural calming effect. “First, I think we need everybody here to take one giant step back from everyone else.”
As if on cue, everyone but me, Connor, and Faisal Bane moved back in unison. Davidson’s words had worked on the crowd and I was suitably impressed. I had never actually watched him work up close, outside of a TV screen. Although I hadn’t stepped back when he instructed us to, I did find myself lowering the bat until it once again hung harmlessly at my side.
“Good,” Davidson continued. “Look, Connor, I know the D.E.A.’s not really up to speed on what’s been going on here. There’s been a lot of red tape over this whole project back at City Hall, and the Mayor’s Office felt it was better to keep you folks in the dark until certain goals and initiatives had been fully set up.”
“Why don’tyou bring us up to speed?” I demanded. What the hell was the Mayor’s Office playing at?
Davidson sighed. For a second I thought he looked almost as worn down as his eyes did. Then he was back to his regular self in a flicker. “We’re talking about the cultists’ rights movement. The city has pushed through legislation legalizing and acknowledging the status of cults as part of the equal rights movement’s regulated standards and fair practices.”
I stared at Davidson in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?” I said. “Please tell me that you’re kidding!”
“Unbelievable,” Connor added. “We’re talking about people who perform ritualistic sacrifices on the living, for heaven’s sake! They’re bloody cultists!”
“Actually,” Faisal said, raising a finger to interject, “we don’t go by that term. It’s archaic. The politically acknowledged term is ‘Sectarian.’ Didn’t you notice the sign on your way in?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Connor said with as much bite to his words as he could muster. “Did I offend you?”
Faisal’s eyed flared with contempt. “It’s just this kind of blanket mentality-this stereotyping-that the Sectarian Defense League has been put in place to prevent!”
He turned his dark gaze fully on us and pointed accusingly.
“The world is changing,” he continued, “whether your high-and-mighty Enchancellors choose to deal with it or not, and weare the future of the new world order, gentlemen. Not you and your kind. You are dinosaurs, and like those pea-brained giants, you are headed down the same road.”
Connor pushed through the crowd toward Davidson, and I followed. I blocked the doors to stop Davidson in case he tried to leave, but he made no move. Connor drilled into him. “Is this how the Office of Plausible Deniability is handling things nowadays? For God’s sake, David, fighting people like these is part of the reason the D.E.A. was founded!”
“Listen,” Davidson said, throwing an arm over Connor’s shoulder. “These are complex times, Connor. You and Babe Ruth there can’t simply run around threatening everyone you meet with a Louisville Slugger.”
Davidson was trying to s
mooth things over, but it was too late. Whatever calming spell his voice had woven over us was now gone.
“I can’t believe you’re standing up for these guys!” I said. I reached for Davidson’s lapels to shake some sense into him, but my hands found no purchase. Dave Davidson moved with a speed I hadn’t thought possible, almost inhuman, and he was now standing a foot farther away.
“You don’t want to do that,” Davidson said with a cold stare. He adjusted his tie, all the while splitting his gaze between the two of us.
“You thinkthese are complex times, eh?” Connor started. “Wait until Inspectre Quimbley tells the Enchancellors. Then you’ll see complex.”
Faisal Bane cleared his throat and the three of us turned.
“Gentlemen,” he said. He waved at his employees dismissively and they returned to their desks. “I trust that your business is with each other and it need not concern me or my staff. We’re terribly busy around here at the moment, much to do…”
“A shipment of sacrificial lambs coming in?” I scoffed.
Faisal ignored me and continued. “Mr. Davidson, I suggest that you and your two-man A-Team take your issues outside. Unless you’d like me to put in a call to the Mayor…?”
“Hey,” Davidson said, looking a little worried. He held up his hands in surrender. “Easy, easy.”
A second later his composure was back.
“No need to bother His Honor,” he said with a carefully balanced political chuckle. “I’m sure the D.E.A. and I can handle this back at their headquarters.”
“And just where would that be?” Faisal asked a little too quickly. Greed sparked to life in his eyes, like a lawyer’s at the scene of a fresh accident.
Davidson went to speak, but I beat him to it.
“That information isnot part of the public record, Mr. Bane. Sorry to disappoint you.”
“You’re a government agency,” Faisal said, “much like ours and far more secretive than us, it seems. You’re required to be listed publicly. Just as we were.”
“You’re working under the assumption that we’re set up like you,” Connor replied. “Do you have any idea how long we’ve been around? Longer than the fat cats downtown and certainly much longer than any of these newly formed charters governing your institution. Don’t try to tell me how things run. We work under special charter, designated on a ‘need to know’ basis by the borough of Manhattan. I find it highly doubtful that anyone, including Mr. Davidson here, considers you and your group as a member of those ‘need to know’ types. Isn’t that true, Mr. D?”