by Krista Walsh
“No, actually, that’s all fine,” Molly said, happy to give an honest answer for a change.
“Is it Steve? He hasn’t been around here all week.”
“He’s busy getting ready for midterms,” Molly said. But the desire to fill her mother in on some of what was bothering her pushed her to add, “But things have been a bit weird with him. We had a bit of a fight.”
“About what?”
“About nothing, and that’s part of the problem. We don’t usually fight over nothing.”
Her mother chuckled. “You’ve been friends for three years. Maybe the honeymoon stage is finally over.”
“Mom,” Molly said, drawing out the word. She didn’t like her parents making marriage jokes about Steve. They tainted Molly’s secret hopes and desires for the future.
“I just mean that all friends argue once in a while. Your father and I fought last week because apparently I brought home the wrong type of apples. I don’t know when he stopped enjoying galas, and it would have been nice if he’d told me so that I would — anyway, that’s not the point. I’m sure you two will make it up. Is that all there is?”
And I’ve been sneaking out of the house every night to talk about magic and monsters with a daemelus, who saved me from being attacked by a bunch of undead creatures. Oh, and I met him after being teleported into a locked, magically sealed room because I loosed a couple of arrows across an alley and into a warlock’s apartment to save a screaming stranger.
“No, that’s pretty much the big one,” Molly said.
Her mom brushed her fingers up her arm, tucked a loose piece of Molly’s hair behind her ear, then cupped her cheek. Her palm felt warm against Molly’s skin, and a hint of her lavender body spray wafted toward Molly from her wrist. “At your age, I can see how that would be enough. Especially with exams coming up. But that’s no excuse for you not to eat. You can’t let these little things have such a big impact on your life, all right? If you start now, how are you going to manage it when you tackle university, or your first job?”
Molly nodded. She would have to find a better way to balance her daytime life with her nighttime one, because clearly she hadn’t been doing nearly as well as she’d thought.
“Tonight, I think we should spend some family time together. Maybe play a board game after dinner. What do you think?”
Molly yawned. “I would love to, but I’m really tired, Mom. I’m thinking I might get an early evening.”
“What about your homework?”
“I’ll get that done now.”
“All right…” her mom leaned in to press a kiss on Molly’s forehead. “I just don’t want all of this drama to start affecting your health. Or your grades. I saw the results of your English test yesterday. That’s not like you.”
“I know. I just really didn’t like Macbeth.”
“Suck it up, buttercup. You can forget about it tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.”
Molly groaned as her mother laughed at her own joke, but she felt lighter for unloading at least one of her problems. Light enough that her stomach grumbled, and she pulled her snack toward her. If she was going to save some of tonight’s dinner for Zach and Dusty, she needed to make sure she got her fair share now.
8
Zach stood outside the gates of Mayzell Industries’ downtown location. Smoke billowed up from the half-dozen chimneys stretching toward the sky.
Aside from the size of the factory’s property, which extended two city blocks, it wasn’t an impressive place. Plain white walls stretched across the whole length of the front, their black-framed windows the only thing breaking the monotony. It was as though the architects hadn’t been born with a single ounce of imagination or creativity.
Zach watched the employees shuffle out through the double doors. By the looks of them, they weren’t the kind of people to care about the state of the building, being equally devoid of personality. Men and women in dress shirts and trousers, their hair neat and tidy, their gaits steady and evenly paced as they made their way from the building to the parking lot.
He waited in an alley across the street, using the warm brick wall to keep himself propped up so he didn’t fall over due to boredom. The sun was still high, which wasn’t ideal, but he’d work around it. Despite his size and the scars on his face, he’d mastered the art of going unnoticed. It was all about giving the appearance that you belonged. No one looked twice at a person who knew where they were going.
As soon as the bulk of the afternoon staff headed home, he would find a way in through a side door, then head upstairs where he figured the offices would be.
Rationally, he knew this was a horrible idea. He had no plan, no idea of the building’s layout, and no clue what he was looking for. His gut, on the other hand, screamed at him to take action. Karl clearly refused to let him be, and he was done playing the Topan demon’s game. Now it was time to turn the rules around. This might not be the building where Wenzell and Mayes kept their offices, but someone here would have information about the new factory. It would be impossible to keep all the details secret.
When the last employee walked out, Zach waited another five minutes, then crossed the road and crept around the side of the building.
He was sure there would be alarms in place, so he avoided the emergency exits and searched the ground for cigarette butts. Places like this always had a designated smoking section, and he doubted the doors would be locked so early in the evening.
The entrance announced itself with the telltale reek of ash and tobacco, a smell that lingered in the walls long after the final smoker had left for the day.
Sure enough, the door had been propped open with a rock. Luckily for Zach, security obviously wasn’t held as a particularly strong value at Mayzell Industries.
He eased the door open and peered down the empty corridor. One of the fluorescent ceiling lights buzzed as it cut in and out, giving the otherwise sterile environment an eerie, abandoned feel. Voices bounced along the walls from a distance, but they didn’t seem to be coming closer.
Zach made his way forward, taking each step slowly so he didn’t come up on anyone unawares. He hoped to find an easy stairwell where he could duck in without moving through any public areas, but the smooth walls continued on until he came to the end of the hallway.
He pressed his back against the wall and peered around the corner. The security desk sat in the middle of the lobby, but the guard within was tipped back in his chair, his wide arms folded and his chin sunken to his breast.
As he passed behind the security guard, Zach caught a glimpse of the television screens over the man’s shoulder. The quick glance gave him an idea of how to avoid the security cameras and confirmed his suspicion that the offices he was looking for were on the higher floors.
Thanks, Camera 3-04, Zach thought, tipping his mental hat toward the camera outside an office labeled Plant Manager.
He set off down the hallway, alert for the sound of footsteps across the tiled floor. He remained aware of the cameras he passed, doing his best to stay out of view, even though he figured it wouldn’t matter if they did spot him. If Karl was already having him followed, what difference would it make if they learned he’d been here?
The door to the stairs was on his right. To his left, through a set of blue double-wide doors marked Employees Only — No Admittance Without Visible Identification and Safety Gear in large yellow letters, was the factory itself.
On a whim, Zach passed the stairs toward the marked locker rooms at the end of the hall. He listened for any voices within, and when nothing came back to him but silence, he pushed his way into the men’s room.
Two showers took up the back-right corner, but most of the space was dominated by lockers. The room carried the usual scents of body odor, strong aftershave, and a sort of chemical aroma that was probably carried over from the machines and whatever else they worked with through the big blue doors.
Zach went to the nearest locker and yanked on the c
ombination lock. The simple latch snapped with little trouble. He opened the locker door and stared at the safety equipment hanging inside — a white lab coat, with thick gloves and safety glasses in the front pocket.
Zach grabbed the coat and squeezed it on over his own. The shoulders strained, and he knew one sharp movement would tear the seams, but at least if he was caught, it would take people a moment to notice he stood out.
He closed the locker, did his best to hide the damage to the lock, then crept out of the room toward the stairs.
Voices echoed from higher in the stairwell. Zach took one step a time, staying close to the inner wall so he could peer around corners before anyone had the opportunity to see him. When the voices from above came closer, he slipped through the stairwell door into the second-floor corridor, keeping the door open a crack to watch a pair of administrators in suits pass by as they went down the stairs. A loud laugh pierced the silence of the stairwell, and Zach cringed at the sound.
Once they were gone, he slipped out of the corridor and sprinted to the fourth floor.
The door leading toward the offices up here was locked.
Zach curled his fingers around the handle and twisted until it snapped. So much for not leaving behind any trace of his visit.
He opened the door, braced for alarms to go off, and released a sharp exhale when everything continued quietly.
A phone rang down the hall. When a soft female voice answered it, Zach turned on his heel and headed in the other direction. He tried to guess the path from his view of the security videos, but all these rooms and corridors looked the same.
One door read General Manager, another Factory Manager. There seemed to be a lot of managers. Zach wondered who actually oversaw the day-to-day running of the place and who had just been given a nice title to keep them from complaining about the workload and crappy pay.
He turned a corner. At the sight of two men waiting for the elevator, he whipped around the way he’d come and pressed his back against the wall, hoping they hadn’t noticed him.
“…get those reports in,” one of the men was saying.
“Don’t know why Mayes is suddenly in such a rush for them. I didn’t think we were starting the new project for another couple of weeks.”
“I don’t think this has anything to do with us, Henry,” the first man said. “From what Ted was saying in the meeting the other day, the schedule here will continue as planned.”
“What do you think this new plant is for, anyway? Think they’re going to move things over? Close up shop here?”
“Time will tell,” the first man said.
“If they do try to close this plant, I can think of a few staff members who will riot. Including me, frankly. I’m not commuting four hours a day to get to work, and I haven’t put fifteen years of my life into this business to walk out without a fuss.”
“No point planning the riot yet, Henry. Let’s see how this plays out. Mr. Mayes said the new factory will benefit everyone. In my twenty years, I’ve never known him to forget that his employees are what make this place run. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Sometimes I think you’re too trusting.”
The elevator pinged, and two sets of footsteps moved into the car. Zach listened for the sound of the doors closing, then waited another few seconds before rounding the corner and continuing down the hallway.
One part of Karl’s story had been confirmed, and it sounded as though the planned changes were already stirring up talk. He wished his eavesdropping had been more to his benefit, but at least it was a start. A four-hour commute would take him well out of the city limits, which opened as many doors in his search as it closed.
He kept an eye out for the cameras in the corners, careful to keep his face averted whenever he passed them. Eventually, he came to the corridor he recognized from the video. Section 3-04. Any useful information would be found here, in the well-lit corner office. The rooms were lined with glass walls so he could see into the reception area. Fortunately for him, it was empty.
The door was locked, but just like the other obstructions he’d faced, he made his own way in. He passed the empty reception desk and debated between the two offices, finally opting for the one with the better view. Lucky Mr. John Ott, according to the nameplate on the door. Zach figured it was a safe assumption to make that the highest ranked manager would have the best office. Along with the best information.
Zach closed himself in behind the clouded-glass door and headed for the desk. The drawers were locked, but it didn’t take much effort for him to get into them. They were protected against human thieves with lockpicks, not demons with supernatural strength.
He didn’t know what he hoped to find about the new plant. Unless the managers were demons themselves, he doubted there would be an Otherworldly Roster laid out in black and white. Hopefully, though, there would be an evidence trail he could follow to learn more — a subtle clue that only one of his kind would recognize that would lead him in the right direction.
Most of the paperwork he found related only to the existing plant, but in the third drawer, buried under the routine documents and forgotten breath mints, was a blue file folder marked Project: Oracle.
Curious, Zach slipped the folder out of the drawer and laid it open on the desk. Inside were the blueprints for what he assumed was the new factory. The font was small, and so many lines crossed over each other that he couldn’t make sense of it at first glance. After examining it, he made out a series of hallways on various floors, with large rooms full of what appeared to be schematics for some complicated lab equipment.
Beneath the actual blueprints were copies on thin paper, each page layered over each other so the information on all the pages showed through the first. A clever way of breaking down the layout floor by floor. But it was a lot of floors. Many of the rooms were scored with question marks, as though the purpose of each space was being kept from the employees, but by the dimensions, the building was huge.
He counted twelve pages before the door to the reception area opened and closed.
Zach froze.
“The bosses aren’t willing to wait much longer,” a man said, his voice so deep that it rattled through Zach’s head. He shook off the effects and glanced again at the pages beneath his fingers. Taking the whole file would cause immediate panic, but one page would give Zach time to look it over and try to make sense of it. Even if he got a vague idea of location and purpose, he could use it. He slipped the bottom sheet into his pocket and flipped the folder shut.
“I don’t know what they want me to say. I’ve looked at the plans, and the possibility of having everything delivered in three weeks isn’t feasible. It’ll take at least another six to have the equipment made.”
“Unacceptable,” the deep voice rumbled, and the skin on the back of Zach’s arms rippled with the otherworldly energy coming through the door. Demon. “You got the deadline months ago and told them it wouldn’t be a problem. The compensation for your trouble was, if I remember correctly, generous.”
“What are you trying to do? Threaten me?”
“Trust me, if you’re not able to meet your deadline, the last thing you’ll need to worry about is threats.”
“Fine. I’ll grab the file and we can go through it. If you can find a place where we can speed up the timeline, we’ll do it your way.”
Zach had already slipped the file back into the drawer and slid the drawer closed. Shadows appeared in the clouded glass door, and the muscles between Zach’s shoulder blades squeezed his spine. A quick scan of the room showed a wardrobe, a large plant in the corner, and a bathroom across from the desk.
His heartbeat thudded against his ribs as he moved. He barely reached the bathroom before the office door opened.
Hoping the two men were too invested in their conversation to notice movement in the corner of the room, he eased the door shut.
“What the — I could have sworn I locked this when I left.”
/> Zach didn’t give them any time to discuss the possibility that the manager might not have been the last person to access the desk. He crossed the small room to the narrow window facing the side of the building and assessed the width. There was no way in heaven or hell he would fit through there easily, but at the moment, he didn’t see many other options. He could take his chances and wait here for the two men to leave, but if one of them decided they couldn’t wait to take a leak, it wouldn’t be a great place to find himself.
He could fight them off, but that would bring the whole security team on his back before he made it out the front door. Strength was no guarantee of success, and if he was overwhelmed by numbers, he could kiss his freedom goodbye.
Project Oracle.
At least his visit hadn’t been a complete waste. He now had a name and the layout of one floor of the new factory. With that, maybe he could do some better digging on his next visit to the library to find out what it was all about.
The deep-voiced demon’s threats suggested that there was more at stake here than creating a few extra jobs for their workforce. So what could a manufacturing company have gotten themselves involved in? Organized crime? With demons?
The idea would be enough to keep Zach up at night, but he guessed there had to be more to it than that. He could think of dozens of demons in this dimension who would be eager for work. Why would they try so hard to recruit him?
Whatever the answer, he wouldn’t find it in the bathroom.
He eyed the window again. Carefully, quietly, he slid open the pane and knocked out the screen, holding on to it so it didn’t clatter onto the fire escape beneath the window. He stepped onto the toilet and attempted to squeeze his shoulders through the gap. Too wide by at least three inches.
A crash sounded through the door, and Zach stilled, his ears straining to pick up anything of the scene behind him.
“I—I swear, I’ll do what I can. I promise.”
“You’ve already promised,” Deep Voice snarled. “See that it’s done.”