by M. R. Forbes
"Not in public circles, no. I went a little further than that. I called Arlen."
"Are you sure that was a good idea? I don't really need to know what it is in order to carry it."
Arlen Brown was a Professor Emeritus of archaeology at Washington State University. One of the foremost experts in most things pre-Leschamp. Nice guy, a little weird. I liked him overall. The problem was that his specialty was valuable enough to earn him work from a number of the Houses, if not all of them. Considering the job was a direct hit as opposed to the usual strafe, I didn't like the idea of giving him any information he could pass on, intentionally or not.
"I know, but I'm still not happy about this." She paused, waiting for me to argue with her. When I didn't say anything, she kept going. "Two million to two ogres for a grab? Ogres aren't exactly known for their light feet and quiet gait."
"I thought we had this discussion already." It was all I could think of to say. I might have been walking to my death, just like I was every other day of my life. It was fifty-fifty, and fear of what came after notwithstanding, we needed the money. People had done more for less.
"We did, and I know you think it's a risk worth taking. I wanted to see if I could at least get the odds in your favor, so I asked Arlen about the stone. I sent him a picture."
"How much did that cost?"
"A hundred thousand."
I was tempted to be upset. We'd already lost a quarter of the take, and I hadn't even attempted the job yet. "I'm worth that much to you?" I asked.
"Someone has to bring back Mr. Timms for me."
"What did he say?"
"He'd never seen anything like it."
"That's it?"
"Yeah."
"A hundred thousand, and he gave you a phone shrug?"
"And an apology, and credit for a future inquiry."
"But no money back?"
"No. He did confirm that I'm right to be concerned."
I looked out the window of the plane. We were approaching the gate. It was raining. "Stuck between a rock and a Black House." I was screwed the minute I touched that card. "I don't do this, we spend the rest of our lives trying to evade a kill team. Clean already said he would turn us in without batting an eye."
"I know. I'm not trying to throw your game. I just want you to be extra careful. If they're meaning to hit you, hit them first, and then take whatever the hell that thing is and get out. Hell, if you make it through a trap alive, you might become the next Quidsy."
I laughed at that. Quidsy was a ghost legend. A legend that retired young with all the cash he had earned, only to wind up feral. The rumor had it that his lover had put him down and then gone to collect the thousand dollar 'containment' reward. "I don't think I want to be the next Quidsy."
"You know what I mean."
The airplane doors opened, and everyone stood up around me, rushing to get their carry-on and get off. I sat patiently in my aisle seat, putting my hand to my mouth to stifle a cough. "We're at the terminal. I'll call you when I get to Fairfield."
"Okay. Let me know if you need anything."
"Thanks for worrying about me."
"Everybody deserves to have someone to worry about them."
"Even assholes like me?"
"Especially assholes like you."
CHAPTER TEN
Pit stop.
The rain was coming down hard when I pulled over at a gas station in Fairfield. It was still early in the morning, which gave me lots of time to get myself together before the run. I navigated the Ford Focus I'd been assigned to a spot in front of a convenience store and pulled out my phone.
I stared at it for a minute. I told Dannie I'd call her, but I had nothing to say, and after her earlier pep talk I wasn't feeling like anything we chatted about would be helpful. I also knew she would worry more this way, and maybe a part of me preferred that. I pocketed the phone and got out of the car, lifting the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head to keep from getting too wet.
The look I got from the clerk told me I wasn't their typical clientele. His eyes followed me while I cruised the aisles, grabbing a Coke and a package of Twinkies. It was pure sugar, but I'd found that sugar helped after a treatment. It might have been a placebo thing, but I took what I could get.
I was headed for the counter when a redhead in a sharp suit yanked the front door open and ducked inside, dragging her umbrella behind her. She gave me a cursory glance and made her way through the store, quick and easy, sure of where she was headed. The clerk and I watched her go, and gave each other a knowing eye. She had that look to her, the one that made men dream. The one that could take that dream and run it right into the ground, or ram it back into your throat.
"Three-sixty," he said after he scanned my junk food. We had bonded over the woman, but he still seemed a little uncomfortable with me. I was willing to bet he didn't get too many half-dead guys in long trench coats and hoodies in these parts. This was a rich neighborhood, where thousand dollar suits and Mercedes held court. I was moving on up.
I found a five in my pocket and dropped it on the counter. I smelled the woman before I felt the heat of her behind me. She was wearing some fancy perfume or other.
"Some weather," she said behind me.
I turned around.
"I think I passed an ark a few miles back," I said. I gave her a closer look. Narrow face, huge brown eyes, plenty of makeup. Her red hair was the real deal, and flowed smoothly across her shoulders.
Her laugh was a little bit raspy, more scratchy than sultry. "I like that. I'm going to use that one, if you don't mind?"
The clerk held out my change. I took it and jammed it into my coat, and then picked up my stuff from the counter. "You could, but I have it trademarked. I'll have to put you in touch with my attorney." I forced a smile. My flirting skills were rustier than the Titanic.
She put her haul on the counter: a loaf of bread, and a package of Twinkies.
"Nice choice in processed snack foods," I said, shaking my own golden bars.
"I guess great minds think alike." She pointed behind the counter. "Can I get a pack of Camels, too?"
That explained the laugh. I slipped away without another word. Smokers pissed me off on a personal level. I had gotten cancer, and I'd never smoked a day in my life.
I was sitting behind the wheel, tearing open the Twinkie when she came out. She'd parked her Lexus next to my econobox, and she glanced over at me as she got behind the wheel, and then one more time when she backed out and sped away.
It took me two minutes to eat the snack, after which I pulled the car out and around to the side of the building. It had a service station attached to it, with the bay doors facing the rear. I looked around before I shut the engine and got out, circling to the office door. The TSA probably wouldn't have liked most of my standard equipment, and so I had left my picks back with Danelle. That didn't mean I was defenseless. A Glock had travelled with my suitcase in cargo, along with a WWII era combat knife I had picked up at Dalton's shop.
I turned the knob on the door. I expected it to be locked, and they didn't let me down. Picks were one thing, hairpins were another; they didn't even set off the metal detectors. I bent down and pulled it from my sock, shoved it in the lock, and had it open in about thirty-seven seconds. It was a poor performance, but this was just the warmup.
I moved past the air fresheners and other random car-related impulse buys, pushing open the door to the shop itself and moving inside. There were no cars in the bays, and the only light came from fluorescents bleeding in through the small windows. I walked the space, keeping my attention to the corners. I was in the back when I found what I had been hoping for.
A rat trap, with a victim still attached.
I knelt down and picked up the trap. The kill was still pretty fresh, the corpse in decent enough shape. I let it loose of the spring and put my hand to it. "Come on, little buddy."
It didn't take much energy to bring back a rat. It twitched under my finge
rs, and then skittered forward with a slight limp in its gait. Perfect. I dropped the connection, sending it back to its eternal sleep, and scooped it up in my hand. "You'll make a good accomplice."
I carried the rat out to the car, put it in the glove compartment, and checked my watch. Ten in the morning. I had a little over twelve hours before my planned heist.
I was going to need them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Slipping a Mickey.
Red's mansion was near the shore. It would have been on the shore, except she had about six acres of lawn in front of her house that abutted another couple of miles of beachfront. The rear was just as large, and it was the reason I needed so much time.
Rats didn't exactly move very fast. Especially dead ones with limps.
I parked the Ford well away from the mansion. The car would be too out of place in an affluent neighborhood, and I didn't question that it would draw the wrong kind of attention. I would have gone for something a little sportier, classier, and expensive, but the short notice had left our options slim. The end result was that I was going to have to sneak my way to the wall that surrounded the house, and then sneak myself away after I had lifted the stone. As far as I was concerned, that second part was the most dangerous of all. My plan left me seventy-one seconds to get out of the house and over the wall. That was a full sprint on my best day, and my best days were behind me.
I hadn't survived this long without being resourceful, and I made it to the outer edge of the property unseen and thankful that the rain had faded to to a steady drizzle. I crouched behind some thick shrubs and peered over at the brick wall, to where cameras rested near the top and swung back and forth, covering the entire perimeter. I would need to take them out of action later, but for now, I focused on listening for the pulse of the magical field. It was stronger on the other side of the wall, closer to the mansion, but a sliver of the energy was still leaking out to where I was sitting.
It was more than enough to breathe life into the rat again.
"Come on, Mickey. Time to go to work."
I held him in my palm while he shuddered. His nose started moving, sniffing its way along my flesh. That was the instinct that always remained; the hunger, and the desire to satiate it.
I placed him on the ground and moved behind the trunk of a wide tree, positioning myself with the bottom of my waterproof trench beneath my ass, so it wouldn't end up soaked on the damp grass. I was in the middle of a copse of foliage between Red's property and whatever wealth lived next door. It was meant to be a barrier, and it was perfect for keeping my body hidden.
I say body, because I had one more necromancer trick up my sleeve. I closed my eyes, and eased myself along the thread of magic connecting me to the rat. Not my physical self, but my consciousness, my senses. A moment later, I was looking through Mickey's eyes at the massive world around me.
Discovering the trick had been an accident. There was no necromancer handbook to reference, and Dannie hadn't been able to locate a living peer to pick their brain. One night before Mr. Timms had passed on, the cat had grabbed a mouse in our kitchen. It was a good soldier, and it brought Dannie the prize, but he had been a little too rough with it. Curious, I had brought it back from the dead, and watched it sniff and scuffle. I had this thought that it would be neat if I could make it run around, to give Timmsie something to play with. It started running then, and the rest was trial and error.
Most importantly, and most obviously, it didn't work on people. We were too evolved, our souls too developed and independent. I had managed to stick on Mr. Timms for about thirty seconds once, but cats were hard to control. Birds and mice worked best.
Of course, I hadn't actually transferred my existence to the rat. It was more like a remote control, where I was getting the feed of what Mickey experienced from the safety of my own brain. Not that my brain was totally safe. If I saw what the rat saw, I didn't see what my eyes could have seen. I was an easy target if anyone happened across me.
I guided him through the grass, skirting to the base of the wall. There was no doubt the cameras had seen Mickey go by, but it was unlikely they would find him suspicious. I ran him along the wall, all the way around to the iron bars of the front gate. It was easy to slip under them unseen, and make our way along the lawn.
The house wasn't close for a person. It was a marathon for a rat. I moved Mickey forward in stages, letting go of the sight and returning to check on my own surroundings during intermissions, while I allowed him to sniff the ground and pick up some choice morsels. He was dead, and he didn't need to rest, but I did.
Eventually, he reached the house. I could see the feet of guards walking back and forth in their patrol, unassuming men in black suits, but they were looking forward, not expecting to get infiltrated from down low. I skirted Mickey over one of their shoes, to the foundation of the mansion. I just needed to find a way inside.
I kept near the house, tracing its edges and searching for even the tiniest opening. It was a huge place, and just clearing the front side took almost half an hour. It was also well-maintained, with no obvious paths to get in.
I left Mickey to his own devices, pulling back my sight and opening my eyes. I took a deep breath and muffled a cough, and checked my watch. Six o'clock. No wonder I had to pee. I figured Mickey was in as safe a spot as any, so I moved off behind a further tree and relieved myself, and then returned to my position.
Mickey was still where I had left him. I only had a few hours left, and I really wanted to get into the house. My aim was to make sure the stone was where Black's ops had said it was, and that it was a real thing, whether Arlen knew anything about it or not. It wouldn't mean it wasn't a trap, but I'd already seen through my rodent accomplice's eyes that the guards were following the path in the kinetics.
Mickey ran along the far wall, near the limits of my reach. I was ready to give up when I spotted a small vent just above the base of the grass. I moved him inside and skittered down a dryer line, hopeful that there was some way out of it, and that nobody picked that moment to wash some clothes. A tiny crack in the hose was all I needed, and I pulled my little buddy out and down the rest of the tube, and then on to the floor.
I was in the basement. The room was large and clean, with a couple of industrial washers, a huge laundry bin, and a servant who was humming while she put some cleaning agents back on a shelf. She didn't see Mickey, and I got him under the bottom of the bin before she turned around and headed away. I raced along behind her, following her feet as she climbed the staircase back to the main floor. I slipped through just ahead of the slamming door, ducking under a decorative table before I could be spotted.
I saw the guards walking the halls. They were all human, wearing sharp dark suits and carrying light assault rifles. They could have been users, but it was impossible to know without intel or witness. I was going to assume they were, because it would be better for my health.
In my mind, I matched them to the kinetics. It was a tricky proposition since I had to adjust for the time differentials, but despite the poor judgement I had shown in taking the job, I was good at doing the math. If the pattern was off, it wasn't off by much.
Since I knew how they were going to move, it was easy to avoid them. I darted from one piece of furniture to another, and then shoved myself under the corner of a runner that ran the length of the hallway. A young girl dashed by; eight or nine, in jeans and a sweater, headphones on her ears.
I didn't know Red had a kid. It was an unexpected wrinkle. How could I be sure she'd be out of harm's way? She was young enough she should be in bed by then, and if all went according to plan, nobody would know I had been there until I was gone. I brought Mickey out from under the rug and kept going, through the hallway until I got to the library.
The door was closed, but there was just enough space underneath for me to squeeze my rat through. Even from there I could see the stone, resting on a pedestal in the center of the room, with a large track light shining down on i
t, displaying it with pride. It was real, and it was there. In fact, other than the little girl, everything was just as it should have been.
Mission accomplished.
I kept Mickey moving into the room, in search of a place to leave his corpse where he wouldn't be noticed for a few hours. The whole room was lined with bookshelves, but they were floor to ceiling, with no space under or between. I would need to leave him in with the books.
It wasn't a problem. Mickey climbed up over the top of one, and then I forced him down into the rear, squished behind a brick sized novel with a leather binding. I brought myself back from the sortie, opened my eyes, and checked my watch. I had two hours left to wait.
This was going to be a piece of cake.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Like taking candy.
I had this ritual before I started a run. I'd been doing it since my first time leading a team in the operating room, and had continued it into my new profession, back when Danelle was still dragging me along and showing me the ropes. Those first few had been true cake work - a couple of burglaries, a couple of package drops. In and out, no questions asked. Dannie had handled all the details. All I had to do was show up and not get us caught.
I bent from the waist, stretching out my limbs. I did a few jumping jacks. I did some neck stretches. I cracked every knuckle on my fingers. I yodeled the whole time, though it probably couldn't be called yodeling. Caterwauling, maybe? I knew it looked ridiculous from the outside, because Dannie had said as much during the fit of laughter that usually traced my progress, and I had gotten the same reaction from the O.R. nurses. She said I could be a Youtube star if I were to upload a video of the calisthenics. I could imagine Molly seeing her dead father making a jackass out of himself on the internet. Talk about awkward.
Anyway, I kept the yodeling as little more than a whisper, and tried to minimize the movements as much as I could, but I had to go through the process. It was to loosen up my body, and my mind. It was to calm my nerves and get 'in the zone' as best I could. My first move was to hop a ten foot stone wall, without being caught by the security cameras. If that had been the only move, it would have been nerve-wracking enough.