by Penny Cavan
“Do you think he glows in the dark?” I murmured to Midas, then stepped forward. “Mr. Gandelin. It’s lovely to meet you.” He smiled slyly at me, taking my hands.
“Harlow, my darling, Aita, please,” he said, leaning forward to kiss my cheek. He spun me around by one hand. “And look how amazing you look! Don’t tell me you got dressed up for little old me?” I smiled a little wider.
“I wouldn’t dare insult you by showing up in less than my best,” I said, bringing one hand to my chest. “If I’d known we were dressing casually, I might have chosen something with a little less fabric.” I reached out and straightened one of the sides of his robe, running my hand over one of his nipples. He shivered and Midas growled behind me. I turned to him, shooting a glare. “Let me introduce you to Midas,” I said, leading him over.
“Oh, yes, your yummy man. I definitely see the appeal.” Aita circled Midas. “Could I borrow him for a night?” he asked, licking his lips.
“For the love of all that’s holy, Aita, grow up,” another woman said, walking in wearing a simple black cocktail dress. “You have information they need, so go get your ass dressed and back down here before the soup gets cold.”
“But Sophie,” Aita whined. “Look how uncomfortable Midas is.”
Sophie sighed and came over to push Aita towards the stairs. “I’m sorry about him. I swear, he’s feral. His mother tried to domesticate him, but it just didn’t take.” She cut Aita off as he tried to say something. “Aita, I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and whatever Cook has made smells amazing. Go change and come back so I can eat.” He rolled his eyes stalked off and she turned back to us.
“Sorry about that. He lives to make people uncomfortable,” Sophie said. She gestured toward the door she had come out of. “Let’s get settled in. It won’t take him long to change and whatever Cook has ready really does smell divine.”
“Wouldn’t it be rude to start without our host?” Midas asked as we followed her to an intimate dining room. Through an open door, I could see a much more formal one, which made me wonder why Aita had chosen this dining room.
“We won’t start eating,” she said, “but I have poured the wine. I hope you like red.”
“I do,” I said smiling, “but I have a feeling that you knew that already. I’m Harlow.”
“Sophie,” she said, pausing to shake my hand. “Your earrings are absolutely gorgeous. Where did you get them?”
“They were a gift,” I said, smiling at Midas. We settled in at the table and Sophie picked up her wine glass.
“Aita will inevitably make another one of these when he comes back down, but for now, a toast to new friends.” We raised our glasses and tapped them together, and I took a small sip. I didn’t want to get drunk before I knew what Aita wanted. Instead, I studied Sophie over the edge of my glass. She had coloring that was similar to Aita’s, but their bone structure was different. If I had to guess, they were related somehow. Cousins maybe. I looked over at Midas and saw that he was making his own perusal.
“What do you do for Aita, Sophie?” he asked, taking another sip of his wine. I set my glass down and leaned back.
“I don’t really work for him. I’m actually a researcher at one of your rival medical facilities,” she told him with a shrug. “I just live here. It’s cheaper than renting a place in town, and quieter. Aita set up a lab for me so I can work from home too.”
“That’s certainly kind of him.” Midas took another sip. “He has such a cutthroat reputation that, I admit, didn’t match the man we met. He doesn’t seem to be the man to settle down with one woman.” He paused slightly before woman, and Sophie nearly spat out her wine.
“I’m not sleeping with him,” she coughed, eyes watering.
“Has Sophie not told you?” Aita said coming in. This was the cutthroat I had been expecting. His suit was impeccable, a dark grey with an almost unnoticeable blue piping. He had it paired with a pale blue shirt that didn’t quite go with my dress. His hair was still slicked back in a long tail, but tightly braided this time, and a sapphire flashed in one ear. It was a statement. He was on our side, but he wasn’t going to say it in as many words. “We’re half siblings,” he announced, sitting.
“That explains a great deal,” Midas replied, sitting back.
“A toast,” Aita said, “although it seems you have started without me. To a fruitful partnership.” We raised our glasses without touching them this time and all sipped. As if on cue, two men came in with bowls of soup and set them in front of us. “Now, we shouldn’t talk business over dinner. Tell me, Harlow, how is my friend Meg?”
Aita and I made general chit chat over dinner, while Sophie and Midas seemed to get into a deep discussion over something that I couldn’t understand. He looked over at me a few times, but it seemed that his attention was fixed fully on his dinner companion.
“Don’t worry about him,” Aita said. “He’s completely in love with you. After all, it’s not every day that a man lets a woman bring a cat into his bedroom.” He shuddered slightly. I made a mental note to tell Midas that Aita somehow knew what went on in our bedroom.
“Are you not a cat person?” I asked lightly, delicately scraping my spoon against the side of my dessert bowl to get another bit of the delicious dessert.
“Dogs, please. I have three beautiful ones right now, two males and a bitch. I’m hoping for puppies. Plus a couple of exotics.” He stood. “Let’s move to the library for conversation,” he said, and we all stood. He led us across the wide entry and into another extravagant room. There were four chairs in a half circle around a small table near the fire. I settled into one, knowing that Aita would sit to one side. He did, but Midas sat on my other side. He reached out and squeezed my hand. “Now to business. The Hollows.”
“What about them?” I asked, lifting my eyebrow.
“I know you’ve been rescuing them from the very beds they sleep in and spiriting them off to the nomads. In fact, I’ve pointed you to a few.” Aita leaned back, lacing his fingers together behind his head. “It’s time to put a stop to it. It’s time for all children to be safe in their beds.”
“They took the daughter of a friend of mine,” I said coldly. “Just this morning. Why have you decided now is the perfect time to take these people down?”
“Addy. We heard,” Sophie said softly. “We had to wait until we were in a position to help.”
“What about all of the Hollow children who haven’t been rescued?” I said, staring her in the eyes. “What about the children who froze and died in their own skin? You had to wait?” I huffed incredulously. “Of course, Hollows don’t matter to the gifted ones.” Midas squeezed my hand tighter.
“I care about them,” Aita said softly, “and do not think otherwise. I have several employed here, and I have funded hundreds of rescue missions. But it is simply stopping the trickle.”
“Do you know the story of the boy and the dyke?” Sophie asked, leaning forward. I shook my head. “It’s an old, old story of a boy who lived in a country where the ocean was held back by these big mounds of dirt called dykes. He found a hole in one of the dykes one day and plugged it with his finger. Then he plugged another. He used a piece of cloth to plug a third. He was so focused on the little holes he didn’t see the wave that came over the top and broke the dyke. You’ve been plugging the holes. We want you to help us stop the wave.”
“You employ Hollows?” Midas asked, turning to Aita. “How do you protect them from raids?”
Aita scoffed. “There aren’t raids here. And don’t call them Hollows. They’re people, just like you or I, for all that their powers are different.”
“Hollows don’t have powers,” I told him. “Everyone knows that. But thank you for admitting that we are just as important as you.” Aita and Sophie exchanged a glance.
“What do you mean, Hollows don’t have powers?” Sophie asked carefully. I looked at her. “You wouldn’t know, of course.” She shook her head sadly.
“
What’s the opposite of white?” Aita asked. I looked at him, confused. “It’s black, darling. The opposite of light is dark, of night is day, and of power is the absence of power.” I stared at him, shaking my head.
“A positive ion and a negative ion would cancel each other out,” Midas whispered. “One person’s power can be cancelled by another.”
“And we have a winner,” Aita said, clapping slowly. “Didn’t you wonder why she can touch you?”
“Her power cancels mine out. But then why—” Midas cut himself off, looking over at me. I blinked quickly, trying to process everything I was hearing.
“Why did you have that little incident with her golden hair?” Aita asked archly. Sophie groaned.
“You were shocked when we first put this together too, Aita, so stop torturing them. Yes, Harlow, your “power,” for lack of a better term, is to negate Midas’s. You can learn control, and in theory, will be able to turn his powers “off” for a length of time. At least that’s what some of our Hollows have been able to do. I’m not entirely sure that it will work with powers like his. Midas, you had that incident because the balance isn’t perfect. You can still find shadows on a rainy day, right?”
“Does that mean that the other Hollows negate one specific power? Finding the power to match the Hollow sounds like a difficult challenge,” I said slowly, still processing.
“Not all Hollows are as specific to a power as you are,” Aita said gently. “Actually, I’d be very curious to see if your talents are specific or not, but that’s a challenge for another time. Back to the business at hand.”
Sophie handed Midas and me tablets with data pulled up. “If the soldiers took Addy this morning, they’d have taken her to Fort Sequanna. It’s about ten hours away, and one of the smaller facilities. It should be an easy target with your skills, Harlow.” I flipped through the information, scanning the images and bullet points about the security features.
“We’ve provided packs full of your usual tools, but we have to be careful. However much it hurts, you cannot rescue every person there.” Aita leaned forward to look me deeply in the eyes. “We need the information, any information, that you can get for us. Rescue the girl if you can.”
“We will bring her home one way or another,” Midas said coldly. “Whether it’s alive to play with her sister of for her family to bury depends on how long you keep us here.” The men were silent, eyes locked on each other. Sophie and I glanced at each other.
“Page six,” she said, nodding to the tablet, and I flipped to that page. It showed a three-dimensional schematic of the building. “We’ve determined that the safest entries are either the door at the southwest or the door in the middle of the east side of the building. The administration is on the top floor, labeled A116. The science labs are on the second floor, and we believe that the head scientist’s office is the collection of offices on the north wall. The Hollows are held on the third floor.”
“How do you have all this information?” Midas asked, turning away from his staring contest with Aita.
“We had a man on the inside for a while,” Aita said. “He came back to report one day and it was love at first sight. We were able to get him reassigned, but we haven’t gotten anyone else in place yet.”
“It’s time to go then,” I said, standing. The other three followed suit.
“Let me get your supplies,” Sophie said with a smile. “There’s also a change of clothing for both of you.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Midas
“How did he get our own clothing?” I grumbled as Harlow and I were tossed against each other in the back of the small utility vehicle that Midas had provided. He’d provided a pair of drivers as well, and the one who was currently driving, David, was crossing over the wilderness like it was the smoothly paved roads of the business district.
“He also knows about Delly,” Harlow murmured, studying the schematic. “He’s either got cameras or someone in the house is on the payroll.” She turned the building to look at it from another angle. I shuddered.
“You aren’t concerned that he knows that much about us?” I asked. She shrugged.
“How much do you know about your enemies?” she asked wryly. “After all, you plundered my panties when the only thing we had was a five minute conversation.”
I nodded in capitulation. I knew a great deal about my enemies, and even my friends. “Can we have that conversation now?” I asked. She sighed and set the tablet down.
“Are you going to explain why you went cold?” she asked, turning to lean against the door so she could look at me. I had seen that look on my mother’s face before. I was in trouble.
“Do you remember the last time we were together?” I said, glancing at the drivers.
“When you made me scream loud enough that I’m pretty sure that the turtle was hiding? I remember it quite well, I was there,” she said acidly.
I looked down and sighed. “I had your hair in my hand, and it turned gold. Not all of it, just enough that I could sense it.”
“And you got scared?”
“And I got scared.” I glanced towards the drivers and caught one of them watching us in the rearview mirror. He saw me watching and quickly turned away. “Harlow, I couldn’t stand it if I hurt you.”
“And yet you hurt me by pulling away and not talking to me. That plan worked out so well for you.” She turned away, picking her tablet up again. The drivers hissed, and I looked up to see them watching us again.
“David, could you please watch whatever path you’re following so we don’t crash?” I asked pointedly. The looked away. I reached over to Harlow and turned her face towards me. “Harlow, how do I fix this?”
“I don’t know, Midas, and I don’t have the time to devote to figuring it out right now. I’m trying to figure out how we’re going to break into a government facility, get research from two different areas, save a child, and get out without getting caught. I’m swamped.”
“Well, I guess the good thing that you have help. Tell me the plan.”
We walked the last mile to the Fort in silence, communicating through waves and other hand motions. There was a forest coming up on the east side of the building, but it stopped fifty yards from the building. We paused and watched the building, Harlow timing how often we saw lights go by the windows. “It looks like there’s twenty minutes between rounds,” she whispered to me. “Can you get to the science labs in that time?” I nodded. I would go to the science labs while Harlow went a floor above to the administrative office before meeting me. “Twenty minutes there, twenty minutes to search, then we have twenty minutes to find Addy, and another twenty to get out.”
I grabbed her arms and turned her toward me. “If I get caught, Harlow, you get out. Find Addy if you can, but get back to the city and get back to Aita. Promise me.” She nodded, and I pulled her close for a kiss. She fought for a moment, then melted against me. “I think I love you Harlow,” I said, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.
“Then let’s get through this so that you can spend the rest of your life making this little spat up to me, okay?” she said with a smile. I nodded and we turned back to the building, watching the light come down the hallway towards the door. It went behind the last wall and we both crouched low to the ground and ran towards the building. We turned to the left and watched for the glow of the light to pass down the row of windows and turn the corner before Harlow pulled a set of lockpicks from her bag and went to work. She had it open in what felt like an hour but was probably only a minute. She opened the door and we slid inside. I squeezed her hand, and we went our separate ways.
There was an emergency stair at the end of this hallway that would take me up to the floor with the labs. I walked as quietly as I could, but still winced at the echoes my steps made in the stairwell. I opened the door slightly to look down the hall and slipped into the hallway when I saw no one. My heart was racing, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe quietly. How could Harlow do th
is all the time?
The door to the lab was locked, but this I knew how to solve. I pulled one glove off and pulled a thin card from my pocket. I slid it between the door and the frame so that it was touching the deadblot, then set a sliver of my power through both, turning them to gold. Pure gold is easily broken, so it took only a little bit of force to break the deadbolt after that. I grinned. Maybe I could do this more often.
I slipped into the room and moved to the inner door, checking and finding that it wasn’t locked. That was an arrogant move. I left that door open so I could hear anyone coming as I walked into the office and headed straight for the computer. I slid an old-fashioned USB device into the side of the computer. Sophie had assured me it would copy any information that was on the computer, but it would take about ten minutes. I turned to the filing cabinets and pulled them open, glancing through the files to see if there were any important. In the third drawer, I found one folder labeled MSX-42-102213 and frowned. No one should know that number. I grabbed the folder and put it in my bag to study later. I found nothing else in the files, so I turned to check the progress on the computer. As I turned, I saw a picture and my jaw dropped.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Harlow
Same story, another day, I thought to myself as I silently climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. I was pretty sure there wasn’t going to be anything of value in the administrative office, but I was hoping that I would be able to find another name in the chain, and hopefully that would lead us toward who was behind all of this. Kidnapping and killing Hollows hadn’t been happening after the Fall, when powers had been discovered. I wanted to figure out when it had started, who had started it, and who allowed it to continue. If I could figure out all of that, I might break in somewhere and perform my first assassinations.