On the Run (Wine of the Gods Book 28)

by Pam Uphoff

  Jim backed up the sequence. The brunette had no purse, either in hand or over her shoulder. The other women, ditto. The three men were equally unburdened. Just like the robbers, who'd looked like they walked out empty handed.

  Martha tapped the screen. "That woman in the lead is definitely wearing Black Cat's shoes. The jeans are the same brand and style. The sweater could easily be covering the tank top she wore in the bank. Warthog didn't hardly change at all. And looking at the face—I think Deer must be male. If god is merciful."

  "I think you have just proved the utility of massive intrusive police powers. Could you trace them any further?"

  "No, which is really frustrating. There were intersection cameras both directions. Nada. I'm wondering if someone picked them up in a car."

  "Large one. Or two. Or maybe a small truck without windows."

  "And this was Atlanta, right at the top of our list. So they're still moving south."

  "Right. So next, we'd expect Birmingham, Columbus, Pensacola, Jacksonville, Tampa or Miami. I still don't see a pattern to how they pick the individual bank. Other than they always have an off time, and the Animals always show up then, minimizing the number of people who walk in on the robbery."

  "Anything unusual in the witnesses?"

  "Nope. They were just standing there, working, standing in line, whatever. Suddenly someone yelled something and they went stiff. A couple of them fell over, mostly they just stood there and watched, couldn't even blink. The ones that were positioned to see all said they scooped the money into invisible things, and the money disappeared when they shut them. About thirty seconds after they left, they could all move again. Happened all at the same time, no individual differences."

  "And they're still having fun with the Forensics Lab."

  Jim and Marge both frowned at the newcomer. In any large working group, there were bound to be people who rubbed each other wrong, and in the Special Bank Robberies Unit, it was Dirk Pelham.

  Dirk flashed his blindingly white teeth. "The pretty clerk was kissed by an African warthog. They have, so far, identified wolf, cat, fox, badger, warthog and elk hair from the scene."

  "It looks more like a deer to me." Marge crossed her arms.

  "Actually that's the one they can't visually assign to an exact species." Jim admitted.

  Marge snorted. "So we have a trans-species, trans-gender bank robber? Right. We need to try to track down where they could have gotten those hair samples."

  Two more members of the team entered the room. Norman Bresler and Char Hanley.

  Char picked up Jim's hand and shook it. "Congratulations, you were right about Atlanta. So, where are they going to hit next?" The elegant South African stopped as she caught sight of the picture frozen on Jim's comp. "Do you think this is them?" She ran the vid backwards and then forwards.

  Norm started grinning. "Yes, look at the big guy's build, the two long haired women's body language. Oh, yes. Can we get forensics to sweep that area?"

  Marge nodded. "They're there now. We're doing the whole ground floor. This was just five hours ago, the store hasn't been swept since they walked through."

  Dirk nodded. "Bunch of bioengineered freaks, most likely."

  Jim sighed. "Every tall good looking person doesn't have a freak in the gene pool, Dirk. Grow up." Because we all know you are trying to make clear that your own height and good looks are all natural.

  Hell, he, himself, went out of his way to not mention his maternal grandfather, and no one would ever call Jim handsome, and he was only a little over average height. Width, now . . .

  "Doesn't matter. With pics, we've got them."

  Chapter Three

  Friday 28 October 2015

  Dice Creek

  Eldon looked over as Epee walked back in, wearing a smart business suit.

  "I am going to take the last of last month's take down to the city and change it. Then we'll be ready to start planning the next raid."

  Rior nodded. "Might as well, no point in letting the cash build up any more than we have to."

  With magic it was so easy to launder money. Epee and Falchion had a dozen busy offices they frequented. Hundreds of busy workers would stop for a moment and write checks to the "Black Island Furniture and Accessories" shop and take cash in exchange. They even rounded up and let their little launderers make a small profit. The Gang had ten company bank accounts and then each their own accounts. The banks that might have looked askance at all cash, never blinked when half the store's take was in checks. The store itself was a post office box. The sheer amount of money they'd stolen made it impossible to launder it all quickly. They needed to open multiple faux stores and "recruit" a couple dozen more offices full of bespelled check writers. They needed to start accepting credit cards. GridPay. Then they could claim an internet store, which would be handy, since they had no store at all this time.

  And Eldon rather thought they should stop having so much fun robbing banks. "This one. It's got multiple lines of retreat." He tapped the map.

  Jade scowled. "It won't have as much cash on hand as this one. It's a central bank, not just a branch."

  "I don't like the long approach down the cul-de-sac, and the nearest store is three miles away, and this bottleneck, if the police blocked this one overpass we'd have to go a good five miles around."

  "The police have never arrived on site before we left." Rior shook his head. "We'll hit the central bank. We'll take double or triple what we would from the other. Now, let's look at the times. Eleven in the morning, low traffic. A few of the usual delaying spells on the sidewalks outside and we'll have free run of the bank. Falchion, it's your turn to be the observer."

  Eldon protested. "We've been doing the same thing too many times. They know our pattern now. We should at least jump around, not do this systematic north-to-south progression."

  "Bah. You have no artistry in your soul, Eldon."

  He nodded. Definitely not.

  The setup was standard. Jade and Falchion flew out, pulling a corridor behind them, and took a taxi to a nearby store. They set up the corridor with a spring mounted frame, so it was closed. No accidents, with people stumbling through, thank you.

  Nervy, Eldon warped light and stepped back through first. He got the frame open after a suffocating second, and he stepped out, light warped around him so he showed only as a faint heat shimmer in the air. At this hour, the store was thinly populated. He flipped a green ball back through the corridor, and the others walked through. He held the light warp around himself, and walked to another exit. He hiked down the wide, well kept streets. Inside the light warp, everything looked dim, bleached of color. He triggered the partial morph to deer, relaxing and trying to not feel the pulled muscles and aching bones. He couldn't see the others, but their mental communications were fine. He passed across the mouth of the cul-de-sac and walked on another block.

  ::Everyone is in position, lay the delay spells.::

  Eldon coated the sidewalk with spells of forgetfulness, of tiredness, of I-forgot-must-go-back as he walked down the cul-de-sac. Then they were walking in the triple doorway of the bank and dropping the light warps. The band of pain around his head disappeared. Falchion yelled at everyone to freeze and the paralysis spell spilled out in a roaring tide. Eldon stepped in to catch a guard who'd managed to pull his gun and leap toward them. He set the man down carefully, so the gun wasn't accidentally fired, then headed for the tellers. Rior was busy with the computers. Usually he didn't bother, but he'd had an idea. Old Gods help us! As usual, the locks on the drawers were a minimal problem. There were more of them than usual, so it took a bit more time. Jade whooped from the lower regions, and Betelgeuse scooted down to help her. It was taking too damn long. His skin itched and he hurried from drawer to drawer. Jade and Betelgeuse hustled up the stairs. Eldon and Epee finished the drawers. Heso was getting seriously involved with a scantily clad customer. Eldon thumped him in the ribs. "Time to go."

  "Damn it, do you realize she doesn
't have any underwear on?"

  Rior scowled and abandoned the computer. "Let's go."

  They warped light as they walked out, and outside they could hear the sirens. Lots of them.

  "Run." Eldon snapped. He ran straight up the cul-de-sac, and as the first police car shrieked around the corner he snapped out a spell to tangle moving electrons. The siren died with an indignant squawk as the car stalled. The police officer abandoned his non-working vehicle and jumped out to meet a sleep spell straight on. Brakes and slamming doors sounded around the corner, the first man around the corner was wearing a suit, with a flack vest over it. He had a gun in hand, and more men, some in uniform, some suited, all with their vests and various weapons. Rior dropped his warp and hit them with a stun spell. Jade followed that up with sleep. The crowd collapsed, but the first fellow, a broad powerful looking man only stumbled and raised his gun.

  Rior sliced.

  "No!" Eldon threw himself in front of the man, shielding as hard as he could. The kinetic wave hit him, threw him against the man, and both of them against the wall.

  This time the man was down and out. Eldon had dropped the light warp somewhere along the way. Now he waved an illusion over himself, of looking just like the unconscious man. The others caught on and took on the looks of the nearest fallen police officer. Eldon staggered back around the corner and waved the waiting hordes of police forward. In moments they were lost in a crowd of uniforms and suits, and working their way outward. Two police cars, doors open, engines running . . . they piled in and drove away. Eldon hit switches until he managed to turn the flashing lights off. He turned onto the overpass before the sounds of the chase rose behind them. Rior in the other car surged ahead, and Eldon followed. Three blocks, two corners. They abandoned the cars in the middle of the street and ran into the store, wheeled and opened the corridor and dived through.

  Falchion swept a quick look around for a head count, then reached and collapsed the corridor. "Well. That was exciting."

  Rior rounded on Eldon. "By the One, I could have killed you instead of that cop. What's the matter with you?" His wolf's head was well designed for snarling.

  Eldon blinked at him, too tired to make a fight of it. "I'm not a murderer like you." He turned and walked out, dragging down the hallway to his room. He dropped the illusion, started morphing back to his usual appearance. "Not yet." He wiped tears from his face, and pulled a bottle of brandy out of the little cupboard by the bed. "Not yet."

  ***

  Jim sat down stiffly and looked at the team. "Well. Any bright ideas for a follow on encounter?"

  Head shakes all around.

  Andy Noman, one of the new MI guys, shrugged. "I went over and over the ground with the Army's medical types. The CAT scan showed a faint bruising to the back of the brain, a very slight concussion. I was physically knocked out—apparently by Wolf waving a hand at me. Did you see the squad car vids? He waved a sort of sideways swish. Fox waved downward and got the people who rounded the corner after the first wave. Then Jim got back in working order and Wolf sort of flattened his hand and swept it sideways. Deer jumped in, got knocked completely off his feet and slammed into Jim and the wall."

  "Then they all took a good look at a cop, put on an illusion of that cop and walked out in the excitement. Grabbed a couple of cars and drove to Lacy's downtown, and walked into nowhere." Jim sighed. "I hope you lot feel better than I do. That Deer ought to be playing football."

  "The first cop fell asleep. All the next people to come around the corner have bruises and concussions, like me." Andy said. "The second wave had strong REM sleep waves, until they suddenly woke up. You know, we've always speculated what a Frankenstein, a genetically engineered person would be like if someone pulled out all the stops."

  "Statistically, it's too unlikely that any random breeding could concentrate the genes enough to be dangerous. And seven of them? If these are those engineered phenomena, we must be looking at an underground lab. That was operating twenty or thirty years ago." Jim tried to not grind his teeth. "All we need is another round of lynchings, or worse, the Government roundups and purges. We need to get these people, quickly."

  Marge looked pale and tired this morning. "Have we seen most of what they can do? Illusions of animal heads or other people? Sleep and stun spells?"

  "Dream on, they've still got that invisibility and paralysis stuff. However they are doing that, it is damned slick." Jim sighed.

  "Did you see the report on the damage to the wall beside you?" the second MI guy asked. Harwin Something-or-other.

  Jim nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, I'd write off the deep gouges in the building as prior damage, except the vids show the brick dust flying out . . . I think the Deer blocked something deadly the Wolf aimed at me."

  Nods of agreement around.

  "So, while they seem to be starting with non-lethal . . . weapons, apparently they can escalate into effects that are probably deadly, and possibly capable of major structural damage. Keep it in mind.

  "In the meantime, let's see what we can do about identifying and tracing these people. Dirk, Norm? You two go back to the cities they hit earlier and see if anyone saw them. Check especially any stores within a ten block radius that have entrances on two or more streets. If they have surveillance cameras, check the hour after the robbery. The rest of us will be pounding pavement here, trying to find anyone who might have noticed this lot getting into a vehicle. Marge? I assume the computers are working on matches for these people?"

  "Yes, and coming up empty, by and large. The few matches are very unconvincing. This lot may not have records. Which would explain why they aren't laundering the money through any outlets we know about."

  "Hmm. Amateurs. That might explain why they've stuck to the same routine until we ran them down."

  They broke up then and scattered, for the tedious work that had to be done.

  Jim turned back to the stack of reports that had come in since . . . whenever he'd last had time to clear his inbox. The series of genetic reports caught his eye. He shuffled them into order of arrival and started through them. Genetic analysis of both the animal and human hair found in all the banks. Ha. Got them. The gang had run out of their animal hair samples, and had to pick up some new for about half the species. The DNA showed that the hair was from different individual animals than the hairs from the earlier heists. So, as suspected, the animal hairs being found were deliberately planted. Where do you go to buy or steal the shed animal hair of several different species? A zoo?

  Ah. Now here was something else useful. Hair samples from the two stores they were known to have set foot in. Several thousand individual hairs analyzed. Three matches with hair from the banks. A nice secondary check, given the ability of these people to appear as anything they wanted, including nothing at all. And this gave them the gene sequence of three of the seven. Outstanding.

  Ouch. Except for the huge number of engineered genes. Damn, damn, damn. All they needed was another Great Purge. Tens of thousands executed. Tens of thousands sterilized. Thousands lynched. And all the rest under suspicion for life. Marked. A lot of them had voluntarily sterilized themselves, refusing to bring children into so much hatred. His grandfather had dared a single daughter, and as often as not passed her off as his step-daughter. Just in case. Please, God, not another purge. These seven 'Animals' were solidly on his personal bad list, for that possibility alone.

  Now, how the hell were they traveling. With that invisible trick he couldn't even rule out commercial flights. If they could find open seats, once they were in the air they could walk out of the bathroom and just sit down. Circulate these pics to all commercial carriers. More likely they were driving. Make these pics public? Or wait a few days and see if they could find the gang before they fled?

  ***

  Eldon held out the foursome of cute little wine bottles and tried to smile nicely. Given his current appearance, the effect probably wasn't what he hoped for.

  Rior sighed. "All right, th
e other spells are all completed and dissipated. What do you want, just a female to male, or do you want to be blonde again?"

  "Ah, let me get back to being all male, first. I'll worry about color later. I think I've got a blonde potion tucked away somewhere. Did we lose all of our potions, back in Houston?" Where we had a legitimate business making money hand over fist? Until your jewelry store robberies caught up to you?

  "Most of them. Fortunately both Jade and I had some of that wine of the gods and the elixir of long life. Those are the only ones I haven't been able to reproduce. Everything else I can make whenever we need it. In fact I suspect most of us had a few things tucked away." He reached out and took the four pack of splits. "I'll make yours and a few others that might come in handy. Now, go away. It'll take me a couple of hours. If anyone goes shopping, have them bring more of these."

  "Right. Thanks, Rior." Eldon hustled out quickly, before he could annoy the wizard, or whatever he was. Heso was watching a basketball game. Boooorrring. The only person around to talk to was awfully young. The kid was reading, as usual. Never should have sent him to school. "Roddie, you're as smart as your dad, aren't you? Or is he your mother?"

  Roddie blinked at him, bright blue eyes and pale blonde hair contrasting with his honey brown skin. "He knows everything. I don't think he'd want to be a girl, girls don't get to do the fun stuff."

  "Yeah, well, but before we got our hands on all these potions, it wasn't so easy to change. If Rior was born a girl, she was probably stuck that way until she found Comet Fall."

  Roddie thumped his feet thoughtfully. "Are you having fun being a girl?"

  "No, I don't like it at all. And anyway, I'm only halfway changed. Your dad is making a potion to change me all the way back into a guy right now. That'll be a big relief."