by Andy Hyland
‘Word is,’ he leaned in, ‘word is you’ve pissed off Sitri all over again. Something about destroying his hotel?’
‘Oh, so he was actually running the whole place? I thought he’d bullied himself into a short-term hire.’
‘Nope, big deal for him. He was laundering most of the drug money in the state through that place. You’ve kicked the hornets’ nest right over with that one, boy.’
Great. Pissing off Sitri wasn’t high on my list of things to worry about – he’d already vowed to kill me three times so far, so it’s not as if things could get much worse – but the timing could be better. I’d have to watch my back even more closely until something else crept in to occupy his attention.
‘Speaking of money,’ Dexter chipped in, interrupting my thoughts, ‘a few things have dried up, so if you’ve got any bones you could throw my way…’
I grinned. ‘You don’t want to storm a building full of gun-toting thugs, do you?’
He laughed and held up his hands. ‘Not my style, man, you know that. Come on, get real with me.’
I thought for a second. ‘Okay, how about checking someone out for me. Discreet. As in, they never know you’re there. Never. Girl called Julie Fairchild. Runs the Outworld Emporium.’
‘I know that place. Decent stuff.’
‘Yep. Runs that, lives up in 300 Central Park West.’
‘Wow. And the problem with her is?’
‘Not a problem as such. I’m getting the feeling that I don’t know enough, and there’s some…no, I’m not telling you anything. Have a look round and get back to me. A full, unbiased report. Five hundred.’
‘A grand.’
‘Seven fifty,’ I said, holding out my hand.
We shook. ‘Consider her fully investigated. No secrets shall be kept from me. All shall be known. Give me a couple of days, yeah?’
‘Done,’ I said, standing up. ‘Stay safe, Dexter.’
‘Always. What you up to now?’ he asked.
‘I’m off to storm a building full of gun-toting thugs.’
It was still light when I got to the rendezvous point, so I killed time by strolling inconspicuously past where Melanie was being held. Even close up it looked for all the world like a deserted construction project. Hopefully we hadn’t missed the boat with this one.
‘No, they’re still there,’ Zack reassured me when he turned up not long after the sun had slunk down behind New Jersey. ‘If you know what you’re looking for – which unfortunately you don’t – then nothing much has changed since we were last here. I counted six guards around lunchtime. I can see two from here.’ He pointed them out to me. ‘There and there. They rotate every hour, stay alert, don’t get jaded. Professional outfit. In terms of weaponry they’re packing C8 carbines. Good stuff. The British SAS use them, you know that?’ I didn’t. He must have seen my eyes starting to glaze. ‘Okay, enough of that stuff. You came packing?’
I patted my pockets, where I held the whizz-bangs. Anything else I needed I’d have to summon up on the fly. ‘Locked and loaded.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You Brits are so squeamish around guns. One day I’m taking you to a shooting range. We’ll have a blast. Don’t suppose I can tempt you?’ He nodded to a small bag at his feet.
I shook my head. ‘Better not. I heard people get hurt with those things. So what’s the plan?’
He ran through it. In many ways it was a typical Zack plan, involving guns, explosives and people being maimed or killed, preferably not on both sides. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think we’re out of choices. Where are the others?’
‘Arabella’s gone ahead. We’ll catch up with her. Don’t suppose you’ve seen Becky? We could really do with having her around.’
‘Nope. It’s all quiet on the Becky front. I can’t see her getting the knife back, so let’s get this show on the road.’
Zack shook his head. ‘Patience. We don’t kick off until nine. Let’s take a walk and stay warm. Hey, you sure Becky’s okay? Seems a bit off.’
‘Pretty sure she’s fine. Not often she runs up against something she can’t handle. Must have thrown her a bit.’
‘Yeah. Makes sense.’
We did circuits of a few blocks at a time, while I asked questions and Zack filled in more of the details. Of the two stories in the office block we were targeting, the second floor was the most defensible and therefore the most likely place Melanie would be held. Once we started, we’d have five minutes, or ten if we were really lucky, to finish the job and get out of there. The NYPD and possibly the military were going to be all over us if we left it any longer. The only good news was that the thermal anomaly we’d seen the other night, the massive blast of either heat or occult energy, wasn’t there anymore.
We circled back to the office building, or Site A as Zack was now calling it. The area, if anything, was getting busier, with groups of people milling around, smiling and chatting. I gave him a worried look but he told me to chill out and trust to the plan. Nine o’clock came and he led me a block away, looked around furtively and pulled up a manhole cover. ‘Down,’ he hissed. We dropped.
The drain was high enough to stand in, and the water came up almost to our knees. ‘Stop whining,’ Zack murmured as he led the way forward. When we reached what must have been close to underneath Site A, he stopped and whistled. An answering whistle came back a few seconds later, followed by Arabella, wearing green waders and twirling a vicious-looking blade in her left hand.
‘Job done,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You were right. They kept one guy down here. I dealt with him two minutes ago. His radio’s been quiet since then, so we’re clear so far.’
Zack nodded. ‘By the time they figure it out, it’s going to be way too late to do anything about it. Right, to work.’ He dropped his bag on the ground, and took out several packages of what looked like doughy clay bound with clear plastic wrap. ‘Grab some C4, people, you know what to do. Come on, Malachi, put your back into it. You could shoot this stuff and it wouldn’t go off, so don’t be shy.’
The drain was around two meters wide at this point. We took the C4 and created a rectangle on the upper surface about five meters long and covering the full width. Then, for good measure, we took what was left and dotted it within the rectangle, connected to the outside edge with some decent strands. Finally, Zack took out the detonator, fixed it to the C4 on one of the corners, and checked his watch. ‘This op is going to go like clockwork or it’s not going to go at all. Ten minutes. Let’s get some distance.’
We didn’t have to run – ten minutes would see us clear easily. But I admit it took some real willpower to stroll back down the drain as casually as Zack did.
With nine minutes gone on the clock, and everything cocked and ready to go, the fireworks started. Literally, fireworks. The small groups of people congregated bang in front of the office block, a sound system started pumping out Katy Perry’s ‘Firework,’ and the dance began. A few seconds afterwards, the fireworks started streaking overhead.
‘Can’t believe you found a flash mob,’ I muttered.
‘I didn’t find a flash mob. I hired a flash mob. Which I want the money back for, by the way. Plus I need cash for the C4 – I told Ronnie he’d get paid for that tomorrow. And I’m not doing this for free either.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m sure Melanie can cover the expenses.’
Arabella snorted, then turned serious. ‘Is it safe for all those people to be out there doing that?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Zack. ‘Probably.’
Five seconds to go. I tensed. This was either going to work or it was going to go spectacularly wrong. As usual, I wasn’t thinking outside of the box enough. It worked and went spectacularly wrong all at the same time.
The security guys inside the building had the shock of their lives. One moment their attention was on the bunch of grinning sidesteppers shaking their stuff to Katy Perry. The next second, exactly ten minutes after setting the timer, the C4 b
lew a hole in their ground floor, shaking the entire building. Quite a neat job as well – a few casts on the explosives produced an unprecedented degree of accuracy. The five remaining guards, complete with their SAS-approved weaponry made a bee-line for the dust and smoke, pouring in bullets and screaming reports through their headsets.
None of which bothered us, because we were coming in through a back window. For one awful moment when he was outlining the plan I thought Zack was going to have us leap out of the hole in the floor after the blast, but when I mentioned it he looked at me like I was insane. ‘Dude,’ he shook his head. ‘I am never, never letting you plan an op ever again. You’ve got some crazy shit going on in that head of yours.’
The back window was a winner. We ended up in a side room with only one guard in view. I pulled out a whizz-bang but before I could set it off Zack put a bullet in the back of the guy’s head. Effective, and I know we had a job to do, but it seemed unsporting.
Someone, somehow, heard the gunshot amidst the chaos and shouted the alarm. I threw the whizz-bang through the door and then raised a minor but perfectly adequate ward against it. With a fizzle it popped like a damp squib, and the only sound came from bodies hitting the floor.
We entered the main part of the building, which was completely open plan. The place was a wreck. Furniture was splintered and scattered. Four bodies were slumped outside on the floor, eyes glazed and drool dripping slowly from their mouths.
‘You said six guards total right?’ I asked quietly.
‘I did,’ Zack said, glancing around. ‘Could be wrong, but…’
‘But one’s missing. Let’s move up. Behind me,’ Arabella whispered. She’d ditched the waders and was moving across the floor silently in pink sneakers. Skipping up the stairs two at a time, her fingers twitched rapidly as she moved round the corner and out of sight. We trotted up as quietly and quickly as we could behind her, but it was all over by the time we got there.
The guard stood, gun raised but motionless. His eyes twitched with panic. ‘He’s a mage. Tried to throw up a ward, but too slow, too slow,’ chided Arabella. ‘Can we keep him?’
‘Ex special forces, I’d guess,’ said Zack admiringly as he circled him. ‘Look at the stance, the grip.’ Punched him on the arm. ‘Guy works out too. Bet he’s pretty ripped. Add a dash of magic, and this here is a serious piece of work.’
‘Wow, you hear what he’s saying about you?’ Arabella asked the guard. ‘Makes me almost sorry I have to spoil it all by doing this.’ She gave him a quick peck on the lips at the same time as she slowly drove her knife through into his heart. ‘And he’ll actually stay here,’ she continued, ‘standing up, for about another forty minutes. Tell me if you’re not impressed.’
‘You’re cold,’ I told her without conviction.
‘Hey, he’s the one with the gun and all the bullets. Not like he came in peace.’
‘Over here,’ called Zack from halfway along the floor. ‘Locked room. Let’s change that.’ He stepped back, gave it a short kick, and fell backwards onto the floor. The building shook and the floor tilted ten degrees to the left. ‘That wasn’t me.’
‘I think we broke it,’ Arabella said, running in and giving the door her own kick, sending it flying open. ‘Time to get what we came for and leave.’
The room inside was basic but comfortable. A sofa, couple of chairs, a table and a small fridge. In the corner was a covered bucket with a stack of toilet paper lying next to it.
‘You took your time, you assholes,’ Melanie said, standing hands on hips in the centre. Her immaculate clothes were soiled and crinkled, and she was sporting a wicked black eye, but apart from that there was no serious harm done. ‘You know how long I’ve been here?’
‘Can we save it?’ Zack asked as the infrastructure of the building started creaking. ‘We need to leave. Right now.’
Incredibly, Melanie was still wearing her heels. She only kicked them off after Arabella started screaming obscene threats as we sprinted back the way we’d came, taking the stairs four at a time on the way down. The ceiling was bowing now, and not one of the walls was standing at the angle it was meant to.
‘The hole! Get to the hole!’ Zack screamed as the entire building began its inevitable, final slide, lurching and collapsing around us. Zack, ever the gentleman, got there before anyone else and dived in headfirst. Melanie wasn’t far behind. Arabella, normally so lightfooted, struggled to keep her balance. At the last second, before everything came down on our heads, I rugby tackled her around the waist and sent us both hurtling down. The dust rained and the thunderous noise of falling stone and steel would not stop.
Chapter twelve
For what seemed the longest of times we stayed in a cocoon of darkness. Something heavy and jagged had my left arm trapped, and what was probably Arabella’s elbow jutted up into my ribs. Still, she had to put up with me collapsed on top, so it wasn’t all fun and games for her either.
The light appeared first, a tumbling, flickering willow-the-wisp, a mage-light sent by Zack to find us and give us some hope. As my ears stopped ringing I began to hear his voice calling out, muffled by the debris. Telling us not to worry, that he was coming but having to take it slow. That we were going to be fine.
Eventually, after minutes that seemed like hours in our underground tomb, a slab of rock moved in front of me and Zack peered in. ‘Gotcha. Give me ten more minutes and you’ll be out. Don’t worry – the really heavy stuff didn’t touch you.’
‘Just get him off me,’ Arabella muttered.
I tried to reply but hacked up some dust instead. After Zack moved another few major bits of rubble, my right arm was freed and I could start to help. A short while later I prised myself off of Arabella and we could check her out. She was in the same condition I was – knocked and bruised, but basically okay.
‘Where’s Melanie?’ I asked as we caught our breath, suddenly realizing that it was only the three of us again.
‘She took off at a run. It was get her or help you. We can always find her again later. You know how to pick them, Malachi. She is one grade-A bitch.’
‘Tell me about it.’
We caught up with Melanie a short while later. She was sitting in the drain, water up to her chest, clutching her ankle. ‘Twisted it,’ she gasped, her pretty little face contorted with pain. ‘Still,’ she said, turning her puppy eyes up at me, ‘here comes my knight in shining armour, right?’
There are some things you don’t do, which meant Zack and I had to restrain ourselves. Arabella, however, was in no such position, and promptly delivered a left cross that sent blood and at least two teeth flying against the wall. I played that memory again and again, smiling softly to myself as we half-carried, half-dragged Melanie three blocks in the drain, finally deeming it safe enough to surface to street level.
Even from this distance, the sirens broke the night and three choppers were hovering overhead, piercing spotlights cutting down into the darkness. ‘Where to?’ Arabella asked. Good question. We basically had a prisoner, and she only had to shout out to some cops to make life really difficult for us.
‘Becky’s place is near here, right?’ Zack asked, getting his bearings.
‘That would work,’ I replied weighing things up. As long as her security was still active, it was as safe a place as any. With any luck, she’d be back there herself.
‘Three blocks,’ Melanie spat, blood still running from her lips. ‘Like we’re not going to come across anyone who’s wondering why you’re holding a helpless woman hostage. Give it up now, play nice, and I’ll consider helping you. This is your only chance.’
‘Oh we’re not holding anyone hostage,’ I smiled sweetly. ‘We’re helping our friend, who’s had far too much to drink at a party, and passed out on the way home. Arabella, if you please.’
The light dawned slowly in Melanie’s eyes as she caught on. ‘Oh, for f-’
The second left cross was every bit as sweet as the first.
Eve
n with a cover story, we still looked seriously suspicious with our soaked, ripped clothes and hair caked in dust and gravel. All we could do was stick to the shadows and cross the roads when there was enough of a gap in traffic for people not to get too close a look at us. ‘Maybe we should change our story, if we’re asked,’ I gasped, Melanie’s arm draped over my shoulder, with Zack on her other side. ‘We’ll say we’re a bunch of hobos heading back from a piss-up and looking for a nice box or two.’
‘Shut up and move,’ said Arabella, looking round to make sure we hadn’t caught anyone’s attention. Every now and then when the shadows evaporated beneath a streetlight, she’d cast a quick charm and blow the fuses. Somehow we made it to Madam Morgana’s front door without getting questioned, arrested, or both. Pretty good considering the circumstances.
I palmed the front door and it opened without any trouble. We were more nervous about the second door. If they’d messed with Melanie too much, been too invasive without her knowing, then the security system could send fragments of her brain and skull exploding all over us. Not only would that blow any chance we had of getting any information out of her, but it would also be very gross. I’d had enough drama for one night.
I pressed my forehead against the door, waiting for the surge of power and the creeping tendrils to probe and approve me. Instead, nothing happened. I tried again, then motioned to Zack. He went through the motions but stood back up shaking his head. ‘Someone shut down the security.’ He pulled out a pistol from his belt and motioned for us to get in line behind him.
The door swung open effortlessly. Not even a dramatic creak this time. ‘Becks, you in?’ Zack called into the darkness. He flicked the lights on. No sign of anyone. She’d tidied up a bit since the crystal exploded, but to be honest, the way she kept the place an explosion here or there wasn’t going to make any great difference. ‘Nothing,’ Zack said, getting back from a quick tour of the rooms. ‘What now?’