by Ruby Ryan
“That sounds simpler than it probably will be.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, hanging his head for a moment. Then he looked up and nodded with firm determination. “But at least it’s a plan.”
“What do we do after that?” I asked. “You said you were taking this train to meet up with the other gryphons…”
“I guess rent a car? We can’t take a plane, for reasons unknown except Roland was insistent.”
I smiled. “I’d be down for a road trip.”
We got dressed, and then Orlando ceremoniously handed me the totem. I felt like Frodo accepting the ring, an immeasurable transfer of power that I couldn’t yet comprehend.
Things did feel more in control now that we had a plan, regardless of how good of a plan it was. Escape the train, avoid the dragon, then meet up with his friends.
But plans rarely survived beyond the opening salvo of a battle, and ours lasted only a few minutes before we had to throw it out the window.
18
ORLANDO
The relief of having Cassie with me was like waves of cool air hitting my sweaty face. Not physically with me, although that was comforting too, but with me as in on the same team. She’d heard my crazy explanation, she’d nodded along, and she was on board.
Because that was one of the toughest parts of all of this so far: dealing with it alone. Sure, I had Ethan and Sam giving me guidance, but it wasn’t the same. For the past week I’d been fumbling around Chicago like a child who’d lost his parents, helpless and scared.
And now I had Cassie.
God, it was nice. Even now, just getting dressed in silence, the mere proximity to her filled me with confidence. The totem pulsed happily in my pocket, agreeing with my assessment. Everything was going to be okay, now.
Everything was going to get better.
Before we could figure out what to do next, there was a crackle of static in the hall. A walkie-talkie. Cassie and I looked at each other, then pressed our ears to the door. I was barely able to make out the hijacker’s muffled voice.
“…yes sir?”
“Unbelievable,” the voice on the other end snapped. Sebastian. The dragon. “None of them had it. None!”
“Are you sure it’s here?” the man in the hall asked. “I mean, maybe your intel was bogus…”
“Yes!” the dragon roared through the walkie-talkie. “I can smell its foul smell lingering on the air. It’s here, somewhere. We need to search everyone, not just the women. Every bag in every room.”
Cassie and I shared a fearful look.
“Alright,” the henchman said with obvious annoyance. “That’ll take a while…”
“You start up there in the sleeper rooms,” Sebastian ordered. “Work your way back, and we’ll meet in the middle.”
There was a long pause.
“What about the engine?”
“Forget it,” Sebastian drawled with his accent. “It’s locked, and guarding it won’t matter if we run out of time. Start searching—and be thorough!”
“This ain’t the smash-and-grab job you said it would be. I want double what we agreed to.”
“Fine, whatever. Just do it. We’ll talk about details later.”
“You got it, boss,” the hijacker said. Then, in a different tone, he added, “You guido asshole.”
There was a banging sound down the hall that vibrated through our door. “Open up! Postman’s here!”
We heard a crash, like someone kicking the door in, and then screams drifted down the hall.
I pulled my ear away from the door. Cassie was staring at the totem in her hand.
“What do we do?”
The sound of the henchman ransacking the room a few doors down was a slowly increasing panic. A stopwatch ticking in the back of my head.
The window didn’t open. There was only one door out. And the man with the gun was coming.
Above the door was a wire luggage rack about three feet wide. Underneath the sink was a cupboard, but it was empty. Aside from that was the bed. Those were our only options to hide the totem.
“Under the mattress?” Cassie whispered, lifting it up. “He might not search there.”
“I don’t like betting our lives on the incompetence of others,” I said.
“Then what? Do we wait for him to knock the door down and try to fight him?”
That idea was even worse. I could hear the hijacker moving to the next room, the sound of luggage and other things being thrown around. We were running out of time.
“While he’s in another room, we could slip away down the hall,” I said. “Go into another car. Buy some time.”
Cassie bobbed her head, but I could see the fear in her eyes.
I took a moment to collect myself and opened our door slowly so as not to make any noise. I stuck my head out: the henchman was tossing pillows and clothes out into the hall from two doors down. He was being thorough.
I looked at the ceiling. There were no hatches to the roof that I could see. Because why the hell would there be? Life was never that convenient.
The guard paused, then jerked his head back out into the hall. The eyes behind the ski mask locked onto me.
“Don’t fucking think about it! Stay right there until I say otherwise.”
“I have to use the restroom,” I said in a weak voice. A stupid excuse.
“I don’t give a fuck!” He pointed his Uzi in my direction. “If I see you in the hall again I’m gunna shoot you in the leg. Maybe then you’ll stay put, yeah?”
Obediently, I returned to the room and closed the door.
“Now what?” Cassie asked. “Do we jump him?”
I imagined attacking a man with a machine gun. The hollow sensation of bullets tearing through my body. Through Cassie’s body. I shivered at the thought.
I looked around the room again, then ducked under the sink. There was a pipe to carry the water away, and it was partially hidden behind the bowl. I felt around, then took the totem from Cassie, and wedged it between the pipe and the wall. It didn’t fit snuggly, and was precariously balanced on the pipe, but it was out of sight unless you crawled halfway into the cabinet.
“That’s gunna have to do,” I said as I closed the cabinet softly. I left out the fact that it might fall if someone banged into the sink too hard. If that happened, we were screwed.
The doorknob twisted, and then the whole thing flew inward to bang against the door. The hijacker motioned with his gun.
“Let’s go, buddy. Out into the hall.”
Having a gun pointed at me was a debilitating sensation. That description of your knees turning to jelly? That shit is real. Having this guy merely aim the gun in my general direction was enough for me to almost collapse onto the floor.
Somehow I managed to step into the hall. The hijacker pressed the barrel against my gut and demanded I keep my hands in the air, a demand which was easy to obey. He used his free hand to pat me down everywhere, and when he was done he looked annoyed at having to do it.
“Stand over there,” he said. “No. Farther. Keep going. Good. Stay there like a good boy.”
He turned back into the room. “Your turn, sweetheart.”
Cassie appeared in the hall. The masked man didn’t hide the fact that he was ogling her up and down, getting a good long view.
“I’m not gunna lie,” he sneered. “My boss is making me do this, but that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy it.”
My blood boiled as he took one hand and ran it into her hair and down her neck, more caressing than searching. Cassie stood very still as his hand went over one round breast, then the other. He made a grunt of approval as he went lower.
Rage returned tenfold as I watched my mate being groped by this asshole. Again I wanted to charge, to throw myself at him and tackle him to the ground in a flurry of fists. I wasn’t much of a fighter, but that didn’t stop me from wanting it.
Of course there was too much space between us; by the time I’d crossed the 20 feet he would have a
imed the gun and emptied half the clip into my body. I’d be dead, and then he could really do whatever he wanted with her.
Play it cool, Orlando. Stay calm and this will all be over.
Not satisfied with one hand, the hijacker let go of his gun to let it hang from the strap around his shoulder, then used both hands to trace the curve of Cassie’s hips. He bent down to run along her legs, then went back up on the inside, and I held my breath as he neared her crotch, hoping I could hold myself back, knowing that I should close my eyes but unable to look away—
In a flash, Cassie kicked up with her knee and struck him directly in the jaw. The force knocked him back against the wall, and before he could recover Cassie was attacking. She snatched his wrist before he could grab the gun and twisted, drawing a scream from his mouth. She struck him in the nose with the base of her palm, smashing his head back against the window. She followed it up with a knee to his groin, which doubled him over, and then with his head exposed she repeated the blow to his temple.
He crumpled to the ground.
“Oh my God,” I said, finally moving now that it was over. “Cassie, that was…” I trailed off, words failing me.
She shrugged one shoulder. “In my line of work it’s recommended to learn some self defense. Help me with him?”
She took his legs and I grabbed his shoulders, and we carried him into our room and dumped him on the bed. His chest still rose and fell, but he was otherwise out cold.
“Stay here and tie him up,” I said, slipping back out into the hall. I picked up the gun from the ground, but it didn’t make me feel any safer. It just made me realize how out of my element I was. When all of this was done I was going to kiss my computer screen and vow to never leave my desk.
I went to the door he’d previously been guarding. The roar of the train engine was louder here, but the door was indeed locked, as Sebastian had said on the radio. I considered banging on it, but I didn’t know who was inside. It might be one of the hijackers driving it, in which case I’d need to point my gun and maybe even shoot him, and I wasn’t sure if I could do either of those things.
Back in our room, Cassie had removed the man’s mask and a gag was now tied around his mouth. She was checking his pockets now, and spoke without looking up.
“He’s got a walkie-talkie, a disposable flip-phone, $300 in cash, and a single Ford car key. Plus the gun in your hand. The phone doesn’t have signal either, obviously, but I’m thinking maybe we can use the walkie-talkie to…”
But I wasn’t paying attention what he had. I was examining him. He was African American, and based on his accent he was a Chicago local, unlike Sebastian and the others. He was roughly my build. Maybe a little heavier.
Cassie trailed off and looked up at me. “What is it? Why do you have that look in your eye?”
“Cassie,” I said. “This is going to sound crazy, but I have an idea.”
19
CASSANDRA
“You can’t honestly be serious.”
“I know how it sounds…”
I stood so we were face-to-face. “That’s a stupid idea!”
“You’re right. It is.”
“That’s some Scooby-Doo style idiocy.”
“I know…” he said weakly.
“Do you? Do you know that?” I was being a bitch to him, but he needed to hear it right then. “Tell me you know this isn’t some wacky Scooby-Doo caper we’re in right now. Say the words, so I know you understand.”
Orlando put a hand on my arm. “Cassie. I’m all ears if you have a better idea.”
I crossed my arms. “You can’t dress up as him. They’ll figure it out. And then they’ll shoot you dead. Bang, no more Orlando the Magical Gryphon.”
But he was shaking his head, and there was a sparkle in his dark eyes.
“See, I’m not so sure. The others are European. You’ve heard the accents.” He pointed at the unconscious body on the bed. “This guy’s local. I’m guessing he was hired at the last minute to round out their crew. I doubt they know him very well.”
The view outside the window changed rapidly; suddenly there was a flat platform very close to the train, zooming by with almost reckless speed. Confused passengers pointed at the train, a pantomimed silent movie playing outside the window.
“There goes my stop,” I muttered.
“Can you really call it a stop if we don’t actually stop there?” Orlando said with a grin.
“This isn’t a good time for jokes.”
The platform dropped away as the train moved beyond, and then was replaced by a flurry of flashing police lights. The sound of sirens blared by, distorted by our speed. And then they were gone as quickly as they’d appeared, and there was only the terrain around the tracks by itself.
“Looks like the hijacking hasn’t gone unnoticed,” I muttered.
“All the more reason to do something. The dragon’s running out of time. He’s going to get desperate.”
I rounded on him again. “So what’s your plan, then? Dress up as one of them, get close to the others, and then what? Shoot them? Blast them away like a gangster?” I scoffed for dramatic effect. “Orlando, I can feel your discomfort at simply holding that gun. You’re a bundle of raw nerves right now.”
He flinched at my words, then recovered. “You can stay here with the totem. I’ll tell the others that I didn’t find anything in my search.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them and took Orlando’s hand. “I looked into the dragon’s eyes. I don’t think he’s the kind of man who will give up so easily. He’ll probably resort to searching the entire train himself. Or worse.”
As if on cue, the walkie-talkie squawked on the bed. “James. How goes your search up there?”
The lack of response told us that the unconscious man on the bed was James. I grabbed the walkie-talkie and shoved it at Orlando, and he took it hesitantly.
“Slow going. I’m being thorough.”
We stared at one another, waiting to see if it worked. The others sounded garbled through the speaker, so hopefully Orlando did too.
Finally, a response: “Well hurry it up. Boss is getting anxious.”
We both let out a mutual exhale.
“See, you’re a nervous wreck just talking to them,” I said. “I’m not doubting your courage, Orlando. I can feel it inside you. I just don’t think disguising you will work.”
“Okay…” he said. “Again: what ideas do you have?”
I spread my hands. “What about… doing what he wants? Handing over the totem?”
Still in its hiding place underneath the sink, the totem flared with anger. It was like a high-pitched buzzing in my ear, staggering me into the compartment wall. Orlando helped steady me, and slowly the buzzing dimmed.
“That’s not going to work,” he said. “Not just because the totem won’t allow it, but because it would destroy any chance we have.”
“Destroy any chance of what?”
He reached around for the word. “I don’t know. But I can feel that the totem is important. Everything we do, our abilities and fighting the dragons, has some greater purpose. We can’t just give it to him.”
“Even if it means dying instead?” I said, voice barely more than a whisper.
His gaze held mine for three heartbeats, and I saw the seriousness within. “Even if it means dying.”
“Hrmmph…”
We both jerked our heads to the bed, where the captured hijacker was waking up. His eyes fluttered, then peered down at the gag in his mouth muffling his voice. Realization slowly spread across his face.
“Let’s get more information before we do anything stupid,” I said to Orlando. Then I leaned on the bed and put my face very close to the captured hijacker’s. “How’s it going, buddy? We have some questions for you. Answer them honestly, or my friend here uses you for target practice. And even though he’s a bad shot, it’s tough to miss from two feet away. Nod if you understand.”
The man, Jame
s, bobbed his head in a fearful nod.
“No loud noises,” I warned before removing the cloth gag.
He licked his dark lips and looked from me, to Orlando, then back to me. “Please don’t hurt me,” he begged, words coming out in a rush. “I don’t know anything. Just a yes-man for the whole thing, you gotta believe…”
“Shh.” I pressed my finger to his lips. “That’s enough of that. So you don’t know the leader?”
He panted for a few moments before nodding. “I know his name’s Sebastian. I know he’s looking for something. A priceless relic, to put in a museum or something. That’s all he told us, along with the description: it’s made of stone…”
“We know all that,” Orlando said. “What was the plan? What were you supposed to do when you found it?”
“Your exit strategy,” I offered.
“Yeah, yeah,” James said. Sweat was beading on his dark face. “Plan was to stop the train before Joliet, switch to a getaway car stashed off the tracks. We’d be hours away before anyone ever came to check on the train. Amtrak’s budget isn’t exactly top-notch these days, right?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Hate to break it to ya, but we just passed Joliet. Your plan’s fucked.”
James’s lips drew tight together, and he moaned with fear. “Dude told us he had a backup in case it took longer, but he didn’t say what…”
Orlando leaned in and jabbed the Uzi in his direction. I struggled not to laugh; it looked totally unnatural in his hand.
“Why can’t we use our phones?” he asked.
“Jammers,” James said. “Two of ‘em: one in the engine, the other in the back, for coverage. Only allow certain frequencies, like the walkies.”
“Is there any other way to contact someone outside the train?” I asked.
“Not without disabling the jammers. And both places, the engine room and the rear storage locker, are locked tight. Sebastian’s got a key to both.”
“Who’s driving the train?” Orlando asked.