Tomb Raider Emeritus: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (I Fear No Evil Book 6)

by Martha Carr

  Shay rolled her eyes. “I did use to kill people for a living and not get caught. I do know a thing or two about sneaking around and avoiding cops.”

  She glanced back and forth as she approached the locked back entrance to the Fowler Annex. Dr. Weber’s office was on the sixth floor of the red-brick building.

  “Got anything on the drone?”

  Peyton blew out a breath. “Nobody nearby, but internal cameras show people in a few of the labs plus a couple of janitors.”

  “Weber’s office?”

  He sighed. “Nope. No camera in there. The best I can do is the hallway. Nobody’s there, though.”

  Shay pulled out her ID and swiped it on the lock. It clicked open, and she almost laughed. Her typical warehouse lock had multiple layers of security. It made the campus doors seem all but unlocked in comparison.

  She pulled open the door and stepped into Fowler Annex. The entrance was dim, with only a few lights illuminating the area.

  Shay glanced around, keeping her gun in its holster under her light jacket. As Peyton had said, this wasn’t a tomb raid. Even if she didn’t have an office in the building, she was a registered professor in the department and had every right to be there regardless of the time.

  She made her way toward the elevator. “Anything?” she asked, her voice low. The throat-mic would pick up enough for transmission even if she were barely whispering. It was only habit that had her using a normal volume.

  She pressed the UP button on the elevator.

  “Nope. Nobody on the sixth floor from what I can see. You’re home free.”

  The doors to the elevator opened, and Shay stepped inside and pressed the button for the sixth floor. She crossed her arms and frowned.

  Peyton chuckled. “What are you going to do if you get there and he’s just called you over to hit on you?”

  Shay groaned and scrubbed a hand over her face. She hadn’t even considered the possibility. Her instincts might be reacting to a whole different type of threat.

  “I can be very intimidating,” she mumbled. “And he’ll end up regretting it.”

  “You do realize you can’t pull a gun on your department head?”

  “I can be very intimidating without a gun.”

  “You can’t pull a knife either. Or break his arm.”

  Shay rolled her eyes. “I can handle it without violence.” She frowned. “Pretty sure I can, at least.” After a second she added, “We might need to pull the camera footage if I find a body in there.”

  “Then don’t make a body.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying I’ll kill him, just that somebody else might.”

  “Okay, I’ll pull an all-nighter if necessary,” Peyton responded. “Though I’m awesome, so it won’t take that long.”

  The elevator dinged, and the doors started sliding open. Shay reflexively rolled to the side and flattened herself against the wall.

  No gunshots. No ice spears. No grenades. It was a good start to not dying.

  Shay jogged toward Dr. Weber’s office. Other than the slight spookiness of a darkened hallway, there was nothing threatening.

  She arrived at the office door and knocked. “Dr. Weber?”

  No response.

  She knocked louder. Again, no response.

  Shay gripped her pistol and twisted the knob with her other hand.

  The tomb raider threw open the door and stormed into the office, her gun out.

  “What the hell?”

  “What are you seeing?” Peyton asked.

  Shay shook her head. Papers littered the office. His chairs were overturned, books all over the ground. Her stomach knotted at the sight of several older books with torn pages. His drawers had been pulled out, and their contents spilled all over. Even the computer was on its side.

  That’s not how you hack, dumbasses.

  “Someone ransacked his office. They were obviously looking for something.”

  A large locked cupboard stood in the back. Several dents around the handle of the keyed lock suggested someone had been trying to open it.

  “There’s a locked cupboard in here. Wonder why they didn’t open that? Maybe something spooked them, and they had to run. Maybe a security guard or a janitor.”

  Something rattled inside the stray piece of furniture.

  Shay pulled out her gun. “Or maybe they did get inside.”

  “You see something?”

  “I hear something,” she whispered. She approached the cupboard and reached into her pocket to pull out a paperclip. Anyone else would have thought it was a random office supply, not realizing it was a gnome-crafted magical lockpick.

  Does this count as evil purposes, Tubal-Cain? I’m trying to save my department head here.

  Shay unfolded and slipped the lockpick into the lock. “Open through will, open through heart, open through belief.”

  The door clicked open. She folded the lockpick up and put it back into her pocket. She raised her gun, took several deep breaths, and threw open the cupboard.

  “Please,” cried Dr. Weber. “I have a family.” He cowered inside, hunched over. His arms were wrapped around him.

  Shay blinked and stepped away. “You’re in a cupboard.” Her gaze dropped to her gun, and she slammed it back in her holster.

  “Professor Carson?” The academic swallowed. “Why do you have a gun?”

  “What the hell is going on?” Peyton all but shouted in her ear. “Who are you talking to?”

  “I’m a woman, and it’s LA at night, Dr. Weber.”

  She hoped Peyton would take the hint and shut up now that she’d used her department head’s name.

  “Oh, good point.” Dr. Weber shook his head. “I shouldn’t have sent that message. I’m sorry. I panicked, and I didn’t even think about how risky it might have been for you.”

  Shay held out her hand and helped him out of the cupboard. “Well, I’m here now, and nobody else is, although they obviously were.”

  Dr. Weber took a moment to stretch before letting out a long sigh. “I should have just called the police. I was fortunate that those ruffians didn’t find me. I don’t know why they left. They were speaking Spanish, and of the four languages I speak, Spanish isn’t one of them.”

  “Okay, slow down a second. What the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know. I was approached this morning by some ruffians in the parking lot. Gang members, I’m sure of it, with bandanas. They had skull tattoos on their faces. How distasteful. I assumed they were there to mug me, but they didn’t ask for my wallet.”

  Shay nodded. “What did they ask for?”

  “They wanted to verify that I was, well, me. Even claimed they had an interest in revised archaeology and history. They mentioned several papers I’d worked on, ones that are…no longer available, but they kept mispronouncing the site and artifact names. One man even mispronounced the word archaeology several times. Needless to say, I suspected something strange was going on. I managed to talk my way out of it, and I also suspect they didn’t want to make a ruckus in broad daylight.” He nodded to himself as if satisfied with his summary.

  “Skull tattoos and bandanas?” Shay frowned. “That sounds a lot like the Demon Generals.”

  “What a distasteful name.”

  Shay snorted. “That’s kind of the idea. They’re a street gang in LA, decent-sized but not the kind of scum who might be interested in artifacts or history. At least not normally.” She shook her head. “How the hell did you end up in a cupboard?”

  “When I was heading to my car this evening, I spotted them loitering in the parking lot.” Dr. Weber sighed. “I fled back to my office.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  His cheeks reddened. “I dropped my phone when I was running back toward the building. It was right after I sent you the text.”

  Shay shook her head. “Why would you send me a text?”

  She stared at him, wondering if he somehow knew about her true day
job.

  “One of the men mentioned the Anzick site. He mispronounced it, of course, but it was clear what he was interested in.” He held up a hand. “Again, I apologize. It was wrong of me to get you involved.”

  “Well, I’m involved now, and something’s really weird about this.” Shay crossed her arms. “You mentioned old papers, ones that are no longer available?”

  Dr. Weber nodded. “I told you about my earlier career. With the help of my mentors and even some aggressive EU law application, I actually managed to retract and cleanse the internet of my earlier shame. I maintained copies for my records, but I realized physical copies were too dangerous for my career, so the only thing left were computer backups.”

  Shay pointed with her thumb over her shoulder at his overturned computer at his desk. “I don’t know if they tried to access the computer.”

  “I don’t think they were looking for the computer.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black device with a tiny display and a silver panel. “I believe somehow they knew about this.”

  “A DNA-locked secondary authenticator.” Shay’s gaze flicked from the device to the academic. “I’m guessing this gives you a code that lets you access where your papers are.”

  Dr. Weber nodded. “A few years back, I had a nice chat with a lovely fellow in IT who explained some of my security options for sensitive material. The backups of my papers are stored on an encrypted cloud service the university uses, but this is needed to access it.”

  Shay pulled out her phone to tap out a quick text to Peyton.

  He’s got an authenticator. Get ready to receive the code.

  “Okay, I’m on it,” Peyton responded in her earpiece.

  The tomb raider held out her hand. “Let me see it for a second. Go ahead and authenticate.”

  Dr. Weber placed his thumb on the DNA scanner and then handed it to Shay. She tapped in the long authenticator sequence into her phone and sent it to Peyton.

  The department head cleared his throat. “If I may ask, who are you texting?”

  “A friend.” She furrowed her brow. “A friend who knows James Brownstone. I figure maybe he can look into this for you. It’s probably better than getting the cops involved. They’ll ask a bunch of questions, and it’ll look bad for the university.”

  Dr. Weber paled. “Oh, my. I hadn’t thought of that. James Brownstone, though, as in the James Brownstone?”

  “Scourge of Harriken, Granite Ghost, adopter of half-Oriceran girls? Yeah, all that.” She almost added Prince of Ab Town.

  Shay was lying through her teeth. James might send the Brownstone Agency after the Demon Generals who had bounties, but he wasn’t likely to want to get involved in the situation otherwise.

  It didn’t matter. She just needed a plausible lie to keep Weber from going to the cops and complicating things. She might need to dish out a little bloodshed later.

  I’ll let James know I’m borrowing his name a little later.

  “I’m into his files and copying them now,” Peyton reported.

  Shay handed the authenticator back. “I’d go on vacation for a couple of days. Stay at a hotel. Clean this up so no one’s too suspicious, and I’ll have my friend get Mr. Brownstone to do what Mr. Brownstone does best.”

  Dr. Weber smirked a little. “Those ruffians will have swift justice delivered.”

  Swift justice? I care more about why some punk street gang is suddenly interested in magical artifacts. There’s something more going on here, and I need to find out what.

  Shay shrugged. “Yeah.”

  It’s not as if no justice would be delivered. If a few Demon Generals died along the way, the world would be better off.

  13

  Peyton leaned against a lab wall, a smirk on his face. The place was interesting enough with rows of tables containing piles of electronics in various states of repair or construction, and a wall of shelves with about every sensor and meter known to man. He was sure the four computers on the opposite wall were connected to some ridiculous processing power.

  I’ve got processor envy again, but there’s something else way more important in this room.

  Despite all the cool gadgets on display, the man’s gaze kept drifting away from the technology to the slender neck and pretty face of his girlfriend.

  How was I lucky enough to land a woman like her?

  Amber turned from the table containing several small silver and black boxes with long black antennas to frown at him. “Are you even listening to me, Peyton?”

  He nodded quickly. “Yeah, yeah, applying physics to communication in space. Those are prototypes for probes that they are talking about launching with the help of magic. Your part in this is to help with the code that does signal filtering.”

  “Okay, so you got all the main details right.” She pursed her lips and crossed her arms. “But I still get the feeling you weren’t listening.”

  “Even though I just explained everything you were doing?”

  “Probably just listening to a few sentences here and there. Skimming, but with listening.”

  Peyton waved a hand. “Look, all the projects you’re helping out with are cool and all, but you seem tense.”

  She lowered her glasses to eye him. “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “Tense. You know…not relaxed.” Peyton grinned. “And when a person is tense, they aren’t going to be able to do their best thinking. Maybe that’s what’s distracting me, your tension. Yeah, definitely, it’s your tension.”

  Amber pushed her glasses back up. “And how am I supposed to relax?”

  His eyebrows lifted. “I’ve always wanted to make out in a lab. You know, passion near the final frontier of knowledge and truth. I’m sure you’d be very relaxed if we did something.”

  Amber scoffed, and her face grew scarlet. “We’re not at either of our apartments. I think it’s illegal to do that kind of thing in public.”

  “Make out, not have sex, and no one’s even here.” He nodded toward the door. “You told me no one would be here, and that was why you wanted to do the little tour now instead of later.”

  “Yeah, because I didn’t want anyone giving you the stink eye while I explained all this stuff.” Amber shook her head. “Even if I were interested in making out with you, I can’t because…” She sighed and gestured to his clothing. “Not when you’re wearing that, of all things.”

  Peyton looked down at this red suit and frowned. “I thought you loved my fashion sense, and I love this suit. It’s the perfect embodiment of Peyton style.”

  “Normally I do love your quirky choices, but when I was a kid, my grandma always made me watch this ancient kids’ show called Captain Kangaroo. The host dressed like that, and…I can’t make out with Captain Kangaroo. That’s just too weird.” She made a gagging sound.

  Peyton winced.

  Getting blocked by some old kids’ show host. Of course. Just my luck.

  “It was worth a shot.” Peyton went to pick up one of the devices on the table to take a closer look. If he couldn’t make out with his girlfriend, he might as well inspect the tech.

  Amber slapped his hand. “Don’t touch those. Do you have any idea how expensive they are?”

  “Um, no? I’m guessing they cost more than a Snickers.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, they are really expensive. I’m not even sure I should have you in here, but I just thought you would find it cool. At least when you aren’t obsessing over making out with me. Geeze. Men.”

  “What can I say? A beautiful nerdy woman around technology? It just puts me in the mood.” He pointed at her. “You set me up.”

  Amber gave him a cool stare. “It’s a nice line, but it still sounds like a line. So you don’t care about interstellar communication because of your libido?”

  I called her beautiful, but she’s not budging. Better try to salvage this before she gets really pissed off.

  “Interstellar communication is cool, yeah.” Peyton forced a smile. �
�Even if I don’t know all the details about it. Earth’s more than enough challenge for me.”

  Amber’s face brightened. “The real trick is that these receivers have to use such a wide frequency range. Because the project has funds for teleportation, that means they can put the probes directly into space without a rocket launch. Really darn far, as in AUs away. There has been some talk of actual light-year teleports, but apparently, it’s hard to do that in space versus sending to Oriceran because of the lack of previous direct magical interaction. I don’t understand all the details all that well.” She waved a hand. “At a minimum, they can get a probe into orbit.”

  “Is that a lot cheaper than using a rocket? I mean, you have all those companies these days, and don’t they compete on price? Half the funeral homes offer space burials now.”

  Amber nodded. “Yeah, it’s not necessarily all that much cheaper, at least not with the project being charged for the magic. I don’t quite get it. They can teleport stuff from Oriceran super-easy, but the minute we ask someone to put something in geosynchronous orbit, it’s the most complicated spell in the world.” She shrugged.

  Peyton frowned. “If it’s not cheaper, what’s the advantage? Why bother?”

  “The instruments don’t have to survive the forces associated with a rocket launch, which means the team can get a lot more in terms of sensitivity. True broad-spectrum signal transmission and receiving, among other things.”

  He leaned toward one of the devices but kept his hands behind his back. “I’m not an expert on space communication, but isn’t that kind of overkill? I mean, they know what frequencies they need to communicate with the probes, so who cares about trying to be able to transmit and receive everything? Receiving, I guess, if you’re trying to do space exploration, but why transmission?”

  Amber’s mouth made a little O. “Because we don’t know what potential frequencies a non-human or non-Oriceran intelligent civilization might be using. Signal attenuation due to the atmosphere is a killer, and if we want to have any chance of communicating with another technological civilization, our best bet is broad-spectrum transmission in space.”