‘I didn’t see either of you arrive.’
‘No one ever does!’ Johnny said smugly. ‘Unless I want them to. I walk unseen in the world and tap-dance between the raindrops, just because I can. And because I have to do something to take my mind off things.’
‘What things?’ I said before I could stop myself.
‘Don’t ask,’ said Johnny.
‘You’re starting to sound like Lex,’ I said. ‘He’s always been a great one for the gnomic utterance.’
Johnny beamed at the Damned, who was sitting stiffly on the seat beside him. ‘It turns out we have a lot in common. Both of us academics, who would have been perfectly happy to stay in our ivory towers … but we were seduced out into the real world and punished by what we found waiting for us there. We’ve spent the day visiting low dives, getting in and out of trouble, and talking about life and death and similar things.’
‘It’s been a long time since I had someone I could talk to,’ said Lex. ‘At least, someone who didn’t want something from me. Or ended up running away screaming.’
Johnny patted him encouragingly on the shoulder. ‘Stick with me, kid; I’ll make you a star.’
‘Can we please get a move on?’ said Annie. ‘It’s a cold evening to be standing around in an iconic white dress.’
‘We can’t go anywhere without the Ghost,’ I said.
‘I’m right here,’ he said.
I looked up to where the Ghost was sitting cross-legged on the roof of my car. He was wearing the memories of old motorcycle leathers, complete with racing goggles perched on his forehead. I had to fight down an urge to sigh deeply.
‘What are you doing up there?’
‘It’s too crowded in the back seat,’ said the Ghost. ‘I’d end up overlapping Lex and Johnny, and I hate it when that happens. It makes me feel less real. I’m fine up here. You can drive as fast as you like and it won’t bother me.’
Lex and Johnny stuck their heads out of the car’s side windows, so they could check out who I was talking to. The Ghost waved at them cheerfully. Johnny and Lex pulled their heads back in and looked at each other.
‘I didn’t see him get up there,’ said Lex. ‘Did you see him get up there, Johnny?’
‘No,’ said the Wild Card. ‘Which is actually kind of spooky.’
‘The man who can be anywhere,’ said Lex. ‘Just what we need on a mission like this.’
‘Is he, strictly speaking, still a man?’ said Johnny.
‘I heard that!’ the Ghost said loudly. ‘Don’t make me come down there and haunt you.’
‘He does that spooky voice very well, doesn’t he?’ said Johnny.
‘I’ve got chills,’ said Lex.
I got into the car and revved the engine loudly. Because I just knew that if I let them, they’d keep up this nonsense for hours. Annie dropped into the passenger seat and arranged herself decorously beside me. I put the car in gear, and we set off at speed for the bright lights of London.
A car full of weird, with a ghost on top.
It was ten o’clock in the evening, and the gaudy neon was working overtime when we finally arrived at Oxford Street. People swarmed up and down the pavements, alert for anything that might turn out to be a good time, while the traffic did its usual spiteful best to obstruct and delay us. But we still got there in plenty of time, because every single traffic light turned green the moment we approached – just to please Annie. She slumped down in her seat and pretended she hadn’t noticed. Lex and Johnny found it endlessly amusing, so I had to act as if I didn’t. The Ghost slammed his fists on the roof of the car every time we slowed down, and demanded to know what was happening. I ignored him.
I finally reduced our speed to a crawl, so I could check out the shops we were passing. While studiously ignoring the increasingly loud complaints from the traffic piling up behind us.
‘You have been to this pizza place before, haven’t you?’ said Annie after a while.
‘Just the once,’ I said. ‘I took a quick look from a distance and then moved on before anyone had a chance to notice I was interested. When you’re messing with Hammer’s business, you never know who might be watching. I’m sure it was along here somewhere … Ah! Yes! Here we are!’
I slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a halt right outside the Perfect Pizza Palace. I got out and went round to open the door for Annie, ignoring the symphony of aggrieved car horns from all sides, and any number of angry comments from passing taxi drivers. Annie emerged from the car like a starlet on opening night and fussily smoothed down her dress with both hands. An awful lot of people stopped to watch her, and Annie smiled at me triumphantly. I nodded, acknowledging the point.
Lex and Johnny erupted from the car like clowns in a circus act, doing an extended No, after you, I insist routine until I felt like throwing things at them. They only broke off when the Ghost sank magisterially down through the roof of the car, without changing his position, and finally walked casually through the side of the car to join us.
‘Now that’s just showing off,’ said Johnny.
‘You should know,’ said the Ghost.
‘You are aware you’ve parked on a double yellow line, Gideon?’ said Annie. ‘Right in the middle of one of the busiest streets in London?’
I just shrugged and smiled. ‘If the car is still here when we get back, fine. If it’s gone, or clamped, then to hell with it. We’ll just hail a taxi, because when we get back, we’ll be able to afford one.’
‘And while taxi drivers might not stop for someone who looks like the Damned, they’ll definitely stop for Marilyn,’ said Annie.
I let her have that one and took a moment to check I had all my special gadgets tucked safely away about my person. The pen that could put Time on pause, the skeleton key that could unlock anything, and the compass that would always point to what I needed.
‘You do have very nice toys, Gideon,’ said Lex. ‘However, Johnny and I have been wondering … We all bring our own special gifts to this crew, but what gift do you bring?’
‘The gift of putting together a really good crew,’ I said. I looked at the Damned and the Wild Card, the Ghost and Annie Anybody, and couldn’t keep from grinning. ‘It’s us against the world. And the world had better watch out.’
I led the way into the Perfect Pizza Palace, which wasn’t nearly as palatial as its name suggested. In fact, it would have needed a major upgrade to qualify as a dump. A hygiene inspector would have condemned the place on sight, and judging by the decor, the taste police had never been allowed in. There were a few customers, sitting glumly at their tables, but none of them paid us any attention.
‘What a dump,’ said Lex.
‘I thought that,’ I said.
‘Maybe the setting makes the food taste better by comparison,’ said Johnny.
‘No food could taste that good,’ said Lex.
‘I’m surprised it’s still open, this late in the evening,’ said Annie.
‘Hammer owns the place,’ I said. ‘He makes sure it stays open all hours, so his people will always have access to the dimensional door.’
‘I’m not seeing any guards,’ said Lex. ‘I was sure there’d be guards.’
‘Who do you think those are, pretending to be customers?’ I said.
‘I used to be very fond of pizza,’ said the Ghost. ‘At least, I think I did. Pizza is the flat one, right?’
Johnny patted the Ghost comfortingly on his shoulder, and I was a little surprised to notice his hand didn’t sink even a little way into the Ghost’s immaterial form. Suggesting that at least one of them was more real than he cared to admit.
The staff were all lounging together by the kitchen door, so bored they couldn’t even be bothered to chat, and none of them so much as glanced in our direction, let alone bustled over to threaten us with a menu. I gestured for the crew to make sure they stuck close to Johnny, as I led the way to the back of the room, trusting the Wild Card’s uncertain nature to keep us hid
den.
‘There are hidden security cameras all over the place,’ Annie said quietly. ‘Along with motion trackers and infra-red scanners. I’ve charmed them all into editing our images out of their reports.’ She smiled briefly. ‘All the cameras say I look very nice as Marilyn.’
‘It would seem your gift is working well,’ I said diplomatically.
We finally reached the toilets at the back of the room, and I reached out to open the men’s door, only to pause when I realized Annie had stopped dead in her tracks and was scowling fiercely.
‘What?’ I said politely.
‘Are you kidding me?’ she said harshly. ‘I thought I’d reached the bottom of my career, but this is a new low. Sneaking into a men’s toilet … I’m going to get my shoes wet, aren’t I? Oh, God, I can smell the state of the place even through the closed door.’
‘No, you can’t,’ I said. ‘Get in there.’
I opened the door and pushed Annie through, and the rest of us crowded in after her before she could get out again. The toilet was empty, and, if anything, looked cleaner than the dining area. The air smelled strongly of something like pine. I looked around for the dimensional door, but the only actual door was the one we’d just come through. Lex moved quickly down the row of cubicles, slamming their doors open one after the other to make sure they were empty, until he got to the last one and found a door that wouldn’t budge.
‘Don’t worry; it’s empty,’ said Johnny.
‘Don’t ask him how he knows that,’ said Lex.
‘I am wise and wonderful and know many things,’ Johnny said happily.
‘And you can see round corners,’ the Ghost said crushingly.
I got out my compass and the needle pointed unerringly at the closed cubicle door. We all moved over to stand before it and consider the door carefully.
‘What do you want to bet that the only way to work the dimensional door is by sitting on the toilet and pulling the chain?’ said Annie.
‘Why do you always have to go straight to the worst-case scenario?’ I said.
‘Years of experience,’ said Annie. ‘A lot of them working with you.’
‘Do you want me to break the door in?’ said Lex.
‘Better not,’ I said. ‘We don’t want to risk damaging anything.’
I put my compass away, took out my skeleton key and pointed it at the cubicle door. I turned the key carefully in mid-air and the cubicle door unlocked itself. I gave it a gentle push and the door fell back slowly, revealing nothing but an impenetrable darkness, as though the cubicle was full of night. I remembered a similar darkness inside the Box of Beyond and repressed a shudder. Annie squeezed in beside me and sniffed loudly, to show just how unimpressed she was.
‘So … do we think this is a good or a bad thing?’
‘It’s just a simple camouflage spell,’ said Johnny. ‘Like graffiti scrawled over reality. We won’t be able to see what’s really in there until we go through.’
‘Are we actually going to trust the crazy guy on this?’ said Annie.
Johnny looked around the toilet. ‘What crazy guy?’
‘Is everybody ready?’ I said.
None of them said anything. They all stood shoulder to shoulder, crowded together, staring silently into the dark, caught up in the enormity of what we were about to do. Fortunately, I had something with me I’d prepared earlier, just in case I needed to lighten the mood. I took out my black domino burglar’s mask, put it on and struck a dramatic pose.
‘How do I look?’
‘Like someone way out of their depth, in a mask,’ said the Ghost.
Everyone had some kind of smile on their face, so I seized the moment and marched straight into the dark of the cubicle, and the others followed me in.
There was barely a moment’s transition before bright light filled my eyes, and we were all suddenly standing in a cavern the size of several football stadiums. The scale was staggering, as though we’d left the world we knew for something bigger. It was a moment before I could tear my gaze away and glance behind me, and my heart lurched suddenly as it missed a beat. The dimensional door had disappeared. There was nothing behind us but a whole lot of empty space. I must have made some kind of noise, because everyone else turned to look at what I wasn’t seeing. I felt a little reassured when they all made their own noises. Apart from the Wild Card, of course.
‘Will you please stop panicking?’ said Johnny. ‘It’s far too early for that. This is all perfectly normal. Most dimensional doors have only got one side; that’s how they work.’
I reached out a hand and was quietly very relieved when my fingertips stubbed up against the unseen door. I looked down and saw that someone had carved a cross deep into the stone of the cavern floor, to mark the dimensional door’s position. Presumably, so that Hammer’s people could always be sure of finding it when they needed to leave. I drew everyone’s attention to the cross on the ground.
‘Look around, people, and find some landmark you’ll remember. Just in case you need to find this spot again in a hurry. If anything should go wrong, and we get separated, this is the way out.’
‘How can anything possibly go wrong?’ said Annie. ‘You’re wearing an official burglar’s mask.’
‘It’s nice that you still have so much confidence in me,’ I said.
‘I can see the door!’ Johnny said brightly.
‘Of course you can,’ said Annie.
‘Sorry,’ Johnny said meanly, ‘who are you supposed to be, again?’
‘Let’s get moving,’ I said quickly.
We started off across the great open floor. I was still amazed and awed by the sheer size of the cavern. Back in the morning of the world, some geological event must have blown a really big bubble in the earth. The roof was so far above us that I was surprised there weren’t clouds floating about, and the walls were sparkling with mineral seams and strange crystal growths. I could see all of this perfectly clearly because of the fierce electrical lights hanging off huge steel pylons set up all over the cavern, illuminating the whole area as bright as day.
Gnarled stalactites hung down from the ceiling, like sleeping gargoyles. Equally misshapen stalagmites thrust up from the cavern floor, along with dozens of huge standing stones, like the monoliths of Stonehenge. Except no one had bothered to arrange these stones in pleasing patterns. Even so, they had to have been placed there deliberately, for reasons or rituals beyond our modern understanding. The monoliths themselves were just rough stone, shaped rather than carved, each of them twice the size of a man. I didn’t know why I thought that; there was nothing human about them.
There was a definite presence to the place, as though we were walking through an ancient underground cathedral.
‘Well,’ I said, thinking I should say something, ‘if nothing else, it would appear there are things we can use for cover if we have to.’
‘You had to look on the bright side, didn’t you?’ said Lex.
‘He just can’t help himself,’ said Annie. ‘You have no idea how much that will come to grate on your nerves.’
‘Confidence can be very irritating,’ said Johnny. ‘To those of us cursed to see things as they really are.’
‘Johnny, we talked about this,’ Lex said quietly. ‘Outside voice, inside voice – remember?’
Annie shot me a thoughtful look. ‘Why didn’t they put the dimensional door closer to the museum?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Probably so the surveillance systems could get a good look at everyone who approaches.’
‘And why didn’t Sable’s book mention all these standing stones?’ said Annie. ‘I mean, how could he have missed them?’
‘The book doesn’t mention everything,’ I said patiently. ‘Just what’s necessary to run the heist.’
‘I’m getting a bad feeling about this place,’ said the Ghost.
‘Of course you are,’ said Lex. ‘Hammer lives here.’
‘No … that’s not it,’ said the Ghost.
‘There!’ I said, pointing ahead. ‘Hammer’s idea of Heaven on earth.’
The museum was a grim, forbidding structure with no style or aesthetic to it at all. Just a great concrete bunker, with no breaks in the walls and only the one door, which looked as if it had been fashioned from solid steel. A wild variety of electronic equipment crawled over the exterior like technological ivy, and there were so many weapon emplacements on the flat roof they almost crowded each other off the edges. The long barrels moved through slow tracking routines as they covered every possible approach to the museum.
Actually, everything about the building felt like staring down the barrel of a gun.
‘I don’t know much about guns,’ the Ghost said diffidently. ‘What kind are those?’
‘The kind that can not only kill you but also make a real mess of your surroundings,’ I said. ‘So let’s not do anything to attract their attention.’
‘Relax,’ said Annie. ‘I’ve already charmed their computer targeting systems into not seeing us or announcing our arrival. And I’ve done the same thing with the museum’s security systems, so no one has any idea that we’re here.’
‘I knew you’d come in handy,’ I said.
‘I’m amazed you can function at all without me,’ said Annie.
‘We still have to cross a lot of open ground, people,’ said Lex.
‘Just as well the museum doesn’t have any windows, then,’ I said.
‘Major design flaw,’ said the Ghost. ‘What were they thinking?’
‘I’m not seeing any of the defences the book described,’ said Lex. ‘And I’m starting to think that might not be a good thing.’
‘We’re definitely not alone here,’ said the Ghost.
We all looked at him, but he had nothing more to say.
I turned to the Wild Card. ‘OK, Johnny, do your thing.’
‘How do you mean?’ he said.
I stopped dead in my tracks to look at him, and everyone else stopped with me.
The Best Thing You Can Steal Page 15