by Sharon Pape
I teleported into Krista’s cubicle again. It had the advantage of walls even if it didn’t have a door. More important, it was a pathway I’d established on my first foray into Eagle Enterprises. I was all about saving my energy for later. The building was silent. I needed to search for sound—the sound of voices in particular. Merlin and my aunt were not quiet people. I suspected their captors wouldn’t be quiet either.
I gave the business wing a cursory inspection before moving on to the cafeteria. I knew from Valerie Duncan’s description that it was located between the business offices and the larger research and development wing. The cafeteria was empty. The hallway into R&D was empty. Walking down there, I’d be out in the open with nowhere to hide, unless the closed doors along its length were unlocked. I remembered that Angie had used the bathroom off this hall. There it was—halfway down on the right. The words on the door were almost the same color as the wood of the door—hard to see if you weren’t looking for it. I headed toward it, the carpet swallowing the squeaking of my sneakers.
I peered out from the bathroom, looking for another place I could hide along the way if I heard someone coming. This hall ended on another hall perpendicular to it, but from my vantage point, I couldn’t see far enough down in either direction to locate any doors on that hallway. I had to assume that when I left the bathroom I’d be out in the open, without refuge. I was about to leave my sanctuary when I finally heard voices. Two men were talking. They were far enough away that their words were incomprehensible mumbles, but the agitation in their voices carried to me as clearly as if they were only a few feet away. I had to assume they were part of the night security force inside the building. A door closed, blocking what little I had heard. If I was ever going to leave the bathroom, this was the time to do it.
I held the door and closed it quietly behind me before taking off for the intersecting hallway. Left or right? As if in answer to my thought, I heard Tilly’s voice from somewhere on my right. I changed directions, relieved to know that she was alive and not far away. Why didn’t I hear Merlin? I pushed that worry to the side; I couldn’t afford to let it distract me. I moved along the hall, wishing I knew if the two men were in a room between Tilly and me or past her. Keep talking, Tilly. Keep talking! I urged her with my mind, even though telepathy had never worked for me. I paused at each door I came to and listened for a moment. A door somewhere behind me clicked open. I grabbed the knob of the door I was next to and turned it. Thankfully it opened and I slipped inside as I heard the two men come into the hallway. I was sighing with relief when they burst into the room. I’d never seen the taller one before, but I recognized the shorter one as the driver who’d kidnapped me. But this was no time for reminiscing. I recited the spell in my head—the one I’d used in the cabin.
I am razors; I am knives,
I am needles in your eyes.
I will burn you like hot coal;
I will freeze you like North’s pole.
There was a brief skirmish, during which I managed to kick the taller one in the shin and elbow the driver in the eye. Bellowing in pain, the driver grabbed my wrists and started to pull them behind me when the spell kicked in. He tried to ride out the pain. “It ain’t real! It ain’t real! It ain’t real!” he chanted. The words sounded like they were coming through clenched teeth.
“What’s going on with you?!” his partner demanded.
“Shut up,” the driver mewled. The pain was winning. I could hear it in his voice. Even so, he’d hung on for longer than I expected. He finally let go, sputtering a string of profanities. “Don’t just stand there, Carillo, where’s your gun? What’s the point of carryin’ it if you don’t use it on an intruder?!”
Carillo pulled the gun from his shoulder holster and pointed it at me.
“Shoot her in the leg if she tries anything, but whatever you do—don’t touch her.”
The driver ordered me to put my hands together behind my back. It was slow going, but he managed to tie my wrists without touching me. He pulled the coarse twine tight, until it bit into my skin—payback for sure. He picked up my purse and rummaged through it.
“Where’s Boscoe?” I asked him.
“That dimwit? He was canned after your escape.”
“So you blamed it all on him.” What a standup guy. He was too busy tossing tissues, gas receipts, keys, and lipstick out of my purse to pay attention to me. He found my phone and pocketed it, along with three hundred dollars in cash I’d intended to take to the bank in the morning. He didn’t seem interested in my credit cards. Maybe it was company policy. He tossed my bag onto the floor with the rest of its contents. “How’d you pull off that Houdini stunt anyways?”
“Magick.”
“Yeah, right. If my partner here would walk out of the room for a minute or two, I’m sure I could encourage you to tell me.”
“Forget it,” Carillo said. “You’d probably throw me under the bus like you did the last guy. I don’t understand how come you both didn’t get sacked after you blew that job.”
“We were only supposed to give her a scare, get her to drop her investigation.”
“Yeah, I see how well that worked.” He turned to me. “You come looking for the ditzy redhead and the weirdo?”
“Are they all right?” I asked. I wanted to demand an apology on behalf of my aunt, but first things first.
“If you ask me, they weren’t all right when we caught them. You can wait for the boss together. It’ll be a regular reunion.”
The driver grabbed the gun from him and nudged me out of the door with the business end of it. We didn’t go far before he told me to stop at another door. He pulled a ring of keys out of his pants pocket and opened the door one-handed. He shoved me into the room and slammed the door shut behind me, locking it from outside.
Tilly was sitting against the opposite wall. Merlin appeared to be sleeping on the floor next to her. There was a bruise on his temple that had bled down his cheek before drying.
“Kailyn!” Tilly cried, struggling to lever herself off the floor. With my hands tied, I couldn’t help her. When she was on her feet, she hobbled over and hugged me tightly to her. “Am I glad to see you!” she said. “Wait, no—I’m not. I mean I’m always glad to see you, but given the circumstances, I’m not glad to see you. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Are you? What happened to Merlin?”
“When they threw us in here, I stumbled and hit the wall. I’ve never seen Merlin so enraged. He got right up in their faces, screaming at them, until the short one hit him with the butt of his gun and knocked him out. I checked his pulse and it seems okay, but I’m no doctor. Let me get you untied.”
“What on earth are you and Merlin doing here?” I asked while she worked at the twine.
“Merlin felt what he called a disturbance every time we drove along this section of road. After all the fruitless days we spent looking for the cause of our problems, we thought we should at least check out this hunch of his before we gave up.”
It all came together in my head. “Merlin told us that the ley lines were magnetic and that our ancestors built their house and shop on the lines to enhance their magick. Then Eagle Enterprises moved in and started developing magnetic weapons.”
“That must have been around the same time we first noticed problems with our magick,” Tilly said, finally untying the knot to set me free.
“They must be working with magnets powerful enough to have pulled the ley lines out of their normal position.” It all made sense. We’d pinpointed the cause of our trouble, but that didn’t help our more immediate situation. We sat down on the floor beside Merlin who was snoring away peacefully.
“Now that you’re in here with us,” Tilly said with a heavy sigh, “there’s no one left to save us.” I almost said Travis, but then I remembered he was probably on his way to the city. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and o
nce I was on a more even keel, I realized that it didn’t matter if there was no else to save us, because we were perfectly capable of saving ourselves.
Chapter 41
I checked Merlin’s pulse to confirm what Tilly said. It was slow, but steady, and he seemed to be breathing quietly. Any plan to save ourselves couldn’t depend on his help. Even if he were to open his eyes and sit up in the next moment, we wouldn’t know if his ability to ply his magick had been compromised, especially in the short term.
The best idea I could come up with was to teleport out of the building, alert authorities, then return to help Tilly and Merlin and await our rescue. If only I could teleport with them. Forget the if onlys, I told myself. Wishful thinking isn’t a strategy. I explained my plan to Tilly. She didn’t raise any objections, but I’m pretty sure she’d thought of the one big problem with it just like I had. The driver might fly into a psychotic rage over my second escape on his watch. He might beat her until she told him about my talent. And then beat her more for what he’d assume was a lie. I didn’t know if the taller man could stop him or if he’d want to, since his neck was also on the line. I had to get back to my aunt and the wizard as quickly as possible. With any luck, the two company goons wouldn’t check on their prisoners before I did.
To that end, I teleported myself directly into a stand of large evergreens at the back of the New Camel precinct’s parking lot. I opened my eyes, afraid to find myself staring back at Duggan, Hobart, Paul Curtis or any number of New Camel residents who happened to be in the lot when I arrived. I was relieved to find myself alone. The downside of my landing choice was a few scrapes and bruises from nearly becoming one with the trees.
I trotted up to the precinct house to find that the door was locked. Whoever was on duty was out on a call. Residents who dialed 911 at such a time had their calls automatically shunted to police headquarters in Watkins Glen. Maybe it was for the best. A lone police officer would have been at substantial risk facing down the security forces at Eagle Enterprises. But first things first—I needed a phone and it was the middle of the night. I couldn’t just run next door to one of the nearby shops. Instead, I teleported over to my shop, praying that I’d still have enough energy to get back into Eagle Enterprises. I was never so glad to see an old-fashioned landline. I placed the call and explained the situation to the woman who answered. A minute later Detective Duggan called me back. I had to go through it a second time with him. He asked too many questions. I tried to impress upon him that time was of the essence.
“The safety of my officers is too,” he responded with a contemptuous edge to his words. “This is precisely why civilians shouldn’t be conducting their own investigations.” I could just picture the smug expression on his face. I swallowed my rebuttal, desperate to get off the phone and back to Tilly and Merlin. When he finally let me go, I dialed Travis. My call went straight to voice mail. I left a message with the pertinent details. I’d been gone from Eagle Enterprises for thirty-five minutes. If I ever needed to be strong enough to teleport—it was now.
I focused on the room where I’d left Tilly and Merlin. A second later I landed in a heap on the floor there, completely spent. I looked around me—I was alone. Was I in the wrong room or had they been taken away? Fear for them gave me the punch of energy I needed to get off the floor and plan my next move.
“Kailyn.” I thought I heard a tiny high-pitched voice call my name. I had to be hallucinating from exhaustion. “Kailyn.” There it was again and it sounded oddly like my aunt’s voice after a hit of helium. I looked around again, not the usual way you look for a person. I scanned the walls, the ceiling, the floor.
“We’re in the corner near the door.” It sounded like a micro-mini duet. I stretched out flat on my belly. Squinting into the corner I saw a couple of ants.
“Tilly? Merlin?” I felt silly addressing ants.
“Yes, yes—it’s us!” Tilly squealed. I inched closer. “Merlin finally woke up and transmuted us so they’d think we escaped and they’d leave the door open.”
“Can’t you get through the space between the bottom of the door and the floor?”
“I think we can,” Merlin said, “but Matillda is afraid of getting stuck.”
“They haven’t been back?” I asked.
“Not yet, but I wish they’d get on with it. I don’t know how much longer I can maintain our present forms.”
“I prefer bees to ants,” Tilly grumbled. “It’s awful to constantly worry about being squashed.”
“Constantly?” Merlin said. “Kailyn is the only one who’s been in here.”
“I just know I wouldn’t like it,” Tilly replied in a huff. We waited for the inevitable return of the tall man and the driver. I remained stretched out on the floor as a barrier to keep the ants safe if they did walk in.
“Get ready,” I whispered when I heard the key turning in the lock. “This is your chance to escape.” A moment later the driver and the tall man walked in.
“What the—” the driver spun around looking for Tilly and Merlin as if they might be hiding in plain sight. “You,” he said, turning his anger on me. “Where are they?”
“How would I know? I fell asleep. I can’t believe they left me behind to deal with the two of you.”
“Now I’m angry,” the tall man snapped. “How’d they get out of here?”
“Maybe you left the door unlocked by accident,” I said, looking straight at the driver. The tall man turned his glare on him too.
“No, no way this is on me,” he sputtered. He pulled out his gun and pointed it at my head. “I want answers and I want them now!”
“Think about it—if I knew how they escaped, why would I still be hanging out here?” That brought both men up sharply. I checked on the ants’ progress. They were traversing the doorway.
The tall man said, “You better start praying we find your friends or we’ll be taking our frustrations out on you.” They turned to leave. The ants were not quite out of danger.
I needed to give them more time. “Wait, I have an idea.”
“Yeah? This better be good.” The driver’s tone dared me to lie.
“My cousin can’t resist sweets. Seriously I’ve seen him eat a box of cookies and a whole banana bread in one sitting. He can sniff out baked goods from a mile away. It’s like he’s half hound dog. If there’s a cafeteria, that’s where you’ll find them.” I glanced at the doorway, which appeared to be ant-free. I could only hope my family was out of harm’s way. The guards left. I heard the lock engage.
Being imprisoned in a small room, with no means of telling time and no way of knowing the fate of my loved ones had to qualify as its own level of Hell. Dante might argue the point, but I could hold my own against any man.
Staring at the blank walls, I wondered why it was taking Duggan so long to rescue us. Maybe he was trying to teach me a lesson. I didn’t want to believe he could be that vengeful, but I’d never seen anything in the man that pointed to a generosity of spirit.
The next time the door opened, I jumped up ready to thank whoever it was—even Duggan. My heart sank like a stone when the tall one propelled Tilly and Merlin back into the room and locked the door behind them. Tilly’s curls were matted down and her muumuu was ripped and wrinkled, no doubt the result of being miniaturized. “What happened?” I asked them.
“Well,” she said, trying to smooth out her clothing, “although becoming ants made it possible to escape from the room, we realized too late that it would take us a month of Sundays to reach an exit on our teensy weensy ant feet. So Merlin changed us back and not five seconds later, we turned a corner and literally ran into the big ape. He was not happy to see us.”
“Are we to be rescued or not?” Merlin asked crossly, as if this whole misadventure was my fault.
“I’m sure we will be,” I said with all the confidence and patience I could muster. For once my wo
rds seemed to have the force of a director calling Action!
A man shouted, “Stand back,” which was followed by two powerful kicks that sent the door flying open to slam into the wall where the doorknob left its imprint. The kicker stood in the doorway dressed in full tactical gear. A second man in his forties was standing behind him, wearing street clothes and a bullet-proof vest. The SWAT agent and Street Clothes switched places in a neat little do-si-do. “Federal agents,” Street Clothes said, holding up his badge for us to see. “Ms. Kailyn Wilde?”
My hand shot up. “Here,” I said, waving as if I was at risk of not being seen. Relief can make you act like a fool.
“Ms. Matillda Wilde and Mr. Merlin Wilde?” They followed my embarrassing lead. The Three Stooges couldn’t have looked any sillier. Neither of the agents seemed to notice. Travis squeezed past Street Clothes and ran straight to me. He threw his arms around me and pulled me to him without a word. Then he hugged Tilly, who kissed him on the cheek, and with a what-the-hell wink at me, he hugged Merlin.
Street Clothes introduced himself. “I’m agent Reilly. I’m mighty happy to meet all of you. Is anyone in need of medical attention?” We all declined. “In that case, I will be accompanying you to a secure location for debriefing.” Travis took my hand in his as we followed Reilly through the halls. “When did you get my message?” I asked, trying to figure out how he and the FBI made it here before Duggan.
“I was a couple of hours into my trip to the city. You must have called when I was talking to my FBI contact—I’ll call him Ed. I got off the first exit I came to and headed back. Meanwhile Ed got in touch with the field office in Ithaca and told them we had a hostage situation. I gunned it all the way to Ithaca—Ed fixed it so I could ride along with them. I’m surprised we made it here before the cops.” Once things settled down, I’d tell him about my conversation with Duggan.