“Mini camera built into the tag,” the Sandman explained.
He dropped his right hand down to his side. She glanced at the tablet to see herself once more, decked out in skintight black, wearing sunglasses and holding the tablet.
“You’ll have that, and after dropping me off, you’ll travel at least two hundred yards away and wait,” he said. “You’ll see what I see, hear what I hear, and be able to know what I’m doing. If things go south, you can suit up and provide me with backup.”
“Don’t you mean rescue you, again?” Selia teased.
“Keep that up and I won’t rescue you next time,” he replied. “I will be in there for at least an hour, otherwise suspicions will be raised while it’s still possible to make our lives difficult.”
She looked closer at the name tag and snickered. “Okay, ‘Rex.’ Let’s get you to work, honey.”
Dropping him off ten minutes later, Selia provided the Sandman with the pass card and keys the guard had given her earlier. He removed a miniscule trolley from the Citation’s trunk. Once he had retrieved the push broom, dustpan, brush, and mop, the Sandman hollered “Thank ya, baby! See you in a bit!” and let himself in the side entrance. She waved and fired back with “I luuuuv you, baby!” and drove off.
Nervous about what was happening while she got to a safe distance that would go unnoticed by the Family members or anyone else watching the auction house, Selia almost had to sit on her fingers to keep from activating the tablet and calling up the camera feed. She couldn’t drive faster because that would draw attention and probably raise suspicions. Then she remembered the earpiece still sitting in her right ear and turned it on.
“Now, easy, boss-man,” the Sandman’s drawled voice filled her ear drum. “You don’t wanna let me do my man’s shift, it’s cool with me! I just need to call my woman to turn around and come pick me up.”
“What I’m saying, sir, is that you aren’t the normal janitor,” came a second man’s voice. This voice was cautious, a little on edge, and very business-like. “I wasn’t notified that a substitute was coming tonight.”
“Well, ain’t it jus’ like Mike to not call you people after asking me to cover fer him?” The Sandman replied. “Look, if you wanna follow me around while I sweep up, collect the trash, unclog the shitter, and everything else, I don’t care. It’s all the same to me. But my man Mike plans on paying me his wage for the night, an’ I can sure use the twenty bucks.”
“Mike was here about two hours ago-” the other voice began.
“- and he forgot to clean the bathrooms and sweep up the showroom and the hallway,” the Sandman finished with his drawing, not-quite-lucid voice. “C’mon, we’re in the hallway and you see how dirty it is! What is your problem? You ain’t signing the paychecks!”
“No, I’m not,” agreed the voice. “And yes, Mike apologized for leaving early, without bothering to explain anything other than muttering ‘family problems’ when I pushed for reasons why he had to leave, unfinished.”
“So instead of causing grief for the higher ups, Mike calls me to come in and finish. He gave me his keys and card to get in. How else would I be in here without trippin’ everything off?” The Sandman chided, really throwing himself into the role. “You certainly got here fast once I walked through the door!” There was a pause, and the hyper, not-quite all-there voice got a little calmer and relaxed. “Look, he doesn’t want to get written up or fired for having an unfinished day’s work, not when there’s a major big-shot auction tomorrow. You can understand that, can’t ya?”
Satisfied that she had gone far enough, Selia killed the lights on the small compact car. The sunglasses allowed her to see perfectly well in the dark once she had adjusted to the hues visible in the lenses. She drifted as silently as the clunking engine would allow for another two dozen yards before parking. Thankfully, the car’s engine idled down and stopped making loud clunking sounds. She left the engine running and fired up the tablet.
The image of a fit, dark skinned security guard came into focus, and she could see his right-hand hovering near a holstered weapon and pepper spray. She wondered briefly where the guard kept his taser.
“So, you’re just going to finish up, and then you’re out of here,” the strong-featured guard’s face said.
“Yeah, man, easy-peasy. Hang with me if you wanna,” the disembodied voice of the Sandman’s current character replied. “Mike said you were a righteous man.”
“I’ll be monitoring the cameras, which is the biggest part of my job right now,” the guard answered. “Stay out of the showroom, though. Mike polished that floor just fine, and the bosses don’t want anyone going in there until they return.”
“Okay, if you say so. They must have some heavy stuff for sale tomorrow, man. I don’t blame ‘em for wanting to keep the low-income crew like us out. Clients get mad if they want something and it’s not there for them to spend too much money on.”
The guard chuckled. “You have a fair point, at that. But Mike wasn’t supposed to tell you there’s an auction tomorrow. That’s against policy.”
“Aww, c’mon, man! You be the righteous dude! Mike only told me ‘cause he wanted me to understand why it was so important for the work to get finished. Don’t ride his ass, man. Don’t sell my bro out.”
The guard considered. “All right, if you do the work and get out of here within the hour, I’ll keep it on the down-low. But remember-” the guard pointed above Selia’s sight line, “–I got eyes on you, Rex.”
“No worries, man. I won’t even light up while I’m here. Just right after. Heh.”
The guard smiled, chuckled, and waved the Sandman off.
Selia sighed in relief, just realizing she had been holding her breath. Silly, she thought to herself. The guard wasn’t even being threatening.
For the next forty-five minutes, Selia watched from the Sandman’s point of view- or at least, the name tag’s point of view- as he pushed a broom around the hallways, stepping into the bathrooms, and doing various other everyday work habits of maintenance workers around the world.
The little extras were what caught her attention, though. After she noticed the first one, she began looking for the next time the Sandman dropped a small, clear bundle the size of a bar of hotel soap into some manner of water reservoir or receptacle. Several toilets, men’s’ room urinals, the galley’s prep sink, and even what looked to be the building’s water heater all got one placed into them.
The Sandman didn’t speak as he delivered these strange goodies, or even when he was doing some actual clean up. He did keep scatting nonsense lyrics and the camera jiggled often, though. Selia’s mind delighted at the image of him in that outrageous costume, shaking his hips, singing, and dancing to music only he could hear… or understand. The guard would be very distracted and put at ease by such absurd behavior.
Finally, the Sandman whispered “Come get me” into Selia’s earpiece. She turned the car around, backtracking the way she had come. She turned on the headlights a block later. When she pulled up to the side entrance, the Sandman was standing there with the guard. They were both smoking, although the Sandman’s lit cigarette shone out with an odd blue light. The guard was laughing, and the Sandman was talking and smiling.
“Hey, baby! What took you so long?” the Sandman inquired loudly. He slapped the guard on the back. “Remember what I told you, man. The bosses need to get a plumber in here sometime soon. Those pipes are making some weird noises.”
The guard agreed that he would and waved at Selia. She waved back as the Sandman put the cleaning supplies in the trunk and back seat. Once that was done, he got into the passenger’s seat, buckled up, and waved a final farewell to the guard.
“Where to?” she asked.
“The motorcycle. We’re going to leave the Citation, gear, and costumes where it’s parked. The shop owners are going to pick it up from there. Then you and I are going to the lair.”
“What did you put in the toilets and hot wat
er heater?”
He smiled. “You didn’t see me put three of them in the water supply for the sprinkler system, then? Ah well. It’s a special compound that reacts very slowly to water. The results are spectacular, though. In four hours, over fifty percent of the pipes in that building are going to burst. The building is going to be unusable as a venue for at least three days.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
S elia followed the Sandman back into his lair. Pulling the hair band from the wig, she began removing the pins that kept it in place. She watched him move as though he was finally succumbing to the pain from his severe beating earlier. Dropping the wig and the pins on the coffee table, she grabbed the Sandman and shoved him down onto the sofa.
“Stay,” she ordered him, as she slid her trench coat off and tossed it to the side.
A playful “arf” was his reply. She shot him an exasperated expression for all of two seconds before giving in and laughing.
The spell had claimed he was her mate, and she wasn't quite certain how that sat with her. Yeah, she was extremely attracted to him and cared greatly for him, but... her mate? Hell, they hadn’t even consummated their budding relationship yet! Shoving the problem to the very recesses of her mind, she tossed her gloves in the same general direction as the coat and knelt on the sofa beside him. She scooted around so she was facing him and gently pulled his mask out of his shirt before slowly pulling it up and over his battered face. Removing it completely, she tossed it onto the coffee table.
Drawing a deep breath, she placed her hands on each side of his face and bowed her head. Softly she spoke, calling forth her magic and allowing it to flow through her and into him. As she had with Soren’s injuries, she could feel his wounds being healed.
His bruised bones mended and a few that had been cracked fused back together. Cuts and bruises vanished, along with swelling. The magic ebbed as the spell came to its natural end and she opened her eyes to look into his face.
Her jaw dropped and she sat back, almost falling from the sofa. He was, well, not what she expected. The qualities of his jaw line, mouth and nose were more brutish and Neanderthal-like than she had thought. He still had some handsome features, but she also took a moment to wonder if she had somehow messed up on the spell and given him the magical equivalent of bad plastic surgery.
“Not what you expected, eh? Thinking there's a reason I never really socialized much, are you?” the Sandman suggested with a chuckle.
“I... ah... no, I just...” She was suddenly unable to think of anything that didn't sound disappointed or plainly rude. What was happening here?
“You are impatient. Did Soren ever tell you that?”
He slipped the thumb and forefinger of his right hand into his mouth. His jaw line shifted, and the set of his mouth on one side altered dramatically. Selia almost shrieked. A moment later, he removed a large, bloody bulk from his mouth. It looked like a wax casting for part of a skull. The blood coating made it look like the prop from a horror film. She looked up from it only to be treated to the sight of him pulling a similar object from the left side of his mouth.
Once that was accomplished, he opened his mouth wide, as if stretching the muscles. He tilted his head down and pulled an odd, tweezer-like object from some compartment in his belt. He promptly began digging around in his left nostril with it.
“I mentioned that my maternal grandmother was a legend on the theater scene, remember? She played all the great characters from Shakespeare to every bit of script written until the end of the 1940's,” the Sandman remarked. His voice sounded congested, as if he were holding his nose together.
He was now pulling the tweezer-like object back out of his nose. The left nostril was distorting in shape, and she could see something a little larger than his nostril shifting down. Selia briefly wondered if she was going to get queasy or just completely freaked out. A large, waxy mass shaped like a teardrop came free from the nostril, gripped by the device in his fingers. It was more of a mess than the objects he'd withdrawn from his mouth.
“Yep, there's another one in the right nostril. If you want to leave the room, I completely understand,” the Sandman said as he freed the blob from the end of the tool. He then began rooting in his right nostril.
She didn't move but couldn't think of anything to say.
“Still here? Awesome,” the Sandman reflected, before continuing. “Long before silicon, latex, plaster of Paris or any of the more well-known movie makeup substances, actors still wanted or needed to alter their appearance for roles. Sometimes they even played monsters.”
The second over-sized tear came free with a wet popping sound. The Sandman sighed and rubbed his nose.
“The tricks of the trade were, among other methods, using wax molds to alter the shape of a person's jaw, nose, eyebrows... you get the idea. She also taught me how to appear heavier than what I weighed, as well as thinner. She taught me everything when I was a kid.” He dug around in the utility belt and came out with, of all things, a disposable wipe. He began scrubbing his face, especially around his nose and brow as he continued his story.
“She kept all of her supplies and tools of the trade in two large steamer trunks and would not let the city demolish the original theater until she claimed the makeup vanity that had her name on it. When she died, I proved equally stubborn and wouldn't give them any peace until they swore they would keep those objects for me. I used the vanity, and as you can see, I still make use of my grandmother's things.”
He rummaged around in the belt compartments again, bringing out a curious article of plastic that had two shallow, circular compartments joined by a strip of plastic. He unscrewed them, revealing tiny pools of clear liquid. Selia was wondering what strange device he had procured, until he brought his fingers to his left eye and removed a contact.
She almost laughed at herself for being so absurd. After he placed that colored contact in one pool of storage solution, he took out the other and did the same. Closing the contact storage case and putting it to the side, he finally looked at her. That is, William Brendan Fredricks looked at Selia.
“Hi, Selia. My friends call me Wil. Nice to finally meet you.”
She traced a finger along his face, from the top of his cheek bone to his jaw. Her eyes twinkled as she decided he was even more handsome as himself than any other person he could possibly adopt.
“The pleasure, sir, is all mine,” she murmured as she leaned down and kissed him softly. This time, she was willing to let him control the kiss and anything else that might come.
“Ummm... ow?” he said against her lips.
She sat up, confused, and peered at him as a child might observe a talking pillow.
“I don't suppose you've ever actually even been healed with magic, yourself?” he asked by way of explanation.
Selia shook her head. “Uh, no. I've never been injured severe enough to warrant it.”
“Okay, I thought not. Let me explain: You know all the discomfort that comes with a scraped knee healing up? The pain of the injury, the itching of the reforming tissue, the soreness of the offended nerves and skin? The day after day until it heals torture?”
“Oh, gods,” Selia whispered. “I'm so, so sorry.”
“Yes, you heal the wounds, binding tissue and muscle, mending bones, but the body gets the sensations that are usually spread out over hours, days, weeks. All at the same time. It seems it leaves those otherwise healthy places in a new level of sore.” He smiled at her. “I'm just glad I didn't get my trusty sidekick caught in my zipper today as well.”
Selia's face burned as she blushed and ducked her head. Peeping up at him from beneath her brows, she smiled shyly at him.
“I'm just glad I was able to find you,” she murmured, sitting on the sofa beside him.
“So am I,” he said, giving her a quick peck on the cheek and then grunting with pain. “And I will be properly grateful when I can once again use my face without feeling like I'm setting my head on fire. How did you
do that, by the way? Find me, that is?”
“Oh, uh,” Selia glanced away. “I used a spell that allowed me to locate you.”
It was attempting to tell him the truth about the spell, but she still wasn't sure if she understood anything about it, or if she should tell him. Let alone how. How did one go about telling someone that according to a spell, he was her mate for life? If it left her rattled, someone accustomed to magic and its oddities, how would it leave him?
He peered at her curiously.
“It seems there's more to the explanation than what you're giving me,” Wil observed. “But I won't ask. If you decide it's something I need to know, I'm sure you'll tell me in your own good time.”
“I... I'm afraid if I try to explain it, you'll either run away, never want to see me again, or think I'm a raving lunatic,” Selia admitted, refusing to meet his eyes.
“Okay, the moment just got more awkward. I wasn't fishing for information, Selia,” Wil said kindly.
Sighing, she looked up at him. “No, no, you have a right to know, because it concerns you... well, us. Sort of us.” Sinking further into herself, she kicked herself mentally for feeling so skittish. It was stupid. Sighing heavily, she scooted to the other side of the sofa, putting a little more room between her and Wil. “The spell I used was one my people often use to find their mate. The focus is always blood. Other than that, I don't know how it works. For me, after the spell was cast, I remembered everything that was special to me about you and it… I… attached your name to the spell.”
“Oh,” Wil replied, his expression not quite serious. “Well, what's wrong with that?”
Taking The Night (Nightshade series Book 1) Page 17
