Thief Trap

by Jonathan Moeller

  That wasn’t idle boasting, either. Casting spells requires a ton of mental discipline to keep the magic from doing things you don’t intend. Compared to the mental discipline required to prevent a spell from collapsing, counting backward in my head was easy. Fifteen minutes meant nine hundred seconds.

  “You’re ready?” said Morelli.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s rob the goddamn casino.” I took Hailey’s right hand with my left. She frowned a little with distaste, but she knew this was necessary. “Do not let go of my hand until I say it’s safe, and don’t speak unless absolutely necessary.”

  “I know,” said Hailey.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Morelli,” I said.

  He nodded and hit a key. “Go.”

  I started counting down backward from nine hundred inside my head, and at the same instant, I cast the Cloak spell. Since I was in physical contact with Hailey, it extended to her as well. Russell blinked in surprise as we both disappeared, and I reached out and opened the van door.

  “Come on,” I said, tugging on Hailey’s hand. I climbed out of the van, and she followed. Russell grabbed some orange safety cones and started placing them around the van, and Morelli got out, a clipboard in his hand and an officious expression on his face. The deadly assassin had taken on the air of a self-important municipal employee.

  I led Hailey across the back of the casino, our heels clicking against the concrete. Goddamn, but it was hard to move quietly in those shoes. Fortunately, the back of the casino had cameras, not microphones. I hurried past the dumpsters and to one of the doors next to the truck dock. It was locked, with a small RFID reader next to it.

  I lifted my right hand and pressed my wrist against the reader. I was wearing those ornamental white cuffs around my wrists. But as it turned out, they weren’t just ornamental. The right cuff held the waitresses’ radio-frequency identifier tags, which let them unlock various doors in the service and dining areas. The left tag held a pedometer which they had to sync at the end of every shift. Apparently, the casino required the waitresses to walk a minimum of five miles during their shifts, as proof that they had been serving the customers.

  Suppose that helped with the weight restriction. Had to be murder on the ankles with these heels, though.

  Cloak spells blocked radio signals, of course, but if I pressed my wrist close enough to the reader, it would push inside the perimeter of the spell, and…

  The lock beeped, flashed green, and the door unlocked with a clang.

  I reached out, pulled the door open, and led Hailey inside. We were in the shipping and receiving area, a cavernous space of gray concrete filled with various pallets of non-perishable goods for the casino. A dozen burly men in jeans and T-shirts worked sorting the boxes, arguing and cursing good-naturedly about a baseball game. I recalled the map I had memorized of the casino and led Hailey through the pallets until I found a door in the wall. I opened it, and we stood in the middle of a row of massive industrial freezers, metal doors lining the wall on either side. I took a quick glance at the ceiling, and while there was a security camera further down the corridor, it was pointing in the opposite direction.

  Ninety seconds had passed.

  I dropped the Cloaking spell, and we both became visible once more.

  “All right,” I said. “Follow me. Remember, no magic.”

  I expected a sarcastic comment, but Hailey only nodded. Despite the total lack of warmth provided by our uniforms, I saw a few droplets of sweat on her forehead. She knew how dangerous this was.

  We started down the corridor, and two men in the white uniforms of cooks appeared. They cast surprised looks in our direction, though they both checked out my legs while they did. I suspected waitresses weren’t supposed to be back here.

  “And then he called me again!” said Hailey, filling her voice with outrage. “Like, oh my God! Like I was going to go out with that perv! I knew he was sleeping with Lindsey the entire time. She ought to have her brother beat him to death.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “The creep.”

  The two cooks disappeared into the freezer. Checking out two women is one thing. Listening to two women bitch about their boyfriends is much less enjoyable.

  “Good save,” I muttered.

  Hailey scoffed. “Like this is the first time I’ve done this kind of job.”

  I decided I didn’t want to know more, which was just as well because this wasn’t the time to ask questions.

  With twelve and a half minutes left, we entered the kitchen.

  It was a huge space, as big as Nicholas’s warehouse, with rows of stoves and stainless steel counters and armies of men and women in white uniforms laboring to prepare a vast array of dishes. Steam trays were everywhere, and most of the food looked like the sort of unhealthy stuff that went into buffets – fries, fried shrimp, chicken nuggets, that kind of thing.

  Two commoner Elves made a slow circuit of the room, no doubt keeping watch for thieves.

  “You two!”

  I turned as a beleaguered-looking middle-aged man in a button-down shirt and dress trousers stalked towards us.

  “Yes, sir?” I said.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “We just got off our breaks,” I said.

  “Well, get back to work,” he said. “I’ve got orders backed up halfway to the freezers. Goddamn it, why can’t I find any reliable help in this city?”

  “Yes, sir!” I said, turning to look at Hailey. “You heard the boss. Let’s serve some appetizers!”

  She did a good job of keeping a straight face, but I saw her lips twitch, once.

  The manager gave me a baffled look, but I strode through the kitchen towards the waiting trays of drinks and appetizers. Fortunately, the kitchen organization had a logical system. Each tray had a tag with a table number, and the gaming tables and dining tables both had been laid out in a grid system. Furthermore, the tables had discreet numbers stamped on their sides.

  “Stay near me,” I said in a low voice as I picked up a tray holding cheese sticks, onion rings, and some sort of deep-fried mushrooms. “When it’s time, we’ll want to stay close to the elevators. Take that tray.”

  Hailey scowled but nodded and obeyed. I wondered vaguely why all these jobs for Nicholas required masquerading as a food service worker, but I put aside the thought and got on with it.

  In the next ten minutes, I carried out three trays of food. I got ogled a lot, which alternated between annoying and flattering (mostly annoying), but since I wasn’t wearing very much, I wasn’t surprised. I smiled a lot and spoke in a perky voice, and I even got a few tips, which I tucked into one of my cuffs. But behind the smile, I kept counting down the seconds in my head.

  At seventy seconds, I caught Hailey’s eye and jerked my head, and together we drifted towards the massive arch that led into the hotel lobby.

  “Talk about something work-related,” I muttered as we moved closer to the lobby. Hailey obliged and started talking in a breathless voice about a problem with Table Seventeen, and I pursed my lips and nodded and put on a thoughtful face. As Hailey babbled, I took a quick look into the hotel lobby. It was a big space, with a lot of marble flooring and bubbling fountains and balconies with lounge areas overhead. At the other end was a row of thirteen elevators.

  The first twelve elevators serviced the guest floors.

  The thirteenth went to the Duke’s private museum on the top floor.

  I counted down in my head, keeping watch around me. So far none of the security personnel had noticed that two waitresses were standing around on the gaming floor without doing any work. Which made sense, as it wasn’t their job to notice. I just had to stall for a few more seconds.

  “Okay,” I said, gesturing emphatically as I spoke. “I’m just going to talk for a bit, so it looks like we’re arguing about work or something.” Hailey gave me a puzzled look, which fit the ruse. “I just need to keep talking for another few seconds, and…”

  I count
ed down the final seconds in my head and reached zero.

  For an instant, nothing happened.

  But it took a few seconds for all those burner cellphones to ring.

  Then the smoke bombs we had hidden throughout the casino went off.

  There were a dozen loud bangs on the gaming floor and several more from the lobby itself. Smoke billowed from the ducts in the ceiling and the walls, and more rose from the chairs in the hotel lobby. It was all harmless, but no one in the casino knew that.

  A heartbeat after the last bang, the screaming began.

  The security staff responded with speed, switching on the emergency lights. They began rounding up the guests, directing them towards the exits. I saw the other waitresses scrambling for the kitchens. In the event of an attack or a natural disaster, the staff had specific protocols to follow. The casino’s staff had been well trained, and they went about their tasks with calm efficiency.

  I felt the surges of magical power as the Elves on the catwalks overhead started casting spells. I ignored them and looked into the hotel lobby and saw the clerks at the front desk disappear into the back office to start calling guests from a secure location.

  Which meant for the next minute or so, until security started herding guests into the lobby, we could move unobserved.

  “Come on,” I said, and we hurried into the lobby. I had no trouble running in heels, but damn that made a lot of noise. Like hammers against the marble floor. Fortunately, no one noticed. Once the panic died down and security started reviewing security footage to find out what had happened, two waitresses running across the lobby would draw notice, but until then, we were free to act.

  We passed the row of elevators, and I stopped before the Duke’s private elevator. I held my cuff against the RFID reader, hoping that Morelli and Leonid had known what they had been doing when they had inserted the hacked records into the casino’s servers.

  They had done their job. The RFID reader flashed green, and the elevator door slid open without any fuss.

  We stepped into the elevator. There were only two buttons, one for the lobby, and one for the top floor. I hit the button, and the door slid closed. The elevator whirred into motion, and I took a few deep breaths.

  So far, so good.

  “How long will it take you to find the rod?” said Hailey.

  “Not long,” I said. “Nicholas talked to some people who had visited the museum. God knows how he managed that. But they said the Duke has the museum organized by century. So, I find the last century before the Conquest, grab the rod, and we get the hell out of here. You ready?”

  Hailey snorted. “I know how to hold down a button.”

  Which was the entire reason she was here. That, and she was the only other one who could have worn one of these damned uniforms. But the blueprints Nicholas had obtained of the casino also included the plans for the security of the Duke’s private museum. Morelli had been able to get me an RFID key that would open the museum, but the elevator would lock behind us.

  And we wouldn’t be able to open it again.

  Which meant that I would be locked in the museum.

  We had puzzled around that obstacle for a few hours until the obvious solution had occurred to us. Someone would have to stand in the elevator and hold the call button down.

  And that meant I couldn’t do it alone, which was the entire reason that Hailey was here.

  The elevator came to a stop, and the door hissed open. Beyond was a large room with walls of glass looking over the Strip, rows of display cases standing in orderly rows.

  “Button,” I said.

  Hailey nodded and held down the call button.

  “Be right back,” I said, and I hurried into Duke Orothor’s private museum.

  Looking around, I realized that it was a combination of museum, trophy room, and photograph collection. The Duke, it seemed, had an appreciation for human musicians of previous centuries. There were lots of pictures of Duke Orothor standing with various old-time musicians I vaguely recalled, a wide smile on the Duke's sharp, alien features. Given that Orothor had been booking musical acts at the Grand Warrior for centuries, maybe the Duke really liked human musicians. Many of the display cases held old guitars or drum sets signed by their previous owners.

  I moved through the rows, checking the dates. I passed the date of the Conquest and found several cases holding relics from the last decade before the Elves had come to Earth. There was an odd-looking aluminum computer with an apple icon on the back of its screen, a poster for a movie about a man in a bat costume (why a bat?), a golden statuette of a featureless man, a musical album by somebody called the prince of something or another, a model of some ancient car…

  I came to a stunned halt, gazing at a large display case.

  Duke Orothor had an entire exhibit devoted to General Jeremy Shane.

  It held Shane’s olive-green army uniform on a mannequin, his official portrait as Secretary of Defense, and a picture of him looking solemn with President Kerrigan. Shane looked as I remembered him from other pictures – dark skinned, black-eyed and black-haired, with gray at his temples and hard lines upon his face.

  I spotted the data rod lying on a cushion next to Shane’s uniform. It was about as long as my forearm and made from a peculiar blue crystal. I saw the glittering of thousands of metallic circuits within it.

  But that wasn’t the most surprising thing in the case.

  The central picture was.

  Duke Orothor was in the picture, but he was in the background with a dozen other Elven nobles, Lord Morvilind among them. The foreground of the picture was on Shane. He looked a little older, a little more worn (though he was surprisingly buff), and he was striding forward to shake hands.

  He was shaking hands with the High Queen.

  It was her. I recognized Tarlia’s silvery armor and her blue cloak, the flame-colored hair beneath her diadem and the eerie blue eyes. Shane’s expression was weary and wary, and the High Queen’s was solemn, but she was shaking hands with Shane.

  Who, according to what Nicholas had said, had led a rebellion against her.

  “What the hell?” I muttered.

  It was a riddle for later. I cast the elemental blade spell that Murdo had taught me. The spell usually produced a sword of elemental force, but this time I shaped the magic to create a stiletto of snarling elemental fire, thin as a hair and as hot as molten steel. I sliced a small circle in the glass display case, and I gave the circle a gentle tap. It fell onto the cushion next to the data rod, and I reached through the hole, grasped the rod, and slid it out.

  The strange crystal felt cold against my skin.

  I turned and ran back to the elevator.

  “Got it?” said Hailey, her voice tense.

  “Yeah,” I said, coming to a halt next to her. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Smartest thing you’ve ever said,” said Hailey, and she released the call button. At once the elevator chimed. The door slid shut, and the elevator started going down. I shifted the rod to my right hand, and with my left, I grasped Hailey’s hand.

  “All right,” I said, clearing my mind and gathering magical power. “Follow me and don’t talk.”

  Hailey responded with a nod. I waited until the last possible second, and then I cast the Cloak spell again. The door slid open, and Hailey and I darted into the lobby. It was crowded with guests, and the fear from the smoke bombs had worn off, replaced by a babble of annoyed conversation. Dozens of guests were haranguing the hotel’s staff, demanding to know what was going on. I led the way through the crowd, taking care to avoid touching anyone.

  We hurried through the gaming floor. The security men moved methodically from table to table, talking into their radios and checking for any further bombs. We slipped unseen into the kitchen. The waitresses and the cooks had gathered there, all talking in low voices. That meant there was no one in the freezer corridor or in the loading dock area.

  I was beginning to breathe har
d when we got outside, sweat pouring down my chest and back to soak into my bustier. Cloaking myself and moving around was challenging, but I could do it for nine or ten minutes without needing a break. Cloaking myself and Hailey and running at the same time was a lot harder, and I was feeling the magical strain.

  But I didn’t dare drop the Cloak until we were in the van.

  The van was still there. Russell, Murdo, and Morelli were pacing around the van and the safety cones in their orange vests, looking for all the world like a trio of municipal workers inspecting a power transformer. I reached the van, scrambled inside, sat down, and released my Cloak spell with a gasp of relief.

  “God, you’re all sweaty,” said Hailey, yanking her hand away from mine.

  “That’s not as easy as I make it look,” I said, catching my breath.

  “You’ve got the rod?” said Murdo, stepping to the door.

  “Yeah,” I said, waving it before me. “Time to go.”

  He nodded, his eyes flicking down. I wondered why, and then I remembered that I was wearing a tight bustier and I was breathing hard. Ha. So this costume had a practical use after all. And maybe I wouldn’t have minded it if Murdo had been the only one to see me wearing it…

  Stop that.

  Russell scrambled in next to Hailey as Murdo started the engine and Morelli typed another command into his laptop. It was the final step, and the program he just launched would cause the casino’s camera server to crash and wipe itself, destroying the footage of the last several hours. We knew the Grand Warrior had secure off-site backups, but they were only uploaded every three hours, and our little excursion had taken less time than that.

  “All right,” said Morelli, closing his laptop as Murdo pulled into traffic. “It’s done. The camera server should be crashing right now.”

  “Good,” I said, staring at the crystal rod in my hand.

  It was the key to Last Judge Mountain and the Sky Hammer…and I was about to give the damned thing to Nicholas Connor.

  I didn’t like that thought. I didn’t like it at all.

  Very soon now, either I was going to kill Nicholas…or he was going to kill me and take the Sky Hammer weapon.