Chapter 5: The Private Party
My heels made no noise against the library’s thick carpet.
I paused just beyond the door and looked around, my eyes sweeping over the balconies and the shelves. The library was deserted for the moment, and I saw no one in the main floor, the balconies, or in one of the side rooms that housed the various rare books. That would not last, though. Major Kemp had thought the library a perfect place for a dalliance, and other lechers might have the same thought. I glanced at the ceiling and the railing, noting the location of the cameras. Their position and alignment had not changed since the last time I had vacuumed the library.
Which meant I knew where I could walk to avoid their field of vision.
I skirted the edge of the lower floor, keeping close to the wooden shelves of books. I reached the corner, looked around, and summoned magical power, working it into a spell. The levitation spell took hold of me, and I floated towards the top of the shelf. I had a stab of irrational fear that someone might try to look up my skirt, but there was no one around.
And I had far more serious things to worry about.
The duffel bag remained in place. I pulled it loose, and as I did, I noticed something odd.
The nearest camera had been disconnected.
I blinked and took a harder look at the thing. The camera was mounted in a little dome of black plastic, but I saw where the network cable had been unplugged. It wasn’t a wireless camera – the model was wrong for that. Maybe that camera had been damaged, but a quick glance around proved otherwise.
All the cameras in the library had been unplugged.
It made absolutely no sense at all. If those cameras were unplugged, the security men ought to have been swarming over the library. Except those cameras were forty feet off the floor. You needed a ladder and a good screwdriver, or a good screwdriver and a levitation spell, to unplug all those cameras.
Which meant…
Which meant that Paul McCade knew that the cameras had been unplugged. Which in turn meant he had ordered them unplugged.
Why?
Had he known I was coming? If he had known I was planning to rob him, the security men would have shot me on sight, or he would have had Homeland Security arrest me, and I would wait to see if Morvilind would kill me before I wound up naked and flogged on a Punishment Day video. Odds were that Paul McCade did not even know I existed.
Something else was going on. Something that, in all probability, did not involve me at all. My problems were not the center of the universe.
Outrageous as that might be.
I floated back to the floor and released the levitation spell. Another look around the library, and then I slipped into one of the side rooms, the one holding the collection of Mark Twain first editions. I opened the duffel bag I had taken from the shelf and pulled out a pair of black cargo pants, black socks, and black running shoes. I slipped off my heels and donned the new clothes. Wearing cargo pants with a black cocktail dress looked peculiar, but I had used the combination before. I stuffed various useful items into the pockets and put my high heels and my fake purse into the duffel bag, adjusting the straps to turn it into an impromptu backpack. Best not to leave any physical evidence behind.
I strode back into the main floor of the library, towards the vault door, and I froze in surprise.
The vault door was unlocked.
It had likely been unlocked the entire time I had been in the library. First the cameras, and now the vault door? Just what was going on?
Voices came from the library door.
I was caught between two easy chairs, and I had no time to hide, no time to run. I summoned power and cast a Cloak around myself. An instant later two men in the blue uniforms of Homeland Security officers entered the library. I tensed, fearing they had come for me, but neither man had drawn his sidearm, and both looked at least a little drunk. The officers walked to the vault door and pulled, and it swung open a few feet, pale blue light spilling into the library. I caught a brief whiff of something that smelled like…smoke? Incense?
Then the officers vanished into the blue light.
No one else came into the library, so I dropped my Cloak with a shudder of relief. For a moment I hesitated, trying to decide upon a course of action. Perhaps it was time to scrap this plan and start over. Things were happening here that I did not understand. I saw again the large blank spot in the mansion’s plan. McCade had secrets here, and if I wasn’t careful, those secrets were going to get me killed.
Of course, if I didn’t retrieve the tablet for Morvilind, I might get killed anyway. If I failed, he might simply tell me to try again. Or he might have me killed to cover his tracks. And McCade had unplugged his own security cameras. That meant there was something happening that he didn’t want recorded, that he wanted kept secret. I could exploit his need for secrecy, and make off with the tablet before anyone could stop me. This might be my best opportunity for success.
I nodded to myself, took a deep breath, and summoned power, reading myself to Cloak or Mask if necessary. An Elf or a human wizard would sense a Mask, but if I was quick, I could Cloak before anyone noticed me. And if there were no wizards in the vault, then I could Mask myself as a Homeland Security officer and stroll right through them.
I crossed the library to the massive vault door, slipping past the enormous slab of steel to find myself in…
Not a vault.
For a moment I looked around, bewildered.
From time to time the Department of Education put out videos describing what Earth had been like in the final few decades before the Conquest, describing the moral decay and corruption of Earth’s governments before the High Queen had arrived to guide mankind. Usually those videos portrayed pre-Conquest Earth as a hellhole of poverty and despair and squalor where the poor starved and died in meaningless wars while the rich led lives of debauchery and wanton immorality. The videos invariably included a few seconds of actors in expensive suits and actresses in skimpy dresses, dancing and drinking in a dim room while bad music played in the background.
I didn’t know or care whether or not that was a true view of pre-Conquest Earth, but the room beyond the vault door looked almost exactly like one of those videos.
Dim blue light bathed everything, reflecting off the polished white floor and gleaming steel tables. A dull bass beat pulsed from hidden speakers. There were close to a hundred men and women in the room, some of them dancing, some of them drinking or smoking from pipes. The smell of the smoke had a sharp edge to it, and I suspected they were not smoking tobacco. Couches rested here and there, and the guests lay upon them, some of them glassy-eyed, others giggling and whispering to themselves as various drugs took hold.
Ah. This was Paul McCade’s private party. The party for his friends, the one he didn’t show to the rest of the rabble in the courtyard. No wondered he had unplugged his cameras.
“Mistress?”
A pale woman about my own age tottered over to me. She wore a ridiculously high pair of heels, a red silk kimono that barely reached the top of her thighs, and as far as I could tell, nothing else. A string of Elven hieroglyphics had been tattooed upon her forehead, and I recognized the symbols of Tamirlas, the Duke of Milwaukee.
She was a slave. Under the laws of the United States, humans could not own slaves. Elves, however, could own humans slaves. According to the law, a wealthy man like McCade could not buy slaves…but sometimes Elven nobles loaned their slaves to their human favorites. McCade was friends with Tamirlas, and it seemed the Duke had lent some of his slaves to the head of McCade Foods.
I spotted maybe thirty or forty slaves among the guests. Both the men and the women wore those sleeveless red silk kimonos. It wasn’t hard to guess what the guests intended to do with the slaves, either. All of the slaves were young and attractive, and even as I watched a middle-aged woman led off a glassy-eyed man in a red kimono to one of the curtained alcoves lining the room.
I thought the Rebels were i
diots, but sometimes it wasn’t hard to see why they were so angry.
“I have an invitation,” I said to the slave, though it would look odd if I pulled it out of my impromptu backpack.
“The master’s guests are welcome,” said the slave, her voice slurred. I wondered how many different chemicals the poor woman had coursing through her veins. “Would you like refreshments? Champagne is available, along with many different stimulants and narcotics.”
“Gosh,” I said. “Aren’t those, you know, illegal?”
The slave blinked. “The master is friends with his lordship the Duke, and the master has friends in Homeland Security.” She looked at the two officers I had seen earlier. They reclined on one of the couches, both smoking from pipes, odd-scented smoke rising from the bowls.
“Yeah,” I said. “Refreshment. Um. I’ll take a glass of champagne, please.” There was no way in hell I was going to drink it. God only knew what had been added to the drink. But my pants and running shoes already stood out in the strange party, and I didn’t want to draw any additional attention to myself.
Though given how drunk, drugged, and stoned most of the guests looked, I could probably start singing at the top of my lungs while hopping up and down on one foot, and no one would notice.
The slave woman gave me a glass of champagne. I took it and thanked her, which seemed to surprise her. Likely she did not hear it very often. I began circulating along the edges of the room. Granted, I had to hear some of the unpleasant noises coming from the curtained alcoves, but it kept me away from the other guests on the couches. Some of them looked as if their inhibitions had been eroded by the drugs, and I didn’t want to get into any fights or deal with someone like Major Kemp.
I finished my circuit of the room, noting the details. The ceiling was not high, but the room was at least twice the size of the kitchens. At the far end of the room, opposite the vault door leading to the library, was another door. It stood open, and within a saw another blue-lit hallway, leading deeper into the mansion. Specifically, it led further into the blank area on the blueprints.
Just what the hell did McCade have in here?
I wondered if McCade had built himself a private little armory or gun factory or something, and was plotting to overthrow the Duke and seize Milwaukee for himself. Though given that his favorite guests were drugging and fornicating a few yards from me, that thought seemed ridiculous. This was the behavior of a rich boy who had grown into a hedonistic middle-aged man, not a would-be Rebel terrorist.
Yet when I had been working with the cleaning crew, I had sensed several powerful items of magic behind the vault door. Clearly they had not been stored in here with the couches. Or if they had, they had been moved for the party. I needed to find them, or see if they had been moved.
I didn’t see any wizards in the room, whether human or Elven, but it was always possible that a wizard of the Legion might have removed his uniform and donned a tuxedo to attend the party. Regardless, I had to take the risk. I ducked into one of the unattended alcoves and pulled the curtain shut behind me. A couch ran along the alcove’s curved wall, and the air smelled faintly of smoke and liquor and sweat. I wondered if McCade ever had the cushions in cleaned, and decided not to sit down. I waited a moment, but no one followed me into the alcove.
I gestured, summoning magical power, and cast the spell to sense the presence of magical forces. Again I detected the buzzing loci of magical power I had sensed the first time I had cast the spell in the library. I gritted my teeth, trying to focus the spell. With greater degrees of skill with the detection spell, a wizard could tell the precise distance to a magical object or spell, and discern its kind and nature. I didn’t have anything like that kind of skill. I only knew that there were several enchanted objects nearby, objects with powerful auras. I wished that Morvilind had bothered to tell me what the tablet’s aura felt like. Then again, he knew I didn’t have the skill to discern the aura, so hadn’t seen any pointing in telling me. I concentrated, trying to focus the spell. I thought the auras were coming from the hallway beyond the room with the couches, and…
A sudden flare of magical power brushed against me.
It was close. No more than a few yards away. Someone was casting a spell. A detection spell, perhaps? If another wizard was casting a detection spell, he would feel my own magic…
I whispered a curse and released the spell, my heart pounding. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have…
The curtain to the alcove jerked open.
Corvus stood in the doorway, a dark shadow in his black tuxedo, his hand raised in the familiar gesture of the detection spell.
I remembered the lightning he had summoned in the alley. He could cast spells. Maybe our conversation in the courtyard while we danced had been a trick. Maybe he had been following me the entire time.
I waited for him to act.
Chapter 6: Disguises
Corvus did nothing, his eyes hard and unblinking as he watched me. I realized that he was waiting to see what I would do, if I would attack.
The music rumbled from the main room, and the smell of drugged smoke and the sound of laughter came through the opened curtain. So far, it seemed that Corvus was the only one who had noticed my magic.
Maybe I should take the initiative.
“You know,” I said, “those were some seriously clunky sunglasses.”
He blinked. “What?”
Whatever he had been expecting me to say, that obviously hadn’t been it.
“Those sunglasses you wore when you were chasing me in the alley,” I said. “And when you were spying on this place. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I bet they were effective. But stylish they were not. My eighty-year-old grandma wears them when she drives on sunny days.” Actually, I had never met any of my grandparents, but Corvus didn’t need to know that. “If you wore a floral coat and a little hat with the sunglasses, it would have looked adorable.”
That would have annoyed most men. Corvus didn’t even blink.
“They’re practical,” he said. “The sun bothers my eyes.”
“Because you’re a vampire, right?” I said. “No shadow, doesn’t like the sunlight, can use magic…”
Corvus shook his head. “There are no such things as vampires, Miss Annovich.” He stepped into the alcove, letting the curtain fall closed behind him. “As long as we are discussing fashion, I could not help but notice your running shoes.”
I struck a little pose, right hand on my hip. I had the distinct feeling that Corvus was a predator of some kind, and showing fear to a predator was a bad idea. “Do you? That’s so nice. They go with my dress, you know.”
“They also go with your pants,” he said, looking at my legs, “and with the lockpick kit in your left pocket, the multitool in your hip pocket, and the spring-release lock picking gun in your lower right pocket. I am told that a lady must accessorize, but those are some peculiar accessories.”
I shrugged. “More useful than these earrings.”
“Indeed,” said Corvus. “Though I am curious about something. You were casting a spell.”
“What a flattering thing to say,” I said. “A little forward, though.”
“I do not refer to your charms,” said Corvus. “I mean it literally. You summoned magical force from the Shadowlands, directed it with your will, shaped it into a construct, and released the bound power in a manner of your choosing.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” I said.
“You were casting the spell to sense the presence of magical forces,” said Corvus.
“So were you,” I said. “If you live in a glass house, you shouldn’t throw stones.”
“Human women do not generally learn magic,” said Corvus. “The High Queen frowns on it. The only sanctioned human wizards are the battle spell casters in the Wizards’ Legion, and those are exclusively men.” He watched me. “Who taught you to cast that spell?”
I sighed. “You found out my secret. I’m actually a man.” I
gestured at my chest. “These? Sand in a pair of bags. I do the voice by inhaling some helium, and I…”
A brief flicker of annoyance went over his face. “You have a remarkably smart mouth.”
“People keep telling me that.”
“It is a dangerous quality in a thief,” said Corvus.
“Oh, I’m a thief now?” I said.
“Obviously,” said Corvus. “You forged an invitation, concealed your tools and equipment somewhere in the mansion, and now are here to steal something from McCade or one of his cronies. It’s quite clever, really. McCade’s security men are reasonably competent, but they have all the intelligence of airport screeners. They couldn’t handle someone like you.”
“Such flattery,” I said.
To my surprise, he smiled. “You had me fooled. I thought you were far more dangerous than you really were. I thought you an agent of the Inquisition or Homeland Security. Not a thief with a few tricks.”
“So,” I said. “What will you do now? Going to turn me in?”
Corvus shook his head. “That would be counterproductive. I thought you might interfere with my mission, but it is clear that our objectives do not overlap.”
“And just what objectives are those?” I said. “You’re not with the Inquisition or Homeland Security, are you?”
Something cold and dark flashed in his brown eyes. “No.”
“You’re not a thief, are you?” I said.
“I most certainly am not,” said Corvus.
I made an impatient gesture. “Well, then, why are you here? To enjoy McCade’s private party?”
He looked disgusted at the notion. “Discipline and self-control are the foundations of an ordered mind. McCade and his cronies have neither.”
“They don’t need discipline and self-control. They have money, drugs, and prostitutes,” I said.
“The overindulgence of which inevitably leads to destruction,” said Corvus.
He…had a point. I didn’t want to let anyone else have power over me, and alcohol and licentiousness were an excellent way to reduce my power over myself.
Cloak Games: Omnibus One Page 8
