by Gregg Taylor
The Red Panda grinned, just a little, from the corner of his mouth. Andy Parker had served his mysterious Chief long enough to know that he didn’t let just anyone see that grin, even for a second, and for a moment he stopped resenting the scare.
“You’re welcome to it,” Parker said, closing the icebox door. “Excuse me, I wasn’t expecting a social call.”
“I shouldn’t think so,” the Red Panda said, stepping into the room. “This sort of thing doesn’t work that well when we telephone ahead.”
“Have you ever tried?” Parker frowned, sitting at the small table.
The Red Panda paused a moment. “It’s an interesting point,” he said. “But at least somewhat beside the point. I apologize for the lateness of the hour. I’ve been trying to catch up with reports from around the city, and Spiro flagged you as ‘urgent’.”
“He did?” Parker still did not quite have his bearings.
The Red Panda frowned. “Was he misinformed?”
Parker shook his head, more to wake himself up than anything else. “No, no,” he said. “I just… he said you’d been away.”
The Red Panda looked stern. “Did he now?”
“He said… he said he hadn’t heard from you in days.”
“That is true,” the masked man intoned.
“I was worried you… I thought you might have been near that warehouse when it blew up.” Parker was sure he was overstepping his bounds. He tried not to raise his eyebrow as he looked at the man in the mask, and he knew that he was dead right.
“We might have been near there,” the Red Panda said quietly. “What do you know about it?”
“Just that it was a pretty dramatic piece of overkill. Aside from the fact that the entire place was wired with enough industrial-grade explosives to blast a hole halfway to China, there’s not much to tell.” Andy Parker could contain his question no longer. “Is she all right?”
“Is she…?” The Red Panda seemed more baffled than annoyed. “She’s all right,” he said at last. “It was a close one. For both of us.”
“What would we have done if you… I mean… what should we have…” Parker sighed. It was question he had always wanted to ask, and he was bungling it because he was still half asleep. To his amazement, a red-gauntleted hand gave him a chuck on the shoulder and the Red Panda sat down in the chair across the table from him.
“I don’t think I’ve been in here before,” he said, looking around. “You don’t get much on a Constable’s salary.”
Parker bristled a little, confused. “No,” he said, “I don’t guess you do.”
“You know, most of my agents get a little… help of some kind,” he said quietly.
“I don’t want money from you,” Parker snapped in spite of himself.
“Why not?” the Red Panda challenged.
“If I bring you information… if I act on your behalf, and I do it because I think it’s the right thing to do, that I’m serving justice… then whatever Chief O’Mally might say, it’s my choice. If I took anything from you to do it, I’d just be another dirty cop.”
The Red Panda nodded. “It’s a distinction not many would see, or understand. But it means something to you, because it is who you are.”
“Right.” Parker felt he was awake now at last.
“Right,” the man in the mask smiled. “I don’t know what you’d have done if the Flying Squirrel and I had died in that explosion, Parker. We face death so often, I can’t always make contingency plans. That may sound cavalier, or reckless, but it’s nothing of the kind. It is who we are. Do you understand?”
Parker nodded and said nothing.
“Good. Can you get me a complete report on that warehouse explosion? Today?” The blank eyes of his mask seemed to burn.
Parker nodded again. “I’ll get what there is,” he said, “but no one’s been very interested. They’re prepared to write it off as arson, mostly because they can’t think of another motive for setting a blast that huge.”
“Can you?” the Red Panda smirked.
“I kind of imagined they were trying to kill you,” Parker laughed and stood up from the chair. He moved to a bureau in the next room. “And unless I miss my guess, it had something to do with the robbery at the Empire Bank.”
The Red Panda stood now, the white eyes in his mask focused with ferocious intensity on his agent as Parker returned to the room, a file folder in his hand.
“Agent Fifty-One, reporting,” Parker said with a grin.
Eleven
Martin Davies stood stock-still in the centre of his tastefully appointed drawing room and stared straight ahead with eyes that burned with a strange fire and yet did not see. It was late, and Davies had sat up long after the servants had retired for the night. It was often his custom to do so, and the servants understood that their master did not wish them to wait for him. He was a wealthy young man and kept such hours as pleased himself, often preferring the quiet of the night. The servants would think little of the sound of quiet footfalls upstairs. They would assume them to be those of their restless master.
On any other night that would have been true. But on this night, Martin Davies looked into the heart of the dying light within the fireplace, and his gaze never faltered, his feet never wandered.
Around him there fell a darkness that the glow of the embers could not dispel. Darkness that was more than mere shadow, but true blackness, almost pulsing with a life of its own. The blackness wrapped the walls of Davies’ drawing room, hid the light of the fire from any eyes but those of Martin Davies himself, and reached like cold tendrils into the rich man’s mind.
Those icy fingers of dark thought carried the innermost workings of the millionaire’s mind to another being, one that lurked within that pulsing wall of shadows. Two eyes shone forth from the black with a light that seemed most unnatural to those few that had seen it and lived. The eyes of Ajay Shah.
Those eyes now studied the face of Martin Davies. They had met before, in the home of Wallace Blake, over a very agreeable dinner. Davies had been as charmed as any at that assembly by the utterly disarming Mister Shah, and had invited the newcomer to the city to dine with him at his club. Again Shah was introduced by his new host to many other prospects. Many more insects for his great web. But there was something about Martin Davies… something that Shah could not be sure of. It had been impossible to search the young man’s mind fully within the confines of the fashionable Club Macaw, but Ajay Shah, master of the mind, had reason enough to fear.
He drew closer to his victim. Still there was resistance. Still there lurked a secret within that mind. Was it possible–? The shadows that surrounded Shah seemed to quell for an instant as he reached deeper into the mind of the frozen Martin Davies, forcing the barriers down through strength of will, and drew forth every last scrap of truth. Shah smiled, his fears forgotten as the last of Davies’ resistance fell away before his mental might.
“It is not him,” Ajay Shah said to himself, with some satisfaction.
“What?” said a voice at the doorway quietly.
Shah turned his head toward the door with half a hiss. “Quiet, you lumbering fools!” he snarled at his henchmen who had returned to the drawing room for further instructions.
“But Mister Shah–,” the lead brute protested.
“And I told you not to call me that,” he said, arching an eyebrow. The darkness seemed to roll forward over his shoulders like a cloak drawn closer to its wearer.
The effect on the assembly of underlings was immediate. “Yes… Master,” the first of them sputtered, the word falling awkwardly from his mouth. “I just thought you were talking to us.”
Ajay Shah delivered a waxen smile to his men. This crew that Joshua Cain had procured for him was capable, to a point. And would be easily disposed of when that point was passed. No need to crack the whip too hard.
“I understand,” he said, with as little menace as he could manage. “Your error was natural. In fact, I spoke only to
myself. I feared for an instant that our host Mister Davies might be… toying with me.”
The thug at the door gave a puzzled look to his two confederates. “Naw, he’s out right enough. I don’t know how you do it.”
“Indeed.” Shah smiled in spite of himself. He looked once more at Davies. He was the right age, of the right class. His build was strong. His mental resistance had been more than might have been expected of the true weaklings of his social set. As for the face… well, Shah could not trust his memory on that subject. It might have been him. That could have proved awkward.
He heard the men at the door shuffle uncomfortably. He turned back to them.
“You found the wall safe in the master bedroom?” he snapped.
“Yes, Master,” came the reply. “It was all just like you said. We got the securities from the office, cleaned out all the cash in the place and found the jewels in storage – we’ve got it all.”
“Not all,” Shah smiled. “There is a hidden chamber behind the bookcase against that wall.” Shah gestured to his right as he circled the immobile Martin Davies. “Inside it you will find a crate containing twenty thousand dollars in gold. It seems that young Mister Davies’ father never quite trusted the vagaries of high finance. Probably why the family fortune survived.”
Shah smiled as his minions struggled to open the panel behind the bookcase, and enjoyed their gasps of astonishment as they learned that their new master was right yet again. Shah dispelled their questions with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“It is time we were on our way,” Ajay Shah ordered quietly.
“But Master…,” one of his men protested, “how’re we gonna fence all this loot? I mean, once this bird wakes up and calls the cops–”
“My dear fellow…,” Shah silenced his man with an icy smile. “You worry entirely too much.” He moved his hand gracefully before the unseeing eyes of Martin Davies, and the young millionaire slowly followed, like a fish on a line. Shah motioned gently towards a chair before the fire and Davies sat obligingly. “You see, the loss of these items will never be discovered.” Shah positioned a book open on Martin Davies’ lap, as though he had fallen asleep while reading by the fire.
Suddenly, Ajay Shah whipped his head around towards the fireplace, and the fire within blazed to life as though fuel had been thrown upon it. The log that had been smoldering burst forth with a great cracking sound, raining flaming shrapnel onto the floor before the fireplace, the carpet and the chair where Martin Davies sat.
“For you see, gentlemen,” Shah said as he breezed silently past his astonished henchmen, “Mister Davies never will wake up.”
And with that, the master of the mind and his accomplices faded into the night, as the flames that would consume the mansion spread. And all the while, Martin Davies sat silently, staring into the fire with eyes that did not see.
Twelve
The wind cut across the high peaks and whipped down into the mountain valley. August Fenwick, now known as “Two,” staggered under the weight of his burden. Master Rashan had dispatched him to gather fuel for the fire, no mean feat in this high country, and Fenwick had scoured for hours to assemble the unwieldy collection of brambles and kindling he now bore.
As he reached the steep slope of the path that led down to the Saddhu’s kuti, the uneven footing seemed to get the better of him. He found himself cast off balance, and he pitched forward towards the jagged rocks that shielded the path on either side. In an instant the skills born of his long training burst to life. The kindling scattered as he threw his arms wide to counterbalance his fall. Acting against the instinct of a normal man, he turned his forward pitch into a dive, pulled into a tight somersault in mid-air and landed on the flat edge of a protruding boulder with the agility of a monkey.
He barely had time to complete the landing before he heard the sound of slow mocking applause from a short distance away. His head shot around to face the source of the sound. Seated on a ledge to his right was the Master’s other student, the man who now insisted on being called “One.”
“Very nice,” the elder student said. “Very deft for one so clumsy.”
August felt his ears redden and his pulse quicken. He stepped down from his new-found perch quickly and with as little fanfare as possible.
“You are full of surprises, my young friend.” One smiled, though there was little change to his hawk-like countenance.
“Just lucky,” Fenwick grimaced, regarding the scattered pile of wood and feeling anything but.
“Nonsense,” the elder student replied, standing. “You have skills, and I would be a fool not to recognize them.”
The man called “Two” froze in his tracks. There was a deeper import to the words of his fellow student. He turned and met the impassive, predatory stare and said nothing.
One smiled. “Better and better. You listen much and speak little. You are not like the typical fools that find their way to the Master’s kuti, seeking Enlightenment in a single day. And you have had training.”
August shrugged. “Gymnastics. At school,” he said casually.
“It is better to speak truth than to be thought modest,” One replied.
“Sometimes,” the young man replied cryptically as he began to reassemble his burden.
“Still better, and worse,” the elder student smiled. “But for the moment I do not speak of your physical prowess.”
Fenwick’s brows knit, puzzled. “I don’t understand,” he replied.
One stepped down from his perch and moved smoothly across the uneven path towards his fellow initiate. “I think that you do,” he said calmly. “I had occasion this morning to recollect your arrival here yesterday. Something about you seemed… unusual.”
“Is that right?” the young man’s ears were reddening again. There was something about One that set his teeth on edge, and he couldn’t put his finger on it.
One smiled. “Imagine my surprise when I found myself unable to recall your face.”
Fenwick tried to control his response, to show nothing. “That happens to a lot of people,” he said calmly.
One shook his head. “You are the first person other than Master Rashan and myself to set foot in this valley in seven months. And yet I found my memory as clouded as if I had met a hundred men yesterday. And I say again, you have had some training.”
The pair of students locked eyes for a moment. At last the man called “Two” shrugged a little. “I spent some time with an American stage hypnotist. His act was good. A little too good to be nothing more than trickery.”
One raised an eyebrow in spite of himself. “This charlatan knew the ancient secrets of the mind?”
Fenwick shrugged again. “He knew a little. Enough to be useful, if you’d rather not be remembered, or to pluck a simple thought from the mind of another. An image, a name.”
“Enough to make you certain there was more to learn. More to know,” One said, his stare becoming still more intense, as if he were struggling to read the young man, and meeting only a cloud of misdirection.
“Perhaps.”
“There is much to learn in this place, young one. I can offer you much help,” One said, relaxing his stare, and smiling with something like warmth for the first time.
Fenwick’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Such as?”
One closed his eyes and looked for the stillness within himself. Finding it easily, he reached out with his mind into the physical world, the tendrils of his thoughts feeling for the scattered firewood.
August Fenwick gasped in spite of himself as the pile of precious wood reassembled itself in mid-air between himself and One, and hung there without visible support. One opened his eyes and spoke without apparent concentration.
“Telekinesis,” One said calmly. “Not my specialty, but it has many uses.”
Fenwick composed himself quickly. “Such as tripping me up on the path in the first place?” he smiled in spite of himself.
One’s eyes narrowed, but he d
id not bother to deny it. “I think we understand one another perfectly,” he said.
Thirteen
The Red Panda opened his eyes and was, for an instant, alarmed by the pitch blackness before him. He froze, stock still in the hard wooden chair in which he had awoken. To his left there was a soft, padding sound approaching. And something else. A smell like burnt caramel that could only be one thing.
“Rise an’ shine, puddin’ head,” he heard Kit sing as a cup of her terrible coffee was set on the table before him. He was still groggy. Still confused.
“Your face is on crooked,” she said as she took his head in her hands and struggled as best she could with the bright red domino mask. For an instant, she pulled the mask’s lenses in front of his eyes and he could see her, half-seated on the edge of the worktable in their crime lab, her hair piled carelessly on top of her head and wearing that long green coat she had taken to for her days off. She had obviously made her way from the new section of pneumatic tube rather than entered via the mansion, as she hadn’t bothered with her chauffeur’s uniform. Then, as quickly as she appeared, she pulled the mask again and the lenses shifted to the left, leaving him blind once more.
“Be careful,” he warned, his hands darting up and touching hers for an instant before she pulled away. “You’ll trip the mask’s safety charge and give yourself a shock.”
He removed the mask himself and rubbed his eyes. He could just see her with her chin cupped in her hands, giving him a look like a small, dull boy of whom she was very fond.
“If the static electrical charge was still live, the mask couldn’t have slipped in the first place. Somebody let it run down,” she admonished gently, taking the mask from him and heading for a piece of equipment against the wall. “There’s coffee if you want it.”
He took the cup gratefully. Her coffee was not unlike warm tar, but it certainly did get a fellow going after a long night. He watched her refresh the charge generator he had built into his mask to prevent it from being removed were he captured. After a moment, he realized he was not actually watching any part of her that was using the equipment and he turned his head hastily.
