Knavery: A Ripple Novel (Ripple Series Book 6)

by Cidney Swanson

  “More than enough,” said Sir Walter.

  No sooner had he spoken, his phone rang.

  Martina and Chrétien exchanged glances. It might not be Georg. It could be Gwyn or Sam or Mickie or—

  Sir Walter cleared his throat, having finished his call. “Fritz has departed unexpectedly for Rome. Threats to his business called him away from Fresno, and he only returned to Geneses in order to gather a few things before departing for Rome.”

  “It’s lucky we decided to wait here instead of waiting in Las Abuelitas,” said Martina.

  Sir Walter smiled. “The older I get, the less I believe in luck. I contacted the Italian government months ago with … sensitive information, yet they acted now.” Then he looked from face to face. “All is in readiness, if we are prepared.”

  Martina, Chrétien, and Pfeffer nodded together.

  “Then let us depart,” said the old gentleman.

  ~ ~ ~

  Georg had thought things through carefully on his mad dash back from Las Abuelitas. He’d arrived late because he’d been too distracted to pay attention to where he was going. But things had worked out well with Uncle Fritz after all, and now Georg had a plan he could execute immediately.

  Georg had turned off the perimeter alarm at Waldhart’s request, but really, he wanted it off just as much to keep his own comings and goings secret. Once the alarm was off, Georg returned to the tenth floor, to where Hanna, Michel, and Leopold rested. Continuing with the next step in his plan, he placed them all in a single room, in solid form. And then he waited for Waldhart and the others.

  He had expected Waldhart would need detailed instructions for finding the secreted rooms at the heart of the Geneses building, but apparently Sir Walter knew the building well. Georg found this slightly unsettling.

  He hadn’t known, before Waldhart told him, that Fritz’s office had once been Helmann’s, and that the small bedchambers had once been offices for Hans, Helga, Fritz, Franz, and Pfeffer. He didn’t like it when others knew things he didn’t know. But in the end, what did it matter? Geneses was the past. Georg cared only for the future.

  His own room had been Aunt Helga’s, once, if what Waldhart said was true. A chill ran along Georg’s spine as he thought of her. His dislike for her had been strong, but she’d earned it. He was glad he would be leaving the horrid little room after tonight.

  He waited outside in the corridor connecting the former offices, clasping both hands behind his back so that he wouldn’t be caught fidgeting.

  And then, with a slight waver, the bodies of Waldhart, Pfeffer, Martina, and Chrétien appeared.

  Before Georg could offer a greeting, Pfeffer spoke. “I didn’t get a chance to say it before,” said Pfeffer, “so I must say it now. I don’t hold it against you, what Fritz forced you to do at the Sacramento Airport last summer.”

  Georg smiled nervously, and when Pfeffer held out a hand, Georg shook it. Pfeffer’s hand was warm and dry, everything Georg’s was not. Georg disliked having to shake as if they were friends. Pfeffer was not his friend. None of them were anything other than useful tools to gain a worthwhile end.

  Even stranger than Pfeffer’s greeting was Martina’s. She threw her arms around Georg’s neck.

  “I’m sorry I doubted you,” she said, pulling out of the hug he was obviously failing to reciprocate. “I’ve heard her—Katrin, I mean.” Martina’s face glowed with happiness. “She was always one for talking in her sleep!”

  Georg forced himself to smile. “Yes, I remember that, too.”

  “Where are they sleeping?” Martina asked.

  “This way,” said Georg. “The last door on the left.”

  The four useful tools preceded Georg, entering the last room on the left.

  Martina stepped back into the hall, looking at Georg in alarm. “Where is she? Where is Katrin?”

  Smoothly, Georg gave his rehearsed response. “As you already figured out, Katrin refused to consider a rescue unless her siblings—her newer siblings—were already in safety. In respect of her wishes, I have gathered the three of them here so that you can show them to Katrin yourself.”

  “Oh,” said Martina. “I see.” She turned and reentered the room.

  When Georg attempted to follow her, Sir Walter prevented him.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “Would you be so good as to remain out here, with me?”

  Georg shook his head, having anticipated this request. “They won’t recognize any of you. I insist you allow me to be present when you awaken my half-siblings.”

  “They’ll recognize Pfeffer,” said Martina.

  “Yes,” snapped Georg. “But I don’t think the associations will be pleasant ones. Begging your pardon, Uncle.”

  Pfeffer looked mournfully at the ground. “No, no. It’s true.” He looked to Sir Walter, awaiting a response.

  But at that moment, Chrétien cried out, “Fritz is returning.”

  “What?” asked Georg.

  Surely it wasn’t possible.

  “Do you hear him also, Martina?” Sir Walter asked, his own eyes closed.

  “He is angry … the airport … something about fog,” said Martina.

  Georg placed a hand on the walls. They vibrated slightly. He cursed. But then he saw his way forward—a solution to his problem that would not have existed without his uncle’s unexpected return.

  “Go,” Georg said to Sir Walter and the others. “Awaken them quickly and get them to safety. I’ll get Katrin myself and meet you at the hotel.” Having said this, he disappeared, fearful lest Martina should insist on coming with him.

  But Georg did not proceed immediately to Katrin’s side. He needed the password; it was the lynchpin on which his future plans hinged. So instead of grabbing Katrin, he snuck inside the room with Hanna, Michel, and Leopold. And he listened.

  There it was.

  The words were spoken.

  Helisaba es morta.

  The sleepers awakened.

  He had it. “Helisaba es morta.” He had the password!

  Georg raced to Katrin’s room and reached for her, but he couldn’t find her; she was gone. He must have mistaken the room—one room looked like another here. He pushed back into the hall, expecting to find he’d made a mistake.

  But there was no mistake.

  This was the room Katrin was supposed to be in. So where was she? He howled in silent frustration. Fritz must have moved her. He had to find her.

  27

  ANTIDOTE

  Skandor turned from the unyielding door handle back to Katrin, his face filling with despair. They were locked in.

  “Never mind,” said Katrin. “Give yourself the antidote right now.”

  Skandor nodded. Pulling the pen free of its case, he lifted his arm and, with an expertise honed at Camp Midgard, he stabbed the needle end into his thigh.

  It hurt.

  “Try to vanish,” said Katrin. “Hurry!”

  “I’m going to count to twenty, first,” he said. “To give it time to work.”

  Katrin nodded.

  “Go on,” said Skandor. “Use one on yourself.”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you need me to do it? You just jab it down hard.”

  “It’s not that,” she said, her voice soft. “It’s … there’s only three of them. And four of us, besides you.”

  “Oh,” said Skandor.

  “You can take me to safety, and the others can use the cure.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Skandor.

  She threw her arms around him. “Let’s go. Quickly!”

  “Okay. We’re getting the four of you out of here, today, Katrin, one way or another.”

  Skandor closed his eyes and tried again to vanish. He felt an odd sensation, like buzzing, racing throughout his body. He opened his eyes. He was still solid.

  He shook his head. For the first time, he began to feel afraid. “Either the cream is something stronger than Neuroplex or the injection pens aren’t what they say
they are.”

  Katrin pulled free of Skandor’s embrace, her face frozen in horror. “It’s the new drug Fritz developed. He must be planning to disguise it as a skin care product. Oh, no. Skandor—”

  “What do you mean, ‘new drug’?” asked Skandor, keeping his voice calm and even. “Am I going to die?”

  Katrin shook her head. “No, but if I’m right, you’ll never be able to vanish again,” she said.

  Skandor considered her words. They rolled around inside his head, and he knew—he knew—that what she’d said was true. The buzzing feeling in his limbs—it was like something that used to happen to him until the tragedy the summer of his sixth year. As a child, he’d somehow known the two conditions were related. The buzzing sensation had accompanied his first handful of times he’d turned invisible. It had faded away entirely after a month or two.

  Now the buzzing sensation was back and his ability to vanish was gone.

  “I understand,” he said. “So here’s what we’re going to do.” He took a shaky breath. “You’re going to inject yourself and you’re going to find Georg and the two of you are going to get everyone to safety.”

  “I can’t leave you here,” she said, tears trailing down her cheeks. “I won’t leave you to face Fritz alone.”

  “Go!” insisted Skandor. “You have to go now. Get Georg to help. The two of you together, you might stand a chance cloaking me, right?”

  Tears clung to Katrin’s lower lids. Skandor grabbed the pen from her hand and brought it down hard on her thigh.

  “Go,” he whispered. “Go and learn glass-blowing somewhere far from here.”

  Katrin’s eyes were wide with fear.

  “Please,” he said.

  She hugged him and for a moment Skandor thought that whatever laws governed magical transportation might be temporarily suspended and she would be able to take him along to safety.

  But she vanished and Skandor remained behind.

  He heard footsteps approaching the locked door.

  28

  ANGRY ENOUGH TO KILL

  Fritz Gottlieb could truthfully say he neither missed his sister Helga nor regretted her death. In fact, in the nine months since she’d been gone, her brother had barely thought of her.

  But he was thinking of her tonight.

  He might not miss her, but he finally understood a part of her that had always left him a bit … puzzled. When his sister had been in one of her livid-with-rage moods, someone—or a couple of someones—generally ended up dead. Fritz had always looked down on Helga for her lack of self control.

  Tonight, however, Fritz was angry enough to kill.

  But he was rational enough to admit there was no “killing” the things at which his anger was directed. One couldn’t take the life of the fog that shrouded South San Francisco, preventing aircraft from landing or departing. Neither could one kill “the Italian government.” One could not murder “all the for-hire private jets that were already booked” at nearby OAK or SJC, either.

  No, in the end, all one could do was return to one’s offices and wait for the promised storm that would either blow away or rain away the thick fog barricading the airport.

  It was maddening. It was enough to make level-headed Fritz understand why his impassioned sister had dealt with her anger issues as she had done. A delay of “only a few hours, sir,” could mean the difference between retrieving the list of dormant Eurasian Angel Corps cadre locations or losing it forever.

  And he was going to need that list of locations. Fritz was fed up with America and American regulations. He was relocating to the far side of the Atlantic as soon as he tied up a few loose ends.

  One of which was Waldhart de Rochefort.

  Well, that was a silver lining, he supposed. And it was all thanks to Georg. His dear boy was going to bring Waldhart to him. Without Waldhart, the lists were just lists of cadres of sleeping caméleons Fritz couldn’t restore to sentience. With Waldhart…. Well, suffice it to say Fritz was already devising ways to torture the passwords out of his dear cousin de Rochefort once his dear cousin had been stripped of the ability to turn invisible.

  Yes, there was a silver lining.

  But only if he could get to Rome in time. Damn the fog. Damn those Roman officials. Damn the lack of available aircraft in the greater Bay Area.

  It might be nine months too late to tell her, but Fritz finally understood his sister.

  The helicopter pilot interrupted Fritz’s dark musings. “You still want me to wait here, sir?”

  “Did you hear me issue alternative instructions?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then do as you’re told,” snapped Fritz.

  The vehicle came to rest on the roof of Geneses’s San Francisco headquarters, and a very angry Fritz Gottlieb exited the helicopter. He glanced at his watch. It was 6:00. He needed the fog to lift by 9:00 if he was going to make it to Rome before officials began to seal things in boxes and cart them away.

  ~ ~ ~

  Georg was beginning to panic. He couldn’t find Katrin. The clock on her wall read 6:01. A full minute had passed since the helicopter had landed.

  He could leave, whispered a small part of him. He had the password; he had what he wanted. But … he wanted Katrin, too. A terrible foreboding struck him. Maybe one of the other ripplers had already retrieved Katrin by the time Georg reached her cell. Could they move that quickly? Georg had gone straight to her room. Surely they couldn’t have been faster. But there had been four of them and only three angels in the first chamber, so perhaps one of de Rochefort’s group had moved her.

  He cursed. He was being ridiculous, surely.

  But either Uncle Fritz or a member of de Rochefort’s group had moved Katrin. There was no other explanation. Fritz was by far the more likely candidate. The group from Las Abuelitas would not have known which chamber Katrin lay in, and that would have slowed them down. Also, he had to admit, they were the sort of people who told one another things ahead of time. They would have told him if they planned to take her.

  So it must have been Uncle Fritz who moved Katrin. He shouldn’t have been surprised—it’s what he would have done in Fritz’s shoes. Fritz trusted him, but only so far. This meant Georg would have to search … the whole building? That could take hours. Days, even. He came solid and scrawled a hasty note on a piece of paper and set it prominently on his bed where Fritz would see it if he came looking for Georg.

  Gone to Las Abuelitas to retrieve your cousin. Regards, Georg

  This lie would buy Georg the time he needed to systematically search the building until he found Katrin. He checked the time. Two minutes had passed since his uncle had returned. Georg vanished, dashing to Fritz’s office, the sanctum sanctorum, the most likely place for Fritz to hide Katrin.

  Fritz might well be inside the building by now. He prayed his uncle hadn’t gone straight to his office.

  ~ ~ ~

  Thinking quickly, Skandor grabbed an empty wastebasket and turned it upside down. He sat on it, leaned his back against the wall, and folded his arms over his stomach. He then stretched his long legs out in front and tried to look as though he was sleeping.

  The door to Fritz Gottlieb’s office opened. As he entered, Fritz swore in surprise at finding Skandor. Skandor pretended to wake up, yawning and stretching. Every minute he could keep Fritz here was a minute Katrin could use to escape.

  “Hello,” said Fritz. His voice was soft. Cautious.

  “Dr. Gottlieb, sir,” Skandor said, rising to his feet. His heart was pounding like an overeager drummer on talent night. “It’s an honor. Skandor Dusselhoff, sir.” He held his hand out, but Fritz declined taking it.

  Instead, Fritz walked to his desk, taking a seat behind it.

  Skandor continued. “I’m afraid I fell asleep waiting for someone to come by. Your door locks from the inside. That’s a safety violation, sir. Not that I’m planning to report it, sir. It’s your office, after all.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Frit
z. He removed a revolver from his pocket and set it atop his desk. “Who are you?”

  “Uh, I’m your security intern,” Skandor said, his eyes fixating on the gun. He tore his gaze away. This wasn’t a time to lose his cool. Katrin’s safety was at risk. He had to remain calm. He had to provide a reasonable explanation for his presence. And although everything in him was screaming get out fast, he had to drag this out for Katrin’s sake.

  “Your door was open, sir,” said Skandor. “I came over to shut it, but then I, uh, noticed the contaminant on your desk.” He pointed to the bowl of candy, which was to the left of the revolver.

  Fritz placed a protective hand over his gun. “The … what?”

  Skandor avoided looking at the gun, training his gaze on the bowl of brightly colored candy, instead. “The peanut M&M’s on your desk are a security risk, sir.”

  “A … security risk?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Skandor. He could talk about the hazards of allergens for a long, long time to give Katrin the chance to escape with her siblings.

  Skandor continued. “You really shouldn’t allow such contaminants in the building. I’m happy to go over the statistics for you, sir. Perhaps we could create signage for all public areas.”

  “But this is a private area,” Fritz said, his eyes narrowing.

  “Yes, sir. But the danger is still real. Peanuts pose a potential threat to your employees. They could go into anaphylaxis and die before an ambulance could get here.”

  Fritz tapped the tips of his fingers together. “Tell me, how is it that you come to be so well informed as to the dangers of peanut M&M’s?”

  Skandor hesitated, searching for a way to draw this out. “Well, sir, when you have a deadly allergy, you make it your business to keep informed.”

  Fritz smiled softly. Skandor wasn’t entirely sure this was a good thing. His pulse picked up again: a soft whoosh, whoosh, whoosh seemed to sound from somewhere in his neck.

  “So, uh, the door?” said Skandor, pointing to the exit. “If you’ll just unlock your door, I’ll be right back with a hazardous material disposal containment unit and we can discuss precautions for the future.”