by Jenn Stark
I slid the watch on. “If I go bomb, what’s the blast distance?”
“You’ll have sixty seconds to get clear. Had to make it strong enough to obliterate trace evidence, even from Connected eyes.”
Through the windshield, I watched Brody turn and survey the long line of trucks, and I hunkered down, though there was no way he could see me. “It’s not going to be fun getting past that.”
“Not so hard, actually.” Simon pulled out another device from the bag and set it on the dashboard, then pointed to my feet. “Take that clipboard and walk like you’re pissed off. That usually keeps people out of your way.”
I pulled the clipboard up from the floor, grabbed a pen from the center console, and marked up the topmost form. “Okay. Two minutes after I get inside?” I tugged on my black ball cap.
“You’ll see the door. Just keep on moving.” He depressed his thumb on the jammer device. “Go.”
He wasn’t even finished with the word before I’d popped the door and hopped down. I strode quickly across the open space toward the entry Simon had designated, jerking to a momentary stop along with everyone else when a loud crash reverberated from the far end of the loading bay. The cops all headed in that direction, and I didn’t hang around to see if Brody was with them. I set my face into an irritated scowl, and almost bowled over a kid in a bright yellow shirt with red letters. He scuttled out of my way with impressive speed. Excellent. The uniform was doing its job.
I pulled my entry key and scanned the door, breathing a tight sigh of relief as I slipped inside. The second door was easy to spot. Checking my watch, I walked down a corridor flanked with storage shelves that contained tagged boxes and oddly shaped bags. Above, a disinterested-looking camera was trained on me, and I kept my pacing steady, my attention deliberate. I was making good time—too good. I still had thirty seconds to kill. I stopped three feet short of the door and pulled down the nearest box, comparing it to the information I’d scribbled on my clipboard. Just when I was starting to feel the panic skitter along my nerves, I heard a tiny click.
I moved forward, waving my keycard in front of the reader as if that was needed, then opened the door and stepped inside.
This room was a lot bigger, with rows and rows of shelves, each stacked with bins tagged with electronic routing numbers. Snaking between the rows and lifting high above the floor was a track, currently silent in this location though I could hear the grinding gears indicating other moving sections deeper in the room.
Thirty-seven seconds. I had thirty-seven seconds, according to Simon, to find the third door, which should be obvious, since it had to be within a thirty-second radius. I moved swiftly down the corridor, but all I could see were shelves. Reaching a break, I spun into a cross corridor, looking left, then right.
Two doors. Great.
Heading to the right, I moved down the corridor while reaching into the pocket of my shirt. I pulled a card and glanced down. Well, that helps.
Hanged Man. Time for a change in perspective.
I turned back and almost fled the other way, moving fast. I approached the second door, and, sure enough, heard the click when I was still a few steps away. Abandoning all pretense of caution, I vaulted forward, yanking the door open before the second click sounded. I stepped inside the next chamber and sucked in a deep, shuddering breath.
“Fine, fine,” I muttered, straightening. I stared around in the gloom of this new room, trying to get my bearings. Unlike the tidiness of the other areas, this one seemed almost haphazard—emphasis on the hazard. Bags with warning stickers lay in rough piles to my right and left, up on pallets, all of them marked “non-biological” so I supposed that was good. A quick scan overtop didn’t indicate any cameras, at least not in this section. I moved forward, transferring my deck of cards to my pants pocket, then stripping off my FedEx top and cap and shoving them under a bag. I smoothed down my blue button-down shirt that screamed “generic airport security.” I even had an ID badge clipped to the breast pocket, which was a nice touch.
But where to next? I walked deeper into the maze of boxes and rows, and eventually realized this wasn’t a single big room at all but an outer room with a box in the middle. A box with yet more doors. At least a half dozen I could see on this side. I felt like a rat in a maze, but as I reached for another card, something shifted in front of me, like my cable reception had shorted out, then come back.
I blinked. The six doors remained, but the second one in from the left seemed different. Glowing, almost.
Whatever was behind that door was arcane. I stepped forward, unable to square my own reactions. I should be happy that my psychic sensitivity had been amped up, but I wasn’t, not really. This wasn’t me. This was something Armaeus had done to me. Whether he’d woken up an innate ability or simply screwed with my brain, I wasn’t sure, but it felt …awkward.
I stepped forward checked the door. It was locked, and so was the key card unit. To get to it, I needed a key. Should I use the watch? Blast a hole?
A sound at the far end of the room froze me for a second—a door opening, sharply striding feet. A lot of them. And a voice that I swore at this point would follow me down into the pits of hell.
“Check it and secure it for transport. We don’t have all day.” Brody Rooks seemed more than a little annoyed now. I could relate. I backpedaled several steps, then crouched low, wiggling myself into a space about the size of a hamster cage just before several tan pants legs came into view, along with one no-nonsense pair of pumps.
“I assure you, Detective Rooks, we’ve taken good care of the package.” The woman sounded middle-aged and efficient, though an edge of irritation frosted her voice. “We’re happy to release it to your custody, but if there is any fallout about this from—”
“Fuggeren knows. He sent me.”
That did send my brows up. Brody was working with the owner of the scroll cases? Why? What had tipped him off?
“But I received no notice—”
“Open the door now, ma’am. If you would.”
The woman gave a disgusted sigh and stepped forward. I could hear the jangle of keys as she opened the card-reader case, then the soft electronic beep of the room’s door. Instead of opening conventionally, it slid back like an elevator, making the whole thing yet more surreal. Then she and Brody trooped in.
Every joint in my body was protesting my cramped position, but I couldn’t fall out into the center of a bunch of cops. Instead, I strained forward, trying to see into the open room. It appeared empty other than a small table in the center, where Brody and the security manager stood. A box no bigger than a suitcase was between them, but their bodies shielded everything but the edges.
Then Brody reached out and opened the thing.
The force of the pulse was so strong I was shoved back three feet, shooting out the other side of the shelf and sprawling onto the floor like a flipped lizard. Alarmed cries rang out and I spun into a sprint-crawl, barely making it onto another pallet between two piles of bags as the cops came around the corner. Brody’s voice cracked through the stillness. “Report!”
“Sounds, sir, something falling. Could have been a shifting bag.”
I tried to breathe without making a sound, but the energy racking my body made it feel like my bones were coming apart. There’d been no light, no flash of any sort emanating from the box holding the scroll cases. There’d been no sound. But as soon as Brody had lifted that lid, it was if a hand had reached out and punched me in the sternum.
What was in those scroll cases?
I managed to quell my gasps, closing my eyes to stop the clanging in my head. Meanwhile Brody returned to his inspection with the cargo supervisor. I’d stuffed my hands beneath me to quiet their trembling, but it wasn’t until the inner room had been closed off and the electronic wards reset that I could begin to breathe more normally.
Brody, the security woman and the last of the cops finally left. Carefully, gingerly, I crawled out of my hiding place, oo
zing onto the floor. I pulled myself up to my feet, then felt a new touch on the very doorstep of my mind. “You do not have to go further, Miss Wilde.”
“Those are definitely the real deal, Armaeus,” I murmured. He wasn’t here, and I could just as easily think the words to him as speak them, but muttering into thin air somehow seemed less crazy right now than talking in my head. I felt the pressure mount and narrowed my eyes. “Rules, Armaeus. Talk but don’t touch.”
The Magician obligingly quit pushing on my brain and I moved forward, my legs post-bender wobbly, and braced myself on the nearest ledge. “Almost there.”
“Stand down, Miss Wilde.” Armaeus’s voice was rich with satisfaction. “You’ve accomplished what you needed, without laying a hand on the scroll cases. Which you couldn’t do anyway, now that I’ve seen their strength.”
I frowned. “I’ll be careful.”
“Your reaction is all that was required. Fuggeren will have to present these artifacts in such a way that the Connecteds attending the Rarity are not compromised. Or, alternatively, that they are, depending on his goals. Either way, we will be prepared.”
I passed a hand over my forehead. “So, what do you want me to do?”
“Exit quietly. If you are waylaid, it’s important that you leave nothing behind to trace you to the Council.”
“Pack in, pack out. Got it.”
Armaeus said nothing further, and I turned away from the artifact’s holding cell, a little too grateful to show it my back. Then I turned toward it again, despite the Magician’s orders. The glow around the closed door remained, but something else was there, too. Something that called to me. I moved toward the room and stood in front of the door for a long minute. The glow seemed to envelop me—teasing. Taunting. Hovering just out of—
The hand around my mouth jerked me backward into a sturdy chest, the voice at my ear achingly familiar.
“Why did I somehow know I’d find you here?” Brody Rooks murmured.
Chapter Nine
Going against my natural instincts to drive my elbow into Brody’s gut or my heel into his instep, I held perfectly still until he dropped his hand from my face to lock it onto my left shoulder. “This is completely not what you think.”
“Yeah?” The detective wasn’t moving, and he wasn’t letting go. I was pretty sure that wasn’t exact police protocol, but I tried to keep my cool.
I’m super professional like that.
“I was following someone, Brody,” I said. This was, technically… Okay, this wasn’t even remotely true. But it was close enough to true to work. Brody pushed me away and let me turn around.
His gaze raked my face. “Who?”
I took a gamble, throwing more sand to distract him by using the one name I knew would get a rise out of him. “A contact of Dixie’s, some guy who let drop his interest in the Rarity, that he was going to break in early, do a smash-and-grab. She got nervous about a Connected committing a crime on your turf right after you’d come over to talk with her, and asked me to check him out. One thing led to another and…I ended up here.”
“Dixie,” Brody repeated. “She put you up to this.” I could see him considering that, working the angles, trying to figure out if he needed to upgrade the astrologer from a gorgeous handful of Southern Comfort to the status of “useful contact.”
Oh well. Couldn’t be helped.
“Didn’t matter, though.” I shrugged. “I thought the guy came in here—then I lost him. Then you showed up, opened up Door Number Two, and I…slipped and fell.” Close enough.
“That was you.” He smiled smugly. “Who’s the guy you were following?”
“Nigel Friedman,” I said, without hesitation. “British operative, blond, medium build. Seriously bad news. You need me to spell that for you?”
“I don’t.” Brody pursed his lips, thinking. I almost felt bad leading him on this way—almost. “You lost him in here?”
“I followed him pretty close, figuring whatever tech he was using to get in would remain active for a narrow window after he passed through, jamming the security system. I was right on his heels to get through the door using his key card, but he was already running when I hit the inner sanctum. After I picked myself up off the floor, he was long gone.” I blinked up at him brightly. “But if the cameras are back online, you’ll be able to find him, right? They are, aren’t they?”
He scowled. “They are, at least in the outer rooms. This chamber is still on the fritz.”
Thank you, Simon. I rocked back on my heels, suddenly very aware of the highly unusual watch I was toting on my wrist. If Brody took me downtown for questioning, which he would simply to piss me off I suspected, the watch would need to go.
Brody took a step back and swung around, surveying the interior. “Something’s going on here. There’s way too many people in the city this week. Too many for the gold show.”
“Isn’t Mr. Olympia in town too?”
His glance back to me was startled, then his expression soured. “If you know what’s going on, Sara, don’t hold out on me. I don’t have time for bullshit.”
“No idea.” I faced him directly. As always, his flinty blue-gray eyes seemed almost stark in his hard-planed face. “And it’s not like there’s a flood of tourists in here. Just me—and you—and, well, Nigel. What were you checking up on, anyway?”
“That’s official police business.”
“Yeah, ’cause I heard Nigel was after some Egyptian scroll cases, super expensive too. So spill.” I grinned at him. “Were they cool? Did they glow when you touched them?”
“They did not.” He frowned. “Dixie’s contact thinks they have magical properties?”
“Nigel. Nigel Friedman. And maybe yes, maybe no.” I shrugged.
“Well, at least that would make sense.” Brody’s face took on a mutinous cast. “This flood of tourists—they’re all Connecteds. There’s a mess of them in the lower-level casinos and bargain hotels. And I get that solstice is coming up, but I’m not buying that’s the reason they’re here.”
I wrinkled a brow. “Um, not to put too fine a point on it, but if they’re not making any trouble, what do you care? I’m willing to concede that the LVMPD might engage in profiling of bad guys, but keeping a sheet on fortune-tellers and hypnotists? Doesn’t really seem like low-hanging fruit on the tree of evil.”
“It’s not profiling.” Brody glared at me. “It’s a convention of crazy descending on my city, not two days before this rare gold show. Except these Connecteds seem to have pretty much zero point zero interest in the damned thing, unless these cases are their focus. So, if the Rarity didn’t bring them to Vegas, what did?”
“Great TV ads?”
His gaze snapped up to mine so abruptly I almost took a step back. “You know, I’m not sure when we ended up on opposite sides, but I would suggest you knock it off.”
I couldn’t move for a second. In Brody’s glare, there was more than irritation, more than confusion. There was hurt. I’d gone ten years without gazing into those eyes, hearing his voice on a regular basis, yet now I couldn’t help but relive The Sariah and Brody Files every time I saw the man. I’d dreamt up a decade of possibilities, a lifetime of future plans, with impossibly hot, impossibly sweet, impossibly unattainable Officer Brody Rooks, and he didn’t know any of it.
He wouldn’t know any of it either.
He’d been the sole person I’d left unscathed back in Memphis, the sole person whose life I hadn’t irrevocably damaged. I wasn’t going to ruin that now.
I strolled over to Brody, close enough to make him tense. God, he even smelled like the cop I remembered, a heady mixture of cheap shampoo and warm skin. “I’m not trying to get on your bad side, Brody. I’m not trying to get on your good side.” I shoved my hands into my back pockets, shielding them from his view as I worked the watch off my left wrist. “I’m just trying to get by, like anyone else is.”
“Get by?” He was clearly fighting an inner battle with himself
, and I didn’t know which way it was going. Arrest Sara or let her go? Take her in for questioning or walk away from her? Pull her into his arms and kiss the daylights out of her or—
“Miss Wilde.”
Absolutely worst. Freaking. Timing. Ever.
I focused on Brody, who kept talking. “I don’t like the idea of you having to get by, Sara. That’s no way to live, and I get the feeling you’ve been living that way for a hell of a long time.”
I blinked at him, the sudden startled emotion his words caused drowning out the Magician’s mind touch. Whether Armaeus had something important to share or he was just cop-blocking me, he could wait. “You don’t need to worry about me, Brody. I’m not your job anymore.”
“You’re not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.” His mouth tightened the moment he said the words, obviously regretting them.
My chest squished inward a little, the stab of pain on a totally different level from the psychic and physical jabs of the last week. So, naturally, I went on the defensive. “Hey, whoa. I don’t need your pity. I’m doing fine.”
“Sariah—”
“It’s Sara. Sara Wilde.” I didn’t know who I was trying to convince more, but my little walk down memory lane with Officer Brody Rooks was over. “Will you stop with the Sariah crap?”
“Jesus.” He scowled, glanced away. Taking advantage of his distraction, I edged to the side of the open space and dropped Simon’s watch into a crease in the packages there. Hopefully they weren’t flammable. I guess we’d see. “Sorry, you’re right.” Brody muttered, looking back at me. “Sara.”
“It’s okay.” I crossed my arms, hugging myself. Time to go. “You gotta search the place or something? I don’t think he’s here—”
“No…no.” Brody remained flustered, but when he finally turned, I fell into step with him. Fifty-two, fifty-one, fifty…
We covered the distance between across the floor to the main doorway quickly enough. Then he hesitated again. “Sara—”
