by Judy Mills
Stepping away from the trashcan where I'd been hiding, I waved my arms over my head, hoping to get her attention and praying no one else would notice. She looked at the one white puffy cloud in an otherwise blue sky and frowned. I threw another rock. It collided solidly with the glass and cracks spread out from the point of impact.
Oops.
Falcon's mom looked down at me and her eyes widened in surprise. She fumbled with the lock on the window and then slid the sash up. Nothing triggered. With all the precautions on the outside, why put them on the inside?
Her face was thinner than I remembered and a vague air of desperation had sharpened her features. "Is it hailing?"
"It's me. Addison Kittner," I called up.
"You can't be. She's only a little girl."
My hopes fell and a spasm of pain hit my soul. Time rushed away from me and for a moment I felt small and dirty and hungry and Falcon's mom was placing a bowl of steaming stew in front of me. Dark circles smudged her eyes and her hand trembled, but she'd smiled at me and she'd meant it.
That woman wasn't here anymore and suddenly I wished that she wasn't my only link between the past and the present. I stepped closer. "I meant I'm her sister...um, Stacey."
"You can't be. She didn't have anyone." She started to close the window.
"Wait! Mrs. Hallford, please. I need to ask you some questions about your brother."
She stopped and pain flickered across her face. The window slid up a few inches. "Is he home? I've been waiting for him to come home."
Falcon was ten when I'd first met his mom. Mrs. Hallford's husband had been dead for a year, killed defending their neighborhood in the first wave when the paranormal terrorists struck. A few months after that, her brother had managed to make his way from Virginia to Charlotte. Eight months later, he lay upstairs, badly wounded.
I'd met him a block away from the dumpsters where my friends and I sometimes slept. He'd been returning from a deal with a grocery store owner and had been jumped. When he triggered his last trap to disable two of the practitioners, their friends had decided to get revenge. I'd shot them.
Too weak to risk traveling through the streets, he'd taken me with him through a series of tunnels that Falcon had designed. By the time we got to their house, I was dragging Uncle Ben by the leg and ordering him to stay conscious. I was almost twelve.
I stared up at Mrs. Hallford's vague, faraway expression, and sorrow clogged my throat. Two days after I'd met them, Falcon had told me that his uncle had left town in search of buyers and his mother wasn't well. We'd banded our small groups of forgotten children together and survived. He'd created the traps and weapons people needed, we'd found the buyers and made the drops.
I never realized that Falcon had meant she'd broken.
"Mrs. Hallford, is your brother home?" I gently asked.
Her grey eyes, so like Falcon's, grew troubled. "Not here." Her hands fluttered up and down her sweater, buttoning and unbuttoning. Buttoning and unbuttoning. "My son's house. He's aways at my son's house now."
"Do you think he would speak to me?"
"I don't think so. You do look quite a bit like little Addison. Such a lonely child. So sad. A good girl."
I swallowed, working to control the constriction of pain in the middle of my chest. Despite how hard this was, I had to know the truth as much as I needed to take my next breath. For Falcon's sake. And for mine, though I had no idea why.
"Why won't Ben speak to me, Mrs. Hallford?"
"He's in the backyard."
"What do you mean?"
"I saw it. He didn't know, but I saw it. He was so small. The shovel was nearly twice as tall as him. How did he manage it?"
A cold rush of fear scattered down my back. "Manage what, ma'am?"
"When I saw, I knew it was over. I knew we were never going to make it." Her fingers plucked at the round gold button at her throat and then started twisting it. "Then everything stopped."
"But you did make it," I said.
"It just...stopped."
"You're here. Falcon's okay. Your brother's okay." Please let Uncle Ben be okay.
The faraway mist in her gaze fractured and she looked down at me, suddenly lucid. Apprehension skated across the nape of my neck. I didn't need to know this. I needed to stop her before it was too late. The words froze in my throat.
"My brother died, dear. He buried him in the backyard and never told me. He never told anyone." The button popped off in her hand and she looked at it, startled. Bemusement crept across her face again. "He was so small. Too small for such a big responsibility, wasn't he?"
"Yes, ma'am." It had been unfair of me to come, to make her relive the night that had crushed her sanity. It was wrong to know the truth. Guilt pooled under my ribs like a lead fist and I felt suddenly drained.
Mrs. Hallford dropped the gold button into the window box and gently closed the sash. As she turned away, peace resettled over her face. She was back where she belonged. Away from the pain.
I stared at the empty window. The reflection of the setting sun splashed across the glass like blood and I remembered the promise I'd made to Falcon's uncle the night I'd brought him home, cut and bleeding, his insides torn up from the beating he'd taken.
I turned away and headed for the street that ran behind the house. Glancing up, I saw Mrs. Hallford in the window again, watching me.
"I'll always keep him safe," I whispered as she turned away.
* * *
When I met up with Falcon for the night's work, I kept my mouth shut about what I'd discovered. He had his reasons for keeping his uncle's death secret and they were good ones.
How he'd managed to keep up the ruse that his guardian was traveling the world finding stock for his store was something I'd have to figure out eventually, but right now it was low on the list. From what Chiwa had said about the shipments, I suspected that he had a small team of loyal adventurers scouring the globe pretending to be Uncle Ben. After what I'd uncovered that afternoon, my new policy with Falcon was that ignorance was bliss.
Tonight his skill at recreating believable identifications had worked another advantage—that, and the universal truth that nobody liked doing the dirty work. With the school's real janitor out sick—as in off enjoying the free drinks pass he'd unexpectedly won—the contract janitorial service we were now supposedly a part of was welcomed with open arms.
The Rhea School for Practitioners looked like what it was—an old elementary school that had been converted to serve aspiring young practitioners. The halls smelled like chlorine. The room we'd just come out of had not.
"What are they teaching these kids? That was disgusting," Falcon complained, scrunching up his face behind the huge mustache he wore like he was considering getting sick.
I curled my fingers into my palm to keep from scratching under the hot, itchy blonde wig I wore and settled for pushing my fake glasses back up the bridge of my nose. "When herb-based spells go bad it ain't pretty."
With lazy deliberation, I pushed a mop bucket trolly complete with mop down the empty hall. "Never encountered one that smelled like a pile of fish died in a pot of garlic and rotted for two weeks though."
Beside me, Falcon, lugged two buckets full of what appeared to be cleaning supplies. Unlike me, he wasn't able to resist scratching under his black, tightly curled wig. "When have you ever been around anything like that?"
"I've smelled dead bodies. I can extrapolate."
Our disguises might be uncomfortable, but the tan jumpsuits we both wore were perfect. Not only did they fit over our regular clothes, but they had a lot of pockets. Once we'd cleared security at the entrance, we'd made a pitstop to the janitor's closet—one of the few unmonitored spaces. After we'd extracted our gadgets from the false bottoms Falcon had glued to the buckets that afternoon, we were loaded for snooping.
"At least that security guard stopped trailing around after us," Falcon said.
We approached another intersection of halls and I glanc
ed toward the corner of the ceiling. I wasn't surprised to see another one of the tiny security cameras. They were all over the place.
I slipped my hand into the front right pocket of my jumpsuit and wrapped my fingers around the tube hidden there. A quick press of my thumb on the base released an invisible pulse, both electric and with a tint of dimensional magic to it. The pulse expanded around us like a bubble to a circumference of about twelve feet. When it hit the camera, the light stopped blinking and stayed on.
"How long did you say the recording loops?" I asked Falcon.
"About twenty minutes. Maybe fifteen."
I gave him a sour look. "That's a big difference."
"You want prototypes, you get estimations. Here's the principal's office."
We stopped in front of a door and I looked at the sign at the top that said "Principal". "Master detectives at work. That's us." Reaching in my left gynormous front pocket, I fished out my new handy-dandy retro camera based Spell Detector. I aimed the device at the doorknob.
"Press the red button," Falcon said, looking over my shoulder.
After I did, he peered at the readout screen on the back of the device. "No energy anomalies or fluctuations."
"Meaning?"
"No witchy poisons. Should be unlocked now."
Dropping the refitted camera back into my left pocket, I retrieved the zapper, aka Video Disrupter something-or-other, from the right. I aimed the silver tube at the top of the door, roughly in the direction of the ceiling in the other room, and pressed bottom.
"Cameras are looping. We have ten minutes," I said.
"Fifteen."
"Humor me."
CHAPTER SIX
Cooper crouched in the shadowed ruins of a collapsed building. He pretended complete focus as he roasted the large rat he'd caught over a tiny fire.
At one time, this section of town was where banks and commerce ruled. Now residents of the city called it the Dead Zone and the smart ones avoided it.
His hair was messy, his clothes stained, and he'd smeared dirt on his face, hands and arms to complete the picture of pathetic desperation. Catching the rodent to cook had been a particularly inspired touch that had actually startled a laugh from Marc. He hadn't thought that was even possible.
Behind the subterfuge, Cooper was keenly aware of the assassin slinking across the second story floor of the half blown-out building several yards away. The vampire moved toward the half-destroyed exterior wall so he'd have a nice, clear shot and got into position.
Cooper took a second stick and poked at the cooking rat as if to test it for doneness. He'd eaten worse. Though not in a long time.
The temptation to look up and determine how close the assassin was to taking a shot pulled at him, but he resisted. Any tip-off and they'd lose another opportunity to get the information they desperately needed. Just one capture and they'd have a chance at finding out who was trying to kill him. With that information, they could form a clearer idea of who was behind the VR production.
He heard a small rustle of sound and imagined the vamp stretching out on his stomach and easing his slim rifle out of the sheath strapped to his back.
It wouldn't be long now.
* * *
I'd seen a few principals' offices in my time, both before and after the attack, though admittedly they had less time to harass me after. Once the news about paranormals was out of the bag and the government started welcoming them into society, principals had bigger problems than a smart-mouthed foster kid who skipped school on a regular basis.
There were lots of details to work out when society turned upside down and had to rebuild. Small things like, "How can our kids possibly compete in sports with Were children?" Or, "That little witch, Sally, has set the bathrooms on fire again."
At least public schools never had to start night classes for vampires. According to their own law, no acolyte could be turned before the age of twenty-five. To the public they spouted a bunch of crap about it being an adult decision and, "As responsible citizens we support that." What I'd heard in back rooms was that the survival rate increased after twenty-five because the immune system was mature. Ugh.
This particular principal's office looked more like a top executive's digs than a poorly paid public servant. There was even a small wet bar in the corner, though it only had soda and bottled tea. We made sure we checked. Good liquor was a prime bargaining chip for information on the street. We weren't about to pass that up.
Knowing we didn't have much time, Falcon and I split up the work, riffling in a systemic way through desk drawers, trash cans, and files. It was slow going.
"Most of what I'm finding is blank paper or memos about who's bringing bagels on Friday. They're definitely hiding something." I pulled the inter-dimensional distortion scanner out of my breast pocket and started scanning the walls of the office.
"Where does a practitioner school keep their secret documents? Sounds like the first line of a bad joke." Falcon shoved the papers he was going through back in the file drawer and sauntered to my side of the office.
From just behind me, he watched the readout on the screen of the device. A purple light suddenly flashed on at the top of it.
Falcon pointed at the wall, nearly hitting me in the face in his excitement. "There! Now key in the— Stop. Stop! Not like that." He grabbed the gadget out of my hands.
"You're lucky we're such good friends," I said, stepping back as I watched his thumbs flying over the face of the device like he was texting. "I've destroyed people for less."
"Yeah, yeah." He pointed the scanner at the wall and a soft purple light beamed over the spot, revealing a glowing two by three foot rectangle.
"Pretty. Now how do we get into it?"
"Faith, young Luke."
"I've also killed annoying people for old movie references."
He pressed another button. The purple light narrowed into a horizontal strip and scanned down, tracking where the outline had appeared. The light went off. The surface of the wall shimmered and a wall safe slowly appeared and solidified.
"I take it back. You're a keeper." I stepped up and used the camera on the lock. When I pushed down on the handle, the door of the safe swung open. Finally we were getting somewhere.
The light on the camera in the corner started flashing.
* * *
Cooper heard the grunt of impact as Marc landed on the assassin. He dropped his supposed dinner and was on his feet and sprinting for the other building before it hit the fire.
Above him, at the edge of the hole in the building, Marc struggled to disarm the vampire. Cooper picked up speed, instinctively calculated the height and trajectory and jumped. Behind him the roasting rat caught fire and ignited like a torch, lighting up the wall and casting his shadow into monstrous proportions as his leap carried him to the second floor.
He plowed into the back of the assassin as the vampire aimed his rifle at Marc's head. They tumbled across the floor struggling for possession of the gun, the vamp morphing as they went.
Cooper grabbed the weapon in both hands and the vampire fired in rapid succession. The shots went wide. Marc sprang at them, wrangling the vampire by the head and jaw to keep him from biting either one of them.
Cooper ripped the gun out of the vampire's grip. The vamp twisted free of Marc and bit down on his back teeth. His body spasmed under Cooper and he jumped back, repulsed and sickened. Marc did the same.
Blood spurted from of the assassin's mouth. His back bowed into a rigid plank of pain as black coagulated fluid tracked down his cheeks and then he collapsed. Dead.
"That's the third one," Marc said, his voice echoing the anger and frustration burning through Cooper.
"Whoever sent them won't risk losing another. They're too rare."
"And expensive." Marc leaned over and checked the right wrist of the body. "Same mark on it. Did Stillman get anything before she left?"
Cooper shook his head.
"What now?"
"We stay alive and hope Addison finds something."
* * *
Fumbling the silver tube out of my pocket, I aimed it at the camera. The light went solid again.
"Ten minutes? Try seven!" I hissed, rounding on Falcon.
He looked frightened. "Maybe they'll think it's just a glitch."
"Janitors opening a magically hidden safe is quite a glitch, Falcon." I pulled a stack of papers out of the safe and handed half of them to him.
"Take as many pictures as you can in the next twenty seconds."
Shoving the tube back into my jumpsuit, I took out my iC. As quickly as I could, I snapped pictures of the pages in my stack. Falcon did the same with his stack.
I got through about ten before I figured our time was almost up and shoved the papers back into the safe. I grabbed Falcon's pile and dropped it in, too.
A small white card in the back corner caught my attention. Frowning, I grabbed it and stowed it in the jumpsuit with the iC. Slamming the door shut, I spun the lock. The safe disappeared leaving a normal looking wall.
I yanked the mop out of the bucket and tossed it aside. Reaching into the dirty water, I pulled out a sealed plastic bag with my Browning in it.
"Time to run," I said, tearing open the bag.
* * *
Falcon and I crouched behind a Greek-styled statue of Hermes and a nymph cooing over a fat baby with the legs of a goat. Four armed security guards streamed across the lush, well-kept grounds of the school, spreading out from the low brick building like an angry swarm of bees.
While I kept watch, Falcon stripped out of his uniform and disguise. In a matter of seconds he looked like an average teenage boy; jeans, faded T-shirt, mussed hair.
While he stuffed his jumpsuit against the base of the statue and covered it with dirt, I cleared my fake uniform of gadgets and stowed them in the regular clothes I wore under it, as well as my boots and utility belt. When I finished, I zipped up the jumpsuit and snugged the obnoxious blonde wig tighter onto my head.
