by M. R. Forbes
The slightly decayed cat came right to me, rubbing itself against my leg and emitting a ghostly, mangled purr.
“It’s good to see you too, Mr. Timms,” I said, patting Danelle’s dead cat on the head.
It was tough to transport a human corpse across the country, even using ghost channels. A dead feline was a different story.
What I lacked in firepower, I would make up for with stealth.
20
Harder than I thought
I parked the van for a second time about a quarter of a mile away from Black’s mansion. Mr. Timms was laying calmly on the passenger seat, chilling out as if he were still alive. That was the biggest difference between animals and people. Animals always acted the same as they had the first time around. They had no clue they were dead.
I leaned over and shoved open his door a little bit, nudging him with my magic. He lifted his head, looked at me, stood, stretched, and jumped out.
I closed the door, and then my eyes. I followed the thread to him, letting his eyes become mine.
I didn’t need to have Mr. Timms airlifted from Jersey to LA. I’m sure I could have found a dead cat, or rat, or whatever, somewhere. I had done it plenty of times before. But Timms knew me, and was cool with me, which made him that much easier to control, and that meant I could reach further before losing my control. To be honest, I was afraid to get too close to one of Black’s homes.
I was already about three thousand miles closer than I wanted to be.
I pushed the cat into a run, sending him dashing through the brush toward the house. It was situated at the top of a hill, with a nice overlook of the Pacific beyond. Satellite imagery showed the house had a wall around it, but it also had a couple of access gates made of fancy wrought iron with openings plenty large enough for Timms to slip through. He did a few minutes later, bypassing the guard that was watching the gate without being noticed.
A quick slink along the wall, and then a run across the lawn, followed by another low, slow crouch got me to the back of the mansion. It was a massive thing, at least fifteen thousand square feet, with an ornate roof and lots of chimneys. Fortunately, one of those was on the outer edge of the house and made of brick, which was the perfect setup to get Mr. Timms scaling the side up to the rooftop. Zombie cats were stronger than living cats. Pound for pound, they were comparatively stronger than zombie people because they had zero concept of limits.
Timms reached the rooftop, and I guided him along the edge, peeking his head over every twenty feet or so in search of an open window. The weather was pleasant today. Perfect for a nice breeze. While I doubted Black was in the place, I was sure he had help inside, and I was betting they would want to bring the outside in.
My hunch paid off a few minutes later, as I saw a light drape blow through an open portal one floor down. Timms pushed back a little bit as I nudged him toward the edge, his confidence in going up shattered by his cat fear of getting down. He wanted to please me though, and he kept going until he had his claws dug into the stone and was sliding down to the open window.
He dropped inside and scurried from the window behind a dresser. I brought him out slowly, surveying the room. Empty. The window was open, so of course the door was too.
I hadn’t sent him in expecting him to be able to discern if this location was the special one. Instead, I used him to navigate the layout, taking note of furniture, blind spots, and possible security details so that when I went in I would already have an understanding of the home’s machinations. He didn’t let me down, managing to get from open room to open room unseen, pressing behind furniture to hide when the maids went by, staying silent as he padded around the property.
I didn’t get a hint of any users until I reached the ground floor. He was a younger guy in a slick gray suit, slouched on a sofa and watching a television that was bigger than Frank. I only knew he was a user because he was flipping the channels without touching or saying anything. He didn’t notice Mr. Timms as the cat made its way to the back of the sofa, underneath, and then out the side. I got the cat into position so I could study the user’s face. I would describe him to Myra later and see if she could find a match somewhere. There was never a downside to knowing what you were dealing with ahead of time.
I was about to send Mr. Timms out to continue casing the house when I caught the sound of approaching footsteps. I sent him back under the sofa instead, and he crouched low while a pair of feet in combat boots entered the room and paused.
“Zero, I just got a call from Mr. Loehmann. He said we’ve got a code orange.”
The television went off, and Zero’s feet appeared in front of Timms. He was wearing a pair of shiny black Pradas or something, which tempted me to take a swipe at the ankles.
“Code orange?” Zero said. “I haven’t heard anything.”
“He said the message came directly from Black.”
“Shit. Go tell the others. If someone is in the mansion, we need to find them or it’s going to be our asses.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, backing out of the room.
I opened my eyes, bringing my consciousness back to the van. I had assumed I would be able to get in without Mr. Black noticing. I had been wrong. The good news was that the level of security in the house made me feel pretty good about finding the doorway to the abyss inside.
The bad news?
This was going to be a lot harder than I thought.
21
Don't mansion it
I left Mr. Timms under the sofa. I didn’t think anyone would notice him under there, and with the security detail on alert I wasn’t confident I could get him back out unseen. It was bad enough they knew someone had broken the perimeter. They didn’t need to know who or what.
I wondered if Black was keeping an eye on all of his properties, or if it was the biggest clue of all that this one, the first on the list and one of the two Sandman had starred, was the pot of gold. I wanted to believe that it was. I also knew nothing ever came that easy for me.
The law of averages would suggest things would balance out sooner or later, but so far in my life the law of averages had been for everyone else.
Myra was still in the Machine when I opened the door to my hotel room, while Frank was sleeping in my bed. Some guard. He was lucky that nobody seemed to know we were here, especially since Myra didn’t seem to notice my return. I stepped over to the trogre and put my hand on his wrist, sending just enough of my power into him to wake him up with a start.
“What the?” he grumbled, trying to get into fighting position. He stopped himself when he saw me, looking down at my hand on his wrist with huge, fearful eyes. “Don’t hurt me, boss.”
I let him go. “Do you want to do this or not?” I asked.
“Yeah. Sorry. It’s been a long couple of days.”
“If anyone else had come through that door, you would both be dead.”
He stared at the ground. “I know. Damn it.”
I scowled at him before turning to Myra. She had noticed Frank’s commotion, and surprised me by having both removed the goggles, and produced a pistol from her bag that was aimed at my forehead.
“Shit, Conor,” she said, lowering it. “I almost shot you.”
“I didn’t know you were packing. How did you get that on the plane?”
“It’s plastic,” she replied. “Expensive as hell. Prithi bought it just in case.”
“How come I didn’t know about plastic guns?”
“Like you need it.”
“Did you get anything for me?”
“Of course. Let me open the screen.” She tapped something on the box and a narrow screen curved out. She moved her hands in the gloves, and data appeared on it. “I got my hands on payment records for the security detail that’s keeping an eye on the property.”
“Worthless,” I said.
Maybe I should have been a little more gentle. She glared at me. “What?”
“It’s a dummy account, and even if that team is
real they’re amateurs at best. Didn’t Prithi teach you anything?”
“You asshole. It took me two hours to get that intel.”
“I appreciate the effort, I do. It isn’t going to help me. Anyway, I stopped by the mansion while I was out. I need you to see what you can find on a ghost nicknamed Zero. You won’t find him on public channels.”
“Where did you get that name?”
“I heard someone call him that. Problem number two is that Black knew someone was casing the house. I’m not used to my accomplices drawing attention like that.”
“He knew you were there?”
“Not me specifically. Someone. His team is on alert. I expect they’ll stay that way for a few days.”
“So we’re going to pick another target, right?” Myra said. “You have a whole list of them.”
“Sandman called this one out, and based on the volume of security, it may be the one. No, I have to go in.”
“How do you know they won’t send in reinforcements?”
“I don’t. I can handle that, but I need to at least know what kind of user Zero is. He turned a television off with his magic, so he may be an electro, which wouldn’t make me very happy.”
“Okay, okay. I’m on it.” Myra pushed the screen back into the box and returned the goggles to her head. “What did he look like?”
“Young. Twenties maybe. Thin. Light brown hair. Wore a fancy suit and fancier shoes.”
“A metro?”
“Not quite.”
“Gay then.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I’ll see what I can dig up.”
Frank had gotten up and was picking some old french fries from a plate on the nightstand. There were three more trays stacked under it. “So, how do we get inside?” he asked.
“You don’t,” I replied. “You’re way too obvious.”
“How do you get inside?”
I wasn’t sure. I could have used a little help from my friends right about now, but I had lost all of them. Dannie, Jin, Amos, Prithi. Dead or gone. All I had left was an amateur Operator and a trogre. I needed to make use of them, but how?
“I need to think for a while. If you’re going to sleep, go do it in your own room.”
“Nah, I’m good. I’ll keep an eye on things outside.”
He patted me softly on the shoulder and left the room. I retreated to the corner, sliding down the wall and sitting on the floor with my head in my hands. I was getting into these situations too often lately. In fact, it almost seemed like the pace of the shit hitting the fan was increasing. How was I going to get into Mr. Black’s mansion without being seen? There was no time to come up with an approach. Mr. Timms had given me a sense of the layout, which helped, but there was no such thing as enough preparation.
I didn’t know how long I was sitting there. An hour or more. I ran through a hundred scenarios in my mind, finding holes in all of them. It was hard enough to break into a house when the people inside didn’t know you were coming. What about when they did?
What would Dannie have done?
She would have told me I was a stupid ass for getting into this in the first place.
I smiled at the thought. Maybe that was my problem. Maybe I was trying to be a little too smart about things.
Keep it simple.
I looked over at Myra, who was looking back at me.
“I thought you were sleeping,” she said.
“No. Thinking. How did it go?”
“You were right about Zero. He’s an electro. One of Black’s, not a ghost. He’s well-trained. I’ve got a whole dossier on him.”
“I knew you could do it,” I said.
“You did not.”
I didn’t argue.
“Do you want to see it?” she asked.
“No.”
“Are you trying to piss me off?”
“Not really. And I’m sorry about before. I was an asshole.”
“Yeah.”
“I know you’re worried about Prithi. I promise I’ll get her back.”
Myra stared at me, her tough, I-hate-you exterior beginning to crumble. “How? How are you even going to do this?”
I got to my feet. I needed to find Frank.
“I have a plan.”
22
Decisions, decisions
We stayed in the hotel for another four hours, waiting while the sun dropped below the horizon and the sky began to dim. Frank was still outside when I exited the building, tapping the small transmitter in my ear to make sure it was doing something. Myra could only be so much help during a run like this, but I wanted her to at least let me know if anything I was doing attracted the attention of the cops.
“Quiet night,” Frank said as I approached.
“I like quiet,” I said. “Let’s hope we can keep it that way.”
“We?” he asked, looking down at me.
“Yeah. My new plan requires a trogre. Do you know where I can get one?”
He smiled. “I’m your man, boss.”
“Then let’s go.”
He followed me to the van. We climbed in and started rolling.
“You think I might need a gun?” he asked as I pulled out of the parking lot.
“I don’t have anything that will fit your hands, and we don’t have time to make a pitstop.”
“Oh.” He paused. “How am I supposed to help you then?”
“You’re an awfully big target.”
“A distraction. Right.”
“More than a distraction. Besides, you can take a few hits from most weaponry without getting seriously injured.”
“I can still be electrocuted.”
“I’ll take care of Zero. You do what you did back at the research facility and we’ll have no problems.”
“Is there more to this plan of yours?”
Keep it simple. Frank was an asset I could use to my advantage.
“Not really.”
“You aren’t making me feel any better.”
“You aren’t going to die if that’s what’s bothering you. Zero needs line of sight to attack, and I’ll put down anything he sends our way. This isn’t how I usually like to approach things either, but we have a week, and we’ve almost burned a day of it already.”
Besides that, two hours of thought had resulted in nothing. If I had a few more days to use Mr. Timms to get the full layout of the place, if I had Prithi to gather full records from places Myra probably didn’t even know about, if I had guns and ammo and Amos, then maybe I could have formulated something a little less risky.
But I didn’t.
So I couldn’t.
And that was that.
We made the drive in almost silence. Frank started whistling at some point, the sound awkward and difficult for him to manage, owing to his wide mouth and large teeth. He kept at it, though, to the point where if I hadn’t been so focused on what was coming I might have been more annoyed. He stopped whistling as I slowed, turning onto the long driveway that led up to the gate in front of the house, and then to the house.
“Shouldn’t we park somewhere and head in on foot? I burgled a few homes in my time before I got big and ugly. This isn’t how it’s done.”
“We aren’t robbing the house,” I said. “We’re assaulting it.”
“Wha-”
He paused mid sentence as I pegged my foot to the floor, gunning the engine and sending us accelerating down the driveway. Yeah, it was anything but subtle. Yeah, Mr. Black was surely going to know it was me. But who else would it be? Either me or Tarakona. Nobody else was that stupid.
The gate came into view a few seconds later, the light of the guard station behind it creating a slight glare on the windshield. I leaned forward as if that could give the car a little more oomph.
“You might want to duck,” I said, expecting bullets to start peppering the car.
The gate filled my view, and then the van slammed into it, the sound of the collision echoing across the night a
s the hood dented in before throwing the halves violently aside.
I made it about fifty feet before slamming on the brakes.
“Fuck me,” I said softly, the van coming to a rough stop.
The house was gone.
“Uh, I take it you didn’t plan this?” Frank said.
I stared at the flat terrain, a splotch of dirt in the outline of the foundation the only evidence that it had ever existed at all. A dark blob was sitting roughly in the middle of it. I didn’t need to get close to know what it was.
“He moved the entire house,” I said, still trying to come to terms with the idea of it.
“Are you sure? Maybe he just made it invisible.”
It wasn’t invisible. It was gone. I was sure of it.
That was when the bullets started coming.
They pinged off the sheet metal from every direction at once, the echoes of the shot following shortly after, the volume enough to hurt my ears. I crouched low between the driver and passenger seat while Frank spread flat on his stomach in the back. He grunted as bullets clipped him, but his thick skin and the loss of velocity from the ricochet kept him intact.
“Don’t move,” I said, holding my arms up in front of my face. Slugs shattered the windows and thumped against the interior, coming way too close to me. My trench was bulletproof and would probably allow me to survive the barrage, but there were no guarantees.
Besides, I had to assume Zero was out there somewhere.
The gunfire stopped as quickly as it had started. I was left hugging myself tight, cowering between the seats while smoke from the decimated engine wafted in through the shattered windows. I glanced back at Frank. He was looking at me with a smile on his face.
Was there anything that could get him down?
Then, just like that, the van was gone. It made a whining sound as all of the parts were wrenched away from one another at once, dropping us both into the grass while the pieces hung in the air for a moment before vanishing.
Zero couldn’t do that.
