by Mac Flynn
I sheepishly grinned and shifted my eyes so they fell on Cronus. Quinn followed my gaze and his eyes widened when they came to Cronus. He returned his attention to me and jerked his thumb at Cronus.
"Seriously?"
I nodded. "I'm afraid so."
"You must take after your mom's side of the personality tree," Quinn quipped.
Cronus pursed his lips. "I kept my distance from her to protect her from the paranormal world."
Quinn grinned. "I guess that didn't go so well." Cronus glared at him so hard that the smile slid off his face and he held up his palms. "Not that I'm sure you didn't try your hardest." He dropped his hands and returned his attention to me. "So that's why the Society wants you, huh? How'd they find out about your secret?"
I shrugged. "Somebody sent them a note about it."
"Blake sent the nose," Cronus spoke up.
Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Who's Blake?"
"The Big Bad Guy in charge of the Whisperers. We met him the other night and he found out about my eye," I explained to him.
"He must be a tough customer to be in charge of those guys," Quinn commented.
"He is a very powerful Whisperer," Cronus confirmed.
I studied Cronus. "You sound like you know him pretty well, and he talked to you like you two were old friends or something."
"Or something," Cronus agreed. He stood and walked around the table towards the door. "I will explore the block to verify the Society has not yet found us." Cronus opened the door and quickly slipped out.
The door shut and Quinn glanced at me. "Touchy subject, huh?"
I shrugged. "I guess."
Quinn looked over the mess on the table and sighed. There were bits of tinfoil, the cooked muck, and snags of string. "For an angel he leaves a hell of a mess."
I smiled and picked up some of the trash. "I guess he's an angel, not a saint."
Together we got the mess cleaned up and the frying pan scrubbed until it shone, or as much as a used cast-iron pan could shine. Just when we finished there was a buzz from the panel on the wall beside the door. Quinn walked over and pressed a button.
"Hello?"
"It's us," Ian replied.
Quinn pressed another button to release the door, and in a minute both Cronus and Ian were back in the apartment. Ian had three plastic bags with uniforms. He gently put them on the table.
"We gotta be careful with these things. They cost a mint. I had to exchange some of Ruthven's money for them," Ian told us.
Quinn frowned. "Ruthven? What are you hanging around him for?"
"I was going to use him as a bodyguard to get into the Four Horsemen," Ian commented.
Quinn raised an eyebrow. "And now you're dealing with that place, too? You guys really are trying to bust up the paranormal world."
Ian chuckled. "One place at a time."
"Why'd you want to break into the Horsemen?" Quinn wondered.
Ian shrugged. "Some info from its lovely hostess about the witches finding mystics, but-" Quinn held up his palm.
"Whoa there. What about mystics and witches?"
"We'll tell you later," Ian promised.
"If there is a later," Quinn quipped. "In case you've forgotten, you guys are going up against one of the most powerful organizations in the paranormal world."
"Maybe, but they're still human. Or most of them are," Ian pointed out. He slid a suit from one bag and handed it to me. "This one should fit you."
I snorted. "You do know my size."
"And this one's for you," Ian added as he handed Cronus his suit.
"So where's my costume?" Quinn wondered.
"You'll just go as your entrepreneurial alter-ego," Ian told him.
Quinn frowned. "And if their cameras spot me?"
"We'll hide your vendor license number and name, and you can wear your baseball cap low," Ian suggested. He grinned. "Besides, just hock those bombs like the customer tipped you a fiver."
Quinn leaned his lower back against his dining table and crossed his arms over his chest. "I still think this is a bad idea."
"Duly noted, and ignored," Ian replied as he pulled out his suit. "Now let's get changed and get over there."
CHAPTER 5
It took some time to get to our destination. Quinn's hot dog stand couldn't exactly fit into the car, so we had to walk the three miles to the building. A block from our destination we separated. Quinn continued on his way and we slunk down the preceding block and took a right into an alley. The alley led to the next block. We reached the mouth and peeked around the corner to our left.
The tall office building that was our target was positioned on a corner and set forty feet away from the sidewalk. A pair of long stairs led from the two sides that abutted the sidewalk and up to a corner enclave. Inside the enclave were the entrance doors. The whole thing was eighty floors tall and half the width of a football field.
I tilted my head back to view the whole place. My eyes flickered to Ian as I tugged on the collar of my police uniform. "Are you sure your sniffer is up for this?"
"We'll see, but first Quinn has to play his part," he returned.
We had to wait a few minutes before Ian appeared from our right and traveled westward. He wore a bright yellow and white suit and pushed his cart ahead of him. The tiny wheels turned every closer to the target, and inside the hot dog cooker, conveniently shut off to avoid a premature set-off, was the two bombs made by Cronus.
Quinn approached the front side of the building. We three all tensed as Quinn paused in front of the target and appeared to check one of his tires. He moved to stand between the building and his cart so he faced us. Quinn had a big grin on his face as he opened the cooker top and pulled out the two bombs. He set one among the condiments and clasped the other in his hand. In his free hand was Ian's matchbox. One used match later and Quinn had a set bomb in his hand.
Quinn spun around and lobbed the bomb high into the air. The strange pipe-looking thing sailed in an arc over the wide stairs and into a window. I heard a tiny crash as glass broke and the bomb disappeared inside the building.
Quinn moved to the rear of his cart and pushed the cart around to the other side of the building. He lit and lobbed the last bomb, and it was another direct hit. His mission complete, he raced down the block and out of sight.
Ian chuckled. "Not a couple of bad throws."
"You're jealous," I teased him.
"Perhaps," Ian conceded.
We waited a few minutes before Ian stiffened. He raised his nose to the air and sniffed. A smile slid onto his lips.
"I smell smoke," he announced.
A few seconds later a plume of smoke floated out both targeted windows. A minute later and I heard the distinct sound of fire alarms as they screamed at the top of their artificial lungs.
"Now we see how fast the services in this city are," Ian commented.
We timed their response at five minutes before we heard the distant wail of sirens. Two firetrucks and twice that many police cars flew in from both our left and right. The responders jumped out of their vehicles. The cops rushed to the doors while the firemen grabbed their hoses and dragged them up the stairs.
The whole company was met by a representative of the building, a woman with a prim suit. Ian adjust his cap and grinned.
"Time to go," he told us.
We slipped out of the alley and across the street. The crews were too focused on their important tasks to notice our little band of just-arrived officers. We hurried up the steps to the small crowd in the enclave overheard part of the conversation.
"We have to inspect the area just to make sure," the lead officer insisted.
"Everything's under control. Our sprinkler system extinguished the smoke," the woman assured him.
He wasn't assured. "We'd still like to take a look at the damages to make a full report."
The woman frowned, but stepped aside. "Very well, but please don't take too long."
The responders and we herded
into the lobby. It was decorated in a drab white linoleum floor and black walls. The responders spread out and distracted the woman with their snooping, so we didn't have any trouble slipping away to the stairwell on the far left.
Ian closed the stairwell door behind us and I looked up. The countless flights of stairs wound in a tight rectangle up seventy of the eighty floors. The height and endless turning made me dizzy, so I joined the men in stripping off our tight uniforms.
Ian put his hand on the railing and his foot on the first step. "Try to step softly. These stairwells-" He stepped forward and his knee hit the railing. A loud echo rang up the stairwell. He winced. "-echo."
I stifled a laugh. "We'll learn from your example."
We took the floors one at a time. At each landing Ian poked out his head out the floor door and took a sniff. We reached the twelfth floor when I noticed Cronus wasn't behind me. I turned and noticed he was a flight below me.
"What's wrong?" I whispered.
"We have gone very far without meeting trouble," he commented.
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Ian spoke up as he took a sniff. He paused and furrowed his brow.
"What's wrong?" I asked him.
He shook himself from his reverie and smiled. Ian drew himself back in and shut the door. "It's nothing. I just thought I smelled something a little rancid. Come on. We'd better hurry or we'll be here so long tomorrow night's security will find us."
Ian led us up another flight of stairs and performed the smell test. He grinned and looked over his shoulder at us. "Bingo."
"Another rancid thing?" I teased.
He shook his head. "No, but it doesn't smell great. The archives are on this floor and in the middle of the hall. Watch yourself, though. The cameras are probably going to spot us sooner rather than later so we'll have to make this fast."
Cronus and I nodded, and we hurried out the door. The stairwell was situated at the far left of the 'T' shaped hall. The elevator doors were situated in the middle of the intersection. Ian guided us to the door to the left of the elevator and down our hall. A key pad was set into the wall beside the door.
Ian stepped in front of the key pad and frowned. He sniffed the pad and started back. "There's wolf's bane on the keys."
"So that stuff works on you?" I guessed.
He nodded. "It burns like acid."
"I will press the keys," Cronus offered.
Ian stepped to one side and the two men studied the pad. I stood to their left and glanced at the knob on the door. A sudden, stupid thought hit me. I shrugged.
"Why not?"
I grasped the knob and gave it a turn. The door opened. My surprise nearly made me fall inside the room. The men whipped their heads to me and blinked. I straightened and sheepishly grinned at them.
"I didn't think that would work," I admitted.
"Nor should it have worked," Cronus replied.
I frowned. "What's that mean?"
"It means we have less time than I thought to find our files," Ian explained.
He rushed past me and into the room with Cronus close at his heels. I followed them, but jerked to a stop a yard into the room. The area was a long, wide room filled wall-to-wall with filing cabinets arranged in alphabetical order. The cabinets were also placed in the middle of the floor so that they made aisles between them. There must have been a three hundred cabinets. I opened one drawer and saw it was crammed full of dozens of files.
"So what are we looking for exactly?" I asked him.
Ian strode down one of the aisles looking to his left as he went. "Our folders, so the names of Runa, Osman, and Cronus."
Cronus stood close beside me with a drawer open in front of him. "There is no file with that name here," he announced.
Ian stopped at a cabinet and knelt. He opened a drawer and searched through the folders. A dark shadow passed over his face. "There's not one for me, either."
"Looking for something?" a voice spoke up.
We whipped our heads to the door. In the doorway, leaning against the frame, stood Sebastian. In his raised hand he held four folders. Behind him hovered his two Phantoms.
"I thought you might be curious to know what the Society knows about Enid, so I took the liberty of pulling your files for you," he told us.
Ian stood and narrowed his eyes. "So this was a trap."
Sebastian chuckled as he pushed off from the frame. "A little late for that deduction, isn't it, detective? But for your question, yes. We allowed your friend with the good arm to throw those smoke bombs into the building without pursuit, and we allowed the police to come inside without a warrant because we thought it would benefit your plan. It seems all of our assumptions were correct, and yours were wrong."
Ian grinned. "Not all of them. By the amount of folders in your hand you've told us more than you intended."
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. His eyes flickered to the folders before a grin slid onto his lips. He closed his eyes and shrugged. "Well, one can't be perfect."
"How did you learn about Ramiel?" Ian questioned him.
Sebastian stepped aside, as did his Phantoms. "Let me show you."
CHAPTER 6
Sebastian marched us from the archives to the elevator. Our 'guide' took us to the top floor of the building. The elevator doors opened and revealed a desk that was situated in a narrow hallway. The walls were tight on either side of us, and in front of us was a pair of thick, imposing doors.
Sebastian led us past the empty desk. His Phantoms opened the doors and revealed to us the very heart of the Paranormal Society: the council room.
The room was a large, relatively empty chamber with a tall ceiling. The walls on either side of us were curved towards the back, and to our left and near the rear was a small door. At the back of the room was a long, crescent-shaped desk. It was elevated off the floor by a platform that copied the shape of the table. Tall, black chairs stood behind the table, and all but one faced us. The chair in the center was the only exception, with its back turned to the entrance. The chairs that faced us were empty
We were marched to within a yard of the table, and the center chair turned around. My eyes narrowed as the seated person was revealed to be Blake. He grinned down at us.
"Good evening," he greeted us.
Ian frowned. "You're not a member of the Council."
Blake leaned his elbows on the table in front of him and chuckled. "How very astute of you to notice."
"What have you done to them?" Ian questioned him.
"Let us just say they are predisposed because they have decomposed these last four months," Blake replied.
Ian's eyes narrowed. "Then you murdered them."
Blake gestured to Sebastian. "With a little help."
Sebastian smiled and bowed. "It was my pleasure. They treated me like a dog."
"A man who feeds of Phantoms to stay young doesn't deserves what a dog deserves," Ian quipped.
Sebastian sneered and swung a punch. It landed neatly in Ian's eye, but the werewolf hardly flinched. "Who's the dog, werewolf?"
Ian straightened and showed off his crooked smile. "At least I'm a loyal one. So when you went to the Cash house that was to what? To size us up for your new master?"
Sebastian's eyes narrowed. "Yes, and no. We knew you'd come so I observed you, and we hoped to capture the spirit." His eyes flickered to me. "Unfortunately, that was impossible, but had interesting information, none the less."
"Where are our manners?" Blake spoke up. He gestured to the door on his right. "You've met our other partner in this affair."
The door opened and Lilith stepped into the room. Behind her was her pale bodyguard, and behind him was Keres. Black ropes were stretched across her hands and she stopped two yards from us.
Lilith folded her arms across her ample chest and coyly smiled at Ian. "I must admit I didn't expect you to survive my trap."
"Sorry to disappoint you," Ian retorted.
"I'm afraid that before we continue we must
bind you," Blake informed us. "We wouldn't want an emotional outburst to ruin what each of us has to say."
Cronus eyes flickered from the black ropes to Blake. "You wish to bind our powers."
Blake smiled. "Astute, as always, and yes. These ropes are rather special. They were created by very powerful dark magic." He gestured to Lilith. "The same magic that created the enchantment for my good friend's sacred stones."
"And destroyed their goodness," Cronus commented.
"You must spoil a few stones to get at the wealth that lays beyond them," Blake philosophized.
"What are you trying to get at?" Ian questioned him.
Blake wagged his finger. "Not until the ropes are in place. Then I will answer all your questions."
"Not that you have very much choice," Sebastian spoke up.
Blake glared at him. "Don't speak when you're not spoken to." Sebastian frowned, but kept his mouth shut.
Ian half-turned to Sebastian and chuckled. "Looks like you've gone from the Society's hound to this guy's bitch."
Sebastian stepped forward and swung his fist. The punch landed in Ian's right eye. The force caused him to stumble backwards a foot before Ian righted himself. Sebastian snarled at him, but Ian still had his grin on his lips.
"Shut up," Sebastian hissed.
"You should really keep your dog leashed," Ian advised Blake.
"That's enough of this. Sebastian, step back," Blake ordered his minion. Sebastian's expression darkened, but he, and his Phantoms, moved away from us. Keres stepped forward. "Now will you agree to be bound, or is this interview over and I have to kill you?" Blake asked us.
"Like we have a choice," Ian retorted.
A smile slid onto Blake's lips. "There's also two choices."
"Agree or die?" Ian quipped.
Blake closed his eyes and bowed his head. "Precisely."
"We agree," Cronus spoke up.
Ian whipped his head to his partner and frowned. "What the hell, Cronus? We can take these assholes with-"
"No, we can't," Cronus insisted.
Blake chuckled. "My father's right, you know. You can't defeat me, at least not without risking your lives."
My eyes widened. Ian's scowl deepened. His eyes bore into Cronus. "What the hell's going on?"
Cronus pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at Blake. "I have no son."
Blake leaned back in the chair and laughed. His dark eyes changed to the familiar blue hue of a Nephilim. "So that's your answer? You would reject your child merely because they choose to follow a different path?"
