Chapter Twenty-four
The green glow stick that Glenn had left me made Jenks look like a tiny, sickly wraith as he sat on my knee with his legs pulled up, mirroring me. It seemed colder now that I wasn't moving, and my back was to the curved wall as I sat beside the ventilation shaft, my shoulder bag next to me. The draft was pulling the stray strands of my hair up and back. I rolled the glow stick between my palms as I listened to the sporadic radio chatter. I had the speaker cranked since it wasn't in my ear, dangling down my front so Jenks could hear it, too. The conversations revolved around HAPA: who they were, what they were capable of, how many times they'd evaded arrest. I should've been listening, but I was thinking about Trent's charms.
"You okay?" Jenks asked, his wings glittering like they held water drops.
I smiled, remembering how beautiful his wings were close up when I'd shrunk down to help him through the first difficult day after his wife died. "Thinking about Trent's charms," I admitted.
Jenks scowled, his angular features pinching as he picked at his boots. "Yeah? That Pandora charm he made you almost killed you. You should've let me bury them in the garden."
I dragged my shoulder bag closer, peering down at the blue and gold pins. It was hard to tell the difference in the dim light, but I shoved two paralyzing charms in my right boot, two blinding charms in my left.
"Oh God. You're going to use them!" Jenks moaned, and I moved my knee wildly until he took off.
"I'll look pretty stupid if I need them and I don't have them," I said, wiggling my foot until the cool metal warmed and their pinch vanished. I wasn't one for organization, but even I knew that leaving loose charms rattling in a bag wasn't a good idea, and as Jenks pantomimed hanging himself, I gathered the rest, slipping them into a zippered inner pocket of my shoulder bag where they wouldn't interfere with my reach for the splat gun. I still didn't know what the tiny ring Trent had left me did, and I looked at it, remembering what Jenks had said about his boys. Trent had simply forgotten. That's all.
"Do I have time to make a call?" I asked, leaning over to get my phone out of my bag.
"What? Right now?" Jenks dropped back down to my knee, his expression disgusted. "Seriously, Rachel, it was sweet and all that he made you charms, but are you willing to trust your life to Trent's maybe skills?"
The memory of watching him preparing to break into the Withons' high-security compound and steal his own daughter filled my thoughts. It wasn't how good he had looked in that black thief outfit, every line of muscle showing, or the obvious preparations he'd made, all the way down to getting me to help him get there alive. It was his confidence, his desire. I'd seen it under the arch before it fell, in the Arizona desert when he summoned Ku'Sox, and in a stupid little bar in Las Vegas when he didn't want to leave to get our car. I'd seen it yesterday afternoon when he helped me with Al. He was trying to be what he wanted, and he really . . . wasn't half bad. For some weird reason, I trusted him. God help me.
If he got me killed, I was going to be pissed.
"How much time do we have?" I asked Jenks again, my pulse hammering as I turned my phone on, praying I'd get a signal. One bar. It might be enough, and Jenks was silent as I scrolled through my recently called numbers and hit Trent's.
"Enough if you're quick about it," Jenks said, his expression worried. His wings moved fitfully as he stood, his back almost to me as a show of his ambivalence.
"I just want to know," I said as I tossed my hair from my ear and put the phone to it.
It rang three times before it was picked up, and I fidgeted while Jenks pouted. I didn't know what I was going to say, a feeling that was compounded when the line clicked open and Trent's very muzzy voice murmured, "Rachel? Mmm, hi."
My eyes met Jenks's, and he sniggered at me. Hi? He sounded half asleep. Elves usually napped around noon, but Trent had been taking a lot of flack since coming out of the closet as an elf, and I'd be willing to bet that he was trying to stretch his natural sleep schedule to at least finish out a human workday before crashing. "Um, you got a minute?" I said, warming.
"I didn't think about this before I installed that switchboard," he said, his voice sounding more like his own. "What can I do for you? Since I'm awake."
Embarrassed, I winced. "Sorry," I said, meaning it. "Ah, about those charms you gave me?" I should have called him earlier, and my scuffing feet made echoes as I turned the radio down all the way. Jenks could probably still hear it.
"Charms." Trent's voice smoothed, his polish returning, and I heard the sliding sound of fabric as he got out of bed, presumably. His voice was normal, meaning he didn't have anyone in there with him, and I don't know why the thought occurred to me even as he added, "What about them?"
"You, ah, didn't tell me what the ring does."
"Oh. Sorry," Trent said, and I heard a click and an echo as he put me on speakerphone. "It's a line jump," he added, and I almost dropped the phone.
"I didn't know you could do that," I said, my wide eyes touching on Jenks's to find he was as mystified as me. "Who did you buy it from?" Don't say Al. Please don't say Al.
I heard the smooth shutting of a drawer, and Trent's easy voice saying, "No one. Elves can jump the lines with enough prep work. Ah, I've never actually tried that one out. It's supposed to bring the two rings together. It was originally a way for star-crossed lovers to meet against fate, but when you break it down to bare tacks, it's simply a line jump. A come-to-me kind of thing. Just turn the ring, tap a line, think of me, and say ta na shay. I've already got mine on."
Ta na shay. I'd heard that before somewhere. Holding the ring up in the faint pixy light, I slipped it on my ring finger, then moved it to my pinky when it was too tight. Jenks made kissing sounds as he stood on the rim of my bag, and I flicked a finger at him. The ring fit my pinky perfectly, which threw me until recalling that Trent had stolen my pinky ring once.
"I thought you could use it if you ever got trapped in someone's circle," Trent said. "That has got to be . . . frustrating."
It was. Every time. "Thank you," I said softly. "I can't ever repay you for this."
"You could come work with me," he said, and I made a fist of my hand, the ring glinting. "Is that all you wanted?"
I heard in his voice his desire to be gone and about his day, but something in me hesitated. "No," I said, and Jenks's wings stilled and drooped. "Since I've got you on the phone, do you know anything about the FIB taking on new people? A new division, maybe?"
Immediately Jenks's attention sharpened, his wings clattering to dust silver into my bag. A chill dropped down my spine, magnified by the dark nothing we were surrounded by. Jenks had noticed the-men-who-don't-belong, too, it wasn't my imagination.
"I don't generally follow the FIB's hiring and firing practices unless it impacts my interests." Trent's voice was somewhat concerned but not really. He was dissing me, and I didn't like it.
I grimaced, finding the words to explain hard in coming. It wasn't as if I could tell Trent that my roommate's boyfriend was acting distant and that I thought something hinky was going on at the FIB. Jenks gestured for me to say something, and encouraged, I said, "Glenn's been acting funny since I got nabbed by HAPA."
Jenks smacked his head with his palm. From the phone, Trent said, "I'm sure he simply blames himself for your capture - "
"Trent, listen to me," I said quickly, cutting him off. "I wouldn't come to you with something unless I thought it was important. I don't know what it means, but you are going to take me seriously or I'm never going to come to you again. Don't assume that because you didn't see the dragon first that it doesn't exist."
I heard him sigh, then the squeak of a chair. "I'm listening."
My pulse hammered. He was listening. I was going to him with a concern, and he was listening. Like a business associate, or like a friend? Did it matter?
"Something is wrong. Glenn has Ivy, Jenks, and me out at the outskirts of the run."
"You're on a run?" Trent said, his voice rising in disbelief. "Right now? And you just thought to call me about the ring?"
Irritation flooded me, but I pressed on whereas I might normally have just hung up. "He has us on the outskirts. Everyone with Inderland blood in them is on the fringe. It's humans only at the take site. Last time, it was an even mix."
"Perhaps he wants this to be recorded as a human effort," he said, but Jenks was shaking his head right along with me.
Fiddling with the zipper on my boot, I said, "I'd go with that except that there's an entirely different unit of people down here. I've never seen them before. They're like . . . men in black. They almost ignore Glenn, even as they seem to be helping. I'm sure they're the source of the new equipment, the really top-of-the-line stuff. It feels like they're running the take and letting him have the credit if he stays out of the way."
Jenks hummed his wings. "Tell him the guys with the tech stuff smell like the desert."
I looked at Jenks, surprised, and he shrugged.
"The tech people smell like the desert?" Trent repeated.
"The FIB doesn't fund Glenn enough to have doughnuts at his weekly meetings," I said as I flicked my earpiece, hanging down my front. "He's hiding something from Ivy, too. He's never been secretive, well, not when it comes to business."
"New people running the take . . ." The faint scratching of a pencil came through the phone, sounding alien in the chill dark. "Allowing Glenn apparent free movement in terms of personnel and sharing their equipment. I'll look into it," he said, and I heard something clunk. Shoes maybe?
I frowned. He was brushing me off. "Hey."
"I said I'll look into it," he said, his voice a tad harsh. "I'm not brushing you off, but I'd like to show at my office, and I'm not dressed."
Jenks snickered, and I felt myself warm. "Oh. Sorry."
From the earpiece dangling across my front, a tiny voice shouted, "Down! Down!"
Shit, it had started. "Trent, I gotta go."
"My God, you really are on a run," Trent said, and I stood, flustered.
"Thanks for the charms," I said, then closed the phone, cutting him off. Jenks rose up, his dust lighting a good bit of tunnel.
"Holy crap, that was gunfire!" Jenks exclaimed, landing on my shoulder to hear better. I grabbed the earpiece and held it before us like a candle. If I put it in my ear, Jenks wouldn't be able to hear.
"Give me an excuse!" Glenn shouted. "Everyone down! Fingers laced. One twitch of magic, and you will be shot!"
Chris's voice was shrill, swearing at Eloy, at Glenn, at me. Why is she swearing at me?
"Chris! Help!" Jennifer cried, and then she shrieked. There was a masculine grunt, and I tensed, leaning forward. It was a weird feeling, knowing what was going on and not being a part of it. Jenks, too, looked frustrated.
"Cease and desist!" Glenn shouted. "You are wanted for questioning in the - "
"Corrumpro!" Chris exclaimed harshly. Gasps of fear rose, and then a cry of pain.
"Put that out," Glenn directed calmly, and I heard another crash. "Someone cuff her! I don't know, shove a sock in her mouth! Use the zip strips!"
I looked at Jenks. He was itching to fly. "They should have had someone who can do magic there," I said, and he nodded.
"Lock her down! Lock her down!" someone yelled. "Gimmie a strap. Shit, she's wiggly. Ow!"
Chris screamed, and then her voice became muffled. My lips curled in a half smile. That was one way to stop a curse, but they needed to strap her, and fast.
There was a quick, three-beat thump in the background. Then Gerald groaned, and I heard him slide to the floor.
"Strap them! Do it now!" someone shouted, and a crash made me wince. If they didn't get control in thirty seconds, I was sending in Jenks.
The sound was muffled for a moment, and then a shuffling scrape turned into heavy breathing. Jennifer was crying in the background, and finally the sound of someone hitting the floor came, loud, followed by a soft grunt.
"I think that was Eloy," I said, and Jenks nodded.
"Get him down!" Glenn shouted, and then a thump again.
For a moment, silence, and then I heard Glenn swear under his breath. "Don't move."
There was an oof of breath, then Glenn laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "Go ahead, Eloy. I don't care if you're alive or dead at this point." I held my breath, imagining it, and then Glenn whispered, "Good choice."
A masculine voice called for Glenn, and I heard Eloy swear, his voice muffled. "I've got this," Glenn said, his tone telling me it was over - if Jennifer sobbing quietly was any indication. "Put the fire out. Someone put the fire out! I need another zip strip over here. Now! Can we have some lights?"
In the near distance, I heard Chris snarl, "Shut up!" and Jennifer's sobs subsided.
There was a scuffle as I think Glenn yanked Eloy up, and I heard the familiar ratcheting of a zip strip. "You sure it's him?" someone asked. "He might be disguised."
I fumbled to flick on the mic, whispering, "Check with the amulet, Glenn."
"Holy crap, Rachel!" Glenn exclaimed. "You startled me. I forgot you were listening."
I shifted my feet and grinned at Jenks. His dust was an excited silver. I was glad they'd gotten them. Score one for the FIB. Jennifer was pleading in the background, but no one was listening. It looked like it was all over, but I wasn't moving. Not yet.
"Yep, it's him," a new, low voice drawled, and Jenks's wings clattered. "Thank God we got them before they abducted anyone else."
"Damn, Rache," the pixy swore as he made the jump back to my knee. "They did it!"
"And they did it without us," I said softly, feeling left out. I could hear the Miranda being recited, ignored. Jennifer was crying, Chris was swearing, and I think Gerald was knocked out. Eloy had yet to say anything, which wasn't unusual, but I could imagine the scene well enough. He'd be standing with his arms cuffed behind his back and his shoulders hunched. His hair would be messed up, and he'd likely be sporting a new scrape from hitting the floor. He'd be silently thinking up a way to escape, his eyes darting about. I didn't know Eloy, but I knew his type - my type. There was always a way out.
Calls were going over the airways to bring the vans in. And still I sat. Waiting. My tension began to build. Eloy wasn't talking. Eloy had a way out. I knew it.
"Get up, Eloy," Glenn said suddenly, cutting through the radio noise. "Arms out. Assume the position."
Okay, so he wasn't standing yet, but I could see him in my mind's eye: slowly getting up, assessing everything, looking for a hole as he got patted down for whatever they could find. He was going to run.
"Hey!" someone said. "Lookie what I found on him! What do you think it is?"
A second man laughed. "A can of deodorant?" he said, then shouted, "Don't point it at me, jerk-off! It might be magic!"
I reached to toggle the mic to ask Glenn to describe it to me, then settled back when a deep, almost bland voice I didn't recognize said, "Excuse me," and presumably took it, muttering, "Damn fools. No wonder they can't catch their asses in a windstorm."
They, I thought, my eyes meeting Jenks's. He had heard it, too. Just who was down there with Glenn if it wasn't his usual men? But as long as Eloy didn't have it, whatever it was could wait. It was probably a can of sticky silk to ward off Jenks.
Not yet ready to leave, I sank to the floor. There was a soft pop as someone clapped their hands, and Glenn shouted, "Okay. We got 'em. Area is secure. Everyone can come in. Nicely done, people."
A soft cheering, both from the room and from the distant sites by way of the radio, filtered into the dark. And still I sat. Waiting.
"HAPA isn't so happy now, huh?" Jenks said, his dust several shades brighter as he lit the tunnel with a healthy glow.
"Yes," I said softly, thinking as I spun Trent's ring on my pinkie.
Seeing me not moving, he landed on my knee, his dust feeling like snow as it sifted over me. "I know the way back," he said, looking worried.
I tucked the glow stick in my bag so my eyes could readjust to the dark. "Not yet."
Jenks's wings stopped moving, laying flat on his back, and it grew dark. "I know what you mean. It's kind of anticlimactic, listening to it happen. I'm surprised you stayed put, Rache. You knew you weren't going to see any action. I'm proud of you."
No action. Right . . .
Dr. Cordova's voice slowly became audible, and in a confusing mix of about three separate conversations, I heard her come into the room with a bevy of aides, and my pulse quickened. "Congratulations, Detective Glenn, on a well-implemented run," she said loudly, and the radio chatter almost doubled.
"Thank you, ma'am. I'll be sure to let everyone know you're pleased," Glenn said, his annoyance that she was down here obvious even over the radio.
"Let's move them out," she said decisively. "Get them to the FIB lockup."
My jaw clenched, and I looked at Jenks. That hadn't been the plan. Catching them was one thing. Holding them was another. That's where the vulnerability was, and it would take an I.S. cell to hold a magic-using human. "What the hell is she doing?" Jenks whispered, his wings lifting as he prepared to take flight.
That deep voice, faint from being whispered, came again. "Don't let her move them, Detective. If she does, they're gone. I promise you."
"You tell me how I can overrule her, and I will," Glenn said, his voice tight, and then louder, with a sliver of false respect, "I'd rather wait for the I.S. containment people, ma'am. It was arranged that they'd hold them, not us."
"Allow humans into I.S. custody?" Dr. Cordova snapped. "We have them. They're strapped. They can't do any magic." The voices in the room died away, leaving only the background chatter of independent conversations revolving around traffic and where to park.
Again that deep voice began arguing with Glenn, even as Glenn tried to do everything he could to no avail. "Don't do it . . ." I whispered, the sound of my feet scraping on the cement loud as I began walking in circles, trying to wake up my cold, stiff muscles.
"Ma'am," Glenn started, but was immediately cut off.
"You, and you," Dr. Cordova demanded. "Take them out."
"Ma'am, I protest," Glenn said. The unnamed man in the background swore, then began barking out orders and clearing the room.
Jenks was hovering beside me, his expression worried. "Glenn is more pissed than a foreclosed troll," he said, and I nodded, balancing on one foot to pull a knee to my chest to stretch my cramped leg.
"Do you recognize that man with the deep voice?" I asked, and Jenks shook his head.
"Noted," Dr. Cordova said sarcastically. "Excuse me, you're in the way, Detective."
Glenn make a low sound deep in his throat, and I winced at the sharp clatter and pop as he took his earpiece off and set it on some counter. Dr. Cordova's voice rang out loudly, "I want them out of here in separate vans in five minutes. Move!"
Jenks had landed on the opening to the ventilation shaft, his silver dust lighting the corridor, when Ivy's voice, smooth and silky, came faintly. "Hey, good tag, Glenn." She hesitated, and then asked, "What's the matter? You okay?" His answer was hardly more than a growl, and Ivy exclaimed, "She's retaining custody? Is she fried?"
I carefully stretched the other leg as I turned the speaker up as far as it would go. "I thought you were going to put them in our custody," Nina said.
"Apparently not," Glenn muttered.
"Look out!" a voice cried, and there were several exclamations and the soft pop of gunfire. "Fire in the hole!" someone else shouted. "Loose gun!"
My pulse quickened, and I quietly wedged the lower grate aside, dropping my shoulder bag into the lower shaft and out of sight. Jenks's tiny features creased. Wings going full tilt, he said, "Oh, this isn't good."
"Shhh."
"Stop!" Glenn shouted. "Someone get him!"
"Son of a fairy!" Jenks said, rising up to light a six-foot circle. "They're escaping! Right under their fairy-wiped noses!"
I took a deep breath. Faint, so faint I almost didn't hear it, the man with the deep voice said. "Alpha unit, prep beaters. Beta, stand by to receive game. Keep it tight, people. Reassemble at bird nest."
Put me in the dark by myself, will they? I thought as I carefully swung myself over the side and stretched to find the bend, four feet down. A shiver went through me as I hung my feet over the edge of the hole and stretched until my toes brushed the curve of the pipe. If I hadn't guessed right and he was actually headed for the back door, he was going to get away.
A cry of surprise went up, and someone shouted, "Get the lights! Get the lights!"
"Eloy! You son of a bitch!" Chris's shrill voice rang out. "I'll kill you for this! I swear, I'll kill you if you leave me behind!"
I couldn't help my grim smile as I settled inside the pipe below the level of the floor. Apparently we were all having a great day. As Jenks hovered, I dragged the grate closer. I could tell when the lights came back on in the distant room because everything got quiet, then the noise started back up again with demands for information. I didn't hear the man with the deep voice. He was gone. I think the men at the radio station were, too.
"Spread out! Find him!" Glenn shouted, and I knelt in the shaft with my feet running down it, my head poking above the level of the floor. I fumbled for my splat gun, the cold metal making me shiver as it met the small of my back.
"Is anyone still at the back door?" someone yelled.
A faint voice called out, "Not enough," and Ivy swore.
"Nina, give me your finding amulet," she demanded, and then I heard her run. For an instant, I considered telling her where I thought he was heading, but then didn't; what if I was wrong? This way, both bases would be covered.
Nina was laughing. It seemed to be the right response, as all hell was breaking loose.
"There is nothing funny here," Dr. Cordova snarled, barely heard over the back-and-forth chatter on the radios.
"Teresa, you are funny," Nina said, sounding sourly amused. "You should've listened to your detective. Knowing your limits is a strength, not a weakness."
"This is not my fault!" Dr. Cordova shouted. "I hadn't taken custody of them yet. Detective Glenn, I'm holding you responsible for this! That man wasn't searched properly! He had a weapon!"
"Of course you are, ma'am," he said, and I exchanged a wide-eyed look with Jenks, who was now standing on the grate, hands on his hips and wings silent.
"You think he's coming this way?" Jenks asked, and I nodded. From the radio burst a shouted realization that the can of spray was gone, too. Fingers fumbling, I turned the radio off. Grabbing a couple of zip strips from my shoulder bag, I stuffed them in the tops of my boots. No wonder Ivy wore a waist pack when she was on a run. I had more stuff jammed in my boots than toes.
"What are you doing?" Jenks hissed. "You should call for help!"
"Go get help if you want," I said, and he darted up as I repositioned the grate so I could poke my head out. "He's coming this way, and I'm going to stop him. Douse the light, will you? It takes forever for your dust to settle."
He frowned, hands still on his hips. I made a questioning, waiting face at him, and slowly his look changed to one of amusement. There was a faint glow from the floor, but it might just have been a memory on my retina. "I get first crack at him," Jenks said as he landed on my shoulder.
"And I'll get the last," I said, my heart pounding as the faint sound of running feet broke the stillness, the sound as old as the savannas.