Spell Robbers (18 page)

Time to fake it. He went for demanding. “I’m Ben, the League recruit. Where’s Poole?”

That seemed to catch the men off guard. They hesitated, and Ben forced his way into the gap.

“Never mind, I know where his office is.” He strode right between them. They didn’t try to stop him.

Ben entered Mercer Beach and saw it for the first time in daylight, and from the front. Even if it hadn’t been run-down, Ben could see the place was old. The style of the buildings, the decorations, the paint jobs. It looked like it belonged in the kind of movies his mom watched, where the actors wore white pants and bow ties and regularly broke into big song-and-dance numbers.

He plodded down an old boardwalk, the wood planks splitting and loose at the ends. It followed the edge of a wide promenade, and to his right, another boardwalk ran parallel along the far side. Between them, the dirt was as hard-packed as cement, and rusted gates and fences marked the empty places where rides used to be. To his left, a succession of booths, stripped of everything but the paint, still advertised games, cotton candy, popcorn, and corn dogs.

He passed a few buildings, and wondered if Poole had Dr. Hughes in one of them. The House of Mirrors? The Hall of Curiosities and Wonders? Then he came to the carousel, with its candy-cane paint and silent, stampeding horses in every possible color. He could almost hear the strains of the frantic organ music coming out of it, the screams and laughter as it spun around.

A boot scuffed behind him. Ben turned to see about a dozen Dread Cloaks spread out between the boardwalks. They stood back a short distance, just following him, watching him.

He moved on, trying to keep his pace steady. Ahead of him rose the arena, and the Ferris wheel towered high above that. When he reached Poole’s building, several Dread Cloaks met him at the front entrance.

Ben aimed for the space between them. “I need to see Poole.”

But they put out their arms and blocked his way.

“Hold still,” one of them said. It was the redhead from Poole’s office.

“What’s going —?”

One of the other Dread Cloaks came up and grabbed Ben from behind.

The redhead smirked. “We gotta search you. Nobody sees Poole without getting searched first.”

Ben ran down everything he had on him, and didn’t think there would be a problem. “Fine.”

The Dread Cloak’s eyes narrowed. “I’m Riggs. You don’t recognize me. I was wearing a mask. But you almost did me in with a bolt of lightning.”

So that’s it
. This was the guy Ben had knocked out during the attack on the lab. That explained why he’d been so hostile. Ben was a bit more worried now.

Riggs felt up and down his arms and legs, around his torso. “Pockets.”

Ben reached in, pulled out the two things he carried. The raid order, and his Locus. Riggs took both, and looked at the envelope first.

“That’s what Poole is expecting right now,” Ben said.

“And this?” Riggs rolled the Locus around in his hand.

“That’s nothing,” Ben said. He didn’t think it would be a good idea to let on what that piece of stone meant to him.

“Kinda weird, carrying around a fossil.”

“I’m weird,” Ben said, but his voice sounded stiff.

Riggs looked into Ben’s eyes, then at the stone. “You think I don’t know a Locus when I see one?”

“Give it back,” Ben said.

Riggs handed him the envelope. “Poole will see you now.”

Ben needed his Locus. The job depended on him actuating with the crew. He started trembling, but kept it out of his voice. “Give me the stone.”

Riggs took a step backward. “You Class One or Class Two with this?”

Ben didn’t answer.

Riggs shouted. “Class One or Class Two?”

Ben clenched his jaw. “Class Two.”

Riggs nodded. Then he set the Locus on the ground.

What was he doing?

The Dread Cloak holding Ben tightened his grip as Riggs stuck out one of his hands and flexed his fingers. Ben felt an actuation stirring.

“No!” Ben fought to break free. “Don’t —”

Riggs flicked his hand. Ben’s Locus shot off the ground, straight at the arena, where it shattered against the wall, leaving a little impact crater behind. Ben almost cried out. The Dread Cloak behind him let him go.

“What Class are you now?” Riggs asked.

Ben just stared at him.

“Go on in.” He and the other Dread Cloaks stepped aside. “Poole’s waiting.”

BEN
sat before Poole in one of the armchairs, completely powerless. They were up in Poole’s office above the arena, and Poole leaned forward on his desk, looking down at the raid order resting between his hands. Ben focused on staying calm and hoped Ronin was right about paranoid men, because without his Locus, he was just an Ennay. An Imp. If Poole turned on him, Ben was defenseless.

“How did you come by this?” Poole asked.

“I told you,” Ben said. “I’m a prodigy. The League trusts me. It wasn’t hard to steal.”

Poole sat down. “This is Weathersky’s signature.”

Ben nodded. “He’s in town to personally oversee the operation.”

“This is two days away.”

“That’s right.”

“You told me a week.”

“Weathersky moved it up.” So far, they were on script, Locus or not. “They’re worried about Dr. Hughes and the portable augmenter.”

Poole snapped a glare at Ben. “I know you’ve put it together, you and Ronin. You know why I’m out here, hiding like a rat.”

“And we figure the augmenter’s probably out here, too.” Ben shrugged. “So?”

“So?” Poole took the raid order and folded it into precise thirds, creasing it with his thumbnail against the desk. “Do you expect me to believe you have no interest in it?”

“I’ve used it. I don’t see the big deal. You can probably do more damage to the League with it than I could.”

“I doubt Ronin thinks the same way you do.”

Ben chuckled. “Ronin doesn’t even think it works. He says portable augmentation is impossible, and you’re a desperate man clinging to your last hope.”

Poole’s eyebrows lifted. “Ronin said that, did he?”

Ben nodded.

“Where is Ronin now?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said. “I told you, I was never his man.”

Poole slipped the raid order into a pocket inside his vest. He sat back, closed his eyes, and rubbed the tip of his index finger back and forth across his forehead. “Two days.”

“Can’t you make a stand here?” Ben asked. “Just use the augmenter.”

Poole shook his head. “That worthless Imp hasn’t got it working yet. I’ve tried it. Many times.”

“What if you just pull all the Dread Cloaks out here from the city? Build up an army.”

“I dare not trust any of them. The upstart might use the opportunity to send in spies and saboteurs.” He suddenly slammed the desk with his fist, and Ben flinched. “Two days! That’s not enough time!”

“I’m sure you —”

He jumped to his feet. “This was supposed to be my hour of victory! My defeat of the League!”

“You can still —”

“Shut up, you whelp! You cur! You know-nothing!”

Ben snapped his mouth closed. He realized he had started to confront Poole’s fears by reassuring him. He needed to switch tactics, play it how Ronin had said to work a paranoid man.
Confirm
Poole’s fears.

“Look,” Ben said. “The League is coming for you. Here. And they’re coming hard. They’re not taking any chances with the augmenter.”

“Then we need to make sure it isn’t here for them to find, don’t we?”

“You’re going to move it?”

“Yes. If I start making the arrangements now, we can do it tomorrow night.” He pulled out his phone.

“What do you want me to do?” Ben asked.

“You?” Poole started dialing. “You’re going to sit right there. No devilish tricks. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

So far, things had all gone the way Ronin and his crew had planned. Except for one thing. Riggs had destroyed Ben’s Locus, and he didn’t know what that would mean for the ambush tomorrow night.

Poole meant what he said. The rest of that day, Ben sat in his office as the gang lord organized the transfer. First, Poole had to pick a new location, so he made calls. Dread Cloaks came and went, and Poole waited. By that afternoon, Poole had chosen a place, but then he had to double- and triple-check it. Ben tried to listen in and figure out where it was, but couldn’t get anything specific.

The next phase, Poole called in specific Dread Cloaks by name, the ones Ben guessed he still trusted. Poole sent them ahead to secure the location. Then it was more waiting. Ben paced around the office, and looked through the windows down at the stage. He even tried some of the buttons and switches on the control panel to see what they did.

“Don’t touch that,” Poole said.

By evening, Ben was more bored than nervous. Apparently, being paranoid took a lot of work and energy. Would Poole keep at it through the whole night?

Ben grew hungry. Tired. It was getting late. He had slumped down pretty far in the armchair, his eyelids heavy, when there was yet another knock at the office door.

“Ah, supper.” Poole accepted a pizza box from one of his Dread Cloaks. He handed it to Ben. “This is the favorite food of every child in the country, is it not?”

Ben sat up. “Sure. I guess.”

The pizza was a little cold, but Ben didn’t care. He ate slice after slice, more than half the pie. Then, with a full stomach, he slumped back into the armchair and closed his eyes.

He woke to Poole’s voice. Ben bolted upright, a massive kink in his neck. It was morning.

“Yes!” Poole said into his phone. “Three vehicles. We can’t attract too much attention. But I want every man capable of Class Two actuations. No exceptions.” His sunken eyes looked even darker around the edges than usual. Ben guessed he hadn’t slept at all. “And find Ronin!” He hung up the phone and glanced at Ben. “Ah, you’re awake. Are you hungry for breakfast?”

Ben yawned. “Sure.”

Poole pointed at the pizza box. “Then finish that.”

“Okay.” Ben didn’t mind cold pizza. He lifted the lid and grabbed a stiff slice. “So where are we at?”

“
We
are nowhere. You are sitting there today while I make final arrangements for the transfer tonight.” He stopped what he was doing. “Unless you have some idea where Ronin is.”

“No idea. But I’m sure he’ll turn up.”
And it had better be soon
.
They had to come up with a new plan, something that didn’t require Ben to actuate.

But the hours passed, and Ronin never showed.

By that afternoon, Poole had become increasingly agitated. “Where
is
he? I should have killed him. I had him, and I should have killed him.”

Ben acted as nonchalant as he could manage, but inside, he was panicking. He didn’t know where Ronin was, or what had happened, but they were running out of time.

“I don’t like this, I don’t like this at all.” Poole paced laps around his desk. “Ronin on the loose. Perhaps I need to reconsider.”

“Reconsider what?” Ben asked.

“The transfer.”

“Forget about Ronin,” Ben said. “He doesn’t even know you’re moving the augmenter tonight. What about the Quantum Lea —?”

“Damn the League, the League, the League!” Poole pressed his palms against his temples, squeezing his own head like a vise. Then he relaxed. The man was coming loose. “You’re right. You’re right. Ronin means nothing. It’s the raid.”

“The raid,” Ben said.
Keep him thinking about the raid. Confirm his fears.

Things quieted down after that. Ben and Poole went downstairs, and everyone who would be involved that night gathered on the floor of the arena. By evening, Poole had made all the preparations, handpicked his men, checked every detail over and over and over again, and now they were just waiting for the order to move out.

That was when Poole’s phone rang. He listened for a moment, and then he started screaming. “You listen to me! You’re dead! You hear me? Dead! And after that, I’m going to take out the rest of your crew! You —” He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. “He … hung up on me.”

“Was that Ronin?” Ben asked.

“Yes.” Poole put his phone away. “He has removed himself from the equation. The hour has come. Let’s go.”

“What do you mean?” Inside, Ben became frantic. That sounded like Ronin wasn’t coming. But Ronin had to come. Ben couldn’t do the job without him. “Where’s Ronin?”

“The coward has run off.”

“What about —?” Ben swallowed. “Did he say anything about me?”

“Yes. He said to tell you that you’re on your own.”

On his own?
Ben had no idea what that meant. Was it now up to him alone to free Dr. Hughes during the ambush? Or had Ronin and his crew abandoned the job altogether, along with Ben?

Poole grabbed Ben by the neck. “Not to fear, devilish one. You were never his, remember?” He dragged Ben along with him, behind the stage and out the back door. They piled into three waiting SUVs. Poole shoved Ben into the middle car, and climbed in after him, leaving a space between them.

The vehicles pulled out and headed for the park exit, but along the way they stopped behind another building. Two Dread Cloaks emerged from a back door, and between them Ben saw Dr. Hughes. She looked frightened as they hauled her to the car. Poole got out, took Dr. Hughes by the arm, and pushed her into the vehicle with Ben.

He got in and shut the door. “Isn’t this a pleasant reunion, the pupil and the student.”

“Ben?” Her round eyes were red and watery.

“Hi, Dr. Hughes,” Ben said. A Dread Cloak loaded a plastic crate into the back of the car, and Ben figured it had to be the augmenter gun.

Dr. Hughes shook her head. “What are you —?”

“And that’s enough of that,” Poole said. “Roll out!”

The SUVs pulled forward and followed the road to the park’s back gate. From there, they charged across the parking lot. Ben didn’t know what was about to happen, or what he was going to do, but he had Dr. Hughes beside him. He hadn’t seen her since the Dread Cloaks had attacked her lab, and so much had happened since then. She looked tired, but she was alive, and she wasn’t hurt, and he felt reassured by that. Now it was up to him to get them both out of there. Somehow.

The convoy reached the edge of the parking lot, and soon drove under the Mercer Beach sign. The night was clear, the streets completely deserted.

“It’s good to see you,” Dr. Hughes whispered.

Ben nodded, his attention on the road ahead. He looked for signs, anything at all, of the Paracelsus crew. But the strip malls gave way to houses, and pretty soon they would reach the freeway. If the crew didn’t show, what could Ben do without his Locus? Without it, he was just an ordinary kid, trapped in a vehicle with a paranoid murderer. What would Poole do when the raid never happened, and he figured out what Ben had done?

Ben had to escape with Dr. Hughes. Soon. Now. They could hide among all these empty houses, just like the Paracelsus crew had planned to do. Could they make a jump for it from the moving car? That seemed too risky, and the Dread Cloaks would be on them in no time, actuations firing. No, he needed to think of something else. Without moving his head, his eyes roamed around the vehicle. Then he remembered the crate in back.

The portable augmenter
. He didn’t need a Locus. He just had to get his hands on that gun. But how?

“Fog, sir,” the SUV’s driver said.

Ben looked ahead, hope flaring inside him, as they plowed into a bank of mist so thick they lost sight of the vehicle in front of them.
Argus
.

Poole looked across the seat at Ben. “Devilish tricks.”