01 Summoned-Summoned (16 page)

The phone on her desk rings. She puts up a finger to signal me to wait, then answers the phone. As she engages into the conversation, I remind myself to keep the backpack low. No need to draw attention to it, since I can't risk being searched. I'm loaded up like Bomberman.

She tilts the phone away from her mouth. “Can I see your student badge, please?”

She's talking to me. 

I start to reply. “I don't . . . ”

Then I stop. I do have one. I am not sure if it will check out, but my next move is scaling the back wall and busting out a window. Pretending to be Spiderman is not on the list of things I wanted to do tonight.

“Yes, of course,” I say, with the smile that makes Silvia's demonic face flush and that landed Syd in my bed. I pull my wallet and hold up Alex Parker's student ID.

She nods, then presses a button under her desk and turns back to her phone conversation.

The door clicks unlocked.

I wave my free hand in gratitude, hoping she doesn't decide to validate my claims, and let myself through the door.

Straight ahead is the emergency exit. To my immediate left is a break room, a closed lab, and an open office with no one inside. To the right, the library and media center. I dip into the room, trying to act casual as I pass the small computer lab where a girl is watching anime and head into the rows of shelves.

Intel said the books were together in a box. What sort of a box? A shipping box? How likely is it they have been unpacked already?  

Someone should educate intel on the Dewey Decimal System.

I walk up and down the aisles, scanning each level of the shelves. Nothing. The reading area to the side doesn't offer anything of interest, either. No boxed up books. No gold-colored spines. 

I exit the library and head across the hall to another lab. This one is open, and a sign outside the room says the bathrooms are through here. A half-dozen people are working at the long steel tables standing parallel to each other in the center of the room. Against the far wall, a counter filled with microscopes and gadgets with dials. In the corner, a floor to ceiling cabinet. 

No one seems to notice me. They're too busy fussing with slides and talking amongst themselves. I turn and head down the hallway. Three small labs and the stairwell to the left, and a museum to the right. I turn into the museum.

Glass cases house pottery dishes, old rugs that might have once been brightly colored, and a tablet with what appears to be ancient text. 

I can't believe I have to burn down this place.

At the end of the room is another case, with something about the size of a coconut held up on a stand. I approach, leaning in to get a better view.

It's part of a skull. I squint at the display card but it just gives an exhibit number. No name, no details.

On the wall beside it, a mounted display contains oblong items—stone or clay, I can't tell—with thick spikes jabbing out at intervals. Another card with an exhibit number, nothing else.

As much as I would like to hang out and try to decipher what I'm seeing, there are no books here. The hum says I have to keep moving.

The backpack is starting to grow heavy, so I switch it to the other hand. I return to the hall and push open the door to the stairwell. My boots thud up the metal steps, rattling the railing.

I enter onto the second level. Straight ahead are bathrooms and a few vending machines. I turn and follow down the hallway. To the right is a closed office and then a large, but unoccupied, room labeled “Teaching Lab”. Inside are high desks with cabinets, sinks, and several large windows revealing the night sky. 

Across from the teaching lab is a closed off area labeled “Wet Dirt Lab”. I'm not entirely sure what that is, but it doesn't sound like a place to keep books.

Outside of the apparently messy lab are laptop stations. 

That is the anthropology center in its entirety.

I have no idea where the books can be. Time to start digging. 

I begin with the teaching lab, making my way through the rows of desks, opening drawers and cabinets. A stack of textbooks sit on a wall mounted shelf, but they don't have gold colored spines. I'm also pretty sure Karl could order them on Amazon. 

Nothing stands out to me, so I try the office next door. A desk and computer, some file cabinets. Nothing.

Now I'm worried. Now I'm grinding my teeth. 

Anger wells inside me. Why the hell does he send me on these doomed-from-the-start missions? What is the point of assigning impossible tasks?

What is he going to do if I fail—again?

I have knocked off a handful of businessmen and pulled a few kidnappings. Now a quest for a stack of books is going to be my downfall.

I don't want to do this anymore. I want to get in my car, drive back to Phoenix, and ask Syd to run away with me. We can disappear in the night and never be heard from again.

But I have this fuckin' hum in my head that's starting to get violent. It's beating at the back of my eyes. A little longer, and I'm taking this damn place hostage.

Except . . . I don't know what to tell them to hand over. I don't know what I'm actually looking for.

If I were back in Arizona, I would storm into the summoning chamber and cap Karl in the chest. 

A sharp pain pierces my skull. I drop the backpack. My hand goes to my head, and I hunch forward as the dagger of disobedience jabs through my brain. 

I take a few long, steady breaths, trying to convince myself I would never harm Karl. I can't just say it, though. I have to mean it, but my new years' resolutions to do five-hundred pushups a day are more genuine. 

I settle on the thought that I wouldn't hurt him because I can't stand the agony it would cause my head. My brain and I seem to agree on this. The stabbing lessens until I'm back to just a persistent hum.

I stoop to pick up my backpack and halt. Underneath one of the computer stations is an open box—with books. 

The game is on.

I sling the backup over my shoulder and pull out the box. 

A thud sounds from the stairwell.

Footsteps. Talking.

People are heading up to the second floor. 

I try to still my racing thoughts. No one is going to bother me. They don't know who belongs here. 

Except I have no idea if that's actually true.

With a groan, I lift the box and lug it toward the stairwell. Two men open the door just as I approach. My heart kicks up. I've been seen. Moment of truth.

One of the men is holding the door open for me. 

“Thanks,” I say, sounding winded, because I am. Then I hurry as fast as I can down the stairs to the first floor. 

The main lab is still in use.

I drop the box near the emergency exit, then stroll into the lab. I try to act like I belong here. I don't know how that is, though, so I just duck my head and enter the bathrooms.

Empty.

I toss the backpack in the sink and unzip it. Each balloon contains measured amounts of the ingredients and an attached length of magnesium ribbon. A long piece of ribbon, at that. 

I drop one of the balloons in the wastebasket, trailing the ribbon toward the exit. Then I yank a forest-worth of towels from the dispenser and spread them over the floor. The camouflage is half-assed. 

I have to move quick.

I yank up the backpack and stroll out of the lab and over to the small office. The door is unlocked. I dart inside, plant another balloon bomb, and cross to the library. 

The girl who had been watching anime is gone.

I jog into the reading area. At least I can work without being caught. As long as no one stops by the library, anyway.

I tuck a balloon on a bottom shelf, roll out the ribbon across the entire length of the room, and exit toward the hall. I deliver to each of the three small labs and one to the museum. I just toss that one on the floor.

No more stealth.

The plan is to light two ribbons and then run. The subsequent explosion should reach the rest of the bombs in no time, causing a chain reaction. Since this is on the ground floor, the whole building should collapse.

I bolt for the emergency exit. Just as I'm about to slam through it, I notice the fire alarm on the wall.

Bingo. My moral compass can point north again.

I pull the alarm. Blaring fills the building. It does nothing to the hum in my head.

Sprinklers turn on. They are not going to cause a problem for my build-a-bomb explosions. Ah, the power of magnesium.

People start yelling.

I yank up the box of books and kick open the emergency doors. My car is straight ahead. I run for it, pull open the door, and throw the box into the backseat.

The blowtorch is in my hand before I'm even back in the building. People are scurrying about, trying to find the fire.

I race to the lab bathrooms, sliding on wet tile, and throw open the door. The paper towels flutter away. I catch myself on the jamb with one hand and lean down to light the ribbon.

It catches. I haul ass to the library, swing inside the reading area, and light another ribbon.

That should do it. 

I toss the blowtorch aside and scramble out the emergency exit, the blaring sound finally louder than the hum. People are still yelling and carrying on.

Well, I gave the idiots a warning.

I fumble with the keys in the ignition and slam the car in reverse. Hand on the back of the passenger seat, I turn as I pull out. 

My gaze lands on the books.

They have black spines.

These are the wrong books.

“Oh, sweet Mary.” I throw the car into park and scramble out. 

The hum is back with an attitude.

Where the hell are those books? Where in that whole place could they possibly be?

I smack the side of my head once as if that has ever helped and run toward the building. I can't leave without the books, but they weren't in the library. They weren't in the teaching lab. I checked everywhere. 

Except the wet dirt lab.

I dodge through the crowd in the exit and head into the stairwell, taking the steps three at a time. The hum vibrates along with the railing. I think people are still yelling, but I can't hear them.

I burst onto the second floor and lunge for the wet dirt lab. The door is unlocked. 

There they are. Right on a table in the middle of the goddamned room.

I lug up the crate of books with gold colored spines and turn for the door.

An explosion blasts downstairs. Another follows right after.

Sirens approach from outside.

I lug the crate into the teaching lab and toss it on the counter next to the window. Downstairs sounds like a stampede. I shove open the pane and lean out. It's a long ways down.

The container of books go first. The crate crashes and breaks on the asphalt.

It's an unsettling demonstration of what might happen to my bones. I crawl up on the sill and leap anyway.

So much for not playing Spiderman.

I tuck and roll into the landing, then skitter across the parking after the crate. Smoke billows out the emergency exit doors.

I grab the broken crate, shove it into my car, and peel out.

***

As I'm flooring it down I-8 into Arizona, my phone rings. I fumble for it in my pocket and answer without checking the caller ID. 

“Dimitri, I'm coming over. I'm heading toward Phoenix now.”

I stare out the windshield, dumbfounded. I have no idea what just happened. 

I think I blew up a lab.

“Dimitri, can you hear me?”

Silvia is on the line. 

“Silv, what? What are you doing?”

She huffs. “I'm swinging by your place in about an hour.”

“What?”

I can't think of anything else to say. 

“Are you drunk?” Her tone is admonishing.

“No, but I would like to be,” I say. “Why are you coming by?”

Sometimes I forget she knows where I live.

“I have stuff for you,” she says. “I'll show you when I get there.”

“Okay . . . ” My brain is still trying to catch up. “Silvia, I'm not going to be home for a few hours.”

“Why not?” She sounds irritated.

“Because I'm . . . Look, just go hang out at McDonald's 'til I call you.”

She groans. “Fine.”

I hang up.

Dealing with Silvia is not in the top hundred things I want to do when I reach home. To make matters worse, she's apparently sneaking out of the mansion now. 

I wonder what she is up to, and how it's going to cause new problems.

Once I see there's no Audi in my carport, I call Silvia to tell her I'm home. I would rather just meet her at McDonald's, but the Walkers do whatever they want. Especially Silvia. I need to get her headed back to the mansion before I can take the books to Karl. Otherwise, she might become bored and decide to wait for me here—and then run into Syd.

I lug the broken crate of books up the front porch. My muscles throb and burn with every movement. Unfortunately, I still have a ways to go before I can crash.

With numb arms, I work the key into the lock and let myself into the living room. I try to kick the door shut behind me. My balance slips. I turn to catch my fall and knock the crate into the end table. The crate finishes breaking in half. The books scatter across the floor and couch.