City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market)) (16 page)

“I think it’s an amazing likeness.” Leech grinned.

“Of the harmless sort,” Bayang said, closing the cell door behind her as she stepped back into the corridor. “But even simple illusions have their uses.”

Leech and Scirye voluntarily took hairs from their heads and Kles sacrificed a feather. Quickly, Bayang had images of all three acting like model prisoners in their cells.

Moving quietly to the doorway of the holding cells, they peeked out and saw Jenkins feeding a form in triplicate into the typewriter. “Darn red tape,” he complained as he began to hunt and peck with his two index fingers.

Bayang motioned them to step back. “What we need is a distraction,” she said. They backtracked to the Animal Quarantine room.
Shelves filled two walls with small cages on each. A regular menagerie of cats, dogs, snakes, and parrots immediately greeted them. In a larger cage against the third wall was a kangaroo.

Bayang had no sooner opened the first cage before the children were helping her free the other animals. When even the kangaroo had been freed, Bayang opened the door and they shepherded the creatures outside.

The freed animals erupted into the corridor, barking, meowing, squawking, and hissing with delight after their confinement. Bayang and the others made sure the creatures were heading toward the front door, listening to Jenkins and then the captain shouting.

A few minutes later, they snuck back into the front room. The front desk was unoccupied now and through the doorway they could see Captain Honus’s office was the same way. While Scirye tried to call the Kushan consulate in San Francisco again, the others helped themselves to their belongings, which had been stuffed neatly into envelopes.

Koko grunted to Bayang. “I still don’t trust you.”

Bayang retrieved her purse. “We don’t have to be friends. We just have to be able to work together.”

Frustrated, Scirye set the receiver back into the cradle. “Something’s still wrong with the consulate’s telephones.” Retrieving her stiletto from the envelope, she slipped it into her belt and then rolled up the axes in the carpet fragment again so she could carry it under her arm.

She debated what to do with the gauntlet but slid that into her belt, letting Kles ride on her shoulder, which was his usual perch when her mother was not watching. With long practice, the griffin’s talons gripped her shoulder lightly but firmly.

Then they walked out of the police station, trying to look more nonchalant than they felt.

Bayang pointed inland to the recently built warehouses and
hangars where there were as many trucks and people as in downtown San Francisco. “We can get lost in the crowd there.”

If the terminal was the clean, pretty face of the seaplane port, the maintenance area where the seaplanes were serviced was its noisy, messy guts. Gone were the sculptures and flowers. New structures of a more utilitarian design had taken their place but were still huge enough to make the seaplanes seem like toys and the workers like ants.

They entered the broad expanse of concrete, already acquiring interesting patterns of stains as trucks and tractors flowed back and forth. The noise of excited fairgoers had been replaced by the rumble of engines being tested, and suits and dresses by greasy coveralls.

This was more a shrine to technology than to magic. With one hangar, a troll strolled along as if the massive pontoon on his shoulder was a mere stick. In another hangar, a gnome directed an imp in welding two plates together while a few feet over, six more imps sat around a seaplane’s exposed engine, listening sullenly as a second engineer tried to convince them to honor their contract and go back to work.

Fortunately, everyone was too busy with their tasks to notice Scirye and the others.

She was tempted to try to call again and find out how her mother was doing. But that would probably lead to her capture and, worse, her companions might also be caught. Worried and guilty, she decided to stay with them.

“We should find out what flight Roland is on and when it’s leaving,” Leech suggested.

“We’ll still have to find a way to follow him,” Bayang said.

“Then call your Pinkerton agency for help,” Leech said practically.

“I’m supposed to operate undercover,” Bayang improvised.

Then a green creature wheeled a box on a hand truck around the corner. Mechanic’s coveralls had been pulled around his carapace,
the sleeves and trousers rolled up over his short limbs. He plodded along on his stumpy legs to the rhythm of his tune.

Koko suddenly grinned. “Well, our luck must be changing. Leave everything to me.”

“Where are you going?” Bayang demanded.

“You might know all about high-flying, but I,” Koko boasted, “know all about lowlifes.” Popping upright, he leaned casually against the top of an oil drum. “Still can’t carry a tune, can you, Mugwort, old chum?”

At the sound of Koko’s voice, Mugwort jerked to a halt as if on an invisible leash. Instinctively, his head disappeared into his shell. When he peeked out cautiously, he caught sight of Koko. Immediately Mugwort tried to plod away, but his heavy body could only move at a pace that even a snail could beat. “There’s nobody here by that name,” he called over his shoulder.

As Koko moved around the drum, his handkerchief fell out of his pocket. Peering out of Scirye’s sweatshirt, Kles whispered, “We’ll show him what he gets for nearly leaving us in the jail. Get that.”

Scirye didn’t question her griffin’s order. Both schoolmates and staff members on three continents had learned that their lives ran much more smoothly if they were polite to Scirye and her griffin. Usually they liked to plan their revenge as meticulously as a military campaign, but there was no time for that.

There had been the time when the school bully had been tricked into putting talcum powder on his French fries and become a laughingstock, or the time that the military attache in the Kushan embassy in Istanbul had found himself chewing on his own toupee at a banquet for the grand vizier.

Scirye glanced at Leech but he was busy watching his friend. Stooping, she picked up the handkerchief.

“Now get some of that grease on it,” Kles instructed in a low voice.

Bayang wondered what the two were up to but said nothing while Scirye smeared some grease from the concrete onto the handkerchief and then folded the handkerchief into neat squares. And then she waited.

In the meantime, Koko had dashed across the concrete to grab Mugwort’s arm. “Well, fancy meeting you here, old buddy, old pal.”

Mugwort pivoted ponderously and shoved Koko’s hand away. “You got the wrong guy.” He tapped a claw at the name stitched to his coveralls. “I’m Aloysius Smith.”

Koko winced. “And you still aren’t any better at coining aliases. Aloysius? Really, come on.”

Mugwort put a hand protectively over his name. “I got a good thing going. Don’t spoil it.”

Koko cupped his chin speculatively. “What’s the scam? Skimming stuff from the cargo? Or is it old-fashioned smuggling?”

“Not me. My only crime nowadays is murdering a song. I turned over a new leaf, see?” Mugwort insisted, but there was something about his indignation that reminded Bayang of a hatchling who had been caught stealing candied eelings from the pantry.

Koko folded his arms skeptically. “I didn’t know they had invented spot remover for leopards. What about if I do some reminiscing to your boss?”

Mugwort sighed as he dug his wallet from his coverall. “How much?”

“Put it away.” Koko polished his nails against his chest. “I took up a new career, too. I’m a travel agent now, and I got some customers who’ve decided they need a nice Hawaiian tan and they need to catch the very next flight out.”

“The ticket counter’s in the terminal.” Mugwort pointed out the direction.

“Sure, sure,” Koko said breezily. “I’ll go there right after I see your boss.”

Mugwort shut his eyes as if he had abruptly developed a splitting headache. “If I do this for you, we’re quits, understand? I can get you on and off the plane, but then you’re on your own, all right?”

Koko wiped a hand across his forehead as if it were a slate. “Right. And I totally erase the name of Mugwort from my brain,” he promised.

Mugwort seemed a little surprised to see that Koko’s clients were children and an elderly woman, but he shuffled into a locker room.

Palming the handkerchief, Scirye hooked her arm through Koko’s. “I guess we were wrong about you.”

Koko freed himself from her grasp. “Don’t try to butter me up, girlie.”

“It’s Lady Scirye,” Kles said from within her sweatshirt.

“She might be a lady to you.” Koko placed a hand over his heart sarcastically. “But she’ll always be just ‘girlie’ to me.”

In their campaigns of revenge, Scirye had developed the quick, nimble hands of a pickpocket so it was easy to slip the handkerchief back into Koko’s clothes.
Leave her and Kles behind, indeed!

When Scirye saw Bayang looking at her, she winked.

Scirye

Mugwort shuffled back with an armload of coveralls. Bayang’s would have fit her—if she had been 300 pounds. The others were also for large adults so they hung on Scirye and the boys like tents, which at least left plenty of room in which Kles could hide.

As they began to roll up their sleeves and pants cuffs, Mugwort shook his head. “Try to keep out of the direct light, okay?”

Their progress across the maintenance area was slow because they had to keep pace with the plodding Mugwort, but finally they arrived at a truck loaded with crates. From the hand truck, he took the box and added it to the flatbed at the rear. “Hop on,” he said.

Bayang and the others managed to find places among the stacks of crates. All of them had labels which read:

Ship to:
Roland Enterprises
Houlani

When Bayang saw the children looking about, she hissed, “Quit behaving like tourists. Look like you belong here.” She set the example by folding her arms and pretending to be bored.

Leech and Koko had no trouble copying her. To survive on the streets, they had learned how to act different roles—as they had just done in Captain Honus’s office. Scirye, though, felt the opposite of boredom. Her heart was pounding; she expected any moment for the police to shout out, “Halt!” The best she could do was sit rigidly and hope staring at her toes would fool casual bystanders.

As the truck slowly wound its way through the warehouse traffic, Koko pulled out his handkerchief. “I hate work.”

“We’re just pretending to work,” Leech corrected.

“It’s still hard,” Koko insisted and wiped his forehead. As he lowered the handkerchief, the others began to splutter, trying to control their laughter. “What’s so funny?”

“You,” Bayang said. “You’ve got grease on your face.” She pointed to the stripe across his forehead.

“How’d that get there?” Koko said puzzled, but as he raised his handkerchief to wipe it off, Leech stopped him.

“You don’t want to do that,” Leech warned, trying to keep from chuckling.

Koko looked down at his handkerchief and then frowned. “Where’d that come from?” His forehead wrinkled as he considered the possibilities. His eyes settled on Scirye. “It’s funny how chummy you suddenly got back there.”

“I was just so grateful you didn’t leave us in the jail,” Scirye said innocently. She and Kles were usually more careful about making sure blame couldn’t attach to them, but they’d been improvising.

“Maybe I should have,” Koko said suspiciously, and his voice took on a menacing tone. “You know, girlie, I can play pranks, too.”

“Our target is Roland and Badik,” Bayang reminded them, “not one another.”

Leech grinned, glancing back and forth between Scirye and Koko. “You may want to think twice about it, Koko. You just may be outnumbered and outclassed.”

“Okay, okay,” Koko grumbled, looking down sorrowfully at his stained handkerchief. “Let’s have a truce for now.”

Finally, the truck
reached the piers, chugging along as the bay lapped at the big wooden tree trunks that supported the concrete platforms.

Service across the Atlantic had not started until this year so Scirye had come to America by ship. Despite Bayang’s warning, the girl could not help taking a closer look at the passing seaplanes.