Spell Robbers (15 page)

THIRTY
minutes passed, during which no one talked. Lykos and Meg had sat down on the floor. Polly just stood there. At the end of the room by the elevator, Poole’s men whispered and joked among themselves, but Poole never said a word. Ben kept to his hiding place, safe behind the big sculpture, undiscovered.

Forty-five minutes in, Lykos stood up. He fidgeted. He paced. “He’s not coming back. I told you.”

“Sit down,” Meg said. “He’s coming.”

Lykos checked his watch. “He should have been back by now.”

That was Ben’s cue. He was supposed to make a noise. Something that drew attention, but not something obvious, like a sneeze. Poole’s museum had a cement floor, with a thick glossy seal over it. Ben dragged the toe of his shoe across it, and made a little squeak.

“What was that?” Poole asked.

Ben squeezed his eyes shut for a second, waiting. Then Poole came around the statue and looked down at him. His face, not hidden this time, was lean and sunken around his eyes and his cheeks.

“Well, this is unexpected,” he said. “And just who are you?”

“He’s no one,” Polly said.

“No one?” Poole reached down, grabbed Ben’s arm, and yanked him to his feet hard enough that Ben felt a wrenching in his shoulder. He was stronger than Ben had expected, and Poole dragged him out into the open. “This looks like a very real someone to me.”

“Leave him alone,” Meg said. “He’s just a kid.”

“But a kid on your crew, apparently.” Poole still had Ben by the arm. “Which makes me doubt he’s
just
anything.” He looked at Ben, his eyes the same blue Ben had seen through the ski mask. “Wait. I know you.”

Ben looked down at the ground. “I don’t think so.”

“No, I definitely know you.” He released Ben’s arm. “Devilish tricks. Devilish tricks in a child’s playpen.”

Ben looked up. “Yeah, all right. That was me. So what?”

Poole smiled. “Still defiant.”

“Leave the kid alone,” Polly said.

“Or what?” Poole asked.

“Or I’ll kill you,” Polly said.

The Dread Cloaks stirred. Poole’s smile fell. “You aren’t in a position to make threats.”

“Not a threat,” Polly said.

Even though Ben knew they were playing their roles, something in the way Polly said it felt genuine. Like the big guy really had his back. Poole took a step toward the giant, and Ben felt actuations stirring among his Dread Cloaks.

“Wait.” Meg slid in front of Polly. “Just wait, Poole. He doesn’t mean that.” She put her hands on Polly’s arms and looked up into his face. “Just sit tight. Ronin will be back any minute.”

“No, he won’t,” Lykos said. “Hour’s almost up.”

“Then too bad for you.” Poole looked back at Ben. “All of you.”

“Unless we can come to a deal of our own,” Lykos said.

“You carry three million around on your person?” Poole asked.

“No,” Lykos said. “But we have something a lot more valuable than that right here in this room. Ronin left it with you, and you didn’t even know it.”

“And what might that be?” Poole asked.

Lykos pointed at Ben. “The kid.”

“The kid?” Poole cocked his head at Ben. “Yes, I think it’s time to find out just who you are. How is it I found you in that university laboratory weeks ago, and now find you here with the Paracelsus crew in my art collection?”

Ben shrugged. “Coincidence.”

“Don’t talk, Ben,” Meg said.

“Ben?” Poole came closer. “All right, then. Ben. Don’t listen to her, Ben. Talk. Tell me. I want to know.”

“I’ll tell you,” Lykos said. “Ben is Ronin’s inside man with the League. After your little raid on that laboratory, the League recruited him, and then Ronin got his hands on him.”

“Is this true?” Poole asked Ben. “Are you in the League?”

“Yes,” Ben said.

“He’s a prodigy,” Lykos said. “The Old One said so himself.”

“Are you a prodigy, Ben?” Poole asked.

“Yes.”

Poole nodded. “I like your confidence. And are you Ronin’s man on the inside?”

“No.”

“No?” Poole glanced at Lykos with a questioning look.

“I’m nobody’s man,” Ben said. “I work for myself. Right now, it happens to suit my interests to feed intel to Ronin.”

“Your —” Poole chuckled. “Pardon me, but your interests? And what might those be?”

This was the moment for Ben to tell the truth. This was the moment to dig up his rage and let it show. He thought of Marshall, and he glowered. “I want to make the League pay for what they did to me.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” Ben felt the anger, the real anger, the deep anger, bubbling up hot, threatening to geyser. “After you busted up the lab, they took me. They detached me. They ruined my life, and I’m going to do everything I can to ruin theirs. From the inside.”

Poole didn’t say anything. He just looked at Ben another moment, and then turned to Lykos. “You’re right. This is more valuable.”

“So how about we make a deal,” Lykos said. “You let us go and keep the kid. Consider our debt paid.”

“Traitor!” Polly lunged at Lykos and decked him. Hard. Ben winced as Lykos sprawled on the ground. He’d insisted the hit had to be real, and Polly had reluctantly agreed.

“Polly, stop!” Meg shouted, tugging on one of the giant’s arms.

Polly looked down at her and grunted. Lykos slid away from him along the floor until he was a safe distance away, and then he staggered to his feet, rubbing his rapidly swelling jaw.

“And what would I do with the kid?” Poole asked, as if the whole thing hadn’t happened.

“Whatever you want,” Lykos said. “I really don’t care. I just want to get out of here and forget this whole thing happened.”

Poole checked his watch. “Hour’s well up. Ronin is a marked man. We’ll run him down by morning. As for the rest of you, I will take your inside man and consider him payment in full. Now get out of here.”

This was the part Ben had dreaded, the only part of the plan that had worried him. His breathing quickened as he watched the rest of the crew move to the elevator, and his stomach clenched up as they got inside it. The doors closed, and then he was alone with Poole. It wouldn’t be for long; he knew Ronin was coming. But he still felt alone and afraid.

“What an unexpected night this has turned out to be.” Poole looked at the shattered statues and then at Ben. “What kind of intel do you feed to Ronin?”

“Whatever I can get my hands on.”

“How useful could that be, at your age?”

“I’m not a full agent yet,” Ben said. “But my reputation as a prodigy means people tend to talk around me. I overhear things.”

“What kinds of things?”

Ben shrugged. He wasn’t supposed to give Poole anything. The plan was to get him curious, and then Ronin would close the deal. “Just things.”

“Look around you, devilish boy.” Poole took Ben’s chin in his hand and lifted it. “Do you see a friendly face? Where is your crew? They abandoned you. So did Ronin. Just whose man do you think you are now?”

“Same as when I walked in,” Ben said. “My own.”

Poole punched him in the gut. Ben doubled over, gasping, clutching his stomach. He dropped to his knees. That wasn’t supposed to happen. That was not part of the plan, and Poole could hurt him a lot worse. Poole could kill him. Where was Ronin?

“You see now, don’t you?” Poole said. “Whose man you are. So I’ll ask you again. What kinds of things do you overhear?”

Ben rubbed his stomach. He had to answer him. He had to give him something. He feared what Poole would do if he didn’t. But what should he say?

Improvise
. He reached for the first thing that came to his mind.

“I know —” He struggled to speak, his breath still coming back. “I know they’re planning a raid … to rescue that professor and steal the portable augmenter.”

Poole jerked upright.

Ben realized then what he’d just done. He’d blown it. The whole job. He’d tipped their hand and made Poole think about the very thing he
wasn’t
supposed to think about. Ben felt like throwing up.

“When?” Poole asked.

When?
“A week from tomorrow.” Why had he said that?
Still blowing it.

“How many agents will there be?”

“I …”
Shut up, Ben
. “I don’t know.”

“Will it be a night raid?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about —?”

“He’s back,” one of the Dread Cloaks said, holding a radio to his ear. “Ronin is back. He’s coming up.”

Ben worked hard to keep the relief from showing on his face.

Poole turned from him toward the elevators. “An unexpected night.”

A few moments later, the elevator dinged, and Ronin walked off. He looked at Poole, then at Ben, then around the room. “Where’s my crew?”

“You failed them,” Poole said. “So we came to terms.”

“What terms?” Ronin asked.

Poole said nothing. Then he nodded toward Ben. “Quite a prize, a League recruit in your pocket.”

Ronin’s eyes narrowed. “Comes in handy. You all right, Ben?”

Ben got to his feet. “Yes.”

“What terms?” Ronin asked Poole.

“Do you have my money?” Poole asked.

“Here’s the thing,” Ronin said. “I’ve got some of it, but I can get you the rest.”

“No,
here’s
the thing,” Poole said. “We made a deal. If you can’t pay, your life is forfeit.”

“But I can pay, I just need —”

“I know you can pay,” Poole said. “But not with money.”

“Then how?”

Poole put a hand on Ben’s shoulder, and out of reflex, Ben threw it off. “Don’t touch me.”

“Easy, now,” Poole said.

“Come on, Poole.” Ronin took several steps toward them, farther into the museum. “He’s just a kid.”

Poole said nothing.

“So these were the terms?” Ronin asked. “My crew gave up Ben to save themselves?”

“Honor among thieves, eh?” Poole stepped toward Ronin. His Dread Cloaks closed in behind, cutting off access to the elevator. “That’s all done with. Which means you and I still need to settle up.”

“It doesn’t need to go down like this,” Ronin said.

The moment had come. So far, Poole had played right into the fiddle game, but this was the final gamble. Ben felt actuations building, the Dread Cloaks heating up. If Poole gave the order, Ronin would be dead, instantly. He had to close the deal now.

“Let’s just take it easy.” Ronin raised both his hands. “What if I come work for you? I’ll pay off my debt doing jobs for you. You’ve seen me in action. You know what I can do.”

Poole seemed to be thinking that over.

Ben wished he could do something to convince him. He thought back to Mr. Weathersky, the way he had influenced people, somehow nudging them toward loyalty or fear. Like a kind of actuation. How had he done that?

Finally, Poole sighed. “Ronin, I respect your abilities, I do. But I can’t have you work for me. I’d never be able to turn my back. And if I cut you loose now, there’ll be blowback, I have no doubt.”

That wasn’t what he was supposed to say. He was supposed to agree. Ronin had sworn he knew Poole, and Poole would agree.

“Poole, you — you’re sounding paranoid.” Ronin’s voice cracked a little. “You’ve changed since our True Coat days. You know me. How many jobs did we do together?”

“All in the past,” Poole said. “Good-bye, Ronin.”

Ronin looked at Ben, his eyes wild, but not with fear. He seemed to be frantically searching for a way out, a solution, an angle.

Poole turned to his men. “On my mark.” They shifted on their feet, a firing squad. This was an execution.

Ronin shook his head. “Poole, wait —”

Poole took a breath. “Three, two —”

“STOP!” Ben shouted.

Poole, the Dread Cloaks, Ronin, all turned toward him.

How had Mr. Weathersky done it? Actuations began with thoughts, consciousness reaching out, creating reality. What if Ben’s consciousness could reach out to affect another?

“You do
not
want to do that,” Ben said.

Fear
. They needed to feel fear.

“Why not?” Poole asked.

“Trust me.” Ben thought of heart rates rising. He thought of cold palms and trembling hands. He thought of chills along the spine, the hollow of dread in the chest. Ben gripped his Locus and pushed fear outward, imagining waves of it crashing over the minds of Poole and the others. “You kill Ronin, and you’ll regret it.”

One of Poole’s blue eyes twitched. “How?”

“You’re going to need him when the League raids you next week. He knows their tactics. He knows the agents by name. He knows their strengths and weaknesses. Without him, it doesn’t matter if I’m your inside man or not. The League will still take you down.”

Poole swallowed. Ben couldn’t believe it. It seemed to be working. He held the Locus tighter.

Fear
.

“Perhaps,” Poole said, “I am being rash. Perhaps you both might be of use to me.”

“There’s no perhaps,” Ben said. “Now, call off your men.”

Poole stared at Ben for a long time. Ben stared back, radiating the way Mr. Weathersky had, and it was Poole who looked away first.

He turned to the Dread Cloaks. “Power down.”

THEY
rode in silence, surrounded by Dread Cloaks. The van coasted down empty, sleeping streets, reminding Ben of the night drive he’d taken with the League to catch Ronin in the first place. It almost felt like that had been a different him than the Ben in this van now. Since that night, he’d faced down criminals and a gang lord. He’d been a member of a heist crew, and now he was officially undercover in the Dread Cloaks.

Each of those steps had brought him closer to the goal. Get Dr. Hughes and the augmenter gun for the League, then get his life back.

He wondered where the van was going. Probably not anywhere near Dr. Hughes. Poole would have her locked up tight somewhere. Ben hoped she was all right.

Eventually, they left downtown and headed out on the highway (or interstate?) toward an industrial part of the city.

“Where are we going?” Ronin asked.

No one answered him.

They took a freeway exit near a sprawling refinery. Bright lights traced the outlines of its buildings, catwalks, and pipes, and the smell of rotten eggs clung to the air around it. At the far end, two identical brick smokestacks rose from a windowless fortress, belching twin flames into the night.

After the refinery, the van turned onto a road that carried them into a derelict suburb. Nearly every house looked abandoned, with dead lawns, broken or boarded-up windows, graffiti, and sagging roofs.

Soon, the streets turned from residential to business. They passed strips of empty and anonymous storefronts and offices, the ghosts of their former logos peeking out from behind
FOR SALE
banners. After a few blocks of this, the van turned onto a wide, paved entrance, and they passed under an arched sign.

Ben read it and leaned in close to Ronin. “Mercer Beach? Where’s the ocean?”

“It’s an amusement park,” Ronin said. “Or was. They shut it down years ago.”

What are we doing at an amusement park?

The van cut straight across a vast parking lot, avoiding a few fallen lampposts. Those still standing were dark and lifeless, weeds shooting up through cracks in the asphalt at their feet. The van swung past the main gate, the ticket booths with their red-and-white-striped canopies, and continued alongside the park’s chain-link fence to a rear entrance. A sign hanging on it still read
DELIVERY VEHICLES ONLY
.

The driver of their van honked.

Two Dread Cloaks swung the gate inward, and the van pulled through, then took a winding road around the backside of the park. The silhouettes of a Ferris wheel and a carousel rose up against the night sky over the backs of smaller booths and buildings. Beyond those, the refinery smokestacks burned, not too far away. No wonder they’d shut this place down.

The van eventually stopped at a loading dock, and everyone piled out behind a building that had been made to look like a giant circus tent. Poole led the way up a flight of cement steps and through the building’s rear entrance. Inside, they seemed to be behind some kind of stage, and from there they followed Poole down a hallway where the doors all had glittery stars on them, with nameplates like
MADAME CHANDELIER
,
PIPSQUEAK THE CLOWN
, and
SIMON NIGHTSPELL
.

Poole opened a door labeled
KARL TITAN
. “Inside, both of you.”

Ben and Ronin entered the room, and the door shut behind them. They heard a key in the lock, and footsteps leading away. But two swinging blades of shadow coming in under the door said Poole had left guards just outside.

The room was empty, except for a couple of chairs, and a vanity with a large mirror bordered by lightbulbs. Ronin ushered them away from the door, into a corner.

“What now?” Ben whispered.

“We wait for Poole to decide what he wants to do with us. My guess, he’ll want to get you back to the League soon to find out about this raid. How come you didn’t tell me about that before?”

“Because there is no raid. I made it up.”

Ronin gave his head a quick shake. “What? Why would you make that up?”

“I was improvising, okay? And don’t forget that my improvising saved your life.”

“Yes, it did,” Ronin said. “But you also put us on a pretty tight timetable. One week, you said?”

Ben nodded.

“So we have one week to find Dr. Hughes and the portable augmenter. And then the League is supposedly staging a raid on the Dread Cloaks?”

Ben nodded again.

“Then your job just got a lot tougher, kid.”

“How?”

“You might have to convince the Quantum League to stage an actual raid.”

They stayed in the dressing room for what felt like a couple of hours, and then a Dread Cloak came for them. They followed him back down the hallway, to the backstage area. From there, they climbed a staircase attached to the wall, till they were up high among the lights and the rigging, and Ben could look down on the other side of the backdrop.

The building was an arena, part-circus, part-theater, with a sawdust performance ring in front of the raised stage. It was the kind of place his mom probably would have brought him for his birthday when he was younger.

They reached the top of the stairs, where a network of catwalks crisscrossed away from them out over the whole arena.

“This way,” the Dread Cloak said, and he led them along a walkway to what looked like some kind of control room.

“Poole’s office, I take it?” Ronin asked.

“Yes,” the Dread Cloak said.

They reached the door, the Dread Cloak knocked, and a voice said to enter.

Inside, Poole sat at a desk before a wall of windows that offered a view of the entire audience and stage far below. Behind him, a vast and complicated panel bore hundreds of switches and dials, Ben assumed for all the lights and sounds in the building.

Two armchairs sat in front of Poole’s desk, facing him, and behind those chairs stood three more Dread Cloaks. One of them, a guy with red hair, stared hard at Ben.

“Gentlemen.” Poole gestured to the chairs. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

And the chairs were comfortable, even though Ben could feel the redhead still glaring at the back of his neck.

“Nice place you got here,” Ronin said. “Gives new meaning to high and mighty.”

“It suits my need for privacy,” Poole said. “Speaking of which, the rest of you are dismissed.”

The Dread Cloaks filed from the room, and the redhead shot Ben one last look before he shut the door behind them. Ben could feel and hear their footsteps on the stairs going back down. Ronin kept one ear cocked to the sound until it faded.

And then he said, “Okay, Poole. Now tell me what you’re doing all the way out here.”

“What do you mean?” Poole asked.

“How can you run the Dread Cloaks so far from your turf?”

“I don’t need to be there in person to run the show.”

“Yes, you do. I couldn’t run a crew from here, let alone a street gang.” Ronin spread his arms and looked around the room. “I don’t mean to be rude, but this is weird.”

Poole’s sunken eyes turned hard.

“You
have
gotten paranoid, haven’t you?” Ronin said. “There’s something going on here. Something’s got you spooked.”

Ben remembered Ronin saying the same thing to Mr. Weathersky. Getting spooked seemed to be going around.

“Yes,” Poole said quietly.

“Pardon?” Ronin leaned forward in the armchair. “Yes, what?”

“Yes.” Poole spoke louder. “Something has me … on edge.”

“What?”

Poole stood. He clasped his hands behind his back and turned away from them, facing the windows. “You know most Dread Cloaks are only Class One Actuators, don’t you?”

Ronin shrugged. “Sure.”

“Thugs. Petty, simple, blunt instruments. When I took over, it was easy for a while. They feared me. I’d shown them what I could do, and that was enough to keep them in line. But inevitably, rivals started coming up through the ranks, and I put a few of them down. Dramatically. Terribly. Examples had to be made to stem the tide.”

“But there’s somebody new, isn’t there?” Ronin asked. “Somebody who’s got you running scared. That’s why you’re out here. Are you still in control?”

Poole pivoted to look at them. “Yes.”

“Who is it?”

“I haven’t been able to identify him.” He sat back down at his desk. “But rumors reach my ears. They say he can actuate Class Threes. More and more Dread Cloaks throw in with him every day. I’m hemorrhaging.”

“So what do you want from us?” Ronin asked.

Poole looked at Ben. “This raid. If I stop it, if I defeat the League,
me
, the show of force will staunch the bleeding. The Dread Cloaks will see that
I
” — he pounded his chest — “am in charge. I’ll starve out this pretender to my throne.”

Ben tried to look and sound like the kid he’d become in the Paracelsus crew safe house. The one capable of anything. “I can do something about that.”

“I need you to get me everything you can on this raid,” Poole said. “When. Where. How many agents. Which agents. Their strategy. All of it. You have two days.”

“Done,” Ben said. “But I’ll need Ronin and his crew to help me.”

“Yes, fine.” Poole slipped a phone out of his vest pocket. “We’re done here. I’ll have someone drive you back into the city now. Go.”

Ben and Ronin rose to leave, but as they reached the door, Poole called after them.

“If you fail me, boy, or try any more of your devilish tricks, I’ll kill you. You’ve been on borrowed time since I had you in my sights in that laboratory.”

Ronin had the Dread Cloak driver drop them off several blocks from the safe house, and they walked the rest of the way. The sun was just coming up. Shops opened up as they passed by, and the sidewalks filled with people carrying coffee cups, on their way to work.

“It’s there,” Ronin said as they walked. “The augmenter gun is out there somewhere in the park. So is Dr. Hughes.”

“How do you know?” Ben asked.

“Class Threes. Poole’s enemy can actuate Class Threes. Poole can’t. He needs the augmenter gun because he’s expecting a showdown. And as paranoid as he is, there’s no way he’d leave that gun in the city when his control over the gang is slipping. He’ll have it somewhere close by.”

Ben thought back to the park. It was big. Buildings everywhere. Probably Dread Cloaks everywhere, too. “So how do we find her?”

Ronin jammed his hands into his pockets. “Not sure yet. Let’s get back to the crew and fill them in. We’ll go from there. But there was some good news in all of that.”

“What?”

“Poole doesn’t think the gun is working yet. If he did, he wouldn’t need us.”

They made it back to the safe house, and Ronin let them in like he’d done the first time. But now Ben knew the way. Downstairs, the crew greeted them with relief and congratulations.

“You did good, kid!” Lykos held an ice pack to his jaw where Polly had punched him. “You’re a natural.”

“We were wrong to doubt you,” Meg said.

Polly came up and put one cement pipe of an arm around Ben’s shoulders. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Ben said.

Polly nodded.

Ronin cleared his throat. “I’m fine, too, by the way.”