“We’ll start packing the stock trailer tomorrow,” Ronald said. “Might be good to get a load out before the storm.”

  “What storm?” Ember asked.

  “Weatherman is saying this cold front that moved in, it’s going bring our first blizzard of the season,” Ronald said. “Tomorrow evening through Thursday, sounds like.”

  “Bloody hell. I didn’t want to keep our friends waiting any longer than we had to.”

  “It’s alright,” Ronald said. “This gives us time to pack. To plan.”

  Boniface was studying the map. “I’d like to check for good rally points, too. Give us until Friday?”

  “Friday,” Ember repeated. “I guess Friday it’ll be, yeah.”

  The doorbell rang, and everyone stopped chattering. Arnold was closest, so he answered the front door. A round woman came bustling in, all fluster and apologies.

  “Oh, am I the last one here?”

  “Yes Barb,” Muriel said. “Surprisingly, everyone else got here on time.”

  “Sorry,” Barb Richter shrugged sheepishly. “So what’s happening? What did I miss?”

  Ember opened her mouth, but it was Boniface who answered. He said, “I’ve been taking minutes for the meeting, so you’re in luck. Here, I’ll read it all back to you.” The man pretended to examine an invisible notepad. “They’re not letting our friends out of prison. So, we’re going ahead and getting ‘em out.”

  19

  Meat Locker Edition

  Barb Richter was the last of changeling neighbors to leave for their homes. She stood in the doorway, the door half open to the biting night. “I know I probably won’t be much help to the breakout itself, but I’ll step up when it comes to keeping everyone fed. Oh, Muriel, I could make kuchen. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s been a long night, Barb,” Muriel rubbed her eyes. “We have a lot of packing to do before Friday.”

  “You Schmitts are giving the most, as always. Always so generous.” Barb shook her head. “We’re all grateful, y’know.”

  “Goodnight, Barb.” Muriel all but pushed the woman out. She returned to the living room and dropped into the loveseat. “She just stands there, letting all the warm air out.”

  “The woman’s good at creating hot air at least,” Alarik muttered.

  “I can’t believe we’re seriously going to break into the Safeguard Complex,” Stephanie said. “Isn’t it pretty much impenetrable? Like, Fort Knox level?”

  “A big part of their security relies on invisibility,” Ember said. “Not literally, I mean. I mean the secrecy and hidden nature of its layout.”

  “You trust your sidekick?” Boniface asked. “She’s not feeding us a line of crap?”

  Ember shook her head. “Nancy’s loyal. She’s quirky, sure, but she’s earnest and capable. She’s gotten me out of a bind a couple times now.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” Stephanie said. “A ghost? You literally talk to ghosts?”

  “How does she travel so far?” Boniface was seated at the table, the North Dakota highway map unfurled before him. “Does she fly? So she’s flying from Nekoma to Plaza. But she’s never been here before. Did you give her directions?”

  Ember combed fingers through her hair. “She does fly, yeah. But I think distance and time are a little different in the…the afterlife, if you will. She sort of…can teleport, I suppose. As to finding your farm, she isn’t; she’s locked in on me.”

  “Homing beacon,” Ronald said.

  “Right. Something like that. I’m the one who summoned Nancy, so finding me is easy for her.”

  Boniface gestured with an empty coffee mug. “And she was able to find a way into the Complex by listening in on the warden?”

  “Into the Complex, yes. Not the pyramid itself, though.” Ember chose a chair across from the fox changeling. “I asked her to follow the warden around, to see what she could learn about their security, their routines. I thought maybe there would be an opportunity during shift change. Maybe a staff meeting where we could slip past, somehow.”

  Alarik said, “And then slip back out. With nine disabled, weakened changelings. Up the only elevator, out the only door, and through the only gate into the facility.”

  “It was a long shot, I’ll admit,” Ember said. “Thankfully, there’s a better way. Nancy’s coming through for us. After I’d left, the warden went back inside and she followed. A weather front had moved in, and the motion sensors along the perimeter fence were going off like crazy. She said he grumbled to his staff that technically they should be checking every alert out. But they knew it would just be tumbleweeds in the wind.”

  “One of the guards mentioned “the slough.” There’s a low spot in the northeast side of the fence where wildlife travel under the chain-link. They go through there so often, the staff actually just disabled the motion sensors for that narrow portion of the fence.” Ember smiled. “The drainage ditch leads all the way up to the facility.”

  “But not the pyramid itself,” Alarik reminded her.

  “Right. And that’s the silos.” She gestured to Stephanie. “Can I see the sat image again?”

  Stephanie slid her laptop across the table. The grainy image on the screen was a satellite photo commissioned by the United States Department of Agriculture. Intended for planning use by farmers and policy makers in the Federal government, it was proving helpful for a different sort of planning.

  “It’s not crisp,” Ember admitted. “But do you see the grid of white squares, north of the pyramid? Those are a battery of decommissioned missile silos. When Nancy told me about the drainage ditch, I sent her back to go digging around there. To see if there was any way from there, up to the pyramid without being seen.”

  “Not literal digging,” Stephanie said. “I mean…can ghosts move stuff around?”

  “Not generally. Only when they’re particularly upset. Or…special circumstances.” Ember thought of Douglas Demorrett and how she’d unwittingly plucked him from the spirit world, only to leave him trapped at an abandoned farmstead. She shook her head. “No, not literal digging. Ghosts can float through walls, into the ground. That sort of thing.”

  “Damn that Barb,” Muriel said as she rubbed her hands over her upper arms. “She really did let a lot of the outside in. Either that, or our furnace is giving up on us already.”

  The others felt it, too; the temperature in the room had dropped by at least ten degrees. What they couldn’t see—none but Ember—was the terry cloth robed woman in curlers.

  “My sidekick is back,” Ember smiled.

  “What, right now?” Arnold glanced around. “In here, with us?”

  “Hi everybody!” Nancy Shaw’s voice was a faint whistle, reminiscent of the thin, high note of an old window fan. “I come bearing tidings of joy and…and mirth. Is mirth the right word?”

  “Hi Nancy,” Ember said. “I guess that depends on what your news is.”

  “What’s the ghost saying?” Arnold whispered.

  Nancy stuck out a transparent blue tongue. “I can hear you, and I have a name, thank you.”

  “She says she has good news,” Ember translated. “And she can hear you just fine. You just won’t be able to hear her.”

  “Does anyone else feel like we just stepped into one of those reality shows?” Boniface shivered involuntarily. “Crossing Over: Meat Locker Edition.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Nancy pointed.

  “Whenever you come around, the temperature drops,” Ember said. “It’s true with all ghosts, or so’s been my experience. What did you find out?”

  “Oh!” Nancy clapped her hands together. “You’re going to be so pleased with your ghost sidekick. I went back, just like you asked, and I checked out those missile silos. Only, there aren’t any missiles in them!”

  “Right. They were decommissioned,” Ember said.

  “No, I mean…I don’t think they ever had any missiles in them. I think they were just built for show. But while I was snooping around, I found a building, built into a hill. It looked like it’s just being used for storage or something. In the back of the building, deep in the hill is a tunnel.”

  “A tunnel?” Ember echoed.

  Nancy nodded enthusiastically. “I think it’s a utility tunnel. Wires and pipes and enough room for workers to walk, if they stoop over maybe. Guess where the tunnel connects?”

  “Not to the pyramid?”

  “To the pyramid!” Nancy twirled, her figure floating a foot off the carpeted floor. “To all the buildings, in fact. All the buildings are connected through utility tunnels underground.”

  Ember excitedly relayed the ghost’s information to the living people in the room.

  “Oh.” Nancy stopped twirling. “There’s something that might be a problem. The entrances and exits to the tunnels are sealed off.”

  “What do you mean, ‘sealed off?’ How’re the tunnels sealed off?” Ember’s budding excitement crashed to a halt.

  “You know those doors in ships? Those heavy iron doors?”

  Ember frowned. “Right. What about them? So the tunnels have heavy iron doors. What, are they locked or something?”

  Nancy shook her head. “Not just. They’re welded shut.”

  “The doors are welded shut,” Ember repeated, as much for the Schmitts as for herself.

  Alarik exchanged a look with his younger brother. “We’d have to figure out a way to lug it all in, but we’ve got acetylene torches. We’ll cut our way in.”

  20

  Wowza Kapowza

  Jackie Roberts whistled. “Dang, I didn’t think you had it in you. Everybody knows you’re a maverick, but wowza kapowza. Are we really going to break into a prison? Not just a prison, but the prison?”

  “We are. Does this mean you’re in?”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…yup. I’ll cancel my Friday date. Maybe my Saturday night date, too. It’ll probably break some hearts, but that’ll just make them both chase after me more. You can count on me, boss.”

  Ember held up her fist. “I was hoping I could. If all goes to plan, you won’t even have to do anything much. But…if things don’t—”

  “If things get all pear-shaped, you’ll need to do some Memory Washes. I gotcha.” The Associate Investigator gingerly touched her knuckles to the other woman’s fist, careful not to involve her perfectly manicured nails in the show of solidarity.

  “Right.” Ember scanned the alleyway of the Parker Building through the Ranger’s windshield. “To that effect, I’m going to try recruiting two more.”

  “Nelson and Page?” The scarlet-maned woman scrunched her face as she said their names. “You think they’ll be safe to ask?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I do know that after this goes down, I won’t be around the embassy for a little while. Weeks. Maybe through Christmas. However long it takes to find Geoff and wake the High Council up to what the Viceroy and friends are up to. I’ve waited long enough to free Roseanne and Neal from Elton’s Deference Spell.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Jackie flipped the passenger side visor down so she could admire her freckled reflection in the embedded mirror. “About the Deputy Viceroy. I checked my contacts with each of the airports in the state, and a few in Minnesota and Montana, too. No sign of those African mercenaries you described. If they flew into North Dakota, it wasn’t at one of the airports.”

  “And no flying out, either?”

  “Not at any of the airports. They could have landed at a private airstrip.”

  Ember watched the woman fuss at her bangs. “Are there many of those around here?”

  “Enough, yup. Mostly owned by guys with crop dusters. A few counties have quasi-private strips, too. You could theoretically land a plane, get off, take care of your kidnapping business, then get back on and be outta there before the locals even realize an unfamiliar plane was parked overnight.”

  “Then that approach is hopeless. Assuming we succeed in breaking my friends out of prison, all we’ll be doing is getting them healed in time to be fugitives.”

  “Hey,” Jackie stopped fussing long enough to turn her upturned pixie nose at the other mage. “Even if all you’re able to do is get them healed, that still makes this worthwhile. I’ve visited suspects when they were held in the Safeguard Complex. I know how rotten it made me feel, having my magic taken from me. That was just for a couple of hours. I can’t imagine how tough it must be on them to have it stolen from them for nine dang years.”

  “You’re right, yeah. But it’s not justice until the corruption in our government has been dealt with.”

  “One battle at a time,” Jackie shrugged. “Think you’ll have enough people, with your changeling friends?”

  “I’ve never done anything like this before. But…assuming Roseanne and Neal join us, we should be hunky-dory. I hope.”

  “What about your friend Debra? Might be good to get someone who knows how to fight. I mean really fight. That chica’s got some moves.”

  “She’s also kind of by-the-book,” Ember said. “I’ll try talking to her before Friday. Get an Aura Shield on her, like I did for you. Chin wag, feel her out.”

  “As opposed to feeling her up?” Jackie purposefully bumped her elbow against Ember’s forearm as it rested on the center console. “You can’t tell me you’ve never thought about it. All that wrestling on the mat. Tight yoga pants. Halter tops. So much skin exposed. Heavy breathing. It must be nice to be bi. I might even envy you a little. Double the market.”

  Ember watched the scarlet-haired woman daydream aloud. She prepared to disabuse her of the fantasyland misconception when two coworkers walked by. “Oh. There they are. Excuse me.”

  She left her pickup and walked an intercept path. “Roseanne. Neal. I need a minute of your time.”

  “Haven’t punched in yet,” the spikey-haired woman grunted. “Not on the clock.”

  The pointy-chinned man with a triangular face frowned. “We don’t have timecards. Do we?”

  Jackie waved as she walked by. “Morning, Nelson, Page. Morning, Boss. See you upstairs at the meeting?”

  “Good morning.” Ember played along. “Right. See you at the staff meeting. I’ve just got to talk about some performance evals with your colleagues. We’ll be up shortly.”

  “It’s not end-of-year yet.” If a postnasal drip could be personified, it would look and sound exactly like Neal Page. “You’re only acting Director, besides.”

  Ember crossed her arms. The auras on the two Investigators were difficult to see beneath the thick, dark shadow of the surrounding Deference Spell. “Right. And just how long do you suppose Duncan’s going to be in hospital, anyway?”

  “We drove down to Bismarck and visited him,” Roseanne said. “He’s in rough shape. Doctors told Heywood he won’t be able to work until middle of next year, maybe.”

  “Your year-end bonuses and upcoming raises depend on your annual performance evaluations.” Ember pointed at herself. “I’ll give you a hint at who’s doing the evaluation.”

  “You,” Neal’s voice dripped.

  “Would you care to guess how you’re rating thus far, with six weeks to spare before year-end?”

  They grumbled.

  Ember tapped her toe as she watched them. I need them distracted. Just long enough.

  “You’ve only been working with us for half the year,” Roseanne said. “Yet your evaluation of us covers our whole year’s bonus?”

  “That’s not fair,” Neal added.

  “You’re right,” Ember said as the solution presented itself. “So, I’m giving you each an opportunity to summarize your accomplishments for the first half of the year. Woo me.”

  “Right now?” Neal asked. “It’s so cold out. Can we at least do this in the office?”

  “Now or never,” Ember said, tapping her toe.

  They chose now. They stumbled over one another to brag about the cases they solved and how punctual they had been.

  Ember half-listened. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, scanning a pair of mourning doves huddled on the Parker Building’s fire escape as they waited for the morning sun to greet them. Just birds. No changelings.

  Roseanne was extolling her clean driving record when Ember began the dance. Not a visible dance, but one visualized only in her head. She performed the movements of the counter spell, employing the modified technique she discovered two Tuesdays ago during the hostage situation. From her fingertips she cast twin lines of mana, the ends which formed barbed spearheads. Tarpaper tents hung over the two Investigators, punctured now by the spearheads.

  She drew the lines of mana taut, verifying the hooks were embedded. Like a fisherman reeling in her catch, she tugged and pulled the lines. The tarpaper broke away, tearing loose and uncoiling just as she expected it to.

  The shadowy Deference Spell struggled against her but Ember knew to keep the pressure steady, the pull unrelenting. When enough of the tarpaper had been uncoiled, the whole tent fell apart, unspooling and evaporating into the chilly morning atmosphere.

  Only then did she allow herself to breathe. She exhaled and blinked at the two Investigators standing before her.

  They wore expressions of confusion. The dark mar of the Deference Spell was absent, yet their auras were hues of grey and brown. Unhealthy auras. Ember quickly cast a pair of Aura Shields over them, willing the semitransparent silver energy envelope them in a protective coat.

  “What was I saying?” Roseanne looked like someone who had just awakened from a bout of narcolepsy. “Did…did you just do something to us?”

  She was troubled by the conflicting color of their auras. Ember caught her breath. “You were both under the effects of what’s called a Deference Spell. Elton Higginbotham’s the one who imposed this on you. He’s been using it to control you, for years I believe.”

  “That’s what that was?” Neal held his palms up like he was seeing them for the first time. “I feel…a little different.”

  “You’d be feeling a lot different, I should think,” Ember said. “He’s been using this spell on all the Investigators, to keep them under his thumb.”

 

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