Justice, page 16
The crew made its way up the curving, slanted path. M tried her best to be as quiet as possible, but Vivian and Merlyn weren’t the stealthiest sneaks in the world. Their footsteps were irregular and, worse, shuffling. Vivian had an excuse with her injured knee, but Merlyn should have known better.
‘Keep it quiet, everyone,’ warned M. ‘Your insanely loud walking could give us away.’
Scouring the walls, she searched for anything that looked out of place. With her mask, the older stones were easy to pick out from the touched-up areas. They had a darker, heavier look to them, not to mention that they were obviously fashioned with more ancient tools, giving them a more distressed shape. Still, nothing screamed supersecret hiding place, so she moved on.
‘I don’t hear anyone above us,’ whispered Keyshawn.
‘Are we walking into a trap?’ asked Vivian.
‘More or less,’ said M. ‘They know we’re here. Must have heard Mr and Mrs Bigfoot. They’re waiting for us to find the box so they can steal it from us.’
‘That sounds like bad news,’ said Merlyn.
‘Not at all,’ answered M. ‘It means they don’t know the box’s location any more than we do. Otherwise they’d grab it and go, rather than risk a confrontation. Jules and Devon will flush them out soon enough. Let’s keep looking for this whatever-it-is.’
M continued on and came across a closed door partway up the path. Slowly she opened it – and found twelve mysterious figures lurking in the dark. With an audible gasp she leapt back and nearly flipped over the railing before Merlyn caught her.
‘It’s okay!’ said Keyshawn from behind her. ‘They’re not thugs. You just found the apostle statues. Look.’
M peered into the room and saw that he was right. The statues were busts of the twelve apostles, expertly crafted with a halo above each of their sculpted wooden heads.
‘What are they doing here?’ she asked.
‘They’re part of the clockwork,’ said Keyshawn. ‘Part of the show. Every hour on the hour, a gear turns, presenting each apostle out of the two closed windows there, above the clock.’
‘This place is too weird,’ replied M.
Vivian peeked in and examined the room. ‘No box in here. Let’s keep looking.’
Again they climbed the walkway, higher and higher, but there was nothing that stood out among the centuries-old architecture. M turned to Vivian and shrugged as if to ask, Where to now?
‘Get down!’ Jules’s voice rang out both in the open room and over everyone’s comm link. A sonic blast pulsed through the door at the top of the walkway and sent a flailing body careening down the clock tower shaft. M ran to the edge in time to see the figure’s face. It was Rex Sykes, the muscle-bound Master from her Lawless past, and he shot her a chilling smile as he hurtled toward the ground. Before she could react, he released a powerful flare that lit up the tower shaft. The bright light sent her mask sensors into hypermode, leaving her temporarily blind.
M ripped off her mask and blinked rapidly until her normal sight started to return. She looked back down to find Rex, but he was gone. She looked up just in time to see another blast from her past leap lithely onto the skeletal framework of the elevator and drop down into the shadows. It was Angel Villon, another Lawless Master. Devon and Jules were in pursuit, scaling the frame in his wake.
‘Cal! Ben!’ M hollered. ‘We need you now!’
She heard the door burst open below, followed by the unmistakable sounds of fighting. The scuffling, grunts, and groans echoed off the old stone walls, and Vivian and Keyshawn ran down the path to join in the battle. M moved in the opposite direction, up the walkway to the highest point, where she rushed through the door and was met by the sight of Prague expanding for miles all around her. She had to take this opportunity to find what they’d come for. Behind her, she heard a shuffling footfall.
‘Merlyn, please tell me that’s you,’ said M, but she turned around to see none other than Adam Worth, leader of the Masters, gripping Merlyn in a sleeper hold.
‘Here’s Merlyn,’ he said as he held her friend’s unconscious body against him like a shield. ‘You look good in black, M. I could do without the mask, though.’
‘But you went to jail,’ said M.
‘Yeah, I did,’ confirmed Adam. ‘It wasn’t for me. I need the open air; that’s where I thrive, and quite frankly, German jail cells, well, they’re just too stifling, you know?’
‘What do you want?’
‘Whatever it is you came here to find,’ said Adam. With a furious lunge, he tossed Merlyn aside and grabbed M, forcing her through a window. Her legs dangled in the open air. ‘Now be a good traitor and tell me where it is.’
M twisted and squirmed to escape his grip, but when Adam eased his hold on her, she realized that he was the only thing keeping her from falling to the empty town square far below. She craned her neck to see if there was an awning to possibly catch her below, but the drop was sheer and unrelenting.
In the rush of fear, though, M also saw the clue they’d been looking for.
Embedded in the sidewalk below was a replica of the clock-face calendar from the tower. It was large, but unmarked with artwork: a series of empty circles within a circle. At ground level it was a flourish that people would almost never notice because they were too busy gazing up at the clock, but from up here, the design looked like the bull’s-eye of a hidden target.
‘It’s not here,’ M lied. ‘My mom got to it first.’
‘Interesting,’ said Adam with a sneer. ‘Then it looks like our business transaction is over.’
Callously and casually, Adam dropped M, sending her tumbling through the night … but that’s exactly what she had wanted. With her Magblast, she shot the ground beneath her, hitting the calendar-replica stonework squarely and cracking the sidewalk, while also bouncing her into the air like a pogo stick. The speed of her fall negated, M bounded back onto the street unharmed.
Looking back up, she gave Adam a small wave and ran to the newly demolished cobblestones. The center circle was crushed into chunks, and from under those chunks M pulled out a smooth wooden box about as big as, well, the Takeaway Rembrandt. The weight felt oddly familiar in her hands. So did her urgency to escape.
From the top of the tower, Adam screamed with frustration and quickly rappelled down the side of the clock. M pulled on her mask and took off toward where the Fulbright van had been, shouting, ‘Target acquired; mission accomplished. Now let’s all get out of here! And someone grab Merlyn – he’s at the top of the tower.’
‘M, where are you?’ called out Keyshawn.
‘I’m almost at the van …’ answered M, but when she reached the rendezvous, the van was nowhere to be found. ‘Guys, we’ve been cut loose!’
‘Well, what did you expect?’ said Adam, panting from the run as he came up behind her. ‘The cavalry?’
M bolted in the opposite direction, deeper into the winding streets of the old city. Around a corner, she ducked into a shadowed alley and hid while Adam hurried past her. Retracing her steps, she stumbled upon a parked moped. Bingo, she thought as she jumped on, hot-wired the ride, and zipped back toward the clock to meet the others.
But trouble wasn’t far behind her: Adam had doubled back. He lunged at the moped and grabbed hold of M’s suit. She swerved violently, trying to throw the hitchhiker off, but he held tight. The box remained clutched in her right hand, pressed against her chest, but that left only one hand for her to steer with. She tried directing the moped back to the old city, but Adam had other plans. With his free hand he jerked the handlebars to the side and sent the two of them careening off in another direction.
‘Heading away from you!’ M calmly explained over the comm link, but there was only static in return. Adam must have disconnected her suit somehow.
As they bounced over the uneven cobblestones, M felt him clawing at her fingers, trying to strip the box away from her. She threw her head back, connecting with Adam’s nose. The blow stunned him and he almost let go of her but recovered, redoubling his grasp.
‘Come on!’ he screamed. ‘Not cool, M! Not cool!’
Ignoring him, she focused on keeping the moped upright as they raced through the narrow, weaving streets until suddenly the city fell away and they found themselves streaking across a bridge. Gas lamps lined the barrier walls, casting a soft glow in the night that highlighted dark sculptures standing watch over the bridge like gargoyles. One by one the statues flew by as M and Adam raced over the bumpy, cobbled causeway, and M had an idea. It wasn’t a good idea, but it was all she had.
She hit the brakes and turned the moped into a power slide. Violent sparks screeched in the darkness as the metal of the vehicle scraped against the cobblestone street. Adam was flung to the side and struck the bridge’s wall solidly. M jumped clear of the bike and rolled over and over and over, crunched between the cold, hard ground and the mysterious box, which she kept tucked against her. Even when she’d come to a stop, the world spun viciously, pushing her back down to the ground when she tried to stand up. She could see Adam rise up slowly, shaking his head as he walked toward her.
‘You never did play fair, did you?’ he asked. ‘I mean, that’s what I liked most about you, but it’s a tough pill to swallow when you’re not on my team. Now give me the box.’
But as Adam reached down, a hand clutched his shoulder from behind and whipped him around. A ferocious crack echoed across the silent city and Adam collapsed to his knees and then slouched backward onto the ground.
‘Maybe you didn’t hear what I told you back in Hamburg,’ snapped Cal as he stood over the unconscious criminal. ‘Remember? If you mess with my friends again, I’ll personally knock your block off.’
CHAPTER 16
REGROUP
A bare bulb dusted off the darkness in the room, casting a grayish light on walls covered in graffiti. Adam Worth, Angel Villon, and Rex Sykes sat blank faced and bruised in the corner while Vivian stood guard. Outside of the impromptu prison cell, on the field of Strahov Stadium, Jules and M were nursing Merlyn back to health, insisting that he drink more water and eat some of the service food from the plane. They had less than an hour until sunrise, and even though the discarded Olympic stadium was a great overnight hiding place for the jet, the amount of ‘art’ on the walls was a virtual guarantee that this place was a haven for hooligans. And hooligans meant an unwanted audience.
Ben and Devon had stepped aside to report the night’s events back to base. They were tucked away behind bars in a room that must have been a concession stand at one time. It was some distance away from the janitor’s closet, where they were holding the Masters captive, but M still tried to interpret Ben’s and Devon’s body language. Their arms would swing and their shoulders would shift up and down as they made eye contact with each other and then shook their heads as if they couldn’t believe the message coming from the other side of the line. Then they paced back and forth like lions in a cage.
‘You’re lucky you didn’t break this thing,’ said Keyshawn as he wrapped Cal’s right hand in a bandage. ‘You sure you hit his face and not a brick wall?’
‘Oh, I hit what I promised to hit,’ said Cal with a tired smile.
‘What do you think they’re talking about?’ asked M as she shifted her attention over to Keyshawn and Cal. ‘All that talking they’re doing with their bodies doesn’t make it seem like a happy conversation. You’d think we didn’t find the box and catch the bad guys.’
‘We achieved our primary objective, true, but it wasn’t a total victory,’ argued Keyshawn. ‘Our handlers are missing, your mother is still on the loose, and Lawless has agents back in the field and after whatever is in that box.’
He nodded over to the box, which sat on the dirty ground beside them. They hadn’t opened it. In fact, they had been given strict orders not to. The assignment had been to retrieve the box, retrieve M’s mother, and return to the academy. The Masters were never part of the plan. The Masters weren’t even supposed to be operating any longer. M had a bad feeling that Keyshawn was right: the return of the Masters almost certainly meant the Lawless School was still intact and back in the game.
‘We should open it,’ said Cal.
‘Negative,’ said Keyshawn. ‘That would deviate from protocol. Now stop thinking with your muscles, Cal. You may not believe it, but you’re smarter than that.’
Cal unfixed his gaze on the box and flicked his eyes back at Keyshawn and M. It was true; he had a habit of acting on pure instinct, but Cal was very smart indeed. He always seemed to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Catching M on the top of the climbing course, Magblasting Ben when he least expected it, pummeling Adam Worth … it didn’t seem like the pure luck of someone running on instinct alone.
‘You’re right,’ Cal agreed calmly. ‘It’s the adrenaline talking.’
Keyshawn nodded. ‘Good to hear you come to your senses. Now we wait to see if our handlers have reported back in.’
‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ added M. ‘From what I’ve seen of your father, he can handle himself.’
Cal gave her a half smile and let his shoulders relax. ‘Thanks.’
As M put her hand on his arm, Jules helped Merlyn up. He stood solidly but when he walked, he wobbled slightly, like a baby horse. Still, he looked better now than when Adam had jumped him back at the clock. Quietly M realized that this was her new family, flaws and all. Sure, Cal was acting cagey about the mysterious box and Merlyn was trying to put his head back on straight, but she was oddly happy to be on an adventure with them again.
The five of them waited silently as the late February air whistled through the empty bleachers above them. Finally Ben and Devon rejoined the group, bringing with them an aura of heavy seriousness that sizzled in the Eastern European predawn.
‘Change of plans,’ said Ben. ‘The handlers are gone.’
‘Tell us something we don’t know,’ said Merlyn, speaking with newfound confidence and hard-earned annoyance.
‘We walked into a trap,’ admitted Devon. ‘While we tussled with your old pals, another party intercepted and detained Mr Fence, the driver, and the pilot. The academy hadn’t heard a peep from anyone until we broke radio silence.’
‘So what’s the next move?’ asked Jules. ‘Take these jokers back to base?’
‘No,’ said Ben. ‘Time is of the essence. Whatever intel we got from M’s mother, the Masters had it, too.’
‘That’s impossible,’ said Cal. ‘You guys had her under lock and key. There’s no way that information could have gotten to Lawless.’
‘Unless,’ continued Keyshawn, ‘there’s a leak in the academy.’
‘Okay, listen up,’ Ben interrupted, obviously wanting to keep Keyshawn’s words from sinking in, but it was too late. An idea, once said, can become a powerful thing. ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions. I’m not in the bloody mood, nor do we have time to hear conspiracy theories, so let’s focus on the facts. We have a box. We have the Masters. The Masters want the box, therefore this box is important. Now, as for our handlers, another Fulbright team is working diligently to find them. Our job is to keep this mission alive. We need to interrogate the Masters and find out what they know.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said M.
‘Not sure that’s the best approach,’ Ben said immediately. ‘Given your, ahem, history with them.’
‘That’s the point,’ said M. ‘That’s what gives me the upper hand. But I’ll need Devon in there, too.’
‘Me?’ asked Devon, shocked. ‘I’m the last person they want to confess anything to.’
‘She did dismantle everything they believed in,’ said Jules.
‘Exactly,’ said M. ‘Let’s ramp up their emotions, play off their anger and egos. That’s how we get them to talk.’
‘How do you know we can trust what they say?’ asked Merlyn.
‘We won’t,’ admitted M. ‘At least not at first. Not until they slip up. And I know I can get them to slip up. Then we grab that little bit of truth and squeeze it.’
‘Careful, Freeman,’ Ben laughed. ‘You’re starting to sound like a Fulbright.’
Ignoring his comment, she turned to Devon. ‘Shall we get to the interrogation?’
As the girls joined Vivian inside the small room, the Masters couldn’t hide their surprise at seeing M and Devon together. Rex sneered and rattled in his seat, while Angel and Adam patiently waited for M to make the first move.
‘I see you remember my new bestie, Devon Zoso,’ said M, hoping to capitalize on the Masters’ disarmed shock.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Devon with a wave. ‘Always a pleasure to meet fellow Lawless family.’
But Adam wasn’t ready to give them the upper hand yet. ‘Give us the box and we’ll let you live,’ he said, though his threat was undercut by a quick gasp brought on by the obvious pain in his jaw. It was swollen, probably even broken, from the disjointed look of it.
‘You’re not in any position to make demands or threats,’ said Devon as she pulled up a chair and sat across from the three prisoners. Her voice sent waves of rage through the Masters; they visibly shook with anger at hearing it. ‘But I’d like to talk about the box. Why do you want it?’
‘Don’t know and don’t care,’ barked Rex.
‘But you don’t want us to have it,’ concluded M. ‘Which means you’re working for someone else. Since when do the Masters work for anyone else? I don’t know, Devonator; have you ever heard of that?’
‘It’s not their standard MO,’ answered Devon with a smile. ‘Masters are sworn to work within but without the Lawless School. It’s an independent study group for scoundrels.’ She tapped a finger against her chin. ‘But now that I think about it, the Masters have danced to someone else’s tune once before …’
‘Oh, that’s right,’ said M with mock surprise. ‘That was in Hamburg with Ms Watts, wasn’t it? Well, you should know how this ends, then. I would think you’d be smarter than to go on another wild goose chase for her.’
