“You either have a good sense of humor or are too stupid to realize what kind of trouble you’re in,” Armstrong said.
“I have a finely developed sense of humor, thank you for noticing. Now, are you two ready to explain yourselves?”
Armstrong stepped forward, but the mage shot out a hand and grabbed her arm. “You can’t enter the circle.”
Armstrong jerked her arm free and glared at me. “I’m not stupid. I saw how well your circle works.”
“What’s the matter, Jennifer? Will your boss not let you play?”
“What? How do you know my name?” Armstrong snapped.
“I told you that your survivor would have told him anything he wanted to know,” the mage said. “Stop thinking of him as a kid.”
“Oh, yes. Abrams didn’t mention that she gave you my name. I’m Jennifer to my friends; to self-important wizards, I am Ms. Armstrong.”
“Sorry about that, Jennifer. Now, if you will just tell me your demands, I can see what I can do about negotiating my friends’ release.”
Armstrong coughed as if she had something caught in her throat. “Demands? I don’t have any demands for you. As for your friends, well, they’ll be released unharmed, in time.”
I felt the metal of the handcuffs shrink beneath my thumb and finger. It wasn’t much, but the spell was beginning to work. Now if I could just keep these women talking.
“No demands? Then which one of you very lovely ladies came up with the idea to ambush me and then kidnap my friends?”
“That would be me,” the mage said.
“Oh? So, are you working for Rowle or do you have some agenda of your own?” I asked.
The woman smiled. “See, he knew right away that Rowle was behind this. I told you he was smarter than he looked.”
“But what could persuade you to send a bunch of mundanes out after me? You had to know that would be a waste of time and resources,” I said.
“It got you here didn’t it?” Armstrong said.
“No, I wouldn’t have come here if you hadn’t taken two of my friends and threatened them. Your little ambush was just a waste of manpower. I don’t like waste, especially when it leads to me killing people that didn’t know any better.”
I could feel the skin of my thumb and finger beginning to touch. In a couple more minutes, the steel would split, and I’d have my hands free. There was still the circle to worry about, but first things first.
“So,” I said since the women didn’t seem to be able to keep a conversation going. “You’re the bad guys this week. Do you want to start monologuing now or do you have some insidious threats to spout first?”
“We are hardly the bad guys. You’re the one who’s trying to prevent Rowle from stopping Ragnarök,” the mage said.
I gave her my best winning gaze and said, “And you bought that? What else did Rowle the Saint claim?”
“He didn’t claim anything. He merely stated that a rogue Wanderer was trying to bring about Ragnarök and that he needed my help to stop you. For what it’s worth, I don’t see the problem. Regardless of what Rowle claims of your capabilities, I haven’t seen anything to convince me that you’re the threat he makes out.”
“Look, lady, you can protest all you want for Jennifer’s benefit, but between you, me, and the fencepost we know that Rowle is the renegade. If lying about his motives is what it took to get this mercenary to work for you, fine, I'm not judgy about it. I just want to get straight who the kidnapper is and whether we can negotiate a truce or if we are going to do this the hard way.”
Armstrong started laughing. It was a mirthless laugh. I waited patiently for her to finish. After all, I needed a little more time to finish the handcuffs.
“Go ahead and tell him, Doctor Frazier,” Armstrong said.
“Doctor is it? Medical or one of those people that just like to be called doctor?” I said.
Frazier frowned and straightened her frame to give her a slightly elevated stance. It was cute. She was insulted.
“My degree is in philosophy. I am a doctor of letters, and I earned the right to be called doctor,” she puffed.
“Don’t feel insulted,” I said. “Plenty of people like being called doctor. Now, doc, what’s the price for letting my friends and me go?”
“There is no price. We’re just holding you until the window passes,” Frazier said.
“Window?” I wondered.
“Doctor Frazier tells me that after noon tomorrow your time window for opening this portal to start Ragnarök will have passed and you’ll no longer be a threat. Doctor Frazier wants to turn you over to the cops for killing my employees.”
“Oh? How civilized of her. And how about you, Jennifer, what do you want?” I asked.
“I want to take you for a one-way copter ride over the Grand Canyon just to see if I can hit the river from a mile up. And stop calling me Jennifer!” Armstrong snarled.
I heard a thud above me and all three of us looked up at the ceiling.
“You two expecting company?” I asked.
There came the sounds of scraping, shattering, and then debris began to rain down on the room. Inside the circle, I was protected, but the two women backed hurriedly out of the room while Frazier began a spell to shield them from harm.
The fluorescent lights flickered and died and then two of the four fixtures dropped from the ceiling, shattering their tubes, and adding broken glass to the debris already covering the floor. A hole appeared in the ceiling above me and in the remaining light, I could see a claw the size of my head pull back from the opening.
A moment later, Tess’s face appeared in the opening. She took a quick look around the room and then dropped through the hole. Her feet hit the circle’s perimeter about two feet above my head, and she slid off to land feet first
