“I didn’t say that,” Hagar said. “But this is why we brought you in, Jace. The spirit guardians who watch over this place use supernatural senses to find intruders. You shouldn’t have any trouble slipping by them with that veil around your core.”
“If I get killed,” I said to Hagar, “I’ll haunt you forever.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Get moving. You only have a window of twenty minutes or so before the human security guard makes the rounds. You need to be gone before then. Your target’s on the eleventh floor, unit one one one five. This will be a piece of cake for you, Jace.”
“Wish me luck.” I hoped Hagar was right.
I stepped through the portal and across a few thousand miles. An illuminated billboard written in Spanish glowed from the sky on the left end of the alley I’d landed in. Puddles in the street reflected the advertisement’s brilliant light. The opposite street was darker, lit only by the sullen red glow of traffic lights I couldn’t see from my position.
Wherever I’d landed, it was darker than it had been back at the School. That told me I’d traveled east, but that wasn’t much use to me. I stood still for a few seconds, fully expecting someone to show up and ask me what I was doing in the alley.
The portal vanished with a faint pop.
It was time to move.
There was, indeed, a rickety fire escape near the end of the alley. Its rusted bars glowed purple and pink in the neon lights from businesses across the street, and I hoped no one would see me as I scrambled up its lowered ladder. My hands picked up dirt and grime from the rungs, and I wished I’d thought to bring some gloves. I’d have to be very careful not to leave fingerprints behind once I was inside. My core was veiled, but the rest of me wasn’t.
The fire escape rattled and banged against the side of the building as I hurried around and around the flights of metal stairs leading from floor to floor. I hunched my shoulders and tried to quiet my steps, to no avail. I expected someone to stick their head out through one of the windows I’d passed and yell at me to knock it off or get lost, but it never happened. Maybe Hagar had planned this thing right after all.
I peered through the window on the eleventh floor. The dirty glass and reflection of neon lights from surrounding businesses made it hard to see much. I could just make out an empty hallway on the other side of the glass. It was now or never.
The window was locked, which was just my luck. I looked down at the sidewalk and didn’t see any passersby. Hopefully it was late enough no one would hear what came next.
I grabbed my right fist in my left hand, turned my back to the window, and slammed my right elbow through the glass.
It shattered, and chunks of square safety glass bounced away in every direction. The glittering greenish cubes cascaded down the fire escape like balls in a pachinko machine. Their echoes rattled through the alleyway for what felt like half an hour. I froze, sure that someone had to have heard that and would come investigate. I took a deep breath, then another. No one came.
The window had broken cleanly from its frame, and I stepped over the wooden sill into the hallway. The carpet in the narrow passage was old and rubbed through to bare concrete in places. The dropped ceiling was splotched with brown water stains, and the paint on the walls had peeled like old scabs to reveal patches of rotting drywall. The stink of mildew filled my nostrils, and I fought it by taking slow, shallow breaths through my mouth.
It only took me a few minutes to find the right unit. The heavy door that barred my way was held in place by a thick padlock. The numbers on its dial had been almost worn away by years of twisting and turning. Despite its obvious age, the lock’s U-shaped hasp still looked sturdy and unmarked by rust or wear.
I gave it an experimental jerk. The lock scarcely rattled, much less opened.
“Okay,” I said, “I guess we do this the hard way.”
Like every building in every city, the storage facility was teeming with rats in its hidden spaces. It took no effort at all for me to forge connections to dozens of the hardy little creatures. I cycled my breathing and pulled their beast aspects into my aura, where I could put them to use.
Individually, the rats weren’t terribly strong. Combined, though, and properly focused, the strength I had taken from them was more than enough to do the job at hand. My serpents flowed out of my core and hovered above my shoulders like hooded cobras. My thoughts refined their shapes, narrowing their tips until they were flattened wedges less than half an inch across.
I pushed the heads of my serpents into the half-circle opening formed by the hasp. I closed my eyes, concentrated, and used them like a pair of crowbars. It wasn’t subtle, and I hope Hagar wouldn’t be angry with me for leaving a trace of my presence. On the other hand, she hadn’t given me the lock’s combination, and I didn’t have time to figure it out by trial and error. The heretics would just have to know someone had rifled through their stuff.
The metal groaned, and the serpents pushed against one another and the metal in a frenzy of activity. Beads of sweat dotted my forehead, and the effort left my aura feeling bruised and battered. Finally, when I felt as if I couldn’t push any harder, the latch on the door gave way with a terrific squeal and the broken lock fell to the floor.
“Okay, then.” I slipped inside the door and pulled it closed behind me. “Let’s see what
