“I can be very intimidating,” she mumbled. “And he’ll end up regretting it.”
“You do realize you can’t pull a gun on your department head?”
“I can be very intimidating without a gun.”
“You can’t pull a knife either. Or break his arm.”
Shay rolled her eyes. “I can handle it without violence.” She frowned. “Pretty sure I can, at least.” After a second she added, “We might need to pull the camera footage if I find a body in there.”
“Then don’t make a body.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying I’ll kill him, just that somebody else might.”
“Okay, I’ll pull an all-nighter if necessary,” Peyton responded. “Though I’m awesome, so it won’t take that long.”
The elevator dinged, and the doors started sliding open. Shay reflexively rolled to the side and flattened herself against the wall.
No gunshots. No ice spears. No grenades. It was a good start to not dying.
Shay jogged toward Dr. Weber’s office. Other than the slight spookiness of a darkened hallway, there was nothing threatening.
She arrived at the office door and knocked. “Dr. Weber?”
No response.
She knocked louder. Again, no response.
Shay gripped her pistol and twisted the knob with her other hand.
The tomb raider threw open the door and stormed into the office, her gun out.
“What the hell?”
“What are you seeing?” Peyton asked.
Shay shook her head. Papers littered the office. His chairs were overturned, books all over the ground. Her stomach knotted at the sight of several older books with torn pages. His drawers had been pulled out, and their contents spilled all over. Even the computer was on its side.
That’s not how you hack, dumbasses.
“Someone ransacked his office. They were obviously looking for something.”
A large locked cupboard stood in the back. Several dents around the handle of the keyed lock suggested someone had been trying to open it.
“There’s a locked cupboard in here. Wonder why they didn’t open that? Maybe something spooked them, and they had to run. Maybe a security guard or a janitor.”
Something rattled inside the stray piece of furniture.
Shay pulled out her gun. “Or maybe they did get inside.”
“You see something?”
“I hear something,” she whispered. She approached the cupboard and reached into her pocket to pull out a paperclip. Anyone else would have thought it was a random office supply, not realizing it was a gnome-crafted magical lockpick.
Does this count as evil purposes, Tubal-Cain? I’m trying to save my department head here.
Shay unfolded and slipped the lockpick into the lock. “Open through will, open through heart, open through belief.”
The door clicked open. She folded the lockpick up and put it back into her pocket. She raised her gun, took several deep breaths, and threw open the cupboard.
“Please,” cried Dr. Weber. “I have a family.” He cowered inside, hunched over. His arms were wrapped around him.
Shay blinked and stepped away. “You’re in a cupboard.” Her gaze dropped to her gun, and she slammed it back in her holster.
“Professor Carson?” The academic swallowed. “Why do you have a gun?”
“What the hell is going on?” Peyton all but shouted in her ear. “Who are you talking to?”
“I’m a woman, and it’s LA at night, Dr. Weber.”
She hoped Peyton would take the hint and shut up now that she’d used her department head’s name.
“Oh, good point.” Dr. Weber shook his head. “I shouldn’t have sent that message. I’m sorry. I panicked, and I didn’t even think about how risky it might have been for you.”
Shay held out her hand and helped him out of the cupboard. “Well, I’m here now, and nobody else is, although they obviously were.”
Dr. Weber took a moment to stretch before letting out a long sigh. “I should have just called the police. I was fortunate that those ruffians didn’t find me. I don’t know why they left. They were speaking Spanish, and of the four languages I speak, Spanish isn’t one of them.”
“Okay, slow down a second. What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know. I was approached this morning by some ruffians in the parking lot. Gang members, I’m sure of it, with bandanas. They had skull tattoos on their faces. How distasteful. I assumed they were there to mug me, but they didn’t ask for my wallet.”
Shay nodded. “What did they ask for?”
“They wanted to verify that I was, well, me. Even claimed they had an interest in revised archaeology and history. They mentioned several papers I’d worked on, ones that are…no longer available, but they kept mispronouncing the site and artifact names. One man even mispronounced the word archaeology several times. Needless to say, I suspected something strange was going on. I managed to talk my way out of it, and I also suspect they didn’t want to make a ruckus in broad daylight.” He nodded to himself as if satisfied with his summary.
“Skull tattoos and bandanas?” Shay frowned. “That sounds a lot like the Demon Generals.”
“What a distasteful name.”
Shay snorted. “That’s kind of the idea. They’re a street gang in LA, decent-sized but not the kind of scum who might be interested in artifacts or history. At least not normally.” She shook her head. “How the hell did you end up in a cupboard?”
“When I was heading to my car this evening, I spotted them loitering in the parking lot.” Dr. Weber sighed. “I fled back to my office.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
His cheeks reddened. “I dropped my phone when I was running back toward the building. It was right after I sent you the text.”
Shay shook her head. “Why would you send me a text?”
She stared at him, wondering if he somehow knew about her true day job.
“One of the men mentioned the Anzick site. He mispronounced it, of course, but it was clear what he was interested in.” He held up a hand. “Again, I apologize. It was wrong of me to get you involved.”
“Well, I’m involved now, and something’s really weird about this.” Shay crossed her
