Game of Cages

be long gone by then.

I climbed down to the floor. The low dresser I’d been crouching on had a white cloth draped over it. Each window was about ten feet from the next one, and by their faint rectangles I could see the shape of the room. It was obviously the size of the house above, but the weird silhouettes and broken shadows showed me it was full of clutter.

My eyes were not accustomed to the darkness, so I moved slowly, my hands guiding me around chair legs, discarded bicycles, and other junk I couldn’t identify by touch alone.

At first I intended to go to the front of the building to steal a car, but I heard shouting from the back of the house and moved toward it.

The window closest to the back entrance was blocked by a tangle of what appeared to be broken garden equipment, but the next one over had two steamer trunks stacked beneath it, along with a pile of lacy dresses. I climbed onto them, probably ruining them with my muddy clothes, and peeked out the window.

There were shoes just a few feet from me. One pair were green Chuck Taylors, soaked through by the mud. Beside those was a pair of hiking boots fresh from the sporting goods store. The third pair was the professor’s fur- trimmed leather boots. The man in the Chucks fidgeted back and forth but let himself be hemmed in by the other two. It was Kripke. It had to be.

Beyond them, I saw the two Mustaches marching across the open meadow toward the ATV. A third man was with them. He had a lean, hollow look and was dressed completely in cold-weather bicycling gear. He was another Fellow, I was sure. No one else would dress so badly.

I couldn’t hear them. I slowly, quietly unlatched the window and eased it open.

“He had a gun,” Ursula said. “He threatened to shoot me if I didn’t tell him everything I knew about Armand.” Just as she finished the sentence, she came into view, walking across the grass with Stephanie beside her, followed by the tattooed man and a frail-looking blond man I hadn’t seen before. They walked toward the professor.

“Have you ever seen this man before?” Frail asked. He had a German accent, and his voice was high. Ursula shook her head. “Think carefully. You may have seen him in town or while running errands. Could he be a local?”

“No, he—” Ursula began, but Stephanie interrupted.

“Where are the goddamn guards? I hired a security team to protect the grounds. Where are they?”

“Ms. Wilbur,” Solorov said. “Shut up. We have questions to ask.”

“Don’t you tell me to shut up! I paid them. Now I find that they all ran home to their mommies! I’m going to sue them for so much money—”

“Shut up, Ms. Wilbur, or I will have you shot,” Solorov said. Stephanie gaped at her.

I heard an old man’s wheezing laughter. They stopped and glanced back as he shambled into view. He wore a bulky black coat and a black fur cap with the earflaps down, and he leaned on a gnarled black cane that had been heavily carved. A pair of black bird-watching binoculars hung around his neck. Frail rushed to him and gently took a black leather satchel from his hand.

I realized I was staring, just as the others were. There was something arresting about him, although he appeared completely ordinary in every way.

Frail walked beside the old man as though he was ready to catch him, but he continued his questioning. “Please, explain why you are so sure he is not a local.”

“It was the way he spoke,” Ursula said. Her tone was flat. “Some things he said. He said Mr. Yin didn’t have Armand anymore. He said that Armand had escaped.”

“That’s a lie,” Stephanie blurted out, apparently forgetting the professor’s threat. “I just spoke with Mr. Yin ten minutes ago, and they are en route without incident. He must have been trying to trick you.” The contempt she held for Ursula was clear.

“What did he look like?” Frail asked.

“He was a little over six feet tall. Slender and handsome with a knife scar on his cheek. He was wearing a stolen servant’s uniform. And he had tattoos on the backs of his hands.”

The old man spoke up, his voice raw and low. “What sort of tattoos?”

“Like his.” Ursula pointed at Tattoo.

They fell silent.

“What?” Stephanie asked. “What does that mean?”

The old man turned toward Frail and spoke in a soft grumble of German. Frail rushed away on an errand, then exchanged a meaningful look with Tattoo. “Professor Solorov,” the old man called. “Bring your people back to the house, please. This is something I will have to take care of, I think.”

I heard a cellphone being dialed. “Come back to the house” was all she said. I heard the phone snap shut.

Then I heard her say in a low voice: “Tell me why those tattoos might be important.”

The voice that answered was Kripke’s. “I thought you people knew—”

“I do know, Mr. Kripke. Now you have to impress me with what you know.”

“Well, the tattoos are spells. The part that shows, anyway. Most are probably protection spells.”

“So far you haven’t impressed me.”

“For instance,” Kripke continued, emphasizing the words to show his annoyance at being interrupted. “That one there, on the German muscle’s forehead, that’s the guiding hand. It’s supposed to make others feel something, depending on the little variations. A really common version makes people attracted to you. Sexually, I mean. His is a little different, but judging by how I feel every time I look at him, I suspect it’s supposed to intimidate people.”