Jim Butcher - Changes

“Yes, Dresden,” Martin said crisply. “I’d been doing this for sixty years before you were born.”

“Better drop the invisibility thing, Harry,” Susan said. “What we’re looking for might be on a computer, so . . .”

“So I’ll hold off on the magic until we know. Got it.”

We went deeper into the facility. The caves ran very deep back into the stone, and we’d gone down maybe a hundred yards after moving about four hundred yards forward on a spiraling ramp. The air grew colder, to the ambient underground average.

More than that, though, it gained a definite spiritual chill. Malevolent energy hovered around us, slow and thick like half- frozen honey. There was a gloating, miserly quality to it, bringing to my mind images of old Smaug lying in covetous slumber upon his bed of treasure. That, then, was the reason the Red Court had hidden its dark treasures here. Ambient energy like this wasn’t directly dangerous to anyone—but with only the mildest of efforts it would protect and preserve the magical implements jealously against the passing of time.

The ramp opened up into a larger area that reminded me of the interior corridors of a sports stadium. Three doors faced us. One was hanging slightly open, and read, QUARTERS. The other was shut and read, ADMINISTRATION.

The last, a large steel vault door, was labeled, STORAGE. A concrete loading dock with its edges painted in yellow and black caution stripes stretched before us, doubtless at just the right height to make use of the large transport van parked nearby.

Oh, and there were two guards standing in front of the vault door with some hostile-looking black shotguns.

Susan didn’t hesitate. She blurred forward with nearly supernatural speed, and one of the guards was down before he realized he was in a fight. The other had already spun toward me with his weapon and opened fire. In his rush to shoot, he hadn’t aimed. People make a big thing about shotguns hitting absolutely everything you point them at, but it ain’t so. It still takes considerable skill to use a shotgun well under pressure, and in his panic the guard didn’t have it. Pellets buzzed around me like angry wasps as I took three swift steps to my left and threw myself through the open barracks door, carrying me out of his line of fire.

From outside, there was a crack of something hard, maybe the butt of a gun hitting a skull, and Susan said, “Clear.”

I came out of the emptied barracks nonchalantly. The two guards lay unconscious at Susan’s feet. “God, I’m good,” I said.

Susan nodded, and tossed both guns away from the unconscious men. “Best distraction ever.”

I went to her and eyed the door. “How we getting through that?”

“We aren’t,” she said. She produced a small kit of locksmith tools and went to the administration door, ignoring the vault completely. “We don’t need their treasures. We just need the receipts.”

I’d learned a little bit about how to tickle a lock, but Susan had obviously learned more. Enough so that she took one look at the lock, pulled a lock gun from her kit, and went through it damned near as fast as if she’d had a key. She swung the door open and said, “Wait here. And don’t break anything.”

I put my hands behind my back and tried to look righteous. A smile lit her face, fast and fierce, and she vanished into the office.

I walked over to the barracks. My guns had been riding with the rest of my contraband when it got buried in Lea’s garden, and I didn’t like going unarmed on general principles. Magic is pretty damned cool when things get rowdy, but there are times when there’s no replacing a firearm. They are excellent, if specialized, tools.

Two seconds of looking around showed me a couple of possibilities, and I picked up a big semiautomatic and a couple of loaded clips. I tucked them into a pocket of the duster. Then I picked up the assault rifle from its rack and found that two spare magazines were being held in this socklike device that went over the rifle’s stock.

Rifles weren’t my forte, but I knew enough to check the chamber and see that no round was in it. I made sure the safety was on and slung the assault rifle over my shoulder on its nylon-weave strap. Then I went back over to administration and waited outside.

Susan was cursing in streaks of blue and purple and vermilion inside. She appeared a moment later and spat, “Nothing. Someone was here first. They erased everything related to the shipment less than three hours ago.”

“What about the paper copy?” I asked.

“Harry,” Susan said. “Have you ever heard of the paperless office?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s like Bigfoot. Someone says he knows someone who saw him, but you don’t ever actually see him yourself.” I paused. “Though I suppose I actually have seen Bigfoot, and he seems like a decent guy, but the metaphor still stands. Remember who owns this place. You think someone like the duchess is a computer whiz? Trust me. You get to be over a couple of hundred years old, you get copies of everything in triplicate.”

Susan arched an eyebrow and nodded. “Okay. Come on, then.”

We went in and ransacked the office. There were plenty of files, but we had the identification number of the shipment of magical artifacts (000937, if it matters), and it was possible to flick through them very rapidly. We came up all zeroes, again. Whoever had covered up the back trail had done it well.

“Dammit,” Susan said quietly. Her voice shook.

“Easy,” I said. “Easy. We aren’t out of options yet.”

“This was the only lead we had,” she said.

I touched her arm briefly and said, “Trust me.”

She smiled at me a little. I could see the strain in her eyes.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here before the cavalry arrives. Oh, here.” I passed her the assault rifle.

“That’s thoughtful of you,” she said, smiling more widely. Her hands went over the weapon, checking the chamber as I had, only a lot more smoothly and quickly. “I didn’t get you anything.”

I turned and eyed the moving van, then went back to its cargo doors. “Here. Open this door for me?”

She got out her tools and did it in less time than it took to say it.

There were several long boxes in the van, standing vertically, and I realized after a moment that they were garment boxes. I opened one up and . . .

And found a long, mantled cloak made from some kind of white and green feathers, hanging from a little crossbar in the top of the garment box. It was heavy, easily weighing more than fifty pounds. I found a stick studded with chips of razor-sharp obsidian in there, too, its handle carved with pictographs. I couldn’t read this particular form of writing very well, but I recognized it—and recognized that it was no ancient artifact, either. It had been carved in the past few decades.

“This is Mayan ceremonial costume,” I murmured, frowning. “Why is it loaded up on the next truck out . . . ?”

The answer jumped at me. I turned to Susan and we traded a look that conveyed her comprehension as well. She went to the front of the van and popped it open. She started grabbing things, shoving them into a nylon gym bag that she had apparently found in the truck.

“What did you get?” I asked.

“Later, no time,” she said.

We hurried back up the ramp to Martin.

The big door looked like it was having a tug-of-war with itself. It would shudder and groan and try to rise, and then Martin would do something with a pair of wires in the dismantled control panel and it would slam down again. I saw guards trying to stick their guns beneath the door for a quick shot, but they wound up being driven back by Martin’s silenced pistol.