12

Connor and I stepped into the spacious waiting area of a normal-looking office space. The furniture in the main reception area was sleek, silver, and modern. The walls were covered almost completely by inspirational posters showing kittens clinging to tree branches begging the workers toHANG ON, BABY! Other posters thanked God it was Friday. Motivational quotes were written across posters of dazzling sunsets and peaceful oceans. Hundreds of memos were plastered on a large bulletin board, many of which carried official-looking seals from the state of New York. Dozens of workers toiled away at desks, and each desk had its own pile of paperwork that threatened to topple over and bury the person working there. It was a little comforting that their office looked as overburdened as ours.

I recognized the mark of it all.

“Government work.”

Connor tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the wall directly behind the reception desk. “They’ve got to be kidding.”

The letters on the wall were the same style as the ones listed out on the directory and the ones on the glass doors, except this time they spelled out the full name of the operation.

The Sectarian Defense League.

The receptionist sitting just below them at the desk was a heavyset woman with welcoming eyes and straight black hair pulled back so hard it stretched her face. She looked up from her magazine and noticed us for the first time. She smiled pleasantly…for a cultist.

“Can I help you?” she asked with the hushed tone of a librarian.

There seemed to be no need for the hysteria or theatrics that I was prepared to engage in, and I relaxed momentarily-even though I was still confused by what purpose this office served. These were businesspeople, reasonable office folk who could be dealt with in a civil manner. Things could proceed calmly.

And thingswould have proceeded calmly had I given Connor a chance to speak, but the cultist who had been swinging the kukri at us was too fresh in my mind and I snapped. This was where he had come. We were dealing with practitioners of the occult here and I rushed toward the desk.

“You’re damn right you can help us!” I said with menace. “We’ve come for the fish.”

The woman stared back, perplexed. I could tell she had no idea what I was talking about, but shehad to know something.

“Which fish is that exactly?” she asked nervously. Her smile faltered.

“You know what fish!” I said, and threw my jacket open, freeing the bat. I whacked it hard against the reception desk. The woman jumped back, startled, and nearly toppled over in her chair.

“Simon,” Connor said, reaching for my arm, “calm down.”

It was already far too late for calm. Every last person who had been working at the desks had leapt up and surrounded us. At first glance this assortment of temps and assistants had looked like any other group of office workers, but now I could see the raving fanaticism in their eyes. These were a determined-looking bunch of extremists that hid behind a thin veil of office pleasantries and seventy-dollar ties. We had to do something to gain control of the situation I had so hastily created…and fast. The mob of angry workers had us boxed in.

“Sorry about that little outburst,” Connor said, making direct eye contact with the receptionist. His grip on my arm became viselike. He pushed down until my arm and the bat slipped out of view below the counter. “My friend here’s a little…overtired. You see…we’re here on behalf of the D.E.A.”

“But we’re environmentally friendly!” the woman pleaded, still eyeing me with nervous fear. “We recycle. We don’t dump any contaminants. Honestly!”

In general the Inspectre didn’t like us throwing around the name of the Department, but we were still recognized by the city government and allowed to invoke that status if we thought it might have some sway.

“Not the Department of Environmental Affairs or the Drug Enforcement Agency,” I said bitterly. “The Department of Extraordinary Affairs.”

As soon as the words left my lips, the crowd around us snarled and began chanting in ever-increasing volume, drowning out Connor’s further attempts at reasonable negotiation. I moved back to back with Connor and surveyed the room for any signs of escape. With a bout of hopefulness, I noticed the mob of workers thinning in one particular direction and I thought this might be our chance to make a quick exit. Before I could grab Connor and drag him toward it, however, I saw the reason for the crowd’s dispersal.

A tall, shapely blonde plowed her way toward us with a clipboard in her hands. Her attractiveness and my chivalry aside, I wanted to smack theI know something you don’t know look right off her pretty blond head.

“I’m afraid you two will have to leave…” she shouted over the noise of the crowd. “Now.”

A clearing formed around the three of us, and the workers backed off slowly. They feared this woman. It wasn’t apparent why, but I surmised that it would be wise for Connor and me to fear her as well. She looked fresh faced, and definitely not any older than me, yet she commanded the respect of everyone around her.

Connor stepped forward.

“We’re not leaving until we get what we came here for,” he shouted over the snarling crowd. “One of your people took something that doesn’t belong to him. We want it back.”

She checked the pages on her clipboard. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. You see, we were merely recovering what was already ours.”

“That artifact belongs to Irene Blatt!” I shouted.

“I assure you it did not,” the woman said, staring at us with beautiful but cold eyes. “Now, you can leave here the hard way or the easy way.”

The fanatics howled like caged animals all around us, waiting for any sign of resistance on our part as an excuse to tear us into bite-sized pieces.

“What’s all the commotion out here?” a cheery male voice boomed out from behind the crowd. Every office worker’s head turned, but none of them broke from their positions. At first I refused to chance a look, afraid to turn away from the menacing crowd even with the bat in my hands. After a moment, though, curiosity got the better of me and I snuck a peek toward the movement off to my right. I searched the crowd and locked on to a dark-haired European gentleman who appeared to be drifting through the throng toward us.

“Jane!” he called out to the woman with the clipboard. His voice held a hint of an accent, and at my best guess it sounded Slavic. “This is what I pay you for, isn’t it? To tell me what’s going on? So tell me…whatis going on?”

Jane shifted uncomfortably, and I detected a bit of fear mixed with the anger in her eyes. “That’s what I was trying to ascertain, sir, before our band of village idiots jumped up from their desks and decided to go all pit-bull.”

The man glowered at the crowd and they all averted their eyes as they shuffled away apologetically. The circle around me, Connor, and Jane widened even further.They’re acting like a big, dumb collective puppy, I thought, and I stifled the urge to laugh. I was watching an angry mob being scolded like a household pet and I wondered where Jane kept the rolled-up newspaper to bat them on the nose when they stepped out of line.

The man pushed past Jane, who was smiling smugly from behind her clipboard. Her boss stood an impressive six inches taller than any of us. He cast his eyes on me, smirking as he gave the bat in my hands a good look up and down, and then he turned his focus to Connor. “You seem like the rational one of this duo. Would you care to explain what he’s doing brandishing a bat in our offices like Joe DiMaggio?”

“We’ve come for the fish,” Connor said calmly. “And we’re not leaving without it.”

“Who the hellare you?” I asked sharply. I refused to be casually dismissed.