“Look,” she said. “I’m sorry that evil pays better. Isn’t that part of its appeal, after all?”

She turned away and went straight to work searching her old desk and pulling out anything personal she came across. She laid a framed picture of some very corn-fed-looking parents of the Kansas variety on top of the pile.

“Do your parents know?” I asked. “About you working here…”

She pulled out a sheaf of papers and began sorting through them. “No, and they never will. They think I’m working for an animal rights group.”

“I suppose you could spin it that way. Some sort of ‘Save the Zombies’ angle…”

“Fudge!” she said, throwing down the papers. “It’s not here.”

“What isn’t?”

“The manifest on item one-six-eight,” she said as if I knew what the hell she was talking about.

I looked at her with the kind of blank stare usually reserved for the zombies themselves.

“Better known to you as ‘that wooden fish thingie’? I should have all the details here on where it’s being stored, but they’re missing.”

“Keep looking,” I said. I placed my flower box on her desk to help out with the search.

Since it was Jane’s office, I really didn’t know exactly what she was looking for. I left her to go through the rest of her drawers while I packed her personal effects into my bag. Jane had made the choice never to return here after this, so whatever I could do to help her get out of here quicker, I would.

Her desk was cluttered with stuff. Pictures, a squishy little stress-management toy, a collection of breakfast cereal action figures. The Trix Rabbit, Count Chocula, Booberry, the Lucky Charms leprechaun, even the Cookie Crisp bandit! I was in love. Good thing I was wearing the gloves or the nostalgia of all these items might have put my powers into overload, leaving me flopping on the floor like a fish.

A small collection of plants occupied one corner of the desk, but they would have to stay behind.

I hadn’t told Jane why I was looking for information on the fish or that it had been Irene’s. All she knew was what she had seen the first time I came into the League swinging my bat. Just because her days with the Sectarians seemed over didn’t mean she was getting full disclosure about my assignments at Other Division.

If Jane chose to be taken into the fold of the Department later, which I hoped she would, she might find out everything concerning my mission to reacquire the fish so we could discern what happened to Irene’s soul. For now I was quite content to keep it a mystery. My dealings with my favorite ghost girl were complex enough as they stood. My department’s line of “on a need to know” basis came in handy once in a while, and just then it was helping to alleviate some of the guilt I felt for keeping Jane in the dark.

She checked the same drawer she had just taken the papers from again. “It should be here!”

“Looking for this?” said a familiar European voice from behind us.

I spun around. Faisal Bane was standing in the middle of the room, smugly holding up the missing manifest-the one that listed the wooden fish. Behind him, a section of the wall that had been there a moment ago had now slid back to reveal a hidden alcove. Tricky! “Or perhaps you’re looking for your Hello Kitty coffee mug?”

He produced said object in his other hand, examined it slowly, then threw it as hard as he could toward the opposite wall. It smashed against a picture of the Manhattan skyline and shattered, pieces of mug and picture frame showering the carpet. Jane gasped.

“No! Kitty!”

I grabbed the box of flowers, and pulled the bat free from it, sending flowers flying in every direction. Another figure stepped from the darkness behind Faisal and into the light. My stomach sank as I recognized the man’s face. I had seen it every day back at the Department of Extraordinary Affairs. It was Thaddeus Wesker. The Inspectre had confided that Wesker was an undercover agent here, but right now he looked every bit on the side of evil.

“Un-uh,” the Director of Greater amp; Lesser Arcana said. He flicked his arm in my direction and I felt the bat pull free from my hands. It twirled end over end toward Wesker and he plucked it from the air.

“How did you do that?”

“Hello to you, too, Simon,” Wesker said. “I am the head of Greater and LesserArcana, after all, or did you forget?” He turned to Faisal with a grin on his face. “I told you if we waited they’d eventually come sniffing around for it.”

Faisal turned his head. “Is this the one you mentioned?”

“Yes,” Wesker sneered. “He’s one of their precious little Other Division.”

“So young!” Faisal said as he looked me over. “Apparently, they’re desperate to replenish their fading numbers, eh?”

It was bad enough that Bane was here, but now there was Wesker to contend with, too. Maybe this had been a setup. Maybe Jane was in on it, too, playing me all this time while secretly helping the Sectarians…

“Leave him alone,” Jane said and surprised me by moving between me and the two of them.

Bane waved her away with a dismissive gesture. “Save your theatrics, Jane, and put aside any misguided thoughts of heroics, would you?”

Despite the growing fear in my chest, my male ego went “Doh!”I should have been the one to step forward. Stupid gestures weremy bailiwick, not hers.

“Bully,” I heard her mutter. Fast as a shot, Faisal closed the distance to her and drove his fist into her gut. Jane crumpled to the floor without a sound. There went the idea that she was secretly on their side.

“I don’t let my subordinates talk to me like that,” he said as he stared down at her, “and I certainly won’t let a traitorous whore like you either.”

Wesker moved to stand by Faisal’s side, but his attention was all on me. I glared at him and said, “I see only one traitor here and that’s Wesker.”

Faisal continued to ignore me, but Wesker took a step in my direction, my bat held over his shoulder loosely in one hand. “Well, Mr. Bane, what do you recommend I do with him?”

Faisal grinned as he turned, his eyes menacing me. “Well, hedid bring his own bat. Cave his skull in with it.”

30

An overactive imagination can be both a blessing and a curse. For instance, when I think of supermodels, I consider what my mind can conjure up a great benefit-wildly imagined slow-motion pillow fights, for instance. But conversely, when I had just been told that my skull was going to be caved in, I would have rathered that my mind couldn’t conceive-down to the last detail-what that might look like. Cracked shards of bone digging into my brain, my gray matter poking through, clumps of bloody hair…but then again, it was enough to snap me out of my useless stupor and into action.

Jane was down-but hopefully not out-for the count, so it was up to me. With Wesker in possession of my bat, I reached behind me toward the desk and grabbed whatever my hand fell upon. A green-domed banker’s lamp. Just great.

I didn’t figure my training in Unorthodox Fighting Techniques would be coming into play so soon, and I was untested in a real-life dangerous situation, but I had little choice. Giving a tug, I tore the cord free from wherever it was plugged into and started swinging the lamp in wild circles over my head. Wesker backed closer to Faisal and there was a genuine look of concern on his face that hadn’t been there a second ago. I pressed what I thought was my advantage and let the lamp fly.

When people replay a moment in their head, there is a clarity that the actual moment itself never seemed to have. That’s how it was with me anyway. In the playback in my head, I now understand what happened as I let loose the lamps of war, although the moment itself passed in a heartbeat.

Evidently, my training had paid off more than I thought. I had worried about timing the release of the cord so that the lamp would head in the right direction, but my aim proved perfect. The lamp snaked out from my hands, the cord feeding through my fist as it flew and the glass dome exploded against theback of Wesker’s head. I had been aiming for Wesker’s face, but what I hadn’t counted on was that he would turn away from me to clock Faisal with my own bat. Wesker wobbled, but didn’t drop as he whacked the leader of the Sectarians across the shoulders. Faisal dropped faster than a one-hit wonder from the pop music charts, but Wesker remained standing.