"Are we going to kill him then?" The woman spoke. "If we kill him, they'll have to start over. None of their other beasts have social media followings. They'll have to completely change their plan or begin building a presence for the next possible face of the cause. That takes time and buysustime to stop them."
"I still don't understand why we don't kill all of them." Quentin again. Dude was a jerk.
"Maybe because there are only eight of us?" The woman sounded exasperated with Quentin. "We had Franklin's help before, but he's dropped off the face of the earth. Same with Eldora. And they were our contact with the monsters willing to help us stop them from coming out into the limelight."
Oh, hell yeah. Both legs were working. And now I knew they were a woefully small force. Big mistake to let me know something like that, and an even bigger one to assume I couldn’t hear them, talking at full volume in the next room.
They were such idiots I had to consider the possibility that they were intentionally letting me get free, speaking where I could hear, and setting us up to underestimate them.
As soon as I thought it, I dismissed it. Nah. They were just dumb as hell.
"Maybe it's time to alert the president." This was a voice I hadn't heard before, but he had a warble in his tone that made me think he was about as old as Methuselah. So, they were eight, but at least one was elderly.
I thought I'd smelled some Bengay.
When my other hand, my dominant hand, finally began to move, I started the process of wiggling out of the ropes. It was slow, but I had time. No one seemed to be in a rush to kill me. Good job I knew a thing or two about escaping ropes. I'd studied magic when I first came through the wall, so I could pretend real magic was fake if anyone ever caught me.
Wriggling out of being tied up was a useful side skill, too. That sort of thing doesn't leave you, especially when someone in the next room is considering murdering you.
My heart raced, and I took several deep breaths to ground myself as it began to work. The key was staying perfectly calm. Adrenaline equaled mistakes, and even if I did have time, I would feel much better once I was out of these ropes.
"Whatever we're going to do, let's start by seeing how much he's willing to talk." Old man again. Okay, my time was up.
I finished untying my hands, ripped the sack off of my head, and tapped my heel to release a hidden knife in my shoe. By the time they opened the door, I'd cut the ropes around my ankles and tucked myself in the tiny alcove behind the door.
"He's gone!" The old men let out an impressive string of curse words, then went shuffling back up the hall.
They never looked behind the door.
I counted feet as they hurried past the door, toward the stairs and elevators. Six people had exited the offices, assuming I'd left the floor completely. Two remained.
The old man groaned and, by the sound of the chair squeaking, sat back down. One to go. The door to my impromptu cell had been left open while everyone ran off searching for me. I ever so slowly peered into the hallway, all my senses on high alert.
Nobody there. Moving light as a fox—heh—I slipped from one room to the next, heading toward the exit door.
I wasn't precisely worried about getting caught. I still couldn't shift, but that wasn't the end of the world. I didn't solely rely on being able to shift to protect myself. That would've left me completely vulnerable right now. I'd fight my way out of here if I had to. My main problem was whatever powders they might still have ready-made. If they threw something in my face again, then it was back to the chair for me.
The office I'd slipped into was clearly in use. It was also the first one in the building. I rifled through the drawers, then froze at the tap tap tap of someone wearing heels walking in this direction from deeper in the office. I dove behind the desk and tucked myself into the leg area. Luckily the desk had been built with a front, so she—I’d rarely seen men wearing heels that tapped rather than thumped—wouldn't see me without coming around the desk and bending over.
The light came on, and I held my breath, but I was in the clear. These people hadnotbeen built for subterfuge. And why should they be? They had lived in a world without monsters for over a thousand years. These were a bunch of pencil pushers. They weren't warriors.
But I was, and the difference between us would be the very thing that saved me from them. And saved their lives as well; if I were less competent, I would have needed to injure or kill them to get away.
The woman, who also wore a strong musk-based perfume, moved to stand behind the desk. I held my breath. She didn’t sit but rattled keystrokes until she snorted.
“Quentin, really? You’re an idiot.”
Huffing a sigh, she strode out of the room. When I was sure she was well away, I unfolded myself from under the desk and continued looking through the drawers.
Jackpot. A black box, unlocked, and full of carefully labeled vials. Awesome. Mine now.
I snatched the laptop lying quite unsecured on the desk and carefully made my way into the hall again.
The elevator helpfully supplied me with a floor number. Thirty. Roma's office was just seven floors down. And the elevator wasn't being used.
Handy, that. I pressed the button to call the lift, keeping a keen ear to the hallway behind me and the staircase behind me, in about twenty seconds, stepped into the car, and another thirty seconds or so after that, stepped off and onto the safety of Roma's PR firm's office. All in all, a good day at the office.
I chuckled at my joke as I shifted the black box of powders and the laptop in my arms and moved toward the voices in the interior of the office. Boy, did I have a tale for them.
