Cloak Games: Thief Trap (8 page)

Yes. One problem at a time. Easiest thing in the world, right?

It was a long time before I could stand up again.

Chapter 4: Dance

The time to the Conquest Day gala flew by.

Conquest Day is on July 4th, at least in the United States. It’s different in other countries. In Russia, it’s on the anniversary of Red October. In the United Kingdom, Conquest Day falls on the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. It’s on July 4th in the United States because that was the day three hundred odd years ago that the High Queen executed the President and Congress on live television.

I spent the time preparing. 

I kept up my façade at both Duncan Catering and EZClean Cleaners, helping to make appetizers and cakes in the morning and cleaning houses at night. The next time the EZClean crew went to McCade’s mansion for its weekly cleaning, I volunteered to do the art gallery and the library. Since both tasks were so unpleasant, the shift supervisor accepted without complaint. That meant I was alone in the library for a few moments. The security men had checked us over thoroughly, complete with metal detectors. A vacuum cleaner set off the metal detectors, but that was to be expected. 

Which meant that the small duffel bag I concealed in the vacuum’s cylinder was not detected. Halfway through vacuuming the library, I used my levitation spell to float to the top of the high shelves on the first floor of the library, in the corner where none of the cameras reached, and duct-taped the bag on the top of the shelf, out of sight from the floor and the second-story balcony. 

The week after that, I used my levitation spell to float up and check the duffel bag again. The bag had not been disturbed, and I was confident that it would be there on the night of the gala. 

Better and better. 

At Duncan Catering Company, I got myself assigned to the crew scheduled to serve the food at McCade’s gala. We would take one of the company’s big white vans to the mansion, and I had noticed that while the security men always screened the workers, they never bothered to check any vehicles in the utility garage. That was a mistake, because it meant the duffel bag I taped to the bottom of the van would not be noticed. 

When I wasn’t working at one of my two full-time jobs, I prepared in other ways. A printer that could print an intricate holographic design like McCade’s party invitation cost upward of fifteen thousand dollars. I wasn’t about to spend that much money, and computer equipment like that had to be licensed with Homeland Security. So I found a print shop, broke in one night, and borrowed their printer to print the invitation. Once I finished, I used a magnet to wreck the computer’s hard drive. The unfortunate owners would assume that the computer had crashed, which in turn had messed up the printer’s page count. 

Hopefully they had good backups. 

Once that was done, I spent the rest of my time going over the plans to McCade’s mansion, committing them to memory, and practicing the spells I needed. I also made contingency plans in case the job went sour and I had to run for my life. I had a storage unit out in the edge of Wauwatosa, not far from the freeway, and I stocked it with canned food and other supplies if I needed a place to hide. Of course, if the job went really bad, and if I was taken prisoner, Morvilind would use that vial of blood to kill me and dispose of any evidence of his involvement. Or McCade’s security people would just shoot me on the spot. The money I had left behind for Russell might help James and Lucy…but if they could not find another Elven noble willing to treat his frostfever…

Well. That settled it. I just had to get in and out of the mansion alive. Easy as pie, right?

The biggest unknown variable was whatever waited behind that vault door in the library. The plans for the vault were not in the mansion’s blueprints. Bypassing the door would be easy enough – Morvilind had taught me a great deal about the magic of releasing locks – but I had no idea what waited behind the vault door. 

The second unknown variable was the strange man with no shadow. I had my suspicions, but I didn’t know who or what he was. He seemed to think that I had been following him. That was absurd – I had enough trouble without asking for more. Yet that made me wonder if he had business of his own in McCade’s mansion.

Maybe someone else had hired him to steal the tablet. 

That could be dicey. 

I would just have to keep my wits about me.

###

At last Conquest Day came.

It rained all morning and most of the afternoon, the sort of heavy, hard summer rain that made everything smell like a gym locker. It slowed to a drizzle by the time I parked my old Duluth Car Company sedan a few blocks from the Duncan Catering building. I walked to the building, sweating a little in the humidity. If anyone asked, I would claim that I had taken the bus to work. I wanted to keep the sedan nearby in case I had to make a quick escape. I had already made arrangements for an escape vehicle near McCade’s mansion, but a backup never hurt. 

The other servers and I changed into our formal uniforms, white shirts, slender black ties, black slacks, and shiny black shoes. At least they were flats, thank God. I pretended to tie my shoe just long enough to make sure my little duffle bag was still taped to the bottom of the van, and then I joined the others. Once we were ready, we loaded the food into the van, climbed in, and drove across Milwaukee to McCade’s mansion.

We got to McCade’s mansion at half past six, parking the van in its usual spot in the utility garage. The security men stood guard at the doors, and subjected us to the customary weapons scan and search. I made sure not to bring a phone, so they didn’t confiscate it. The less evidence I left behind, the better. It took a dozen trips to bring everything up to the mansion’s kitchen, a vast expanse of gleaming white tile and polished steel about six times the size of my apartment. It took us the better part of an hour to get everything set up, and another twenty minutes to get the food properly heated. 

Then it was almost eight o’clock, which meant it was time to serve hors d’oeuvres to McCade’s guests. 

I put on my friendliest smile, picked up a tray loaded with shrimp puffs, and walked with the others to meet the wealthiest and the most powerful of the Midwest. 

Already a substantial crowd had gathered in the glassed-in courtyard. Pale silver and blue mood lighting played over everything, and a hidden projector threw a scene onto the glass, an image of the High Queen’s banner rippling in the breeze, an American flag flying below it. I had to admit it made for an impressive sight. Already men in expensive black suits and women in sleek black dresses and high heels stood talking. Here and there I saw a man in the blue officer’s uniform of Homeland Security, and a few in the black-trimmed red uniform of the Wizards’ Legion. I recognized several men as ambassadors from the various client states of the European Union and others from the Chinese Imperium. I suppose McCade’s meat products had fans overseas. There were even a few minor Elven nobles already, mostly knights and barons from the United States and the European Union, standing aloof and cold from the human guests, their gaunt, pale faces masks of hauteur. The Elven men wore long blue coats that hung to their knees, their ornamented red cloaks thrown back, while the women wore shimmering gowns of green and blue. Two of the Elven nobles were Knights of the Inquisition, stark in their long black coats with silver lightning bolts upon their collars, and even the other Elves avoided the Inquisitors. 

Had I used a Mask, every wizard and every Elf in the courtyard would have sensed it at once. Just as well I had employed a more mundane disguise. 

Besides, when you’re pretending to be a waiter, it’s like you’re invisible. 

So long as you don’t spill anything, of course. 

I circulated through my assigned segment of the courtyard, the silver tray with the shrimp puffs balanced upon my left hand. The damned thing was heavier than it looked, and I was grateful for all the hours I had spent doing push-ups, pull-ups, and deadlifts. Granted, I hadn’t thought I would put my strength training to use carrying a tray of shrimp, but I wasn’t going to complain. I made sure to start with the Elves (I definitely did need an accusation of elfophobia just now), bowing as I offered them the tray. Only one of the Elven nobles deigned to take a shrimp puff, and then I moved through the human dignitaries. The shrimp proved more popular there, and soon my tray was empty. One man in particular, a stout Homeland Security major whose blue uniform made his paunch look distressingly like a blueberry, took five puffs. He then continued his inebriated flirtation with an annoyed-looking blond woman at least fifteen years his junior.

I made sure to remember him for later. 

Once the last shrimp puff had been claimed, I circled the edge of the courtyard and vanished into the kitchens. Orderly chaos reigned in the kitchens, with thirty different men and women hurrying about their tasks, some of them cooking more food, other refilling trays, others pouring champagne into glasses. I slipped past them, tucked my tray under my arm, and headed down the stairs to the utility garage. Only one security guard remained on watch, a bored expression on his face as he played a game on his phone, and he glanced up at me. 

“Someone spilled bleach on the tray,” I said. “Have to get a new one.”

The guard grunted and looked back at his phone. 

I passed him, returned to the van, and put the tray in its place. I glanced around, made sure I was out of the cameras’ fields of view, and yanked my duffle bag from beneath the car. I opened it up, checked its contents one more time.

Then I stripped down to my underwear, tossing my clothes into the van’s laundry bin. My next outfit came out of the duffel bag – a sleeveless black dress with a short, tight skirt, and a pair of black shoes with four-inch heels. I quickly slapped earrings in place and dropped a silver necklace over my head, and then undid my ponytail, letting my hair fall loose around my shoulders. Makeup would have been ideal, but there wasn’t time to apply it, and the light was dim in the courtyard anyway. I did apply some perfume to hide the smells of the kitchen. I flipped the duffel bag inside out, revealing its shiny interior and transforming it into a hideously ugly purse, and reloaded the remaining contents. I stepped to the driver’s side mirror and gave myself a quick look. I looked like someone’s spoiled daughter, which was perfect. 

I cast the Masking spell, making myself appear as a male catering worker in white shirt and black pants, and hastened across the parking garage. I had to take care to Mask the loud clicks of my heels with every stride. Fortunately, it was a wasted effort. The guard did not look up from his phone, and security cameras could not penetrate a Mask. Anyone watching through the cameras in the garage or reviewing the footage later would see nothing amiss. 

I left the garage, dropped my Mask, and crossed the mansion’s lush lawn, acres of brilliant green grass trimmed with machine-like precision, and made for the glassed-in courtyard. A crowd of later arrivals filed through the doors to the courtyard, and four of McCade’s security men stood there. I joined the crowd, adjusting the straps of my fake purse, and walked towards the door.

“Miss?” One of the guards, a middle-aged man with the look of a veteran still familiar with violence, held out his hand.

“What?” I said, filling my tone with surly truculence. 

“This is a private party, miss,” said the guard. “I need to see your invitation.”

“Oh my God!” I said, letting my voice go up an octave. “Don’t you know who I am?” A few of the other guests looked at me and snickered. 

“Unfortunately I do not, miss,” said the guard, “which is why I need to see your invitation.”

“My daddy is so going to get you fired,” I said. “He’s friends with the Duke of Milwaukee, and you’re just a security guard. You can’t talk to me that way.” 

“Please present your invitation, miss,” said the guard, still polite. My disguise was working. Had he thought me a random party crasher, he would have used force by now.

“Just do as he says, dear,” said a middle-aged woman in an elegant black gown. 

“Fine,” I said, drawing the word into an angry whine. I reached into my purse, drew out the fake invitation, and unfolded it. “Will you let me inside? I haven’t eaten all day.” 

The guard lifted his phone. The usual camera had been augmented with some kind of fancy combined IR/UV lens. He waved the phone over the bottom of the invitation, and I briefly saw the holographic seal and its embedded barcode flash. I hoped that Niles had done his work right, and that the printer I had “borrowed” had been up to the task. 

The phone beeped, and the guard glanced at the display.

“Please enjoy the party, Miss Annovich,” he said. 

I sniffed and walked past him, letting my heels click loudly, and the guard forgot about me as he turned to the other guests.

More people had arrived while I had been changing clothes, and now close to a thousand guests occupied the courtyard. The air conditioning was on full blast, the air chilly against my bare arms and calves. Across the courtyard, I saw a good-sized crowd spilling into the art gallery, admiring McCade’s collection. I wanted to slip away from the gala and reach the library, and do it without drawing undue notice. I reached into my purse and felt the smooth plastic of the burner phone I had prepared. I just needed to find that drunken Homeland Security major, and I would…

Speakers crackled overhead, and suddenly a voice boomed in my ears. 

“Ladies, gentlemen, honored guests, and nobles of the High Queen’s court,” said a man’s voice. “If I might have your attention for a moment?” 

The lights swiveled overhead, falling upon a clear spot near the art gallery. For the first time, I looked upon Paul McCade in the flesh. Morvilind’s photographs had given me a good impression of the man. He wore an extremely expensive suit, the coat cut a little longer in imitation of Elven fashion, though it didn’t quite conceal his small paunch. His graying hair was perfectly parted on the left, and he wore rimless glasses perched upon his nose. He was handsome in a sort of dry, passionless way, and the owner of McCade Foods looked like a man who had never touched a McCade Foods product in his life.