Cove thrust his mind toward the velociraptors, leaning and pushing his thoughts forward: Stop! His mind crashed, an unwelcome intruder, to an ongoing conversation.

Essie: Just a second, Feliz. Yes, we’ve got a deal, but I need a moment to talk to him. I’ve got this, Uncle Cove.

He sent: That is a trained guard raptor.

Ice filled Cove’s blood as the animal grinned and licked its teeth. Resigned, Cove sent: Finish your chat. I will meet you on the stairs.

Moments later, two pairs of barefoot human impressions skipped across the wet floor to the bottom of the stairs and danced up to him. Um…

Essie: Go. We’ve got your back.

His hands plowed through his hair as he sent: Two twelve-year-olds?

Gath: No worries. Go stoneshape a turd in a toilet or whatever – we’ve got this.

What? Why would I do that?

The raptor growled, or maybe it snickered; it was hard to tell. Cove turned and began climbing the endless circular staircase. Every landing was decorated with an ovoid stone and matching egg-shaped newel posts. Thirty-nine floors to go. Why did Mr. King pick this man?

Gath: He was the only guy at the Temple with TS-12 clearance.

Cove missed a step, caught the handrail, and gasped. We are toast. Special Forces will descend on us the second he reports his ID missing!

Essie giggled behind him. Great Uncle King took him and his assigned mate out to a bar yesterday, got them plastered on blissfire beer, and put them on a tour bus to Bordellwald with an all-expense paid two-week pass to The Velvet Veil.

Gath: Great-uncle King said they would have the time of their lives.

Essie: I asked him if it was a theme park, but he was in a hurry and said to ask you.

Gath: Can we go there next?

“No!” Cove’s shout echoed up and down the stairwell.

Gods, Uncle Cove! You don’t have to ride the roller coasters.”

“I love rollercoasters,” Cove growled under his breath. He stomped up the next dozen steps, sending his frustration with his uncle into each footfall, shattering the marble, causing doors up and down the building to open, exposing curious and anxious eyes. He didn’t care, yet the man he was imitating was not a brute, not someone who would burn Elystria for strength, so he didn’t, and now his feet hurt. He climbed the remaining steps on tender soles and finished with a slight limp on an empty corridor before an imposing door.

“I thought,” Cove whispered as he compared the ID keycard to the door, “that this guy worked with the State Department.”

“He does,” said Essie.

Cove’s hands trembled as he inserted the card into the lock. “This is the office of the Quartermaster for His Majesty’s International Security Service.”

Gath whispered, “Yeah? What’s the problem?”

The door clicked, and Cove stepped into a blinding white closet. There was a wall-sized mirror to his left.

Gath’s thought slammed into his head: Hold your breath, but don’t look like you are, and take three steps forward.

The air felt like syrup as he followed instructions.

Essie sent: Good. Now, they need a genetic blood sample. Do your A Chara Bán thing and press your thumbs on the circles.

Cove located the brown circles on the black metal mullion, created several drops of blood under each thumbprint, and touched the sample reader. How in the nine hells do you know how to get in here?

Essie: We cannot tell you—

Gath with more gravitas than any twelve-year-old should have sent: And don’t ask again.

The door slid open, and he entered a compact locker room.

Gath: Go to your locker and change clothes. People familiar with your body are watching you.

Cove: How familiar?

Gath: They’ve already checked your height, weight, and facial features.

Essie: Now they are looking for things people don’t think or want to hide.

Cove: like scars and moles?

Essie: On girls, they check nipples and pretty bit shapes.

Cove’s mind darted back to the Amekia Temple. He took a quick gulp of air as he remembered a cosmetic detail. He focused his mind on his groin and cringed. Poor guy. His pants felt… empty. Don’t look Essie.

Essie: I helped care for you for six weeks in the Aquatemplum while your nanobots fixed you.

Cove opened the locker with his mark’s name and found a white Riddere officer’s working uniform. He pulled it out and began to dress.

What happened to him, Uncle Cove?

Turn around, Essie!

Sorry!

Cove finished dressing as he said, “I wonder if Aubree was seeded this weekend.”

A light over the exit blinked green and slid open. A harsh female voice from the other side asked, “Thank you for taking Aubree to Temple, Brigadier. Maybe she’ll get lucky and have your child.”

“We can hope, but they’ll never tell us.”

“When will that cute Lieutenant they assigned you get some shore leave?”

“I cannot say her mission is above my pay grade.”

“That’s a submariner’s life,” said a stern-looking, middle-aged woman. Her lemon-yellow hair had been tortured into a bun, but the misshapen, mottled mole on her nose repelled his eye.

Cove nodded and froze.

“Nice try, Stoneshaper,” said the woman. “The Brigadier’s wife commanded the training vessel HMS Henson and died in the jaws of a tidewraith. Aubree was his midshipman secretary, the woman the Brigadier took to the temple. Still, your disguise is convincing. You might have gotten away with your deception if I wasn’t a Reader. Stay where you are. The Leashes are on the way.” She reached for a button on the wall but didn't make it.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Pfft!

A pink dart materialized in the woman’s neck. “Oh!” Her icy austerity and toughness melted into a blissful, lust-flavored syrup.

Cove scanned the area as he asked, “What did you do?”

“I shot her. This was the only gun I could find,” said Gath.

“What kind of dart is it?”

Essie read the spent dart casing, blushed, and said, “Amekia."

Cove rubbed his shaking forehead, locked the self-besotted woman in the observation room, and followed the sound of the teenager’s whispers. Along the back of the office were shelves behind locked glass doors. Essie moved along the cabinets, placing her index finger over a lock before pulling it open. Gath moved behind her, raiding the shelves, often whispering with Essie before disregarding something or moving it to his bag.

“Butterflies, Uncle Cove! Quit staring through the wall and find the stuff you came for,” Essie said as she motioned to Gath, leaped to his shoulders, and stood like an expert circus acrobat. She began rummaging through the hodgepodge of sealed containers on the top shelves.

He gaped, mystified, as he asked, “When did you learn to do that?”

“Butterflies! We don't have time for your questions.”

“Right,” Cove said as he scanned the room. A wired-glass case holding three one-meter-tall oval stones seemed to call to him. His eyes fixed on the mottled yellow and brown eggs as his fingers traced the small wires trapped within the layers of laminated glass.

“Laddie,” whispered Grettaluna, “leave it be.”

“What is it?”

“Those are spiked ravenger eggs. They’re as dumb as a pile of rocks, blind in daylight, and razor teeth. They'll eat anything they rap their whip-like tongue around, but mages are their blissfire. If they caught your scent, they’d follow you for days. What you're feelin' is their psychic lure, the bait to get you close."

“What about the other petrified eggs around town?”

“I don't know, they could be anything, Zephyrlisks, Dreadclaws, Frostfangs, or a hundred other critters that hibernate when Elystria is scarce.”

“Damn.”

“Lad,” Gretta said, enunciating each word, “move away from the glass.”

He pushed away from the glass, turned, and found a door labeled Document and Currency Locker. His stolen access card opened the lock. The contents were underwhelming. Other than a strange box on each device's power cord, they were identical to any off-the-shelf camera, laptop, and badge printer from any driver’s license office. Nine hells! They used the same setup at the University to make student and staff ID cards. Why are we risking our lives for something we can buy at an office store? Shite! What am I missing? He yanked open a filing cabinet and yelped as the office door slid open.

“Professor?”

Cove spun, his heart threatening to quit and take a permanent vacation. Two heads peeked in the door. “What?”

Essie held out a box. “Do you know what this is?”

“A white plastic laboratory container,” said Cove as his heart thumped back to life. “What’s inside?”

“It looks like big pieces of taffy but sealed in little jars of oil,” Gath said. He snapped open the lid and tossed one.

Cove’s jaw dropped. How did those end up here? His hand swung in a gentle arc, pillowing the thin glass container as he caught it. “Please don’t do that again.”

The pair asked, “What is it?”

“This,” Cove said with a nostalgic smile, “is an STD.”

“Eww! Uncle Cove! You invented a sexually transmitted disease?”

"No," Cove laughed, "the official name is the Submerged Thermal Device, but my college buddies and I called it the Sunge Toilet Destroyer."

Gath giggled as he said, "Toilet destroyer? What is this thing?"

"Oh," laughed Essie, "it’s white phosphorus in a water-soluble plastic clay. His friend invented it. You've got to hear this story!"

“It looks like a lemon turd,” said Gath.

"I thought we were in a hurry," said Cove as he put a handful of vials into his pack, and Gath tucked the rest into his sack. He began disassembling the badge printing gear as he muttered, "We can buy all this stuff in most office stores. Why did we come here?"

Essie rolled her eyes and slid off Gath's shoulders. "I swear, you could have stayed home if one of us had learned your A Chara Bán trick."

"You'll need to gain a few kilos and centimeters first," said Cove.

As she passed, the teenager stuck her tongue out, laid a finger over the keyhole on a locked cupboard, and opened the door.

A white strobe and an intermittent klaxon nearly made Cove wet himself. "What did you do?"

Essie growled at Cove as she pulled a box of cards and several rolls of laminate film from the shelves. "It's not me!"

"The alarm started when you opened that door,” said Cove, wondering why his niece had all but climbed inside the cabinet.

Triumph blended with relief filled Essie’s words as she stood with an armload of printer supplies. “No contact switch. No other security sensors. There’s nothing on the door to trip an alarm! This isn’t my fault!”

"Shut up and listen," said Gath.

"Boy!"

Gath pointed at an overhead speaker. "Quiet!"

The lobby guard announced, "City-wide incursion in progress. Set building Security Condition Two. All personnel report to your armories to draw weapons."

Crack! The sounds of shattering glass filled the main room.

Cove grabbed the camera, printer, and tablet computer. He shoved them into his pack as he spun. "Run! Move, both of you, go! Right now! Get out of here!"