Reitman, Kendra, and Dunn sat at a small place down the street from the Persona. They had the goons from his office spotted in a car down the street. Kendra kept giving them the eye.
Reitman had his small meter on the table in front of him. He shook his head at the readings. He hoped nothing major happened while they were discussing their strategy.
“The shadow is covering this part of the city,” said Dunn. “If we go up there, I don't think we can deal with this on our own.”
“It's just a big chicken, right?,” asked Kendra.
“Not exactly,” said Dunn. He tipped his hat back. “The Doom Bird is supposed to start the onslaught of Winter on the normal material planes. Snow falling along the equator for example is the first sign of problems. As things go on, the weather becomes worse and worse. Then the snow demons arrive to kill anyone who survived the initial snow and ice.”
“Sounds rough,” said Kendra.
“Then you have the problems of surviving against the weather, and what the weather brings, becoming secondary to the spreading of the doom to any neighboring plane and those natives deciding to fight back,” said Dunn.
“So if the thing hatches up there, we're looking at a war with us in the middle,” said Kendra.
“So it must never hatch,” said Dunn. “There are signs of another prescence in the building. That will be a bigger problem than driving off the Doom Bird.”
“It's probably what killed that lady,” said Reitman. “I doubt a faulty window is responsible.”
“It'll probably try to stop us from getting to the roof,” said Dunn. “A world ending winter might be what it wants.”
Reitman shrugged. He had dealt with a lot of minor problems and several major ones. They all wanted to wreck things in their specific ways. He put it down to the emotional turmoil they came with when they magnetized the air. He didn't care why they wanted things that way. He was only interested in making sure they didn't get their way.
That was the major reason he had created the magnetic arsenal he used, and the various sensors to keep track of trouble spots.
It was what had led him to meeting Dunn, and the others in the underworld who tried to keep back trouble.
And putting a stop to trouble causing pains in the neck had to be the most rewarding job in the world.
“Here comes Shay,” said Kendra. “That gives us four.”
Tam Shay smiled when he saw the little group. A silver beret with a golden feather stuck in it rested in its place on his graying red hair. He had found an old coat to go over his double breasted shirt and jeans. Scuffed boots completed the ensemble.
“It must be a big trouble indeed to have such doughty fighters gathered together under one roof,” said Shay. He smiled.
“We think we're facing the end of the world as we know it,” said Reitman. “Thanks for coming.”
“I wouldn't miss anything like that for many a pot of gold,” said Shay. “I suppose it has to do with the bird above us.”
“Can everyone but me see the thing?,” asked Reitman.
“It's not much to look at, Orville,” said Shay. “I suppose we need to run it off its perch.”
“We can't let it sit there,” said Reitman. “At the very least, it will bring the building down, at the most it will start the end of the world. We don't want either one of those to happen.”
“I guess we can go up and talk to it,” said Shay. “Maybe it will see reason.”
“Has that ever worked?,” asked Kendra. She cracked her knuckles. “Don't we usually have to use violence on something like this?”
“I like to think it's better to give it a chance than just trying to manhandle something bigger than ten of me,” said Shay.
“That's a good point,” said Kendra. “So what's the plan?”
“We go in, break security, hunt the thing haunting the building, deal with the bird,” said Reitman. “Try not to get killed, try not to wreck the building.”
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“It seems simple when you explain it like that,” said Kendra.
“The thing haunting the building will be the hardest to deal with since it knows enough to keep out of reach while trying to kill us with tricks,” said Dunn.
“We can still draw it out,” said Shay. “It has to have something we can use to bottle it up. It has to have a mirror.”
“Finding it in a building that big will be hard to do,” said Dunn. “But if we can find that base, the rest will be easy enough to do as long as we can avoid it killing us.”
“Start on the floor where the freak accident occurred,” said Reitman. “I would think that it caused the easiest death it could on the floor where it hangs out.”
“Good point,” said Dunn. “That will limit what we need to look at enough to make the search faster and easier.”
“Can you handle it, Dunn?,” asked Reitman.
“I'll have to look at it, but I think so,” said Dunn. “Shay's own set of skills will make things easier if it engages us. It might wait until we engage in trying to roust the Doom Bird before it comes after us. I doubt it will miss the chance to try to stab us in the back.”
“I think we should go ahead and go,” said Reitman. “I guess the others couldn't make it.”
“Don't worry,” said Shay. “The hardest point will be just entering the building if security doesn't want us to go in. Dealing with the two spirits will be a snap compared to that.”
Reitman doubted things would go the way Shay thought, but he wasn't going to turn away any assistance he might need to get the job done. He had hoped the others would arrive to help out, but they had their own problems to deal with.
“Let me get my gear and we can get started,” said Reitman. He stood and headed for his van. He waved at the two gorillas waiting in their car as he walked to the back of his van. He opened the door and pulled out the portable dynamo in a harness, He strapped it on and started it up. He hooked the long magnetic gun to it with a couple of cables. He let the gun hang from its sling while he closed the van up.
The gorrillas tried to get out of the car to stop him from doing whatever he planned to do. Kendra put her fist through one of the windows and knocked the driver out with one punch. Shay intercepted the other and put him to sleep with a lullaby. They closed the men back in their car until they woke up.
“Nice punch,” said Shay. “You have been practicing.”
“Yeah,” said Kendra. “I don't have to hit them so hard their heads explode any more.”
“It's like little love taps instead of big grenades,” said Shay.
“I wouldn't quite put it like that, but it's pretty close,” said Kendra.
“Let's go before someone else thinks it will be okay to try and stop us,” said Reitman.
“Wait up, guys,” shouted someone down the street. The group turned to see Roy Gillis jogging down the sidewalk. He waved a hand at them as he made his way toward them in his half limping, half hopping stride.
“Almost too late, Roy,” said Kendra.
“I got sidetracked by some cat,” said Roy. He smiled. “Just point me. I'm ready to go.”
“The building we want is the Persona,” said Reitman. “Kendra and I are going up to the roof. Dunn and Shay are going to be searching the building. I think you should help them deal with that before coming up to the roof. I don't quite know how we're going to handle the problem up there.”
“Don't worry,” said Roy. “We'll handle any problem we got.”
Roy took the lead and straightened his suit jacket as he skipped along. He pushed the doors open and bulled inside. Reitman watched as security converged on Gillis to keep him from getting on an elevator. He had the door open while they were crossing the room. He stepped inside and pushed a random button. He waved at the guards as the doors shut in their faces.
The others took their chance and headed for the emergency stairs and exit on the other side of the lobby while the guards were trying to figure out how to cut Gillis off when he reached whatever floor he had pushed the button.
“I should have thought about climbing these stairs with this gear,” said Reitman.
“We just need to get to the elevators on the second floor and use them to ride up to the roof,” said Kendra. “You can do that much.”
“That should be safe enough,” said Shay. “Dunn and I will have a rougher go of it when our inner demon tries to stop us. Your bird might not even notice you until you make it angry.”
“That makes me feel a lot better about being in a moving coffin,” said Reitman.
“As long as nothing cuts the cable, you'll be fine,” said Shay. “We can't let Roy wander around on his own. He might be causing trouble without meaning to.”
“Second floor door,” said Kendra. She pushed it open and checked the hall. She stepped out and motioned the others to join her. “Elevators are that way. Let's go before someone tries to call us in.”
Reitman trotted behind Kendra. He hoped he didn't need the cannon he was carrying around. Maybe the bird would move some place where it's not anyone's problem.
“We'll take the first one first, and then we'll look around the roof and see if there's someone not there,” said Kendra.
Dunn and Shay kept going up the stairs. Security would be watching the elevators. They might ignore the stairs except to block anyone from using them to leave the building.
And the thing they were hunting had removed a window to send a lady to the street. They could count on it acting violently when they tried to remove it from the premises.
They had dealt with hauntings before. The first stage was always trying to find where the focus was so the spirit could be trapped. The second stage was getting the spirit in the trap. Then the last stage was figuring out how to get the trap out of the place and placed somewhere it couldn't bother anyone else again.
The second stage was where Dunn expected the most violence. Most spirits didn't want to leave the material planes. Capturing them and sending them home always resulted in blood shed.
Dunn hoped Shay and Gillis would tilt the odds in his favor so he could place a sign, set the spirit, then burn an opening. Once he was sure the lower part of the building was clean, they could go upstairs and think about how they could move the bird out of the city before it decided to unleash the force of Winter on the people below it.
He doubted they could force it away from the roof despite Kendra's enormous strength.