“I really don’t feel like crashing another one of Francis’ fancy blimps.” He was just holding Heinrich up, what with his having to walk around solid objects instead of through them. “Go. I’ll catch up.”
Heinrich nodded, then his features seemed to blur and turn grey, and then he sank through the floor and disappeared. It was a good thing too, because it then saved Sullivan the indignity of trying to maneuver his bulk down the narrow stairwell in front of witnesses. His feet barely fit on the steps. “UBF designed this thing for pygmies,” he muttered.
He reached the rope room a few minutes later, but judging by how Skaggs was lying in a crumpled heap with blood all over the side of his face, and Heinrich was standing over him with a pipe wrench in hand, Sullivan hadn’t needed to rush.
He nudged the fallen UBF engineer with his toe to make sure he was still alive. Skaggs groaned. “He give you trouble?”
“Nothing a wrench to the face couldn’t fix.” Heinrich answered. “But I suppose a wrench to the face solves most personnel issues.”
“Check this out.” Lance’s deep voice came from an empty corner of the room. “Down here.” Sullivan stepped over the piled coils of rope and spotted a small brown mouse running around in circles. The floor gleamed from shards of broken glass.
Sullivan knelt and carefully picked up one of the biggest pieces of glass. It was mirrored, and someone had scratched lines into it. “Communication spell?”
“Yep,” the mouse answered, impossibly loud for a critter that could fit in the palm of his hand. Since Lance Talon was a Beastie, and his Power allowed him to take control of animals, they’d made sure that the Traveler had a mice problem for occasions like this. Sure, they’d eventually make a mess of things, but then they’d just have to get a cat… Or he supposed Lance could just take over all the mice and have them jump overboard. Beasties probably didn’t really have trouble with pests. “That spell detector Fuller put together went nuts. I found our friend here telling somebody about how we were heading for Siberia.”
Heinrich had dragged the semi-conscious Skaggs upright and was patting him down, looking for weapons. A quick search wouldn’t matter if their spy had some form of offensive magic. “He an Active?”
“Not that I am aware of.” Heinrich paused long enough to slap Skaggs hard on the cheek. It caused a cascading ripple through the fat of his face all the way to his extra chins. “Hey! Hey, wake up, scheisskopf. You try anything, I even feel a bit of magic, I feed you into a turbo-jet.” Heinrich hit him even harder to make the point. “Do you understand?”
From the all the flinching as Heinrich slapped him around, it was obvious that Skaggs wasn’t used to that sort of rough treatment. “Okay, okay! Stop, please.” Skaggs was blinking his way back to coherence. Finally realization dawned as to just how much trouble he was in and the begging started. “Oh no. Oh no. I didn’t do anything! Please don’t hurt me. Please, I’m begging you.”
Either he was legitimately terrified, or he was a damn fine actor. Sullivan wasn’t in the mood for either. “You’re getting off this blimp. Only question is if you’re taking the fast way or the slow way.”
“This is all a mistake!”
Sullivan held up the piece of glass. “The mistake was you thinking you could rat us out and not get caught.” Skaggs’ eyes flew back and forth from the piece in Sullivan’s hand to the remaining bits littering the floor. He was done and he knew it. “Who’re you working for?”
Skaggs might have been tougher than he first let on, or he might have just been that desperate. “Go to hell.”
“Want to play it hard, huh?” Sullivan tossed the piece of glass back on the floor. “Your call.” There was movement in the hall, and Sullivan looked back to see a few Grimnoir waiting at the hatch, the Reader and the Mouth he’d asked for. They were men Heinrich recruited, so Sullivan didn’t really know them well yet.
“What’s going on?” the tall, thin young knight asked.
“Which one are you?” Sullivan asked.
“Mike Willis. I’m a Reader.”
“We got a spy,” Sullivan said simply. “Let me know when he’s lying.” He turned back to Skaggs. “This fella is a Reader. So I’m gonna have the truth from you even if they have to suck it right outta your brain.”
“Go to hell,” Skaggs repeated himself through gritted teeth.
Heinrich had picked up a rather stout length of rope. They were in the rope room, after all. He looked over at Sullivan and raised an eyebrow. Sullivan shrugged, so Heinrich began to beat Skaggs with it about the head and neck. The UBF engineer rolled into a fetal position and tried to protect his face.
“I’m a Mouth,” said the other knight. He was a short, downright skinny, almost frail-looking dark-haired man. “I can talk it out of him if you want, so that’s not really necessary.”
“You offended?”
“That depends entirely on who he’s working for.” The Mouth scowled. “If it’s Imperium I’ll want a turn beating him too.”
“What’s your name?”
“Genesse.”
“I like that attitude, Genesse.” Sullivan gave Heinrich a minute before holding up one hand. Heinrich stopped the beating. “My Teutonic friend here has very little patience for folks wasting his time. The only difference your attitude makes is determining how bad this hurts. So who were you talking to?”
Skaggs picked himself up off the floor, and tried to show a little dignity. He gave a bitter laugh. “I told them you were coming. You better let me go. The Japs will tear you apart.”
Sullivan looked to the Reader, who nodded. Skaggs was working for the Imperium. It never ceased to amaze him how many fools the Imperium managed to recruit in America. He could ask why, but that was pointless. The reasons varied, but they always came back to power, greed, or worst of all, the true believers who’d caught the Chairman’s twisted fevered vision of the future. The why didn’t even matter.
“You on your own?”
He spit a mouthful of blood on the metal floor. “As far as I know.”
Sullivan looked. Willis nodded.
“What was your mission?”
“Keep an eye on the traitor Toru. See what you were up to. Call it in.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. They don’t tell me much, okay?”
The Reader seemed to agree. “I’m getting a lot of thoughts about how this seemed like a good idea at the time.”
It was as Sullivan had expected.
“It wasn’t anything personal. I’m no Imperium nut. I’ve got debts. I’ve got problems. One of their boys, one of the scary ones with all the magic scars, he made me an offer. What was I supposed to do? They paid me a lot of money.”
“You think that makes it better?” Heinrich snapped.
“I get any last words?”
“Only if you manage to say them real quick,” Lance said through the mouse. “Heinrich, would you do the honors?”
“The fast way down?”
“Works for me.”
“Wait!” Skaggs screamed, but Heinrich had already put one hand on him. The two of them turned grey, drifted through the floor, and disappeared. There was nothing but a few thousand feet of open air beneath them and the mountaintops.
“Good Lord,” Willis whispered.
“That’s what he gets for falling in with the Imperium,” Genesse said without emotion. Now there was a man who was used to dealing with the Imperium.
Willis was horrified. “Just like that?”
“Just like that. When you’re at war, and you catch a spy, you don’t hold a trial. You execute them and move on.” Sullivan just shook his head. “If he’d got his way, we’d all be dead. Him too… The idiot.”