A Mage's Gambit: New York Falling (A Malachi English book) by Hyland Andy

Author:Hyland, Andy [Hyland, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Pandaemonium Press
Published: 2016-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

The Outworld Emporium sat in darkness, soon after midnight. The staff had cashed up, hit the lights and headed off to a club, or bed, or whatever comic shop staff did in the wee hours. The windows were replaced, the stock was back as it should be – no time had been wasted in getting things back in order. I was glad.

To get to the rear of the shop I needed to skirt round the block and come at it through an alley to the side. It all looked the same from the back, so I counted the doors twice until I was fairly sure that I’d got the right one. If I hadn’t, a quick sprint while the cops checked it out would be in order. The lock was good quality, and I’m not the best lock pick in town, so it was all of fifteen minutes later that I pushed the door open. The steady beep of the alarm sounded very loud as it prepared to kick into action. Inside and to the right was the control box. I entered the code, 1936, the year DC comics published its first title, Julie reliably informed me. Luckily she hadn’t changed it since the break-in, and the beeping stopped. All was still. A quick rummage in the fuse box later, and the CCTV was disabled.

I had a small flashlight with a narrow, red beam. It wasn’t great, but with the large windows facing onto a road that was never completely quiet, it was all I could risk using. I headed out to the main shop area, grabbing a small stepladder from the store cupboard on my way.

Closing my eyes, I pictured where it was I’d seen the plaster dust the morning of the robbery. Near the front, over to the left as I looked at it now. That would have to do. I put the stepladder out and climbed up. The ceiling was high and the ladder only designed for putting out and arranging stock on the upper shelves, so it was a stretch to examine things as closely as I wanted to.

It took a while, but eventually the red beam of the torch ran across a section that didn’t look right. It was almost too smooth, too good a job, compared to the rest. I ran my finger across it. A small spot, roughly circular, about half an inch in diameter. No other clues, but then I didn’t expect there to be. I was only looking for something to lend confirmation to what was already in my head. This wasn’t that exactly, but it put an interesting spin on things.

If it was as good an operation as I suspected, I was never going to find all the areas affected. Only sheer luck had pointed me in the direction of this one. Still, a quick check of the till area revealed some marks under the counter that had no business being there on such a new fixture.

It was enough, and all I had time for.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.