Tales of the Red Panda: Pyramid of Peril by Gregg Taylor

Author:Gregg Taylor
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2014-09-04T07:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

“The roof is clear,” the Flying Squirrel called, “you ‘bout ready to go?”

“They didn’t have a man up there?” he asked, surprised, as he fussed with his suitcase.

“They had two men up there,” she said, “but they’re gonna take a little nap now.”

“Did they see you coming?” he asked, removing a long, flat pouch from his gear.

“Do they ever?” she asked. “Besides, they were watching the stairs, not the hatch. I gassed ‘em and trussed them up like Christmas turkeys. What’s the hold up?”

“Those bands Max is sporting are well-made, but once you find the seams, the locking mechanism seems simple enough,” he said, opening the pouch and rolling it out. It held variations of some of their regular equipment – throwing stars, throwing knives and combat boomerangs lined with a metal edge.

“The lock is magic,” Kit said, confused.

“No,” he said, “the lock is a lock. It’s just protected by magic.”

“You say potato,” she replied with a very slight roll of her eyes.

“That’s where this comes in,” he said, holding aloft a lockpick set that looked identical to the one that she knew was in the inside left pocket of his coat.

“Lockpicks?” she asked. “Did you forget the protected by magic part?”

“I did not,” he smiled. “Do you remember how our old friend Doctor Chronopolis tries to hide the energy signature of the mystic items in his museum collection?”

She nodded. “Sure. He developed a special alloy that… I don’t know. Blocks magic.”

“It is highly resistant to the energy wavelengths associated with mystic powers,” he said.

“Right,” she replied, her brows furrowed. “That’s kind of what I…” She trailed off. “Are you telling me that those lockpicks are made of anti-magic metal?”

“Well,” he shrugged, “magic-resistant alloy, anyway.”

She frowned. “You keep saying the same thing as me but using different words.”

He thought about it for a moment. “I suppose that’s true,” he said in what Kit supposed was supposed to be an apology. “It occurred to me that the metal might have uses in practical crime-fighting, should we ever face another occult threat.”

“Hey!” she said excitedly, looking at the rest of the gear in the pouch he had just rolled open. “Aren’t you taking these?”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he said.

She was flabbergasted. “Are all these goodies made with anti-magic whatsit?”

“I love it when you talk technical jargon,” he said in his best Kit Baxter voice, which was disturbingly good.

“Okay,” she deadpanned, “I deserved that. Answer the question.”

He shrugged, but nodded. “Yes,” he said, “but we haven’t had a chance to test them.”

She started emptying her utility belt of similar items. “Tonight sounds like a real good chance to me,” she said with a grin.

He frowned. “Don’t rely on them too much,” he said. “They may not do anything.”

She was filling her belt pouches as quickly as she could. “They’ll still do whatever a regular boomerang’ll do, right?”

“Yes,” he admitted, “but this doesn’t mean we can go toe-to-toe with a spell-caster.”

“Well, you can’t,” she grinned.

“Kit, I mean it,” he said gravely. “Until we know otherwise, the best policy is to avoid magic as much as possible, and when you can’t, duck.

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