Page 40 of Rifted Hearts
Now that he was here, he felt more uncertain about his plan. He needed allies, but there wasn’t anyone he could trust. He could try to track down José and Jessie, but he couldn’t explain why he needed their help without tellingthem who he was. His plan depended on plausible deniability of any connection to the Colony.
Remi headed to Kaveh’s office first, since Zale had mentioned the Pouch Twins wanted to rob it. It was closed of course, the windows dark.
Except for a quick flash of light, winking out as soon as he spotted it.
The twins were up to their usual larcenous ways. Remi approached the building with caution. He considered and then rejected the front entrance and instead skulked around, prepared to break in through the back door. It was already open, the window smashed, and the door unlocked. Fast and sloppy—this job had the Pouch Twins’ grubby paws all over it.
Once inside, it wasn’t hard to figure out where the burglars were. Loud screeches came from the aviary, and the glow of shroom lamps lit up the partially open door to the room. Remi crept down the hallway, trying to make as little noise as possible. He was within a meter of the door when a voice rang out behind him.
“Put your hands up or I’ll shoot.”
Remi froze then lifted both arms into the air. His heart pounding in fear, he turned around to face a familiar lumbering creature close to twice his size. A pinkish face too small for the body below it was twisted into a confused expression, and a hairy, paw-like hand was pointing a banana in Remi’s direction.
Well, there was a reason Fable was considered the brawn and not the brains of the Pouch Twins.
“What are you doing here?” Fable jabbed the fruit at Remi then considered it for a long moment, as if unsure why it wasn’t his gun. Of course, since the monstertown was now in the riftland, a gun was nothing more than an excitingchoice for a paperweight. “Zale was supposed to get you out of town.”
Remi let his hands fall to his side and started talking. “Change in plans. Orders from the Don. I need to take Kat—the hostage, I mean— straight to Arimanius.”
“Huh.” Fable scratched at one ear. “The Don is here? He never comes on jobs, but I guess he’s got a real problem with the drakones.”
“That is why it’s operationally critical I take possession of our target and move him to the alternate location.” Remi glanced at the door to the aviary. “Is Kat in there?”
“No cats, only birds.” Fable peeled the banana and began to eat it. “Mabel thinks we could sell them and make some money, but I think we should make off with some of the doc’s medical equipment instead.”
Remi took a breath. The problem with tricking the twins was that the best cons relied on the marks themselves buying into the lie, adding their own fantasies and thoughts to the original bait. Fable and Mabel had been accused of many things, but overthinking and creativity weren’t among them.
“Kat Nakamura is the hostage,” Remi said. “Kaveh Salehi’s Matchmaker-chosen partner.”
“Oh, you mean the kid.” Fable shook his head. “We did snatch him, but Lyall showed up and said he was taking him to the military base to be eaten by the phantoms.”
Remi stopped himself from blurting out a shockedWhat?in Fable’s face before the door behind him opened wider, spilling light into the corridor.
“Stop fucking around with whoever you caught and kill him.” Mabel stood silhouetted in the door frame. She wasn’t much smaller than her twin brother, but unlike him, she held a large bowie knife in her hand, whichwouldwork in ariftland. “Oh, it’s little Remi. Come on in here and help with these cages.”
She gestured for them to enter and disappeared inside. Fable clapped a hairy arm over Remi’s shoulder, and he had little choice but to play along.
The aviary was trashed, and Remi had to hide his fury at the twins for messing up all of his hard work. That reaction wouldn’t fit with the lies he was currently telling, and the twins wouldn’t believe Remi had done any actual manual labor in the first place. He hardly believed it himself.
Empty cages gaped open, except for one enclosure where all three of the phoenixes were shoved in together. The fire birds fluttered their wings, squawking in distress. Remi looked around, worried something had happened to Snow.
“Bad guys, bad guys.” Snow’s voice came from over his head, and Remi looked up to see the cockatoo perched on a top shelf.
“That one won’t shut up.” Mabel pulled another knife, one of the weighted throwing blades she was so talented at using.
Remi lunged forward to block her from hurting the bird.
He succeeded in knocking the knife sideways, and the blade hit one of the windows with significant force, leaving a star-shaped crack. Any relief he might have felt fled when Mabel grabbed his throat with her free paw, hoisting him up off the floor.
His vision began to go black around the edges, and he kicked at her uselessly.
Fable came over and yanked at her arm. She dropped Remi onto the floor and began to argue with her brother.
“Don’t choke him. He has to tell us the new plan.” Fablejabbed the remnants of the banana in Mabel’s face until she grabbed the peel and hurled it on the floor.
“Lyall said there was a new plan too when he took that skinny guy we were supposed to kidnap.” Mabel had multiple knives, and Remi didn’t even have a piece of fruit to defend himself with. She tended to have a quicker temper and a more suspicious mind than her brother. “What’s this about a new-new plan?”
Remi propped himself up on his elbow and forced himself to make words come out of his raw and bruised throat. “The white bird is worth a fucking fortune. You’ll get more money for him than all of the fire birds put together.”
