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Chapter 25 - End of Divergent Paths

It was Rut who suggested that we split up.

After all, we still had many floors to examine, and while we were certain the thirty-seventh floor was the one we needed to go to, ignoring the possibility of the fiftieth floor was too much of a risk. I watched the twins exchange a look, and Fiz nodded. Within seconds, he was off, heading up the stairs. Rut and I would be handling the lower floor.

I didn't like the twins being apart. For one, I knew Rut didn't do well without Fiz around, and two, I would hate myself forever if something happened to Fiz. I knew I was near powerless in comparison to their skills but I had been so helpless when Gideon had defended me. I couldn't imagine doing that to another friend.

When we went down the stairs, I saw Rut hurrying but something in the back of my mind told me to slow down. As I rounded the bend on the thirty-eighth floor, I saw Avery. He was leaning against the wall.

"You're so close, Simon," the wolf boy whispered to me.

I stopped and looked at him, then the walls. Even the stairs were ornately decorated with handsome wood paneling and lanterns. Everything about this place, even the closets, seemed so ornate -- it was as if there was some weird desire to make sure everything looked beautiful and pristine. Nobility was such a weird lot.

Rut stopped at the landing on the next level and looked up at me expectantly. "Hurry up, Simon!"

"Wait," I motioned in front of me. "Avery is here. He says I'm close to something."

"Your ghost friend?" Rut asked. I knew he didn't quite believe me when I said I was seeing the ghost of my dead friend, but I could tell he was, at the very least, open minded. "Did he say anything else?"

"No... he's just standing here. Or he was. When I looked at you, he vanished."

"So we should hurry then."

"Wait," I looked at the wall again and touched the smooth wood. "This should be a floor. Right here. A doorway should be right here."

Rut looked around and then down a few flights of stairs, then squinted his eyes. "I think you're right." He kneeled down to take a closer look at the stairs. "Each step of the stairs between the thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth floors is slightly taller than between the other floors higher up. The decorations on the stairs help hide the fact that they are taller, so you'd never notice it unless you were looking for it. And the decorations on the walls and stairs are meticulously designed so that you won't even notice a missing door." He stood up and turned to me. "There is a hidden floor. Right here, just like we guessed."

"But how do you even get inside?" I mused aloud. I couldn't see a switch or a handle. There must have been another way inside. I sighed and stepped away, heading down the stairs toward Rut. "Let's check the thirty-seventh. There may be a door we missed."

We were searching the floor below, not finding anything, and becoming increasingly agitated. For me, it was because I knew we were so close but I couldn't find the missing puzzle piece. For Rut, I knew it was because he was worried about Fiz. As capable as his brother was, Rut was always looking out for Fiz. They were very close to one another and they were all they had. I swallowed a little bit and rubbed the back of my head as we were looking inside an office.

"Hey Rut," I stammered. "I wanted to say thank you for doing this for me."

"I'm also here for Renaldo," Rut said, peering around a wall and squinting to see through the darkness. "Don't think that this is entirely you."

Rut was always so careful with his emotions. At least the softer ones. I touched his arm when he wasn't looking at me; I wanted his attention. "No, I mean, you stuck around when I knew you wanted to leave."

I saw Rut look into my eyes, examining my face and trying to puzzle something out. He tilted his head to the side and was quiet. I knew that was a trick of his -- people hated long pauses of silence and anxious people would often fill the gap. It was a clever trick to get people off balance or commit more than they wanted to say. Rut did it without thinking I imagined.

I continued: "I know you were concerned about Fiz getting hurt, and you knew that this was not something you could only half commit to. You knew that if you went in you were in until the end, and that was deadly. You could have left town with Fiz. I know you wanted to. I also know you wanted to tell me to handle it on my own, but you didn't."

Rut frowned and let the lantern he was holding dangle from his arm. "Simon," he said, "you're my friend. When we first met, I thought you'd be a clever distraction for Fiz -- he doesn't make friends easily and you're the first one in a long time who he just likes for no reason -- at least, no reason that's obvious to me. I think he likes you because you're genuine but also a bit broken like we are."

We continued walking through the dark hallway lit only by Rut's lantern.

"When I suggested that you move in with us," the white fox continued, "my thought was that I could get some time away and Fiz could be with someone he liked. It was as simple as that." He sighed. "But then you had to go and be likable. You had to be a good person, and even though you clearly had something going on, you still did your best for Rut and I. I watched you always pay your rent on time, pitch in when needed, do errands, and never complain. You ended up being wonderful company and I realized that I also liked you not just as a distraction for my brother but as a friend. A genuine friend."

Rut then held up his lantern. "So when you came out about all this," he said while making a circular motion around them, lighting up some of the eerie caracal-shaped decorations that glittered in the light, "my first instinct was to cut my losses. You were going to get whomever was in your orbit into trouble. You never asked for help, either. You were going to let Fiz and I walk away even though you had practically no one else to turn to in this whole city. You didn't want us to get hurt and you were putting us before yourself."

The white fox stopped and turned to face me.

"When I realized that... I realized that people like you don't really come around all that often. This world is awful -- it's not a good place, and good people who survive in it generally end up being shells of themselves. But you aren't losing yourself to any of that. You want to be a good person without anything expected in return. Some people would say you're naïve -- and you definitely are -- but the reason a lot of us are here is because we want to be good too. It's just harder for most of us. We can't let someone like you get snuffed out. It would be a huge loss to everyone."

We heard footsteps from the other side of the hallway and turned. To our relief, it wasn't security or even Mordecai, but our own allies. Two orange tigers and a fox. They peered inside warily at us, and while I didn't know their name, Rut definitely did.

"Frances, Leonard, Justin," the white fox said as he walked over. "Thank god you're here. We need some help looking for something hidden."

I listened in while Rut explained what we had uncovered. The three men, all of whom looked more capable of moving a building than solving a math problem, looked wary but then dispersed through the floor. Rut could be intimidating when he really showed just how smart he was.

My part was nothing special, either. I wandered down the hallways and knocked on walls as Rut had told us. Supposedly if there was a door or a wall or something special behind it, it would make a different, hollow sound. I didn't think it worked with marbled stone, but I didn't question the white fox.

We were in a short hallway leading toward the center of the building when I saw Rut staring up at one of those creepy lamps. Mordecai, for whatever reason, had made bronze figures of caracals holding the lightbulbs in their mouths. I thought they looked disturbing but they were also works of art in their own right.

Rut was tapping his chin as I came up and took my hat off to wipe my brow. I smiled at him and then looked up at the light. "These really set my fur on edge."

"Me too," Rut said slowly. He stepped closer to the wall and then looked behind us. "This lamp is different from the others."

I looked behind us and at another one of those creepy lamps. They were all the same shape and design but they were set high on the walls, out of the reach of someone without the use of a ladder. This one was set low. The hallway also dead ended to nothing but a wall.

"He's a fan of puzzles..." Rut said to himself as he stood up on his toes and touched the bronze lamp. He felt around it and then grabbed one of its huge ears. With a pull the ears went from being erect to laying splayed out on the side of the head. When the left ear was tugged down, we heard a gearing mechanism. Rut grunted and actually let himself hang from the lamp as the head slid down a hidden mechanism all the way to chest level. He gripped and turned the head clockwise until he heard a click. With a shove of the head, there was the sound of a latch coming undone at the end of the hall. A doorway had opened.

"How the hell did you know to do that?!" I asked, dumbstruck.

"I didn't, I just tried it," Rut said with a grin. "Mordecai likes puzzles, remember? His journal was hidden with a cipher. I figured something hidden in plain sight would also be the key. I'd been tugging on things since we got on this floor, this lamp was just the first thing to actually work. Come on."

We pushed through the doorway and into the hidden floor. This was the first time I had seen something in Crossbell Tower look less than ornate. The floors were concrete and the walls brick. The lighting was simple bulbs hanging from wires. Grabbing a lantern near the door I lit a match and gave us some extra light -- the floor was darker than I would have liked. It was also silent as the grave.

"I was going to bet this was his secret apartment or something, but I guess he's actually on the top floor. I hope Fiz is enjoying damaging his personal belongings," Rut said with a dry chuckle. We proceeded inward.

The floor was tall. Actually, it was the height of two floors, which was a clever way of hiding the secret floor. Above us were grated steps and catwalks like a factory. Long pipes ran up and down the length of the walls, and I could see the shafts for the elevators. There were also odd pulleys in the corners of the building that seemed to run to the bottom, and the top, of the building. There was also a long set of tables in the middle with various chemicals and tools. I had no idea what this was, but Rut looked worried.

"He's insane..."

"Let me guess. It's more of that explosive powder, isn't it?"

"More?" Rut said to me like I had called the ocean a puddle. "No... Simon, look." He pointed to the far end of the room where there were barrels and barrels stacked from the floor to the ceiling. They were all plainly marked but there was that faint grayish residue on the sides. They went deep into the floor, which was now clearly some kind of warehouse. There were pulleys everywhere and that freight elevator we had seen? It had a stop here. Rut looked worried. Sickly worried.

"Simon," Rut said, "if these are all full of the powder... there's enough explosives here to level half of Manhattan." Rut was never one to embellish. "And he's clever. Keeping it here, no one can find it somewhere else in the city, and he knows exactly where they would be when they leave here. As dangerous as it is, he's also a control freak. He'd rather have it here than somewhere else where it can go off by accident or be stolen. He doesn't trust a lot of people, does he?"

I looked at the barrels and felt a chill run down my spine. Something like this was just unheard of. Why would someone want to make so many people suffer? I was thinking it over when I remembered just who was doing this. He wasn't just a rich psychopath, he was also old blood from England.

I won't say I know much about history, I really don't, but what I do know is that the nobility will often walk over the poor to get what they want. It was why so many children worked horrible jobs back home -- it was cheaper to employ kids.

For a moment, I remembered my earlier life, being cold a lot of the time, covered in soot and feeling miserable even when I had my friends.

I remembered eating Alister's cabbage soup and wondering where my next meal with meat would come from.

I remembered so many faces of dead friends who had injured themselves or choked to death in chimneys. How many times I had been stuck and was only alive now because of luck? How many times had I fallen and hurt myself, or gotten sick, or a plethora of other things that made living to the age I am now almost a fantasy in comparison?

If Mordecai had seen me dying on the street, he wouldn't have stopped to help; he would have been offended that I had the nerve to die in his presence.

Men like Mordecai didn't care about people like me. People of the nobility saw me as a means to an end. I felt my hands clench and claws dig into my palms, anger coursing through my fur and muscles. I felt a growl start in my chest and I was about to scream when I felt something brush across my cheek.

Wind?

I blinked and stepped over to the brick wall, hand out and feeling it. There was a breeze of some kind here. I stopped in front of the brick wall, plain and normal looking as ever. But when I held my palm against the cracks I could feel wind.

"The hell is this...?"

I felt around and over the stones and when I felt one give a little I pushed it more. There was a click and I saw Rut whirl around, gun drawn. The door I was in front of slid into a hidden recess and I was staring at a shaft leading all the way down to the ground level. There were new ropes hanging from the ceiling of the shaft, which stopped a floor above this one, and down into the darkness. I could feel the bitter cold shooting up from the black void beneath. Rut rushed over and looked down.

"Seems like our friend even has backup methods to get the barrels and chemicals in and out of his building. This place may as well be made by H.H. Holmes himself!" Rut took my arm and pulled me back from the edge and looked at me. "Good eye though. More evidence is always beneficial. I think we can finally signal the others outside."

Rut rushed out of the hidden room and floor and back into the ornately decorated stairwell. We walked up to the nearest floor--the thirty-eighth floor--so that we could move on with the next step of our mission. Rut moved to one of the high windows facing west and peered out. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a square piece of glass.

"Simon, let me see your lantern."

Rut took the lantern and then turned the glass to catch the light. He let the beam first bounce on the far wall to make sure he was doing it correctly before he put the lantern on the ledge. He then shone the light out into the darkness. He twisted and turned the glass and watched quietly. I swallowed, thinking: What if the man outside didn't see? What if he was caught or dead?

After what felt like a year of staring out into the cold city, an explosion of color burst into the sky. A firework. It amazed me how beautiful it was, even if it was still part of the job. Rut looked at it and grinned, pleased with his result.

"You probably know how they make those, don't you?" I asked the other fox.

"What, a firework? Absolutely. The Chinese have been making them for hundreds of years. It's not hard. Certain metals and elements can create different colors when there's an explosion. It--"

"I didn't want an actual lesson, just letting you admit you're smart." I nudged my friend with an elbow. I watched as the sparkles of light faded away into nothing.

If the other teams were doing their job, they were either listening very keenly for the explosion or someone was watching for the firework. That was the signal to the other teams that evidence was found and everyone was to leave the premise at once.

"So what are you going to do when this psycho is arrested or killed?" Rut asked me, looking over his shoulder as we headed for the stairs.

That took me by surprise. I paused briefly and realized I had no idea. "I don't know," I admitted with a sheepish grin. "When I left London, this was where we were planning to go. We had dreamed about it since we saw a poster of New York City on a shop window when we were cubs."

I smiled a little bit as I once again stepped back into my childhood.

---

"Gideon! Ye see that? It's like London, only it's all new."

The wolf standing next to me, tall and broad, crossed his arms over his chest and smirked. "Aye, but what's so special about that?"

"Think of it, ya numpty!" I said with a grin and grabbed his wrists, spinning him to look at me. "There ain't no King or Queen, ain't no royalty at all! The rich are all like us. People who came up from the bottom."

"No foolin'?" Gideon said, looking over at the poster. "But what's to stop those people from bein' the new blue bloods and given' us a bad time?" He asked me seriously. "They rich. Money makes people stupid."

"Ah, they Americans! Yankees! They rebelled against the crown, 'member?"

"No," Gideon said with a scowl. "I hate school and you know it. History is stupid. All dead people and old books and stuff."

I rolled my eyes and smirked, standing straight like a soldier. "Well, the Americans, ye see, they was mad at Parliament--"

"So they're just like us," Gideon chimed in.

"Shh!" I brought my hands up to my muzzle to hush Gideon. "Let me finish the story. Then ye can talk until yer blue in the face."

With a grin Gideon tipped his invisible hat to me.

"Anyway! So the Americans, they get all mad and say they independent. So they go on about rebelling. At first it looks like they were gonna lose right bad, but then the French came and they helped. And now the United States is one of the strongest countries in the world!"

"And full of people who don't like authority none," Gideon said with a rub of his chin. "You think there's still a bit of good luck and fortune for a couple 'o scrappers like us, eh?"

"Why not?" I said with a beaming smile, puffing my chest out and looking stronger than I actually was. I was a scrawny little thing, but I was as big as an ox in my mind. " 'Sides, between your muscles and my brains, there ain't nothin' we can't do, Giddy."

"Don't call me 'Giddy', I sound like a girl or somethin'."

"I ain't never seen a girl with arms like yours, so I don't think that's entirely true." I grabbed Gideon's arm, shaking it a little to get him to stop pretending to be stoic and stone faced. "Whaddya say?"

"About wut?" Gideon quirked a brow.

"Goin' to New York City! It sounds so amazing. C'mon, let's do it."

"And how we gonna get there? Swim?"

"No!" I groaned and rubbed my head. "We'll save our coin. Buy passage when I get too big to be a sweeper. We make it out across the ocean and into our new lives, but I wanna go with you."

Gideon looked down at me and then sighed, curling his arms around me and pulling me close and into a hug. We were down an alley now so no one would have seen us. I felt him stroke the back of my head and smiled.

"When you look like that, Simon, how can I say no?"

---

"Simon?" Rut's familiar voice brought me back to the present. He was looking at me closely. "You were a million miles away."

"Just remembering old promises," I said with a frown as I followed him toward the stairs. As much as I liked who I was now, the idea that my dream, our dream, was tainted and ruined hurt. But we had also come through and ended up in the city just like we planned.

"Thinking about Gideon?" Rut asked me as we rounded a corner. "You know, when this is all over, maybe you--" Rut stopped and shot his hand out, stopping me.

I almost fell over. "What is it?"

"Blood," Rut said, growling low in his throat and reaching into his vest. "Be still..."

When we rounded the corner, I knew in my heart what was there before I saw it. Bodies were on the marble floor, cut to ribbons and blood pooling across the expensive marble. They belonged to the guys we met earlier, but now limp and lifeless.

And standing at the end of the hall near the stairs, wearing his costume, was Mordecai. The mask which he wore when I first saw him was hanging from some catch on his belt. I guess he realized who was here and didn't need to hide his face.

In his hand was a long, thin sword, and tucked under his arm was its scabbard. Mordecai was wiping the blood off the blade lazily and looked up, his eyes lighting up when he saw me. He grabbed the scabbard and clicked them together. I saw that the sword doubled as a cane. His new cane.

"Hello Simon," the caracal said without even looking in my direction. I felt the muscles in my body tighten as he slowly turned toward me. "I could smell your scent as soon as I stepped into this floor. What a pleasure to meet you again!"

His voice was warm, excited, a purr like soft silk. I looked behind him and saw Gideon standing there, unmoving and firm. My friend. My lover. He had taken someone from me and twisted him. Anger flared through me like before. This man had taken so much from me.

I was done letting him hurt me.

"Now then," Mordecai said and leaned on his cane, watching me with those bright eyes of his. "It is time to shake off the rabble and find strength in my arms. I will cherish you. I have so much I want to show you..." He sounded longing and took a step forward toward me.

"Fuck you," I said, stepping toward him now with my fists up. Just like Gideon had shown me. I watched his eyes actually widen when I cussed Mordecai out. The cat even looked surprised. I guess he didn't expect me to be so... angry.

"You scared me as a little boy, Mordecai, but this time is different. This time I'm strong enough to stop you."

Mordecai smiled at me the way adults did when a child was being silly. "Oh, Simon," he cooed, "you are so many things, but a fighter is not one of them. It is time to come to your senses, my dear boy."

"Oh yeah?"

I quickly drew the gun that Rut had given me from the inside my vest and aimed it right at Mordecai.

"This is for Avery," I said coldly as I pulled the trigger.