address was in the Sabel Industries headquarters building in Schaumburg. According to the building diagrams, instead of a location in the upper-floor, plush executive suites, her small three-room office was in the lower-rent middle.
To all appearances, she was a young woman living quietly, concentrating on her job.
Somehow, the description did not match her dark red hair or the way she took control last night. It certainly didn’t go with a woman who’d sneak into a locked room and burgle a safe without turning one of those red hairs.
Oh, yes, he wanted to see her again—for all kinds of reasons. The only questions were when and where.
He rubbed the itch in his chest and got to work on Finster’s list of business associates.
Monday morning at ten o’clock Irenee hurried into the Sabel Industries building not far from Woodfield Mall. On the way she’d visited several forest preserves to scatter her portion of ashes, and she was running late. Fortunately she had no pressing events upcoming, and she’d planned on devoting the day to paperwork and some phone calls to prospective clients. She juggled her purse, briefcase, and a box full of promotional items to push the elevator button.
As the elevator took her to the third floor, she went over her mental to-do list. The way her business was expanding, she really needed a full-time administrative assistant. Someone who could keep the books and back her up with all the details. She’d hired a couple of women from her mother’s office for past individual projects outside of normal business hours, but such sporadic part-timers weren’t reliable in the long run.
Her planning efforts were complicated because, although she was a full Defender team member after four long years of study, she was still in the dark about how much time her Sword activities would actually take. In general, the teams saw real action only once or twice a year. Practitioners were like everybody else, a mix of normal, honest people and a few bad ones. Only a very small number of the criminal types had sufficient power and talent to create even tiny evil items. The ancient, powerful monsters only showed up every fifty or a hundred years.
This business with the Cataclysm Stone, however, was clearly a special case, and her active role was yet undetermined. At the meeting last night, they had only decided to keep investigating. Various Defenders, both on her team and not, were working on Alton’s and Bruce Ubell’s movements and activities, searching for any trace of the larger remnant, or monitoring Alton’s condition. Until they knew more, she was to go about her regular business. Even with no team task, at least she could think about the situation.
Alton was out of commission, so he couldn’t tell them who had the rest of the Stone. Several team members thought his cousin might be the second villain and possibly, even probably, the holder of the other remnant. Their reasoning was based mostly on Ubell’s close association with Alton since childhood, his ambiguous “vice president” position with undefined duties within Finster Shipping, and his reputation for being the power behind Alton’s throne.
Until they could do so from a position of certainty, however, nobody wanted to ask Ubell where the rest of the evil item was. Indeed, practitioner law was against accusation without proof. If Ubell had found the notice she left, he certainly hadn’t contacted them, and his lack of action raised everyone’s suspicions even higher.
Irenee had never met Ubell face-to-face, only seen him at a distance—like at the gala—a situation the other Defenders shared. They were working on ways to get physically close to him without making a formal call. One good sniff and they’d know if he was evil. Unfortunately, you had to be standing next to the person to pick up the odor of evil. Thank goodness she hadn’t had to spend much time near Alton on Saturday night, or she might have thrown up from
To all appearances, she was a young woman living quietly, concentrating on her job.
Somehow, the description did not match her dark red hair or the way she took control last night. It certainly didn’t go with a woman who’d sneak into a locked room and burgle a safe without turning one of those red hairs.
Oh, yes, he wanted to see her again—for all kinds of reasons. The only questions were when and where.
He rubbed the itch in his chest and got to work on Finster’s list of business associates.
Monday morning at ten o’clock Irenee hurried into the Sabel Industries building not far from Woodfield Mall. On the way she’d visited several forest preserves to scatter her portion of ashes, and she was running late. Fortunately she had no pressing events upcoming, and she’d planned on devoting the day to paperwork and some phone calls to prospective clients. She juggled her purse, briefcase, and a box full of promotional items to push the elevator button.
As the elevator took her to the third floor, she went over her mental to-do list. The way her business was expanding, she really needed a full-time administrative assistant. Someone who could keep the books and back her up with all the details. She’d hired a couple of women from her mother’s office for past individual projects outside of normal business hours, but such sporadic part-timers weren’t reliable in the long run.
Her planning efforts were complicated because, although she was a full Defender team member after four long years of study, she was still in the dark about how much time her Sword activities would actually take. In general, the teams saw real action only once or twice a year. Practitioners were like everybody else, a mix of normal, honest people and a few bad ones. Only a very small number of the criminal types had sufficient power and talent to create even tiny evil items. The ancient, powerful monsters only showed up every fifty or a hundred years.
This business with the Cataclysm Stone, however, was clearly a special case, and her active role was yet undetermined. At the meeting last night, they had only decided to keep investigating. Various Defenders, both on her team and not, were working on Alton’s and Bruce Ubell’s movements and activities, searching for any trace of the larger remnant, or monitoring Alton’s condition. Until they knew more, she was to go about her regular business. Even with no team task, at least she could think about the situation.
Alton was out of commission, so he couldn’t tell them who had the rest of the Stone. Several team members thought his cousin might be the second villain and possibly, even probably, the holder of the other remnant. Their reasoning was based mostly on Ubell’s close association with Alton since childhood, his ambiguous “vice president” position with undefined duties within Finster Shipping, and his reputation for being the power behind Alton’s throne.
Until they could do so from a position of certainty, however, nobody wanted to ask Ubell where the rest of the evil item was. Indeed, practitioner law was against accusation without proof. If Ubell had found the notice she left, he certainly hadn’t contacted them, and his lack of action raised everyone’s suspicions even higher.
Irenee had never met Ubell face-to-face, only seen him at a distance—like at the gala—a situation the other Defenders shared. They were working on ways to get physically close to him without making a formal call. One good sniff and they’d know if he was evil. Unfortunately, you had to be standing next to the person to pick up the odor of evil. Thank goodness she hadn’t had to spend much time near Alton on Saturday night, or she might have thrown up from
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