Then Kathryn opened her big mouth.
“She’d love to, but she can’t. She has very strict parents. Not allowed out on school nights.”
I wanted to scream. “Oh, Egon, I ree-ally wish I could. Maybe another time?”
Egon’s eyes narrowed, but the smile stayed in place. “My loss.” He did a little wave and slipped away.
When Egon rounded the corner, I proceeded to bang my head against the locker.
“I’m asked out by the hottest boy in the galaxy, and I have to go to work. What’s wrong with my life?” I looked at Kathryn and sighed. “Strict parents? That’s the best you could do?”
She patted my cheeks. “I suppose I could have said you have a building to stake out and a kidnapper to capture.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Shadow Passage
Ten o’clock. The air was unusually mild for a spring evening. Of course, this part of the country was used to weather patterns that stubbornly ignored the calendar.
I stood on the rooftop of the Shadow Passage, gazing out over the thriving metropolis of Greensburg like Batman overlooking Gotham City. Except he did it from buildings that were a thousand feet tall, and the Shadow Passage was, like, two floors.
Andy and the Kilodan were preoccupied with some big covert operation, so they told me to take care of Mason myself. Sweet! I waited there watching the street like a little kid on Christmas Eve. Good thing I peed before I left.
At the front of the building, a heavily traveled street went up the hill to the Court House. Behind it lay an alley. Dead End Alley, the place where my parents died. I had only a vague recollection of that alley, but knowing it was right below me left me with a very uncomfortable knot in my stomach. I instantly put it out of my mind and concentrated on the mission.
I thought it might be a long night, so I chose style over safety. Instead of armor, I wore a reversible hoodie—dark burgundy outside, light green inside, complete with secret agent pocket for storing important things like high-tech weaponry and lip gloss. I accessorized with a blunt-billed cap, also dark burgundy, complete with pull-down face mask, wafer thin night-vision lenses, and the full array of Psi Fighter psitronics. Fashionable enough for hunting bad guys, yet practical enough for a night out with Kathryn afterward.
The rooftop was flat and gritty, surrounded by a low brick wall that blocked the already dim light from the street below. A noisy air conditioner sat droning on the street side of the roof. On the alley side lay the unobtrusive trapdoor I would use to make my entrance. According to the plans, a ladder ran from the trapdoor down to the top floor of the Shadow Passage. The building layout was pretty simple. The top floor was all attic. The arcade room, with its bathrooms, utility closets, and furnace, took up most of the lower floor. The SSA was in the back corner of the building, but there was also a small room next to it, inaccessible from the main arcade. I would have to go through the SSA to get to it—or I could take a staircase that led down from the attic.
On the street below, I recognized two of my finest classmates walking into the front entrance of the Shadow Passage. Chuckie Cuff and Art Rubric.
My watch said ten-fifteen. No Mason. Must bad guys always be fashionably late? Scallion (or his slimy alter ego) would already be hidden deep in the bowels of the Shadow Passage. Since I didn’t know who I was looking for, I needed Mason to lead me to him, but Mason obviously didn’t care about my priorities. A man in a trench coat approached the front door. He kept his hat pulled low over his head. If he was trying to be inconspicuous, it wasn’t working. The “Secret Agent Man” song started playing in my head, and I couldn’t help but dance a little.
I continued to scan the street. The single streetlamp at the front of the Shadow Passage didn’t illuminate much. By eleven o’clock, a zillion people had come and gone, and by midnight, my eyes drooped and I was bored out of my mind. There was no way I was seeing Kathryn tonight—Mason was way late and it was way past my bedtime. Real missions were just not as exciting as the ones in the movies. There should have been a boat chase by now. Or a romance scene. Egon popped into my head at the thought. He asked me out to ‘study.’ How hot was that? I sighed. Just as I was about to call it a night, Mason appeared in the streetlight.
How totally inconsiderate, making me wait. No more inconsiderate, I suppose, than causing my birth parents’ death. I knew it was wrong to feel that way—but I felt that way. I didn’t care that he was only six when it happened, a victim of Nicolaitan. So was I. But I went on to fight the Knights. He joined their fan club. Mason’s Friday night bonus points plummeted even deeper into the negative digits.