The elevator opened into blinding sunlight. Mr. Blue stepped out, and set me down on my own two feet.
We were on the roof of the complex, and beneath us lay only glass. I looked down once and paled. I could see the entire atrium below, empty, and from here the tops of the carefully trained ficus trees looked like bonsai.
Mr. Blue was watching me with his fixed and unblinking stare. Was that a sliver of a smile on his sculpted mouth? I couldn't tell.
"Look ahead, Sabilla," he said. "Never back."
Then he took me by the arm and led me to the edge of the roof, which was railed with waist-high iron spikes.
The entire city stretched beneath us. It was a spectacular view. Right before the edge sat a little twisted table and chairs, with a centerpiece full of blue thistles and a full breakfast spread out for two.
"That's.... nice." I said, after a long and expectant silence.
"So I've been told," said Mr. Blue. "Sit down."
He pulled out a precarious spiky chair for me, and I sat, after casting a surreptitious glance back at the elevator doors, which had closed since we came out. There were no visible buttons on the outside.
I examined breakfast, hoping to find some consolation there. Coffee in tiny cups: a sleek, asymmetrical teapot, scones and other baked goods, the sort of thing you usually see only behind glass, in places which charge you more for your first bite of breakfast than you can earn in an hour.
In a fit of bitter irony, though, I was starting to feel nauseous in addition to faint and stunned. Looking out at the city as I had been commanded didn't exactly help, either. It just reminded me how very high up we were, and that, unlike Florian, I was not physically capable of making multi-story exits and surviving.
"Is there a fire escape anywhere?" I asked, picking up a solid-looking scone. It had some heft to it. The coffee pot seemed hot. Maybe if it were hurled.... But what then?
"Why would there be?" asked Mr. Blue.
"Isn't that against the fire code?"
"Fire code?" said Mr. Blue. And he laughed again, as though that sort of thing really didn't apply to people like him. "Sabilla," he said, taking a bite of a breakfast roll and a gulp of black coffee (he did not bother with a napkin) "I've heard from Omri that you've expressed some concerns about your role at Azure Tech."
"Yes," I said, "There doesn't seem to be anything for me to do."
"Well," said Mr. Blue, "I'm a big fan of self-determination in my employees. And frankly, I'm disappointed by your lack of confidence, Bill, in person. I'd expected more, given the boldness of your one-paragraph application. What do you think you should be doing here?"
"I don't mind ordering coffee for anyone," I answered. I didn't want to seem unreasonable. "But I'd like to have something to do besides that. I have to put something on my resume when I leave. "
"I see," said Mr. Blue. "I suppose, if you want more direction while you're here –I can come up with something."
"Thank you." I said. "Also," I added, after a moment – since he was being so obliging – "I'd like to be able to leave the building weekly if that's not too much to ask."
"You may have that as well," said Mr. Blue. "Would tonight at 7PM suit you?"
"Ah – ok." I said.
"Wonderful. We'll make it a date. Drink your juice."
I reached for the juice, as dubious as it looked. But no sooner had I raised it to my lips, than a shadow surged up over the railing and onto the roof, and a long-fingered, black-gloved hand snatched glass and contents neatly from my fingers.
Leaning over the little table like a very large and pleather-draped fruit bat, Florian Werther Bathory Byron examined my juice with deep suspicion. At least, the set of his eyebrows looked deeply suspicious, under the brim of the hat he was wearing. He was also wearing sunglasses, and had tied a crimson handkerchief over the majority of his face.
"I wouldn't drink this if I were you, Bill," he said. "Far too many calories for this early in the morning. What has Florence been feeding you for the past two weeks, anyway?"
I made a half-hearted lunge out of my seat, whether for the glass or for Florian Werther Bathory Byron's nose I wasn't quite sure. I'd figure out when I got there.
It being Florian, of course, I didn't even come close: he stepped back with lightning speed and tossed the glass back over his shoulder. The juice made a spectacular violet arc in the air before it vanished over the edge of the railing.
"What are you DOING?!" I cried, running for the railing, glancing over, and reeling back with my stomach in my throat again. "There's pedestrians down there!"
"You worry too much about all the wrong things, Bill," said Florian. "Doesn't she?"
Mr. Blue only laughed his false laugh again, a sound without any real mirth. He took a deep gulp of his own juice. "Actually, this particular blend stimulates the metabolism. It's quite a useful poison."
"Pah!" said Florian. With a decisive air, he opened his spangled umbrella, planted the handle in the table centerpiece, and seated himself across from Mr. Blue in my place.
"I think you know why I'm here," he said with great significance, leaning back on two legs of his chair, and eying Mr. Blue through his glossy sunglasses with evident dislike.
"Oh?" asked Barrabas. "And why would you think that?"
Florian blinked in irritation. "Don't play innocent. Shall we?"
Mr. Blue sighed. "I'm expecting a flight at eight," he said, glancing down at his high-tech wrist piece.
"Oh, never fear, it won't take me that long to put you in your place," said Florian. "And my hands are the only weapons I'm going to need. That's why I put down my umbrella. See, Bill? I'm being a gentlemen."
"Florian," I said, "get out of here. Haven't you ever heard of security? Haven't you ever heard of armed men with guns? If you kill him, you'll be wanted for life!"
"I've always been a wanted man, Bill," said Florian. "Killing him will only keep me from becoming a haunted one. Haunted by the dishonor of never having avenged Helena's line!"
I had no idea what he was babbling about at that point. "If you do anything to him," I cried, "you'll make international news!"
"Really? Well, then. In that case," said Florian, "when they come to clean his entrails off the roof, you must tell them to use my painted portrait from 1857 on the broadcasts, the one Cordelia secreted somewhere in the attic – not the one under the loose floorboard in the master bedroom, although that's quite worth taking a look at too, if you ever have free time." And he winked. "Not some clinical police scribble."
"Can't you just whoosh me off the roof?" I whispered frantically.
"You're already green, and this is a new coat. Out of the question."
"Go home!" I burst out, quite desperate. "Leave me alone! Stop ruining my life! I've got everything under control!"
"Close your eyes, Sabilla," declaimed Florian grandly, "And give me a goodbye kiss! But seriously," he said, leaning closer to me, "He's a worse piece of work than I am. Surely you've realized that by now."
"That doesn't change anything," I said, flushing furiously. "I'll figure something out that doesn't involve dismemberment. You can't just go around – killing people!!"
"Actually," said Florian. "I can. And in broad daylight, too. I don't show up on cameras, and I have magic DNA. Wait a minute. Where'd he go? Bill?! How could you?! He's getting away!"
And indeed, Mr. Blue had strode casually over to the elevator while we were arguing, stepped onto it, and was on his way down. As we watched, it vanished into the depths of Azure Tech.
"Thank you, Sabilla," snapped the Scarfed Avenger pettishly. "Now I'll never have another chance to take him out."
He sighed deeply, wrenched his umbrella back up out of the floral arrangement, and looked away. He looked more pensive than I'd ever really seen him before, and a bit more grown-up – or that might just have been just another part he was putting on. I had no way to tell. What did I know about Florian, really? Apparently, he didn't show up in photographs and had magic DNA.
I felt his eyes return to me: me being lost in thought was evidently not a desired result of his posing, because he then added, with great deliberateness:
"You do realize that Mr. Blue had Cordelia killed, don't you?"