CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Easy is as Easy Does
After school Janice and Dawn made their way down to the department store at the mall. The place was packed with Christmas shoppers. They split up at the door, planning to meet down the block at a corner. Janice headed for the make-up department and Dawn concentrated on the jewelry displays in the center of the busy floor. She considered pins and necklaces. But her eyes were ultimately drawn to a pair of rhinestone earrings. They were beautiful, sparkly but delicate.
Dawn picked up the tiny black box that contained them and glanced around her. The Christmas shoppers bustling past were far too preoccupied to notice what she was doing. The clerk at the nearest counter had no less then five impatient customers waiting. So, it was easy for Dawn to discreetly nudge the little box into her sling in back of her cast. Then, not wanting to push her luck, she immediately retreated from the store.
Janice was already waiting for her at the agreed on corner. "So? How'd you do?" she asked.
"I got a pair of earrings," Dawn said. She pulled them out and held them up for her friend to see. They reflected softly in the quickly fading sunlight. "What do you think?"
"Ooh. They're nice. I got a lip liner and some nail polish. But I think I'll keep the nail polish for myself. I like it far too much to give it away to my mom. What are you going to do with the earrings?"
"I think I'm give them to my sister for Christmas," Dawn said. "She deserves something pretty."
- - - - - - - - - -
After work, Xander went with Peter and some of the other guys from the construction site to see about the new job. They were greeted by a couple of very shady looking characters. Xander assumed they were gangsters, at least they sort of looked the part with their dark suits and dark expressions. They said they were acting as go-betweens for another party and were setting things up. The real owners of the space would be visiting only from time to time until the whole project was finished.
"What you're gonna to be doing," one well turned out gangster said, "is to be building lots of little cubicles with windows. That's easy work for you guys. The company that's taking over this space is moving plants up from the rain forests of Brazil. Some of them will be for sale, others they're gonna experiment on, like to see if maybe they have medical use . . . You know, like curing cancer. So, all these cells have control thingys to keep them toasty and damp like in the jungle. Peter here will show you what the finished product looks like. And you, Alexander Harris? . . ."
Xander's eyes opened wide as he focused in tighter on the gangster who was pointing at him. "Yes."
"Peter here says you're a job boss. You can be in charge of this job too. We're gonna start on this side of the hall first." The gangster opened the nearest door off the hallway. We got materials waiting inside for ya."
Xander and the rest got right to work. The money they'd been promised was more then sufficient. Especially since it was all off the books and under the table. Xander figured that whoever was behind this job, was probably smuggling in plants illegally. Maybe even some funny weed or the like. But at the moment he didn't care. He just kept his mind on Anya's ice sculptures.
At the end of the evening, Xander stayed behind to put things away. He was surprised that the two gangster types left him pretty much to himself. Evidently, whatever was going on, they didn't feel very protective or involved in it. In fact, he noticed they totally avoided the doors at the back of the floor. Xander moved around without supervision as he dragged pieces of wall and metal piping from one room to another and put away the tools in the little rooms off to the side. It was late and he was tired. As he dragged things around, he accidentally stepped through one of the wrong doors and lost his way. Carrying two drills under his arm, he went through one door and then another and then another again. Till he suddenly found himself in a big room all the way at the back of the building. It was filled with the same kind of little cells that he and his crew were building.
With a curiosity born of many years of being a Scoobie, he couldn't resist looking into one of them. He saw a large . . . thing that was white and covered ridges. It looked sort of like a white mummy, except that it wasn't wrapped in bandages and it looked alive somehow. Next to the mummy on the floor was a young man, not much older then Dawn that seemed to be asleep. Xander tried to open the door of the cell but it was locked. He banged on the glass, but the young man and the mummy remained unmoved. That's when he started looking into the rest of the cells. They were all filled with one of the white mummy things. And with them was either a human or occasionally a demon of some kind. All the mummy roommates appeared to be lost in sleep. Xander didn't know what he'd found. But it definitely didn't look good.
It seemed like the next thing to do was get out of there and get some help.
Easy is as Easy Does
After school Janice and Dawn made their way down to the department store at the mall. The place was packed with Christmas shoppers. They split up at the door, planning to meet down the block at a corner. Janice headed for the make-up department and Dawn concentrated on the jewelry displays in the center of the busy floor. She considered pins and necklaces. But her eyes were ultimately drawn to a pair of rhinestone earrings. They were beautiful, sparkly but delicate.
Dawn picked up the tiny black box that contained them and glanced around her. The Christmas shoppers bustling past were far too preoccupied to notice what she was doing. The clerk at the nearest counter had no less then five impatient customers waiting. So, it was easy for Dawn to discreetly nudge the little box into her sling in back of her cast. Then, not wanting to push her luck, she immediately retreated from the store.
Janice was already waiting for her at the agreed on corner. "So? How'd you do?" she asked.
"I got a pair of earrings," Dawn said. She pulled them out and held them up for her friend to see. They reflected softly in the quickly fading sunlight. "What do you think?"
"Ooh. They're nice. I got a lip liner and some nail polish. But I think I'll keep the nail polish for myself. I like it far too much to give it away to my mom. What are you going to do with the earrings?"
"I think I'm give them to my sister for Christmas," Dawn said. "She deserves something pretty."
- - - - - - - - - -
After work, Xander went with Peter and some of the other guys from the construction site to see about the new job. They were greeted by a couple of very shady looking characters. Xander assumed they were gangsters, at least they sort of looked the part with their dark suits and dark expressions. They said they were acting as go-betweens for another party and were setting things up. The real owners of the space would be visiting only from time to time until the whole project was finished.
"What you're gonna to be doing," one well turned out gangster said, "is to be building lots of little cubicles with windows. That's easy work for you guys. The company that's taking over this space is moving plants up from the rain forests of Brazil. Some of them will be for sale, others they're gonna experiment on, like to see if maybe they have medical use . . . You know, like curing cancer. So, all these cells have control thingys to keep them toasty and damp like in the jungle. Peter here will show you what the finished product looks like. And you, Alexander Harris? . . ."
Xander's eyes opened wide as he focused in tighter on the gangster who was pointing at him. "Yes."
"Peter here says you're a job boss. You can be in charge of this job too. We're gonna start on this side of the hall first." The gangster opened the nearest door off the hallway. We got materials waiting inside for ya."
Xander and the rest got right to work. The money they'd been promised was more then sufficient. Especially since it was all off the books and under the table. Xander figured that whoever was behind this job, was probably smuggling in plants illegally. Maybe even some funny weed or the like. But at the moment he didn't care. He just kept his mind on Anya's ice sculptures.
At the end of the evening, Xander stayed behind to put things away. He was surprised that the two gangster types left him pretty much to himself. Evidently, whatever was going on, they didn't feel very protective or involved in it. In fact, he noticed they totally avoided the doors at the back of the floor. Xander moved around without supervision as he dragged pieces of wall and metal piping from one room to another and put away the tools in the little rooms off to the side. It was late and he was tired. As he dragged things around, he accidentally stepped through one of the wrong doors and lost his way. Carrying two drills under his arm, he went through one door and then another and then another again. Till he suddenly found himself in a big room all the way at the back of the building. It was filled with the same kind of little cells that he and his crew were building.
With a curiosity born of many years of being a Scoobie, he couldn't resist looking into one of them. He saw a large . . . thing that was white and covered ridges. It looked sort of like a white mummy, except that it wasn't wrapped in bandages and it looked alive somehow. Next to the mummy on the floor was a young man, not much older then Dawn that seemed to be asleep. Xander tried to open the door of the cell but it was locked. He banged on the glass, but the young man and the mummy remained unmoved. That's when he started looking into the rest of the cells. They were all filled with one of the white mummy things. And with them was either a human or occasionally a demon of some kind. All the mummy roommates appeared to be lost in sleep. Xander didn't know what he'd found. But it definitely didn't look good.
It seemed like the next thing to do was get out of there and get some help.