Eisley screamed, though the wind tore the sound away as soon as it emerged from his throat. He clung harder to Cassmere’s leg. His eyes were tightly closed, but had he dared to look, he’d have seen gently rolling hills passing by beneath him. Very quickly. And much, much too far down below.

Beside him, Panos hung from the other leg, and ahead, Cassmere, or at least the bits of him that escaped Eisley’s deathgrip, was strapped into a hang glider. Later, Eisley might compliment the deft and experienced hand with which Cassmere piloted the contraption.

Later was the key word. He yelped and squirmed at every bobble. Eisley blamed it on turbulence and unpredictable cross winds. Cassmere had other opinions.

“If you don’t stop flailing, you’re going to set us into a spin. You’d best hope we go down hard then, else you’ll be the one explaining to the mistress why we missed the whole flippin’ train.”

Eisley stayed very still for the remainder of the flight.

* * *

Elizabel watched the scene unfold as the runic projected it around her room. The wrestled with the desire to toggle it into turn mode already, to analyze the angle of approach. The last thing Cassmere needed right now was her whispering in his ear like a backseat driver. Instead, she stared at the path ahead.

The train was not yet in sight, but the tracks were. At a certain point on the track, a small box appeared, floating in mid-air. It had the same overall look at all the notifications and options in the runic, so there was no confusion on if it were really there or not. And in that box, just three words and a number.

Chance of Success: 85%

But the number did not stay steady. Every eddy, every flail of Eisley’s legs, every little tussle and the number changed. Not always down, and even when it did, it swiftly righted itself as Cassmere regained control. But still. Elizabel couldn’t take her eyes off it.

The glider began its descent, though the train was still not in sight. With the altitude that still needed to be bled off and the speeds of both the glider and the train, they wouldn’t see the train at all until they had nearly landed.

* * *

Cassmere grinned. The wind rustled his clothes and tugged at the edges of his goggles. If he ignored the weights on his legs, he could pretend he was alone in the world. Just him, a thin sheet of cloth and an unseen target.

He angled down, dropping to just above where the train would shortly be, and followed the track. He settled into his trim speed and waited for the proper moment. He spared a moment for gratitude. He was glad, at least right now, that Elizabel was able to watch over them.

This would be difficult, it would test the very limits of his skills. And it was going to look so cool. He’d be right bummed if no one saw it. He’d prefer a larger audience, but unfortunately in this job, that wasn’t an option he had often.

Behind, the train’s call and the roaring of the engine crossed into the edge of hearing.

In his ear, Elizabel said, “Mark in five.”

Cassmere adjusted his grip.

“Four.”

A deep breath.

“Three.”

If he missed, they’d botch the job.

“Two.”

Or worse.

“One.”

For the glory.

“Mark.”

Cassmere flared the glider, tipping the nose to the sky..The wind slammed the rear of the glider forward, throwing them into a stall and bleeding off speed. The engine of the train appeared beneath the demonkin as they fell.

He wiggled his feet in the signal for Panos and Eisley to drop off. They did, and the following thuds made Cassmere wince. The sudden change in weight knocked the goblin backwards.

He bounced off the top of the train not unlike a skipping stone across a pond. The frame squealed as it slid across the cars. He rolled to a stop, battered, but still on the train and functioning, if further back than intended.

He lay on his stomach to catch his breath. In his ear, Elizabel was asking for his status. If he didn’t know the Dark Mistress better, Cassmere might almost think she sounded mildly concerned.

* * *

Elizabel sighed as she saw her minion give a weak thumb’s up, and turned her attention to the other two.

Panos and Eisley were upright after their own less than graceful landings. Perhaps, in hindsight, they should have practiced the landing as well as the not falling. Things to keep in mind for next time.

They knew their roles, she knew they did. Still, she couldn’t help but remind them. She felt so useless all the way out here. “Panos, you need to decouple the car. Eisley, I need you to begin infiltrating the wards in the aux car, so we can see what’s inside.”

She very carefully did not hear Panos mumbling about backseat drivers and watched as they began to move.

Panos helped Eisley jump the gap to the next car before backing up to the edge of the one he was on, and crawling down to the ledge below. Moments later, the mage also dropped down at his assigned car, only briefly worrying Elizabel about the possibility of his pitching over the side.

She fervently hoped the rest of the jobs weren’t on trains. Especially this train.

While in the jail she wasn’t omniscient- she was limited to a certain proximity around her underlings, and solid objects just as walls sharply curtailed even that- she didn’t have the same hindrances she was dealing with now.

She could see into the car Panos and Eisley had landed in. Nothing in there but the stoker, the train’s furnace and a whole load of fuel, but again, she could see it. Every other car? It wasn’t that it grew fuzzy or indistinct like what was swiftly becoming her new normal. No, there was a hard edge. She could see perfectly well until her view entered the warded cars, and then there was nothing. Not even black, just an emptiness.

She tapped her fingers on her desk as she watched her little mage get to work. She was little good blinded as she was. She needed information.

* * *

Eisley faced the door, his tome out and opened to the prepared spell. He chanted in the damned tri-voice language of High Infernal. Power built around him and he used it to feel out the ward before him.

Unlike the wards that he was accustomed to, those of The Equalizers and similar organizations, this ward was unsubtle. And that was putting it mildly.

Most wards, in his line of work, were as much designed to dissuade the eye from noticing the shielded space as to actually prevent scrying. The most successful lock, after all, is one no one attempts to pick. This ward was more akin to a steel door, locked and barred. It didn’t hide, but instead challenged all comers.

Eisley probed the sigils used to inscribe the ward, feeling the edges. There was a trick to barriers like this. They begged for a brute force assault to match their stalwart defense. And that would never work.

There. That was the spot. Eisley modulated the tone, causing his spell to twine around the weak point he had spotted. His mana and the sigil merged, blurring the signatures. And that was it. One would never bust down the ward, not quietly or quickly. But convince the ward that you are one of the good guys? Well. They’d never see it coming.

* * *

Finally, vision. Just into the one car, but that would do for the moment. Elizabel studied the interior of the car as time hung paused outside of her little bubble of a room.

There wasn’t too much to see inside the car- or rather, it was exactly what they had hoped for. The majority of the room was taken up with an auxiliary generator, and what wasn’t, was taken up by the security control panel.

Two guards squeezed into nooks between equipment and wiring and looked less than thrilled with their lot in life at that particular moment. Elizabel figured she could help them out and provide a heaping of hindsight and remind them exactly how good they had it just then.

She relayed a brief description of the interior to Eisley. Before ending the turn, however, she decided to check how the other two were doing.

Cassmere was on the roof of the correct car now, nearly caught up to Eisley. One glider wing angled out of his pack like a broken limb. Not too far off, really either. The frame had taken quite a beating on the landing, such as it was, and resisted returning to it’s proper stowage.

On the other end, Panos bent over the coupling between the car and the forward security room. While she couldn’t manage the feat herself, she had seen Cassmere and Panos practicing enough through the past week that she could tell the task was almost done.

After that, he’d climb up, and meet up with the other two for the rest of the job.

Elizabel’s hand stopped, hovering over the next turn button as something caught her eye. She squinted, staring into the shadows across from Panos. What had drawn her notice?

She turned the view, hoping another angle would clear it up one way or another and she could move on. She gasped.

“Panos, don’t question. Dive left.”