Rip and Blair crossed the street and approached the door leading into the run-down building. Both girls followed them.

“It looks almost new, doesn’t it?” Blair said.

Rip nodded.

It looked strong, wood bound in metal with a fresh coat of paint. To either side, the ground floor windows were boarded up.

“Yup. Almost as if somebody remodeled the door and forgot to do the rest of the place. Hold on, let me get a good look at it. Ah. My [Detect Trap] skill indicates this thing is rigged to blow the second it’s opened.”

He placed a hand on the door and concentrated.

“I think there’s a pull cord on the other side hooked up to explosives. It has very little slack, I don’t think I can disarm it easily. At least not from this side.”

“Well . . . I suppose we’re not going to go in through the front door, then.”

Blair turned and looked at the young girls staring wide-eyed at the door.

“How about you two go around back and keep an eye on the rear exits to this place?”

She noted the flash of disappointment crossing their faces, so she added in a thoughtful tone, “On second thought, criminals often use a back door to escape. Perhaps we should canvas the building’s rear instead, Ripley.”

“No, that’s fine,” Anna said, her expression changing immediately. “We’ll take the back.”

Rip smiled at Blair as the girls hurried to the nearest alley to go behind the building.

He said, “You are quite the manipulator.”

“Teenagers and men are easy. It’s the wizened woman who is hardest to control.”

“Wait . . . men are easy?”

“Let’s figure out how we’re going to get in, Muscles. The windows on the street are all boarded up.”

“Yeah. We can . . . wait a minute. You’re controlling me right now.”

She sighed dramatically and gave him a longsuffering smile.

“Let’s just get inside. We can talk about this later. For now? Concentrate.”

“Okay. Wait. Is this a skill? This is a skill, isn’t it? Because I’m so ready to move on from this . . .”

She frowned at him, put her hands on her hips and tapped one of her feet impatiently.

“Right. Okay, we can talk about it later.”

He held up a finger to her face.

“But I’m not going to forget this!”

She rolled her eyes.

Rip scanned the building’s façade, looking to the left and right. Then he looked up.

He said, “How’s your climbing skills?”

“I don’t have a skill, but I can hold my own, I’m sure.”

“Then let’s go in on the second floor. I don’t think anyone bothered to secure it.”

He jumped to the top of the doorway, grabbing onto a ledge, and pulled himself up.

Blair looked to her right and found a boarded up window with plenty of places to grip all around it. She climbed after him, stepping off the pavement onto a small brick jutting out from the wall and going up from there.

Rip crouched in front of a second floor window, holding onto the frame. He stared inside at a dusty, empty room, scanning for traps.

Seeing none, he gently worked the window open as Blair climbed up beside him.

“Not locked. That’s not safe.”

“To be fair,” Blair said, nodding back to the other side of the street, “no one comes in from a second floor window. Especially not while the peelers are watching.”

Rip glanced over at the cops from their group. They stood clustered on the other side of the street, watching them.

“You know, on my world, the Brits . . . the Umbrians, they called the first floor the ground floor.”

“We’ve had this discussion before. Quit stalling.”

He smiled and stuck a leg in, then pulled the rest of himself through the window. She followed him into the empty room, stirring up small clouds of dust.

Rip took his first step and the floorboards squeaked. The noise seemed especially loud in the stark confines of the room.

He grimaced, and gingerly took another step. But the boards were well worn and groaned loudly his whole way to the door. They repeated their complaints when Blair joined him on the other side of the room.

“So much for sneaking in,” she whispered.

He nodded. The door to the hallway stood open, hanging on by one hinge. He poked his head out and carefully looked in both directions.

To the right, dust motes floated in the air showing mostly open doors on either side of a long hall. To the left, a stairway led down to the foyer. He set off for the stairs, rousing a noisy response from the floorboards all the way.

Blair followed, and together they approached the stairs. Rip stopped and stared at the steps, scanning for traps.

“Seems clear,” he murmured.

“Seems rickety, if you ask me.”

Shrugging, Rip put his foot on the first step leading down.

The wood moaned, but held.

He flashed a smile at her and committed all his weight as he placed his other foot on the second step.

This time the wood shrieked and burst. Rip fell through the stairs with a stunned look on his face.

He landed on the floor below, hands outstretched for balance. Then he covered his head as chunks of rotten boards and rusty nails rained down on him.

Rip waved away the cloud of dust as his [Night Vision] quickly adjusted to the dim downstairs light. He recalled all the windows on the street were boarded up.

Standing in the hall ahead, staring at him, a black-cloaked man made an impressive figure in the dark. Rip thought were it not for his skill, he would have had a very difficult time discerning anything. Once again he breathed a silent thanks to the Verez sisters for their boons.

“I wondered who I heard creeping around upstairs. Smart idea, that. Coming through a window up there. It’s an oversight I shan’t repeat. I wondered if you might fall through. I come out to see, and here you are. Voila.”

“Physicker Cream, I presume.”

Rip noticed the man’s head rock back in surprise.

“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, sirrah. I know not my interlocutor.”

“I’m with the RVS. We’d like to take you down to the local police station and discuss some poisoned prostitutes. Arsenic. Strychnine. Oh, and a certain enhanced blade.”

Rip saw the man’s eyes narrow in the gloom. He reached inside his cloak and whipped out a shaving instrument, flicking it open with his thumb like a pocketknife.

[You see an enhanced straight razor.]

“Yup. That’s the one.”

Cream snarled and pounced, leaping the distance between them.

His arm pulled back, blade flashing in the weak light.