Free The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer

stance, muscle development, comprehension. He had even studied Shakespeare, or at least Felix Smart had.
    To be or not to be, my little Riley. In your case, I am undecided. It occurred to Garrick that there might be some danger lurking in this facility in which he had materialized, though Smart’s memories assured him that the sole sentry was a young girl, a slip of a thing who one would imagine to be relatively harmless. And yet Smart’s memories told him that she was an accomplished combatant who had performed most admirably in the City of Angels.
    And she wears the last Timekey, he remembered. Even though Smart’s memories had emerged from the wormhole intact, his Timekey lay like a cinder on his chest.
    Do not underestimate the girl , Garrick told himself, or unto dust will be your own destination.
    Garrick planted himself firmly in the real world and cast his eyes around. This was a strange place; windowless walls were lined with colored ropes and wall-mounted machinery.
    Cables and servers , the electricity flowing between his new nerve endings informed him.
    The gory evidence of Garrick’s passage from the past was evident: blood striped the walls and lay in congealing splashes on tabletop machinery.
    “Riley,” he said, testing his voice. “Riley, my son. I have come for you. I know where you are incarcerated. The futurist Smart showed me.”
    Garrick headed toward the machinery. This is a laptop, he thought, tip-tapping the keyboard. How charming.
    There would be time for such fancies later, but for now he must release Riley, retire to a safe crib, then let the boy bask in his master’s new glory.
    There was no obvious sign of Miss Savano. Perhaps the violence of his arrival had done her in?
    Or perhaps she lies in wait?
    Garrick forced himself to concentrate. He moved to the wall, squinting through the smoke and flashing lights down the red-bricked hallway to the jumble of containers.
    There. Look!
    An arm was sticking out from the crawl space below the boxes. The fingers twitched spasmodically and the head resting on that arm wasn’t moving. One eye was fully closed, the other glazed and swollen.
    That little periwinkle is a shade from death. I will nab my boy, then extinguish her final spark on the way out.
    Garrick moved quickly down the corridor, feeling better than he had in decades. The trip through the wormhole had purged his system. He felt like a giddy whelp about to shinny his first drainpipe.
    Another challenge lay before him, a challenge for the old Albert Garrick that was. Not the new model.
    Version 2.0, he thought, then pinched the skin on his own forearm to force concentration.
    The challenge was a keypad for the electronic lock.
    This machine can be fed with numbers or cards. I don’t have the card, but the codes to everything in this house are in my head somewhere.
    Garrick cocked his head while his brain supplied the numbers. He cracked his knuckles, then tapped the code into the pad. The light winked green and the door popped open.
    “Abracadabra,” he said with satisfaction.
    Garrick doffed his hat and ducked inside, smiling at the thought of Riley’s amazement.
    Oh, my son. We have much to share. So much.
    The cell was spartan, with only a narrow cot, a single chair and, of course, a camera crouched like a spider on the ceiling. But that was all.
    No boy.
    Riley had gone. His son.
    Garrick would not allow himself to roar the boy’s name. He had once been a celebrated illusionist, after all, not a simple player of dreadful melodrama. Instead he contented himself with a resounding slam of the door on his way to interview Miss Savano.
    How fortunate that I did not kill her before, he mused. Now she may help me find Riley before she dies.
    Chevie’s world was spinning in a kaleidoscope of dull colors. Concrete gray and streaked brown. She had been thinking, The boy is dead, over and over, but now she couldn’t remember if that was a snatch of a song lyric or an actual thought she