Page 48 of Capture of Capricorn

“Pity we dispatched the gargoyle. It would have made a great distraction,” Capricorn mused aloud.

“I’ll bet Aquarius can help with that.” Aries crouched to grab his satellite phone, the screen of it cracked from the abuse, but at least it still worked. He placed a call and relayed the situation then their plan.

When Aries hung up, he glanced at Capricorn. “He’s working on a diversion but figures he’ll need at least an hour, which gives us time to scout out a portable stone-crushing machine and make our way to the museum.”

“The curator is gonna be mighty pissed when they discover we decimated the collection,” Capricorn remarked.

“Better they replace some rocks than we lose the women we love,” Aries replied starkly.

Love? Capricorn’s initial impulse was to deny. However, that would be lying, something he tried to avoid when possible, especially to himself. He did love Zora, and after the week they’d spent, he couldn’t imagine a future, a life, without her.

“Let’s get moving,” he growled, because who knew how easy or hard a portable stone crusher would be to find in Paris?

Not too difficult, as it turned out, since Aquarius sent them a lead on a college with a petrology and mineralogy department. A yank of a fire alarm cleared the building, and they quickly absconded with two of the machines tucked under their arms and made a rapid getaway in the rental parked nearby. They then made their way to the museum and waited for the distraction.

Aquarius called them. “You need to get around to the back side. I’ve disabled the cameras and will override the door lock in the next ten minutes.”

“What about guards?”

“They’re about to be busy evacuating the building due to a bomb threat.”

“Meaning cops will be quickly on the scene and surrounding the museum,” Aries pointed out.

“Not necessarily. See, a certain terrorist group just released a statement claiming they’re about to blow up ten sites of significance.”

Capricorn whistled. “They’ll have to spread themselves thin to cover them all. Good thinking.”

“I will keep them off balance as long as I can. May the stars shine favorably on your mission,” Aquarius stated before hanging up.

As promised, the rear entrance to the museum provided access with only one minor hiccup. A guard having a smoke had to be knocked out. They left him tied and gagged amidst some crates in a loading bay.

Within the museum, an alarm rang stridently, making it hard for them to hear, but as they made their way to the meteorite collection, using a map of the floor saved on Aries’ phone, they encountered no one. Wouldn’t have mattered if they did. Their mission took precedence.

Capricorn felt the presence of the rocks before seeing them, and his steps quickened.Please let this work.

Upon reaching the vast collection, featuring even more meteor bits than they could have hoped for, Aries pointed to a clear area of flooring. “Let’s make our pile of sand there.”

They quickly got to work snaring samples from the various cases and crushing them. The slowness of the process frustrated, but bit by bit, a pile of small pebbles and grit grew. Thecompact machines didn’t exactly provide them with the fine sand they were used to, and some bits needed to be run through a few times, but at least it felt as if they were accomplishing something.

Aquarius kept in touch during that time, doing them the favor of cutting off the alarm, while updating them on the situation outside. When it appeared some of the bomb squad might enter, their Zodiac tech specialist arranged for a nearby transformer to overload, the explosion startling the advancing cops and sending them scurrying for safety.

“Do we have enough?” Aries asked as he spread out the pile and traced his fingers in it to test if he could draw.

“Only one way to find out,” Capricorn stated.

“You got the calculations for me?” Aries asked Aquarius.

“Already texted,” their tech guy replied.

Aries held out the phone and frowned at the screen before he sat in the pile and began to draw.

It had always seemed such a dumb way to travel, but at the same time, those sigils acted like the tattoo on his back, creating a path between their location and their constellation, which then redirected their life energy to where the sigil’s coordinates indicated. In this case, since they couldn’t beam into Tower, they chose a spot just outside of its purview.

The boss finished his tracing and tossed the phone at Capricorn. “Now to see if it works.” He placed his hands on his thighs and closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath and?—

Aries disappeared, and a streak of light rocketed from the pile of sand up through the skylight. No way of knowing if it worked, but that didn’t stop Capricorn from smoothing out the meteorite debris and plopping himself down.

The phone rang as he drew.

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