Brooklyn Knight by null Page A

stood once more, his eyes lifted slightly upward as he muttered quietly;
    “For once, Lord, couldn’t things be easy? Just once?”
    Not waiting for an answer, Knight pulled a round metal disc from the inside breast pocket of his suit coat and began making his way once more toward the sounds of the intruders. He could tell the quartet was drawing closer, their footsteps almost to the top of the stairwell from which he knew they would soon emerge. As the professor continued moving to intercept the foursome, he found himself silently applauding their professionalism. Despite the apparent weight of their prize, they had taken the stairs rather than risk the cameras in the elevators. Judging the amount of time he had to prepare for the arrival of the thieves, Knight gave himself no more than thirty-five seconds before the door at the end of the hall would open.
    No idea of their power levels , he thought. Any one of them, possibly all of them, could be full-fledged practitioners. Then, he dismissed his cautious approach, the other side of his brain snapping, Doubtful. For one thing, top-drawer talent doesn’t lug booty. They don’t do scout work, either. They don’t creep—their kind stride. The four walking up the stairs, they might be competent, and they certainly might be dangerous, but ultimately they’re just somebody else’s muscle.
    And then, as the doorknob began to turn, Knight’s mind focused on the one word he had thought, but of which he had not recognized the true significance—
    Walking—
    As the door opened, the first of the scouts exited the stairwell and moved cautiously out into the dark hall beyond. If the professor was correct, everyone within the museum had been rendered unconscious by a casting—one that would have targeted every living being, surrounding their heads with a cloud of chloroform. This would have dropped any-and everyone who could have been of any interference, acted as a witness, called the police, et cetera.If this was timed correctly, Knight was assuming the intruders made their move at the evening security change. That meant they could have entered with any of the night shift, which meant no breaking and entering. No assault charges.
    They didn’t avoid the elevators because of the cameras, thought the professor as he watched the first man make his way out into the shadows of the hallway. They’ve dampened the building’s electrical systems. The elevators aren’t working, because they wanted to take out all the cameras. The motion detectors, the laser alarms …
    And yet, the designer of the invasion had known the museum’s systems well enough to not interfere with the few lights for which any passing patrol car would be looking. That told Knight volumes about the magical abilities of his opponents. With the museum’s security routed through both the city’s primary electrical utility and the building’s own backup generators, if select lights controlled by both power sources had been dampened while others were still functioning, those moving into the hall had to possess controlling abilities of things not only natural but mechanical as well.
    This, old man , both sides of his mind warned the professor, is not going to be easy .
    In the handful of seconds it took for the first thief to ascertain that the hallway was clear and to signal his compatriots to follow him, Knight had realized he was up against something far more than any simple band of brigands. Holding back, he continued to study them from a distance. As he did, his respect for the intruders he had listened to for the last few minutes as they made their way up from the basement continued to grow. No matter who they were, or what they were after, they were part of something extraordinarily sophisticated. Their assault was well planned and certainly seemed to be working thus far without a hitch.
    Looking the scout over, the professor noted his garb—soft boots, pant legs tucked in, pants and pullovers loose