The hatch under the teller counter used to take bags of money off an armored truck. Felicity learned this by lowering a jam jar on a length of string, listening to the glass bump down a metal chute, and hearing it smash somewhere that sounded an awful lot like outside. She'd have preferred the traditional method of learning about banking, which involved keeping eleven dollars in an account and ignoring the letters.
Voss lay flat beside her to see into the chute. "Someone small could come quite a long way up that on their elbows. Any idea where your jam jar landed?"
She could smell dust, old grease and the wet bark that covered the strip of park behind the bank. On the faded fire map by the counter, a loading lane curved around the park and disappeared under their feet. Victor had a sheet of steel big enough to cover the hatch. If they fixed that inside before checking the far end, they might spend their first night with something trapped under the floor knocking to be let out.
"Would you walk around there with me?" she asked Voss. He was halfway to his feet before she got to the rest. "I mean me, as well. If you find a broken jar, I get to say I told you so in person."
He offered her his arm the way a man might outside a nice restaurant. "It'll be my pleasure. Silver, your wife just asked me out to have a look at a hole in the ground."
"Bring her back with all her fingers and I'll spring for lunch." Victor didn't crowd in beside them until Felicity put her other hand out for him. Beneath the filthy window, she caught their reflection with her between them. She'd have given good money for a picture of herself on her first day with two dates, a crowbar, and half a jar of blackberry jam on her shoe.
They spent the morning closing the bank's ground-floor windows and fixing the bars, then took the team out to check the loading lane at midday. Ash kept the bank doors covered. Finch strung an alarm wire between the broken park benches, and Giddy moved fallen branches so they could see all the way to the road. A playground stood above the loading bay. Whoever had built the place had put a picnic bench directly under a toddler slide. Probably a committee decision, Felicity thought, picking her way around it.
She found the jar at the back of the loading bay beside a pair of little muddy footprints. There were five narrow toes on each print and the scrape of a tail between them. It took her an awful second to decide whether a child had come through. Something under the play equipment chittered in answer. The thing that came out had a banded tail, hands like a raccoon's and enough teeth to make her reconsider ever dropping food near a trash can again. Two more launched themselves out behind it.
Victor was on the far side of the bench. Voss had lifted the outside shutter onto his shoulders so she could check the chute. Now his hands were full of steel. If he dropped it now, it would take his head off. Felicity meant to strengthen him enough to throw it. Instead, every scrap of want in her went toward a single thought about the filthy little mouth headed for his throat. She wanted it to stop.
Gold flashed from her palm. The animal locked rigid, hit the concrete on its side and skidded into Voss's boot. The other two fell short with their paws still spread. She could hear their hearts beating frantically while their bodies lay still. Victor burned the two beneath the slide. Voss let the shutter fall into place and finished the one at his boot just as a claw began to scrape.
"Did I do that to you too?" she asked. Finch was holding his arm, and for one sick second she thought she'd stopped his heart. He turned the arm over to show her a straight red line where the alarm wire had caught him.
"Did this all by myself, Felicity. Would've been very happy to give you the credit if anybody asks."
She checked anyway. No gold on his skin, and he could move his fingers. Her hands shook worse than his did. Victor sat down on the low end of the slide beside her while she got her breath back. "First time you've felt the light do that to something alive?" he asked.
"I wanted to give Voss enough strength to get out from under the shutter. Then I saw its teeth and got as far as please fucking stop. I don't know what I'd have done if he'd been in the way."
"Next time we leave you room to aim. That was a stun, Fel. You held three of them long enough to get our hands free." He rubbed the sore place at the back of her neck. She liked hearing him say her name that way, and he knew it. The second time he did it she stole the last bite of his lunch to even things up.
Voss tightened the shutter and scratched a line across it with his knife. They could tell at a glance if anybody had shifted it. On the way back he took the outside edge of the curb, sparing her the drop to the loading lane. "You know, I generally have to do something spectacular before anyone goes to that much trouble for my neck."
"I liked it where it was. And if we're going to start charging each other for rescues, I'm keeping the books." She let her fingers rest for a moment against his pulse. That was how close the animal had come, just the width of her hand. He kept still until she let go.
When they returned to the bank, Ash had the makings of a stew on the fire. She got out her pencil and marked the chute shut on the wall map. Along the east road on that map were two blind corners and a little island of wrecked cars. From beyond the cars came the clink of loaded packs. Whoever was carrying them had stopped just outside the light, close enough to smell supper.