Chris saw a thick column of ice at the top of each cage attached to the metal heads of the sprinklers in the ceiling. The frozen carpet crunched as she walked around it, and she saw a thick layer of ice crystals covering almost everything else in the gallery.
“How could it freeze inside like this?” Disbelief made her spin back and forth as she looked for a rational explanation. The air felt so cold that breathing in made her teeth ache. “Atlanta doesn't have blizzards. This is crazy. It's
April
.”
Ice shattered as a short, stocky blond man dressed in red leathers broke out of one of the cages and trotted over. Chris recognized him as the same man who had tried to get Rob's attention at the club. As soon as he stopped before them, the smell of spicy hot chocolate stung her cold nose.
“My lord,” the blond said in a low, rough British accent, “ 'twas done by Kyn.”
“By one Kyn,” Robin agreed, his accent suddenly much thicker. “This is Guisbourne's work.”
“What are you talking about?” Chris's gaze bounced between the men's angry expressions. “Who's Guisbourne?”
The blond ignored her. “I did not see his face. He set off the water system somehow, and used his talent to freeze the streams. Once the mortals and I were trapped, he smashed the case and helped himself to the book.”
Chris turned toward the display case containing the manuscript, now an empty, shattered box. The frozen gallery had sent her reeling, but this shut down everything inside her. Five million dollars' worth, gone like that.
On her watch, no less. She wouldn't be bounced out of the bureau. She'd be tarred and feathered and hung from the nearest flagpole.
You win, Magic Man
.
“Cyprien banished him at the winter tournament,” she heard the blond saying to Robin. “To defy the seigneur's order of exile would be signing his own death warrant.”
The bizarre references Robin's friend made finally dented the roaring in Chris's head. She'd just lost a priceless, irreplaceable part of history to the best thief in the world, and he was babbling as if he'd just stepped out of a role-playing game.
“He has nothing left to go to, Will,” Robin replied. “His seneschal is dead, his Saracens deserted him, and his
jardin
was burned out. All he has left is his vengeance.”
Chris put her hands against her ears to try to block out his voice. This didn't feel like a drug-induced hallucination should, but what else could it be?
“Why would he do this instead of challenging you directly?” the blond named Will asked.
“He knows I would kill him.” Robin walked over to the broken case and touched the empty velvet-covered pedestal inside. “This is more personal than a duel. He could not have her in life, so he would keep from me the only likeness of her that exists.” All the emotion left Robin's voice. “Track him. Now.”
Chris shook off the paralyzing shock as she remembered her own people. She went back to the storeroom and found Dennis and the other techs trapped in cages of white ice. A thick layer of frozen foam covered all of the monitoring equipment.
“Agent Renshaw.” Dennis looked relieved. “Something triggered the chem units we set up over the computers, and dumped foam all over everything. Then things got really weird and it froze. You okay?”
“Things got weird out there, too. But yeah, I think I am.” Chris gave him the once-over to assure herself he wasn't wounded. “Have you seen Agent Hutchins?” Maybe Hutch would know what the hell had caused all this.
“As soon as the alarm sounded he ran in here with Agent Alpert, but then the foam started pouring down and freezing.” Dennis rubbed the sides of his arms with his hands. “Alpert went out to the gallery, but two guys came in, grabbed Hutch, and dragged him out of here.” He poked the frozen foam separating them. “You didn't happen to see a hacksaw anywhere, did you?”
“I'll get some help.” All the phones in the storeroom were frozen, so Chris went back out into the gallery, where Robin was breaking loose the ice bars of one cage. Chris tried to do the same to the ice closest to her, but discovered she couldn't budge the thick, frozen column. The people inside the cages were starting to shiver and pale, Chris saw, and she ran back to the office, the only room in the gallery that hadn't been frozen over, to get to the phone.
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Robin had smashed out the bars of five cages of ice by the time Will returned.
“Guisbourne's scent disappeared in the street outside,” his seneschal told him. “He must have used a car to escape.”
“Did you disable the telephone lines?” When Will nodded, Robin felt a little better. “Contact the
jardin
. We will need a dozen men here while we clean up this mess and attend to the humans. Alert our friends at the police department as well.”
Marigold suffused the air. “I regret to say that your men cannot come to your aid, my lord.”
Robin faced the contessa, who stood flanked by four armed Kyn warriors. The sly smile on her lips confirmed his suspicions, but he gave her a chance to deny them. “You were a part of this?”
“I intended only to take the manuscript from you,” Salva said. “Unfortunately, it seems that Nottingham had a better plan than I.”
Robin had never hit a woman in his life, something he now regretted deeply. “Why do you want the book?”
“My family bought it from Nottingham when he came to settle in Italy. My father made a gift of it to my younger sister, Beatrice, when she took her vows. 'Twas the only earthly possession she ever treasured, and upon her death it was supposed to come to me.” Something ugly moved in the contessa's dark eyes. “I have waited seven hundred years for this night.”
Robin held on to his temper. “Obviously, my lady, you will have to wait a little longer. Now, if you will permit meâ”
“I have just sent word to all of my warriors to capture your men and take control of your stronghold,” Salva told him, as if he hadn't spoken. “I have also secured your mortal female's partner as another hostage. You will find Nottingham, retrieve the manuscript, and bring it back to me.”
“You do not command me, madam.” Robin eyed her guards. “If you wish to hunt down my cousin, send your own men after him.”
“My men have other responsibilities.” Salva made a quick gesture, and suddenly four copper swords appeared in the hands of her guards. “It should be no trouble for you to retrieve the book. But if you need more reason to pursue Nottingham, consider the lives of all the Kyn and humans under your rule. One call from me, and my men will begin executing them, twenty at a time.”
Robin knew the contessa well enough to assume she was not making an idle threat. “I thought you named me your friend, Salvatora.”
“A woman can have no friends in this world, my lord. Not if she wishes to survive.” She gestured at Will. “You may have your seneschal verify that I speak the truth, if you like.”
Robin nodded to Will, who took out his mobile phone and dialed a number. He spoke for a few moments, then ended the call.
“They permitted Sylas to speak to me, my lord,” Will said, his voice strained. “It is as she says. Her men have captured the
jardin
, and are holding all of our people in the underground tunnels.”
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Chris gave up on the phone in the manager's office after finding no dial tone and checking the connections. The line had been cut or was dead. She remembered the two agents watching the front of the building; they might not have been affected by the bizarre freeze-over inside the gallery. She headed for the entrance, only to stop when she saw four men armed with swords surrounding Robin and his girlfriend.
“You will call me at your stronghold as soon as you have secured the book,” the woman was saying. “We will arrange an exchange point, and then my men and I shall leave your territory peacefully and never trouble you again. You have my word, my lord.”
Robin's violet eyes had somehow changed color; now they were the color of new pennies. “Your word means nothing to me anymore, Contessa.”
Contessa. My lord
. They spoke to each other as if they were acting out parts for some sort of live-action Dungeons & Dragons game, Chris thought, and seriously considered drawing her weapon and placing them all under arrest. But the long-bladed swords the men around the “contessa” held appeared to be razor-sharp, and if they were real, the last thing she wanted to do was provoke them into using them on her or the people in the gallery.
Maybe it's some kind of new gang scenario for delusional adults
.
Before Chris could decide on an alternative course of action, the contessa said something in what sounded like Italian, and left the gallery. Chris followed them, stopping only when Robin called her.
“Where is she going?” she asked him. “Who's Nottingham? Is he working with this guy Guisbourne?”
“I shall explain everything, but you must come with me now.”
“I can't leave these people like this. I have to call the police.” Chris heard the sound of a siren approaching, and relaxed a little. “Looks like someone else did. We still have to stay to help them get these people out and give statements.”
“The police.” He swore softly, using a language Chris didn't recognize, and then called out for Will. The blond nodded to him and walked out through the front entrance. Robin then turned to her, his eyes still a bright, almost glowing copper color, and his pupils constricted so tightly they appeared like slits.
“What kind of drugs are you on?” she demanded.
“None.” He rubbed his eyes, and when he took his fingers away his pupils were round and dark again, although a shiny copper ring still encircled his amethyst irises. “Chris, I know you are an agent of the FBI.”
She stopped worrying about the effects the drugs he'd taken were having on his eyes. So much for her cover. “Could you say that a little louder? I don't think everyone in the gallery heard you.”
“There is more I must tell you.”
“There always is.” She rubbed her eyes. “How involved in this robbery are you? Is it part of this weird role-playing game or gang thing you're running? Who told you I was an agent?”
“I had you investigated.”
Chris took a moment to absorb that statement. “What are you on, meth? Crack?”
“I wished to know who you were. I learned that, and why you came to Atlanta to set up this show. I know why you brought
The Maiden's Book of Hours
here.” He paused to look at the front entrance again. “I know because I am the Magician.”
“
You're
the Magician.” She watched him nod. “The master thief who has stolen hundreds of artworks from collectors and museums all over the world.”
“Aye. 'Twas my doing. All of it.”
She surveyed him. It might not be drugs. He might be under some sort of massive delusion. “I'd really love to know the name of your personal trainer and your plastic surgeon. Or your dealer.”
“I am being honest with you,” Robin insisted. “I came here tonight to steal the manuscript.”
A laugh escaped her before she controlled it. “Sure you did. I suppose you also tripped the fire alarm and froze the sprinkler water while we were necking in the manager's office. Okay, so did you do it psychically, or were there some sort of remote-control ice machines involved?”
“I am not jesting with you.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “I am the one you came for. The one you wish to imprison.”
“Is this part of the game you've got going with your girlfriend and that guy Will? Did you roll the thief?” Before he could answer, Chris gave up the fight, clutching her sides as laughter spilled out of her.
“I know why you do not believe me,” Robin said over the sound of her helpless mirth. “You seek an elderly man. I am too young.”
She shook her head and held up her hand, hoping he would stop before he had her rolling on the floor.
“When I stole the Botticelli altarpiece from the cathedral in Naples,” he told her, “I wrapped it in a red velvet curtain that I took from one of the confessionals. The Gauguin I took from Geneva had been framed with plaster covered in lead paint, so I removed it from the frame first. I replaced the van Gogh owned by that very famous actress with a forgery, so as not to upset her. She had just had another surgery on her back. I believe despite advice from experts that she still insists hers is the authentic painting.”
Chris stopped laughing at his description of the Gauguin theft. “How could you . . . No one knows about the van Gogh, not outside the bureau.”
He inclined his head. “So you will believe what I tell you now.”
“Maybe you got into some confidential files, and I'd really like to know how, but you can't be the Magician.” Absently she wiped at the tears of laughter clinging to her lashes. “He's been active since the nineteen forties. That would make you seventy years old, minimum.”
He stepped closer. “What if I were to tell you that my father was the original Magician? That he trained me, and I took over his work after his death? That you and your colleagues have been looking for a dead man?”
She reached into her jacket. “I don't want you to say anything else to me.” When he frowned, she took out her handcuffs. “Turn around and listen carefully.” As she cuffed him, she continued, “Robin, I am arresting you on charges of grand theft, larceny, fraud, breaking and entering, transporting stolen property over state lines, and possession of stolen property. You have the right to remain silent.” She finished informing him of his rights, and then asked, “Do you understand what I've told you?”