The Dragon Conspiracy (10 page)

“Interesting.”

Rake could turn women to putty, but as far as I knew, he couldn’t turn a man to stone.

Ian keyed his mike. “Yeah, what is it?” His eyes snapped toward the window. “Run!” he shouted at us.

The word was still leaving his lips as a harpy crashed through the big office window—and this time, she’d brought backup. She hadn’t been able to get the job done last night, so she’d brought her two sisters this morning.

The talons that had punched holes in the roof of Yasha’s Suburban last night sent splinters flying from Sebastian du Beckett’s desk this morning—and chunks of stone from du Beckett’s arm that’d been resting on the desktop.

Obviously hell hath no fury like thwarted kidnappers.

The things screeched loud enough to burst our eardrums after having destroyed the window frame and most of the surrounding wall shouldering their wings into the office. All I could think was that they looked much bigger in full daylight.

Moreau’s fangs were out and he launched himself onto the back of the nearest harpy, and the screeching, hissing, and clawing that ensued could only be described as the world’s biggest catfight. As much as I wanted to watch my manager hand that harpy her tail feathers on a platter, I had a harpy trying to do the same to me.

I was closest to Ben, and I was determined to stay there.

Ian had found out last night that bullets, even the silver-infused kind, didn’t do squat against a harpy. He’d found a spear among the late Mr. du Beckett’s office clutter, and was putting it to good use—until one swat from the harpy snapped the shaft in half.

If Yasha, Carl, and the girls didn’t join us soon, all they would find was what would be left of us.

A vampire, werewolf, and an ogre walk into an office . . . It sounded like the beginning of a really bad joke with an even worse ending.

The third harpy had me and Ben all to herself, and was standing squarely between us and the office door, our only means of escape. Ben desperately looked around for somewhere to hide, even though we both knew it was useless unless either of us could suddenly shrink to the size of an action figure.

Nice thing about clutter was that it gave me plenty of stuff to throw. If I couldn’t take down a harpy, at least I could hopefully keep her from killing us long enough for Carl the ogre to get here.

My hand fumbled around on a crowded shelf and came away with some kind of stone monkey god. It was uglier than homemade sin, but it fit in my hand.

I brought a rock down hard on the harpy’s bird-clawed foot. The harpy didn’t so much as blink.

It did get her attention away from Ben.

And on to me.

“Oh shit,” Ben said for both of us.

That was good because my brain was too busy watching my life flash before it—and a talon-tipped hand, close to being around what was soon to be left of my throat. The claws whistled past my neck, but didn’t take any of me with them. I sucked in my breath, as if that’d help me plaster myself any closer to the wall, and saw the tips of one wing sticking through the crack where the office door hinge met the wall. I didn’t know how much damage it’d do, but I figured it wouldn’t feel good.

I grabbed the back edge of the door and slammed it back against the wall.

And heard a gratifying snap.

Note to self: slamming a harpy’s wing in a door hurts like hell.

Alain Moreau flung the harpy attacking him against the wall over our heads. Chunks of wall, pieces of ceiling, and the dust of who knew how many decades filled the air and my lungs as breathing became the next fight for survival.

I desperately raked through the debris for a weapon, and came out with a shiny rock. It was blue, sparkly, and about the size of my fist. Was it what the boss had called a gem of power? I didn’t know. Ben would know once he touched it. At the very least, he could chuck it at the harpy.

“Ben, catch!”

I tossed the rock and Ben caught it.

The instant the gem touched his hand, it flashed.

I squeezed my eyes shut—for all the good it did me. I saw the blast of blue light through my closed eyelids.

Blinded by the light, I didn’t see Ben zap the harpy, but I sure smelled it. I didn’t know if it was the same harpy Ben had tangled with last night, but the pain hadn’t stopped her from taking those diamonds last night, and it didn’t keep her from taking Ben this morning.

Ben had his back to the wall. He wasn’t going anywhere and the harpy knew it. A pleased and entirely too hungry growl rumbled the floor under our feet as she knocked me aside. In one lightning-quick move, the harpy grabbed Ben’s forearm, slamming it and the hand holding the blue stone against the wall, shattering the stone—and breaking Ben’s arm. There was no mistaking that sound.

The only supernatural Ben had ever seen had been Caera Filarion. Cute, sweet, funny Caera the elf. The harpy was none of those things. She grabbed and wrapped her indestructible arms around the struggling Ben as if the six footer was no bigger than a toddler.

Ben hadn’t screamed last night. Between his broken arm, and the harpy reopening last night’s wound when she grabbed him, he screamed now.

I damned near joined him.

One harpy had come after us last night. Between me and Ian, but mostly Yasha, we’d persuaded her to retreat. She’d brought her sisters this morning, and even though we’d substituted a vampire for the werewolf, we were outnumbered. And they had talons that might as well have been made out of surgical steel.

The girls had worked fast.

Our backup never had time to reach us.

The first beat of her wings launched her into the air; the second beat took her up and through the shattered window.

The instant she was clear, her sisters broke off their fight with Ian and Moreau, and were out the window, flanking the harpy carrying Ben like a pair of fighter jet escorts, though thanks to Moreau’s efforts, one was missing half a wing.

They were headed north. We’d be able to keep visual contact for only so long—unless they weren’t going far. Though as soon as they dropped below the tops of any buildings, we’d lose sight of them. I couldn’t imagine them staying airborne for any length of time; half of Manhattan would see them. Then again, the girls hadn’t been shy about being seen last night. It looked like Kylie would be getting another couple hundred sightings to explain, but at least it’d give us a way to track the harpies and rescue Ben.

Ian appeared next to me at the window. “Where’d they go?”

That was a puzzler. I pointed. “They’re right there, headed north.”

“I can’t see them.”

Oh hell.

Last New Year’s Eve, Vivienne Sagadraco’s sister Tiamat had orchestrated a grendel infestation that was to reach its bloodbath of a conclusion in Times Square at midnight. Part of her evil master plan had involved equipping the two adult grendels with a small device that rendered them invisible to everyone and everything except me. I’d found out that being a seer also allowed me to see through mechanical as well as magical veils. In the cleanup of the grendel nest afterward, several more of the devices had been found. What I now saw flying away from us—and Ian didn’t—told me that SPI apparently wasn’t the only possessor of that technology. I hadn’t seen the harpies wearing the devices, but then I had better things to do than admire any jewelry the harpies might have been wearing.

I told Ian my theory.

We heard sirens in the distance.

Ian swore and keyed his mike. “Yasha, get to the alley round back. Now. Du Beckett’s dead; we need to get him out of here.” He ran over to the desk and started shoving debris away from the body. Moreau quickly searched the room for anything else the NYPD didn’t need to find.

Damn, Ian was right. We did have to take du Beckett with us. A regular dead body could be left for mortal authorities to find. One that had been turned to stone? No way in hell.

I willed the cheese danish I’d eaten an hour ago to stay put and dropped down to the floor, doing what a SPI agent had to do—find the rest of Sebastian du Beckett’s left arm.

The hand and wrist was still in one piece. It was next to a small trash can. I grabbed a crumpled piece of paper out, turned the can on its side, and, with the paper over my hand, scooped up what looked like Thing from
The Addams Family
prop department. Smaller bits of the shattered forearm were mostly in one area. I got those, too.

I popped up from beside the desk. “Got the hand and as much of the arm as I could find.”

“Good.” Ian was pushing the rest of du Beckett, still in his office chair, toward the door. He’d wrapped the braided cord from the ruined drapes around the corpse’s chest and the back of the office chair, tying him in place.

The clock on the mantle had chimed nine o’clock an instant before the first harpy had blasted through that window.

It was only two minutes after nine.

10

RAKE
Danescu had an appointment when he’d visited Sebastian du Beckett this morning.

We didn’t have an appointment when we showed up at Rake Danescu’s front door.

Though technically it was the front door of his very exclusive apartment building on Central Park West.

Yasha had taken Sebastian du Beckett’s remains back to the lab at headquarters. We took Alain Moreau’s car to see Rake Danescu.

If it had just been me and Ian, we wouldn’t have gotten past the doorman, at least not without a lot of lying.

That was when having a centuries-old vampire for whom mind control was just another form of communication came in handy. Alain Moreau did a smooth Jedi-mind-trick thing on the doorman, the security at the front desk and the elevators, and we were on our way up to the penthouse.

Naturally the goblin who owned and operated the most exclusive sex club in the city would live in a penthouse.

Rake Danescu answered his own door, and didn’t appear to be surprised in the least to see us. Though he did seem mildly taken aback, or at least amused, to see me standing in his building’s opulent hallway coated in what I kept repeating to myself was only plaster dust, and not some of the pulverized remains of Sebastian du Beckett. Ian looked like he usually did—on the winning side of an ass kicking. Moreau had ripped half a wing off a harpy but didn’t have a hair out of place or a wrinkle in his still-immaculate suit.

Moreau spoke. “Lord Danescu.”

Lord?

The goblin made no move, either to step aside or invite us in. Where I came from, a lack of hospitality equaled bad manners.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

Moreau didn’t bat an eye. “I don’t think you want me to say in front of your building’s security cameras.”

“Speaking of my security . . .”

“They were most accommodating—unlike one of their residents.”

“Ah, I should have known.” He smiled, showing fangs.

Moreau’s were on full display, too.

I wondered if fang size was as important to male goblins and vamps as another body part was to human guys. Probably. I would have asked them, but didn’t want to step on my manager’s toes—or whatever—when he seemed to be winning what was going on here.

Rake Danescu stepped aside and waved his arm with a flourish. “By all means, do come in.”

We did.

I looked around and was surprised. I half expected there to be mirrors on the ceiling and fur rugs on the floor.

Rake Danescu’s décor was downright tasteful, even though he was the owner of a supernatural sex club. What I assumed was the living room could have been the centerfold of
Architectural Digest
. I wondered if the goblin had done the decorating himself or hired someone—or both. He’d probably hired someone, a human female someone, with the stipulation that they work very closely together—

“Agent Fraser?”

Crap.

Alain Moreau had asked me a question. Rake was smirking. Ian was inscrutable.

Honesty, at least partial, was best. “I’m sorry, sir. I was admiring the décor. It’s lovely, Mr. Danescu.” I didn’t care what he was; there was no way I was calling him “lord.”

The goblin graciously inclined his head, his eyes gleaming. “I can hardly take all the credit. My interior designer is incomparably talented. She selected most of the furniture. I was telling Monsieur Moreau that while I was ill prepared for company, I would be a poor host indeed if I did not at least offer tea.”

“None for me; thank you.”

“Three declines. Then we can proceed to what has brought you uninvited, though not unwelcome, to my door. Please be seated.”

I perched on the edge of a small pale gray sofa that more or less matched the dust I’d brought in with me. Ian seated himself next to me—and between me and Rake.

Ian had been with SPI a heck of a lot longer than I had, and from what I’d been able to gather, he’d known Rake Danescu for most of that time. I hadn’t managed to pry any of the finer details out of my partner, but I knew for a fact that he didn’t trust and didn’t like the goblin mage, as in
really
didn’t like him. I didn’t know if the feeling was mutual; Rake—and goblins in general—kept people guessing as to where they fell on the whole like/dislike/burning hatred scale. I guess it made killing your enemies easier if they didn’t actually know that they were your enemy. Yeah, like goblins weren’t confusing enough.

The first time I’d run into Rake Danescu was my first night on the job at SPI. I’d kind of gotten myself enthralled by him—at least that was what my more magically-in-the-know coworkers had called it. As a dark mage, Rake was gifted in many of the magical arts that most sane people would run away from. Some of that magic was of the personal kind, the kind that allowed a mage to get inside the mind of a person of their choosing. Rake had chosen me and he’d gotten into my mind that night. I had to admit I’d liked the way he’d knocked. As a result, the goblin could now read me like an open book, though it wasn’t like I was exactly inscrutable before. There was a reason nearly every one of my coworkers wanted me to join their table on company poker nights—I was a fluffy sheep ready for the fleecing. Though as far down the corporate ladder as I was, it wasn’t like I had much fluff for them to fleece.

Rake Danescu saw me as a sheep, too. A sheep to his big, bad, wicked wolf.

I didn’t know if it was that thought or something else, but the center of my chest, right below the first button of my shirt, was starting to itch like crazy. There was no way I was going to stick a finger down there and scratch myself. Something shifted and I quickly glanced down.

And bit back a squeak.

I had Sebastian du Beckett crumbs down the front of my bra.

It wasn’t plaster dust. I could tell myself that it was until the cows came home, but that wouldn’t make it true. This was grit, coarse grit, like pulverized stone.

Pulverized, petrified Sebastian du Beckett.

I tried slow, calming breaths. I couldn’t lose it, especially not here. Excusing myself to Rake Danescu’s bathroom and ripping my clothes off wasn’t going to happen. It wouldn’t surprise me if Rake had cameras in his home bathroom just like he did in the ladies’ room (and probably the men’s room) in his club. I hadn’t gone in the men’s room. The leprechauns I was after had opted to do their illegal smoking in the ladies’ room in a stall that could have easily held ten people doing Lord knows what.

“You had an appointment at seven this morning with Sebastian du Beckett.” Moreau wasn’t beating around the bush. Good for him. Better for me. The quicker I could get out of here and into yet another change of clothes, the better.

Ian nudged me.

At least no one had just asked me a question.

“I met with Mr. du Beckett this morning from seven to seven twenty,” Rake freely admitted.

“May I ask why?”

“You just did, but I don’t have to tell you.”

“Do you have something to hide?”

“I am a goblin; there are many aspects of my personal and business lives that I prefer to keep private.”

“Monsieur du Beckett was murdered this morning.”

Rake Danescu’s only reaction was the raising of one eyebrow. “How unfortunate for him, and how inconvenient for me. But you didn’t magic your way up to my home merely to inform me of Bastian’s untimely demise. To save you from having to be so gauche as to ask me directly if I killed him, my answer is no. And again, keeping you from the social discomfort of questioning my integrity, yes, that is an honest and true response. I did not murder, harm, or in any way threaten Sebastian du Beckett—at least not this month. Does this answer the questions that brought you here?”

“Yes.”

“I am glad to hear it—”

“And no.”

“My, aren’t we the curious one this morning.” His words were playful, his expression anything but. “You’re not the only one with questions. How was Bastian killed?”

“Gorgon.”

Rake Dansecu’s expression told me that one had come at him out of left field.

“That’s unexpected,” was all he said.

“I’m certain Monsieur du Beckett felt the same way.”

“I seriously doubt that Bastian was too terribly surprised. He was not, as humans say, a Boy Scout. Pay him enough and don’t ask too many questions, and there was nothing that man couldn’t acquire. Vivienne knows this only too well. There are any number of individuals who have taken enough issue with Bastian’s practices to put him ‘out of business’ permanently.”

“Do you know of one who would have employed a gorgon to do so—or a gorgon who would have felt wronged?”

“First you accuse me of murder, then you want my help. Will you be making up your mind anytime soon?”

“I merely need explanation of a coincidence. You had an appointment with Monsieur du Beckett, and he was killed soon after you left.”

“From the dusty appearance of the usually fair Makenna, your own visit to Bastian’s was more eventful than you anticipated.”

“Harpies,” I said. “From last night.”

“Those girls have been busy for the past twelve hours,” Ian told Rake. “They stole the Dragon Eggs, then attacked a SPI vehicle last night in an attempt to kidnap the young man who tried to stop the robbery. He’s a diamond appraiser at Christie’s. Sebastian du Beckett was his client. Apparently one of du Beckett’s clients—or even du Beckett himself—wanted in on Viktor Kain’s auction. Mr. Sadler went with us to du Beckett’s home this morning, and somehow the harpies knew he’d be there. He’s been kidnapped.” Ian paused meaningfully. “We are not happy.”

“You’d already flown the coop when all hell broke loose at the museum,” I told Rake. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“I saw everything, my dear Makenna, and had deemed you perfectly capable of handling the incident. I merely removed myself from what was sure to become, at least for me, an incriminating situation.”

“Now, why would anyone think you had anything to do with a priceless diamond heist?” Ian drawled.

“Yet another benefit of being me, Agent Byrne. If an exotic or daring supernatural crime is perpetrated, my name lands near the top of each list every time.”

“Naturally, you’re innocent.”

“Sometimes, yes; other times, no. Regardless, I’ve always found it prudent to remove myself from situations in which I do not wish to become entangled. Last night was one such example. No doubt, Viktor Kain is upset, as are the Dragon Eggs’ potential buyers.”

“Yourself included—along with Marek Reigory.”

Rake Danescu leaned back in his chair, smiling. “Ah, I’d wondered when my countryman was going to be brought into this.”

“You knew he was at the exhibition?”

“Naturally. Aside from a nod in passing, I had nothing to say to Marek, nor will I. Let’s say we don’t see eye to eye politically. I’m rather fond of our new king, who is a vast improvement over the rule of his insane—and now thankfully dead—older brother.” Rake’s dark eyes softened as if at a pleasant memory. “That assassin’s crossbow bolt through his chest was the best accessory I’d ever seen him wear.” Then pleasant memories went bye-bye. “I enjoy unpredictability and games as much as the next goblin, but His late-and-not-lamented Majesty’s favorite guessing games included which noble would he accuse of treason that day, followed by the ever unpopular what would he choose as this poor unfortunate’s punishment for an imaginary crime: torture, prison, or immediate beheading? Marek—for some inane reason known only to him—prefers his kings insane. He made his choice, was rightfully banished for it, and I do not wish to sully my reputation by association. As to my interest in the Dragon Eggs, I did not keep it a secret. However, rumor had it that Viktor had no intention of actually selling the diamonds, or he had a buyer already lined up and merely announced the possibility of an auction to drive up the price. The Queen of Dreams belongs to the goblin crown. My government will not pay for something that was stolen from us.” The goblin’s expression darkened. “If anyone should fund its reacquisition, it should be the elves, seeing that it was an elf who stole it from us in the first place.”

Now, that last, snippy tidbit was interesting; I hadn’t heard that part of the story.

“I want to find the thief just as badly as you, if not more so,” Rake continued. “My government has authorized me to obtain the Queen of Dreams by any means necessary before it can be illegally purchased as stolen property and vanish for another hundred years. The rapidly shifting situation dictates that I remain flexible in my acquisition methods. I’m a direct sort. I never would have thought of harpies. I must admit it was ingenious, though the way the robbery was executed suffered from an excess of convolution.”

Ian snorted. “Direct? Since when?”

Rake’s dark eyes flicked ever so briefly at me. “When there is something I want quite badly, I have been known to dispense with games.”

“Why the sudden need to do your civic duty?” Moreau asked.

“For the most part, my government leaves me to my own devices in this dimension. I would very much like for their disinterest to continue.”

“You graduated from the magical gifted and talented program,” Ian said. “If you saw what happened at the Met, then you know those harpies weren’t ordered to get Ben Sadler to appraise the Dragon Eggs.”