The Dragon Conspiracy (3 page)

3

HUMANS
seeing a monster for the first time generally had one of three reactions: scream, run, or faint. This was New York, so while half of the guests were engaged in one or more of the above, the other half had their phones out and were clicking away, camera flashes firing at the harpies like strobes.

The harpies didn’t like being treated like paparazzi bait. So, like a married celeb caught coming out of a cheap strip joint, they attacked.

At least two of them did.

The third launched herself into the air and, with two powerful beats of her leathery wings, dive-bombed the two men guarding the Dragon Eggs, clawed hands and feet extended for the attack.

And the kill. A really messy kill.

Any doubt about those harpies being real vanished when the blood and bits started flying. And if that hadn’t done the trick, the guards’ screams turning to dying shrieks instantly made every human within earshot a believer. Human screams joined the screeches and shrieks, and within two beats of an eye, the Sackler Wing descended into chaos.

We’d come here tonight expecting a robbery, and had come face-to-claw with the very thing Vivienne Sagadraco had founded SPI to prevent—humans finding out the truth that monsters are real, supernaturals exist, and humans share the world with both.

Mythological creatures coming to life in front of hundreds of New Yorkers was bad enough, but entirely too many of them were standing their ground and aiming their phones like those idiots on TV reality shows who see the tiger escape from its cage but who just can’t resist taking pictures of the thing right up until the moment when it rips their faces off. It was humanity’s way of thinning its own herd.

Right now there was a goodly number of people looking to move to the front of the meet-your-maker line in the next few seconds.

Fortunately for them, the harpies turned their attention to getting the Dragon Eggs out of that case. A case that was supposed to be bulletproof and curse-resistant was no match for three determined harpies. It was a smash-and-grab robbery at its finest.

While one harpy smashed the case to dust, the screeches of the other two were making it abundantly clear what the penalty would be for getting too close to the action. The crumpled and broken bodies of the two guards were a non-living example to avoid repeating their folly.

People were stampeding to get away. One guy stood still, eyes wide as the panicked crowd pushed around and past him. Tall and gangly with blond curly hair, he looked barely out of his teens, early twenties at the most.

I’d seen shock before, and this wasn’t it, at least not totally. People were either clued in or clueless to the fact that monsters and supernaturals shared the planet with us, and that humans weren’t the apex predator.

Judging from his wide, pale blue eyes, mouth open in disbelief, and general appearance of WTF, the safe bet counted him among the clueless.

But in an instant, stunned turned to determined, which signaled either bravery, stupidity, or an unhealthy dose of both. It didn’t really matter which one he had; both were going to get him just as dead. The math wasn’t in his favor. Three harpies with more razor-tipped talons on their hands and feet than I could count equaled untold chances for evisceration. I didn’t care if he was all kinds of lucky and had a pocket packed with rabbit feet; those weren’t good odds.

I couldn’t stop the harpies, but I could keep this guy from doing something he wouldn’t live to regret.

“Rake, I’m gonna need some . . .” I looked behind me. The goblin was gone. Why was I surprised? “Backup,” I said to the now empty space. “I need backup. Thanks for nothing.”

I couldn’t see Ian through the screaming, running, and YouTube-recording masses, so I was on my own.

I was wearing pumps with three-inch heels. Never again. No more cute shoes. Chucks were the new cute. Or hiking boots. Or better still, combat boots.

The guy gave a shout that was at odds with his boyish features and charged the harpies. I kicked off my heels and ran to intercept.

The harpy reached inside the shattered case, flung the ruby dragon aside, and scooped up the eggs in a single swipe of her taloned fingers.

The guy was faster and had longer legs. There was no way I could reach him before he got within gutting range.

He lunged for the harpy and grabbed the claw clutching the diamonds. At the instant of contact, a blaze of white light exploded from either the guy, the harpy, or the diamonds. Hell, I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen light that bright since I’d nearly fried my own retinas the first time I’d used my phone’s flashlight app. The screams in my immediate vicinity changed from terror-fueled to pain-induced. I think mine might have joined them.

There was something else. A tightening in the air, pulling in toward the core of the light, then releasing in a shock wave of color and heat that felt like it went right through me, popping the hell out of my ears in the process.

The harpy he’d attacked shrieked in outrage, and I knew what was coming next, even though I still couldn’t see for crap. That harpy had two hands, both with talons, and the one not holding those diamonds would be coming to slice through that idiot’s midsection or take his head off.

Blinking back teared-up eyes, I dove toward where the guy had been before I’d been struck blind.

A male-sounding “Oof” told me I’d latched on to my intended target.

We landed in a heap and tumbled ass over teakettle, off the floor slab of the Temple of Dendur, crashing into a nearby buffet table.

Over the screams came a roar, a roar barely contained in a human throat.

Oh hell.

Viktor Kain.

All we needed was the Russian going dragon and getting medieval on three harpy asses in front of hundreds of witnesses uploading it all to the social media of their choice.

I quickly crawled to the corner of the temple and peeked around.

Kain was fast but his speed was limited by his human form. The Sackler Wing was large enough for him to turn dragon, but he wasn’t that desperate.

Yet.

And if he chose to go dragon, there wasn’t a damned thing any SPI agent could do about it, except the same thing every human who witnessed it would do—run like hell.

Kain shouted something in Russian, and a trio of men ahead of him ran faster. They must work for him, and knew what would happen if they didn’t stop those harpies.

Harpies that had just gone airborne.

The first one crashed through one of the glass panes of the far wall and out into the Central Park night. Her sisters followed, leaving us in the middle of SPI’s worst nightmare.

Public evidence of the existence of monsters.

And three harpies on the loose in New York with seven cursed diamonds belonging to a Russian dragon.

Happy Halloween, y’all.

4

I
was wearing cocktail sauce. At least I think it was cocktail sauce. It was too thick and too cold to be blood—at least the human variety. I had no clue what harpy blood looked or felt like.

The man was sprawled next to me, half under the buffet table, all the way out cold. At least I thought he was only unconscious. I put two fingers to the side of his throat, checking for a pulse. The guy shifted and groaned, answering my question. What he had running down the side of his face from a cut on his forehead was definitely blood and positively human. It looked like that harpy had clocked him, or since he was still breathing, just grazed him.

He being mostly unconscious gave me the chance to give him a good seer once-over.

There was no sign of a ward, shield, or magical disguise of any kind. He was exactly what he looked like: a human who’d made the monumentally bad choice of tangling with a harpy.

But as a seer, I could also detect the residual traces of magic having been worked.

The man had the aura of a practitioner who’d just engaged in some serious practicing.

He hadn’t had the aura before he’d touched that harpy, which meant he’d had more than a little to do with the flash of light that’d temporarily blinded everyone who’d seen it.

He had magical talent. I wasn’t familiar with the type, but whatever he had, it was a lot.

I reached up onto the table and grabbed a cloth napkin and a handful of ice from a big bowl of shrimp. I put the ice in the napkin, and the napkin against a goose egg forming entirely too close to the man’s temple.

He groaned again and tried to sit up.

“Easy. You need to stay still.” I put my hand on his shoulder and gave a little push, not even a push, more like pressure, gently leaning him back against the table leg.

That was a mistake.

A big one.

New personal rule: don’t lay hands on a man whose last remembered touch was from a creature Zeus traditionally sent after people who’d pissed him off.

His hand grabbed my forearm. Something like an electrical shock ran up my arm, and the next thing I knew, I was airborne and slamming into the far end of the table, knocking over the bowl I’d just had my hand in, and was now wearing shrimp to go with my cocktail sauce.

I think I knew how that harpy had felt. Now I was feeling the urge to hit the guy, too.

The man blinked a few times, his eyes trying to focus on me. A shrimp picked that moment to fall out of my hair. Hopefully I didn’t look scarier than the harpies.

He fully came to and gasped, his blue eyes wide with fear, horror, confusion; you name it, he had it.

He looked around wildly. “What happened?”

SPI agents were trained to calm any member of the public they might come across who’d just had a close encounter of the supernatural kind. It involved fast thinking and creative explanations. My thinking was plenty fast, but not when it came to lying, especially not when I’d seen three harpies come to life and was wearing shrimp and cocktail sauce on a dress that’d cost me a week’s pay.

I decided to go with some truth, not
the
truth, but a little was better than none at all, and maybe it’d be enough for a man with a head injury.

“Your guess is as good as mine, but whatever it was, it’s over.” I thought for a moment. “At least for now.”

That last part was only a partial truth. While it might have been all the way over for him, the shit storm was just cranking up for me and SPI.

I didn’t think I should ask him what he’d done to that harpy. He still looked dazed and confused, and I didn’t believe it was just due to the near-concussion he’d gotten. I honestly didn’t think he was aware he’d done anything. It was rare, but not unheard of, for someone to come into a talent later in life. Usually people were either born with it, or got it in puberty along with pimples. I’d been born with mine.

Before he could ask me anything else, I decided to get some answers of my own.

“What’s your name?”

“Ben. Ben Sadler.”

“Well, Ben Sadler, I take it you work here?”

He shook his head and winced. “I’m a diamond appraiser at Christie’s.”

He was here to check out the now-stolen goods. I could see a Christie’s employee getting upset enough at the loss of those diamonds to attack a harpy. No diamonds. No auction. No big, honkin’ commission.

I gathered my makeshift ice pack, and reapplied it to his head.

He reached up to hold it himself. “Thank you.”

Our hands brushed in passing. No zap. He didn’t know he’d zapped me. That was both interesting and disconcerting.

“What happened?” I asked Ben. When someone had been turned into a human rag doll, it was best to stick with simple questions.

“Excuse me?”

Okay, maybe that wasn’t simple enough. Opting for tact, instead of asking why he’d tried to commit suicide by harpy, I went with: “When you grabbed the, uh . . . thief, there was a flash of light and . . .” My hands moved in vague little circles over my stomach. “Something that felt like I’d swallowed a fistful of electrified Mexican jumping beans. So, what did you do?”

“I only wanted to stop those things from taking the Dragon Eggs. There was bright light and my arm went numb.” His pale brow knit in concentration and confusion. “I . . . I don’t know anything about jumping beans. Then I woke up here. I remember being hit. I think.” He reached up with a shaky hand and gingerly touched his head, the tips of his fingers coming away with blood. His face blanched even paler as he looked around at the destruction and chaos.

By this point, Ben Sadler wasn’t the only one with a headache. “Jeez, people,” I muttered. “It’s over. Stop screaming already.”

One of those screams, more of a roar actually, was from one guest in particular, and those roars were in Russian, so I couldn’t understand a word except a couple that I’d picked up from a friend and fellow SPI agent who was Russian—and a werewolf—and a believer in expressing himself fully in his mother tongue.

I held my breath. It was Viktor Kain, and he was just around the corner, at the remains of the display case that’d held the pride and joy of his hoard.

A shadow fell over me.

“Where are my diamonds?”

And now he was here.

Each word, in precise, heavily accented English, came from the Russian standing not five feet away. My heart rate shot from eighty to eighty gazillion, and I was dimly aware that I couldn’t feel my legs.

What wasn’t so dim was the question that was bouncing around in my head: why the hell was he asking me?

He was close enough to inflict more than one kind of violence, but he didn’t have to touch to terrify, and he knew it. The reason had everything to do with the dragon aura that reared behind him and loomed over the entire Temple of Dendur. I realized with a flash of panic that somehow the Russian knew I could see him for what he really was. Knew it, and was happy about it.

Viktor Kain reached out, not with his hand or fist, but with his mind. He didn’t use words; he didn’t need to. In a mere flicker of thought, the Russian dragon showed me what he had done through the centuries to those who had defied him, and what he was fully prepared to do to me with no more thought than squashing a bug.

I knew I should be afraid. I was.

There were supernatural beings that could project their thoughts and words into the mind of another. It took a level of magical skill that was as rare as it was dangerous. I assumed that Vivienne Sagadraco had that skill. I knew her sister, Tiamat, did. A creature so ancient and powerful that the Babylonians had worshiped her as a goddess.

Viktor Kain was probably accustomed to getting the same treatment in the form of bowing, scraping, and cringing from his employees. His three men who’d failed to stop those harpies looked like they were ready to start groveling the instant Kain turned his attention from me to them. The Russian may have caught me kneeling on the floor, but if I was to keep one ounce of my self-respect, I couldn’t stay that way. I fought to shove down the whimpers that were trying to escape from my vocal cords. They weren’t gonna give up without a fight. Neither was I.

“As you can see, I seldom need to repeat my requests, but for the benefit of your uninformed companion, I will. Once.” His dark eyes fell on Ben Sadler and glittered with something ugly. “Where are my diamonds?”

My whimpers turned into a “Huh?” Ben Sadler had tried to stop the robbery. Though if Kain knew I was a seer, knowing appraising diamonds wasn’t the only talent in Ben Sadler’s skill set would be a no-brainer, and the Russian definitely had a brain.

I put one hand on the table to keep myself from stumbling—or shaking—and got to my feet. It took everything I had and then some to not only stay on the floor, but to go facedown in a full groveling bow. I kept my eyes on his the whole time. Though truth was, I didn’t know if I could look away, but I wasn’t going to try, and give the Russian the satisfaction if I failed.

He wasn’t going to like my answer, but it was the only one I had.

I swallowed on a dry mouth, and hoped my voice didn’t shake. “He tried to keep your diamonds from being stolen, Mr. Kain, and nearly got himself killed for it. I would think that deserves thanks, not accusations.”

Viktor Kain smiled as he saw through my mustered-up courage.

He could smile all he wanted. It wasn’t like I was embarrassed at having to scrape together the guts to stand up to a creature that in his true form and real size had teeth taller than me. There was no shame in being scared of that.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ben Sadler stumble to his feet. He had to brace against the table more than I did, but he’d been whapped by a harpy. Still, he got up. Good for him.

Kain’s shadow loomed over us both. “We will see if your answer is the same once—”

“Once you cooperate fully with the authorities in their investigation,” Ian said from where he now stood at my side. “I am certain they will do everything in their power to return your property to you.”

“And I assure you, agent of SPI,” Kain said in a quiet voice used by the crazy-and-proud-of-it brand of criminal the world over, “that I will do everything in
my
power to bring the thieves—and those conspiring against me—to justice. My justice.” His tone left no doubt that he considered SPI to be at the front of the conspiracy line.

“There is law in this country, Mr. Kain,” Ian responded smoothly. “And you are not it.”

“If you had not broken the treaty and come here, this never would have happened.” The words were as crisp and cold as only a multi-millennia-old British dragon could make them. That they came from a small woman didn’t lessen their impact one bit. She was within lethal violence-dispensing distance of Viktor Kain.

“Agents Byrne and Fraser,” Vivienne Sagadraco said, without taking her blazing blue eyes from Viktor Kain, “remove the injured gentleman from this building. Now.”

The Russian’s full attention was locked on the boss. I didn’t know if the glaring contest was some kind of alpha dragon dominance thing, and I didn’t care. My boss had just ordered me and Ian to take Ben and get the hell out of Dodge before the gunfight started, and I was going to obey her immediately and without question.

Ben Sadler was understandably unsteady on his feet, either from the knock on the head or from being threatened by what he saw as a Russian mafioso. He made no protest when Ian took one of his arms and pulled it over his shoulder, with the other used to steady him around the waist.

Ian led us out of the Sackler Wing by a door that appeared to be part of the far wall. It opened into a fluorescent-lit hallway that was wide enough to accommodate people moving exhibits. He closed the door behind us.

My muscles, which had been tensed in quivering readiness for either fight or flight, dissolved into a world-class case of the shakes as I exhaled a word my grandma Fraser would’ve washed my mouth out with soap if she’d heard.

“Are you all right?” Ian asked.

“Oh yeah.” My voice was high and thin, but since I was still alive to speak, I could more than deal with it. “I’m good.”

“Why would Mr. Kain . . . think I know where his . . . diamonds are?” It sounded like Ben was running out of steam along with air.

“He’s looking for somebody to blame,” I told him.

“But why us? I tried to stop the robbery, and you . . .” His still-bleeding forehead creased in confusion. “What
did
you do?”

I opted to downgrade “stop you from being stupid and getting gutted by a harpy” to something less alarming. “I tried to keep you from getting hurt. I didn’t quite succeed. Sorry about that.”

“I’m certain that you did what you could. Thank you.”

Did what I could?
I mustered a tight smile. “Don’t mention it.”

“Let’s sit you down here for a minute, sir,” Ian said, easing Ben down a wall to sit on the floor. “I need to make a quick call to get us a ride, and we’ll be out of here and get you to a hospital.”

“I need to contact my supervisor.” Ben tried to smile. It didn’t make it. “To let him know where I am.” The attempt at a smile turned to dread. “And to report an on-the-job accident.”