by Alex Rivers
“I was. But I didn’t have the money to pay Breadknife’s monthly interest, and… he knows about my daughter, Sinead. He threatened to expose me.”
She whistled. “Bastard.”
I nodded. “That’s been well established. I have no way around it. I have to give him what he wants.”
“If he’s got leverage on you, he’ll never let it go. As long as he can twist your arm with the knowledge about your daughter, you’re fucked.”
I knew that. “I’ll worry about that later.”
“What’s the job?”
“I need to break into the safe in Ddraig Goch’s vault. There’s a box inside that Breadknife’s client wants.”
There was a moment of silence as Sinead digested this.
“I just need your contacts, Sinead. I don’t want you to risk your life for—”
“I’m in, Lou.”
I felt a wave of relief, intermingled with guilt. What was I dragging my friend into?
“So where do we start?” she asked.
I gestured at the suitcase. “I think to begin with, we should find out what we’re facing.”
Chapter Eight
Sinead and I sat in the large meeting room of Hippopotamus Hunting Trips, blueprints and papers strewn all over the table. We had been drinking espresso as the day drew, and the table was littered with empty cups. The caffeine made me jittery, which didn’t mix well with my anxiety about this job, and with my overall tiredness. It was almost midnight, and my eyes were blurry from reading and rereading the summary, and examining the mansion’s layout bit by bit. The blueprints were scribbled with notes in both our handwriting. Some were short informative sentences, like air conditioner ducts too narrow to move through or motion sensors here. Others were somewhat less informative, such as fuck this security cam and motherfucking big lock.
We peered mournfully at the mess.
“This doesn’t look good, Lou,” Sinead finally said.
“It’s not the best, I agree.”
“See there?” Sinead pointed. “That’s… bad.”
“Right, and this.” I tapped the large blueprint. “Terrible.”
“And this.”
“Argh. I mean, how paranoid can you be. And there’s this, of course.”
“This really isn’t good, Lou.”
“It definitely isn’t good.”
“Maybe if we look at it like that…” She turned the blueprints upside down and we stared at them for a few seconds.
I shut my eyes. “You’ve made it worse.”
We sat in silence for a while.
“Well, the upside is that if we break into the vault, crack the safe, and manage to leave alive, we’ll be very rich,” Sinead muttered. “What with the dragon scales.”
According to the notes, there were six dragon scales in the safe. Saying that dragon scales were valuable was a bit like saying the crown jewels could fetch a nifty price. Dragon scales were more than just rare—they were powerful items, each storing a portion of the dragon’s magic. Dragons were, for obvious reasons, quite stingy with their scales, which meant that six scales could potentially make us very rich. Or, if the dragon caught up to us, very dead.
“You’ll have to fix your flamey-hands problem,” Sinead said.
“I don’t have a problem,” I objected.
“Lou… you can’t break into the dragon’s vault if your hands keep bursting into flames every time you get a bit emotional. People whose limbs are on fire are sorta conspicuous.”
“Don’t worry about it. It hardly ever happens.”
Sinead rolled her eyes. “You told me it happened yesterday. Look, it’s not a big deal. Just figure out a potion that will make it go away.”
“It’s not that simple,” I muttered. “I… can’t. I tried.”
What Sinead called my “flamey-hands problem” was a result of an alchemical accident involving phoenix blood a few months before. Coincidentally, it was the same accident that had burnt my store down, and resulted in my inability to pay Breadknife back. I couldn’t figure out how to fix it, and it definitely made life complicated. Sinead was right. Heists usually involved hiding in the darkness, or blending in with a crowd, things that became quite difficult when your fingers were happily blazing like twin bonfires.
“Okay. I’ll fix this,” I said.
“Good.” Sinead smiled in satisfaction. She’d been hassling me about the “flamey-hands problem” ever since it had begun, like a nagging mother. She’d been worried I would eventually light my hair on fire.
I changed the subject. “We’ll need to find a way around the dragon’s senses.”
Sinead’s face crumpled. This was the worst bit of the information Breadknife’s notes had summarized. Dragons, it turned out, had a special affinity with their lair and hoard. When someone stepped into a dragon’s lair, the dragon immediately knew about it. Even if it was miles away, it would sense the intruder. In our case, the dragon’s lair was his mansion, which meant we couldn’t enter the mansion’s premises without the dragon being instantly aware.
Even worse, supposing you did manage to enter a dragon’s lair without him noticing, once you touched the dragon’s treasure, it would instantly feel the intruding hands on its hoard. It would rush to stop you. And dragons moved fast.
So, in essence, we had to figure out two things: how to get in without the dragon noticing, and, once we got in and stole the safe contents, how to get out before the dragon turned us into crispy bacon.
“We should probably look for a sorcerer.”
Sinead was definitely right. A sorcerer could help with these problems. The only problem was that sorcerers were a nasty bunch. The reason was simple—sorcery was dark magic, and that tended to attract a certain type of person. Even if they were fantastic to begin with, the magic slowly warped them, changed them, peeling off their humanity, leaving behind a diseased soul. It’s hard to maintain a good nature when demons constantly whisper in your ears. There were exceptions, of course, but they were few and far between.
“You’ll have to call Estagarius.” I sighed. He was the only sorcerer we ever really worked with.
“He’s dead, Lou.”
I gawked at her in shock “No! Really?”
“Died two months ago, haven’t you heard? Cancer.”
“He was such a nice old man,” I said sadly.
“You called him pompous and unbearable!”
That was true, but when people died on you, adjectives morphed, becoming slightly more positive. “He was a pompous and unbearable nice old man.”
“That’s a lovely eulogy. You should send it to his wife.”
“Who then?”
Sinead thought about it for a second. “There’s a new guy. Kane Underwood. He has a good reputation.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Probably that he’s never been caught drinking blood in public, or cackling with his hands raised high as lightning flashed behind him.”
“Oh, good.”
“I can’t think of anyone else.”
“I’ll check him out,” I muttered.
Sinead leaned back, putting her feet on the table. “Don’t you have a puppy?” she suddenly asked. “He’s probably pissed all over your house.”
I shook my head. “I texted Isabel earlier. She took Magnus for a long walk.”
“That’s nice of her.”
“Isabel is good people.”
“We’ll need her. You know that, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And we’ll need a hacker.”
“A hacker who can handle magic.” I tapped the notes.
“Fine, I’ll ask around.”
“And I’ll talk to this guy Kane.”
Sinead groaned and massaged her forehead. “So… you, me, Isabel, Kane, and hacker. That’s five. Do you think it’s enough?”
I considered it. “Yeah,” I finally said. “I think it’s a job for five people.”
Chapter Nine
Kane Underwood’s office, located on the second floor of a dinky building in East Boston, was not what I expected.
There were no shelves stacked with leather-bound tomes in the room; no raven, cat, or lizard staring at me, eyes unblinking. The office was also lacking in ancient ceremonial daggers, weird mysterious masks, and arcane glowing glyphs.
It had a small wooden desk, littered with pages, some torn or crumpled. A brimming ashtray and a half-full whiskey bottle acted as paperweights. There was a tall metal filing cabinet in the corner of the room, and another ashtray, also full, sat on top of it. The office was dimly lit by one bare lightbulb, but even in this murky light I could see the fine layer of dust that settled in the corners of the room. The place smelled richly of clove and pine. And it was empty.
I took a step forward and glanced at the papers on the table. It was a bizarre mix of unpaid bills, yellow crumbling parchments scrawled with dark blotchy ink, diagrams of circles of power doodled on napkins, and various takeout menus. Mesmerized by this assortment, I leaned closer to inspect one of the scraps of paper, when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around, and was taken aback at the sight of the man standing in the doorway.
“I know you!” I said. It was the guy I’d met in the street two nights before. He was dressed in the same dark trench coat, and had the same smug face. The coat and the smugness were probably permanent fixtures.
He quirked his lips in a tiny smile, and stepped inside the room, brushing past me. He put a plastic cup of coffee on the desk, and then shrugged off his trench coat, hanging it on a nail in the wall. He sat on the chair behind the desk, and leaned back, folding his arms. “You’re the dream peddler,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were coming, or I’d have brought a cup for you too. What brings you to my office, Ms. Lou Vitalis?”
I was thrown off by the fact that he knew my name, and found myself opening and shutting my mouth like a goldfish. The fact that this guy managed to consistently throw me off my guard vexed me. Finally recovering, I blurted, “Are you Kane Underwood?”
“Yes, I am. Pleased to see you again, Lou.” He said my name strangely, as if tasting the way it felt on his tongue. His green eyes never strayed from mine. “How can I help you?”
“What were you doing that night, in the street?” I asked.
He took a sip from his cup and fished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Placing one in his mouth, he motioned at the only other chair in the room. It was by the corner of the desk, and had a layer of dust on it. I brushed it lightly, and sat down. Kane lit his cigarette with a dented metal lighter. He inhaled, blew the smoke sideways, and looked at me thoughtfully. “Working,” he finally answered.
I let the word hang in the air. The smoke from his cigarette carried the same scent of clove and pine that lingered in the room. It was a rich fragrance, unlike any cigarette I had smelled before. “Working at what?” I finally asked.
“Something I was hired to do.”
“I need to know what it was, to know if I can trust you.”
“Well.” He sighed sadly. “I guess you won’t be able to trust me.”
That didn’t satisfy my curiosity, but it did satisfy my need to know he could keep a confidence. Most sorcerers could; you don’t get far in the sorcery world if you blab.
“I need a sorcerer,” I said.
“You found one.” His green eyes twinkled. “What for?”
“For a difficult, dangerous, confidential job.”
He took another puff from his cigarette. “People don’t come here when the jobs are easy, safe, and widely known. Before I take on a job, I need to know the details first.”
“I need to break into a vault. It’s very well protected. There are some wards, runes, probably a curse or two.”
“Where is this vault?”
“We can discuss that later.”
“Who does it belong to?”
“Later.”
“What’s in it?”
“Later.”
“Then what can we talk about right now, Lou?”
“I want to know if you’re the man for the job.”
He smiled and stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. “So this is a job interview? Okay. You want to ask if I’m the man who will break into a well-protected vault whose location, contents, and owner I don’t know? No. I’m not that guy. That guy sounds like a moron, and I’m not a moron.” He took another sip of his coffee. “I really feel shitty that I can’t offer you anything. Do you want to go downstairs? There’s a nice café there.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Look, what I want to know is if you’re good at what you do. If I can trust you. If—”
“Does this look like a face you can’t trust?” He gestured at his scruffy unshaven cheek. “What’s the job? And what are you paying?”
There was no way around it; I had known it when I came to his office. He was right, only a moron would agree to a job without hearing the basic details. “I want to break into the vault of Ddraig Goch.”
He put down the coffee cup and cleared his throat. “Well, you weren’t kidding about difficult and dangerous.”
“There’s a box in the safe my client wants,” I explained. “I only need the box. The rest of the safe’s contents can be split between the members of the crew. There should be six dragon scales inside.”
He digested this. The mention of dragon scales didn’t seem to have an impact on him. I was beginning to suspect I’d have to find someone else.
“How many members in the crew?” he asked.
“Five, including me and you.”
“Six dragon scales divided by five people? Who gets the extra scale?”
“We’ll worry about that later.”
“Who are the members of this crew, aside from you?”
I shook my head. “That’s as far as we go. I’m not risking their lives, in case you decide to go snitching on us to Ddraig Goch.”
“You think I would snitch?”
“I don’t know you.”
“That’s true, but you know what?” He took out his cigarettes again. “Snitches get stitches.”
“Is that some sort of ancient sorcerer rule?” I tried to catch a glance of the cigarette pack. It wasn’t a brand I recognized. There were Chinese letters on its face.
“More like an ancient public-school rule.”
“So? Can you do it?”
“I don’t know. I never broke into a dragon’s vault before.”
“No one has.”
He drummed on the table for a bit, thinking about it, occasionally taking a drag from his cigarette. Finally, he stubbed it out in the ashtray, adding to the quite impressive amount of cigarette butts and ash in it. “How do you intend to overcome the dragon’s senses?” he asked.
“We had a few ideas,” I answered slowly. “But they depend on your capabilities. How good are you?”
He leaned forward, a strange smile curving his lips. “Do you want me to demonstrate my powers now? Pull a rabbit out of my hat? Saw a lovely young woman in half?” The air crackled, making the hair on the back of my neck stand. His eyes flickered to black, their darkness mesmerizing.
“You don’t have a hat. And I’m not letting you near me with a saw.”
He snorted in amusement, and the strange tension in the air dissipated. His eyes morphed back to green. “What do you want me to say, Lou? That I’m the best sorcerer to walk the earth since Merlin? I’m better than most. But I can’t perform miracles.”
“Can you cloud the dragon’s senses?”
“No.”
I nodded, unperturbed. “Can you teleport us into the vault?”
“No…” He hesitated. “Teleportation spells are quite common, but they require immense power. You’d need a magical object that can focus that power. And those are very rare. Do you have something like that?”
“Probably not,” I admitted.
“Can you get one?”
“I’ll check, but I doubt it.”
&n
bsp; “Then I can’t teleport us into the vault.”
“Okay… but suppose you had one, could you teleport us?”
He shrugged. “I’d have to do some research, but yeah, I think I could.”
“Can a dragon scale be your magical object?”
He blinked in surprise. “Yes. But the dragon scales are inside the vault.”
“Right.” I folded my arms. “So assuming we’re able to enter the vault, open the safe, and retrieve the dragon scales… you could teleport us away?”
“It would destroy one of the scales.”
“Luckily, we have one to spare.”
He grinned. “You’re full of surprises, Lou Vitalis. You already knew what I would say when you entered my office.”
“I had some assumptions.” I returned his smile. “So would you be able to do it? Teleport us out of the vault? Somewhere safe?”
“Maybe. Probably.”
I smiled in satisfaction. One of our two problems was solved. We had a way out.
“But that raises the question, are you capable of doing this?” Kane asked. “No offense, but last time we met, you didn’t exactly inspire trust in me. And you seem young.”
I bristled. “What does age have to do with it?”
“With age comes experience. You’re asking me to risk my life on this—quite frankly—almost suicidal job, and I would feel better if I knew you were an experienced hand.”
I was prepared for this. “Did you hear about the break-in into the cult of Dra’akthol’s inner sanctum eight years ago?”
He grinned. “Of course. It was hilarious.”
“It was.” I relaxed in my chair, feeling in control. “Their sacred blade was taken, along with several arcane items.”
“That’s right, and the burglar wrote Dra’akthol sucks donkey balls on the altar.”
“It was actually Dra’akthol sucks dirty donkey balls.”
“Are you going to tell me that was you?”
“One of the items stolen was a chain.”
He nodded. “The chain of Apollonius.”
I took the chain out of my handbag, and placed it carefully on the table. He stared at it, then leaned forward to touch it.
The chain coiled and lashed at his fingers. He pulled his hand back quickly.