“There is one more thing I should be able to do.”
The Regent extended a hand, inviting me to do the same. I did so, reaching out to cup a palm over the broad-banded silver ring he’d given me. Another incantation, and the ring flashed with a sudden, comforting warmth.
“I have bonded scrying magic to your ring,” he explained. “As you are the wearer, that will help us see through your eyes so long as you have it on. I’m hoping that it will allow me to send help to you in case things turn ill.”
“We are concerned that ‘hoping’ is too vague a promise,” Nagura said, and the griffin nodded his eagle’s head vigorously in agreement.
“That’s the best I can do, your Majesty. There are too many variables at play here. Too much magic, too much interference, and too much distance.”
“It’s going to have to be enough,” I said, feeling a little breathless. “Wish me luck.”
“Thou hast all of my luck,” Shaw grunted. “Nothing shall happen to thee, I am sure. And if I am wrong, I doth swear to avenge thy death with bloody vengeance!”
“That’s my big guy,” I said, and I wrapped my arm around his furry bulk for a last squeeze.
Magnus nodded to me, and Nagura bobbed her head in turn. It was now or never. I had to go, and I had to do it ASAP before my nerves failed me.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward into the crystal’s face.
A familiar flash of white enveloped me. Ozone scoured my nostrils and over my tongue. There was no fitz-bang! to accompany the smell or the visuals. Instead, I felt a body-wide tingle, as if I’d lain down in a bathtub of seltzer water.
The world solidified around me, leaving my stomach just a tad queasy. I blew out a breath, steadied myself, and looked around. No one had shown up at my arrival – the lack of a loud noise probably helped there – and I didn’t see any security cameras on the walls. I looked behind me, and was only mildly surprised to see absolutely nothing hanging in the air.
The ruby slab glimmered enticingly off to one side, but I wanted some evidence that would tell me where I was, and who ran this place. So, I went over to the desk first.
I picked up the acrylic paperweight, glancing for a moment at the entombed scorpion with distaste. Some people’s taste in things was downright strange. And that came from someone who dissected dead people for a living.
But the stack of papers under the mummified arthropod held the truly bizarre stuff. Each paper was a bill of sale or shipment confirmation. A couple were from domestic companies, but most bore foreign labels. Most of the items listed were referred to by alphanumeric codes like ‘XLJ-3002’. Others were labeled in plain English.
M112 Demolition Block, C-4 High Explosive
7.62×51mm NATO, Rotary Machine Gun
HDKP Autocannon Armor Shell Casing
But what really got my attention was the party listed as the buyer on each slip.
Crossbow Consulting.
That explained all the receipts for weapons and weapon system parts. It was part and parcel of what Grayson Archer’s firm dealt with, day in and day out. I’d stepped through a magic portal into one of their supply warehouses. A chill positively thrummed down my spine as I asked myself the possible reasons for having that portal in here.
One packing slip jutting out of the stack grabbed my attention. It did so, because stamped on the corner was a scarlet skull-and-crossbones. I pulled the paper free and took a closer look.
The slip acknowledged the order and shipment of six compressed-gas cylinders from a chemical supply warehouse. The shipment had arrived less than three months ago.
Each cylinder had been filled with ultra-concentrated chlorine gas.
This was where the poison had come from, the poison unleashed on the last known population of Hakseeka, the intelligent wyverns who’d won the Old War.
And now the Creatures of the Dark had just wiped them out, down to the last queen.
My stomach had already completed its tryouts for the World Knot-Tying competition from earlier, so the best it could do was send a shimmer of queasiness at this latest revelation. I stuffed the paper back into the stack and paused to wipe a bead of sweat from my temple.
Something moved out of the corner of my eye.
Instantly, I pivoted and groped for my gun. The damned handle slipped from my hand, and I forced myself to slow down and pull the firearm free. Had anything actually been coming at me, I’d have been toast.
The movement had come from the hazy reflection of my figure in the nearest ruby face. I stepped forward hesitantly, almost forcing my feet to move. It took a supreme act of willpower to even get near enough to examine the damned thing.
Part of my hesitation must have come from where it sat. To my front and rear, there were yet more multi-tiered rows of racks packed tight with crates, while to both the right and left were doors. These were just regular hollow core office doors with push-button locks. Hardly the kind of thing I’d expect to find in a weapons storehouse, but either one could open at a moment’s notice.
“Stop stalling, then,” I told my brain. “Focus on the task at hand.”
Close up, the ruby was even larger than I’d first estimated. It was slightly longer than the OME van, and half again as wide. It also wasn’t quite as flawless as I had originally thought. Orange-yellow strands of some kind of mineral wound or coiled through the planes of crystal. A trace of warmth curled up from its surface.
I traced one of the orange-yellow strands with a finger, though I dared not touch the ruby’s surface. My guess was that a powerful artifact like this would have the magical equivalent of a car alarm. Or something much worse.
The largest of the orange-yellow lines wound down to one side in a smooth arc. Then it ‘jumped’ an inch to one side before continuing. That oddity made me stop and take a second look.
There was a barely visible seam in the gemstone. It ran ruler-straight for at least three feet before continuing at a ninety-degree angle upwards, followed by another turn several feet up…
I stepped back. The seams described a door. And if there was a door, there was an open space inside that huge gem. Maybe even a chamber.
So that’s the Scarlet Crypt, I thought. The queasiness in my stomach vanished, replaced by a vat brimming over with liquid nitrogen.
I squinted at the ‘door’ again. There was a dark spot deeper inside that seemed purple-black like a vicious bruise.
The vat of liquid nitrogen in my stomach threatened to boil over into a frost fountain.
My eyes were probably playing tricks on me. The ruby shifted colors slightly when the viewer moved, that was all. Or I was seeing a negative reflection of my own silhouette off some inner surface of the stone.
Yes, I was seeing things. I had an active imagination, that was all. Even so, my brain had a field day by replaying the Ultari’s last words for me.
He who sleeps in the Scarlet Crypt shall end you! He who sleeps in the Scarlet Crypt shall end you!
To confirm that I was indeed seeing my own image, I stood on tiptoe for a moment and waved one arm.
My motions weren’t mimicked. OK, so it wasn’t my reflection. And now that I looked closer at it, that black splotch wasn’t a tiny imperfection in the stone, either. Actually, it was pretty large.
Larger than a human being, anyway.
That couldn’t be right.
Could it?
As if in answer, whatever it was inside the blood-red ruby slab began to move.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Whatever the dark mass inside the Ruby Crypt was, it was moving.
And I just stood there and watched it. I couldn’t help it. This was a nightmare come to life, my feet were stuck in cement, and I felt like a bird that had been hypnotized by a snake.
Then I got lucky.
Sort of.
It really depended on how you looked at it.
I got knocked out of my frozen fugue state when yet another threat materialized.
The sound
of heavy footsteps approaching enabled me to jerk my head towards the source of the sound, which was followed by the rattle of keys from the door off to my right. I looked around wildly.
This time I really did get lucky. There was a Dayna-sized gap between the towering metal racks. It wasn’t all that much cover, but at least it would get me out of the immediate line of sight. A turn and three quick steps was all it took to get out of view.
The door opened and someone walked through. I couldn’t quite see who’d come in. Worse, my eyes kept flicking back and forth between the doorway and the ruby crystal. As far as I could tell, the dark shape wasn’t moving anymore. Maybe the spooky whatever-it-was only reacted to things close to its holding cell, or crypt, or whatever was containing it.
A slam, jingle, and click as the door was closed and re-locked. I glimpsed the outline of a tall man through the cracks and slits of the boxes piled on the rack in front of me. The man walked over to the desk and I heard a crumpling sound as he touched the stack of papers, followed by a moment of silence. A silence that stretched out for two heartbeats. Then three.
I’d put all the papers back in place, so what was the man doing? Why would he stop and just stare at a pile…
Oh, crap.
Yes, I’d put back all the papers into the stack. But I’d forgotten to top it with the preserved-scorpion paperweight. Okay, that wasn’t necessarily cause for this guy to pull the alarm or anything.
Right?
What I heard next scared me even more than the black shape inside the crypt.
A grunt. Followed by the wet sound of sniffing. And then, of all things, a quiet laugh.
What the hell was going on?
I shifted position to try and see, but could only get a glimpse of the person’s hands. They were pale, they were big, and they looked damned strong. One hand held a phone while the other tapped out a number.
The hand holding the phone disappeared from view as the device was moved up towards the man’s face. The mystery of his identity played on my nerves for two or three more seconds as the phone rang. Then, the last of my hope and courage vanished as I heard the quiet rasp in his voice.
Damon Harrison’s voice.
“Stand by,” he said into the phone. “The target will show itself in a few more minutes at most. You know what to do.”
There was a decisive click as the call was ended, accompanied by the rustle of cloth as the phone was put back into a pocket.
Harrison raised his voice as he spoke.
“I have your scent, Dayna Chrissie. And I can hear your breathing.”
I blinked as I tried to process his words. I wasn’t wearing perfume, powder, anti-perspirant, or anything that threw off an odor. And how could he hear me breathing when I was hidden at least fifteen yards away?
Harrison didn’t raise his voice a jot, but the menace seeped out of his next words like blood oozing from a fresh cut.
“Step out where I can see you. Now. Or I will drag you out by the neck.”
Maybe Harrison wasn’t as smart as he thought. I could still see his hands. He didn’t have a weapon in his, not like I did. The man was uncommonly strong and fast, sure. But I could easily put a bullet in him before he could close a distance of fifteen yards.
Only one problem. He surely knew this too.
Didn’t he?
Anyway, I didn’t see that I had much choice in the matter.
I stepped back out into the middle of the passageway between the two equipment racks, holding my gun in a two-handed grip, arms extended towards my target. No matter what tricks Damon Harrison had up his sleeves, he’d take a bullet.
I threw a last furtive glance at the slab of ruby. The dark mass inside remained still. I did my best to ignore it for now and focus on Harrison. Seeing the crisp black hole of the gun’s muzzle trained on his face should rattle the man.
The key word here was ‘should’.
In fact, he seemed completely indifferent to the fact that I had the drop on him. He leaned back against the edge of the desk as he straightened out the cuffs of the white shirt he wore under his sharkskin gray suit. The exact same suit I now thought of as Crossbow Consulting’s de facto uniform.
“I never did thank you properly for smashing up my car,” I said, trying desperately to keep my voice from wavering. “Now, it’s time for you to talk.”
Harrison exhaled sadly, theatrically. But when he fixed me in his gaze, I had to suppress a shiver. His eyes were nearly as pale as his skin, snakelike in their intensity and focus. The near-bald buzzcut he sported made his head look more like a flesh-toned skull.
“I suppose you ‘have me dead to rights’ this time,” he said. “What do you want to talk about? Would you like me to congratulate you on tracing the murder of the Hakseeka back to the source?”
“I don’t need congratulations from the likes of you.” Even as I said the words I knew that sounded stupid. Defiance, trying to hide abject fear, but I had no choice but to continue. “I need information. I already know why you murdered Karl Nystrom. Why did you kill Detective Cohen?”
His face creased into a ghoulish smile as he answered.
“Because he was watching where he shouldn’t have been. I told you. Keep on looking at me...and you won’t like what you see. Fear not. His end was quick. Mostly painless. He came in handy afterwards.”
Oh God, Cohen did. His remains had been message and terror weapon in one.
“You’re coming with me.” I flicked my gun’s muzzle towards the door. “Now. Let’s go.”
He shook his head.
I scowled. What was his angle here? “I’m not bluffing, Harrison. Get those hands up and move.”
He didn’t. His hands remained down at his sides, the edge of his mouth twitching, exposing one of his impossibly straight, white teeth. A crocodilian’s teeth.
“Do you remember what I told you? That time we had a one-on-one conversation in the parking garage. I told you what would appeal to me. Taking out one of your eyeballs, say. Or smashing out your teeth.”
“I remember telling you that it wasn’t over,” I gritted back. “And it wasn’t. It’s never been over between the two of us. Only this time–”
Damon Harrison straightened, planting his feet firmly shoulder-width apart. He rotated his wrists with a gristly pop of the joints, flexing his fingers the same way I’d seen Nagura or Grimshaw move their talons. Right before they tore into a slab of meat.
“Now that you’re here, I suppose that it was a waste of time to set up your final lesson.” He shrugged. “Fate has ruled that I leave you alive, at least until now. But I think it’s time I tempted fate. That I ended this line of events.”
Even though my nerves were screaming at me to run, I had to ask the question.
“Fate ruled that you…what are you talking about? What does ‘fate’ have to do with anything?”
“Fate sent you here. To me. That means I get to show you what I did to your Detective. Unless, of course, you believe some higher power will intervene, to save you–”
The rattle of a key in a lock interrupted Harrison’s little speech.
It came from the second door that led into the warehouse, the door that was now behind me and across the room from where Harrison stood, preparing to pounce on his prey. A click, and the door swung open.
One of the last people I wanted to see stood in the doorway.
Just my rotten luck.
Chapter Forty
I wasn’t expecting salvation of any sort here. After all, I was smack at the center of Crossbow Consulting’s inner sanctum. But my heartbeat took another jump as Grayson Archer walked through the door.
He didn’t appear the least bit surprised to see me. I noted that his gait was pulled off balance by a long, dark object he half cradled, half carried in one arm. Instead of his firm’s usual gray suit, he wore a pair of badly creased denim jeans and a dun-colored leather jacket. His eyes were fever-bright and took in the entire scene in an instant.
&n
bsp; I took a step to one side, trying to keep both men in my field of view, but they weren’t focused on me -- at least for the moment.
Harrison’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
“I should ask you the same question,” came Archer’s reply.
He raised his arm, revealing what he’d carried in. An assault rifle that was so big and clunky he needed both arms to steady it. A round magazine in the shape of a drum jutted from the thing’s lower half. I still had my own peashooter-sized gun trained on Harrison, so there was no way I could swing it around in time.
“Lower your weapon,” Archer ordered. For a second, all I could do was stare at the weapon he carried. I could have put my fist inside the muzzle.
I did as told. My eyes continued to flick between Archer, Harrison, and the shadow inside the ruby slab. Between the trio of threats, I had nowhere to go.
“I don’t care if she is a vertice!” Harrison fumed. “I’m going to end her!”
“You can’t.” Archer motioned to me with a twitch of the cannon-sized weapon cradled in his arms. “Kneel. Leave your gun on the floor.”
I knelt. The floor tile felt ice-cold against my knuckles as I let go of my firearm.
“We’ll see what fate throws in my way!” Harrison bellowed. “And then, I’ll rip it to shreds!”
Archer shook his head. “You can’t fight what fate decrees.”
“You are a fool if you think that!”
A wistful look crossed Archer’s face.
“Maybe you’re right. It’s been a bitter lesson for me, to learn that I’ve never been as bright as I thought.” He glanced down at me for a split second. “Oh, and Dayna?”
“Yes?” I asked.
“Stay down.”
Grayson Archer squeezed the trigger. The muzzle erupted in a gout of flame and the drum-shaped magazine gave a clank as it turned. Bullets screamed past overhead, creating a roar that filled my ears and blotted out everything else. I dropped, cracking my chin on the floor hard enough to see stars.
Harrison’s form became a dark blur. His body spun as a bullet hit him in the rib cage, then flew backwards as more shots found their mark.
A Warrant of Wyverns Page 20