Russell snorted. “They are not. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Nadia.”
“Bye, kiddo,” I said, and Russell ended the call.
I blew out a long breath and shut down the treadmill.
I didn’t have the unthinking reverence for the Elves that most people had, but I was still a shadow agent of the High Queen. Maybe that was one of the reasons Tarlia wanted me to go to Baron Kaldmask’s birthday party. I could look at the man with eyes unclouded by reverence.
But still. Why Kaldmask? The man was notoriously unpleasant and petty, but as far as I knew, he was loyal to the High Queen, and she valued loyalty enough to forgive numerous other failures.
Well, time to get to work.
I hopped off the treadmill, headed for the bathroom, and stripped off my sweat-drenched clothes and dumped them in the hamper. A bath would have been nice, but Tarlia had said the birthday party was tonight, which meant I didn’t have much time to prepare. I showered off, got dressed in jeans and a heavy sweater, and returned to the dining room and unlocked my laptop.
Then I got to work researching Baron Kaldmask.
New York City was densely populated enough that each of the five boroughs had their own Elven noble, overseen by Duke Mythrender of Manhattan, who also served as the High Queen’s Lord Marshal. Kaldmask was the Baron of Brooklyn, a title he had held since the Conquest three hundred years before.
He was not a popular man.
Elven nobles tended to divide into three categories in their opinion of humanity. Some Elven nobles are indifferent to humans. Duke Tamirlas of Milwaukee is one of them. A surprising lot of Elven nobles like humans and are even fascinated by them. I think it’s because Elves live upwards of a thousand years, and humans max out around seventy or eighty (I was sort of an exception to that). We seem strange and dynamic to them, even as Elves are alien and aloof and timeless to us.
But some Elven nobles detest humans. Baron Castomyr, who I had shot in the head after escaping from the Eternity Crucible, was one of them.
It’s illegal to criticize Elves in any form of media and doing so will get you arrested for elfophobia and flogged on a Punishment Day video. It wasn’t as if I could go to a news website and read op/eds grumbling about the Baron. But all the signs of Kaldmask’s immense unpopularity were there if you knew what to look for, and I did. Elven nobles didn’t have unrestricted power, and their human subjects could complain to their noble’s overlord. I found a long, long list of lawsuits from various people in Brooklyn complaining to Duke Mythrender about Baron Kaldmask’s capriciousness. In fact, Lord Mythrender had exercised his rights as overlord and taken some of Kaldmask’s duties on himself, bypassing the Baron entirely.
I wondered why Tarlia wanted me to go to Kaldmask’s birthday party. Did she think that Kaldmask was going to betray her? Or was someone going to try to assassinate Kaldmask? It was difficult to assassinate an Elven noble because they were immune to conventional bullets, but they weren’t immune to magic or to a sufficiently powerful explosion. Or maybe she wanted me to go to the party and be seen. I was slightly famous, which was really irritating, and the Elves had decided to call me “Worldburner” because I had wound up nuking Venomhold during the battle of New York. Maybe Tarlia wanted to yank Kaldmask’s leash, let him see the Worldburner at his birthday party.
Or it could be all those things. The High Queen was good at setting up events so she came out ahead no matter what actually happened. I was tempted to contact her and ask for more information, but I knew I wouldn’t get anything more than what Tarlia had already told me. If she knew anything specific, she would have told me. No, she just had suspicions.
She was sending me fishing.
Well, I could do that, attend the party and have a casual look around. I would have to get dressed up so I wouldn’t stand out. Hadn’t done that in a while – I usually wore black jeans, a gray sweater, and a black pea coat every day because I was so cold all the time. Maybe it would be good for me.
I heard the lock rattle in the front door. Unlike every other apartment I had ever lived in, Riordan’s condo had an actual foyer so I couldn’t see who had come in. My instincts took over, and I took a deep breath, calling magic and preparing to blast any attackers.
But, of course, it was only Riordan, and I grinned when I saw him.
Today he was wearing black trousers, a white button-down shirt, and a black jacket. He was big enough in the chest and arms and shoulders that shirts and jackets always looked slightly tight on him. Not that I minded. He had close-cropped brown hair and eyes the color of expensive bookcases.
“Good morning,” said Riordan. He set down his laptop bag, crossed to my end of the table, and kissed me. “I see you haven’t thrown your laptop out the window, so that’s a good sign.”
“It’s an expensive laptop,” I said. “How was your morning?”
“Well enough,” said Riordan. “I didn’t have to fire anyone.” He owned a few small businesses throughout the New York area. Turns out when you’re a century old, have a lucrative and dangerous profession, and live frugally, you can save up quite a lot, which he had then invested. “The manager thought someone was stealing from the till, but it was a bug in the accounting software.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I’ve never actually fired anyone. I mean, sure, I’ve set people on fire. But I think that’s different.”
“Both legally and morally,” said Riordan. “Did you get your paperwork problem sorted out?”
“Yeah,” I said. With the message from the High Queen, I had almost forgotten about it. “I just had to pick up the phone and yell at someone. Amazing how many problems you can solve that way. I…”
I laughed and shook my head.
“What?” said Riordan, smiling a little.
“It’s just…you’re a brother of the Shadow Hunters and I’m a shadow agent of the High Queen,” I said. “And we’re standing here talking about paperwork and money. Next thing you know we’ll be talking about whether to have Chinese or Italian for dinner, or whether or not we should re-grout the tiles in the bathroom.”
Riordan raised an eyebrow. “We can’t spend all our time fighting monsters from the Shadowlands or chasing Rebels.” He shrugged. “I started writing when I was a man-at-arms. Being a soldier is a lot of boredom dotted with moments of pure terror. I had to do something to fill the time. Being a Shadow Hunter is the same thing. Not every day has to be frightening and dangerous. I know some soldiers and Shadow Hunters who become addicted to danger and can’t handle day-to-day life.”
“No, that’s not me. I like day-to-day life with you,” I said. “The…the domesticity of it, I guess. I haven’t had a lot of normal things in my life.” Now there was an understatement. “And as much as I would like to spend the day with you, I have a problem. The High Queen contacted me.”
Riordan’s smile faded, and he nodded. “What does she want you to do?”
“She wants me to go to Baron Kaldmask’s birthday party tonight.”
He blinked. “That’s it? You can come with me.”
I frowned. “You’re going to Kaldmask’s party?”
“I wasn’t going to, but I had an invitation,” said Riordan. “Myself, plus one. You can be my plus one.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet,” I said. “Wait, how did you get an invitation to Baron Kaldmask’s birthday party? He seems like the kind of guy who would be afraid of the Shadow Hunters.”
“Most people are afraid of the Family,” said Riordan, “but in this case, Kaldmask doesn’t really like anyone. He has the sort of personality that defeats itself on a regular basis. Anyway, I didn’t get an invitation as Riordan MacCormac, but I received one as Malcolm Lock.”
“You did?” I said. Most of the Shadow Hunters tended to have careers and businesses on the side. In my husband’s case, he had been writing historical adventure novels under the name of Malcolm Lock for a long time, been successful at it, and had invested the profits in various side businesses. He ha
d a lot of money. I didn’t know how much, and he kept threatening to make me sit down with his financial advisor to get a full overview of his holdings, but stuff kept coming up first.
“Yes,” said Riordan. “Local figures tend to get invited to these things, and I’m afraid Mr. Lock qualifies. But that will get us into Kaldmask’s mansion, and you can do…what did the High Queen want you to do?”
“I don’t really know,” I said. “She just wants me to look around and keep an eye on things.”
Riordan frowned. “Probably she wants to frighten Kaldmask. Let him know she’s watching him.”
“Yeah, I’m terrifying,” I said. “Nothing is as scary as a five foot three woman who talks too much.”
“Kaldmask will recognize you,” said Riordan, “and wonder why the High Queen sent the Worldburner to his party.”
I sighed. “Probably.” Well, if I was going to be called the Worldburner, I might as well make use of it. “Maybe nothing will happen, and we’ll actually have a nice night on the town for once.”
“First time for everything,” said Riordan, and I laughed.
***
Chapter 2: The Baron’s Party
I got dressed up.
People tend to assume I’m a tomboy, which is a reasonable conclusion given how I usually dress. Also, wearing a loose coat let me conceal a shoulder holster and a pistol.
But when I went places with Riordan, I tended to dress up. While I was something of a tomboy, I did enjoy looking nice. And I admit there was a little insecurity involved. I’m not unattractive, but I sometimes wondered why Riordan was with me. He was rich and handsome, and he could have had his pick of women. Maybe someone blonder, bustier, and (worst of all) taller than me.
And, less superficially, someone who didn’t frequently wake up from nightmares of the Eternity Crucible.
But, then, he had his own demons too, didn’t he?
I put all the doubts out of my head and focused on getting ready. I donned a black sheath dress with a high collar that left my arms and calves bare. I put on some makeup, though no mascara or eyeliner. My gray eyes looked kind of crazed already, no sense making them look even more intense. I put on a pair of earrings, and on my left wrist, I wore the bracelet I had made from Jeremy Shane’s identification tags, the reminder that humans and Elves had to work together, or our mutual enemies would devour us both. I finished off the outfit with a pair of stiletto heels that added a few inches to my height and considered my reflection in the bedroom mirror.
I might have been a hundred and eighty years old and slightly insane, but I did clean up nicely.
I walked into the living room. Riordan waited for me by one of the bookshelves, paging through a book on something called the Peloponnesian War. He cleaned up pretty nicely, too, in a black suit with a dark blue tie. The jacket shaped itself well to his chest and arms. He looked up as I approached, and I saw the flash of hunger in his dark eyes.
That was nice, too.
I grinned at him and took a pose, cocking a hip to one side. “Do you like the dress?”
“I do,” he murmured. He set the book back on the shelf but didn’t look away from me and didn’t put it back in its proper place. Now that was a compliment – he always kept his books organized. He stepped closer and ran his hands down my sides. “You make me want to forget my self-control.”
“Well, it took me an hour and a half to get ready,” I said. “You can rip off the dress when we get home.”
Though if I was honest with myself, I would rather Riordan ripped off the dress here and now. I didn’t want to go to Baron Kaldmask’s birthday party, and I didn’t want to spend all night poking around his mansion looking for anything suspicious. But, as jobs from the High Queen went, this was one of the easier ones, and I didn’t think Tarlia would accept “my husband was overcome by ardor” as an excuse for failing to carry out her will.
“I’ll look forward to it,” said Riordan. “Ready?”
“Let’s get this over with. Just let me get my coat.” I got a long black overcoat out of the front closet and shrugged into it. Riordan, I noted with amusement, paused long enough to put the book on the Peloponnesian War back into its proper place, and then we left. I wondered who this Peloponnesian guy had been and what his war had been about, and decided I didn’t care.
Shortly after that, I saw further proof that Riordan had money – 1.) he had a car, specifically an SUV, in Manhattan, and 2.) his building had a place to park it. It was a nice SUV, too, roomy with lots of cargo space in the back. Driving the big vehicle through the cramped streets of Manhattan was a pain, so I cheerfully let him do the driving.
“Out of curiosity,” I said as we waited at a stoplight, “why don’t you have a car here instead of an SUV? It would be easier to drive. God knows it would be easier to park.”
“Sometimes I need to move large quantities of weapons for the Shadow Hunters,” said Riordan as the light changed. “Hard to do that with a compact car. It’s also hard to keep a low profile when you’re driving a car with a rocket launcher sticking out the window.”
“That’s the truth,” I said, thinking of the many, many times I had needed to remain inconspicuous during my work for Lord Morvilind. “Like when we drove that load of weapons through Milwaukee to fight Lorenz. I drove under the speed limit the entire way because I was afraid we’d get pulled over.”
“A sensible policy,” said Riordan. “Though I would honestly prefer a pickup truck.”
“Can’t keep one of those in Manhattan.”
“You can,” said Riordan, “it’s just prohibitively expensive.”
I smiled. “Thought you were rich.”
“If I kept a pickup truck in Manhattan,” said Riordan, “I would cease to be rich very quickly. It would probably be cheaper to keep a horse.” He grunted as we came to another stoplight. “A horse would probably be faster. A pickup is a better choice in Texas. Or in Wisconsin.” He glanced at me. “After this job for the High Queen is done, maybe we should go back to Wisconsin for a few months. I think it’d be helpful for you to be closer to Russell as he gets his business set up.”
I frowned. “Wouldn’t that take you away from things in New York?”
Riordan shrugged. “I can work from anywhere. And when the Family needs me, they’ll contact me.”
“It would be nice to go back to Milwaukee,” I said. “And it would be good to start building a house. Not that I dislike your condo or your place in Texas.” He had a nice house in Texas, though I had only been there once. “Something that…you know, a place that belongs to both of us. God, that sounds sappy.”
“It really does,” said Riordan, and I punched him in the arm. “But I do understand.”
We chatted pleasantly about nothing in particular for the rest of the drive, and about thirty-five minutes later arrived at Manhattan Beach.
The name is misleading. It’s not in Manhattan, but the southern edge of Brooklyn. For that matter, the beach doesn’t even point towards Manhattan, but south towards the Atlantic Ocean. I guess in the old pre-Conquest days there had been a bunch of parks and the houses of rich people there, and Kaldmask had evicted them all and claimed most of Manhattan Beach as his estate.
He’d built his mansion there. It was both big and gaudy. I wasn’t an expert on architecture or anything, but I had seen enough Elven buildings to recognize the style when I saw it. Elven architecture looked like a weird mixture of ancient Roman and ancient Chinese, with a lot of wood paneling, gently sloped roofs, and colonnades. Oh, and statues. Don’t forget the statues. Kaldmask’s mansion had a vast hall flanked on either side by additional wings. Most of the mansions of Elven nobles had big assembly halls like that, places where the lord or lady could hold meetings and parties.
We had to park a long distance away since Riordan didn’t want to hand his keys over to the valet. (I was paranoid enough to agree with him.) I didn’t mind the walk, despite both the October chill and my uncomfortable shoes. It gave me a chan
ce to look over Kaldmask’s mansion with a critical eye. We walked past what I thought was the utility wing of the sprawling house, where Kaldmask’s servants and retainers would live and work. It even had a truck dock, and I saw a semi parked there, backed up against the building. I suppose the party took a lot of supplies.
“Thinking about how to rob the place?” murmured Riordan.
I blinked, looked up at him in surprise, and then laughed. “Yeah. Old habits die hard. Suppose I do the opposite now.”
“If you were to rob the mansion,” said Riordan, “how would you do it?”
“Oh, easy,” I said. We had circled around the back of the mansion, following a sidewalk that overlooked the beach. I heard the roar of the surf and smelled the tang of salt. “I’d get myself hired by the catering company that’s putting on this event, or maybe as one of the maintenance workers. That’s how I met you. When I was robbing Paul McCade’s mansion.”
“Yes, I remember,” said Riordan. From his perspective, it had been only a few years ago. From mine, it had been nearly a hundred and sixty years. Damned Eternity Crucible.
A large crowd was outside the double doors leading to the hall. The doors faced the beach and the sea, which I suppose made for a good view during the day, but it was past dark, and the water was pitch black. A pair of the Baron’s security men scanned invitations and let people enter in small groups. I stood next to Riordan, shivering a little inside my overcoat (maybe I should have worn boots), and a peculiar feeling of unreality went over me. I had infiltrated a lot of fancy parties like this while working as Lord Morvilind’s shadow agent, and I had never paid much attention to the guests, save as background annoyances to avoid. Though I had always wondered what kind of rich person had time to go to these parties.
Cloak & Ghost: Rebel Cell Page 2