A Sense of Danger

by Jennifer Estep

  Henrika was clutching a glass of champagne and gesturing with it while she told some story to the folks gathered around her.

  “Let’s go say hello,” I murmured. “After all, she did invite us here.”

  Charlotte’s hand tightened on my arm again, but she nodded at me.

  Together, the two of us headed toward the paramortal weapons maker. Henrika must have sensed us approaching because she glanced in our direction. To my surprise, a wide smile split her face, and she set her champagne glass aside and waved at us.

  “Ah, you must be Desmond Macfarlane,” she purred in a low, throaty voice. “It’s so lovely to finally meet you in person. I’ve heard so many interesting things about you.”

  Her green gaze raked up and down my body, lingering on my groin, and her sickly green aura pulsed with putrid interest.

  I had the sudden urge to shower, but I took her outstretched hand and gave it a polite shake. “Ms. Hyde, it’s so lovely to meet you as well. I’m hoping we can finally work together, as discussed.”

  I started to drop her hand, but she reached out with her other one, clutching my fingers in hers. Henrika lightly dragged her gold-painted nails back and forth across my wrist. I wasn’t quite sure whether she was caressing me or about to rip my skin open. The urge to shower grew stronger.

  Even worse, Henrika’s magic crackled against my skin with every stroke of her nails across my wrist. Her power had a hot, scalding burn to it, more like acid than fire, the kind of magic that would eat right through anything it came into contact with. The sensation was oddly familiar, as though I had sensed her magic before, even though we had never previously met. Forget a shower. I wanted a hazmat suit.

  “Oh, I’m hoping that we can do all sorts of things together,” Henrika purred again, her aura pulsing even brighter and her magic burning even hotter than before.

  She clutched my hand a moment longer, then dropped it and turned toward Charlotte. “And who is this beauty?”

  Henrika gave her the same frank, assessing once-over, and her aura pulsed again with interest. Charlotte had also been right about Henrika’s sexual appetites.

  “This is—”

  “Charlotte Locke,” Charlotte replied, cutting me off.

  I had to hide my surprise. Section had set up a cover identity for Charlotte—aka Charlotte Black—just as they had for me, so I hadn’t expected her to use her real name. Then again, thanks to the mole, Henrika probably already knew exactly who we were, so I supposed there was no point in Charlotte or me using fake names or sticking to our cover stories.

  Sometimes, I thought being a spy was like playing chess. Both sides knew the rules, along with the moves and countermoves, but we all kept going through the motions of the game anyway, even if we realized it would inevitably end in betrayal, blood, and death.

  Henrika’s face remained fixed in that leering smile, and she reached out, grabbed Charlotte’s hand with both of hers, and caressed it the same way she had mine. “I’m so very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you’re absolutely charmed,” Charlotte replied in a cool tone and wrested her hand away.

  Henrika frowned, as though something about Charlotte’s words bothered her, but she covered it up with another smile. “Can I get you anything?” she asked. “Perhaps some champagne? I assure you it’s an excellent vintage. I made the selection myself. A small perk of being one of the foundation’s new benefactors.”

  I could have said yes, and we could have gone on with this whole polite song-and-dance, but seeing Henrika’s smug face made me remember Graham’s burned, blistered one. I had spent the past two months trying to find Anatoly, and I wasn’t going to wait any longer. Not when my quarry was right in front of me.

  “We didn’t come here for the champagne,” I snapped, not bothering to keep the anger or impatience out of my voice. “We came to make a deal.”

  “Right down to business, eh?” Henrika arched an eyebrow at me. “Personally, I enjoy a bit more foreplay, but I can respect a man who goes straight for what he wants. Follow me.”

  Henrika raised her hand and made a small, circular motion with her finger, and three tuxedo-clad men detached themselves from the ballroom wall and headed in our direction. I recognized their faces from the mission briefings. The three men were Henrika’s private security detail, loyal to her and her alone. They were all highly skilled, but none of them was as dangerous as I was, and I knew I could kill them if—or rather when—Henrika tried to turn the tables on Charlotte and me.

  “You guys are clear,” Miriam’s voice sounded in my ear. “I don’t see anyone else making a move to join your party.”

  I glanced to my left. The charmer was standing just inside the main ballroom doors, and she lifted her champagne glass to me in a silent toast.

  “Miriam’s right,” Gia said in my ear. “Henrika has three bodyguards, as expected. We’re still running facial recognition, but so far, no one unexpected is at the hotel. You are clear to proceed with the mission. I repeat, you are clear to proceed.”

  I kept my gaze focused on Henrika, not giving any indication I had heard Gia’s order. Henrika smiled at me again and winked at Charlotte. Then she turned and strolled away, trailed by her three bodyguards.

  “Here we go,” I murmured to Charlotte.

  “Straight into the lion’s den,” she agreed.

  Together, we followed Henrika and her men deeper into the hotel.

  Chapter Twenty

  Charlotte

  After three months of staring at photos, scrolling through social media, and watching video clips of Henrika Hyde, it was a bit disconcerting to actually see her in the flesh. But one thing remained the same between the images and the real, live woman in front of me—they both made my skin crawl.

  I could still feel the hot, clammy, disgusting warmth of her hand against my own, along with the pointed tips of her nails scratching against my skin.

  Desmond hadn’t seemed to enjoy Henrika’s ministrations either, and he kept glaring at her as if he wanted to yank out his pocket watch, drop the chain over her head, and snap her neck with it just as he had Rosalita’s. I couldn’t do anything about his anger, but I shoved my own away. Now was not the time for any kind of emotion.

  We trailed after Henrika and her three bodyguards, moving from one area to another. All of the hotel’s common spaces were filled with lovely, colorful art as well as crystal vases of freshly cut flowers, and if this had been a normal party, I would have slowed down to admire the paintings and literally smell the roses. But nothing about this night was normal, and I needed to stay sharp, so I focused on Henrika and her men.

  Every once in a while, Henrika would stop to shake hands or call out a greeting to someone she knew, but for the most part, she made a beeline toward the back of the hotel, heading exactly where I had expected—and wanted—her to go. Good. My plan depended on several things, but the first, and perhaps most important, element, was Henrika’s lust for jewelry.

  A few minutes later, Henrika passed through a pair of open doors and into a private library. Floor-to-ceiling shelves full of leather-bound books covered the walls, while dark green leather chairs and a long couch took up the center of the room. A large antique desk was situated along the back wall, which featured several glass doors that overlooked the hotel grounds. White stone pedestals stood here and there, each one topped with a thick, clear plastic case containing some sort of expensive knickknack.

  Henrika gestured for Desmond and me to step into the library. We did so, and the three bodyguards shut and locked the double doors behind us.

  “This is still a bit public for our meeting, don’t you think?” Desmond said, continuing to play his part.

  “Oh, we’re not having any meeting,” Henrika said. “I just had to stop and get what I really came here for tonight. I hope you don’t mind the delay, but I’ve been waiting to do this for a very long time.”

  She sashayed over to a pedestal near the center
of the room. Like all the others, it was topped with a display case, but instead of a first-edition book, an antique pen, or some other writing-related treasure, a stunning gold chandelier necklace dripping with emeralds and diamonds glittered behind the clear plastic.

  The Grunglass Necklace.

  Satisfaction surged through me. I had been right when I’d said that Henrika would come here during the gala, and she was doing just what I expected—and needed—for my own plan to work.

  “Isn’t it stunning?” A rapt expression filled her face, and a low, reverent note rippled through her voice. “I’ve had my eye on it for a long, long time.”

  “Why is it so important to you?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  Despite all my months of research and tracking Henrika, I’d never been able to figure out exactly why she coveted this piece of jewelry above all others.

  Henrika trailed her gold-painted nails over the plastic case, and the shimmer of the emeralds matched the greedy gleam in her green eyes. “My mother, Natasha Hyde, came from a dirt-poor family, but she was quite beautiful. She was working as a chambermaid in this very hotel when she caught the eye of my father, Hiram Halstead.”

  The revelation took me by surprise. That information had not been in Henrika’s Section file. Of course I’d researched her family on my own to try to learn more about her, but I’d never found any mention of her father, and his name hadn’t been listed on her birth certificate. Still, I’d never dreamed that he was someone as rich and powerful as Hiram Halstead.

  Desmond glanced at me, clearly as surprised as I was, then looked at her again. “Hiram Halstead, as in the former head of the Halstead family?”

  “One and the same,” Henrika replied. “My mother was his mistress for more than a decade. Hiram took good care of us—for a time.”

  Desmond frowned. “Wasn’t he killed in a bombing at his London hotel last year?”

  “Yes, he was. That was the first initial test of my Redburn formula,” Henrika murmured, although she never took her eyes off the necklace. “I was only planning to damage the hotel to prove my formula’s worth to potential buyers, but my father was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nevertheless, he was no great loss to me or anyone else.”

  I blanched. She had killed her own father? The news didn’t particularly shock me, but the stone-cold tone in her voice indicated she had zero regrets about murdering him or all the innocent people who’d died in the blast.

  “The Grunglass Necklace has been handed down for generations through Hiram’s family, and he promised it to my mother. Payment for services rendered, you might say.”

  “What happened?” Desmond asked.

  Henrika shrugged. “Petra, Hiram’s daughter by his first wife, hated my mother for coming in between her parents. Plus, she wanted the necklace for herself. Eventually, Petra convinced our father to find a younger mistress, and she kicked my mother and me out of the apartment that Hiram paid for, cut off the credit cards, froze the bank accounts, everything. My mother had to go crawling back to her family just to make ends meet. But she told me all about Petra, my father, and his broken promises. So I decided I would become richer and more successful and powerful than my father and half sister had ever dreamed of being. And then, when I was ready, that I would finally make the mighty Halsteads pay for what they’d done to my mother, to me.”

  Henrika’s face hardened. “The Grunglass Necklace should have been my mother’s long ago. And now, it will be mine.”

  Despite all the awful things she’d done, and the fact that she was probably planning to murder us in this very room, I couldn’t help but feel a smidge of sympathy for Henrika Hyde. My father hadn’t tossed me aside like hers had, but I’d always had to share him with Section, so I could understand her desire to latch onto this symbol of her own father—and to control the necklace the way she’d never been able to control him.

  “Once I amassed my fortune, I tried to buy the necklace from Petra, but she refused to sell it to me, and she blocked all my attempts to buy it at auction. I was going to dispose of her the same way I did my father, but she went into hiding after the London hotel bombing and denied me even that small pleasure. Scared, spiteful bitch.”

  Henrika’s nostrils flared, and anger glinted in her eyes, but she kept staring at the necklace. “Petra entrusted the Grunglass Necklace to the Halstead Foundation, to be put on permanent display here in the family’s flagship hotel. I suppose my dear half sister thought that would keep it safe from me. I tried to convince the foundation’s board of directors to sell the necklace to me, more than once, but they refused, despite my very generous donations to the hotel renovation efforts.”

  My eyes narrowed. So that’s why she’d made all those strange donations. I’d thought the money had been a bribe or payment for something, albeit an unsuccessful one.

  “So why are we here?” Desmond asked.

  “Because I’ve decided to do what I should have done all along, what I do best—take what I want.”

  Bright golden energy sparked to life and filled Henrika’s hand, as if she were cupping a miniature sun in her palm, and I could feel the hot, burning flare of her magic all the way across the library. She stepped forward and pressed her hand and that energy up against the display case, making it shudder and ripple. And then it just…melted.

  One second, the Grunglass Necklace was encased in two-inch-thick plastic. The next, the pane that Henrika was touching dissolved like it was made of water. The melted plastic bubbled and oozed down the front of the pedestal like clear liquid sugar, scorching the white stone.

  Despite all my research, I had never been able to figure out exactly what kind of magic Henrika had, but based on this demonstration, she had to be a transmuter, someone who could transform an object’s physical properties with a mere touch of her hand. Henrika might even be a combusto, someone with even stronger, more dangerous magic than your normal transmuter.

  Beside me, Desmond shifted on his feet, and his eyes flicked back and forth between Henrika and the three bodyguards, who were standing off to the side, completely nonchalant and unconcerned by what had just happened.

  Henrika plucked the Grunglass Necklace off its white velvet stand and held it up to the lights, admiring the bright sparkles and luminous flashes of the emeralds and diamonds. It truly was a stunning piece, and I would have been admiring it too, if the circumstances had been different.

  I fully expected Henrika to hook the necklace around her throat, but instead she gestured at one of her bodyguards. That man stepped forward and held out a rectangular white box lined with white velvet. Henrika gently nestled the necklace inside the box, which the man closed and slid into the left pocket of his tuxedo jacket. My mind whirred, thinking about how I could get my hands on that box, and my fingers curled around the white satin clutch still in my left hand.

  “Now that my business is concluded, we can get down to yours,” Henrika said.

  She stepped behind a long bar and strolled over to a liquor cabinet in the corner of the library. I’d thought the cabinet was another antique that was just for show, but she opened one of the doors and pulled out a bottle of whiskey, along with a crystal tumbler.

  She poured herself a generous drink, then used the tumbler to gesture at Desmond and me. “Can I interest the two of you in a libation?”

  Desmond and I both shook our heads.

  Henrika shrugged, then tossed back the whiskey and smacked her lips in appreciation. “Suit yourself. But if I were you, I would have taken me up on my offer. Best to have a last drink before we get down to our nasty bit of business.”

  Desmond sidled forward, putting himself in between Henrika and me. “What do you mean?”

  She poured herself another round, then eyed Desmond over the rim of her glass. “I don’t see any reason to keep this charade up any longer, do you? I know you both work for Section 47, and that you’re here to kidnap and take me to one of your black sites.”

  Desmond started forw
ard to take out the bodyguards just as we’d planned, but the other three men were faster. They each drew a gun from a holster and aimed their weapons at him. Desmond jerked to a stop, but his eyes narrowed, and his hands clenched into fists. He might have seemed defeated, but he wasn’t—and neither was I.

  “Did you really think I didn’t know Section was coming for me?” A cold light filled Henrika’s eyes. “I’ve worked far too long and much too hard to get to where I am to let some outdated agency like Section 47 take everything away from me.”

  “You’re a biomagical weapons maker who comes up with new and creative ways to slaughter people,” Desmond said. “And Section will put you in a cage where you belong.”

  An amused chuckle erupted from Henrika’s lips. “Wow. I hadn’t thought it humanly possible, but you’re even more self-righteous than your father. Tell me, Desmond. How is General Percy these days? Still enjoying those pink sulfur smoke bombs I sold him last year? The ones that melt paramortals’ lungs into goo?”

  Desmond’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  Henrika let out another chuckle. “I do business with all kinds of people, including your supposedly respectable father. Jethro Percy might run Section 47, but he’s not above using my expertise from time to time, especially when it benefits him and kills his enemies. It truly makes him the worst sort of hypocrite. Don’t you think?”

  A muscle ticked in Desmond’s jaw, but he didn’t respond. He didn’t seem surprised by her claims, though. More like resigned.

  Henrika smirked at him, then focused on me. “Although I have to admit it has been a great pleasure meeting you, Charlotte, the daughter of infamous Section cleaner Jack Locke. Did you know that your father tried to kill me a few times? He got closer than anyone else ever has.” She paused. “At least until he got caught up in that awkward situation down in Mexico.”

  She was trying to make me angry, trying to piss me off and tear me down with her words like she had Desmond, but I was more intrigued than infuriated. “And what would you know about Mexico?”