Special Deceptions (The Coursodon Dimension Book 5)

by M. L. Ryan

I used the wait to indulge in a shower, where I made certain everything was appropriately shaved or loofahed as needed. After a good slathering of scented lotion—lavender, Alex’s favorite—I slipped into an easy-access skirt. No sense getting caught with my pants down, I reasoned.

  Alex’s assistant sat at her post in the antechamber leading to his office when I arrived. “The Culture Minister just left,” she announced flatly. “Prince Aldegrexynthor is waiting for you inside.”

  Klipsylfa had been Kyzal’s aid for some years, and she was well organized, hardworking, and indispensable for getting Alex up to speed on his royal duties. Beyond those admirable traits, she possessed the perfect qualities for the woman spending more waking hours with my fiancé than did I: middle aged, stoutly built, humorless, and lacking any demonstrable interest in Alex beyond what the job called for.

  “Thank you, Klipsylfa,” I said, beaming.

  My exuberant gratitude was unsuccessful in altering her manner or tone, but she did nod and say, “You are most welcome.”

  When we first met, I was convinced Klipsylfa hated my guts. However, when it became clear no one had seen anything beyond her usual expressionless mien, I’d made it my mission to make her emote… anything. Once, while Sebastian and I argued about which Courso band was more melodious, Alien Butt Crack or Prodigal Horseman, I thought I noticed a slight twitching of her lips. I found out later that it wasn’t the beginnings of a smile, but rather mild indigestion from a particularly heavy lunch.

  Alex wasn’t waiting as much as frantically scribbling. He didn’t notice me at first, and I’d stood there a good thirty seconds before he acknowledged my presence.

  “If I don’t write this down, I’ll forget half of what we talked about,” he said, not taking his eyes off his notes. “Tell Klipsylfa she can go and lock the door, will you?”

  That sounded promising. I informed the assistant her day was done, shut the door, and enthusiastically threw the heavy bolt.

  Traversing the spacious room, I eased onto the edge of the desk, crossing my knee-high, black leather-booted legs in what I hoped was a provocative pose. “You usually don’t have problems recalling meaningful information.”

  “You are correct, but my meeting was anything but meaningful.” He added a few more jottings, pushed the paper away, and finally looked up. “The day-to-day minutia is staggering,” he protested, slowly shaking his head. “I’ll be lucky if I’m not a blubbering idiot by month’s end.”

  “So quit,” I advised, inching closer.

  Alex leaned back against the embroidered fabric of his chair and closed his eyes. “I wish it were that easy.” After a moment, his lids fluttered open. As he studied me, his rueful demeanor dissolved, and he smiled. “You look nice.”

  Shifting position to straddle his lap, I purred, “Thanks, Blondie. Just a little something I threw on.”

  He ran his hands along my thighs and sighed. “I wish we had time for me to throw it off you, but unfortunately, duty calls.”

  “I thought you were done for the day.”

  Alex lifted me off his legs and took my hand. “I’m done with official responsibilities, but there’s still something important that requires our attention.”

  Buoyed by his use of a plural pronoun, I eagerly let him guide me toward the bookcases lining the far wall. Once there, he scanned the endless array of leather-bound tomes, pulling out one with a worn, mahogany-colored spine. He flipped through the pages, and just before he slammed the volume shut, the cabinet slid open, revealing a small landing with stone steps on the other side.

  “You people have a thing for dark, secret passageways,” I observed, peering down into the shadowy expanse.

  We moved onto the stoop and a row of floor lights illuminated the staircase, much like at a movie theater. Alex pushed the bookcase closed behind us. “It’s a good idea to have multiple escape routes in any structure, carisa.”

  I guessed that made sense; Courso wasn’t always as peaceful as it was now. Still, it seemed a little paranoid to have one leading out of an office. On the other hand, I could appreciate wanting to disappear while on the job. In my one-month stint as a skip tracer some years back, while I enjoyed the data collection and verification, my boss—a deodorant-challenged micromanager—was significantly less appealing. There were plenty of times when a hidden way out would have been a godsend.

  The architectural addition brought to mind Ziqua’s passageways in Jjestri. As we moved steadily down the many steps leading from Alex’s office into a winding maze of corridors, something popped into my head.

  “Why would Ziqua bother traipsing through a dark, musty tunnel for a clandestine rendezvous with Uncle Fry when she was able to make herself invisible? For that matter, why skulk around at all? Sylzinia knows what’s going on between them.”

  “An excellent question,” Alex replied, stopping at one of the many identical doors lining the hallway. Placing his palm against the aged wood, the unmistakable snick of the lock disengaging answered his touch.

  As he swung the door open, he gestured me inside. “Perhaps you’d like to ask her yourself.”

  18

  The room before me was windowless and poorly lit. Thick, rusting chains, culminating in heavy cuffs, hung limply from the stone walls with an array of nasty-looking implements lay scattered across the dirt floor. In the center, on the booze crate, sat a disheveled, but seemingly in one piece, Ziqua.

  I spun my head toward Alex. “You kidnapped your uncle’s mistress and threw her into a dungeon?”

  “Kidnapping is such a harsh term,” Alex countered, closing the door behind us. “Who’s to say she didn’t just happen to slip unnoticed into the shipping container, and then we transported her here by mistake?”

  The innocent tone belied the disingenuousness of his statement, and the contradiction wasn’t lost on me, or anyone with half a brain, for that matter.

  “Well, no one incarcerates an accidental visitor, particularly one you know,” Ziqua pointed out, crossing one long leg daintily over the other.

  “You can’t keep her in this, this…”

  “Hell hole? Snake pit? Wretched abyss?” Ziqua offered, one corner of her mouth curved into a wry smile. “She’s right; the accommodations are dreadful.”

  Alex placed a reassuring arm around my waist. “If it makes you feel better, Aiden and Cortez are out finding suitable furnishings to make her stay as comfortable as possible.”

  Ziqua crossed her arms across her ample chest. “They best not forget the goose-down duvet. I hate being cold.”

  She seemed oddly unfazed by her current circumstance. Granted, everyone reacted differently to stress and trauma, but even taking into account individual peculiarities, Ziqua displayed none of the expected responses to being shoved into a box and abducted. No anger or unease. Beyond her consternation over the crappy digs, there wasn’t even a hint of inconvenience. If not for bits of packing material dangling from the coppery tendrils loosed from her braid and the bleak, secured surroundings, she could be on holiday. A shitty one, but a holiday nonetheless.

  “Am I missing something?” I asked, knowing full well I was likely overlooking everything.

  “We didn’t kidnap Ziqua,” Alex revealed. “We just secreted her out. As far as anyone in Jjestri knows, she’s still there.”

  I had no idea how often Ziqua and the king hooked up, but I could think of one person who might notice when she didn’t show for their next booty call. “What about Uncle Fry?”

  Alex chuckled. “No problem; it was his idea.”

  Discovering my fiancé wasn’t at risk of arrest for a variety of serious criminal charges ramped down my anxiety, but this new information did nothing to dispel the confusion. After taking a few seconds to process Alex’s disclosure, I closed my gaping mouth and voiced a somewhat inelegant, but highly descriptive summation of my emotional state.

  “Huh?”

  Alex guided me to the crate, lifting me to sit next to Ziqua. He placed his hands on
my knees, either as reassurance or to prevent me from bolting.

  “It isn’t nearly as odd as it may seem,” he began, using the soothing tone reserved to comfort frightened children or escaped mental patients. “He thought Ziqua might be able to assist us.”

  “If it was Uncle Fry’s idea, why did Sebastian make up the story about your mother making us come back early?” And why did I have to write the lamest thank-you note of all time?

  “That was to assure your departure appeared plausible to everyone else. The same reason Fry had to appear dismayed that security had been breached during my first visit.” The woman beside me smiled and extended her palm. “I don’t think we’ve officially been introduced. I’m Ziqua.”

  “Hailey,” I said, grasping the proffered hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  I suppressed the urge to mention she’d broken into my room and scared the crap out of me. I might get the hang of this proper manners shit after all, I thought, pleased at my newfound graciousness.

  Social niceties completed, Alex joked, “You want the abridged version, or the director’s cut with deleted scenes?”

  “I want the one that explains how Ziqua knew about Kyzal, how Uncle Fry is involved, and why she came here shipped in a box that was supposed to be filled with booze.”

  “Believe me,” Ziqua grumbled. “The alcohol was in there, and spending a couple of hours jammed between bottles is not comfortable. I should have forced Sebastian to open one of them for me before he sealed the lid.”

  That reminded me of yet another question. “Speaking of Sebastian, how does he fit into all this?”

  Apparently convinced I was calm enough that physical restraint was no longer required, Alex scooted me over and claimed the far end of the crate for his own behind. “I’ll start at the beginning.”

  I immediately regretted not choosing the abbreviated account, even tapping my watch-free wrist in an effort to convey my impatience. Alex narrowed his eyes at my gesture, either confused as to its meaning or from annoyance at my irritation, but he forged ahead nevertheless.

  “We began to hear chatter about Kyzal’s death soon after it happened. Of course, we assumed these were simply the usual conspiracy theories that pop up when someone famous unexpectedly dies. There was, as you know, no reason to suspect foul play, and we dismissed the vague rumors. However, a long-time confident of Uncle Fry’s received some more specific information.”

  “A long-time confident?” I repeated.

  Ziqua piped in from her seat to my right. “Yes. Me, actually.”

  I shifted my attention from Alex to the stylishly rumpled ginger on the other side of me. “Why would you hear about it?”

  “When I first met Fry, I was an operative in the Prifindismat.”

  I stared blankly at Ziqua. From behind me, Alex added, “It’s like your FBI; they gather domestic intelligence and handle threats to Jjestrian security.”

  “Thank you for clarifying that, Alexander. I forget Hailey isn’t from Courso,” she replied.

  “Like the suits that swarmed Keem’s lair after I, uh, it was destroyed?” If Ziqua was the Jjestrian equivalent of a G-man—even an ex one—she didn’t need to know about my beastly alter ego.

  “Well, unlike the Syzbasti, the Prifindismat are an established organization,” she asserted.

  Great. If she knew about the rogue faction of the Alenquai government, she probably already knew about my turning into Birdzilla. Is anything a secret around here?

  Sensing my unease, Ziqua patted my arm. “Believe me, I’m the last person you have to worry about.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. “You’ll excuse me if I remain unconvinced,” I objected.

  She nodded her head ever so slightly. “Hopefully, I will gain your trust.”

  And maybe pigs will fly out of my ass. “Well, you did once sneak into my suite in the middle of the night.” There, I said it. The gracious diplomacy flew away just like the swine.

  “Actually,” she confessed, “It was twice. The first time, you were sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t have the heart to disturb you.”

  “I knew someone was in my room after the debacle with Boklym,” I shouted, jabbing an accusatory finger into her shoulder.

  Alex rested a cautionary hand on my arm. “Carisa, everything will be made clear in due time.”

  I removed my finger and mumbled, “Sorry,” although I really wasn’t. This is so not over. I tried to convey my continued displeasure with an accusatory glare even as I said, “So, you mentioned you were in the Prifindismat?”

  Ziqua straightened her mussed cowl-necked sweater. “Yes. I was supposed to keep tabs on Fry, but I broke the first rule of a good spy: I fell for my assignment. Of course, my training helped keep our relationship under wraps. Who better to keep a clandestine romance secret than one skilled in the art of subterfuge?”

  If she thought that would make me less suspicious of her, she was sorely mistaken. “Why were you spying on him in the first place?” I challenged. “And did you still report back to your superiors about him?”

  “Hailey,” Alex warned.

  “It’s all right, Alexander,” Ziqua reassured, waving him off. She turned back to address me. “An extremely charismatic bureaucrat ran the Prifindismat when I joined. Hypmidca thought everyone in power needed spying on. Cloaked in my youthful naiveté, I believed him. Eventually, I realized the director was a paranoid megalomaniac and worked to oust him from his position. To answer your second question, besides my liaisons with Fry, there wasn’t anything of note to report. The ridiculousness of the assignment was one of the things that made me question Hypmidca’s methods.”

  “Let’s get back to the current situation,” Alex interrupted, shooting an admonitory look my way. “Ziqua keeps in touch with a few of her former Prifindismat colleagues. One of them discovered their organization had intelligence that suggested Kyzal was murdered, and by non-magical means, but was suppressing the evidence from the equivalent authorities in Alenquai. Troubled by their lack of forthrightness, he passed the information to Ziqua, which she then disclosed to Uncle Fry.”

  Ziqua continued the story. “Without knowing who was involved, or why the Prifindismat chose not to apprise either him or Alenquai officials, Fry decided it was best not to let on that he was aware of anything regarding Kyzal’s death. Still, he needed to let someone know the crown prince was likely murdered.”

  “And his solution was to have his ex-spook girlfriend sneak into the main palace, cryptically convey the barest outline of a murderous plot, and then seemingly disappear into thin air?” I exclaimed, staring daggers into Ziqua. “You couldn’t just invite me to lunch and tell me over dessert? Or, better yet, why not give Alex a call and tell him all about it?”

  “As I said, without knowing exactly who is involved or why, it was imperative Fry stay as disassociated with the process as possible,” she contended. “There was considerable risk just having me deliver the news, but we counted on my past familiarity with this sort of thing. We chose to contact you to further dilute the chances of the perpetrators discovering our suspicions.”

  “Didn’t re-examining Kyzal’s body clue them in that their plan might not have gone as well as they hoped?” I shot back.

  Alex touched my arm. “Ziqua’s not the enemy, carisa,” he reminded me before answering. “Kyzal’s second autopsy was implemented under the utmost security and in complete secrecy. Only my parents, Sebastian, Uncle Fry, Ziqua, the medical examiner, and I were aware of what actually occurred.”

  The first three would undoubtedly keep the secret, but there seemed to be at least one loose end. “What makes you so sure the ME can be trusted?” Or Ziqua and Uncle Fry, for that matter.

  “Sebastian wiped his memory after we finished,” Alex revealed in a matter-of-fact tone.

  That would assure he never divulged the truth. I took a deep breath and tried to take Alex’s advice. No matter how pissed off I might be, ragging on Deep Throat wasn’t going to help figure
out what the hell happened to Kyzal. “Okay, so we found out it wasn’t magic. Do we know how it happened?

  Alex shrugged. “There were no indications of injuries other than those consistent with slamming into a fixed object.”

  “But, I thought there was no evidence of anyone else around? If someone made him go off course, wouldn’t there be footprints or ski tracks?”

  “Yes, unless the murderer removed all traces,” Alex conceded. “The first responders didn’t see any indications of others, but they didn’t think to check for magical obfuscation.”

  “That’s convenient,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “There aren’t a lot of murders in Alenquai; the Royal Guard aren’t as cynical as you or I,” Alex noted.

  “Maybe he was drugged,” I offered. “Did anyone run a toxicology screen?”

  “Not much point,” Ziqua challenged. “Much like our high tolerance to alcohol, there aren’t many pharmaceuticals that affect a Courso enough to cause a skilled skier to leave the run.”

  Alex nodded. “True, but we checked anyway. There were traces of alprazolam in his body.”

  “What is that?” Ziqua questioned, brows knitting together.

  “Xanax,” I explained. “It’s used to treat anxiety, but it can cause muscle relaxation and drowsiness. It’s sometimes used as a date-rape drug in the human dimension.”

  “And one of the few human drugs that can impact our physiology,” Alex added. “It is becoming more of a problem, particularly with younger, wealthier Courso. They take a short trip to the human dimension, obtain some pills—often illegally, but sometimes with a doctor’s prescription—and bring it back here to share with their friends. However, its sedative effects are not well-known to the general public.”

  “Could Kyzal have been using?” I wondered aloud.

  “It is a possibility, but we could find no evidence. We believe someone else administered the drug.”

  “Ah,” Ziqua said, nodding her lovely head. “A human drug used to dull Kyzal’s senses and reaction time while he indulged in a dangerous pastime. That is why Hailey was considered.”