The Dragon Conspiracy

by Lisa Shearin

  The more classically themed pieces of the exhibition were displayed around the temple, including a study in studly featuring Jason—of Jason and the Argonauts fame—wearing nothing but the Golden Fleece. But as the highlight of the Mythos exhibit, the Dragon Eggs had been placed near the entrance to the temple itself. When you had a collection of seven of the world’s rarest and most valuable diamonds, they needed a fancy setting. And it didn’t get much more imposing than a real Egyptian temple.

  The Dragon Eggs were said to be Viktor Kain’s prized possessions. That right there was reason enough to think the Russian was up to no good. And SPI sure as heck wasn’t buying the two reasons Kain had given for coming to New York—that he not only wanted to share his treasure with the world by loaning the diamonds to the Met for the exhibition, but he was considering offering the diamonds for sale. One, dragons like Viktor Kain didn’t share the prize of their hoard with anyone, let alone everyone. Two, the diamonds in the Dragon Eggs were reputed to be gems of power. The Russian was a gem mage, meaning he could use gems of power to . . . well, do whatever it was that the Dragon Eggs were capable of doing. That was one big unknown in the equation—no one knew what the diamonds were capable of besides giving their owners a lot of bad luck. In the hands of a gem mage like Viktor Kain, it’d take a lot more than a four-leaf clover to counteract whatever he had planned.

  The potential for an auction of seven of the world’s rarest, and therefore most valuable, diamonds had the likes of Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Bonhams salivating at the chance to get the commission off of that sale.

  Then there was the elf and goblin problem.

  Two of the diamonds, the pale blue Eye of Destiny and the pink Queen of Dreams, had been stolen from the elf and goblin royal treasuries about a hundred years ago. And now here was Viktor Kain, about to sell hot rocks that the elves and goblins were chomping at the bit to get back—by any means necessary.

  Not to mention, the chance to buy or steal any of the Dragon Eggs was bringing the less savory heavy hitters of the supernatural magic world out from under their collective rocks. Cursed and possessed objects weren’t the only reason the boss had deployed agents all over the exhibition. Individuals on SPI’s most wanted and most watched lists were lurking among the guests, magically veiled and glamoured like every other supernatural here.

  It was going to be a busy night.

  From what I could see there was now another reason, other than the pretty windows, why the Sackler Wing was my favorite—that was where they’d set up the food tables and bar. If I was gonna be busy, I needed to keep my strength up.

  Ian kept going toward the Dragon Eggs; I made a quick pit stop at the closest table.

  Drat. Sushi.

  Back home in the North Carolina mountains, raw fish was called bait. I’d tried to learn to like sushi, but I’d always come away with the feeling that it’d taste a lot better breaded and deep fried.

  Sushi sure was pretty, though. As was the statue of a trio of harpies close to it.

  Like most dragons, Viktor liked sparklies, and it didn’t get any more sparkly than the clutch of seven diamonds presently dazzling the eyes of New York’s rich and famous from inside a bulletproof and hopefully curse-resistant glass case behind velvet ropes. The case was positioned directly in front of the temple’s towering doorway. Two huge men were standing guard on either side of the doorway, with the velvet ropes surrounding the case and its guards on three sides, keeping the guests five feet away from the case on those three sides, the fourth side being the interior of the temple itself.

  Those boys seemed to have things well in hand, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to fix myself a quick plate. There was no reason why I couldn’t keep my eyes peeled for supernatural shenanigans and eat at the same time. As I got two of the always safe California rolls, I couldn’t help but look at the harpies again. I’d say they were closing in on seven feet tall, and they looked like they’d been carved from a single block of stone. Their large eyes reminded me of the hawks that cruised the mountaintop thermals back home. They had cheekbones a supermodel would kill for, and full lips that a socialite was presently snapping a photo of with her phone. She probably wouldn’t be the last. I bet some of Midtown’s more exclusive plastic surgeons would be getting a flood of client e-mails with that same attachment come Monday morning.

  My eyes dropped to the rest of the statue. Make that multiple attachments.

  With the exception of their wings, the bird half of their bodies didn’t start until below their boobs, which were, like the rest of their human features, enviable. The wings and bird-like lower halves were all feathers, scaled feet, and talons, sharp, sharp talons—all immortalized in a type of stone I couldn’t identify.

  “Exquisite, aren’t they?” purred an all-too-familiar voice from behind me.

  I was proud to say that I didn’t even turn around, but simply spooned a little wasabi on my plate. “The boobs or the harpies?”

  “Yes.” His voice was a low seductive purr, like a silvery cat rubbing around your bare legs.

  Rake Danescu was a goblin, which made him just about the sexiest creature presently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and that included any and all statues or paintings of gods on the premises.

  That was saying a lot, but Rake was a lot of hot.

  He also knew it—and he wasn’t about to let me forget that he knew I knew it.

  Though it wasn’t like there was any chance of me forgetting the first time we’d met. In addition to owning a few art galleries—and several Manhattan buildings—Rake Danescu owned and ran Bacchanalia, an upscale and very exclusive club that billed itself as the “complete adult entertainment experience.”

  Yep, it was a sex club. One that catered to men and women—people who didn’t go to simply watch; they went to participate. During my first night on the job at SPI, I’d been part of a bodyguard detail for a leprechaun prince’s bachelor party. Fiasco was a nice way to describe how that evening had gone, and one comedy of errors after another had landed us at Rake’s club—and landed me in Rake’s arms in a backstage dressing room. He’d wanted me to work for him—and no, not as an adult entertainer—as a seer. Apparently goblin dark mage owners of sex clubs found themselves in situations where they needed the services of a seer. Go figure. I’d managed to inhale a lungful of a supernatural recreational drug in Bacchanalia’s ladies’ room, and as a result, parts of that evening were kinda fuzzy, but the part with Rake in that dressing room had remained crystal clear.

  Real goblins were everything you’d been told that they weren’t—tall, sleek, and sexy, with enough charisma to make you not only drink the Kool-Aid, but happily stand in line for it.

  Tonight, to every human at the Met, Rake looked human.

  But he wasn’t. No human male looked that perfect.

  My seer vision showed me what he really was.

  Lean and predatory looking, like a sleek, silvery cat. Combine that with darkly seductive and light-sensitive eyes and you had a race that took sunglasses to the heights of high fashion. Goblins were gorgeous all by their lonesome, but they took their wardrobes and accessories just as seriously as their tangled court politics. Goblin politics was a full-contact and often fatal sport chock-full of seduction, deception, and betrayal.

  Goblin hair was dark and often worn long. Their skin was pale gray with a silvery sheen, with human-sized ears that ended in a nibbleable point.

  And they sported a pair of fangs that weren’t for decorative use only.

  “Here to do a little window shopping?” I asked. Or casing the joint? I thought.

  Rake Danescu held a glass of champagne as he looked me up one side and down the other, taking his sweet time and seemingly enjoying the view. “There are many objects of interest and desire here tonight.”

  I didn’t take Rake seriously—at least I didn’t take him saying I was desirable seriously. G
oblins were like politicians; they always wanted something, and if they wanted that something from you, they were relentless in getting it. On my first night at SPI he’d tried to hire me as his own personal seer—while his hands smoothly conducted their own job interview all over my body. We’d run into each other a few times since then, though it was more like he kept turning up in places where I was. I wouldn’t call it stalking, at least not yet, but it sure as heck wasn’t a coincidence. Goblins like Rake Danescu didn’t have coincidences; they arranged strategically timed encounters.

  “Mr. Kain has acquired an additional escort this evening,” Rake noted. “I would almost be jealous except he did it by wealth, not charm. There’s no challenge.”

  Viktor Kain and his now two ridiculously beautiful dates had the attention of everyone in the room as they made their way to the Temple of Dendur and the case containing the Dragon Eggs.

  “You know anything about Viktor Kain?” I asked Rake.

  “I know many things about our Russian friend.”

  “He may be a friend of yours, but he’s not one of mine.”

  The goblin gave me an indulgent smile. “Is that because dear Vivienne told you he’s a stranger you shouldn’t take candy from?”

  “She only said that about you.”

  The smile widened to give me a peek of fang. “I’ve never offered you candy,” he said with the slightest emphasis on the last word.

  Time to take a sharp left turn from that topic. “Viktor Kain probably sleeps on a pyramid of gold bullion. You’d think he’d have enough fun money lying around without selling that sparkly handful of pebbles over there. What’s he up to?”

  Rake glanced casually around the room. I wasn’t fooled; goblins didn’t do anything casually, and Rake normally avoided large gatherings of supernaturals like the plague—unless there was something in it for him, like the possibility of retrieving a certain stolen goblin diamond.

  Rake took a sip of champagne and smiled. “Besides luring the baser elements of our cozy little mage community out this evening to be a pain in the backside of your equally draconic employer?”

  “Yes, besides that.”

  Rake gave an elaborate shrug. “Any move a dragon makes has at least twenty motives. They’re delightfully inscrutable. Schemes on top of plots, with intricate maneuvering running underneath.” He raised his glass in an admiring salute. “I can only aspire to be as devious.”

  Typical goblin answer. A lot of pretty dancing around a topic. Except for sex. That was the one thing a goblin would get right to the point about, and keep harping on it until they got what they wanted—their target between the sheets, or against a wall, or on a—

  That was when it happened.

  I heard a long, low groan. It sounded human, almost. Considering my present train of thought, that was uncanny timing.

  Instantly, Rake’s attention was on a spot past my right shoulder. He slowly set his glass on the table and held out his hand to me.

  “Darling, step away from the harpies. Now.”

  I’d never seen Rake’s eyes as large as they were right now. That was the first and only clue I needed to drop my plate on the table and move my butt.

  I spun to face the statue and froze in disbelief, disbelief that quickly spiraled down to “Oh shit.”

  That statue of three harpies wasn’t a statue anymore. What seconds before had been stone was now flesh with wings of bat-like leather. Only the claws looked just as hard, sharp, and deadly as they had before they’d turned.

  Turned.

  A statue had come to life in the middle of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a major exhibition’s opening night. Hundreds of people were in the Sackler Wing, hundreds of now absolutely silent, regular, normal, everyday people whose eyes were witnessing an event their brains were telling them couldn’t possibly be real.

  Rake Danescu had hit the nail on the head.

  Harpies. Real, honest-to-God harpies. Or, in this case, real honest-to-Hades harpies.

  “Finally, the evening gets interesting,” Rake said.

  3

  HUMANS seeing a monster for the first time generally had one of three reactions: scream, run, or faint. This was New York, so while half of the guests were engaged in one or more of the above, the other half had their phones out and were clicking away, camera flashes firing at the harpies like strobes.

  The harpies didn’t like being treated like paparazzi bait. So, like a married celeb caught coming out of a cheap strip joint, they attacked.

  At least two of them did.

  The third launched herself into the air and, with two powerful beats of her leathery wings, dive-bombed the two men guarding the Dragon Eggs, clawed hands and feet extended for the attack.

  And the kill. A really messy kill.

  Any doubt about those harpies being real vanished when the blood and bits started flying. And if that hadn’t done the trick, the guards’ screams turning to dying shrieks instantly made every human within earshot a believer. Human screams joined the screeches and shrieks, and within two beats of an eye, the Sackler Wing descended into chaos.

  We’d come here tonight expecting a robbery, and had come face-to-claw with the very thing Vivienne Sagadraco had founded SPI to prevent—humans finding out the truth that monsters are real, supernaturals exist, and humans share the world with both.

  Mythological creatures coming to life in front of hundreds of New Yorkers was bad enough, but entirely too many of them were standing their ground and aiming their phones like those idiots on TV reality shows who see the tiger escape from its cage but who just can’t resist taking pictures of the thing right up until the moment when it rips their faces off. It was humanity’s way of thinning its own herd.

  Right now there was a goodly number of people looking to move to the front of the meet-your-maker line in the next few seconds.

  Fortunately for them, the harpies turned their attention to getting the Dragon Eggs out of that case. A case that was supposed to be bulletproof and curse-resistant was no match for three determined harpies. It was a smash-and-grab robbery at its finest.

  While one harpy smashed the case to dust, the screeches of the other two were making it abundantly clear what the penalty would be for getting too close to the action. The crumpled and broken bodies of the two guards were a non-living example to avoid repeating their folly.

  People were stampeding to get away. One guy stood still, eyes wide as the panicked crowd pushed around and past him. Tall and gangly with blond curly hair, he looked barely out of his teens, early twenties at the most.

  I’d seen shock before, and this wasn’t it, at least not totally. People were either clued in or clueless to the fact that monsters and supernaturals shared the planet with us, and that humans weren’t the apex predator.

  Judging from his wide, pale blue eyes, mouth open in disbelief, and general appearance of WTF, the safe bet counted him among the clueless.

  But in an instant, stunned turned to determined, which signaled either bravery, stupidity, or an unhealthy dose of both. It didn’t really matter which one he had; both were going to get him just as dead. The math wasn’t in his favor. Three harpies with more razor-tipped talons on their hands and feet than I could count equaled untold chances for evisceration. I didn’t care if he was all kinds of lucky and had a pocket packed with rabbit feet; those weren’t good odds.

  I couldn’t stop the harpies, but I could keep this guy from doing something he wouldn’t live to regret.

  “Rake, I’m gonna need some . . .” I looked behind me. The goblin was gone. Why was I surprised? “Backup,” I said to the now empty space. “I need backup. Thanks for nothing.”

  I couldn’t see Ian through the screaming, running, and YouTube-recording masses, so I was on my own.

  I was wearing pumps with three-inch heels. Never again. No more cute shoes. Chucks were t
he new cute. Or hiking boots. Or better still, combat boots.

  The guy gave a shout that was at odds with his boyish features and charged the harpies. I kicked off my heels and ran to intercept.

  The harpy reached inside the shattered case, flung the ruby dragon aside, and scooped up the eggs in a single swipe of her taloned fingers.

  The guy was faster and had longer legs. There was no way I could reach him before he got within gutting range.

  He lunged for the harpy and grabbed the claw clutching the diamonds. At the instant of contact, a blaze of white light exploded from either the guy, the harpy, or the diamonds. Hell, I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen light that bright since I’d nearly fried my own retinas the first time I’d used my phone’s flashlight app. The screams in my immediate vicinity changed from terror-fueled to pain-induced. I think mine might have joined them.

  There was something else. A tightening in the air, pulling in toward the core of the light, then releasing in a shock wave of color and heat that felt like it went right through me, popping the hell out of my ears in the process.

  The harpy he’d attacked shrieked in outrage, and I knew what was coming next, even though I still couldn’t see for crap. That harpy had two hands, both with talons, and the one not holding those diamonds would be coming to slice through that idiot’s midsection or take his head off.

  Blinking back teared-up eyes, I dove toward where the guy had been before I’d been struck blind.

  A male-sounding “Oof” told me I’d latched on to my intended target.

  We landed in a heap and tumbled ass over teakettle, off the floor slab of the Temple of Dendur, crashing into a nearby buffet table.