by Lisa Shearin
“I imagine you’ve got enough diamonds of your own; why would he think you wanted his?”
“With a dragon, there is no such state as enough of anything we choose to collect. There is always room for more sparklies—as you are so charmingly fond of calling them—in most dragons’ hoards. Viktor Kain and I have known each other for two hundred and fifty-seven years, which is precisely two hundred and fifty-seven years too long.”
“Uh, not on the best of terms, I take it?”
“Neither on our best nor worst days. Viktor blames me for the death of someone he loved.”
“He can love?”
“The presence of evil does not preclude love, Agent Fraser.”
“And now he’s looking for payback,” Ian surmised.
“Oh yes. Viktor insists that our people were inside the museum to enable the robbery, not prevent it. And that if by some slim chance SPI did not steal the diamonds, he believes we know who did and that our actions aided the escape of the harpies.”
I nodded in realization. “So that’s why he came at Ben.”
“Most likely. Regardless of what the diamonds are capable of, Viktor believes that his plans are collapsing around him. Again. He perceives himself as wronged and cornered. It is dangerous for a dragon to feel cornered.”
“Why just take the eggs?” I asked. “The dragon in that nest is supposed to be the biggest ruby on the planet, and the nest was woven from twenty-four-karat gold wire. If you’re going to go to that much trouble, why not snatch the whole kit and caboodle?”
“Of greater concern to me is what it says about the identity of the thief that they have the ability to put a trio of harpies into a state of stasis resembling stone, and then reanimate them at the exact moment needed to commit the robbery. There are several possible perpetrators, none of which are individuals we want in our city.”
“Would the perp have needed to be in the same room to do it?” Ian asked.
Leave it to my former-cop partner to refer to someone that obscenely powerful as a “perp,” as if they were no more than a Midtown mugger.
“Visual contact would be necessary,” Vivienne Sagadraco confirmed. “Did you see anyone suspicious, Agent Fraser?”
“I didn’t sense any magic being worked by anyone near me. And no one else set off any of my other alarms—except for Rake Danescu.” He set every alarm I had to clanging, but none of them had to do with diamond theft. “I don’t know how good of an actor he is, but I thought his eyes were going to bug out of his head when he saw those harpies waking up, or whatever it was they did.”
“Rake Danescu can affect whatever reaction a situation calls for,” Vivienne Sagadraco said smoothly. “I was unaware of any talent regarding reanimation; however, he is equally adept at hiding his skills. He will be investigated.” The boss’s computer beeped, and she turned to check it. “The results from the surveillance tape are starting to come in. Please join me,” she told us. “Agent Byrne is familiar with these individuals, but you need to learn to identify them on sight, Agent Fraser. I’ll also have their files e-mailed to you.”
We got up and went to look over Ms. Sagadraco’s shoulder at the images on her monitor. There were seven thumbnail photos. Even though they were small, I could tell that five were men in tuxedos, and two were women. One in a cocktail dress; the other in a full-length gown.
“These are the sorcerers who were in attendance tonight. Of course there were more than are indicated here, but they must possess a high level of skill—and questionable associates and activities—before SPI will put them on our constant surveillance list.” She looked at the photos and gave a tired sigh. “And entirely too many of those on that list are in the city for the exhibition and auction. These particular individuals do not bother to hide their power. They know we’re watching them, so they simply do not bother with concealment; as a result, we were able to get a clear image of them.”
Ms. Sagadraco clicked on the first photo, enlarging it. It was a dark-haired man, medium build, dark eyes. Either he had a really nice tan, or naturally bronzed skin.
“This is Nikolos Portfirio,” she said. “He is a human sorcerer based in Cyprus, and is a known business associate of Viktor Kain. His territory is the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.”
The boss clicked on the second photo, the woman in the cocktail dress. I couldn’t tell how old she was. She wore her blond hair up, her neckline way down. I couldn’t really blame her; if I had boobs like that, I’d show ’em off, too. Even more impressive were the diamonds she was wearing. One of the diamonds in her necklace was so large that it was almost wearing her.
“This is Gizela Ingeborg, a gem mage. Last known residence was in Stockholm.” The boss’s lips twisted with distaste. “We weren’t aware that she would be attending, but I cannot say that I am surprised.”
“Does she know Viktor Kain?” I asked.
Ms. Sagadraco shook her head. “She does not and does not want to.”
“Sounds like a sensible enough lady.”
“Gizela’s associations are with beings from a much warmer climate.”
“I take it you’re not talking about the French Riviera.”
“Only if it’s unfortunately acquired sulfur and brimstone since my last visit. Gizela specializes in the acquisition of cursed objects—for buyers who intend to use them to the fullest extent possible.” She clicked on the next thumbnail. “This is Marek Reigory, a goblin dark mage. He is not on the good side of the new goblin king. He recently made a poor choice of allegiance, conspiring with the new king’s older brother to assassinate him.”
“That wouldn’t put him on my good side, either,” I murmured.
“Lord Reigory has been banished; not only from the goblin court, but his entire home dimension.”
“So what’s he doing here?”
“This is where he was banished to,” Ian said.
I blinked. “New York’s a punishment?”
“He can go anywhere in the world, but he can’t leave.”
“Forgive me if I don’t cry the boy a river. There’s nothing like finding out the goblins consider Earth a penal colony.” I thought of something and grinned. “Though that might explain what Rake Danescu’s doing here.”
“Danescu is here by choice,” Ian said. “His. Definitely not anyone else’s.”
“You don’t have much use for him, do you?”
My partner snorted. “Even less, if that’s possible.”
“Don’t let Lord Danescu get to you, Agent Byrne,” Ms. Sagadraco said. “It serves no purpose other than amusing Rake. The last thing he needs is more amusement. I will admit that his skill level puts him firmly in the dangerous category; however, he has yet to use his power against us, or given us any reason to take action against him.”
“No, ma’am, he hasn’t,” Ian agreed politely. “That we know of. But give him time.”
I detected the faintest upward twitch of one side of Vivienne Sagadraco’s lips. “And until then, we will give him the same benefit of the doubt that we would any mage living in our city.”
Ian drew breath to speak. Vivienne Sagadraco held up her hand.
“As always, while keeping him under surveillance from a respectful distance,” she said.
That seemed to satisfy my partner.
“Next is Gerald Blackburn from Scotland,” the boss continued smoothly. “Sadira Kansibar from Turkey, Stephan Javier of France, and Dietrich Wolf from Germany. All have places of dishonor on our most watched list.”
“Not most wanted?” I asked.
“Always suspected,” Ian said. “Never convicted. Unfortunately, they’re that good. We can pin crimes on them; we just can’t make them stick.”
“I won’t go into their past criminal offenses now,” Ms. Sagadraco told me. “They will be in the files I’ll have sent to you. Study them we
ll.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I didn’t need to ask why she wanted me to study up on six humans and one goblin who didn’t use any kind of glamour to hide anything about them. Normally people and creatures that didn’t use glamours to hide didn’t need a seer to point them out. When I started at SPI, I already had a bull’s-eye on my back. My three predecessors had met with messy deaths. Someone with a lot of magical power and influence in the supernatural world was determined to keep SPI without a seer. I’d been here nearly a year and had managed to keep myself among the living, mostly thanks to Ian.
I knew exactly what the boss was telling me. One of these people could want me dead.
“Of more concern to me are those who had tamped down the auras generated by their magical power,” Ms. Sagadraco was saying. “Until tonight, these individuals have been completely unknown to us. We have images from the surveillance cameras, but so great were the forces restraining their auras that the images are distorted. We have agents who are specially attuned to those with excessive magical strength. They are working with our artists to get accurate renderings. We gather as much intelligence as we can on people with this level of power. If anything good can be said to have come out of this evening, it is learning of their existence. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
There were two artist renderings: one of a man, the other a woman. Next to each was a still image captured from the museum’s cameras. For the most part, you could see their bodies okay, but their faces looked like TV static. That wasn’t helpful.
“Not the greatest resolution,” I noted. “But the drawings are incredible.” Heck, it was even better than some of the art at the exhibition tonight.
The man looked mid-sixties, the woman mid-thirties. While the drawings were beautiful, the subjects themselves looked completely ordinary, meaning about as dangerous as serial jaywalkers.
“Do we have any estimate as to how strong they are?” Ian asked.
“The agent who spotted and documented these two is one of our best and most accurate. She would not exaggerate what she saw. The darkness of their auras and the psychic vibrations from how tightly they were being contained indicates that these two individuals could be more powerful than all but one of the known suspects in attendance.”
I was incredulous. “And no one here’s even seen or heard of them before?”
“Correct.”
“Dang, that’s scary.”
“Yes, Agent Fraser, it is. And these are merely the first two to be recorded. There were five others, all with nearly the same strength estimate.” She paused. “One, in particular, possessed power beyond any of the sorcerers present. I’m having our best artist working on that rendering now.”
“And no one had ever seen him before?”
“Her,” the boss corrected me.
Oh crap.
I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder. “Your sister isn’t in town, is she?”
“No, she is not. I would almost prefer if this woman had been her. As I said, the devil you know . . .”
And I’d met that devil before, up close and personal—and in my head. Before she’d tangled with her sister in the sky over Times Square, Tiamat had herself a little fun taunting me with how her grendels and their dozens of hatchlings were going to eat their way through the New Year’s Eve crowds beginning at midnight. Having a crazy, megalomaniacal dragon traipsing through my gray matter was a sensation I did not want repeated.
But it had happened again tonight with Viktor Kain. He hadn’t used words in my head, just images, like showing me his personal scrapbook of evil.
“That level of power does not simply appear overnight,” the boss was saying. “There have been those like Mr. Sadler, but they are the exception rather than the rule. We’ll start the files on the new ones, and share what information we may be able to uncover. Every attempt will be made through our international offices and contacts to keep them under surveillance, but considering that tonight was the first known record of their existence, they obviously know how to maintain a low profile.” She blew out a weary breath. “Agent Byrne, I believe you have a contact or two in the supernatural fine art black market?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Please reach out to them regarding any sudden actions such as gatherings or transfers of large sums of money or gold—either in this world or the supernatural realms.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
“Monsieur Moreau is having a list compiled of suspects capable of putting harpies into suspended animation, and who would benefit either from owning or selling the Dragon Eggs. Our Research department is investigating what, if any, magical capabilities the Dragon Eggs possess—either individually or combined. It would go a long way towards explaining Viktor’s anger at having the diamonds stolen. If he had wanted to sell them, he could have done so perfectly well from St. Petersburg or any other location where he has homes. There was no need for him to travel here. He would never risk coming here for a mere auction. There is one thing I can always count on my Russian nemesis to have—a plan that goes ten steps beyond what he wants me to think he is doing.” She scowled. “I dislike having an opponent with an advantage.”
I shifted uneasily. I didn’t know if Ms. Sagadraco realized what had happened tonight between me and Viktor Kain, but if she didn’t, she needed to—and I needed to know why it was happening to me, and if there was anything I could do to stop it from happening again. I didn’t want anyone in my head, least of all psychotic dragons.
I wouldn’t be the first person in my family to pick up a strange, new ability. My cousin Charlie could communicate with birds. The other men in the family thought the only time that was useful was during duck season. My aunt Blanche swore up and down that she knew exactly what each one of her fifteen cats was thinking. The rest of the family pretty much took that claim with a grain of salt, and told Aunt Blanche she needed to get out of the house more.
To the best of my knowledge, I was the only Fraser whom dragons could talk to telepathically. Though considering how rare dragons were, I might have been the only member of my family who’d ever been close enough to a dragon to have a chat.
“Uh . . . Ms. Sagadraco?”
“Yes, Agent Fraser?”
“Viktor Kain and I had a little . . . run-in this evening.”
“That is another thing he has to answer for. I will not have my agents threatened—”
“It wasn’t the threats, ma’am. It was the movie that went along with it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It only lasted a few seconds. I mean, it felt a lot longer, but I’m sure it only took up a couple of seconds.”
The boss’s expression darkened, and her dragon aura loomed behind her, flowing up the wall like a shadow. I knew it wasn’t directed at me, and she couldn’t help that she did it, but that didn’t keep me from wishing I’d just kept my mouth shut.
Her eyes glittered dangerously. “What happened, Agent Fraser?”
“He was trying to scare the hell out of—I mean, he was trying to intimidate me by showing me what he’d done to other people who didn’t tell him what he wanted to know. It was . . . impressive. FYI, ma’am, the file we have on him really doesn’t do his past activities justice.”
The spooky shadow flowed back down the wall as Ms. Sagadraco made an effort to calm herself. Her expression softened along with it. “Words, regardless of the language, have difficulty capturing the horror of a situation. Visuals, such as photographs or videos, do a much more effective job.”
“It was effective, all right.”
She gave me a small smile. “And you did not back down.”
“I didn’t see it as an option, ma’am. I don’t give in to bullies. And that’s what Viktor Kain is, a bully. Albeit one with a wider mean streak, who’s had a lot longer to practice.” I hes
itated. “The problem is, your sister talked to me in my head on New Year’s Eve, and tonight Viktor Kain bragged on how many ways he’s killed people who sassed him.”
Vivienne Sagadraco raised a single eyebrow.
“Who defied him,” I clarified.
“Oh.”
“That’s not anything I’ve been able to hear or see before I came to New York. Then again, so far it’s only happened with dragons, and until I’d moved here, I’d never met a dragon.”
“Have you heard my thoughts?”
“No, ma’am, but I just figured it was because you were too much of a lady to barge in to my head without knocking.”
A tiny grin curled the boss’s lips. “So my sister isn’t a lady?”
“I’ll acknowledge that she’s female. No offense, ma’am, but that’s about as far as I’d be willing to go.”
Vivienne Sagadraco gave a short laugh. “I couldn’t agree more, Agent Fraser. I had thought the incident with my sister might have been a fluke. Having become accustomed to being worshiped as a goddess, Tiamat became quite adept at forcing her thoughts into the minds of her human priestesses.”
“I’m a dragon priestess?” My voice rose and my alarm along with it.
“There is no such thing, Agent Fraser; merely those who are sensitive to the thoughts of our kind. My sister must have sensed this in you and taken advantage of it.” Her expression grew solemn. “May I have your permission to try something?”
I tensed even more than I already was. “To talk to me in my head?”
“Yes. If it is an ability you have, then it is a rare gift indeed—and one that could prove most advantageous to the entire agency.” She paused. “You have not experienced any uncomfortable aftereffects as a result of the contact, have you?”
“Just a galloping case of the creeps after having a pair of psychos pull a Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling in my head.” I stopped. “Sorry, ma’am, but I—”
“I know, Agent Fraser. You call them as you see them. It is a quality I’ve always admired in you, and in this case I agree. Both my sister and Viktor Kain are undeniably psychotic, among many other distasteful things.”