The Dragon Conspiracy

by Lisa Shearin

  I nodded and tried to look everywhere at once. Ian was on his own headset, hopefully calling for backup in case du Beckett’s earlier visitor was still here.

  “Just another member of our not-so-little community,” I told Ben, wishing I had a gun to hold on to, or best of all, considering there was a gorgon on the loose, a pair of mirrored sunglasses. After last night, I wasn’t exactly batting a thousand with my little knife.

  Sebastian du Beckett’s expression didn’t appear to be terrified. Actually, if I had to pick an emotion, I’d say that the art and diamond broker looked surprised. Getting turned to a slab of rock would certainly surprise me. Maybe the killer moved so fast du Beckett didn’t have time to change expression. Or maybe he knew his attacker. Either was a possibility; neither would be a surprise.

  His entire body had been turned to stone. His clothes had not. Neither had his unbelievably thick glasses, though the left lens was cracked. That just looked freaky. My favorite Clash of the Titans was the cheesy but cool Harry Hamlin version. In that movie, Medusa’s victims were turned to stone—along with their clothing, which when you thought about it was ridiculous. A gorgon’s stare or touch turned skin to stone, not clothes. Leave it to a human-made movie to go for cool over accuracy.

  I remembered back to the last office I’d been in with a dead person. There’d been no chance of being mistaken then, either. He’d been gutted, torn limb from limb (some of them missing), and his intestines had been hanging from the overhead light fixture like a squishy party streamer. The murderer in that case had made so much noise that the cops had shown up within minutes. They’d arrested me and Ian, and the NYPD had scraped together what was left of the victim into a body bag.

  This situation presented a very different problem. There’d been no noise, no cops, and there was no way in hell to get a petrified person sitting behind a desk into a body bag.

  Ben was staring at his concreted client in unblinking horror. “Do you think he’s alive in there?” he whispered.

  Alain Moreau answered him. “I assure you that Monsieur du Beckett is no longer with us.”

  “Are you sure it was a gorgon?” Ian asked. “Not a basilisk?”

  “I have no doubt.”

  Screw ineffective. I got my little knife in my hand. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  “Think it’s still here?” I asked.

  “Unlikely,” Moreau said. “Monsieur du Beckett was not a small man. It would have taken at least an hour for petrification to progress this far.”

  I felt sick. “Progress? He was still alive for that long?”

  “Unless the murderer was directly from Medusa’s line or very old, he was alive until petrification reached his heart and brain. The stone would continue to harden for at least the next half hour.”

  “Who would want to kill Mr. du Beckett?” Ben asked. “I wouldn’t think he’d have an enemy in the world.”

  “It’s often not a matter of enemies, but of possessing an object that the killer wanted. Monsieur du Beckett owned much that would appeal to the criminally inclined.” He was studying the top of the dead man’s desk. There wasn’t a computer, but there was a notebook just to the right of the body; Moreau scanned the page it was open to. “According to Monsieur du Beckett’s calendar, we weren’t his first visitors this morning. Rake Danescu had an appointment here two hours ago.”

  Ian and I exchanged glances.

  “Rake was at the museum last night,” I said. “Aside from me, he was the closest to the harpy statue.”

  “Interesting.”

  Rake could turn women to putty, but as far as I knew, he couldn’t turn a man to stone.

  Ian keyed his mike. “Yeah, what is it?” His eyes snapped toward the window. “Run!” he shouted at us.

  The word was still leaving his lips as a harpy crashed through the big office window—and this time, she’d brought backup. She hadn’t been able to get the job done last night, so she’d brought her two sisters this morning.

  The talons that had punched holes in the roof of Yasha’s Suburban last night sent splinters flying from Sebastian du Beckett’s desk this morning—and chunks of stone from du Beckett’s arm that’d been resting on the desktop.

  Obviously hell hath no fury like thwarted kidnappers.

  The things screeched loud enough to burst our eardrums after having destroyed the window frame and most of the surrounding wall shouldering their wings into the office. All I could think was that they looked much bigger in full daylight.

  Moreau’s fangs were out and he launched himself onto the back of the nearest harpy, and the screeching, hissing, and clawing that ensued could only be described as the world’s biggest catfight. As much as I wanted to watch my manager hand that harpy her tail feathers on a platter, I had a harpy trying to do the same to me.

  I was closest to Ben, and I was determined to stay there.

  Ian had found out last night that bullets, even the silver-infused kind, didn’t do squat against a harpy. He’d found a spear among the late Mr. du Beckett’s office clutter, and was putting it to good use—until one swat from the harpy snapped the shaft in half.

  If Yasha, Carl, and the girls didn’t join us soon, all they would find was what would be left of us.

  A vampire, werewolf, and an ogre walk into an office . . . It sounded like the beginning of a really bad joke with an even worse ending.

  The third harpy had me and Ben all to herself, and was standing squarely between us and the office door, our only means of escape. Ben desperately looked around for somewhere to hide, even though we both knew it was useless unless either of us could suddenly shrink to the size of an action figure.

  Nice thing about clutter was that it gave me plenty of stuff to throw. If I couldn’t take down a harpy, at least I could hopefully keep her from killing us long enough for Carl the ogre to get here.

  My hand fumbled around on a crowded shelf and came away with some kind of stone monkey god. It was uglier than homemade sin, but it fit in my hand.

  I brought a rock down hard on the harpy’s bird-clawed foot. The harpy didn’t so much as blink.

  It did get her attention away from Ben.

  And on to me.

  “Oh shit,” Ben said for both of us.

  That was good because my brain was too busy watching my life flash before it—and a talon-tipped hand, close to being around what was soon to be left of my throat. The claws whistled past my neck, but didn’t take any of me with them. I sucked in my breath, as if that’d help me plaster myself any closer to the wall, and saw the tips of one wing sticking through the crack where the office door hinge met the wall. I didn’t know how much damage it’d do, but I figured it wouldn’t feel good.

  I grabbed the back edge of the door and slammed it back against the wall.

  And heard a gratifying snap.

  Note to self: slamming a harpy’s wing in a door hurts like hell.

  Alain Moreau flung the harpy attacking him against the wall over our heads. Chunks of wall, pieces of ceiling, and the dust of who knew how many decades filled the air and my lungs as breathing became the next fight for survival.

  I desperately raked through the debris for a weapon, and came out with a shiny rock. It was blue, sparkly, and about the size of my fist. Was it what the boss had called a gem of power? I didn’t know. Ben would know once he touched it. At the very least, he could chuck it at the harpy.

  “Ben, catch!”

  I tossed the rock and Ben caught it.

  The instant the gem touched his hand, it flashed.

  I squeezed my eyes shut—for all the good it did me. I saw the blast of blue light through my closed eyelids.

  Blinded by the light, I didn’t see Ben zap the harpy, but I sure smelled it. I didn’t know if it was the same harpy Ben had tangled with last night, but the pain hadn’t stopped her from ta
king those diamonds last night, and it didn’t keep her from taking Ben this morning.

  Ben had his back to the wall. He wasn’t going anywhere and the harpy knew it. A pleased and entirely too hungry growl rumbled the floor under our feet as she knocked me aside. In one lightning-quick move, the harpy grabbed Ben’s forearm, slamming it and the hand holding the blue stone against the wall, shattering the stone—and breaking Ben’s arm. There was no mistaking that sound.

  The only supernatural Ben had ever seen had been Caera Filarion. Cute, sweet, funny Caera the elf. The harpy was none of those things. She grabbed and wrapped her indestructible arms around the struggling Ben as if the six footer was no bigger than a toddler.

  Ben hadn’t screamed last night. Between his broken arm, and the harpy reopening last night’s wound when she grabbed him, he screamed now.

  I damned near joined him.

  One harpy had come after us last night. Between me and Ian, but mostly Yasha, we’d persuaded her to retreat. She’d brought her sisters this morning, and even though we’d substituted a vampire for the werewolf, we were outnumbered. And they had talons that might as well have been made out of surgical steel.

  The girls had worked fast.

  Our backup never had time to reach us.

  The first beat of her wings launched her into the air; the second beat took her up and through the shattered window.

  The instant she was clear, her sisters broke off their fight with Ian and Moreau, and were out the window, flanking the harpy carrying Ben like a pair of fighter jet escorts, though thanks to Moreau’s efforts, one was missing half a wing.

  They were headed north. We’d be able to keep visual contact for only so long—unless they weren’t going far. Though as soon as they dropped below the tops of any buildings, we’d lose sight of them. I couldn’t imagine them staying airborne for any length of time; half of Manhattan would see them. Then again, the girls hadn’t been shy about being seen last night. It looked like Kylie would be getting another couple hundred sightings to explain, but at least it’d give us a way to track the harpies and rescue Ben.

  Ian appeared next to me at the window. “Where’d they go?”

  That was a puzzler. I pointed. “They’re right there, headed north.”

  “I can’t see them.”

  Oh hell.

  Last New Year’s Eve, Vivienne Sagadraco’s sister Tiamat had orchestrated a grendel infestation that was to reach its bloodbath of a conclusion in Times Square at midnight. Part of her evil master plan had involved equipping the two adult grendels with a small device that rendered them invisible to everyone and everything except me. I’d found out that being a seer also allowed me to see through mechanical as well as magical veils. In the cleanup of the grendel nest afterward, several more of the devices had been found. What I now saw flying away from us—and Ian didn’t—told me that SPI apparently wasn’t the only possessor of that technology. I hadn’t seen the harpies wearing the devices, but then I had better things to do than admire any jewelry the harpies might have been wearing.

  I told Ian my theory.

  We heard sirens in the distance.

  Ian swore and keyed his mike. “Yasha, get to the alley round back. Now. Du Beckett’s dead; we need to get him out of here.” He ran over to the desk and started shoving debris away from the body. Moreau quickly searched the room for anything else the NYPD didn’t need to find.

  Damn, Ian was right. We did have to take du Beckett with us. A regular dead body could be left for mortal authorities to find. One that had been turned to stone? No way in hell.

  I willed the cheese danish I’d eaten an hour ago to stay put and dropped down to the floor, doing what a SPI agent had to do—find the rest of Sebastian du Beckett’s left arm.

  The hand and wrist was still in one piece. It was next to a small trash can. I grabbed a crumpled piece of paper out, turned the can on its side, and, with the paper over my hand, scooped up what looked like Thing from The Addams Family prop department. Smaller bits of the shattered forearm were mostly in one area. I got those, too.

  I popped up from beside the desk. “Got the hand and as much of the arm as I could find.”

  “Good.” Ian was pushing the rest of du Beckett, still in his office chair, toward the door. He’d wrapped the braided cord from the ruined drapes around the corpse’s chest and the back of the office chair, tying him in place.

  The clock on the mantle had chimed nine o’clock an instant before the first harpy had blasted through that window.

  It was only two minutes after nine.

  10

  RAKE Danescu had an appointment when he’d visited Sebastian du Beckett this morning.

  We didn’t have an appointment when we showed up at Rake Danescu’s front door.

  Though technically it was the front door of his very exclusive apartment building on Central Park West.

  Yasha had taken Sebastian du Beckett’s remains back to the lab at headquarters. We took Alain Moreau’s car to see Rake Danescu.

  If it had just been me and Ian, we wouldn’t have gotten past the doorman, at least not without a lot of lying.

  That was when having a centuries-old vampire for whom mind control was just another form of communication came in handy. Alain Moreau did a smooth Jedi-mind-trick thing on the doorman, the security at the front desk and the elevators, and we were on our way up to the penthouse.

  Naturally the goblin who owned and operated the most exclusive sex club in the city would live in a penthouse.

  Rake Danescu answered his own door, and didn’t appear to be surprised in the least to see us. Though he did seem mildly taken aback, or at least amused, to see me standing in his building’s opulent hallway coated in what I kept repeating to myself was only plaster dust, and not some of the pulverized remains of Sebastian du Beckett. Ian looked like he usually did—on the winning side of an ass kicking. Moreau had ripped half a wing off a harpy but didn’t have a hair out of place or a wrinkle in his still-immaculate suit.

  Moreau spoke. “Lord Danescu.”

  Lord?

  The goblin made no move, either to step aside or invite us in. Where I came from, a lack of hospitality equaled bad manners.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

  Moreau didn’t bat an eye. “I don’t think you want me to say in front of your building’s security cameras.”

  “Speaking of my security . . .”

  “They were most accommodating—unlike one of their residents.”

  “Ah, I should have known.” He smiled, showing fangs.

  Moreau’s were on full display, too.

  I wondered if fang size was as important to male goblins and vamps as another body part was to human guys. Probably. I would have asked them, but didn’t want to step on my manager’s toes—or whatever—when he seemed to be winning what was going on here.

  Rake Danescu stepped aside and waved his arm with a flourish. “By all means, do come in.”

  We did.

  I looked around and was surprised. I half expected there to be mirrors on the ceiling and fur rugs on the floor.

  Rake Danescu’s décor was downright tasteful, even though he was the owner of a supernatural sex club. What I assumed was the living room could have been the centerfold of Architectural Digest. I wondered if the goblin had done the decorating himself or hired someone—or both. He’d probably hired someone, a human female someone, with the stipulation that they work very closely together—

  “Agent Fraser?”

  Crap.

  Alain Moreau had asked me a question. Rake was smirking. Ian was inscrutable.

  Honesty, at least partial, was best. “I’m sorry, sir. I was admiring the décor. It’s lovely, Mr. Danescu.” I didn’t care what he was; there was no way I was calling him “lord.”

  The goblin graciously incl
ined his head, his eyes gleaming. “I can hardly take all the credit. My interior designer is incomparably talented. She selected most of the furniture. I was telling Monsieur Moreau that while I was ill prepared for company, I would be a poor host indeed if I did not at least offer tea.”

  “None for me; thank you.”

  “Three declines. Then we can proceed to what has brought you uninvited, though not unwelcome, to my door. Please be seated.”

  I perched on the edge of a small pale gray sofa that more or less matched the dust I’d brought in with me. Ian seated himself next to me—and between me and Rake.

  Ian had been with SPI a heck of a lot longer than I had, and from what I’d been able to gather, he’d known Rake Danescu for most of that time. I hadn’t managed to pry any of the finer details out of my partner, but I knew for a fact that he didn’t trust and didn’t like the goblin mage, as in really didn’t like him. I didn’t know if the feeling was mutual; Rake—and goblins in general—kept people guessing as to where they fell on the whole like/dislike/burning hatred scale. I guess it made killing your enemies easier if they didn’t actually know that they were your enemy. Yeah, like goblins weren’t confusing enough.

  The first time I’d run into Rake Danescu was my first night on the job at SPI. I’d kind of gotten myself enthralled by him—at least that was what my more magically-in-the-know coworkers had called it. As a dark mage, Rake was gifted in many of the magical arts that most sane people would run away from. Some of that magic was of the personal kind, the kind that allowed a mage to get inside the mind of a person of their choosing. Rake had chosen me and he’d gotten into my mind that night. I had to admit I’d liked the way he’d knocked. As a result, the goblin could now read me like an open book, though it wasn’t like I was exactly inscrutable before. There was a reason nearly every one of my coworkers wanted me to join their table on company poker nights—I was a fluffy sheep ready for the fleecing. Though as far down the corporate ladder as I was, it wasn’t like I had much fluff for them to fleece.

  Rake Danescu saw me as a sheep, too. A sheep to his big, bad, wicked wolf.