The Dragon Conspiracy

by Lisa Shearin

“You’re always obvious, though the quiet would be nice.”

  “You’re out of luck there. You sure you don’t read minds?”

  “I just read you.”

  My eyes went to the cab’s dash clock.

  Nine forty-five.

  Two hours and fifteen minutes.

  * * *

  Two faster car changes later, a Lexus sedan pulled up to a dock just off Wall Street, confirming that we’d at least gotten the East River right.

  Yasha drove past where Kain’s driver had pulled in, stopped as soon as he was out of their sight, and engaged in some highly creative and definitely illegal parking.

  “What now?” I asked quietly after we’d gotten out of the car.

  Ian pulled binoculars out of a bag he’d brought with him. I assumed they had night vision. “I take a quick look. You and Yasha stay here.”

  Yasha and I exchanged “screw that” glances.

  Ian stopped short of rolling his eyes. “Yasha, you’re not the only one with a sensitive sniffer. Kain’s a dragon and the closer it gets to a full moon, the stronger you smell.”

  “I do not st—”

  “I said smell, not stink. Me? I’m just one human passing by. No threat. And with the way the wind’s blowing, plus the ‘aroma’ coming off the East River, Kain probably won’t even notice me.”

  Ian went, we stayed, but we were not happy about it.

  “Will you be able to hear if something goes wrong?” I asked in the barest whisper.

  Yasha gave me one solemn nod. His golden eyes narrowed, telling me what I needed to know: that if the crap did hit the fan, we were going after Ian.

  After the longest five minutes in recorded history, Ian came back.

  “They’ve cast off, and they’re headed north. No one’s left in the Lexus; they’re all on the boat. There’s some kind of maintenance building that’ll give us a better look and more cover.”

  Ian led and we followed.

  The view of the East River was a lot prettier at night. The dark hid many things—best of all, us.

  The water lapped up against a concrete barrier that wasn’t concrete colored any longer. It was high tide, so what little shoreline existed was underwater. Ian removed something on a long chain from under his shirt and around his neck, squatted on the edge of the barrier, and dropped whatever was on the end into the water.

  Yasha and I waited, staring intently at the place where the chain had entered the water.

  Ian was calling something. Was there a scene like this in Jaws? I never got into any body of water at night other than a bathtub, hot tub, or swimming pool, and only then if they were lit. Nothing good ever came up out of the water at night.

  A head broke the surface a few feet from where Ian crouched. Long hair flowed over slender shoulders and disappeared into the water. The features indicated that it was female, and all of the above seemed to be more or less human.

  The skin, however, was green.

  Or at least it looked green from what I could see.

  Her large eyes were solid, dark orbs. Orbs that stared over Ian’s shoulder to where Yasha loomed.

  I glanced at the Russian. Dang, had he gotten taller and hairier? Maybe it was the shadows playing tricks. The mermaid—or whatever she was—clearly didn’t like what she saw.

  “Yasha, will you step back, please?” Ian kept his eyes on hers, and his voice quiet and calm.

  I stepped back with him in case I was scary, too. Hey, it could happen.

  The mermaid submerged completely.

  Seconds later, she surfaced right under where Ian’s hand held the chain and pendant stretched out over and into the water. My partner didn’t move as a long-fingered, webbed hand reached up to him. Ian lowered his hand and she closed her definitely green, webbed fingers around his.

  She gazed up into his eyes and they stayed like that for a good half minute. Then she simply released his hand and sank back into the dark river without leaving even a ripple as a sign she’d ever been there.

  A little scary? Yes.

  Amazingly cool? You bet.

  Ian stood. “Kain’s heading north. There are five men on the boat with him. Another boat launched from a dock north of here with ten men on board. All are armed.”

  “When did Sandra’s team leave?” I asked.

  “About twenty minutes ago.”

  “She either has company or is about to get it.”

  Two boats of armed Russians, one in front, another behind.

  Ian called Kenji to give Sandra a heads-up.

  I looked down at my watch. Ten o’clock. Nothing to do now but wait. Waiting sucked big—

  The river exploded and a fireball lit the night sky.

  To the north.

  22

  THE dock shook violently beneath our feet.

  The first explosion was closely followed by a second and then a third, both from farther up the river.

  In the direction of North Brother Island.

  Flaming debris from the first blast fell from the night sky like comets, still burning after they hit the water.

  Three explosions.

  Three boats with men, women, ammunition, and full gas tanks.

  Under the dying echo of the last blast, I heard it, heard her. We all did.

  A shriek like a giant bird of prey.

  “Fucking harpies!” Ian snarled.

  “That had to be Kain’s boat,” I said of the first explosion and visible debris.

  Ian had his phone out again. “Yes.”

  That was good, great even.

  Then my heart dropped to my feet.

  The source of the other two blasts had to have been the boats carrying Kain’s men—and Sandra and her team.

  Illuminated for an instant against the orange blaze was a harpy. One claw-tipped hand went to her chest, and came away clutching something small. Hovering above the flaming wreck, she reached over with her other hand and pulled . . .

  Harpies with hand grenades?

  Unholy hell.

  Helena Thanos had said they could follow simple orders. Find target, pull pin, drop grenade. No rocket science required there.

  “Now,” said Yasha from right behind me, his voice oddly distorted, “I have seen everything.”

  I turned and looked up—and kept looking.

  Oh boy.

  In the minute since I’d last looked at him, Yasha had grown at least half a foot, and his teeth had grown too large and pointy for his mouth. A mouth that was elongating, even as I watched, into a muzzle to accommodate some impressive dental work.

  Uh-oh.

  “I am changing,” he managed to say.

  “I am noticing.”

  “Is early.”

  “Uh-huh. Uh . . . could it be stress?”

  Yasha nodded in agreement. “That can happen.”

  Most folks break out in hives. Yasha might die in an hour and a half, and his only hope of salvation had just gone up in flames. His response? Break out in fur and fangs.

  The harpy shrieked again, beating her giant, bat-like wings to gain altitude, turning toward—

  “Holy shit,” I said, “she’s going south.”

  Ian paused on the phone. “Kenji, warn Roy. Somehow these bitches know which boats to torch.”

  An hour and a half until midnight, one of our commando units had their boat blown out from under them, and the other was being hunted by a harpy wearing a bandoleer of hand grenades.

  I forced myself to look away from the wreckage. “If Roy can’t make it—”

  Ian held up his hand for quiet, and ran down the dock, talking furiously to Kenji.

  Sirens started wailing all up and down the river as the first responders began what was going to be a swarm of cops, Coast Guard, and feds. They’d shut dow
n traffic on the river and no one would be able to reach the island, period, let alone before midnight. Midnight would come and go. The human population of New York wouldn’t notice a thing. Just another Halloween night.

  I screamed in helpless rage.

  There had to be some way we could get there. There weren’t any boats here. Kain must have chosen it because no one else would be here, no witnesses.

  “Dammit!” Ian paced the dock. Three steps down, three steps back, the stomping of his boots making the dock shake almost as much as the explosions had.

  Kenji’s news must have been even worse than ours.

  Ian stopped and glared down at his phone, jaw clenched. “Dammit.”

  Patience was in short enough supply on my end. “What?”

  Ian looked at me, closed his eyes, took a breath, and blew it out. He opened his eyes and looked back down at his phone. “We don’t have a choice,” he said, maybe to me, maybe to himself. “We don’t have a fucking choice.” He saw Yasha and froze.

  “Um, buddy? You okay?”

  “He’s stressed,” I said for him.

  “I can see that.”

  As long as Yasha was half out of one form and half in the other, the glamour SPI’s werewolves used to disguise themselves during the full moon—known in the agency as “that time of the month”—wouldn’t work. Yasha was stuck until he completed his change, standing before God and anyone else who wandered by, looming and lisping.

  “What choice don’t we have?” I asked Ian.

  “I have to make a call,” Ian said, scrolling down what I assumed was his contact list. “A call I do not want to make, but there’s no other way.”

  He didn’t seem inclined to elaborate further, so I stood and listened.

  “This is Ian Byrne, and I . . . I need your help.” My partner had to force those last four words out.

  He moved the phone around to his other ear and continued to talk, but I didn’t hear a word.

  I’d caught a glimpse of the name on the screen. The name of who Ian was talking to, and I was in shock. My mouth might have fallen open and still been hanging open, for all I knew.

  Satan must be serving sno-cones in Hell.

  Ian Byrne had just called Rake Danescu for help.

  23

  ONLY ten minutes later, a low, sleek, black speedboat glided to a near silent stop at the end of the dock. At the wheel, dressed all in black like an honest-to-God—or in his case dishonest-to-God—cat burglar, was Rake Danescu.

  Then again, his boat may not have been all that silent. Who the hell could hear anything over the sirens wailing up and down the river? And don’t even get me started on the flashing lights. For some bizarre eye/brain agreement reason, looking at flashing lights made me dizzy. Being on a boat just made me flat-out barf. Now I was going to get on a goblin dark mage’s speedboat on Halloween near midnight, then he’d elude police, Coast Guard, Harbor Patrol, and fireboats to take me to a haunted island that was guarded by monsters to find seven possessed diamonds and keep them from making New York’s undead really dead.

  I was gonna be popping Dramamine like freakin’ Tic Tacs.

  I felt like Velma about to board a seriously upgraded Mystery Machine. I glanced back at Yasha.

  Yeesh.

  That much hair officially qualified as fur.

  I crunched down on my first Dramamine of the night. “Come on, Scooby.”

  * * *

  Ian had called the boss to let her know we’d caught a ride to North Brother Island—and with whom. This evening was already chock-full of surreality; I’m sure hearing that Ian, Yasha, and I were going on a midnight cruise with Rake Danescu didn’t even make her bat an eye.

  “You got here fast,” Ian was saying to Rake.

  “I sensed your desperation and yearned to be of assistance.”

  “Cut the crap, Danescu. This isn’t exactly your side of town. The yacht clubs are on the Hudson.”

  “Like yourself, I have business this evening that brings me here.”

  “Dressed like a cat burglar,” I said. “Or a jewel thief.”

  “Touché, lovely Makenna. I don’t suppose you’d believe I was going to a midnight Halloween party across the river?”

  I just looked at him.

  Rake laughed softly. “I didn’t think you would. You and your organization aren’t the only ones who have deduced what will happen at midnight. While some are fleeing the city, others are taking matters into their own hands.”

  “We had two teams of commandos,” Ian said. “Who are you teaming up with?”

  “I prefer to work alone, and was not going to change my preferences tonight.”

  “Just you against whatever’s over there,” Ian said, helping me on board.

  “Often one can succeed where many will fail. I do not lack experience in such situations. Though I am surprised you set aside your dislike of me to request my assistance.”

  Desperate times called for desperate measures, I thought.

  “It’s not a matter of like or dislike,” Ian said.

  Rake’s smile was wicked. “Disapproval, perhaps?”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “That makes two of us. I don’t trust me, either. I do not take offense, Agent Byrne. Goblins get a lot of practice with distrust. If anyone ever does trust me, I must be doing something very wrong.”

  Yasha stepped down into the boat, tipping it sharply to one side.

  In addition to hairier and taller, the Russian had become heavier.

  “No werewolves,” Rake said flatly.

  “He’s on our side,” Ian said.

  “Define ‘our.’”

  Yasha’s eyes were now bright gold and were boring into the goblin, like he was wondering what side dish would go best with him.

  I hated to admit it but Rake might have a point; it’d be counterproductive to have our car driver eat our boat captain.

  “‘Our’ as in he’s going with us.” The intensity of Ian’s green eyes easily matched Yasha’s I-could-go-moon-crazy-any-moment peepers. “He’s ninety-six . . . and he’s a friend.”

  In other words, the man/wolf was going to die in a little over an hour. Don’t be a heartless putz; give him a chance to save thousands of lives—and his own.

  Rake sighed and regarded Yasha solemnly. “If he goes fully wolf on my boat, he leaves.”

  Ian chuckled darkly. “If he goes wolf on your boat, you’re welcome to tell him.”

  Rake Danescu’s dark eyes flashed in the dim light of the boat’s dash lights. “There will be no telling. I have not survived so much for this long to be torn apart by an overgrown barbarian mongrel.”

  Yasha growled, Ian came out of his seat, and Rake took one hand off the wheel. It was glowing.

  “Boys.” I said it like I’d heard my grandma say it many times—long, drawn out, and low with warning. Grandma Fraser had always been ready and willing to back up that word with a switch, the business end of a broom, or the flat of a cast-iron skillet. Grandma said that a skillet’s good for three things: frying chicken, baking corn bread, and going upside an obstinate man’s head.

  I didn’t have a switch, broom, or skillet. I only had an appeal to their good sense; hopefully at least one of them still had some. My money was on the werewolf.

  “Let’s see, we’re going to an island with a criminal mastermind, a gorgon, harpies with hand grenades, and who the hell knows what else? We need everyone on this boat, especially the werewolf. I can vouch for him,” I told Rake. “Unless you act like a royal jackass, he won’t rip your face off.”

  I would have asked Yasha to actually promise Rake he wouldn’t rip his face off, but Yasha’s muzzle had grown a little long for small talk.

  “But our problem right now is getting through that flashing light show out there to even reach the island.
”

  Rake gave me a smug little smile. “That, darling Makenna, is not a problem.”

  With that, both of his hands began to glow. The goblin placed them firmly on the boat’s steering wheel and the glow spread, completely enveloping the boat in seconds.

  “So now we’re glowing so brightly all the cops and feds won’t be able to look directly at us, right?”

  “We’re not glowing. We’re invisible, and cloaked for sound.”

  “I can still see—”

  “If we couldn’t see the boat, it would be most challenging to operate her, wouldn’t it?”

  I could see that, too.

  We’d find out in the next minute because an NYPD launch was going to pass three boat lengths off our . . . starboard side. Left was port, and they both had four letters. Right was the one that was left, I mean remaining, which was starboard. Though to be on the safe side, I simply wouldn’t say any of them out loud and risk humiliating myself.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” Rake called out across the water.

  I squeaked and hit the deck. I definitely knew what that part of a boat was called.

  Rake Danescu was laughing; even Ian was fighting back a grin.

  I turned on my traitorous partner. “You knew it’d work and you didn’t say anything?”

  “He’s a mage, Mac.”

  “That still didn’t mean it’d work.”

  “I can assure you,” Rake said, “I am exceptionally good at many things; magic is merely one.”

  I sat in my seat and tried to ignore the way the police launch’s wake was making our boat feel like it was riding on a Slinky.

  “Can the harpies see us?” I asked.

  Rake pushed the throttle forward, and we moved smoothly away from the dock. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

  * * *

  Within ten minutes, we’d reached where the boat carrying Sandra and her team had been grenade bombed by a harpy.

  Ian had called Kenji, who had spoken with Sandra, who was presently wrapped in blankets along with, thankfully, the rest of her team. There were injuries, some serious, but nothing fatal.

  Fortunately by the time the first boatload of law enforcement types had arrived, everything that could have blown up on Sandra’s boat had blown up, and their body armor had the consideration to sink to the bottom of the East River.