The Dragon Conspiracy

by Lisa Shearin

  They didn’t like each other, but Ian and Rake respected Vivienne Sagadraco, and not because she could squash them flat with one clawed foot.

  Ian took a calming breath. “I’m sorry, ma’am.” His eyes stayed on Rake, but the fire was gone. “But you know how I feel abo—”

  “Yes, Ian. I know.”

  “My apologies if I caused offense.” Rake’s words were for Ms. Sagadraco, but his eyes stayed right where they were, on my partner.

  “Rake, for the protection and continued well-being of the city that I truly believe we both hold dear, I trust that you will tell me anything you know or may discover regarding this threat.”

  Rake finally looked away from Ian, turning solemn eyes on Vivienne Sagadraco. “On the honor of myself, my family, and my house, I swear.”

  I didn’t know anything about goblin oaths, but that sounded impressive to me. I stole a glance at Ian. My partner looked taken aback. Another expression I’d never seen on him. Apparently that was one more serious goblin oath.

  Then it was my turn to be shocked.

  Ian extended his hand to Rake for the second time this evening.

  Rake glanced down at Ian’s hand and then up at my partner’s face in surprise.

  “I was out of line.” Ian left “this time” unsaid, but we all knew what he meant. “I meant what I said earlier. We couldn’t have done it without you—regardless of your reasons.”

  After only a brief hesitation, Rake extended his own hand and shook Ian’s.

  Disabling the Dragon Eggs, saving New York’s supernaturals, Ian and Rake spending hours in each other’s company without fists involved, then shaking hands twice and making nice—or at least polite. It’d been a night chock-full of miracles.

  “So with du Beckett and Eddie both dead,” I said quickly, before the boys could change their minds and turn hand-shaking into arm wrestling. “They can’t tell us who they were working for or with, so we’re right back where we started from.”

  “Far from it,” Ms. Sagadraco said. “The person wanted the Dragon Eggs activated, and to destroy or force into hiding tens of thousands of supernaturals. SPI New York would have been decimated and rendered ineffective for an undetermined length of time. Once again we must ask ourselves who would benefit from such a scenario and how? New York has the greatest concentration of supernatural beings in this dimension. Those who would not have died outright would have been living in fear—and SPI would have been rendered powerless to help or to stop whatever this individual planned to do when that happened.”

  “They’re setting the stage,” I said. “For something they were ready to put into play immediately.”

  “That is what I believe.”

  “But what?”

  “I’m certain we will be finding out. One doesn’t plan the destruction of thousands of supernaturals, have those plans fail, and simply give up and walk away. They will be back—that is, if they ever left. That individual was in the Sackler Wing last night. We know that. We have surveillance camera footage; we have artists’ sketches where the mortal technology failed.” Her deep blue eyes burned with a fierce glare. “We only have a few names, but we have every face.” Her words were clipped and deliberate. “We will start there, we will find who was responsible for this, we will learn what their next move will be, and we will stop them.”

  I looked out over the river to the lights of the city.

  Our city.

  “The unknown woman will be our starting point,” Vivienne Sagadraco continued. “Though she may not be as unknown as we thought—or as well disguised as she believes. Our agent couldn’t get a clear look at this individual’s face. The features shifted and flowed—and the agent insisted that most of those features were male.”

  We only had the moon to see by, but I clearly saw the color drain right out of Ian’s face. It was like he’d seen a ghost, but not the cold spot in a creepy old house variety; this ghost from Ian’s past haunted him 24/7/365.

  The “ghoul” that led the jewel thieves that had eaten Ian’s NYPD partner and had put Ian in the hospital for a month wasn’t really a ghoul, at least not all the time. The first time I’d seen him had been on a dark street last winter. I’d only seen the bottom half of his face; the rest was covered by the brim of a hat. Even though I’d only seen half, that was plenty enough to give me a lifetime of nightmares. I got the impression of multiple faces, each different from the one before, layered one on top of another, extending into the distance like looking into a wall of fun-house mirrors.

  Years ago, on that night in the jewelry store, he’d promised Ian that he was next—next on the menu after he finished eating Ian’s partner. Ten months ago, on New Year’s Eve, Ian had come entirely too close to being this thing’s midnight toast. It had been allied with Tiamat, Vivienne Sagadraco’s sister.

  I swallowed. “Did the agent say the different faces were layered on top of each other and looked like they kind of stretched into infinity?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  The boss knew all about Ian’s spectral friend. Well, she knew about each incident. What none of us knew or had been able to find out were any details about the creature itself. Heck, we didn’t even know what it was. Logic would dictate that it was some kind of shapeshifter, but even shapeshifters were something to begin with.

  “We don’t know it’s him,” I told Ian.

  “We don’t know it’s not.” Any trace of fear was gone from my partner’s face, replaced with a slow smile that crept over his lips. Determined. Ferocious. Ian actually hoped that it was him; I could see it in his eyes. “But if it is him, this time I’m going to be ready.”

  Vivienne Sagadraco stared straight at Ian. “We all will.”

  MONDAY MORNING,

  SPI HEADQUARTERS

  I’D slept for a good chunk of yesterday. I hadn’t meant to, but my body clearly had other plans. Though I had to admit if I hadn’t slept yesterday, I wouldn’t be sitting upright in my office chair now.

  From what I’d heard, this place was pretty much a ghost town yesterday. Supernatural bad guys didn’t acknowledge weekends, so neither did we. SPI kept the same hours as the NYPD—which meant all of them. Some of the agents who’d stayed for the duration of the emergency were catching up on sleep. Sandra and her team were still recuperating; that meant Roy and his folks were on deck should anything hit the fan. The agents and civilians who had evacuated with their families were coming back into the city and getting resettled in their homes.

  That was another thing that had made the news—New Yorkers suddenly turning Halloween weekend into a getaway holiday. News and lifestyle bloggers were debating whether it was the start of a new vacation trend.

  I snorted. Not if we had anything to say about it.

  I looked around the bull pen, and let my eyes wander to the upper floors. It looked like a regular Monday morning at SPI, but it was far from normal. My coworkers were either really chatty or unusually quiet. I guess we all handled near-death experiences in different ways.

  Vivienne Sagadraco hired talented people, many with a lot of experience in their areas of expertise. New York had the largest concentration of supernaturals of anywhere in the world. SPI needed the best of the best working here. A lot of the time, experience came with age. When you were talking about supernaturals, age meant older—much, much older.

  If the power of the Dragon Eggs had reached the energy of the ley lines’ nexus, SPI’s best and brightest would have been gone in an instant at midnight on Saturday.

  Coworkers, mentors, and friends—they would have turned to dust, crumbled into bones, or died within minutes from extreme old age or the shock to their bodies of going from immortal back to mortal.

  At least half of those talking, laughing, joking, or—as I was doing—just sitting quietly and watching, wouldn’t have been here now.

  I realized that it didn�
�t matter how old you were, or even if you were a so-called immortal; your life could end at any time. If you were smart, you lived your life and treated the people who were in your life—those who were important to you, those you loved—as if every time you were with them might be the last time. Not in a morbid way, but joyfully, so that when that time did come, and it would, there would be no regrets.

  I’d found out early this morning that the newfound urge to live life to the fullest, no regrets, carpe diem, and all that had also affected a certain goblin businessman. Though who was I kidding? Rake Danescu had found all of his urges a long time ago, and none of them were new.

  He’d called this morning and invited me to lunch, offering to send a car to take me to that new restaurant in Tribeca with the superstar chef and a six-month waiting list that even Kylie hadn’t been able to get into.

  I admit to being tempted, but not necessarily by the restaurant. Rake Danescu had built a highly successful business based on temptation. Tempt and tantalize was what he did best.

  I told myself there’d be plenty of other people in the restaurant. It’d be broad daylight, there’d be a table between us, and cutlery within reach in case I needed backup weapons to defend my virtue.

  Though while I was admitting things and being honest with myself, I wasn’t all that certain that if push came to shove, or grab came to grope, that I’d be all that enthusiastic about defending anything of mine from Rake Danescu, least of all my virtue.

  And Rake knew it. He’d been in my head. He knew which buttons to push.

  That was the biggest problem of all right there. My buttons hadn’t had a good pushing in a long time.

  Nearly being turned to stone by a gorgon had made me think about a lot of things.

  I hadn’t told Rake yes, but I hadn’t told him no. I went with a time-honored stall that in my case was probably going to be true—I might have a meeting at lunchtime. We’d just dodged the tristate, supernatural Apocalypse; surely there were going to be meetings. I told Rake that I’d find out and get back to him. Naturally, Rake’s countermove was to upgrade lunch to dinner.

  Dinner with Rake Danescu was out of the question. I could see it now: dim lighting, candles, soft music, wine . . .

  Uh-uh. No way, no how.

  Lunch was better—or at least safer. And no car and driver. I could only imagine Rake’s idea of a car and driver. I’d get in and there wouldn’t be any handles on the doors, but there’d be locks, and they’d only be controlled by the driver, who was actually Rake in a tight black chauffeur uniform. With boots.

  Sweet mother of—

  A grip, Mac. Get one.

  I would definitely be taking a cab. If I even agreed to go.

  I glanced up to the fifth floor executive suite.

  The floor-to-ceiling curtains on Vivienne Sagadraco’s office were open. Usually that meant she was there, but I couldn’t see any signs of lights being on. Though dragons didn’t need light to—

  Just ask her, Mac.

  “Ma’am? Are you there?”

  “Yes, Agent Fraser.”

  I could hear the slight smile in her voice as if she was sitting at her desk in the dark, musing like the rest of us on what had nearly happened, while waiting on me to ask what I was about to ask. I sensed that she hadn’t been eavesdropping on my thoughts, she’d simply been aware of me.

  “Um . . . ma’am? Rake Danescu just asked me out to lunch.”

  “I am not surprised.”

  “Come to think of it, I guess I’m not, either.”

  “Did you want to alert me of your meeting with Lord Danescu for safety purposes?”

  “That wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  “It would be a prudent precaution.” She paused. “But one that I believe is unnecessary.”

  “It’s not?”

  “What does your judgment tell you?”

  “I think lunch would be fine. I would kind of like to go. It’s just that—” He’s so hot he might not be safe with me. I froze. Oh crap, did I think that out loud?

  “Yes, you did, Agent Fraser.” I could almost see a finger with a newly manicured nail pressed to her lips, preventing the escape of something that might have resembled a laugh. “Since I am a dragon, Lord Danescu is not . . . my type, as humans would say. However, dragons have a keen appreciation for beautiful things. In my opinion, Rake Danescu qualifies.”

  “So it’s okay if I go to lunch with him? Me being a SPI agent, and him being a . . . perpetual SPI suspect?”

  “I believe no harm will come from it. And contrary to what your perception of me may be, I have always been in favor of personal enjoyment.” There was a moment of silence. “Go and have fun, Makenna.”

  I smiled. “I’ll try, ma’am. Thank you.”

  Then there was silence. The normal kind.

  Vivienne Sagadraco had “hung up.” That was good, because I had no idea how to hang up, sign off, or whatever was the right way to end telepathic human/dragon communication.

  My phone beeped with an incoming text, and I glanced down at it.

  Rake.

  His message consisted of a single question mark.

  I bit my bottom lip. I still wasn’t sure about this.

  I typed: Still checking.

  Before sending, I proofed it to make sure auto correct didn’t change it to something pornographic.

  My phone beeped again almost immediately. I looked down.

  Coward. ; )

  Bastard. I thought it, and I was really tempted to type and send it.

  With most people, emoticons didn’t give you a visual, but I had no trouble seeing Rake’s crooked grin—or as we called it back home, a shit-eatin’ grin.

  Fine. I’ll go.

  When’s our reservation? I asked.

  Noon.

  If I was going to have lunch with him, I might as well throw caution to the wind as to how I was gonna get there.

  Send your car, I typed. I’ll be ready.

  While I was contemplating safety precautions, I thought of the most important one of all: I might want to hold off on telling Ian that I was going to lunch with Rake Danescu.

  * * *

  Kylie O’Hara was making the rounds of the morning news shows.

  Ian was standing with some other agents in front of one of the big TVs mounted on a section of wall. They were watching Kylie on Good Morning America. We’d all been through hell since Friday and Saturday, and most of us felt like it, and looked as bad as we felt.

  I couldn’t imagine Kylie slowing down, much less sleeping since Friday night. Sleep requirements must be different for dryads. Way different. In her dark slacks, ivory blouse—and yes, she was actually wearing a short forest green blazer—Kylie O’Hara looked like the fresh-as-a-daisy poster child for getting your beauty rest.

  My partner stood with the other agents but slightly apart from them. Though a little bit of space wasn’t all that separated Ian from the rest of the group.

  He was wearing a jacket and tie. Very spiffy. I’d seen him in a tie before, though it’d always been when he was going out on a—

  Date.

  I grinned. My partner had a date.

  I walked over and stood next to him, watching Kylie work her magic.

  She sounded mentally sharp, confident, and articulate as all get-out while explaining the elaborate hoax at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday night. The robbery wasn’t a hoax; that part was very real. But believing that the thieves were living, breathing, flying harpies?

  “I’ll leave finding the motive up to the experts—the men and women of the NYPD,” Kylie was saying. “I’ve explained some strange events, but even I’m at a loss to explain why thieves would go to that much trouble, risking mechanical malfunction, and end up not getting the diamonds they went to such great lengths to steal.”

>   I raised an eyebrow. “Mechanical malfunction?”

  Ian raised a hand. “She’s getting there. It’s worth the wait.”

  Kylie grinned, and her trademark dimple briefly popped into view. “I’m no jewel thief, but surely there must be an easier way to—”

  Ian leaned his head toward my ear. “Segue to the jewel thief turned author with his latest book . . .”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Ian chuckled. “Nope. He’s up next.”

  “Smoke and mirrors at its finest.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  Kylie launched into an explanation of animatronics, advances in robotics, and the latest in drone technology. She couldn’t understand why someone would do it, but she admired the technological brilliance it had taken to carry out the robbery. The Dragon Eggs had not been found, but Kylie was more interested in finding the robotic harpies and getting at least one of them into a lab to analyze the technology.

  The camera cut to a man in a chair next to her. A caption with his name and title appeared across the bottom of the screen, but Carl the ogre picked that moment to walk in front of the TV, so I missed it.

  “Dang it, Carl,” I muttered. “Who is he?” I asked Ian.

  “The vice president of Research and Development for a Japanese robotics company. He was on CNN last night. They’re offering a twenty-million-dollar reward for the delivery of one of the harpy drones to their New York office.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Is that for real?”

  Ian grinned. “As real as remote-controlled animatronic harpy drones.”

  “So this guy’s a fake?”

  “No, he’s the real deal, and so is his company. But he’s on our side.”

  I looked closer. I didn’t see an aura to indicate that he was a supernatural.

  Ian saw me squinting at the screen. “Not a supernatural. His lab is one of the many international corporations owned by Saga Partners Investments; that is, if you can dig down through the all the layers of holding companies.”

  Saga Partners Investments, the first letter of each, which happened to spell SPI, was owned by our very own Vivienne Sagadraco.