by Jenn Stark
I glared back at him. “I find things, Brody. Totally on the up-and-up.”
Okay, technically about thirty seconds after I found something…I stole it. But, details.
He didn’t back down. Instead he edged closer to me. “What aren’t you telling me?”
More than he could ever imagine. “Back off, Detective. People are starting to stare.”
To his credit, Brody didn’t flinch, and he didn’t move. “And what would your new friend think about me being this up close and personal with you, Sara? Would he have a problem with that?”
“Not in the slightest, I can assure you.” Kreios had appeared at our side, so quickly and silently that I jerked back, though Brody’s reaction was more natural. Kreios draped his arm over my shoulder, his touch once more electric, lighting my nerve endings on fire. “If you would be interested in getting up close and personal with both of us, Detective, allow me to give you my card.”
“I know how to find you.”
“Of that I have no doubt. But if you’ll excuse us.”
Without waiting for Brody’s response, Kreios turned me back to the center of the room. “That was bracing.” He slanted me a glance. “Do you want me to share with you Detective Brody Rooks’s most pressing desires? Or can you guess?”
Chapter Seventeen
We stopped in front of the nearest case. I shook my head. “If only you used your powers for good.”
“Too boring. But here, this is interesting.” He lightly tapped the case, his fingerprint-less fingers not leaving a smudge. “What do you notice?”
“A pile of old gold.” Then I frowned, peering closer. “That’s a wolf marking. At least on that one coin.”
“The rest are similarly marked, but the artful tumble of coins makes it hard to discern.” He nodded. “And this tiara. A truly fine piece wouldn’t you say? Austrian, as it happens.”
I frowned at him, then squinted at the gold again. “The placard says it was found in a basement, original ownership unknown.”
“Let’s just say that I’ve long had a personal interest in beautiful things.” He gestured to another case, filled with a gleaming panel of intricately worked gold and amber shaped into a cross. “These all came from the same location.”
I frowned at the ornate Russian cross. “But they’re different sellers.”
“Shell houses. Though no one is questioning it, not this year.” Kreios nodded. “This year, buyers are less choosy. Many of these pieces are reworked bits of old gold and jewels that were never part of the original pieces.”
“But reworked gold is less valuable.”
“Correct, in most markets, if that was the gold’s sole attribute. It’s not. Not here. Not among these people, this year.” He pointed back to the original pile of gold. “It’s a werewolf, if that helps.”
It didn’t. I frowned, searching back in my memory banks for a reference to werewolf gold. When I came upon it, I blinked. “No.”
“Indeed,” Kreios said with satisfaction. “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. There is a great deal of stolen gold stored away in the coffers of the very, very rich. Gold that is now getting sold in the face of an immediate need for other things that money can buy. Perhaps protection, perhaps technology. Either way, this is a prime example of that kind of sell-off. Someone is off-loading their Nazi hoard at the Rarity. Quickly and completely. And these collectors know it. The savvier ones anyway.”
“But anyone could see this, anyone with knowledge of the missing artifacts. It’s in the open—even the general public got an eyeful today.”
“People see what they want to see, sometimes. And sometimes they see what they’re expected to see.”
I stared at him. “Armaeus?”
He smiled. “Not this time.” Kreios waved his hand in front of the case again, and a queasy shift of vertigo hit me, the sense of the seeing double. When I looked again at the gold, it seemed almost the same. Almost, but not quite. There were no marks on it anymore, and the tiara appeared strangely…plainer. “What was that?”
“Techzilla, Inc. again. A very sophisticated system. Unfortunately, illusions are my stock-in-trade, and the system does not work on me. Regrettable, truly. It’s the closest anyone has come to success. I very much hope to meet the owners of the company soon.”
I blinked at him. “You don’t know them?”
“They must reach out to us first. One of the many failings of the Arcana Council’s policy of ‘look but don’t touch.’ Any research into intellectual property must be at the hands of willing volunteers. Quite tedious, as you can imagine. If Socrates had agreed to meet with us sooner…” He glanced up. “Ah. Jarvis Fuggeren has arrived. We should pay our respects.”
“Why? Did someone die?”
“He has a weakness for fine scotch and women. Especially women who taste of fine scotch.”
In my hand, my champagne glass swirled with a dark amber liquid. “I hate it when you do that.” I took a sip, allowing the scotch to burn its way down my throat. “Okay, I don’t hate it completely, but I still don’t approve.”
“Your brain is the most sensitive organ in the body. Who’s to say an illusion appearing powerfully real is not, in fact, real?”
“You really need to work on your pick-up lines.”
We made our way toward Jarvis Fuggeren. It was no easy task, as he was clearly the man of the hour. He stood next to the display containing the gold scroll cases, smiling for the cameras, answering questions in a jovial, expansive way. Yes, this gold had been in his family for generations. Yes, he was looking forward to allowing a new owner to experience the joy of possessing it. No, he didn’t need the money—but neither did he need the gold.
This earned him a large laugh, and most of the crowd moved on, the Rarity’s hired videographers gathering B roll and setting up shots with the other sellers.
I took a moment to survey the scroll cases, unable to keep from tensing up, though their power had clearly been muted by whatever Techzilla had done to the tempered glass. Up close and without their full power, the artifacts were nondescript, a set of golden scroll cases carved with Egyptian symbols. Pretty, yes, but pretty in the way that most Egyptian tombs were. You got the feeling that the good stuff had probably been emptied out of the slender cylinders long ago, and all that was left was a memory of greatness past. Still, even I could sense the long-ago importance of the scroll cases, and there was no denying that they were beautiful representations of Egyptian art. Old Kingdom, unless I missed my guess, and I rarely missed my guess. It was part of what made me so good at my job.
In another life, perhaps I would have been a museum curator or an art historian. A life where I’d finished high school in person and not online. A life where I hadn’t spent five years with a flock of retirement-age RVers crisscrossing the country, one KOA camp at a time. A life where I didn’t keep looking over my shoulder, expecting bad guys who never came.
By the time we reached Fuggeren, the level of the scotch in my glass had dropped precipitously.
“Kreios! They told me you would be here.” Fuggeren strode forward and embraced the Devil, then turned his attention to me. “And leave it to you to monopolize one of the most lovely women in the room. You are?”
He extended a hand to me, and I grasped it, surprised at the flutter of energy that passed between us. Jarvis Fuggeren was a Connected.
Not of the highest order, nothing like Kreios and Armaeus. But he was powerful on a level that seemed almost…metallic, and my nerves started to jangle. Enhanced on technoceuticals? Was this the aberration Danae was so against, or was I simply too strung out to “see” straight?
“Sara Wilde,” Kreios helpfully supplied. Meanwhile, I blinked at Fuggeren, trying to process what I was feeling.
For his part, Fuggeren leaned forward and bussed a kiss along my cheek. Whether he smelled the scotch or was impressed by my sterling personality, he certainly seemed happier for it.
“It is my absolute pleasure to make your acquaint
ance, Ms. Wilde. I feel that I must know you from somewhere, but how can that be?”
Kreios interrupted smoothly. “Sara has been gracious enough to find a number of artifacts for me on occasion. Gold plates, some jewelry, a bowl of uncertain provenance.”
“Not uncertain to you, I suspect.” Fuggeren eyed Kreios keenly. “And what are you interested in buying here?”
The Devil shrugged. “There is much to recommend itself. I find the preponderance of Nazi gold interesting, don’t you?”
“The…” Fuggeren turned to the cases and paused, considering. I manfully tried to not roll my eyes as the two of them strutted for each other. The music had picked up and was now slightly irritating. It wasn’t any song I’d ever heard before, nor was it Muzak or classical, exactly. It seemed to run together and around itself, growing louder, then softening out, impossible to track but equally impossible to ignore.
I left Fuggeren and Kreios to their posturing and wandered down the long rows of cases. The collection truly was a fine example of historical art, from the crowns and gauntlets of medieval times, to more classic statuary. Gold was a soft metal, easily molded and melted, and some of the pieces showed the wear of time. Others, however were pristine, and one particular set held my fascination.
Crafted in a pale, almost white gold, multiple torques and bracelets glinted from one of the lesser-positioned glass boxes. The filigreed artwork covering it seemed less form than function. The intertwining branches of trees, horns, snakes, and dogs linking up to become clasps and hitches, hooks and eyes. It all shone up from a rich emerald velvet so deeply green it was almost black, and it was arguably the most beautiful set of artifacts in the room, for all that it was off the beaten path.
“Lovely, is it not?”
If the man’s presence hadn’t made my skin crawl already, his voice certainly would have done so, and I schooled myself not to stiffen. His laugh showed me I needn’t have worried about proprieties.
“I see my reputation precedes me. How nice that we can celebrate such fine artwork like adults, however, regardless of our personal differences.”
I turned to him. Grigori Mantorov exuded unctuous arrogance, but there was no denying his charisma. I held out my hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“We have not, Miss Wilde. But you may rest assured your reputation precedes you as well.”
“Unwarranted, I’m sure.” I flashed him a smile, but something niggled at the back of my brain. A warning, a flash of alertness. Mantorov placed his hand in mine for a moment, yielding two insights. Connected, check. Enhanced, not even slightly.
“Not so unwarranted as that,” Mantorov said. He flashed teeth slightly crooked and yellowed, an anomaly in his otherwise immaculate presentation. “You and I often go after the same things. I happen to get them more frequently than you do, and in greater supply.”
I knew he wasn’t talking about the typical cargo I found for clients, but about the young Connecteds who I recovered from the hands of dark practitioners. “I don’t understand why you get them at all.”
“Which is why you will never be quite strong enough to stop me, isn’t it?” Mantorov turned to the case. “Similar to the druids in the wake of the Roman invasion. Those men and women were powerful, mighty. There was no reason for them to fall to their southern assailants, yet fall they did. You want to know why?”
“Why do I suspect you’re going to tell me?”
“An educated audience is refreshing, I must admit. Allow me to continue yours. The druids had many powers, many skills. Their oral tradition was rich with abilities that were lost not more than a generation later. So they could have spoken the words of power, could have turned the tide. But they were afraid. They were not willing to put themselves up as gods among men, a model Caesar had already ably demonstrated, that even the monarchs of old before him had done. The druids were in service to a humbler divinity, a nobler divinity, perhaps you could say, but one who commanded them to always follow, never lead. And thus they were doomed to fail.”
He leaned closer. I could feel the darkness encroach against my psyche. “Just as you are doomed to fail, Sara. I may call you Sara, yes? It’s what so many of the children do.”
I moved so quickly that I didn’t realize what I was doing at first, grabbing Mantorov’s hand and bending his little finger back hard enough to break, but not quite. Bone crunched and the pain that shot across the bastard’s face was invigorating.
“I’m thinking you’re not so different from the druids after all,” I said, releasing him and patting his lapel. “You won’t win this one in the end.”
He straightened his tie, a little paler, refusing to massage his abused digit. But his eyes had gone flat and black, pieces of coal. “I will, actually. I’ll always be the one willing to say the words that must be spoken. You and those like you will not.” He glanced to where Fuggeren and Kreios stood, arguing like frat boys. I didn’t feel up to explaining that Kreios was nothing like me.
The music swelled again in a sharp crescendo, and a cry of pain sounded from across the room.
Annika Soo stood in the middle of a knot of well-dressed partygoers, but the sneering disdain had been wiped from her face. Instead, her hands were at her ears, her lips pale and bloodless. She was staring at me—no. She was staring at Mantorov.
“I am impressed, though.” Mantorov was next to me again. “Your stamina is stronger than I would have given you credit for. The others have already left. Annika, well, she always had a thing for pain. It’s one of her greatest attributes. And Jarvis is no more gifted than a potted plant, despite his enhancements. As for Kreios, it appears he is more collector than Connected, though that is a pity. I had such higher hopes for him.
A liveried staff member helped a now almost incoherent Soo out of the room. She didn’t make it, swooning before she reached the door, caught by another attendant. I scanned the room again. Brody stood at the door, scowling at Soo, then Kreios. Then his gaze swung to me.
“Now, I think,” Mantorov murmured beside me.
As if the music’s soundtrack suddenly lost its balance, the haunting streams intensified, and something deep inside my brain simply—shattered. I clapped a hand over the base of my skull, pitching forward, while around the room a dozen cases exploded outward. The lights blanked out.
Suddenly, the unadulterated power of the scroll cases billowed out toward me again, sending me to my knees, then flat on the ground. Screams erupted immediately and emergency lights swept on, weirdly amber. I clutched my ears, my lungs compacting, my brain desperately trying to explode out of my skull.
Around me, running footsteps and rushing bodies devolved into a macabre dance. I managed to roll to the side, and glass shattered again around me, other cases giving way. Those were not the important ones I knew, however. Those were not the targets of Mantorov’s attack.
The scroll cases were.
“Kreios—” I tried, but the words were stuck in my throat along with my breath, and it wasn’t Kreios in front of me at all, but the worn dress trousers and sensible shoes of the man I knew too well, once upon a time. Too well and not at all.
“Sariah—Sara. For Chrissakes.” Brody leaned down and half scooped, half hauled me upright, trying to steady me on my stiletto boots, and gradually my sight cleared and I could breathe again. “What the fuck just happened to you?”
The police were evacuating the room from the two entrances, and I stared around blearily. Kreios was gone. Mantorov was gone. Fuggeren stood over his case, his fury evident despite his pallor, his shaking hands, his gasping breath. No matter what Mantorov thought, there was ability with Jarvis Fuggeren, and that ability was crippling him now.
But the scroll cases were gone.
Not only the scroll cases either. Samplings of the other gold had been taken as well, the careful stacks knocked over like children’s broken forts. Enough from each of the cases to seem like it was an equal opportunity theft, but anyone with eyes to see would know the trut
h.
Brody shook me. “Please tell me you had nothing to do with this.”
He sounded disgusted with himself, and I realized once the shock and vertigo were wearing off that something else had changed too.
“The music,” I said, blinking hard. There wasn’t any smoke, but I would have sworn there had been smoke. Then again, a few moments ago, I would have sworn a lot of things. “The music shut off.”
“Total momentary power outage—or surge, something,” Brody explained. “The entire casino went dark for about five seconds when the glass exploded. Security team from Techzilla is going apeshit, but the grid reported no hiccup. It simply —happened. But when the lights came back up, the music didn’t. Good riddance, you ask me.” He shook me again. “I’m going to ask you again—”
“I didn’t have anything to do with this,” I said, shrugging him off. “Where’s Mantorov?”
“Everyone is being evacuated and searched, held downstairs for questioning. You took a while to wake up.”
I scowled at him. “You don’t really think he’s going to wait around for that, do you? That any of them are?”
“No. But you are.”
“I’ve got places to go.”
“The hell you do,” Brody growled. “Don’t make me arrest you, Sara. I’ve been ready to do it since the first moment I saw you.”
“Remain there, Miss Wilde. There is nothing gained in drawing suspicion. I’ll collect you when you’re done.” The words soared through me, firm and assured, at once invigorating and exasperating.
The Magician.
You owe me, I thought, very clearly.
“In more ways than you can possibly know.”
Chapter Eighteen
It took me another four hours to be released from the careful ministrations of the LVMPD. Jarvis Fuggeren had been at the station the whole time, taut and furious, and though he hadn’t said a word to me, he hadn’t had to. His stare had spoken volumes.
He wanted his artifacts back. He knew that I could get them.