Veiled Menace

by Deborah Blake

  She fisted her hands into the pillows behind her. Goddess, what was that? Not merely a dream, that much she knew in her soul. A warning, perhaps? A vision? Please, let it not be so. She sent a brief heart-felt prayer up to the gods.

  Reaching out a shaking hand to turn on the light, she blinked in the sudden illumination, but felt no safer than she had in the darkness.

  “Are you all right, Donata?” Ricky poked his head around the half-open bedroom door. “I thought I heard you cry out.”

  Donata motioned him in, pulling the sheets up around her—more for comfort than out of any sense of modesty.

  “I had a nightmare,” she whispered. “A bad one.” She wiped her face on the edge of her sleeve, snuffling slightly.

  “Huh,” The Kobold said. “I guess so.” He disappeared for a minute, and then returned with a damp washcloth and a few tissues.

  “Thanks,” Donata said, her voice hoarse as if she’d been screaming for hours instead of sleeping. “I don’t know what brought that on.”

  Ricky tilted his head questioningly. “You didn’t drink any wine, did you? Or let Eastman give you anything else to eat or drink?”

  He perched on the edge of the bed and patted her knee. It was a measure of how shaken she felt that the gesture actually helped instead of getting on her nerves.

  “No, of course not. In fact, I didn’t let him get anywhere near me.” She shook her head, baffled. “I don’t see any way he could have done this. And if he could send me dreams without drugging me, you’d think he would have done that to begin with.”

  The Kobold looked, if anything, more concerned. “Could it have been a prophetic dream? A true sending?”

  Donata clutched the sheets closer. “We’d better hope not.” She paused, and then added, “I’m pretty sure I saw the end of the world.”

  Her small companion’s ruddy complexion turned pale.

  “Well then,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “I guess you’d better find out what the hell Anton Eastman was talking about, Missus. Because I don’t know about you, but I’ve got plans for next Thursday. And I’m not in the mood to have them ruined by some apocalypse.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Donata stooped to get a closer look at the Pentacle Pentimento, putting a hand on the base of her aching back. They’d been studying the painting and Raphael’s extensive notes all day, and she was starting to feel the effects of her broken night’s sleep.

  Peter had managed to clear the black blotch off the part of the painting that revealed the mysterious symbols Donata had previously mistaken for Cyrillic. They knew the coating would soon creep back to recover the pigments, so she and Peter were trying to get as good a look as possible before that happened.

  They’d already examined the sketches and photos Raphael had made of that section, but they were hoping a look at the painting itself would somehow make the symbols clearer.

  “It would help if there wasn’t that line through one of them,” she said, a hint of frustration creeping into her voice. Damn, but she really needed more sleep. “Do you think the line was something whoever painted it did by accident, or is it some side effect of that weird black splotchy stuff that was added later to try and hide the identity of the sixth race?”

  “No idea.” Peter leaned over her shoulder, his breath warm on her neck. He held a magnifying glass over the first of the three symbols, rendered unreadable by the silver slash that cut across it. Then he leaned in further, almost knocking Donata into the painting.

  “Hey, watch it!” she said, catching herself. Now that the curse that had been protecting the Pentimento was gone, removed by Friar Matthew before his untimely death, the picture was just as vulnerable as any other very old work of art.

  Ignoring her, Peter breathed in sharply. “Look at this,” he said, excitement making him tighten his grasp on Donata’s shoulder. “Tell me if you see what I see?”

  She slid her glance sideways and saw an avid gleam in his eyes. Suddenly wide awake, she looked through the magnifier at the spot he indicated. At first she wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but then she realized that the shape that bisected the symbol wasn’t just a random slash.

  “Son of a bitch!” she exclaimed. “Is that a sword?”

  Peter nodded, grinning at her. “I think so. Or maybe a long knife. And if that’s true, then I’m guessing that its placement is no accident.” He stood up straight, finally realizing he was holding on to her and belatedly letting go.

  Donata rubbed her shoulder absentmindedly. The man had quite a grip on him.

  “So why would there be a silver knife cutting through one of the symbols?” It was basically a rhetorical question.

  “Maybe it is an indication as to how to destroy that particular Paranormal race?” Peter went over to thumb through some of his father’s notes, leaving Donata standing alone in front of the painting. “After all, the Pentacle Pentimentos were originally designed as a teaching tool and a kind of ‘wanted poster’ for the Inquisitors of the Catholic Church. They contained both clues to the identification of the major Paranormal races and information on how to kill them. Isn’t that why both the Alliance Council and the Cabal were so hot to get their hands on the thing?”

  Donata scowled at the innocuous-looking, although less-than-attractive, picture. On the surface, it showed six people sitting around a campfire in a meadow. The black blotch had been covering the area over most of the sixth figure, and now revealed part of the hidden layer that caused the painting to be called a pentimento. Even without the odd section, the picture was dark and gloomy.

  “Yup. The Cabal wanted to use it to start a second Inquisition. And the Council wanted to make sure it didn’t fall into their hands, or provide anyone else with the means to ‘out’ the still-hidden Fae, Dragons, Ghouls, or Ulfhednar.”

  She fought the urge to simply destroy the damned thing, once and for all. In some ways, that would be a lot simpler. Not to mention a lot safer, since the only reason the Council and the Cabal weren’t breaking down the door to get it was because both sides believed it had been destroyed in the fire that killed Friar Matthew.

  If they ever found out it still existed, her life would go back to being the unholy hell of threats, ultimatums, and bloody battles it had been six months ago. No way was she going through that again.

  But Clive Farmingham, the museum restorer whose death during a robbery aimed at procuring the Pentacle Pentimento, had gotten Donata involved in the first place, had insisted the painting had to be preserved. Or else. According to Clive—or more accurately, Clive’s ghost—the Pentimento was the only way to identify the lost sixth race. A race that no one remembered. And which he swore was a dire threat to both Humans and all the other Paranormal races.

  Donata sighed and Peter came over to stand next to her. After a moment’s hesitation, he gave her a brief, one-armed hug before taking a step away again.

  “It doesn’t look like a ticking time bomb, does it?” he said quietly.

  She was hit by the abrupt realization that he must hate the thing as much as she did. After all, if Raphael had actually been murdered, it would have been as a direct result of his involvement with the Pentacle Pentimento. And yet, here they stood, still doggedly searching for answers.

  They must both be out of their minds.

  She gave herself a shake, as if that would clear her muddled head.

  “You know,” she said, reaching out to point at the three symbols, “these remind me of something I’ve seen somewhere recently. I just can’t think of where I saw them.”

  Peter perked up a little. “You’ve seen these markings? Can you remember the context?”

  She thought about it, wracking her memory. All she could come up with was dim lighting and the sound of voices in the background. That could be any number of places she’d been over the last few months.

  “S
orry. I’ve got nothing.” She sighed again, shoulders drooping. “It seems like we keep running into dead ends.”

  Peter reached up one hand to turn off the task light over the painting. Then he put a companionable arm around her and steered them both toward the stairs.

  “Let’s call it a day, shall we? I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere when we’re both so tired.” He didn’t add and discouraged, but the unspoken words hung in the air between them. “Maybe something will come to you if you relax and don’t try to force it. And I can do some research in the morning to see it there is any reference to a silver sword or knife tied somehow to the Paranormal races in Raphael’s library.”

  “Sounds good,” Donata said as the door to the concealed room slid shut behind them. “I guess I’ll head home, grab something to eat, and put my feet up.”

  Peter hesitated for a minute at the base of the stairs.

  “Um, you could stay for dinner. If you want to,” he said. His voice was carefully casual, as though he didn’t want her to think he cared about her answer one way or the other.

  But she was fairly certain he did. After everything they’d been through, and the unsettled nature of their current relationship, it couldn’t have been easy for him to make the offer. She wasn’t sure he’d ever make it again if she turned him down this time.

  Did she want to open that can of worms again? It seemed like she’d finally gotten over her attraction to him. Of course, she’d done it by dating a guy who’d turned out to be a crazy slip-something-into-the-wine wingnut, so maybe she was better off not taking the risk.

  “Donata?” Peter’s question made it clear she’d been standing there like an idiot with one foot poised to go up the stairs. Seemed symbolic somehow. What the hell, it was only dinner.

  “Sure,” she said, mimicking his unaffected tone. “Dinner sounds great. What are you cooking?”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Hades’ balls. If she’d known he could cook like this, she wouldn’t have hesitated.

  The decimated remains of a gourmet dinner lay on the kitchen table between them. Chicken breasts rolled in rum-drenched bread crumbs. A salad made of artichoke hearts and baby spinach with slivers of crisp almonds and delicate bites of mandarin orange. And a bottle of some white wine from his father’s cellars that washed away the bitter memory of Anton’s sour Chablis with ease.

  Maybe too much ease, considering they’d polished off an entire bottle between them and started on a second one. But hey, Raphael wouldn’t mind, what with the being dead and all, and it had been a long day. Week. Year. Whatever.

  She inhaled the delicious scents that still perfumed the air and let out a happy sigh. It was going to be hard to go back to leftover Chinese food tomorrow.

  “Do you want some desert?” Peter asked, smiling indulgently at her obviously blissed-out state. “I think there’s cheesecake in the fridge.” He got up from the table and started carting empty plates over to the sink. Elmyr snored softly from under Peter’s seat, belly distended from his own feast.

  Donata shook her head regretfully. “I would have left room if I’d known, but as it is, I’m pretty sure I’d explode if I ate another bite. How did you get to be such a good cook?”

  He chuckled. “When you have an appetite as relentless as mine, you have to learn to cook in self-defense.” A sober look replaced his merriment. “Of course, if I had known I was half-Dragon, that might have explained both the constant need for refueling and my love of fancy, elaborate meals.”

  Donata nodded in sympathy. Peter’s mother had kept his background a secret, even from him. Peter had only met Raphael—and discovered his unusual heritage—when Donata had gotten him involved with the Pentimento; putting Peter’s mother into unintended danger had led to her waking Raphael from his long hibernation to come to their aid.

  And now Raphael was dead, vanished out of Peter’s life as suddenly as he’d entered it. Leaving him with a few answers and a lot more questions . . . and no one to answer them. Poor guy. If he’d never met Donata, his life would have been a lot simpler, that was for sure.

  She took another gulp of the dry, fruity wine, trying to wash away the harsh flavor of her thoughts.

  “I’m sorry about your father,” she said into the silence.

  “Yeah, me too.” Peter lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “I suppose I should be grateful I got to spend time with him at all.” He clanked dishes together in the sink, unusually clumsy for a man who was normally so graceful.

  “So what are you going to do now?” she asked. “I know the Cabal trashed your apartment when they were chasing after us and the Pentimento. Are you going to get a new one that nobody knows about or stay here?”

  Peter’s apartment had been wonderful; warm and eclectic. But he was solitary by nature, and once too many people knew where he lived, he’d said he would have to find a new place. He liked to keep a low profile, both because of the rest of the Casaventi family’s fame as artists (a creative gift he didn’t share, much to his regret) and because of his secondary career as a forger.

  Or as he referred to it, a copyist. Like calling it something different made it any less illegal. Donata wished he’d stick to restoration, but now didn’t seem like the time to bring it up.

  “I haven’t made up my mind what to do about the apartment,” he said slowly. “I cleaned up the mess after I came out of my healing hibernation, so I could go back if I wanted to. But I do know I can’t stay here in Raphael’s house. It’s too flamboyant and grandiose for my tastes. Besides, it’s way too big for one person. At least, one person who’s not a full-blooded Dragon.”

  He put the last dish in the drainer and came to sit down at the table again, pouring the remains of the second bottle of wine into their glasses. Donata sipped hers slowly, hoping he’d had more of it than she had. The Dragon half of his physiology gave him a super-fast metabolism and made it impossible for him to get drunk. She had no such limitations, alas.

  Which was probably why she opened her big mouth and asked, “What about, um, the girl you were seeing? I’m sorry—your father told me about her, but he didn’t mention her name. Maybe you could ask her to move in?”

  She was amused to see a faint red flush move up his neck and stain his cheeks.

  “Natalie,” he said. “Her name is Natalie. And I wasn’t going out with her, exactly. Well, maybe I was, but it was mostly because Raphael really wanted to see us as a couple, and he kept throwing us together after I’d recovered from my injuries. He’d agreed to teach her as a favor to her father, a Dragon he knew from the old days. I guess Natalie and her dad didn’t get along, so she didn’t want to study Dragon history with him.”

  Dragon history classes. She couldn’t decide if that sounded horrendously boring, or like the coolest thing ever. “Gee, were there quizzes?”

  Peter snorted. “Believe it or not, yes. But it was still interesting to learn about what it means to be a Dragon. Explained a lot about why I am the way I am.”

  Donata nodded, thinking about what it would be like to suddenly discover you weren’t the person you thought you were.

  “So, is she pretty? Natalie?” Oh, shut up, Donata. Crap. Too late. Now she’d done it.

  He got up and walked over to the antique sideboard and came back with a picture in an ornate silver frame. In it, Peter and Raphael stood behind a petite woman with almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, and lustrous straight black hair. Pretty was an understatement. Damn it.

  “Wow,” Donata said inadequately. “She’s gorgeous.”

  “Yes, she is,” Peter said, putting the picture down on the table and giving Donata an enigmatic smile. “She is also rich, elitist, and extremely self-involved. Believe me, after a couple of days with her, it was clear to me that we’d never be a couple. But I couldn’t seem to get Raphael to understand that.”

  “Oh. I see.” Donata g
rinned at him for no particular reason, suddenly in a better mood. “Gee, that’s too bad.”

  “Uh-huh.” He frowned. “Of course, at the time I thought you had hooked up with Magnus as soon as I’d left, so I probably tried harder to make things work with Natalie than I might have otherwise.” His eyes darkened with anger or sorrow or both. “I still can’t believe Raphael lied to me about that.”

  Donata tried not to think about what he meant by “tried harder” but her brain still went to places she wished it had stayed away from. She pushed her almost empty wineglass away; no more for her. She needed to keep what was left of her wits about her.

  As if to prove her inner thought right, Peter said, “So what about you? Didn’t you say you were seeing someone too? Anyone I know?”

  Like he knew so many of the same people she knew. “I don’t think so—his name is Anton Eastman.”

  Peter’s eyes widened. “Anton Eastman? As in Eastman Enterprises? The billionaire businessman? That Anton Eastman?”

  Donata smothered a giggle at the shocked look on his face. “Yup. That’s the one.”

  “I thought he was supposed to be completely reclusive,” he said. “Wasn’t there some talk about people thinking he didn’t actually exist, since no one had ever seen him? I think there was even a theory that the company was secretly run by a bunch of guys all using one name.” Peter gazed at her with something like awe. “And you’re actually dating the guy?”

  Anger bubbled up beneath her breastbone like a fountain. “Not anymore,” she answered shortly.

  Peter looked up from his wine with an interested expression. “Really? What happened? It wasn’t because of me, was it?”

  Ha. You wish, Dragon-boy.

  “No, nothing like that,” Donata said. “I just found out that he was slipping a powerful herb into my wine whenever we had dinner. It was lowering my mental defenses so he could manipulate my dreams somehow. Asshat.”