“Yeah,” I said, “but she’ll want me to find answers for her, and I don’t have answers yet.” I sighed. “And she wants this dealt with quietly. That’s why she handed it to a shadow agent and not Homeland Security. If I make a big noise about this, she won’t be happy.”
“We’ll see what we find tomorrow,” said Riordan.
“You’re right,” I said. I decided to change the subject. “I still can’t believe how Nora reacted to Della.”
“She does like Della’s music,” said Riordan. “She listened to it while we were driving all over New York today.”
“Huh,” I said. “Wouldn’t have guessed that. But Della seemed offended that I didn’t know who she was.”
“It’s a big world,” said Riordan. “You can’t know everyone.”
“I guess not,” I said. I sighed and rubbed his chest beneath his T-shirt. “I wish we were alone.”
I felt him smile in the darkness. “Why is that?”
I made an exasperated sound. “You know why. The others. They’d hear.”
“I doubt it,” said Riordan. “This building has very good soundproofing. And even so. We can be quiet.”
“Is that a challenge?” I said.
In answer, he gripped the hem of my T-shirt and pulled it over my head. “What do you think?”
We met the challenge. So to speak.
I think we were quiet. I supposed Della would realize from our scent what we had done tomorrow, but I decided not to care. She was a houseguest, and it’s rude for houseguests to point out they realized that their host was screwing his wife at one in the morning, isn’t it?
After we were done, I fell asleep at once, too tired (and satisfied) to care that I was still naked.
I awoke at eight AM the next morning, blinking the dim light from my eyes. Riordan was already up. The faint smell of bacon came to my nostrils, and I realized that he must have gotten up to make breakfast for our guests. I felt guilty over that, decided I had no rational reason to feel guilty, but then still felt guilty anyway.
I got up, showered quick, and dressed in jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt. I went out to the living room and around the corner to the dining room, intending to help Riordan in the kitchen. To my surprise, I saw Riordan, Della, Nora, and Shawn seated at the dining room table. Helen held a large skillet as she spooned eggs onto the plates.
“Good morning, Mrs. MacCormac,” said Helen. She offered me a sunny smile. “I made breakfast. It only seemed fair, since we imposed upon you last night.”
“Uh,” I said. I sat next to Riordan. “It wasn’t an imposition. Barely noticed you were here.”
“Yes,” said Della with a small smile. “It did not seem to trouble you at all.”
She had probably heard Riordan and me, damn it. Fortunately, she said nothing else on the subject.
“Mr. MacCormac said you prefer your eggs scrambled, with salt, pepper, and hot sauce,” said Helen, passing me a plate. There was already a bottle of hot sauce at my plate and several strips of bacon next my eggs.
“Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t think we had eggs left in the fridge.”
“We didn’t,” said Riordan. “Helen ordered some from a grocery delivery service.”
“Lady Delaxsicoria even helped cook,” said Helen.
Della’s smile was wider this time. “You’ve never had bacon until you’ve eaten bacon cooked by dragon fire.”
I looked at the bacon, shrugged, and took a bite. It was really good.
“Thanks,” I said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“A small token of my gratitude for letting us stay here last night,” said Della. I upended the bottle of hot sauce and poured a liberal amount over the eggs.
Nora raised an eyebrow. She looked a little better this morning, though I wondered what eating an entire large meat pizza had done for her digestion. But knowing what a Shadowmorph did to its host’s metabolism, maybe it hadn’t upset her stomach at all. “Hot sauce on eggs? Is there anything you won’t put hot sauce on, tigress?”
“Coffee,” I said, and I demonstrated by taking a sip. “What’s the plan?”
“We finish breakfast,” said Riordan, “and then we proceed to the art gallery and start looking through Lord Malthraxivorn’s records. Hopefully, that will give us a starting point.” His face hardened. “Then we’ll head to the warehouse. If Neil’s there, we’ll be ready to deal with him this time.”
We finished breakfast, and I got ready for what we had to do. Riordan had given me a ballistic armor vest designed to deflect both bullets and claws for an engagement present, and I donned it over my sweatshirt. It fit well enough that I could pull on my motorcycle jacket over it, and together they gave me some protection from claws and fangs. I had gotten ripped apart every day for a hundred and fifty years, and I wasn’t eager to repeat the experience. The ballistic plates could also deflect bullets.
Though I doubted they would do anything against a blaster. Still, some protection was better than none.
I concealed a semiautomatic pistol beneath my coat, and tucked two more and their accompanying gun belts into my backpack, along with additional ammunition. I couldn’t walk around in public with a pistol on either hip, but if we wound up fighting our way into Sarkany’s warehouse, I wanted to be ready.
“Mrs. MacCormac?” said Helen as I loaded up my backpack in the living room.
“Hmm?”
“I saw the magic you used against the cyborg,” said Helen. “Why do you need so many guns?”
“Because,” I said. “They’re useful. You can threaten someone with a gun a lot more easily than by telling them you can cast magic.” I grinned at her. “I’m even shorter than you are, so people assume I’m harmless. A gun to the face persuades otherwise pretty quickly.” I shrugged. “And sometimes pulling a trigger is quicker and easier than casting a spell.”
When we were ready, we headed downstairs. Della, Helen, and Shawn returned to her SUV, while I followed Riordan and Nora to his vehicle.
“You get in the front,” I said to Nora as I opened the back passenger-side door. “Your legs are longer.”
“Why, thank you,” said Nora. She paused. “You’re being suspiciously nice to me, tigress.”
“I’ve been shot before,” I said, slinging my backpack into the SUV and following it into the back seat. “It’s no fun. Though I’ve never been shot by a particle weapon.”
“It’s an experience I hope you avoid, tigress,” said Nora.
“Aw, that’s so sweet.”
We drove across Manhattan. It was a little after ten in the morning by then, and the worst of rush hour was over. Riordan and Nora talked about Shadow Hunter business, about accounts and assets and other things, but I listened with only half an ear. My mind kept turning over all I had learned. Sarkany. Neil. Cyborgs. Catalyst Corporation. I remembered Nora’s joke about how this was the second time I had walked into a problem with old technology. God, what had I stumbled into now?
I wondered what Nicholas Connor would have done with a cyborg fighter like Neil.
Hell, forget Neil. What would Nicholas have done with a blaster? Elves were immune to bullets, but maybe they weren’t immune to particle weapons. If Catalyst Corporation had been working on creating soldiers like Neil and weapons like the blaster, maybe that explained why the High Queen had shut them down so hard.
About a half hour later we arrived at the building housing Dragon Imports Art Gallery. Riordan followed Della’s SUV into the parking ramp, and we parked at the lowest level. I got out and looked around, my neck itching. I had a feeling of impending trouble, and I half-expected anthrophages to burst out of the parked cars and attack.
Some of that, I knew, a lot of that, was just my usual paranoia.
On the other hand, I was investigating lost technology with a dragon and two Shadow Hunters, so maybe a little paranoia was healthy.
Riordan got out of the SUV, looked at me, squeezed my hand. I felt a little steadier.
&nb
sp; “Ready?” he murmured.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Nothing gets me fired up like investigating financial documents.”
“Really?” said Helen, giving me a puzzled look.
I grinned at her. “I am, on occasion, sarcastic.”
“Just on occasion?” said Nora. “You’re slipping, tigress.”
Della walked to join us, the heels of her boots clicking against the concrete. Despite her casual clothes and the burned patch on the shoulder of her sweatshirt, she somehow managed to look regal. “Let us proceed. I am most anxious to learn the truth of this matter.”
I started to say that I was, too, but I wasn’t trying to find the truth behind the murder of a beloved relative. I shut up and only nodded.
See? I can be diplomatic. On occasion.
We crowded into the elevator to the lobby, and Della unlocked the front doors to the art gallery. Riordan’s head turned back and forth as we crossed the gallery. I thought he was watching for enemies, but I realized that he was both doing that and taking a quick look at the exhibits about bogatyr-themed artwork. I supposed that he found that kind of historical stuff interesting.
All at once I resolved that once this was over and the gallery was reopened, I was going to bring Riordan here. He would enjoy looking at the artwork, and he would also read every word of every single plaque. I wanted to do something nice for him, something that he would enjoy. I always felt a little guilty that he seemed to do more for me than I did for him. Sometimes more than a little guilty.
I pushed that out of my head. Brooding about my personal failings during a job was a great way to mess things up.
We reached the second floor and came to Max Sarkany’s office door. It was closed and locked, but Della produced a key, unlocked it, and stepped inside.
And came to a sudden stop, her posture radiating anger.
The spacious office hadn’t changed since my visit yesterday. Except the papers on the desk were in disarray, and a bald middle-aged man in a suit stood behind the desk, scowling as he rummaged through the documents. His head snapped up in surprise as he saw us, and his eyes went wide.
“Lady Delaxsicoria?” he said.
“Mr. Edina,” said Della. “Why the hell are you going through my uncle’s papers like that?”
Charles Edina flinched again, and I saw him pull himself together. “I…I…the operations of Dragon Imports must continue, even with Lord Malthraxivorn’s death, my lady. We…”
“Dragon Imports was my uncle’s,” said Della. “But my uncle is dead. Dragon Imports is now mine. Which means you do nothing without consulting me first! Why are you pawing through those papers?”
“My lady, I…” Edina looked at us. “Who are all these people?”
I grinned my humorless grin at him. “Auditors.”
Nora snorted, once.
“My uncle was murdered,” said Della. “And when I went to visit his warehouse, the murderer attacked and nearly killed me.” She made a dramatic gesture in my direction. “If not for my new friends, I would have been killed. There is something rotten within Dragon Imports, Mr. Edina. Someone within it betrayed my uncle to his death. And I will have answers.”
“Betrayed?” said Edina. “But…but…surely you can’t think I had anything to do with this?”
“Mr. Edina,” said Riordan, stepping forward. His voice was polite, but his face was like stone. He used that expression when he was trying to intimidate someone. To judge from the sweat that appeared on Edina’s forehead, it was working. “Are you familiar with a book called the Summoning Codex?”
Edina flinched. “It’s…a banned book of illegal magic. The Inquisition arrests anyone who is caught with a copy.”
“Someone within Dragon Imports sold two copies of the Summoning Codex to a store called Songstress Books & Antiques in Brooklyn,” said Riordan, his face hardening further. It was neat how he managed to look so calm and so angry at the same time. Neat, and a little intimidating. “The store’s owner used one copy to summon an anthrophage from the Shadowlands and got himself killed in the process. The other copy was sold to a businessman who murdered fourteen people.”
Edina shook his head. “That’s impossible. That’s impossible. No one in the company would be that stupid. No one…”
“What do you think will happen when the Inquisition gets word of this?” said Riordan. “Lord Malthraxivorn may have been a dragon, but that will not protect his employees from investigation. The Inquisition will examine Dragon Imports from top to bottom, and any wrongdoing will come out.”
“If you know anything about this matter,” said Della, her voice implacable, “you will tell us about it now.”
“My lady, I don’t know…” started Edina.
“Enough!” thundered Della, her voice so loud that I swear the windows vibrated. Golden light flashed along her body, her shapeshifting spell reacting to her temper. “Do you think you can lie to me, Edina? I can smell the deceit oozing through your sweat! You will tell me everything you know, or by God, you will regret it.”
“You can’t…you can’t threaten me,” said Edina. “I work for Lord Malthraxivorn, not…”
“Lord Malthraxivorn is dead,” said Della, “murdered by whoever sold those books. I repay loyalty with loyalty, Edina. But I repay treachery and deceit with pain. You will tell me what I want to know, or I swear I shall rip the truth out of you.”
I saw all the fight go out of Edina. It was like watching a balloon deflate.
“All right,” he whispered. “All right. I had hoped…I had hoped we could clean this up without any mess. But this is a disaster. I…I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to save the company.”
“Perhaps you should start from the beginning,” said Riordan.
Edina produced a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “Yes. Um. Well, Lord Malthraxivorn lived in the Russian Imperium for several decades, and he developed quite an appreciation for Russian art. A few years ago, he decided to have an exhibition of Russian artwork at the gallery. Lord Malthraxivorn has a network of agents and scouts in the Russian Imperium and Eastern Europe who look for interesting artworks and artifacts for him. It was all routine at first…but then one of the scouts found that old base in the Ural Mountains.” He paused. “My lady Delaxsicoria…have you ever heard of an organization called Catalyst Corporation?”
“I have learned a little about them in the last few days,” said Della. “Perhaps you should tell me what you know about the corporation.”
Edina hesitated. “There…is not very much about them in any of the public records. Lord Malthraxivorn did some research. He had some friends in the Inquisition or among the Elven nobles who told him more, but even they wouldn’t say much. Catalyst Corporation specialized in medical technology. Apparently, they were the best in the world and possessed devices more advanced than anything we have today. The High Queen shut them down about a hundred and ninety years ago. From what Lord Malthraxivorn gathered, the leaders of Catalyst Corporation tried to overthrow the High Queen, but their attempt backfired and caused a catastrophe that killed millions of people.”
“Makes sense,” I said, uneasy. I could just imagine Tarlia’s fury. The High Queen had told me herself that she could forgive almost anything except betrayal. She hadn’t needed to tell me that. I had seen it firsthand. Morvilind and I had directly caused the death of her son Prince Valcander, and while Tarlia had mourned for his death, she hadn’t been angry.
Valcander had betrayed her, after all.
“This facility in the Ural Mountains was once a Catalyst Corporation laboratory?” said Riordan.
“I believe so,” said Edina. “I am not sure, but I think it was once a secret facility. Only the leaders of the corporation would have known about it, and they were executed before they could divulge its location.” Something similar had happened with Last Judge Mountain during the Conquest. The High Queen was more merciful than Morvilind, but she had also learned ruthlessness from him, and somet
imes she emulated him too well. “Its location was forgotten until one of my lord’s treasure hunters stumbled across it by accident. He realized he had found something unique and sold it to Lord Malthraxivorn for quite a lot of money.”
“Did Malthraxivorn know what he had found?” I said.
“I…am not sure,” said Edina, giving me an odd look. Maybe he had just expected me to stand there and glower at him. “He was not one to share his secrets unless he thought it necessary. But…I believe that he knew that he had found something dangerous. He told me that once all the disruption from the Rebel attack and the opening of the Great Gate to Kalvarion had settled down, he was going to approach the High Queen with his discovery.”
“He was just going to give it to her?” I said. “Not try to sell it?”
Edina shrugged. “The High Queen is powerful, and she can bestow rewards that mere money cannot buy.”
That was the truth. She had obtained my service by having Russell’s frostfever healed, and even if I had owned every dollar in existence, I still wouldn’t have been able to buy a cure for his illness.
“We found the man who killed my uncle,” said Della. “Can you tell us anything about him?”
Edina gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know who killed your uncle, my lady.”
“He called himself Neil,” said Riordan, and a flicker of recognition went through Edina’s eyes. “About six feet tall. Blue eyes, close-cropped hair. Usually wears a dark jacket, jeans, and work boots. If you heard him speak, he had a noticeable British accent.”
“Oh,” said Edina. “You mean Neil Freeman?”
I shared a look with Riordan and Della.
“You know him?” I said.
“I know of him, rather,” said Edina. “I saw him a few times when I accompanied his lordship on visits to the Brooklyn warehouse. Freeman never spoke, and I never saw him outside the warehouse. When I asked Lord Malthraxivorn about him, he said that the man’s name was Neil Freeman and that I shouldn’t concern myself about his presence.” Edina gave that helpless shrug again. “I assumed he was the treasure hunter who had found the Catalyst technology for his lordship.” His mouth twisted. “The treasure hunters are often persons of…dubious background, legally speaking. Mr. Freeman certainly looked the part.”
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