My first experience with Lombardi was watching as he literally dragged some woman out of the building and tossed her on her ass. I still didn’t know what she’d done, people just shook their heads when I asked.
“Now that he’s taken care of, let’s focus on not getting one of the last remaining dragons killed,” Lombardi said.
“Wait,” I said, switching gears in my brain. “Last remaining?”
Lombardi cocked an eyebrow. “You know dragons are rare.”
I nodded. “Yeah, but I figured they were endangered rare, not critically endangered rare.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Critically would be only a handful. They’re pretty much gone.”
“Then consider dragons critically endangered. There are only twelve known dragons in the world now. Evidenced by how we are going above and beyond for Shanton, they’re severely protected.”
“He should be able to just munch on anyone who wants to kill him,” I grumbled.
“He could if he wanted to, but why should he when he has others willing to do the dirty work for him.”
“Spoiled.”
Lombardi chuckled. “That he is.”
Chapter 19
Brannon was awake when we went up to talk to him. I had expected Lombardi to push me out of the interrogation, but he didn’t say anything, so I followed. I needed to know what the little bugger thought he could get away with. And I was naturally nosy.
They put him into a small glass cage since he would just slip between the bars of a normal cell. The pixie sat slumped against the furthest wall, his wings twitching as he waited for his verdict.
The little guy had big brown eyes the color of Earth’s rich soil, his soft skin a glowing tan, hair a deep brown. He blinked those big brown eyes and I wanted to let him out and tell him everything was going to be okay. He played on a person’s instinct to protect the small, and he did a damn good job.
A couple of guards shifted on their feet, frowning at Brannon. I could see them war with themselves. They were confused. Didn’t know how to face the pixie. This was probably why he got away with more than he should have.
“Mr. Brannon,” Lombardi said, approaching the small cage like a man ready to set the pixie’s wings on fire. Brannon must have had the same thought because his wings fluttered slightly in agitation.
“Mr. Lombardi,” the pixie said in a high pitched voice, swallowing. His eyes widened even more with terror. He knew what he’d done. He knew this was the end.
The real question was, what kind of ending would it be?
“Don’t bullshit me,” Lombardi growled, Black Dog wanting to come back out to play. “Explain yourself.”
The pixie’s eyes flickered over everyone as we stared at him. We wanted answers.
“I just wanted to know I could,” he said in a squeaky voice. “I just wanted to know what I could do. I didn’t mean no harm.”
“No harm?” I asked, ignoring the glare Lombardi sent my way. “Do you understand exactly what it is that you did?” I asked him.
“Nothing to you,” he said back.
“The moment you entered my space, you hurt me. Someone who only needs to bat his eyes won’t understand what personal space means, what it means for someone like me. And even then, during the other two break-ins, you stole. You put this company at jeopardy, set people back months, maybe even years, all because you wanted to see if you could get away with it.”
“What did you do with the information and items you stole?” Lombardi asked, more than ready to take back control of the show.
The pixie couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes and realization fell heavy on my shoulders.
“Who did you sell it to?” I asked.
His eyes widened.
“Why did you think you could even get away with it? And the device you used? What was it?” I asked, remembering the little markings underneath the door panel.
“He sold his device to someone sketchy,” a guard spoke up, looking down at his phone. “The buyer is a man on our watch list. He said the device will allow him to slip through our wards without setting a single thing off. It’ll hide him completely.”
I glanced over at the man. He was big, wide all around, with piercing dark eyes, scruffy jaw, and shaggy hair. “The items he stole he sold to competitors for some extra bucks.”
A series of swearing was released around the room as guards processed what the man said. Lombardi’s jaw ticked with strain, his hands clenched at his side, his eyes starting to glow a little red. Red was never a good sign.
“You are no longer welcome here,” Lombardi said. A shiver crawled through my body as he spoke, the energy around us thickening and whirling around in response to their master’s words. Words held power and Lombardi was now proving he knew exactly how to wield them. “You have broken the agreement you signed coming into my fold and now you will be punished accordingly. For selling our items to our competitors, you are persona non grata in the security business. You will not find another job, not even as a janitor within this world. For selling your item to who we deem as a potential danger to one of our clients, I suggest you start running. You have five minutes to vacate my property and twenty-four hours to vacate this city. If anyone from my company sees you after the allotted time, they have permission to hunt you down and kill you. No laws will protect you on this.”
Lombardi broke out in a wide and dangerous grin. He even looked hungry. His smile reminded me of the human story of a girl named Alice and the creepy cat she met. He looked just like that cat.
The pixie made a gurgling noise, shaking his head in disbelief. “Please,” he said.
“Run,” Lombardi snarled.
A guard stepped forward and popped open the cage. The pixie ran. He fluttered past us faster than I could follow. And then he was gone.
Lombardi stood, chest heaving, hands clenched at his sides, eyes focused on where the pixie had been. No one moved; no one dared to.
Finally, he calmed enough to focus on his guards. “Give him twenty-four hours and then check on his home, tear it apart. Send trackers after him now to keep an eye out. I want to know the moment he leaves this city. Have Bertini help freeze his funds before the little bugger has a chance to move them. Dr. Porter, by the end of the day, I want a clear understanding of the device he used to break into the labs and a game plan to counteract that device before Shanton comes here on Friday.”
“Consider it done,” I said and left the room as he continued to give out more directions. I had my assignment, and I had resolve.
I wasn’t going to let a pixie be the reason a baddie slipped through and killed a dragon on my watch.
~ * ~
I went to my lab first to get a closer look at what the device had done to the door panel. I had a few ideas, but to be able to protect against his device, I needed to see exactly how he did it.
The two holes weren’t drilled into the wall but I couldn’t figure out how they were formed. They were too big to be from a hammer and nails. I reached over and touched the holes with my fingertips. My pinky finger could almost fit inside of them.
I leaned closer, trying to peer in. Deep. A few inches.
I backed away to get a bigger picture, and a small mark about half a foot below the holes caught my attention. The device had to be big, and it had left a scuff mark on the wall. Heavy?
What would the device do? How would it make it so the person using it could get through wards without detection? Or in my case, strip the ward away.
My eyes widened with possibilities, and I went inside my lab and got to work.
Hours passed quickly, exhaustion pulled at my eyelids, but I was close. So close. I didn’t think my creation was as big as what the pixie had, but the results would be the same.
I never thought I’d create something like this, but it felt right when I thought about the parameters the device would need to work properly. The device would sap the ward, suck it in, tearing it down, one magical molecu
le at a time.
The possibilities scared the shit out of me.
I sighed and stared at the little device and then tested it out one more time just to be sure. I was about eighty percent sure this was what the pixie used to get into the labs. I really hoped the odds favored the twenty percent.
“You figured it out,” Lombardi said, and I glanced at him. He had been standing there for the last ten minutes. I’d felt him the moment he stepped into the room.
“I did,” I said, exhaustion making my words thicker and heavier.
He straightened from the doorframe and walked toward me, his eyes taking in my expression. He frowned when he stopped in front of me.
“How bad?” he asked.
I swallowed. “All this device would need were a few tweaks to potentially kill a whole lot of people in a very short amount of time. What do you know about who he sold the device to?”
“A mage. A powerful mage.”
“What level?” I asked.
“Level A.”
“Designation?”
“A4.”
I nodded. Once powerful beings hit level A on the magic scale, we were split up further with numbers. The lower the number, the stronger you were. I was one of the strongest at A1, with only two others in the city with my level. A5 was the lowest level ranking.
“You think he’ll attack this weekend?” I asked.
“I don’t know. He’s on our watch list as one of the best mercenaries in the city. If given enough incentives, then yeah, he’ll attack.”
“You need to get that device back. He’s strong enough to make the appropriate changes, and if he does, I don’t think I want to be in the same city as him.”
Lombardi frowned. “As far as I know, he isn’t evil. Every assignment he takes on is just that, an assignment. He doesn’t do diabolical. He’s cold and ruthless, and likes to get up close. We’ll be fine.”
I narrowed my eyes. Lombardi was hiding something from me.
“Show me how this works and how we’re going to counteract it.”
“This one,” I said, pointing to the small device only big enough to fit in the palm of my hand, “can only do a small area, about a three feet radius. The holes in the wall are from when the device attached itself to the ward. It attaches to the ward and then acts as a leech, sucking up the ward, deconstructing it as it takes it in.”
“How can it be used to get into the building?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure. Having the device take out the entire ward would alert us right away and would be a ballsy way of breaking in. If done just right, they could probably create a small hole to slip through and then from the other side, fill up the hole again to hide their presence. I can do a little update on the ward to keep things moving. I think with Henzie’s help we can do some good.”
“Use him. Figure this out as soon as you can.”
With those last words, he stormed out of the room.
“Goodbye to you too,” I mumbled.
My phone buzzed, and when I pulled it out of my pocket, it was an unfamiliar number. I sighed, tempted to ignore it. I got a lot of cold calls from people wanting me to do one thing or another.
“Dr. Porter speaking,” I answered, prepared to tell the person to stop calling. “How may I help you?”
“Laila!” A deep, angry voice growled at me. “What the hell? Where did you send me?”
I blinked a couple of times as the discombobulated voice grew familiar. “Davies?” The tightness that had formed in my chest the moment I couldn’t find him loosened at his voice.
“Is there someone else you transported to the middle of bumfuck nowhere?” he snarled.
“Where the hell are you?” I asked, not bothered by his anger. If I were him, I would be pissed with me too.
There was some crackling on his end before his voice broke through. “Like I fucking know? All I know is I woke up and I’m in the middle of some small village where they don’t speak English.”
“Are... you... uh... still in America.?” My chest shook with laughter, and it was all I had in me to keep the humor out of my voice. Knowing he was alive and healthy and knowing he had a means to contact me allowed the humor to slip in.
“I don’t know!” he yelled, clearly more frustrated than angry. “For all I know, I’m in some backwoods cult village hiding out in the middle of the mountains. They were not happy when I woke up. I need to get out of here. I don’t even have service on my phone.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Hard.
“Laila!”
I kept laughing.
“You better I hope I don’t get back anytime soon,” he warned.
“All right, all right.” I sighed, calming myself down. “What’s the phone number?”
He didn’t say anything for a moment before spouting out a series of numbers that I scrambled to write down. The phone number didn’t even match the one on my phone. A few years back some guy had come up with a way for caller ID to show up with a dummy number, and people ate it up. Apparently, so did those living in bumfuck nowhere.
“We’ll find you, Davies. Just hang tight.”
He sighed, the phone cracking from his breath. “Just hurry. I think they are building a fire pit to roast me over.”
I laughed as I hung up and then dialed the number for our security men. When they answered, I went right into it.
“Have you managed to track the token?” I asked.
“Sorry, Dr. Porter. We are struggling to pick up the signal. He might be too far away. We’ve narrowed it down a little but there’s still a lot of land out there to search.”
“Which area?” I asked.
“The west,” the security guard answered.
“All right. He gave me a call. Can you trace a phone number for me?”
“Of course, Dr. Porter.”
I gave him the number.
“This is perfect. I’ll call you back when we have a location.”
“Great, thank you.” I hung up and just stood there for a moment.
I didn’t understand why the trap sent him to the west. No wonder he didn’t have service. And he was in a village. There weren’t cities out there. When America was first discovered, people moved west, but were never seen or heard from again. Investigation showed Nature fighting back. The land refused to be destroyed. The only other people out that way were Native Americans. They’d learned to live with the land and not against it. Roads barely existed. If any were put down, Nature came back and ate them up. If people tore down trees, the trees were sure to fall on top of them and then went back to standing upright. Once you crossed the Mississippi River, you had to be careful, gentle.
Beings learned to blend in with nature, to adapt, because that meant survival. Anyone out there had to give just as much as they took from nature. People loved it out there. Crazy bastards. Many of us didn’t like leaving the city here on the east coast. There were too many dangers out in the wild.
I knew I wouldn’t survive. I knew Lombardi would be perfectly fine, probably even feel like he was at home. Vampires didn’t like it out there, not enough food source for them. Shifters enjoyed it for holiday trips, but not to live. Their animals took over when they were out in the wild and staying there for a long time put their human sides at risk. If a shifter lost their humanity, they became wild.
Davies wouldn’t last an hour out there, and according to all evidence, he was right in the middle of it. Because of me. Guilt bloomed within. Davies was a human, a human with only a small dose of energy and my magic put him at risk.
Memories came out of nowhere, stealing my breath. Memories of hurting others on accident, of my incapability, my weaknesses, my slip ups.
“No,” I whimpered and covered my ears, wanting to block out the screams around me. Kids growing up in foster homes were troubled in their own ways, dealing with their own demons. But being a kid with uncontrollable magic? That was a whole different set of games. I constantly hurt others, not because I wante
d to, but because I didn’t know how to stop. Control. I lacked it sorely as a kid and as I grew older, so did my determination have it. I hadn’t had an incident like this since I was sixteen. Three years without putting others at risk and this was one streak I never wanted to break. Ever.
“Laila?” a calm voice grabbed my attention, and my head snapped up to meet gray eyes.
“Elliot?” I said and then cleared my throat. “What’s going on?” I asked.
He frowned, staring at me. I stilled, refusing to give anything away. I needed to prove that I could hold up to pressure, that I had full control over my issues and wouldn’t let it affect my work.
“Davies isn’t your fault. He’ll be okay.”
“He shouldn’t even be out there,” I said, keeping my voice bland.
Elliot shrugged. “He is, and we’ll fix it. Don’t dwell on the mistakes, just find a way to fix them. He’ll come back, you guys will laugh it off, and then you’ll move on.”
I looked away, focusing on a small stain on the floor. I’d need to clean that up before leaving.
My phone buzzed, and I answered it.
“Did you find him?” I asked in lieu of answering.
“Yes, we dispatched some griffins to go get him. He’ll be back by tonight.”
“Thank the Goddess,” I breathed out, all the worry dispersing inside me. I may have put up a brave face, finding entertainment in something bad, but that’s how I coped. Entertainment, laughing things off, it was how I survived. I couldn’t stay bleak for long, it would eat me alive. So I used humor as a weapon, and sometimes it was stronger than using a knife to defend myself. Other times, people got very angry with me.
After hanging up, I called the number Davies gave me. He answered on the second ring.
“They’re getting the fire nice and hot, and I’m pretty sure that giant looking guy is sharpening his blade. Please tell me good news.”
“Griffins are on their way to you now. Looks like you’re getting a nice little tour of the west.”
Magical Intentions Page 17