Emerald Blaze Read online

  He waved me off. “Stop worrying.”

  I turned and headed for the elevator.

  It was so simple to say. Stop worrying about this. Stop worrying about that. It will be fine. But often it wasn’t fine. Sometimes I felt like a spider who’d spun a web across a bottomless drop. My family was walking across, balancing on hair-thin strands, and it was my job to keep them from falling.

  Of all the ritzy neighborhoods in Houston, River Oaks was the most exclusive and the most expensive. The minimum home price ran upward of three million, and yard space was worth its weight in gold. Common wisdom said one should never own the nicest house in the neighborhood. Linus Duncan didn’t give a damn.

  The ostentatious mansions rolled past the armored window as the Rolls Royce Cullinan glided up the picturesque road. In the driver’s seat, Pete checked the rearview mirror for the seventh time since I started counting. Six feet three inches tall, with pale skin and light hair cropped short, he was in his late forties. He could throw me over his shoulder, run eight hundred meters at full speed in under three minutes, set me down, do forty pull-ups, then drop and do fifty push-ups. He also fired a gun with deadly accuracy and could kill a skilled opponent with his hands, which was why he was one of two people Duncan trusted with his personal safety. And now Pete was cautious.

  I didn’t ask why. The home defense turrets Linus made emitted a specific sound, a magic twang, followed by the crack of a bullet leaving the barrel. Once you heard it, you never forgot it. I hadn’t imagined hearing it during our phone call. Whatever had happened wasn’t good. Pete had to concentrate on keeping me safe, and nobody won if I made his job harder by asking questions. I texted Runa Etterson instead.

  Six months ago, we had helped Runa find her kidnapped sister and avenge her mother’s murder. Runa had been working on her postgraduate degree at UCLA. But now both her sister and her brother needed a lot of support, and therapy, and reassurance. Their life was here in Houston, and she’d decided not to force them to abandon everything by dragging them to California. A great deal of paperwork later, she walked away from her research at UCLA and ended up starting over at Rice. I saw her every week and her siblings, Ragnar and Halle, every other week or so. For the first time in my life, I had a best friend. It was weird as hell.

  I need a favor.

  The phone chimed back. Shoot.

  Do you know anybody doing work on merging of organic matter and metal? I need something assessed and I have to keep it quiet.

  Linus?

  Yes.

  Runa had been at the center of the investigation into her mother’s death. She’d very quickly figured out that Linus and I were connected; she’d watched me stumble, shell-shocked, through my first couple of cases, and she’d grown more and more worried. Eventually I broke down and told her about the Deputy Warden thing. I shouldn’t have, but I had to tell someone and it made things so much easier.

  I know someone, Runa texted back. Do you want me to take the thing to her?

  Thank you. I’ll ask Cornelius to drop it off at your place.

  Are you okay?

  I was pretty damn far from okay, but I didn’t want to do this over text. I’ll live. Thanks for asking.

  Pete steered the Rolls Royce around the bend and Linus’ house came into view.

  The sturdy wrought-iron gates hung askew, wrenched from their mounts by some powerful force. Behind them, unnaturally bright blood smeared the paver stones of a wide circular driveway. Normally, in the center of the driveway a white fountain rose from the middle of an artfully landscaped flower bed, water cascading out of its top and spilling into the triple basin. Right now, the fountain was dry, its top scattered in pieces across the driveway. A broken turret jutted on the right between the decorative shrubs, knocked off its retractable mount. Ahead a palatial mansion waited like a castle from an animated fairy tale. The blood smears stopped ten yards short of the door. No assailants had reached the front steps.

  Pete parked, exited the car, and held my door open. I stepped out and he led me to the front door. There was a momentary pause as the security system recognized my face, then the locks clicked, and Pete opened the door and ushered me into a three-story foyer.

  The interior of the house was as grand as the outside promised it would be. The polished white marble floor gleamed like a mirror, reflecting walls of Venetian plaster in white and cream decorated with acanthus-leaf molding. Another ornate fountain rose in the middle of the foyer, cradled by a double grand staircase twisting to the second floor on both sides. Above it, a stained-glass dome offered white clouds floating over the blue sky. An enormous chandelier dripped long strands of crystal from the center of the dome, illuminating the fountain, and the entire place glowed, white and elegant despite its opulence.

  “He’s waiting in the study,” Pete said.

  “Thank you.” I turned right and crossed the foyer to the side doorway, then walked through a small sitting room, through another hallway, and entered the study.

  The Venetian plaster here was beige rather than cream and trimmed with light brown. Bookshelves filled the arched alcoves—Linus embraced technology, but he loved the texture of paper. Like the foyer, the study was elegant and uncluttered—two padded chairs, a love seat in the corner, a black-and-gold desk that would have been at home in Versailles, and a single ficus tree to the left of the fireplace that somehow thrived despite Linus’ neglect. The air smelled of aromatic tobacco and coffee. He kept loose tobacco on hand because he liked the scent and either Pete or Hera, his other bodyguard, replaced it every few weeks when it lost its aroma.

  Linus Duncan sat behind the desk, engrossed in his tablet. A heavy crystal glass with about a finger of whiskey waited forgotten on his right.

  I sat in the nearest chair.

  Linus leaned back and looked at me. “How did it go with Montgomery?”

  Apparently we were going to ignore me being attacked in the park and him being attacked in his house.

  “I’m in.” I would have to phrase this next bit carefully. “There are complications.”

  He pinned me with his gaze. “What complications?”

  “Lander Morton and Alessandro Sagredo are a package deal.”

  He rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers, thinking. “Is that a problem?”

  “No,” I lied. “It’s not a problem. It just makes things slightly more complicated, because I have to account for an overpowered assassin with an unknown motive.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  “I’d like permission to run a Warden Network search on Sagredo.” The Warden Network included access to several law enforcement databases that were off-limits to civilians.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t like to be surprised.”

  “Denied,” Linus said. “You know his capabilities and his temperament. In some ways, you know him better than almost anyone else. Anything the Warden Network would tell you would be a guess at best. How are things progressing with Albert Ravenscroft?”

  “They’re not.”

  Albert Ravenscroft, the heir to House Ravenscroft, was a Prime psionic, twenty-six years old, handsome, and very persistent. He operated on the assumption that if he just put in enough time and effort, I would recognize his beauty and wit. Even if his efforts had managed to wear me down, our relationship would be doomed. Albert was interested in marriage.

  Six months ago, when a psychotic mind ripper mage had trapped Alessandro, I made a deal with my evil grandmother. She gave me what I needed to save him. In return, I swore to dedicate myself to House Baylor. I would never become a part of another House. The man who married me would have to join mine. He would have to take my name and abandon all claims on his previous family. I hadn’t shared this bit with Linus because he didn’t need to know. Albert was looking to strengthen his House, not to run away from it.

  Linus mulled it over. “His choice or yours?”

  “Mine.”

  He watched me caref
ully. “Albert would be easy to manage.”

  “I have no interest in managing him. Besides, I’m busy. Why are we interested in House Morton?”

  Linus’ tablet chimed. He glanced at it. “It appears I have a guest. I think he’s here for you.”

  He turned the tablet toward me. On it Alessandro drove a silver Alfa Romeo Spider through the broken gates and parked in front of the door.

  We waited in silence. Five seconds. Ten . . .

  Alessandro walked into the study carrying an unconscious Pete over his shoulder, deposited him on the love seat in the corner, and sat in the other chair.

  Linus looked at Pete and sighed. “Please join us, won’t you, Prime Sagredo?”

  No. Don’t join us. Turn around and go away as far and as fast as you can.

  Linus looked at me, then at Alessandro. Neither of us said anything.

  “Well.” Linus spread his arms. “Let’s start with you, Alessandro. Why are you here?”

  Alessandro threw one long leg over the other and leaned back. “Officially I’m here because Lander Morton hired me to kill the person or persons who murdered his son.”

  Linus raised his eyebrows. “Do you think I’m hiding them here in my house?”

  “Unofficially I’m here because she is in danger.” Alessandro looked at Linus. “Does the name Ignat Orlov mean anything to you?”

  He pronounced Ignat with an uh, so it sounded almost like ignite.

  Linus grimaced, as if he’d bitten something sour.

  “It doesn’t to me,” I said.

  “Former officer of the Russian Imperial Defense,” Alessandro said.

  “An Imperium-sanctioned assassin,” Linus supplied. “Trained, experienced, and very good, since he managed to survive all these years.”

  “Goes by the name Arkan,” Alessandro added. “It means lasso.”

  The nicknames professional killers gave themselves never failed to make me roll my eyes. “Because he snares his enemies?”

  “Yes,” Alessandro and Linus said at the same time.

  “Why is he important?”

  “Excellent question,” Linus said.

  Alessandro gave us a short, humorless smile. “Because he stole your serum.”

  The Office of the Warden had a primary directive: to safeguard the Osiris serum. In unscrupulous hands, the serum had the potential to wipe out our civilization. A couple of years ago, someone broke into the Northern Vault and stole five samples of it, labeled 161-165AC. Six months ago, we had gone against an assassin firm, Diatheke, to get one of the samples back. They’d used it to turn humans into magic-wielding monsters. We’d managed to recover sample 164AC and its derivatives, and destroyed Diatheke along with Benedict De Lacy, the assassin who ran it, in the process. Four other samples were still missing.

  How was that connected to the Pit? I looked at Linus.

  Linus pondered Alessandro, his eyes calculating. He was trying to decide how much Alessandro knew and how difficult it would be to dispose of him, if things came to that.

  “Felix Morton ran into me at the last Assembly session,” Linus said finally. “Quite literally. He collided with me in the elevator, apologized, then told me that ‘it’s been ages since we last talked.’ I found it curious, because we’d never spoken. Also because he passed me this envelope.”

  Linus took out a white envelope from his desk drawer and slid it toward me across the desk.

  I picked it up. A plain unmarked envelope, generic, the kind you can buy in any office store. It was unsealed. I opened it and pulled out a photograph. A shot of the swamp, probably the Pit, taken early in the morning or late in the evening. The photographer must have been aiming at the derelict building on the other side of the bog—it was in focus—and if I hadn’t looked closely, I would have missed it. Two spinning rings, half-submerged and churning water about ten feet from the shore, with a blue light glowing under the surface.

  The hair on the back of my neck rose.

  I flipped the photograph. On the back in a hurried cursive someone had written “Jane Saurage, my appraiser, disappeared in the Pit 07/09. This was the last image uploaded to her cloud. I need to speak with you ASAP.”

  Alessandro held out his hand for the envelope.

  I put the picture on the desk instead and tapped the spinning rings. “One of these controlled the creatures that attacked us.”

  “I now have one in my basement.” Linus frowned. “And I have no idea how it was made. It’s biomechanical in nature, but on a level I don’t understand. I have an expert coming, but it may take some time.”

  Alessandro rose, picked up the envelope and the photograph, and sat back in his chair.

  Linus continued. “Four hours after he handed this to me, Felix was murdered in the Pit. His body wasn’t found until the next morning. Do you remember Agent Wahl?”

  “Yes.” I tried to keep a groan from my voice and failed.

  Agent Wahl had spearheaded an investigation into the trafficking of the magic-warped—people so transformed by magic, they were no longer human. Some of them had come from the Diatheke’s assassin lab which Linus, Alessandro, and our family had destroyed. I had taken that case away from Agent Wahl at Linus’ direction and his wail of outrage could have been heard all the way in Amarillo. He made it plain that he didn’t respect me, didn’t recognize my authority, and generally felt that a two-year-old could have done a much better job in my place. He had to cooperate with me, but he spent the entire time convinced that I would screw everything up beyond all hope, so he’d bugged my car, tried to clone my phone, and had me tailed in case I failed and he would have to ride in on a white steed, or possibly a black SUV, to save the day.

  “He came to see me today,” Linus said.

  “Has his leg healed?”

  “Yes, although he’s still using the cane. Apparently, Felix contacted him about some workers disappearing and mentioned 162AC.”

  Shit.

  “Agent Wahl, in a rare fit of common sense, gave your name, and mine, to Felix. He left town on assignment shortly after and didn’t return until this morning. He didn’t know if Felix got ahold of me, but once he learned about the funeral, he wanted to be sure.”

  And of course, Wahl would have recognized the formula. When we pulled the corpses of the magic-warped people out of a mass grave, they had been tattooed with 164AC followed by the number of the serum variant. I didn’t know what Linus told him, but at some point, Agent Wahl stopped asking inconvenient questions.

  “We were having our chat when a swarm of giant arcane snakes with moth wings attacked my home.”

  Snakes with moth wings? “How did Agent Wahl take it?”

  “Oh, he had a grand time. He also shared with me that any time the Office of the Warden becomes involved in something, the ‘world falls down.’ He finds this fact very exciting. Interesting fellow.”

  Linus turned to Alessandro and made a your-turn gesture.

  “Sixteen years ago, Arkan went private,” Alessandro said.

  “That’s debatable,” Linus said, “but go on.”

  “Right now, Arkan stays at his estate in Canada. I’ve secured means of surveilling him.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I have a personal interest in killing him.”

  Ask a stupid question . . .

  “When Arkan broke into the Northern Vault and stole the serum you’ve been trying to recover, he didn’t do it because someone paid him. He was the driving force behind the theft, but the operation was complex and expensive, and he did have investors. The serum was divided between the participants.”

  “Was Diatheke one of these investors?” I asked.

  “Diatheke was run by a board of shareholders,” Alessandro answered. “Arkan owned the controlling interest. It was his firm and Benedict De Lacy answered directly to him.”

  The memory of Alessandro’s assassin database flashed before me. At the time I thought he was simply studying the competition. However, if Arkan was h
is target all along, the database took on a new meaning.

  “Three days ago, one of these investors called him,” Alessandro said. “I don’t know who it was. I only heard his end of the conversation.”

  “What was said?” Linus asked.

  “The person on the other line had killed Felix Morton and panicked. They must’ve mentioned your name”—Alessandro looked at Linus—“because Arkan told them that he would handle Duncan and there was nothing to worry about.”

  Linus raised his eyebrows. “Did he now?”

  “He did.”

  This lined up with Augustine’s theory that Felix’s killer was one of the board members. Only a well-connected, powerful Prime would be brazen enough to become involved in the theft of the Osiris serum.

  “Arkan assured them that he would be sending help,” Alessandro continued. “After the conversation, he called in someone and instructed them to go to Houston. He mentioned you by name.” Alessandro nodded to Linus and turned to me. “And then he mentioned you. Arkan knows that Linus is the Warden and that you are his Deputy.”

  Great.

  “The plan is simple. Linus is too hard of a target. Killing a Warden would unleash a meteor shower, and Arkan wants to avoid the attention of the National Assembly. His people will go after you instead. You’re easier to kill. Arkan’s banking that once Linus discovers that his apprentice is in danger, he will move to protect you, all of which will disrupt the investigation. I don’t know if he’s buying time to clean it up or if his plans are more complex, but I know you’re his primary target.”

  “Do you have any proof?” Linus asked.

  Alessandro brushed a speck of lint off his knee. “Proof is your problem. I don’t plan on taking him to court. I know and that’s enough. I reached out to Lander Morton through an intermediary and offered my condolences. Lander is a vindictive old buzzard. The most important person in his life had just been murdered. I knew he would jump on the chance to get revenge. He hired me.”

  “I imagine he’s paying quite well,” I said.

  Alessandro didn’t rise to the bait. “Money is of no consequence. I’m here to make sure you don’t die.”