Rings of the Inconquo Trilogy

by A. L. Knorr

  I took the hint, and the copper strands I’d worked into the dress returned to their hiding places. I let myself be led and did my best to gracefully take my seat as the goon shoved me into a chair.

  “Stay,” he snarled, in a thick accent.

  I stared up defiantly, chin thrust forward.

  “All par for the course,” Sark called, though his voice was somewhat muffled with his face mashed against the wallpaper.

  “Not quite,” the blonde said as she moved to stand behind the man pinning Sark.

  “Pierre … gave permission,” Sark gasped. “We had … invitation.”

  I began to wonder if he was about to pass out, so laboured was his breathing, but I did my best to stay calm. Once I revealed my power, there was no going back.

  “That invitation had special conditions,” the woman said, crossing her arms and giving Sark a look. “Your admittance was predicated on a certain item that would square your debt with Mr Gwaffu.”

  Sark pushed hard enough to knock the brute back a step, whirling around. “Debt!” Sark growled breathlessly. “What about Barcelona!?”

  Sark earned a shot to his stomach hard enough to make me wince. He sagged back against the wall, sucking in breath. The thug looked ready to beat Sark into pulp, but a word from the woman held him back.

  “Not yet,” she said with utter authority. “Do you have the item promised or not?”

  Sark glared at her, eyes venomous with hate, but after a long heartbeat, his gaze shifted to me. I met his stare, tension coiling through me. He’d said the plan was to give the necklace to Pierre. What kept these thugs from taking the necklace, then disposing of us before scuttling back to their boss? Would Sark, sensing that, order the attack?

  Sark met my eye, his face flushed and sweaty, and I was sure he was about to spring into action. Instead, one eye winked, so quick I nearly missed it, as he seemed to deflate.

  “Give them the package, luv,” Sark said with a sigh. “Seems there’s no trust amongst old friends.”

  I stared at him, my mind racing, before I opened my purse.

  “Slowly,” growled the guard with the thick accent. One hand was inside his jacket, and the look in his frozen chlorine eyes told me exactly what he would do if he had to finish the motion. I was surprised that I had assessed the metal armament––handguns in both guards’ shoulder rigs and a small pistol holstered in the woman’s waistband at the small of her back––without conscious thought. Apparently, Mr Gwaffu took security very seriously.

  “Okay.” I held up my free hand, palm out like Sark had, balancing the purse on my knees. “Everyone just calm down.”

  I pulled the folded manila envelope that held the necklace from my purse. Before I could extend my arm, the thug snatched it and passed it to the woman.

  Giving me a critical once over, the uppity bint inspected the envelope. Satisfied, she delicately opened the top, looked inside, then using a pen from her jacket pocket drew out the necklace. She looked it over slowly.

  “Everything’s in order then?” Sark asked.

  The blonde gave him a withering look, then handed the envelope to my guard and used a phone to snap a few pictures of the necklace.

  “We’ll see,” she said cooly, sliding the necklace back into the proffered envelope. “If visual confirmation is a go, I’ll take the piece for secondary verification, after which Mr Gwaffu will meet you. Assuming that you behave yourself.”

  Sark put a hand to his chest and looked affronted. “I’m an impeccable guest, darling,” he drawled, his smile as glowing as it was insincere. “You ought to know that, of anybody here. You hated to see me go last time.”

  The two brutes stiffened, both making pointed attempts not to look at the woman.

  “Not quite how I remember it,” she remarked dryly as her phone gave a soft ping and she tapped the screen. “You may join the party now, but stay on the ground level or gardens. The upper floors are by invitation only, and it would be embarrassing if security had to … escort you out.”

  The guard who’d punched Sark rolled his wide shoulders and clenched his hands into fists to make the point.

  “Oh, absolutely,” Sark drawled, pushing off the wall to saunter towards me, crooking an elbow. “Come on, lovely, let’s get that beautiful arse over to the dancefloor. You do have a dancefloor?”

  None of the security team seemed inclined to answer as I stood and slid my hand into the offered elbow. A guard moved to the door and drew it open for us, his expression frighteningly blank.

  “Appreciated, chap.” Sark grinned as we slid through the door and out into Castle Bromwich Hall.

  ---

  “Wha—”

  Sark gave a sharp shake of his head and guided me past the open hall to the back veranda where a bar had been set up. The veranda overlooked broad, tiered paths winding into magnificent gardens festooned with lights. Sark hailed two drinks from the bar and downed them both, ignoring my stare, then called for two more. He handed one to me and motioned to head for the garden paths. Stern faced and strongly built men in dark suits stood at intervals along the paths.

  “What the hell was all that about?” I demanded once we were standing under a latticework. The last blue hyssop blooms of the season dangled over our heads. Sark’s smile appeared sickly in the emerald light from the fairy-lights in the shrubbery.

  “All a bit of foreplay darling.” He raised a hand to tap his ear with a finger. He made a little circle in the air before he turned the gesture into an effort to smooth out his hair. His gaze willed me to grasp his meaning. People might be listening. I nodded, and we moved down the garden path.

  “It was just Pierre’s people being a bit dramatic and theatrical really,” he continued with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Once he verifies that piece you furnished, we should be in business.”

  We passed a table where a small man in a server’s outfit stood shivering. I felt for him, thankful for my coat. The evening air was chill enough to keep most of the partygoers inside.

  “C-can I take those for you?” The server gestured at the drinks in our hands.

  Mine was untouched, but Sark’s was down to the dregs.

  “Cheers, mate.” Sark took my drink and downed it in one gulp before handing both glasses over.

  The server nearly bolted in his haste to get even a brief respite from the cold, but he paused long enough to ask: “Will you be needing another?”

  Sark shook his head, waving the man on.

  “He needed a warm-up,” Sark slurred at one of the guards standing by the table. “Too bad I can’t fink o’ somefink to get you two inside to do the same, eh?”

  The guards shared a not-so-subtle look of disgust, and the one Sark addressed looked to Sark with icy calm.

  “Carry on, sir,” he prompted with a curt, dismissive nod.

  Sark threw up a wild imitation of a salute, then broke into a fit of giggles before dragging me down another garden path.

  We were a dozen steps away from them before I dared to speak, my voice hushed and urgent.

  “Now I really don’t understand,” I hissed, nearly in his ear. “Please don’t tell me you’re drunk, and if you’re not, what are you doing acting like you are? Do you want to get us thrown out?”

  “No, I’m not drunk, and isn’t it obvious,” he muttered back as we slowed our pace to a crawl. I doubted anyone walking the paths or looking from the veranda could even see us in the arboreal tunnel created by the canopy of interlinked tree branches.

  “Well, obviously it’s not.” I pulled my arm free.

  Sark made a frustrated noise in his throat and adjusted his glasses.

  “If I get blotto after being roughed up by Pierre’s goons, it sends the signal that I am desperate, vulnerable, and unstable. I want Pierre to think that so he’ll approach me confident he can squeeze every last inch of leverage. His overconfidence will be our opportunity.”

  Sark had started to edge out of the canopy’s shadow, one hand reaching ba
ck towards me.

  “But,” I began even as I took his hand to continue our ruse. “You are desperate, vulnerable, and unstable. So, he will have the upper hand.”

  Sark let out an exaggerated laugh as he staggered towards the next lighted section of the path. Apparently, he wanted anyone waiting around the bend to know exactly how “drunk” he was.

  “He doesn’t un’er-un’erstand, he can’t, so ztop worryin’.”

  “If you say so,” I muttered noncommittally as I struggled to match his uneven steps, arms interlocked.

  Sark’s instinct proved right because three strides clear of the arbor the blonde woman from earlier stood in the path flanked by her two goons. Sark lurched to a halt, and I was nearly thrown off-balance. The dress and heels might be sexy, but I couldn’t exactly move like a ballet dancer in stilettos.

  “What’d’you want?” Sark snarled, and then looked at his hand in shock. “And where’z my drink? Thiz party zuckz.”

  “I see you’ve been enjoying yourself.” She raised an eyebrow.

  “If that’s what you call it,” I replied coolly, giving Sark one of those ‘I can’t believe you’ looks.

  “Well, before you have too much fun, Mr Gwaffu would like to see you.”

  Sark clapped his hands in the loudest and most obnoxious way, missing only once in his drunken pantomime.

  “’Bout bloody time.” He pointed a finger at an open hand. “I jus’ hope for yer zake you find a drink to put in thiz hand by the time we make it there.”

  “Follow me, please.” She set off without looking back.

  The goons stepped aside to let us follow, the one who’d manhandled me leering with a satisfied smirk on his face. It was a good thing Sark was so hard to handle as he played the lush, or I might’ve given serious consideration to have the man’s zipper do a little trimming.

  We followed the blonde onto the veranda and then to a small door set in the western corner of the house. It swung open automatically when she swiped a keycard.

  She led the way up an immaculately kept staircase to the third floor. Sark followed, lurching and swaying, then me, and then the guards.

  “That’z the problem with theze ol’ places,” Sark panted loudly. “Too many damn stairs.”

  “Please,” she said with a sweep of her hand after she brandished her keycard to open the door at the top of the stairs.

  “I haven’t f-fergot about dat drink.” Sark wobbled a finger at her as he passed her.

  She plastered on a glassy smile that didn’t even last long enough to greet me as I shuffled by her. Instead, I was met by a pair of cold blue eyes that communicated neither humanity or consideration. Chillingly, I realized I was nothing more than baggage to her, transported, or disposed of at a word. More frightening, she wanted me to see it.

  Struggling to shake off the fear nipping at my mind, I stepped into a sitting room worked in shades of ivory and gold. The furnishing was sparse, a coffee table with chairs and a loveseat arranged around it. The necklace sat on the pale marble surface of the table.

  In a chair next to the only window was a slim man dressed in black. The man’s attire seemed a splash of ink reclining on the low chair.

  “Pierre.” Sark leaned against the loveseat across from the man. “It’z … it’s been a bit.”

  The last words came out slowly, as though Sark were being very careful to enunciate his words clearly.

  “It has, Eli,” Pierre Gwaffu said, a brilliantly white smile lighting his deeply tanned face. “But, I confess myself ... already disappointed.”

  He had a hint of a French accent, but it was only a soft and subtle curling of the words.

  Sark stiffened, fingers pressing into the plush fabric of the loveseat. “What?”

  “Please, both of you have a seat.”

  I looked to Sark. For a moment, he stood there, back rigid and then with a forced chuckle he moved around to sit on the loveseat. Feeling the prickling tension like electricity in the air, I gingerly walked to sit beside him. The background chorus of metals was reassuring – they were there if things turned ugly – but knowing he was an edimmu, like Daria, made me hesitant. Would he sense my probing will on the environment?

  I’d bide my time.

  “Why are you disappointed, Pierre?” Sark was painfully precise with his words, an attempt not to appear so obviously drunk.

  “Because even though it has been a long time,” Gwaffu sighed and leaned forward to scoop up the necklace. “I’d hoped that you, of all people, would know how I would feel about you bringing me a fake.”

  15

  I froze, hardly daring to breathe.

  Sark went rigid next to me.

  “I will say this,” Pierre continued, enjoying the undercurrent of fear. “This is by far the best fake I’ve ever seen. It fooled the experts I keep on retainer. They all thought it was the real thing.”

  He tossed the necklace back with a contemptuous movement.

  Sark shifted a little in his seat, and I dared a glance at him. His gaze was fixed on Gwaffu, but I could practically hear the wheels turning inside his head. He would think of something, but he needed time. I leaned forward and forced my voice to be as steady as I could manage.

  “Pardon me, sir, but if your experts said it was real, then how could you tell differently?”

  Pierre looked at me for the first time since we entered, and unease crept over my skin. I instantly regretted speaking. His dazzling smile never left, but his expression seemed to flatten, how a viper might regard a mouse. I half-expected a forked tongue to flicker between his pearly white teeth.

  “More things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, my dear.” He winked, and his eye flashed with demonic light.

  I recoiled. Acting blasé would make the edimmu suspicious. I cursed myself for being so stupid as to ignore the queasy aura I’d felt from the original. If I had known the significance, I would have taken it and left the fake. I channelled my anxiety into a convincing performance, to keep the edimmu from realizing what I really was.

  “Sark?” I hissed, in what I hoped was an appropriately terrified voice. I was scared, but not for the reason those present would assume.

  “Sark, eh?” Pierre turned to Dillon with that reptilian grin. “That’s what you are going by now, Eli?”

  Sark nodded dumbly, at first seeming to agree with Pierre’s question, but Sark’s eyes refocused an instant later, and I wondered if the nod was more to himself than anybody else in the room.

  “One of a few, Pierre.” Sark chuckled, and his voice sounded markedly more relaxed than I’d expected. “You know me: I hate being tied to anything for too long, names included.”

  Pierre nodded, shifting his weight. He sensed the change in Sark too.

  “That must be why you and our friends in Switzerland seem to have parted company,” the edimmu said with flippant nonchalance. “And why you come to my doorstep, peddling fakes.”

  Pierre crooked a finger at the door across from his seat. It opened, and a dark-skinned man dressed in a violet shirt with black pinstripe trousers and vest entered. Golden rings glittered on his fingers and ears, but they weren’t nearly as interesting as the handgun he held comfortably in one hand. He stopped at Pierre’s shoulder, his expression and posture relaxed, yet seeming to seethe with potential violence that only indirectly had to do with the gun.

  “Pierre, is this really necessary?” Sark said in an exasperated tone.

  “Marcel is head of my security and my right hand,” Pierre continued ignoring Sark’s outburst. “When I tell him to shoot your lovely friend in thirty seconds, he will do so without hesitation. You have thirty seconds to convince me to countermand the order.”

  Marcel’s hand rose, and I found myself staring down the barrel of a very large gun. His expression did not change even as he met my eyes.

  “You could shoot her,” Sark muttered and shuffled on the couch to widen the gap between us. “But that would be throwing away an
incredible resource, and I’ve never known you to be wasteful.”

  Pierre’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes narrowed as they slid over to me and then back to Sark. Judging from the quick once over he gave me, I wasn’t so impressive, even in this dress.

  “Explain,” he said.

  “Who do you think made a fake so good that it fooled all your overpaid experts?” Sark inclined his head towards me. “Why do you think I parted ways with our friends in Switzerland when I realized what she could do?”

  My gaze bounced from the gun, to Pierre, to Sark. My time was growing short, my body as tense as it had ever been. Marcel’s finger slid towards the trigger. Pierre steepled his fingers. Sark stared back, giving every indication he was happy to wait.

  Marcel’s eyes remained fixed on me, dark and hollow as the gun barrel. Though I didn’t dare expand my metallic sense to assess the gun, I knew I could collapse the gun around the goon’s hand faster than he could pull the trigger. But the second I did that, the jig would be up, and Sark and I would be lucky to fight our way out of this place alive, much less acquire the information we sought.

  On the other hand, if I waited for Sark’s scheme to work, I could end up shot in the face. I hadn’t mastered the art of stopping bullets mid-flight.

  Seconds passed, and I was certain Sark’s gambit had failed.

  “Marcel, give us a minute.” Pierre’s voice was flat but for a hint of irritation.

  “Oui, Capitaine,” Marcel lowered the gun and exited the room.

  Pierre nodded at the necklace.

  “You made this then?” he asked me, eyes narrowed to razored slits.

  “Yes.” I took my first full breath since Pierre had levelled his initial accusation. “I had the original, which helped me get the details right, especially the composition and level of corrosion. Even well-preserved pieces accrue signs of ageing over the years.”

  Pierre’s expression darkened before his smile returned.

  “So, you had the original, and still you bring the fake.” His gaze shifted to Sark. “How interesting.”

  Sark gave me a look that shouted stop helping before turning back to Pierre with a smile.