by A. L. Knorr
“It was a demonstration, Pierre.” Sark chuckled. “I wasn’t going to give you a fake, not a good friend like you, but I couldn’t very well hand you a fake and tell you it was a fake. If I did that, you would never have gone to the effort to see what I am bringing to you.”
“You brought me something?” the edimmu asked with a cocked eyebrow.
Sark sighed and swept a hand up and down the length of my body.
“Just look at her.” He reclined with one elbow on the arm of the loveseat. “Imagine what you could do with her.”
“What?” I snarled, rounding on Sark.
“I’ve had better.” Pierre shrugged. “Many times.”
I was ready to show the scumbag, edimmu or no, what I thought of his assessment when Sark intervened, hands raised placatingly towards me.
“Darling, a moment, please.” Sark turned back to Pierre before I could respond. “Pierre don’t be obtuse. You know what I am talking about. Imagine the kind of money you could make with someone of her calibre, with her talents.”
Pierre shrugged again, but an avaricious gleam had crept into his eye. “You mean working for me.”
Sark leaned forward a little and levelled a finger at the necklace.
“Details aside, you know what I am offering. A shadow operation, running parallel to your own. Give her time with legitimate artifacts, and she can produce forgeries good enough to fool museum verification teams. You pass the legitimate works to priority clients, while the shadow op arranges the sale to other well-paying but less critical clients.”
Pierre’s expression didn’t flicker, but the Midasian light in his eyes intensified.
“Your overhead would be minimal, a few tools and raw materials.” Sark leaned over the table, his voice becoming a conspiratorial whisper. “Within a month, we could double your profits. Double!”
The edimmu’s eyes, nearly fever bright with mundane human greed suddenly narrowed, and the demonic shine returned for an instant.
“We?”
Sark didn’t flinch.
“Of course, we.” Sark chuckled. “Who is going to arrange the sale of her fakes, and keep your operation clear of blowback from nosy parties? Plausible deniability makes me worth my weight in gold.”
Pierre considered, and at last nodded. Sark withdrew, glowing with victory.
“We will need to discuss percentages, timetables, operating costs,” Pierre said, his gaze sliding into the middle distance as he began a mental tally in his head. “The devil is in the details.”
Sark nodded, smiling ear to ear as his legs began to bounce with excitement. “I’m sure,” he said. “But we’ve always been able to work things out, haven’t we, Pierre?”
Pierre returned the smile, the first genuine one I’d seen.
“So, it would seem.”
---
“Marcel,” Pierre called, “refreshments.”
Sark and the edimmu talked steadily about operational concerns until the servers arrived. I couldn’t follow the acronyms, code names, and references, so I stopped listening.
The distraction of food and drink being delivered reminded Pierre that I was there. As I put down my empty plate and glass, he looked me over.
“Marcel,” Pierre called, and the man appeared again, handgun holstered under his vest.
“Capitaine?”
“Our guest deserves some respite after her rough treatment this evening.” Pierre nodded at me. “Please show her a good time.”
Marcel’s eyes widened fractionally at the command, but he didn’t pause as he extended his hand. “Mademoiselle?”
The idea of taking the hand of the man who minutes ago was ready to shoot me point-blank was uncomfortable, but I caught the slightest nod from Sark in my peripheral vision. My skin felt like it wanted to crawl off, but I took his hand and smiled as I rose.
“I always appreciate a man who can show a girl a good time,” I purred.
Marcel gave me a very open up and down, and a leer came to his face. “Oh, vraiment?”
I didn’t speak French, but body language helped. Marcel hadn’t had better than me. As I followed him out of the room, it took more effort than it should have not to point that out to his boss.
We found ourselves in a long hallway whose ceiling pitched with the slope of the roof. I moved to one of the dormer windows and looked out over the front lawn and circular drive where Jackie had dropped us off.
“Lovely view.” I turned back to Marcel and scanned the opposite wall. Every door I could see had a lock requiring a keycard. It was obvious that the third floor was where serious business took place, and the most likely place to find the Ledger.
Now, if only I had one of the keycards.
“Do you speak English?” I asked as I slid my arm through Marcel’s.
“Peut-être,” he said slowly and winked.
“Oh, aren’t you saucy.” I winked back, squeezing a little closer. “I don’t know what you’re saying, but I like how you say it.”
Subtle was obviously not Marcel’s cup of tea. His eyes flared with open lust as he leaned towards me, craning his neck to graze his lips across my neck. I bit my lip to control the urge to recoil. His breath was hot and cloying. Sark had mentioned in passing that covert work meant “doing uncomfortable things willingly”. I was seconds from having to decide exactly how far I was willing to go.
“Marcel?”
A gruff voice, laced with a radio’s crackling notes, spared me my moral event horizon.
Marcel paused, his lips just beginning to press against the curve of my neck. We both hung there for one ludicrous beat before the head of security gave an irritated snort and withdrew. Muttering, he fished out a small walkie-talkie from his vest pocket. He raised the device to his mouth, gave me a lingering look, then pressed the talk button.
“What?” he snarled.
The voice came on again. “Marcel, is that you?”
Marcel looked ready to throw the device out the window.
“Yes,” he growled with slow malevolence. “What. Is. It?”
Another pause, this one a little longer, then a familiar feminine voice came.
“Marcel, we’ve got a party crasher,” the blonde reported briskly, sounding a little out of breath. “Looks like one of the drivers got some big ideas and decided to sneak in.”
My heart stopped: Jackie had gone to park and wait with the car. Would she really have gotten so antsy? My mouth went dry, and I wrapped my arms around myself to hide the tremble.
“Is the crasher caught?” Marcel asked, his scowl deepening.
“Yes,” she replied before a crackle of static and what might have been raised voices. When she came back on, she was mid-sentence and sounded more out of breath.
“—broke Derrek’s arm and keeps trying to get away. Can I please handle this?”
Certainly sounded like Jackie, but how could she be so reckless, so stupid? Then I remembered the look she’d given me in the rear-view mirror, and I felt like the floor might disappear from underneath me. Things were going sideways fast, and I felt dizzy and sick.
Marcel, ignoring me, swore in French again before pressing talk.
“Mais non! We don’t want the guests hearing the gunshot, and I want to talk to them, to know what kind of fish you caught.”
Another pause, and the woman’s voice came back sounding petulant. “We wouldn’t have to use a gun … but fine. We are in the second-floor drawing room.”
“On my way.” Marcel turned towards me as he signed off.
“It seems we must part ways, mademoiselle.” He sighed, looking thoroughly disappointed. “I expect this business will keep me busy for some time.”
My mind was racing. I couldn’t let him interrogate and probably execute my best friend. I also needed that keycard.
He moved towards a door, and with a swipe, opened a portal that led to a wide marble staircase.
“Come, I will take you downstairs,” he said with a curt gesture to the stairs.
“You will have to find your own amusements.”
I took a few reluctant steps towards the stairs and then paused laying a hand on his shoulder, kneading the wiry sinew beneath his silk shirt.
“Didn’t Mr Gwaffu tell you to show me a good time?” I pouted, fluttering my eyelashes.
Marcel shrugged off my hand, bristling a little, and nodded towards the stairs. “He did, but he also trusts me to make decisions in his interest. Get.”
The force of the command drove me forward another step, but I stepped close enough to whisper in his ear.
“I could come with you. I’d love to watch you work. I bet I’d find it very … exciting.”
Marcel pulled back a little, surprise, and no small amount of interest plain in his features. I could see good judgement and erotic curiosity locked in a desperate struggle right behind those dark eyes.
“I don’t think you would like it,” he said, swallowing. “It can be ... rough.”
I inched closer, cursing Jackie for every millimetre, to purr breathlessly in his ear. “And who says I don’t like it rough?”
Marcel’s breath hitched, and he allowed himself a lascivious grin, then wrapped an arm around my waist. “Allons-y!”
---
The two men beating someone to death on the carpeted floor of the second-floor drawing room was a shocking contrast to the room itself. Full of dark wood and plush furniture, it was the kind of place Elizabeth Bennett and Mister Darcy might have retired to with a few close friends.
The blonde woman, leaning against the fireplace watching her goons work, nodded to Marcel as we entered. She glanced at, then dismissed me.
My heart seized, horrified at the thought of Jackie curled up beneath the storm of crushing feet. Then a wave of relief washed over me as I realized the poor victim was a man and a strongly built one at that. A pang of guilt followed, but an overly-confident, grotesquely optimistic driver crashing a party full of powerful and shady people was considerably lower on my list of concerns.
“Fais gaffe, tête de noeud!” Marcel growled at the thugs, bringing the beating to an abrupt halt. Both men, breathing heavily, turned towards Marcel but looked sheepishly at their shoes as if the instruments of the beating would give them answers.
“How is he going to talk if you beat him to death? Blaireaux!”
The thugs’ gazes darted from their guilty feet to the blonde woman and then back again, but neither spoke. She made a point of pretending that she didn’t notice the silent implication.
Marcel levelled a warning look her way before moving to the man still curled up on the floor. “Where is Derrek?”
“Getting his arm looked after,” the blonde said.
“What is she doing here?” she cut another glare in my direction.
“Casse-toi, Ros.” Marcel waved her off as he crouched next to the man on the floor. “Hey, what’s your name?”
The poor wretch didn’t speak, his bruised and bloody arms still wrapped protectively over his head. Marcel gave an exasperated growl and shuffled closer, reaching a hand out.
“Careful,” Ros warned, her voice utterly devoid of concern. “He’s a brute.”
Considering the company she kept, I would’ve taken the warning more seriously, but Marcel only snorted and gave the man a series of quick taps on the shoulder.
“Hey, big guy,” Marcel said, his voice almost soothing. “What’s your name?”
Very slowly, the arms parted. The man on the floor looked up at Marcel, his face discoloured with bruises. Even through the knots of black and blue, I recognized him. My heart jumped up into my throat.
“M-Marcus,” he grunted between gritted, bloody teeth.
16
I smothered my reaction with raw determination, but a combination of horror and confusion coiled in my stomach. Marcus’s life, and mine, depended on acting.
“Okay, Marcus,” Marcel said slowly, as though talking to a skittish animal. “Were you invited to this party?”
Marcus, his gaze locked on Marcel’s face, shook his head warily.
“No?” Marcel’s tone was surprised. “If you were not invited, why are you here?”
A determined scowl came across Marcus’s face. He stared back at Marcel, jaw set.
Marcel held the stare for a long pause before shaking his head. He looked back at Ros with exasperation, and as he twisted, Marcus spotted me. I didn’t dare make any sign as Marcus’s eyes widened.
“See what you did, Ros,” Marcel growled, his head wagging with disgust. “You broke Marcus. Poor boy doesn’t even know why he is here.”
Marcus stared at me, his mashed lips twitching.
Please keep it together; please stay quiet. I pleaded silently as I fought to keep my expression neutral.
“He should have behaved himself.” Ross crossed her arms. “Derrek would certainly agree he was up to no good.”
“Marcus?” the head of security asked with mock incredulity before reaching back to slap the porter on the shoulder, drawing a pained wince that broke his stare.
“No, it was all a misunderstanding. Right, Marcus? You and I are friends now, yes?”
Marcus looked from Marcel to Ros’s brutes. Either Marcus’s sweeter nature or a concussion was keeping him from putting the pieces together because after a few heartbeats, he shrugged.
“I don’t understand what is going on,” he grunted as he propped himself up on one arm, trying to get to his feet.
“What’s happening,” Marcel began in a sickly-sweet tone as he leaned on Marcus to keep him on the floor. “Is that since we are friends, I will keep these men from hurting you. And you, mon bon ami, will tell me why you decided to crash a party you were not invited to. Simple, no?”
To Marcus’s credit, he didn’t cringe or baulk when the obvious became apparent. Instead, fire sprang in his green eyes, and the look he gave Marcel had the man shifting his weight to his back foot. Ros shuffled a few steps forward, and one hand slid to her back and the pistol there. This was about to turn ugly.
“I’m not telling you bollocks, bon ami,” Marcus growled in a leonine voice.
On instinct, I reached inside the gun and warped a few things, a firing pin here, a magazine breach there. The gun wouldn’t feel any different in her hand, but if she fired it, she was in for a surprise. I reached out to the first thug’s gun to repeat the process, but Marcel rose and drew out his pistol.
“That was not very friendly.” The head of security tutted, and made a show of looking over his pistol. “This could be simple, congenial even, but you need to adjust your attitude, Marcus, or it is going to cause you problems.”
The muscles tensed along Marcus’s back, he was about to do something, and if I noticed, so did Marcel. I drove an indelicate spike of will into his gun, fouling the internal mechanisms in a chaotic fashion. The gun twitched a little in Marcel’s hands, but other than a frown he gave no sign of concern as he levelled the barrel at Marcus.
“Don’t be stupid,” Marcel warned, his voice steely.
“My mum never accused me of bein’ clever,” Marcus said in a snarling laugh before lunging across the floor.
Marcel pulled the trigger, and the pistol misfired spectacularly, just as the rest of the drawing room exploded into violence. Ros drew her own gun as one of the thugs pounced on Marcus. The second thug had been caught in the misfire and was clutching his face, cursing in what might have been in Russian, blood between his fingers. Hissing and gasping, Marcel fell back holding his mangled hand in shock.
The room smelled of copper and sulfur, and my ears rang from the sound of the pistol’s catastrophic failure.
Ros, apparently not caring which of the two men she shot as they grappled on the floor, pointed her gun towards Marcus and pulled the trigger. When nothing happened, she pulled again, then looked at her gun in numb shock. In an unacceptably satisfying rush, I slammed my will into the small gun and drove it, still in her hand, into the bridge of her nose. She staggered back, tears welling as blood g
ushed from her split nose. I drove the next thrust with the pistol, her finger still trapped in the trigger guard, into her chin.
With a wounded huff, she went to the floor in a heap.
Marcel had staggered over to a sideboard and was using linen towels to staunch his bloody hand. The Russian thug flicked blood from his face with one hand while the other drew out his gun, the one I hadn’t managed to disable.
“No!”
I threw out a hand to wrench the gun from his grip. The gun went off as it tumbled, breaking my concentration for a second.
The would-be gunman lunged after his pistol as it bounced across the rug, one hand working to keep the blood from his facial cuts from blinding him.
Instinct took over. I launched the copper hidden in and under my dress, tearing the fabric in my haste. Strands of copper, twirling like bolas, struck him across the chest and neck, forcing him into a sideways lurch. He fetched up against an armoire, whose huge, wooded frame wobbled on its stout legs.
I twisted my fingers into claws, and the copper snaked around his chest and neck, dragging him downward. He gave a shocked cry as he lost his footing, crashing to the floor. I meshed my crooked fingers and the copper around his chest snaked up to band around his neck. A second tendril wrapped around the armoire’s leg before joining the neck-band and forming a copper manacle.
“Stay,” I spat, before sending a final mental command to tighten the copper.
His eyes bulged, gory fingers pawing uselessly at the metal biting into his neck. Seeing my hard glare, he became very still, his body rigid with fear.
An angry snarl drew me from my gloating vengeance. Marcus and the thug had risen to their knees, punching and grasping in an attempt to dominate. Marcus appeared bigger and stronger than the thug, but he was clearly exhausted, not to mention injured. He tried to leverage his greater weight to pin the thug, but the smaller man twisted away and rained blows on poor Marcus’s face and body.
As the thug clubbed Marcus across the back of the head, I scanned the goon for metal. My friend sank to the carpet, stunned, and the thug raised a fist to pound the porter’s head in. I threw my will into a lapel pin, driving it through cloth to burrow viciously into flesh, twisting as it went.
