by A G Stevens
Blaze tried not to look surprised as he heard things about Liam Keller that he hadn’t picked up on in his own debriefing. “That’s...incredibly complete. And accurate.”
Parrick laughed and took a swig. “You’re not the only one who does research.”
It made sense that Parrick would have vetted the agent who would insure his most prized possessions. But Blaze halted anyway, partly in character as Liam, partly as he registered just how complete the cover Savant had created for him was. She’d planted an entire profile about him, somewhere that Parrick and his team could find if they dug for it. The complexity of spreading search items online was a difficult task, especially if it was to be convincing. Time stamps would need to be established, and a timeline that could be followed from hit to hit, crafting the entire natural expanse of Liam Parrick’s life in an organic data flow. Blaze marveled a bit “Of course, of course. I’m just surprised that you’d have found so much about a near-nobody like me. The web is pretty miraculous.”
Parrick’s eyebrow hitched. “The internet will only get you so far.” It left Blaze wondering what other means he’d used to investigate, and to exactly what lengths the House had gone to create Liam Keller. “So I’d like it if you called me Nick. That way, you can come to trust me as much as I trust you.”
Clever bastard, Blaze thought. He smiled sheepishly as Keller. “Then you must call me Liam.” He tipped his glass. “Nick.”
Parrick smiled. “’Atta boy.”
The sound of heels clicking urgently against the stone floors drew their attention to the staircase, and the stunning woman descending it. She was statuesque and sun-blonde, walking briskly but carefully as she entered the room. “These damn stairs, Nicholas. Someone’s going to fall off and break their neck one day. And I think we all know it’s going to be me. Wouldn’t you love that?” She hardly noticed there was someone in the room besides Parrick and his entourage, until she rounded the last step and saw Blaze standing beside him. “Oh. I didn’t realize you had a playdate with the captain of the chess club.”
Parrick laughed. “Nice to see you in a good mood for once. Liam, this is Helene, my wife. Helene, this is Liam Keller. He’s here to assess the collection for insurance coverage.”
Helene Caron Parrick walked to the center of the great room, picked up the decanter, and poured herself a drink. “The collection,” she said sharply. “You mean, your masks and vases?” She looked past him and addressed Blaze directly. “Some men collect baseball cards and football jerseys. My husband collects the remnants of lost civilizations and tributes to their gods.”
“Don’t forget the cars, love,” Parrick added. “I collect those, too.”
“Yes.” Helene sipped from her glass, rolled her eyes. “Those are so much better.” She extended her hand to Blaze. “Nice to meet you, Liam Keller.” She sized him up from head to toe and only slightly approved of what she saw. “You seem uptight.”
Parrick cringed. “Helene...Liam is a guest.”
“Oh...I thought he was an insurance agent,” she said sharply. “And those are drastically different things.”
“Well, he’s both.”
Liam Keller blushed at her bluntness, but Derek Blaze took note of her strength and her frankness. And the visual impact she made in her incredibly expensive designer clothing, her well-maintained model’s body even though she’d been retired for a decade, and her captivating beauty were even more striking than the photos he’d seen of her. “Lovely to meet you too, Mrs. Parrick.”
Helene rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. If you get to call him Nick, which I’m sure he’s already told you to do, then you need to call me Helene. Mrs. Parrick is a ninety-year-old woman in a convalescent home, knitting a scarf for a cat and waiting to die.”
Parrick gritted his teeth. “Not a nice way to refer to your mother-in-law, Helene.”
Helene laughed. “I was being hypothetical, but if you connect the dots and that’s where it leads you, then I guess that’s on you.” She moved effortlessly, flawlessly, projecting all of her strength at every moment. And yet, she kept her distance from Parrick, as if her display was meant to establish her place in the power structure. With a husband as powerful as him, Blaze reasoned, she had to know how to hold her own. “So you’re going to make sure all of Nicholas’s treasures are appropriately insured, so that the millions of dollars and endless hours he’s spent coveting them, chasing them, and flying them back to his palace of wonders from all corners of the world won’t go to waste in the event of a hurricane—or, god forbid, an art theft?”
Blaze couldn’t help admiring how she carried herself. “I am, yes.”
“And you have expertise in...covering precious works?” Her hand slid down the length of her elegant neck as she said it. “In handling delicate things and making sure they’re well-taken care of?”
Blaze cleared his throat. “I, uh...”
“Good god, Helene,” Parrick said. “Must you taunt everyone who gets within four feet of you? Leave the poor man alone.” Parrick motioned to Blaze. “Don’t let her scare you, Liam. She’s just making sure we all remember who’s boss around this place.”
“Actually, I’m making sure you remember, Nicholas,” Helene said. Then she made challenging eyes at him and drained her glass dry.
Parrick laughed. “As if I could ever forget.”
Blaze tried not to smirk as he watched their banter.
“You tasked me with creating your gala for a reason, love,” Helene reminded him. “It must have been for something.”
“It was because you have an impeccable eye and an elegant touch when it comes to pulling together a party.”
“No.” Helene poured herself another round. “It was because you know I get things done. Which is more than I can say for most of our so-called staff...including my assistant, who should be here pouring this for me.”
A young woman walked in as if on cue, seemingly from nowhere, and tried to take the decanter from Helene’s hand. “Let me do that for you.”
Helene snatched the decanter back. “Three seconds ago would’ve been nice, Gabrielle,” she said. “I’ll just handle it myself now, like I handle most other things that you arrive three seconds too late to take care of.”
Gabrielle’s eyes were set and steely. “It won’t happen again.”
“Of course it will. Because you’re essentially worthless. And when I get tired of you, I’ll fire you for it in as loud and humiliating a manner as possible.” She handed the decanter to her attendant. “Now you can have it.”
Gabrielle said nothing as she gathered the tray and turned. Her eyes met Blaze’s as she left, and he tried his best to convey sympathy without speaking. He could see the hurt and anger she wrestled with.
“I apologize for her mood, Gabrielle,” Parrick said as she passed.
Gabrielle didn’t answer.
“Is this how you treat the staff putting the gala together, too?” Parrick asked his wife, visibly disgusted with her behavior.
“As we’ve established, you put me in charge of it,” Helene said, raising her glass to Parrick, “knowing exactly how I deal with people.”
“I was hoping you’d hold back. That you could find it in yourself to be a little more dignified than this.” Blaze noted that this didn’t sound like a request, but more of an unfulfilled expectation. The tension between the two was palpable.
“You know I don’t hold back for anyone.” Helene eyed Liam Keller as she said it, and Blaze responded by averting his eyes, unsure if she was being assertive or seductive, or both at the same time. “Not even you.”
“Please try to be cooperative for my sake,” Parrick requested, though it sounded to Blaze more like a command. “There’s a lot at stake this weekend. You should keep that in mind at all times. And it’s not just for me...it’s for you, too.”
Helene sighed and paused, as if the signals Parrick was sending her were sinking in. Then she smiled, though it was entirely fake, and very close to someth
ing she would have offered during one of her photo shoots years ago. She was very well-practiced in appearing to be something she wasn’t, and Blaze was wary of it. “I’ll do my best, love,” she said, falsely sweet.
A member of Parrick’s guard detail stepped forward and whispered into his ear. “The treasure room is ready for us, Liam,” Parrick said. “Are you ready to see what might be considered the most vital collection of god-art ever assembled on the northern hemisphere?”
Blaze finished his drink. “With a description like that, how could I be anything less than ready?”
Parrick laughed heartily. “I like your spirit, friend. It’s that sort of intrepid, adventuresome soul I hope my other guests bring with them to the gala.”
Helene dropped into a chaise and looked instantly like a portrait of herself in modern repose. She also appeared entirely unimpressed with Parrick’s talk of artifacts. “Enjoy the vases,” she told Blaze as he past, her boredom with the whole topic plainly audible. “I hope you don’t end up in a coma from all the ‘excitement.’”
“Enjoy your...” Blaze started, with an air of flirtation. He pulled back before it became too obvious. “...scotch, ma’am.”
“I told you to call me Helene,” she said, a wisp of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “And I don’t take kindly to disobedience. But I surely will enjoy my scotch, like I enjoy few other things in life. Love your accent, by the way.”
Blaze hesitated a beat. She couldn’t possibly be hinting that she knows...
Helene was said to be a shrewd figure in Parrick’s world, and Blaze noticed her eyes trailing him suspiciously as he walked away. He was as skilled at playing the quiet intellectual as he was employing any other disguise, but her keen eye and brutal frankness made him wonder how secure his cover would remain.
F I V E
“This is the treasure room.” Parrick said it calmly and casually in the darkness of the hall. Blaze refused to accept his false sense of humility. The guards were holding the doors opened, which gave him no opportunity to examine the security system and determine the location of the panel that Zed’s clever disk would need to be attached to. And the room was darkened, for effect, Blaze correctly presumed, which did nothing to help the search. “I keep it better lit than this usually, though nothing above gallery wattage. Must protect the relics from light erosion.”
“Insurance agents love hearing that their clients care for their belongings,” Blaze said. You are quite the conversationalist, Liam Keller, he thought, sinking further into character.
Parrick’s smile was sheer pride. “I thought you might like a sneak preview of what awaits you and the other guests during the unveiling tomorrow. You have to swear not to tell anyone on the island what you see here. I want them to be adequately surprised by all the magic.”
“I...don’t know anyone else on the island,” Blaze said. “So consider me sworn.”
“Excellent.” Parrick pulled a remote out of his pocket and clicked it in the direction of a receiver positioned high above the floor. The room became full-dark, and within seconds, subtle cinematic lighting came to life. All illusion of a humble arrangement of artifacts was dispelled. In much the same manner as he’d assembled the rest of his compound, Parrick had imbued the manner of presenting his collection with grand magnificence, more the atmosphere of a traveling exhibition designed to entice the viewer with drama and theatrics than a typically sterile museum environment. The great curtains of rich fabrics that hung in the corners as a background for tapestries and weavings suspended before them grew wavering webs of light through gels of transforming color. A hidden 360-degree speaker system washed the room in indigenous music for ultimate impact as the space came alive gently with spotlights that shone in all directions, on all surfaces. The room filled with the aroma of cinnamon and cloves and amber, ancient incense that gave the space an air of importance and reverence. Display cases were lined with LEDs glowing in vivid greens and turquoise, amber and violet and scorching red-orange, giving an eerie aura to every piece—and there were plenty, at least forty by Blaze’s quick estimate, formed from all manner of material: stone, fiber, metal, gem. It was a small museum unto itself, as expertly executed as it was rumored to be. Some of the pieces were mounted to the wall; some were displayed in iron cradles. Some pieces were so large they stood freely on pedestals surrounded by square pits filled with lava rock; jets of gentle flame came to life, sputtering and breathing fire around their bases. Amphorae rested in crooks with streams of water flowing down from each side, a gently rocking tremble of light that emulated a flowing river cast on the walls behind them.
It was a festival of motion and sound and scent that set Blaze’s senses on fire. He tried not lose his Liam Keller reserve at the sight of it all. “Well...isn’t this spectacular?” he said softly.
Parrick smiled. “I’ve certainly tried to make it so.”
Blaze walked from case to case, from display to display, feeling the depth of the throbbing drums, the rattling percussion, and the plucking stringed instruments of old vibrate in his chest as he took in each piece. They were significant all on their own, but the atmosphere Parrick had created with the visual and auditory effects lent the whole space a divine, otherworldly cast. “There’s a story being told here,” he said, slipping slightly from his Keller role.
“There is indeed,” Parrick agreed.
“It’s about you as much as the art. As if you were the artist, the creator-god of all of these works.” He was aware that he might have been going too far, reading too much into the meaning behind the whole collection when all he’d been assigned to do was focus on the Tlaloc mask. It was how he worked when he was drawing intel out of a mark...which wasn’t what he’d been tasked with doing here.
Somehow, he just couldn’t help himself.
“Very astute, Liam.” Parrick slowly circulated the room, gazing reverently at each piece as he went. He stopped at an enlarged dagger hanging in a frame, a blade of shining obsidian the size of a sword with a knurled golden handle that said it was made for plunging into unfortunate bodies more than for fighting off enemies. “The idea of power has fascinated me since I was young. Even as an altar boy—or maybe even because of that—the notion of divine supremacy in pagan cultures was always more intriguing because of its rawness, its direct connection to the source.” His eyes traced the edge of the blade, following the shine of the orange light that showered over it. “These peoples let the natural world speak to them, let their dreams and their interactions to the elements inform their sense of control over their environments.”
“Or lack of control over it,” Blaze said.
Parrick’s eyebrow arched. “Exactly.” He moved again, standing now before a necklace, a great collar that Blaze imagined once belonged to a chieftain from a powerful tribe. Pendants shaped like miniature heads hung from between the greater stones. “And when their shamans spoke to their gods, there was no text explaining the rules and regulations standing between them and an ecstatic experience. They reached out and touched the very stars, grabbed fire, held the energy in their hands. It was available from their gods directly, for nothing so much as an offering.”
Blaze moved to a case that held what appeared to be a stone heart, the surface embedded with a mosaic of red and blue stones. “Sometimes they demanded sacrifices instead of offerings in exchange for that power, didn’t they?” The lights beneath the case pulsated through a spectrum of reds, bathing the heart in color as they transitioned from deep maroon to warm burgundy to the vivid red of fresh blood.
“We all sacrifice something for power, Liam,” Parrick said, joining Blaze at the display. “Don’t we.”
Blaze took note of the fact that it wasn’t a question. “Some of us sacrifice more than others.”
Parrick nodded. “It all depends on the level of power we’re trying to achieve. Some of us are willing to sacrifice everything.” His hand reached to cradle the heart through the glass, stopping short of the case. The light ill
uminated his hand in its bloody red glow. “Some of us are willing to go even further.”
Blaze knew the profile projected by Parrick from his business dealings and his public image; he’d studied the background of the man to be well-prepared for the mission. But being in his presence was a more directly-charged experience. Beneath the man’s affable exterior, Blaze could sense a current of expectation, and surmised very accurately that the reason this man could be as calm as he was on the surface was that he’d worked very precisely to control all the variables in his life. Whatever had brought him to the point of being one of the wealthiest people in the world came at a price that perhaps no one really understood. There was always a counterpoint, and it usually involved violence, an amount of danger, and ultimately, a modicum of regret. But Parrick seemed to have none. It was as if amassing these treasures was symbolic of a man who collected power, and who fancied himself something of a god among men.
“Have you sacrificed something significant for power in your life, Liam?” Parrick asked. “Have you given up things that you wished you’d kept in favor of having something you thought you wanted at the moment, only to feel remorse for it at the most unexpected of moments?”
Blaze measured his response carefully; he could feel that he was being tested, tried by a figure who needed to know he could trust everyone in his presence—or rather, who needed to know how much to suspect them of less-than-favorable intentions. He thought as Derek Blaze now, mentally recounting everything he’d been through as a freelancer, and everything before that which had led him into this life in the first place. There was loss too great to measure. What power it had afforded him seemed hardly worth it. But the sacrifice had been made. “I feel I have,” he said.
