The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  That’d make sense, given his looks. Or a seduction demon. Had to be some otherness about this guy. No one looked that good.

  “Not as far as we know,” replied Ling Mai. “He’s human. Or we believe he’s human, but until someone who can identify a non-human gets intel the point is up for debate.”

  No freakin’ way was he human.

  Ling Mai added, “Name’s Bran.”

  “Just Bran?” Kelly scanned her printed material. “No other name?”

  “No.” Ling Mai glanced at the image. “He was born with only one name, a power play between his biological parents. His mother a princess of one of the lesser royal houses of Europe, his father an Irish musician.”

  Royal house? Most of those had Vamp or demon blood for sure.

  “Says here his old man was Colin Bran. He was the lead singer for the Bullets.” Jaylene was reading her folder, too, as she continued to whistle long and low. A sound that made my hormones heat at the same time I was getting the chills. “Colin Bran’s not a musician, he’s a legend.”

  My folder still lay untouched, a dead weight in my lap.

  Fatigue.

  Liar.

  I wanted to let the image speak, not the words. When was the last time a picture of a guy knocked me for a loop?

  Never.

  Maybe I needed to get out more often. Oh, wait, I was a prisoner of the agency, which didn’t take kindly to its recruits wandering the streets for a booty call. Even if I wasn’t that kind of a gal. But for a guy who looked like this, I might change my policy.

  “Our subject was the uncalculated result of an indiscreet affair,” Ling Mai said.

  “The man’s a bastard.” Jaylene always called it like she saw it.

  “Yes, and the only heir to the kingdom of San Morin and his father’s sizable fortune. Both of which he has turned his back on.”

  “Why?” Kelly asked, echoing the surprise I felt. Who turned down wealth? A saint? Or a sinner?

  “He’s become quite wealthy and well-known in his own field. Haute couture.”

  “You mean he makes dresses?” Jaylene said the words lodged in my throat.

  The man had to be as gay as a Parisian cross-dresser. I released an audible sigh. So much for wet dreams.

  Ling Mai continued, “He’s considered one of the world’s up and coming fashion designers. The next Versace or Armani.”

  “What a waste,” Jaylene muttered.

  “On the contrary. No doubt one day Bran’s name will be a household word. Right now he associates with the world’s most elite and most-highly connected clientele and has an independent fortune.”

  “Some men have it all.” Jaylene crossed her arms. “What does he have to do with our mission? He need a babysitter?”

  Ling Mai folded her hands on the pristine surface of the boardroom table. “His group is the common thread behind a string of international thefts. Seemingly unrelated; art, antiquities, jewels, and lately, top-secret government information, including some paranormal intel that could be very dangerous, especially to us.”

  “Wait,” I found my voice by focusing in on the business. “Don’t thieves usually specialize in one commodity? Like jewels only?” I was ignoring the paranormal comment. One land mine at a time to diffuse.

  “Yes, they do.” Ling Mai turned her onyx-black gaze on me, reminding me of the Chinese witch I’d trained with as a child. A power glance quickly banked. One of these days I’d have to find out what Ling Mai really was. I shook off my train of thought and focused on what she had to say.

  “The disparity in the types of burglaries is why it’s been so difficult to link these incidents to a common denominator. Interpol has been tracking Bran and his traveling fashion shows for nearly a year now and in a number of major locations he’s visited, within a week or two, a theft occurs.”

  “So our hunk is a common punk?” I asked, disappointed all over again. Gay and a criminal. That so sucked. And so much for my taste in men.

  “That piece of the puzzle is still in dispute. In fact,” Ling Mai glanced back at the screen. “Bran has been approached on several occasions about the missing items, and to prove his own innocence, has agreed to allow an undercover operative to travel with him in hopes of pinpointing exactly who within his organization, or connected to his organization, might be behind the thefts.”

  “Agreed?” Kelly asked, saving me the trouble. “As in volunteered to have someone checking him out?”

  Ling Mai nodded. “He wasn’t given much choice. From what I have heard he tolerates the situation, but as an astute businessman knows you must take the negative with the positive.”

  “But he still could be the porch climber?” Jaylene said, using a term I’d heard in prison for thief.

  “Yes, there’s still that possibility.” Ling Mai smiled her enigmatic smile that raised more questions than it answered. “He’s agreed to cooperate, but he’s less than pleased with the situation.”

  I glanced at the face on the screen. Yeah, I could see that arrogance allowing law enforcement to travel with him while he kept on being a bad, bad boy right under their noses. A game within a game to someone like him.

  It didn’t take an experienced woman to realize this was not a man you would want to come up against. At least power to power, not body to body.

  Poor Vaughn. With her background as an ambassador’s daughter and being a world socialite, this op sounded right up her alley. Maybe she’d go undercover as his lover. Not a bad gig, if the man was straight, and Stone wasn’t aware of what his cuddle-buddy was doing. None of the group knew what Vaughn’s “other” talent was, but when you looked like a cover model and had wealth as a fallback position, being extra-endowed was just plain overkill.

  “So when does Vaughn do this?” Kelly asked.

  I relaxed my shoulders, my thoughts already on what I needed to do to free Van, with or without agency backing, and anxious to get onto what was my mission.

  “Vaughn?” Ling Mai’s eyes clouded before her smile deepened, reaching her eyes this time. “Oh, I see, but I’m afraid you have it wrong. Vaughn has something else to do. Infiltration of Bran’s operation must happen immediately and does not require the full team’s involvement. It should be a simple reconnoiter and report assignment and only one operative is needed. Besides, Bran insisted on choosing which team member he was willing to have on the inside.”

  Several of our gazes clashed. Since when did a suspect get to pick and choose who might take him down?

  I cleared my throat. “So who’s going up against this guy?”

  Ling Mai’s gaze speared me. “He chose you, Alex.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Twenty minutes later, after Jaylene and Kelly had their assignment, the one I should be on, going after my brother, I was back in Ling Mai’s office, so frustrated I could chew glass.

  Someone had to talk some sense into the director. This wasn’t just pairing the wrong talent with the wrong job, this was Van’s life at stake.

  I waved the op folder clenched one-handed in front of me, alone at last with the director. “This is not what I should be doing.” Understatement. “I mean I can be a hairdresser, but that’s not the problem. Van needs me. Some poof-guy doesn’t need a witch to take him down.”

  “I don’t understand?” Ling Mai sat still and contained behind her desk that cost more than my dad’s farm, the perfect picture of controlled calm.

  “I need to find and save Van.” I huffed a breath, and held up a hand to forestall Ling Mai thinking I was only focused on my own needs. Which I was, but that wasn’t my point. “Besides I do physical real well. Give me a mountain to scale, a building to jump off, a non-human to summon—” I glanced at the folder crumpling in my grip. “This is frou-frou stuff.”

  “Frou-frou?”

  “Yes, you know what I mean. Girlie clothes and rich people hobnobbing with each other. Van is in—”

  “You are a hairdresser. Is that not girlie?”

  “No.” I s
hook my head. “Well, in a way it is, but in a way it isn’t. Hairdressers can wear jeans and be invisible. Vaughn is the best person for this mission. Not me. If we’re going to take this op then give it to someone who can get the job done and done quickly. Jaylene could be a model for the clothes or Kelly could go in, do her disappearing act and get everything you need in a snap.”

  “You’re wrong.” Ling Mai’s look told me I was getting nowhere. “In fact, you’re the perfect person for this mission.”

  “Good grief, why?” Other than it would keep me out of her hair, and away from where Van was. Is that what was up? She didn’t trust I could be a team player? Or was this to punish me for being a screw-up?

  “You underestimate yourself, Alex.” Ling Mai had dropped the Miss Noziak bit. Good news? Probably not. “True, the people Bran associates with are in a different social-economic sphere than you are used to.”

  Another understatement.

  “But they are no different than you.”

  Oh, yes they are.

  I leaned forward. “Look, I appreciate this vote of confidence.” Or the sucking up, though it wasn’t Ling Mai’s style to suck up to anyone, especially a recruit. “I really do. But there’s no way I can…I can mingle with people I can’t even talk with. It’s not like we can discuss pork prices or the best way to shear sheep.” And no way could I chit-chat with Van’s life on the line.

  “I think you’ll be surprised at how easily you’ll fit in with Bran’s group. Do not underestimate yourself.”

  “I’m not—”

  “What is it you’re really afraid of here, Miss Noziak?”

  My shoulders snapped to attention. We were back to queen to peon, besides no Noziak was called a coward. “I’m not-—”

  “Then what is it?”

  I glanced up, as if reason hid in the ceiling plaster. Then decided to go for broke. “You’re keeping me from helping Van. He needs me now. Don’t do this to me. To him.”

  “So you think you are the only person capable of finding information on where they are keeping your brother?”

  Why did the director have to sound like one of the Star Wars characters? Obi Wan Kenobi. Or maybe it was Yoda. So calm and reasonable when I wanted to scream.

  “Yeah, I think I’m the best chance my brother has at living, and if he’s alive he can give you the information you want.” I flared my hands in front of me, sounding less than gracious and ignoring it. “You want me to go in to this other job, shake everyone’s hands, waste my time, while my brother is being tortured and could be dying. There’s no reason I’m the one being sent on this wild-goose chase. None.”

  “Even if the last theft tracked back to someone who attended one of Bran’s events happens to be the bank robbery in Switzerland?” Ling Mai asked, her gaze level and clear.

  That had my heart stopping and my breath backing up. “You mean this guy is tied to whomever, or whatever, has Van?”

  Ling Mai leaned forward, just a hint, but enough to have me mimicking her move so I didn’t miss a single vowel. “I’m saying there may be a connection. Bran travels the world. He has contacts in a lot of places. I believe it’s more than likely that there is a link between the thefts, the people who took your brother, and Bran’s group.”

  More than likely? Was that a bone tossed to me to gnaw on? Or was Ling Mai’s gut instinct a solid lead? Could I afford to ignore either?

  I sat back, my thoughts whirling. “So you’re saying if I go check out this dressmaker, and find a connection between him—”

  “Or someone he’s in contact with.”

  “Yeah, yeah, or someone he’s in contact with.” I sucked in a deep breath, ignoring the whap of pain across my ribs, stilling my fears enough to make a hard choice here. “Doing this piece-of-fluff mission might actually help me find Van?”

  “And if you do find a lead the agency will act on it, as much as is within our power.”

  Like I believed that for a heartbeat. Ling Mai took care of the agency and the agency had its own agenda. But even if Ling Mai was lying through her pearly white teeth, if I could find a link, or a hint of where Van was, then I’d be one step closer to saving him.

  Ling Mai continued, “In the meantime we’ll have Ms. Smart, Ms. McAllister, and Mr. Stone following through on what NATO has discovered about the possible whereabouts of your brother.”

  I held Ling Mai’s gaze steadily with mine. There would be no doublespeak, no grey areas between us. “You’re saying both operations stand us a better chance to find Van.”

  “You forget, Miss Noziak, that I am very interested in the information your brother knows about who is behind the increased agitation and unification actions among the non-humans. You want your brother safe. I want your brother safe for what he knows.”

  Pragmatism. I could deal with that. Especially my version of it, doing whatever it took to save Van.

  “Fine.” I staggered to my feet, biting back a whimper. No way could I betray that I was in worse shape than I looked. I didn’t want to give Ling Mai any ammunition to stop my finding Van. “When do I start?”

  She waved me back to my seat.

  “You depart tomorrow for France.”

  Good, last I knew Van had been working somewhere in France or Germany. This op was sounding better and better.

  “—but I shall not let you enter the tiger’s den without assistance,” Ling Mai continued as I scrambled to take a deep breath and catch up with what the director had been saying. “I recommend you take this along with you.”

  I leaned as far forward as my ribs allowed to see what she had pulled from her top desk drawer. Whatever it was had to be small, really small to fit in Ling Mai’s dainty hands. Reaching forward, palm up, I waited for a weapon, or listening device, or some techno whiz gadget. Instead the director slipped a ring onto my palm.

  “Seriously. . .” I turned the smooth yet plain silver band over and over, feeling an incised letter or symbol, like a misshapen R on the inside curve. I glanced up at Ling Mai. “Please tell me this has some powers, some abilities?”

  “Of a kind.” The director actually smiled, which under other circumstances might have been a positive sight. Right now all it did was disconcert me.

  “The symbol marked on the silver is from the Elder Futhark runes,” Ling Mai said.

  “I need that in English.” I understood runes; most witches used them in wardings, or to create protection circles, but this Fut-whatever was new to me.

  “The symbol is a very old one. A very valuable one.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Journey.”

  “Great.” I stood, disappointed, with fatigue weighting my shoulders, pain tap dancing across every nerve ending. Pain and maybe a twinge of fear. “I don’t mean to be dense here, Director, but I’m just a country girl. You’re telling me that all I need to accomplish this mission is a ring with some writing on it?”

  Ling Mai leaned back in her chair, and resting her elbows on the silk-covered wooden arms, she steepled her fingers before speaking. “There are many kinds of journeys we can travel, both external and internal, and the ring is a reminder of that.” She nodded at where I had curled my hand around the piece of jewelry. “The ring is so much more, if you allow it to be. When you come within a twenty-foot radius of non-humans the ring will heat your skin and enhance your natural abilities, in your case to identify non-humans or to cast spells.”

  “This will alert me to the presence of non-humans?” Okay, that might come in handy. “How will I know which kind of non-human I’m dealing with?” That was the big issue. As a witch I was marginally more aware of the otherness of non-humans, more than say Kelly or Jaylene, but knowing I was coming up against a threatening non-human versus just another being who wanted to be ignored to get on with their lives, now that was a useful tool.

  “At this time the ring can only help you identify non-humans, but not their specifics,” Ling Mai said.

  I snorted. I already knew there were non-hu
mans out there. This piece of crap was as useful as going into any inner-city core and having a piece of jewelry tell me there were folks who carried a weapon on them.

  Ling Main continued as if I’d spoken aloud, “The ring enhances what you already have.”

  “You mean if I had this on when I summoned three echo-demons instead of one I could have ended up with six?”

  “I maintain that you have many more abilities than you are currently using, which is almost nil. Your challenge is to harness what you possess, focus on your intentions, and embrace what you are. You have abilities to hone.”

  Easy for her to say; last time I seriously accessed my magic abilities I killed a man. For witches magic could be light or dark. The more you used any kind of magic, the easier to cross that line into a dark magic user. It’s what my father had warned me against, years ago. It’s the road my mother had slipped down. And now Ling Mai expected me to jump wholeheartedly into being a witch.

  All magic had a price.

  “You were born to be a witch, Alex, do not throw that away out of fear.”

  She stood. This meeting was over, until she added, “Think of the ring as a connection to a larger good. Remember that you are of this agency, and that though you may travel alone, you need not be alone. You’re part of a team. Choose to belong and you could be unstoppable.”

  I hurt too bad to buy into what the director was saying, but I did stop myself from rolling my eyes. Barely.

  Cutting through all the woo-woo stuff I understood the bottom line. I’d signed on to do what needed to be done, when and wherever. Plus taking this mission meant I was going after Van, with or without Ling Mai’s permission. I cracked my neck as I mumbled, “Fine, I’ll wear the ring and do the mission.”

  “I always knew you would.”

  Yeah, right, which is why the director had resorted to blackmail and threats against Van. The agency was just one big happy family.

  Bull. I’d agreed to do my job and I’d do it.

  But that didn’t mean I was going to like doing it.

  On the other hand, maybe Vaughn would get freed up and before I knew it I’d be back doing something useful—something putting me closer to Van.