Steve answered straight away.
“Get up here,” I said. “We’ve got a problem.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
How long did we have before hotel security arrived? Someone would have reported the sound of gunshots. Steve brought the first aid kit with him from the car, and rigged a competent field dressing on Evan’s bicep, where the bullet had torn completely through. Another had grazed his thigh, which meant he walked with a limp, but at least he could walk. All the while I stood in the dim alcove just outside the door, watching the corridor, Detective Franks’s syringe in my hand.
My shoulder throbbed a song of agony in time with my heartbeat, but the wound had already closed. I was feeling kind of wobbly, but we were running out of time. Steve hoisted Evan to his feet, and I urged them to the door.
“What are we going to do with them?” Steve indicated the two detectives still unconscious on the floor.
“I don’t know.” If we left them, the first thing they would do when they woke would be go get a warrant for my arrest. But if we took them with us we’d have the whole police force on our trail baying for blood. “They’ve been enthralled. Franks tried to stick me with a syringe full of du. Whoever’s pulling their strings isn’t going to let this rest.”
“Want me to …?” He made a gun with his hand and mimed a headshot.
I have to admit, I didn’t say no straight away. The dragon part of me had grown impatient with the danger represented by these two. Dragons didn’t put up with insects buzzing around being a nuisance. They swatted them.
I’d tried to play the game by their rules, and look where that had gotten me. Some other dragon had enthralled them instead and turned them from a nuisance to a deadly threat. Maybe it wouldn’t be long before someone in the force noticed their erratic behaviour and started investigating, but in the meantime there was nothing they wouldn’t do for their master or mistress, whoever it was. Jason or Daiyu, clearly, given the presence of that syringe. Proper police procedures, due process, logic: it was all out the window. These two wouldn’t rest now until I was brought down.
I stared down at Detective Hartley for a long moment. She would be a thrall for the rest of her life unless the dragon who’d enthralled her died, unable to think for herself beyond the basic functions. If that dragon told her to, she’d kill without blinking. That went against everything she’d dedicated her life to. She was the victim here, even more than I was.
I shook my head. “Leave them. Let’s go.”
We took the elevator down and marched straight out the front door, under the apprehensive gaze of the woman at the front desk. Hotel security must have been waiting for police backup. We looked like extras from a zombie movie, spattered in blood, but the woman sensibly decided not to get involved.
Evan groaned as Steve eased him into the back seat.
“Hang in there,” I said. “We’ll get you some major-league painkillers when we get home. How are you doing?”
He blushed as he looked up at me, eyes adoring. “Don’t worry about me, mistress. I’d take a hundred bullets for you.”
I looked away, chastened. Was I any better than whoever had enthralled the detectives? I hated the unthinking adulation of the thralls, but what could I do? Evan was a middle-aged man. He must have been in Elizabeth’s service twenty years or more. Like his fellow thralls, his mind had been so warped by his long enthralment to Elizabeth that he would have been reduced to drooling idiocy if I hadn’t enthralled him as soon as she died. None of her thralls could have functioned any more without the bond. One of them had been too far gone to save, and he’d died within the hour. The others—I could enthral them, or leave them catatonic.
Wasn’t a life of enthralled service to me better than no life at all? I didn’t treat my thralls like slaves or cannon fodder, as so many other dragons did. He could have a long and happy life within the limits of the enchantment that bound him to me. Was life without freedom truly worse than death?
Then why did I have this bad taste in my mouth? I got into the front seat, letting him lie on the back seat. At least I’d been trying to save those men when I enthralled them. Whoever had enthralled Hartley and Franks hadn’t been thinking of their welfare, just using them as a means to an end. Even though Hartley’s cool intellect had been used against me in the past, I hated to see her reduced to virtual slavery in the service of some dragon’s ambition.
And which dragon was it? The answer to that question mattered. If it was one of my sisters, my hopes for brokering a peace between us were at an end. But the syringe in my hand said Daiyu. Those girls all knew I was immune to bane leaf now, but where would they get their hands on the only other alternative? I didn’t need to analyse a sample to know what must be in this syringe, and the only dragon around with guaranteed access to it was the Japanese queen. She probably wouldn’t even give a syringe like this to Jason. I know I wouldn’t, though the prospect of injecting him was pretty damn appealing. I stared out the window at the night city sliding by, neon lights ablaze, and decided it was time for a leap of faith.
“Give me your phone.”
Steve took one hand off the wheel and passed it across with a curious glance. “Who are you ringing?”
I pulled her card out of my pocket and dialled the number. “Valiant.”
“You going to ask her if she enthralled Hartley and Franks? She’s not going to admit to it if she did.”
I didn’t answer, just listened to the phone ringing.
“Yes?” Her voice was crisp and firm.
“It’s Kate.”
Her voice was calm, if a little wary. “Good to hear from you. What can I do for you?”
“We need to meet. Now. Tonight.”
“Where?”
“I’m in the city. Name somewhere.”
“The Art Gallery steps. I can be there in ten minutes.”
“See you then.” I hung up and told Steve to head to the Art Gallery.
“What about Evan? I thought we were taking him home?”
Evan’s face was so pale I felt guilty. He needed to be home, in bed, dosed up to the eyeballs with painkillers.
“This won’t take long.”
Home wasn’t likely to be a very safe place for me now. Any time now the police would come knocking with a warrant for my arrest. I dialled another number and gave Luce a long list of instructions. She seemed unfazed by the change in plans, but then, it took a lot to faze Luce. By the time I’d finished the call we’d arrived at the Art Gallery.
At this time of night we were the only car around and Steve parked right next to a “No Standing” sign at the base of the wide flight of steps. The many-pillared front of the building looked a little like the Parthenon, and even boasted bas-relief sculptures like the famous temple, though here they were in special niches on each of the two wings that jutted from the sides of the central building. The money must have run out, though, because most of the niches were bare, and had been as long as I could remember. Floodlights lit the warm honey-gold sandstone façade and we waited in their soft glow.
I took the opportunity to make another call.
“Time to book that holiday,” I said when Kasumi’s voice answered.
“Immediately.” In the background I heard a piping child’s voice.
“Is that Lachie?” My heart leapt. “Can I talk to him?”
“Bad time. Did you get the—later.”
She hung up. Obviously she wasn’t free to talk. Did I get the hairs? Yes, indeed, thank you kindly. Now all I needed was for her to pass on the order for my “holiday”, and I could finally do something about getting my boy back.
“You might want to do something with that.” Steve nodded at the syringe in my hand. “I doubt she’s going to feel like chatting if she sees you with that in your hand.”
The minutes ticked over, and I’d just begun to wonder if I’d set myself up for another attack when a dark blue sedan pulled in behind us. Doors slammed as Valiant and a large man whose aura
proclaimed him to be a troll got out. The car’s windows were tinted, so I couldn’t see if there was anyone else in the car.
What was I going to do with the damn syringe? Its contents were worth a fortune, and deadly dangerous. And yet I was really hoping not to have to kill any more dragons.
On impulse I squirted the stuff onto the floor of the car and watched it soak into the carpet.
Steve shook his head. “Luce isn’t going to be happy with you.”
“Then you’d better not tell her,” I said, and got out of the car.
The big troll folded his arms, making sure I couldn’t miss the size of his biceps, but I was more interested in the young woman standing next to him. She wore a T-shirt and cut-off denim shorts, quite a change from the beautiful ivory ball gown I’d last seen her in. Her long red-gold hair was loose, and she tossed her head to flick it out of her eyes.
“When you said we’d talk soon, I wasn’t expecting quite this soon.”
My dragon self bristled at her tone. Did she expect an apology? She’d be waiting a long time. My more rational self approved of her effort to control our meeting. She had guts, that was for sure.
“Have you spoken to your sisters since our chat?”
“Our sisters.” Her gaze was cool. “They’re your sisters too.”
I shrugged, and gazed out across the road at the park-like grounds of the Domain opposite. “Our sisters, then.”
“Hope and Virginia have decided to be realistic. They figure they can’t beat you if it comes to a fight, so they may as well settle for what they can get. I seem to have become the unofficial spokeswoman.”
“Maybe they figure you’re the most expendable. Makes sense, I guess. If something goes wrong between us there’s no sense all of you being in the firing line. And you are the youngest.”
She stiffened. “Are you planning for something to go wrong?”
“No.” I sighed, thinking of Detective Hartley. “But things do seem to keep going wrong, whatever my plans.”
“Well, since we’re being so frank, I don’t trust most of them any more than I trust you. But I think that list of names being leaked has got them running scared. They’re all looking for backup. No one wants to face the mobs alone.” She cocked her head to one side and regarded me thoughtfully. “It makes me wonder if it really wasn’t you that leaked it.”
“It wasn’t. I told you that.” A bat flitted overhead, en route to the sheltering trees of the Domain. I could hear others squeaking and rustling among the dark branches of the great park. “I can see why you might think so, but I’m really not that Machiavellian. And I have no desire to drag the shifter world into the light of day.”
Like those bats, parts of that world would never survive the glare.
“I can’t imagine why any shifter would.” Graciously she didn’t mention that the initial exposure was partly my fault, though we both knew it. The Harbour Bridge, scene of my epic New Year’s Eve battle with Valeria, was very close, just the other side of the Domain. “But someone obviously does. It can’t be a dragon. When the world is arranged to favour you above everyone else, you don’t mess with the status quo.”
“Unless you’re a dragon with only a one in eight chance of surviving to enjoy life at the top of the heap, perhaps,” I pointed out gently.
She shook her head. “I really don’t think they’d do it. The girls all seem happy to discuss your … ah … ideas about the future.”
“Even Hope?”
“I’m not saying she’s enthusiastic, but there’s no harm in talking, is there? It’s up to you to prove you’re genuine.”
I sat down on the broad step and patted the spot beside me. The rough sandstone still held the heat of the day. My shoulder was throbbing something fierce and I figured it was better to sit down than fall down.
“Well, I am genuine, and I hope you are too, because I need your help.”
She sat next to me and hugged her knees. In the shorts and T-shirt she looked younger than her eighteen years. Suddenly I really, really wanted this to work. I couldn’t bear the thought of killing this child.
“Really? I don’t know how the others would feel about that.” Her eyes held a wary look.
“The others do realise, don’t they, that if we’re going to share this domain between us, none of us individually will be strong enough to withstand the overseas queens? We won’t be going our separate ways and never seeing each other again. We’ll have to get used to working together and helping each other out or they’ll pick us off one by one.”
She frowned down at her feet, where summery pink toenails peeked out of her sandals. “What do you want me to do?”
“I have to leave town for a day or two. There’s something important I have to do, and it can’t wait.” I took a deep breath. Time to roll the dice. I could almost hear the clatter of them in my head. How would they fall? “But tonight two police detectives attacked me. I’ve been dealing with them since New Year. They were assigned to investigate the mysterious body in the harbour.”
Her eyebrows rose. “And how did they manage to connect you with that?”
“It’s a long story. And there’ve been complications since.” I waved my hand in a dismissive gesture. I didn’t have time to go into it. “Anyway, tonight I discovered someone has enthralled them. They had a syringe full of du. They knew what they were doing. They could have killed me.”
She stared out at the dark trees. I could almost hear her mind ticking over, putting it all together.
“You don’t know who enthralled them?”
“The du points to Daiyu as most likely, but it could have been Jason. Either way, they’re not going to stop.”
She nodded. “They’ll come after you for any excuse—or none at all.”
“Exactly.” I was pleased she saw the problem so quickly. “The men who were with me will be arrested on sight. And any of my people could be arrested on no charge at all, thanks to these new laws. The dragon controlling them can set them on anyone they please.”
“And they’re prepared to kill.”
“Yes. You can see my problem. I don’t want to go away and leave my people vulnerable.”
“But if they’re already enthralled we can’t compel them. How are we going to protect your people?”
I glanced at her massive troll, still glowering at us from beside the car. “Sometimes muscle can work just as well as brains. They’re only humans.”
She gave me an uncertain look. “So you want us to, what? Hold them captive?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Couldn’t your own people do that? You’ve got dungeons in that mansion of yours.”
“But that mansion will be the first place people look if they go missing. The police would be there with a search warrant faster than you can say dragonfire. Someone else needs to do this.”
“And when you get back? What then? We can’t hold them forever.”
By then I hoped Daiyu would have run home, tail between her legs. Or better yet, suffered an unfortunate accident at the hands of a vengeful kitsune. Of course, if she wasn’t the one responsible for enthralling the detectives, things could get interesting, but she’d already revealed she knew the secret of du when she sent Kasumi against me disguised as a herald. Usually the most obvious answer is the correct one. I had my fingers crossed, anyway.
“It won’t be forever. A couple of days is all I need. We should be in a much stronger position when I get back. The seven of us can sit down and talk and we can have this coronation and get these damn overseas queens to mind their own bloody business for a while.”
She stared at the sandstone beneath her feet for a while. I didn’t rush her, though I longed for a hot shower and a cool pillow, not necessarily in that order.
“Okay,” she said at last. “I can’t promise anything for the others, but I’ll help. Who are these detectives?”
Thank God. She seemed genuine, and that was all I could ask at this stage. It would take a
while to build trust between us, but if she did this it would go a long way toward establishing a working relationship.
“Detective Ellen Hartley and her partner Detective Franks. They were both unconscious in Room 330 of the Park Hyatt hotel when I left them a few minutes ago. The place is probably overrun with cops by now, but if you’re lucky they might still be there. If not—”
“If not, I’ll figure something out.” She stood up and brushed down the back of her shorts. “I’m on my way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Garth pulled into the small car park in front of an unassuming building that backed onto the airport. High steel fences topped with coils of barbed wire surrounded the airport, and through them we could see half a dozen private planes on the tarmac behind the building, including one with a stylised red dragon on its side. I was betting that one was Daiyu’s. Trust her to advertise.
We got out of the car, backpacks over our shoulders. Luce had only brought the essentials, which in her case was mainly firearms. There were probably a few knives weighing her pack down too. It certainly felt a lot heavier than mine, which held nothing but a change of clothes and a very small, very important glass bottle. What do you bring when you’re invading another queen’s domain? Either you bring an army, or you travel very light and rely on speed. We’d gone for Option B.
Garth got out too. The rumble of jets taking off and landing competed with the traffic roaring past the car park. The air smelled of jet fuel and sunbaked asphalt.
“I hate that you’re going without me.”
He stood very close, and I swayed toward him, feeling that invisible connection.
“You worry too much. Remember when I went to confront Valeria on New Year’s Eve? You wanted to come then, too, and I managed all right without you.”
Twiceborn Endgame (The Proving Book 3) Page 18
