But Riordan MacCormac was a wizard and a killer and an assassin. He was a lot of the same things that I was. Maybe that was why I was drawn to him. I knew he could handle someone like me.
And I liked his eyes. And, well…I liked the other parts of him that I had seen. So far.
We went for a walk in the cold winter night after that, still talking. Eventually, we returned to the parking lot of Sergeant Tom’s Shooting Range And Gun Emporium, Riordan kissed me once more on the cheek, and I drove back to La Crosse.
I had a lot of work to do.
Despite my bravado about the job, I was nervous. The possibility that Baron Castomyr had connections with the Rebels or the cults of the Dark Ones was dangerous. That meant the Inquisition might be sniffing around his mansion, and I absolutely did not want to deal with the Inquisition. Homeland Security was dangerous enough in its bumbling way, but the High Queen’s Inquisition was far more effective. Worse, if Morvilind suspected I was in danger of capture, he would kill me.
Well. Best not to get caught, then.
My plan was good, and my preparations were solid. There was every possibility I could get the tablet and escape.
But I had been doing this for long enough to know that something always went wrong.
###
At last, the night of Lord Castomyr’s Thanksgiving banquet arrived.
I dressed appropriately.
Actually, I didn’t know what the appropriate clothing to an Elven noble’s Thanksgiving banquet was, but fortunately there were web sites to inform me of these things. I went with a long-sleeved dark blue sheath dress with a high neckline, the skirt coming to my knees. It went well with black high heels, and I did up my hair, looping a simple silver chain around my neck and hanging silver earrings in my ears. A bit of makeup and perfume, and I looked the part of some businessman’s spoiled daughter come to suck up to Lord Castomyr and his vassals.
I took a long black overcoat and a slender black purse, and hired a taxi to Lord Castomyr’s mansion.
It was bitterly cold. The trouble with women’s formal wear is that it isn’t particularly warm, and I envied the men their jackets and vests and heavy overcoats. From time to time I had considered trying to disguise myself as a man, but I was too short to pull it off.
Fortunately, the dress meant it fit right in with the other guests.
Thousands of people arrived at Lord Castomyr’s Thanksgiving banquet, all of them clad in their finest. As I walked with the other guests through the frozen garden terraces, I saw a sea of expensive dresses and suits, jewelry glinting on the ears and at the throats of the women. Part of my mind calculated how much I could make if I stole and sold some of the jewelry, and I had a brief vision of storming the party like the over-the-top villain from a movie, demanding that the guests hand over their valuables at once.
Of course, that fantasy would end with me getting gunned down by Castomyr’s guards, so I decided to stick to the original plan.
I joined the lines entering the mansion’s grand banquet hall. Four grim-faced men in dark suits stood there, the bulge of semiautomatic pistols visible beneath their coats. Each guard carried a smartphone with a camera attachment, scanning the holographic seals upon the guests’ invitations. The phones would connect to Castomyr’s servers, and check the invitation against the guest list. If I had done my work properly, my fake invitation would pass muster.
If it didn’t…well, I would have to get creative real fast.
I reached the head of the line, and handed my invitation to a solemn middle-aged guard, likely one of Castomyr’s veterans from the High Queen’s endless campaigns in the Shadowlands. The guard swiped my invitation beneath his smartphone’s camera, and I held my breath. If this went wrong…
The phone let out a cheerful beep, and the guard handed back my invitation.
“Enjoy the party, Miss Rastov,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, tucking the invitation into my purse, and I strode into Lord Castomyr’s banquet hall, my heels clicking against the polished stone floor. A valet took my coat and handed me a ticket, which I tucked into my purse. Then I took a deep breath and looked around.
For all his grim reputation, Castomyr knew how to throw a party.
The banquet hall was huge, dotted with hundreds of round tables covered in crisp white linen and gleaming plates with polished silverware. Elaborate centerpieces rested on each of the tables, and I shuddered to think of how much work had gone into preparing them. Pale blue lights illuminated the hall, and an array of hidden projectors threw the image of the High Queen’s personal sigil and the American flag across the wooden beams of the broad ceiling (with the High Queen’s sigil larger and higher, of course). The tables were currently empty, as most of the guests were streaming into the next hall for appetizers and dancing.
I followed the flow, accepted a glass of wine from a waiter in a tuxedo, and took a moment to look around. The older guests gravitated towards the trays of shrimp puffs and stuffed mushrooms, while the younger guests (and a few of the more adventuresome older ones) were dancing in time to soft music playing from hidden speakers.
On a raised platform at the other end of the hall, I spotted Baron Castomyr himself. He stood at the center of the platform, surrounded by his Elven vassals and his most favored human subjects. In person he looked even harsher and grimmer than the picture Morvilind had shown me. He stood nearly seven feet tall, tall even for an Elf, and his muscled build filled the long black-trimmed blue coat he wore. He had thick, ash-blond hair, and his eyes were a peculiar shade of green that made his angular face and pointed ears seem even more alien.
For a moment it felt like he looked right at me, and that his cold, brilliant eyes sliced through me like knives. A flicker of fear went through my heart. I was planning to steal from this man? I knew that if he caught me, his retribution would be brutal.
I took a deep breath and got control of myself. Yes, Baron Castomyr was dangerous, and would kill me if he caught me. But I had escaped dangerous people before. Paul McCade. The Knight of Grayhold. Nicholas Connor and Sergei Rogomil. I just had to be careful and keep my wits about me…
“Care to dance, madam?” said a man’s voice.
I turned around.
A man in his middle thirties stood behind me, tall and thin to the point of being gangly. He was dressed in formal clothes like everyone else in Castomyr’s mansion, but his clothes were a little…odd, almost archaic. He wore black trousers, a black vest, and a long double-breasted black coat that hung to his knees. A gold chain connected to the disk of a pocket watch tucked into an interior pocket of his coat. Most of the men wore ties, but he wore a bright blue cravat wound around his neck and tucked into the vest. It made him look a bit like a character from some old historical drama.
“I’m sorry?” I said, my brain catching up to my surprise.
He grinned. His face was on the long side, his brown hair tousled and unkempt, but he did have an appealing smile. “Would you care to dance, madam? I am given to understand that is the custom.” He had a strong British accent. I know that the different regions of Britain have different traditional accents, but I’d never been able to keep them all straight.
That said, he sounded a lot like Nora, the British Shadow Hunter who had helped Riordan rescue me from the anthrophages.
Did that mean he was a Shadow Hunter? I couldn’t see any signs of a Shadowmorph on him, but it would be hidden beneath his clothes. If he wasn’t a Shadow Hunter, then why did he want to dance with me? Was he one of Lord Castomyr’s security men? A Homeland Security agent? A member of the Inquisition?
Then my brain sorted through my paranoia and pointed out that was I was a young woman in good shape wearing a tight dress, and I had walked near the dance floor. It was the most reasonable thing in the world for a man to ask for a dance, and if I kept staring at him like an idiot, I was going to draw attention.
“That’s very forward,” I said. “We’ve only just met, and I don’t ev
en know your name.”
He grinned again. “Quite true, of course.” To my mild amusement, he offered an elaborate bow, seizing my left hand and placing a dry kiss upon the knuckles. “My name is Armand Boccand, and I do hope you will share with me the honor of your name.”
“Anna Rastov,” I said. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Boccand.” I took a step back. “Now…”
“Now I hope we can dance,” said Boccand.
I blinked, and then laughed. “You are persistent.”
“Well, a lack of persistence never got anyone anywhere, did it?” said Boccand. That was true enough. “That, and you looked so sad and lonely standing there alone at the edge of the dance floor. I felt it my duty to offer my assistance.”
“Aww,” I said. “That’s just so sweet. And then you’ll offer assistance to walk me to my car, and then to your apartment, and then out of my dress, I’m sure.”
Like I’ve said, I’ve got a smart mouth. It kicks in when I’m scared. I wasn’t scared of Armand Boccand, but I was nervous about the job.
Armand only grinned. “I didn’t say anything about any of that. You’re the one who seems to have all these…inappropriate ideas, given that we did just meet.”
I opened my mouth, closed it.
I stepped into that one. Real smooth.
“One dance,” I said. “I’m waiting for someone, so just one dance.”
“Of course, madam,” said Boccand, gripping my hand and settling his other hand upon my hip. He was a lot taller than I was, which annoyed me. Of course, I was only five foot three, so pretty much everyone was taller than I was. Even my baby brother, which was just unfair.
On the other hand, Russell had helped me shoot our way free from the orcish soldiers at the Ducal Mall, so I guess he wasn’t a baby any longer.
I pushed the thoughts from my mind and focused on the dance. I hoped Armand wasn’t a clumsy dancer. His feet were so much bigger than mine that if he stepped on me he would probably break my toes, and that was the last thing I needed right now. Yet he took the lead without any trouble. I knew how to dance, but I didn’t particularly like it. I didn’t like to be touched by strangers, even for things as innocuous as a handshake or a formal dance.
The various daydreams I had about touching Riordan…well, that was something else.
“I have to admit,” announced Boccand, “that I really enjoy these things.”
I frowned. “What things?”
“Banquets, of course.”
I found that thought so puzzling that I couldn’t stop myself from asking. “Why?”
“The free food, of course,” said Boccand. “Why do you think I’m wearing this coat?”
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“I’m a thief, obviously,” said Boccand, and a little trickle of alarm went down my spine. “It has a lot of pockets, and I can stuff a lot of free food into the coat. See?”
His hand moved from my hip and disappeared into his pocket, and came out holding a napkin wrapped around a trio of miniature egg rolls from the appetizer table. “Egg roll?”
It was so absurd I had to laugh. “No, thank you. But if you get grease on my dress I swear I’m going to stab your foot with my heel.”
“And I would deserve it, too,” said Boccand, making the little bundle disappear into his coat once more. “That’s why I wrapped them in a napkin. Do you have any idea how much it costs to dry-clean this coat?”
“Probably not as much as it would cost to visit a doctor to have my heel extracted from your foot,” I said.
“True, true,” said Boccand. “But I would make it up in free food. I guarantee I shall take at least six pounds of appetizers home with me tonight.”
“What a charming thought,” I said. I couldn’t tell if he was an agent for Homeland Security, one of Lord Castomyr’s security men, another criminal working some other kind of angle at the banquet, or simply a man who enjoyed egg rolls too much. If he was trying to seduce me, it was one of the odder seduction attempts that I had ever seen.
“So what brings a young lady alone to Lord Castomyr’s banquet?” said Boccand.
“I told you I’m not alone,” I said. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“Ah, well, yes,” said Boccand. “I hope you didn’t follow through with your earlier threat.”
“Which threat?” I said.
“If you stabbed him through the foot with your heel, he might take a little while to catch up with you,” said Boccand.
I laughed despite myself.
“I hadn’t considered that,” I said.
“And if you make a regular practice of it,” said Boccand, “you’ll be spending a lot of time alone.”
“If I’m so dangerous,” I said, “what made you want to dance with me?”
He grinned. “Because I am bold and fearless, of course. Though you do make me curious.”
“That’s very forward,” I said.
“Well,” said Boccand, “as I said, I am very bold. And curious to what brings a young woman alone to an Elven noble’s banquet.”
That settled my mind. He was clearly a Homeland Security agent, keeping watch for potential dangers. These kinds of parties drew all sorts of intrigue (I ought to know) and a careful Homeland Security agent could scoop up a promising target.
“I’m a web programmer,” I said, using my cover story. “I was working on a site for Lord Castomyr’s staff, and I got an invitation to this thing. The invitation was for two, so I’m waiting for my friend to arrive from town. I’m afraid all your boldness has been wasted, Mr. Boccand.”
Boccand raised his eyebrow again. “A web programmer, is that it? I don’t like computers very much. Did you make a site rating football scores?”
“No, I worked on the middleware stack for the registration database, making sure all the SQL queries functioned right and that the database tables were structured properly. The invitations have holographic seals, and when the guards scan them with their phones, an app connects to the Baron’s web servers, authenticates the data against the registration database, and then…”
“Sounds enthralling,” said Boccand. His eyes had gotten a little glassy, which was good. I knew what most of the words I had used meant, but I wasn’t actually a web programmer, and if he had started talking about programming techniques I might have gotten in trouble.
The dance finished, and Boccand stepped back and offered a flourishing bow.
“Miss Rastov, a pleasure to meet you,” said Boccand. “I do hope you enjoy the banquet.”
“Likewise,” I said. “It looks like they’re bringing out some shrimp puffs if you want to fill your pockets.”
“Ah!” said Boccand, and he turned and headed back towards the dining area.
I watched him go. I was almost entirely certain that he was a Homeland Security or Inquisition agent. Something about me had caught his attention, and he had probed a little. With luck, I had deflected his suspicions.
Either way, I would need to keep an eye out for him. But if my plan went well, I would take the tablet and be on my way back to Milwaukee within two hours.
A chime rang out, filling both of the halls, and suddenly silence fell, broken by the sounds of people pushing themselves to their feet.
Lord Castomyr was going to address his guests.
Which meant it was time for me to get to work.
Chapter 2: Scooped
As usual for this kind of party, one of Castomyr’s underlings stepped to the podium on the platform and led the crowds through the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag and to the High Queen of the Elves. I dimly remembered learning the Pledge a long time ago on my first day of school, back when my parents had still been alive and we had lived in Seattle. I glanced around and saw the other guests reciting the Pledge, some with tears in their eyes as they gazed at the High Queen's sigil.
They really believed it. They honestly and truly believed it.
That was the trick, I suppose. They had been taught to love the
Elves. I could see all the tricks, all the thousand little subtle ways propaganda from the Department of Education reinforced the impression that the Elves were benevolent and wise, that they had brought peace and order to humanity with the High Queen’s rule.
I wondered if I would have been like the other people in the hall, blind to the real nature of the world, if frostfever hadn’t killed my parents.
On the other hand, as much as I disliked the Elves, I hated the Rebels, so that was that.
After we finished, Baron Castomyr took the podium.
“Citizens of La Crosse and subjects of the High Queen Tarlia,” said the Baron. Despite his intimidating appearance, his voice was soft, and even with the mansion’s high-quality sound system I had to strain a little to hear him. Somehow that made him seem more daunting. “Rejoice on this day of thanksgiving, and offer thanks to God for the benevolent rule of our High Queen. She has brought an end to wars between your nations, and given order and duty to your race. Let us labor diligently and gratefully in our duties, until the glorious hour of the Day of Return arrives, when the High Queen rules over both Earth and the homeworld of the Elves. To the Day of Return!”
“To the Day of Return!” thundered the crowd back.
With that, Castomyr stepped away from the podium and seated himself once more. Evidently that was the entirety of his speech, which was a relief. Some of the Elven nobles liked to hear themselves talk, and I had heard that Duke Carothrace of Madison could talk for hours without stopping, or presumably even drawing breath.
The music started again, soft and pleasant, and most of the guests made their way towards the dining tables, while an army of servers emerged from the doors to the kitchens. Many of them were temporary workers hired from a catering company, but some of them were Castomyr’s own slaves, clad in orange with silver collars around their necks.
Cloak Games: Shadow Jump Page 3
