Con & Conjure rb-5

by Lisa Shearin

  “Couldn’t tell. He was cloaked, hooded, and gloved.”

  “He’d have to be a goblin. I can’t see Khrynsani assassins trusting a human at their backs. Sounds like I’ve got a Khrynsani nest to find and clean out.” Mychael indicated the folded cloth in my left hand. “Is that something else Imala and Tam want you to look at?”

  I nodded. “The dart that took Chigaru in the back of the neck.”

  “The back?”

  “Fired by one of his own courtiers. Imala wants to know who.” I carefully peeled away the cloth, exposing what was essentially a black needle that was no longer than my last finger joint.

  The dart still had the prince’s blood on it, as did the bolt. Any contact with that blood and I’d be sharing Chigaru’s shoulder-puncturing, virtually drowning experience. But if I wiped any of the blood off, some of the assassin’s residue could be wiped off with it.

  “Can you find out who fired it without touching it?” Mychael asked.

  I winced. “Wish I could.”

  Mychael knelt on the floor next to me, and I could sense the heat of his body even through his armor. He wrapped his fingers around my hand holding the dart, keeping it steady to get a closer look.

  “I can’t see any residue of poison,” he murmured. “But that doesn’t mean—”

  Some things could be resisted, but why?

  I closed the distance between our lips. I had a bolt in one hand and a dart in the other and didn’t dare drop either one, but my lips didn’t need any help; they were doing a satisfying job all by themselves. I pulled away from the kiss only when the terror of nearly being blown up was replaced by wondering how I could get past Mychael’s armor, and how long we’d have until someone started banging on the door.

  There was nothing more life affirming than lust.

  Mychael’s grin was slow and wicked. “I would ask what that was for, but it doesn’t matter. Thank you.”

  I felt myself finally start to relax. Sometimes a little lust was not only fun, but needed. “I’m just glad to be alive to do it. I don’t go around asking for big trouble, but it’s got a tendency to show up when I’m around.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me,” Mychael said. Then the grin was gone. “I’m also not going to argue with you about an armed escort.”

  I met him with silence. He knew how I felt about being stuck in the middle of a crowd of big, armored men. I might as well stay in the citadel, but I had the sense not to say that out loud.

  I glanced down at the dart and bolt. “Well, the quickest way to get rid of the trouble is to find out who caused it. I don’t suppose you’d step outside while I do this?”

  It was Mychael’s turn to give me the silent treatment.

  “You’re too noisy,” I told him. He knew I didn’t mean talking; I meant magical noise. Mychael was one of the strongest battle mages there was, and just being in the same room with him was playing havoc on my concentration. Having him within touching distance was doing the same thing to my control. Neither was conducive to locating a pair of potential assassins.

  Mychael stood. “I’ll sit on the other side of the room, and you won’t even know I’m here.”

  After that kiss, I seriously doubted that, but I knew from past experience that Mychael could tamp down his magical power to next to nothing. Within five seconds, he’d done just that. It was as impressive now as it had been then.

  “Are you going to stay in that chair?” Mychael murmured.

  “Good point.”

  I got out of the chair and found myself a nice corner. With my shoulders wedged against a pair of walls, that’d be at least two directions I couldn’t fall. The impressions I got from an object could be jarring, and since I was trying to find a pair of assassins, the hit from those links could very well put me on the floor. That didn’t even factor in what it’d be like to feel Chigaru’s impressions coming off of that dart and bolt. I’d done seekings before using items ranging from a bolt or blade to a necklace and hairbrush. The most recent use of the object was the one felt first. If a person had been killed with what I was holding, I’d get the treat of feeling what it was like to die right along with them. Chigaru hadn’t died, but taking a crossbow bolt in the shoulder and falling overboard had to have hurt like hell.

  Just do the work, Raine. Do the dart first.

  The problem with touching a poisoned dart was not knowing how much poison was left on it. However, since Chigaru was still alive, the dunking in a harbor full of water must have been what’d kept the poison from killing him. Still, it wasn’t a theory that I was eager to test, especially not on myself. The dart was tiny so I took a big chance and placed the tip of my index finger very carefully on the flat, non-pointed (and hopefully non-poisonous) end.

  In the blink of an eye, I was seeing what the poisoner saw. I’d never had a connection that immediate, which meant this person was close by, very close by. Well, we knew that they were on the yacht, but what I was seeing now wasn’t the yacht. It was the dock, or more precisely on the dock.

  Kneeling at Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin’s side.

  Oh hell.

  Chatar, the goblin healer/mage.

  No, that couldn’t be right. Chatar might be a jerk, but he was a jerk who’d just saved the prince’s life. Why would he poison the prince and then save him? That went beyond not making sense, even for an intrigue-loving goblin courtier.

  The dart showed me something else. When Chigaru was hit with the dart, he started falling to the left. Apparently this baelusa stuff was fast acting. Then the bolt took him in the right shoulder. If the prince hadn’t been shot with that dart, he would have been standing straight when that bolt arrived, and it would have taken him right through the heart and he’d have been dead before he hit the water.

  Saved by poison.

  I carefully rewrapped the dart and set it aside. Mychael didn’t say a word, and neither did I. I had my concentration and I didn’t want to lose it.

  I picked up the bolt and wrapped my fingers around it in a fist. A connection with Chigaru Mal’Salin was strong and immediate. The crazy goblin had known that he was going to get shot. He was counting on his people in the crowd to catch whoever was firing the shot. The prince had nearly fifty agents in and around the waterfront. Mychael didn’t know that, and he needed to. His job was to keep the peace on Mid. Certain elves and goblins were spoiling for a war. Just because Chigaru’s people were there to protect him didn’t mean that the prince didn’t have them here for other purposes.

  A goblin seldom had only one motive.

  A Mal’Salin could juggle dozens.

  I’d been shot with a crossbow before, so I could anticipate some of what I’d feel. The jolt of the impact followed by white-hot burning, like what was sticking out of you wasn’t a bolt, but a heated fire poker. The disorientation of falling backward off of the yacht, and pain of hitting the water. Chigaru’s neck and shoulders had borne the brunt of the impact.

  I blew air in and out between my clenched teeth to keep myself from doing the same, only falling against a filthy wall rather than in an even-more-filthy harbor.

  Chigaru’s unconsciousness severed my connection to him. I held up my hand to keep Mychael on his side of the office. He didn’t like it, and he didn’t need words to tell me so. I felt it. It took a few minutes for me to manage to sit up straight, but once I wasn’t seeing two of everything, I searched further for the man—or woman—who’d held the bolt and loaded it into that crossbow. I followed the line that the bolt had taken, back to an open second-floor window. I saw a pair of hands first. The assassin was a man, and his hands weren’t gray, so he was either an elf or human.

  Then I saw his face.

  My eyes flew open and I almost choked on my own breath.

  Rache Kai. The deadliest assassin in the seven kingdoms. Our paths had crossed—and rubbed together.

  Rache was my ex-fiancé.

  I broke up with him. Let’s just say it could have gone better.

/>   Chapter 3

  I looked at Mychael and felt a little sick.

  Telling the man you were in love with that the man you used to be in love with was here on business was one thing. When your present love was the top law enforcement officer, and your past fiancé was the kingdoms’ top assassin . . . well, the thought made you queasy.

  “Well?” Mychael asked. A man of few words.

  “I found both of them.”

  I stood and went over to the dirty window. Prince Chigaru was being carefully lifted onto a litter, loyal snake-in-the-grass Chatar by his side no doubt waiting for another chance.

  Or was I wrong?

  I knew I wasn’t, at least I didn’t think so, but it just didn’t make sense.

  “Raine,” Mychael was saying. “Who is it?”

  “Chatar.”

  “Who?”

  “The healer out there working on Chigaru.”

  Mychael was instantly at the door, opened it and called to Tam. I didn’t share Mychael’s urgency. Chatar wouldn’t try anything with Imala and her agents watching his every move, and guessing his next one. Tam stepped through the doorway and I told him what I’d seen.

  “Raine, Chatar has been the prince’s personal physician for three years,” Tam said. “Are you certain?”

  “It was fired from a small dart gun,” I told him. “Chatar’s hands loaded it. I saw the tattoos on the backs of his hands.”

  Tam glowered. “Damn.”

  “Ditto.”

  “I’ll have to handle this carefully,” Tam murmured. “Chatar is one of the prince’s closest confidants.” He left the office and gestured to Imala. You could have heard a fish scale drop on that dock as Imala crossed to him, and Tam leaned down close to Imala’s ear. Her expression gave absolutely nothing away as she looked to me. When I nodded, Imala’s eyes hardened, but she made it a point not to look at Chatar. Instead she tilted her head up and spoke quickly to Tam. He turned and came back to us.

  “Imala will post agents with the prince and Chatar to keep another attempt from being made. She will question those on the yacht to get Chatar’s whereabouts from the time the yacht entered the harbor until I brought the prince out of the water. His cabin will also be searched.” He looked at me, eyebrows lifted.

  “Yes, I’m sure. I don’t know how he did it, but he did.”

  “What about the crossbowman?” Mychael asked.

  “Well . . .” I started.

  Phaelan had walked over to the doorway, and saw what had to be a sickly look on my face.

  “I found our crossbowman,” I told him. I paused. “I love it when my past comes back to bite me in the ass.”

  Phaelan knew precisely who I was talking about. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Wish I was.”

  “Dammit.”

  “And then some.”

  “Is he here for anyone else?”

  “Don’t know.” And I didn’t really want to know since that other person on Rache’s to-kill list could very well be me. As angry as he’d been the day I broke off our engagement, he’d off me for free.

  Mychael was looking from one of us to the other. “Who?”

  “Want me to tell him?” Phaelan asked.

  I sighed. “Might as well.”

  “Rache Kai,” Phaelan said. “Heard of him?”

  Mychael nodded. “Assassin. The best.”

  “That’s the one.” Phaelan looked expectantly at me.

  I waved my hand. “Go ahead, tell him.”

  “He’s also Raine’s ex-fiancé.”

  “I broke up with him nearly a decade ago,” I told a stunned Mychael. I did a little cringe of my own. “It really could have gone better.”

  Mychael’s expression didn’t give anything away. He quietly asked, “Where was his shooting perch?”

  “I broke off contact once I knew it was Rache, but I can track him to the ends of the earth.”

  “She knows him very well,” Phaelan added helpfully.

  I shot my cousin a withering look.

  “I didn’t know who he was back then,” I hurried to add. “I mean, of course I knew who he was. I didn’t know what he was. I broke off our engagement when I found out. ‘Young’ and ‘stupid’ pretty much sum up my early twenties.” I stopped blabbering, taking Mychael’s continued silence as an accusation, when it was probably just an inability to get a word in edgewise. “Or didn’t you ever do anything stupid when you were young?”

  My fist had a death grip on the crossbow bolt. I wanted nothing more than to let it go, but I knew I wasn’t finished with it yet—though no doubt the killer elf on the other end would gleefully be done with me. A bit of advice: before you get involved with a man, make sure he’s not a killer for hire; and if he is and you decide to ditch him, make sure he’s a crappy shot.

  Mychael looked at me for a moment, a hint of a smile on his lips. “It’s a wonder I lived to see thirty.”

  “I’m continually amazed that I lived through my teens,” Tam muttered.

  Phaelan grinned. “Hell, it’s a good day for me when I live past breakfast.”

  Imala quickly strode over to Mychael. “I need transport through the city for the prince with a Guardian escort.”

  “Done.”

  “And I need a perimeter set up around the Greyhound Hotel.”

  “My men are already there.” Mychael frowned. “Preparing for the prince’s arrival, in two days.”

  Imala glanced at the prince and I swear she growled. “I didn’t know.” She said it like she’d already said it a couple dozen times today and knew she’d say it dozens more. Chigaru was going to get a lecture from the head of his secret service, too.

  At least something good was going to come from all of this.

  Chigaru’s guards managed to get their prince into a coach and on his way to the Greyhound Hotel. The coach was surrounded by goblin guards, and the goblins were surrounded by Guardians. Mychael wasn’t taking any chances that any of Chigaru’s guards might be tempted to make a slight detour to take down any crossbow-toting elves. You could carry pretty much any weapon you wanted to around Mid; you just had to fill out reams of paperwork. Phaelan claimed that if your hand survived all the name signing, it’d be worthless for wielding the weapon you went to all the trouble to be able to carry.

  Mago felt safe enough joining the prince at the hotel. Yes, he was an elf, but he wasn’t carrying a crossbow, the prince knew him—but most importantly, the prince didn’t know him as a Benares. A cover of a respectable mild-mannered banker definitely had its advantages, especially now.

  Me? I had no cover and no hope of obtaining any anytime soon. If Sathrik had hired Rache, Rache had to know that I was on Mid. For all I knew, Sathrik probably slipped Rache a little something extra to turn me into a crossbow cushion, too. After I’d broken up with Rache, I went to a lot of trouble to get as much information on my professionally homicidal ex as I could. Sometimes survival just meant knowing more about your adversary than they thought you knew. I’d been ignorant about Rache once; I swore never to be that way again. Our paths had crossed several times since then, but never with fatal results. Though I’d always known that Rache was the patient sort.

  “Rache prefers upscale accommodations,” I told Mychael. “But he’s willing to sleep in the dirt if his client pays him enough.”

  “Sathrik has always been willing to pay for what he wants,” Tam said.

  The goblin king was generous and giving—just what I didn’t want to hear.

  “At least he can’t glamour,” Mychael said.

  “Not a spark of magic to his name, thank . . . what did you say?”

  “Rache Kai can’t glamour.”

  “And you know this, how?”

  “I know Rache.”

  “Apparently not as well as you know Rache,” Tam chimed in.

  I wasn’t going to dignify that with a response. Though Mychael’s bombshell wasn’t going to go unnoticed. “Personally or professionally?”
r />   “What do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  Mychael was the Guardian commander, but in his former professional life, he’d also been a Black Cat. Officially, they had no name, though were called Black Cats by certain criminal elements who had the bad luck to come into contact with one. Like a black cat in a dark alley, you might catch a glimpse of one, but if you blinked, it was gone. Black Cat operatives had reported to the elven throne, were trained to do what was needed, where it was needed, and to whom it was needed, going where the law couldn’t go.

  Mychael had been one.

  And Mychael knew Rache.

  “I’ve had to stop him on more than one occasion,” Mychael was saying.

  “Has he seen your face?”

  “Not my real one.”

  Rache couldn’t glamour, but Mychael could; and as one of the best spellsingers there was, he could also alter his voice. A master of disguise was my Mychael.

  “Did your ‘not real self’ piss Rache off?”

  Mychael grinned. “Just every chance I got. We often found ourselves at odds.”

  Phaelan spoke up. “He’d been hired to off someone you’d been asked to keep alive?”

  “Something like that.” Mychael turned to me. “Which is why I want you off the streets as soon as you can tell me where he is.”

  “We know he’s been hired to assassinate Chigaru,” I said. “I’ve been walking around this island for three months now. Word spread pretty quick that I was here with the Saghred. If Rache had wanted me, he could have come and tried to get me anytime.”

  “You said Rache wouldn’t kill a fly unless someone had paid him,” Phaelan said.

  I resisted the urge to punch my cousin. “I’m personal. Rache knew I was in Mermeia. He didn’t come after me then, and he won’t come after me now.”

  At least I hoped not.

  “Unless you try leading every Guardian on the island to his hideout,” Phaelan continued. “I don’t know about Rache, but I’d take that personally.”

  And I was thinking about personally yanking my cousin behind the harbormaster’s shack and kicking his ass.

  I shot him a look that said just that. “We can stand around here talking, or we can go and get ourselves an assassin.”