by Lucy Leroux
Sometimes the simplest solutions were the effective ones.
Determined not to waste a second more than he had to on this case, Dmitri decided to cut to the chase and rent a unit in the building, giving him access to the security office. One quick after-hours visit and he created a few useful blind spots, making covert entry to the penthouse possible. Then he waited for his window of opportunity.
Dmitri began his op the minute he dropped Nina off for her shift at the hospital on Friday. It was the middle of the day, and there was a lot of traffic in and out of Wilcox’s building. The wealthy residents were getting ready for a long weekend away.
Dmitri took advantage of the bustle and confusion to slip into the building unnoticed, casually mixing in with the crowd. He went up to his apartment, bypassing the inside to lounge in the sun of his own private balcony. Once there, he poured himself a big shot glass of vodka, then activated a small spell stone and dropped it into the glass.
Obfuscation spells were fairly common in the witching world, but getting a well-crafted one that would successfully mask someone of his size took some effort to craft. They didn’t make people invisible precisely, but they strongly discouraged the beholder from noticing them. Unfortunately, his contact Salvador insisted the most effective way for someone his size to deploy the stone was to take it internally.
Swallowing a stone a little larger than a quarter wasn’t too terrible when there was a bottle of vodka handy. It had taken an entire bottle the first time, which had made the subsequent job remarkably interesting, to say the least. The real drawback had come later when the stone made its ignoble exit.
Enough. He checked his watch, deciding the stone had enough time to take effect. Dmitri donned his custom-made gloves, an extra-large leather pair with special pads for added grip.
The ledges of the apartment were narrow by human standards, but it was more than adequate for a shifter with an unnatural tolerance of heights to make his way. Finding handholds for paws his size was more of a challenge, but he managed, scaling the building like an oversized Spiderman.
He’d timed it perfectly. The setting sun was low enough to hit the windows of each building almost horizontally. The obfuscation spell was supposed to make a person’s eye skip over him, but it never hurt to have a little extra insurance. Anyone focusing in this direction too long risked permanent sun damage to their vision.
The penthouse-level balcony was too far out of reach for a free-hand climb—a security measure no doubt. His problem was easily remedied. Dmitri scaled a few more stories until he reached the roof. From there, he was able to jump down to the Wilcox’s balcony, something no human would have been able to do without ropes.
After that, breaking in was child’s play. Most people didn’t lock their balcony doors.
The rooms beyond could have been located in any of the Back-Bay mansions he’d seen earlier in the case.
Dark hardwood floors shone with a subtle glow. The rooms and walls were sparsely decorated in a minimalistic and hard-edged modern style. He paused in the main salon below a genuine Mondrian—the only color in a sea of chrome and grey.
Dmitri sniffed. No matter how fancy the trappings were, it wasn’t worth living monochromatically just to make a statement—I’m a rich a-hole who can afford to hang an overpriced placemat on my wall. But then, he had always hated modern art.
I hope Nina appreciates the masters. He made a mental note to introduce her to the Russian artists he loved. She’d know Chagall and Faberge, of course, but probably not Brullov or Shevchenko.
He was cheerfully making plans when multiple male voices drifted out of the bedroom.
Bollocks. Wilcox was supposed to be at his regular doctor’s appointment. Biting back a sigh, Dmitri beat a strategic retreat back to the balcony.
What now?
Logic dictated that he walk away, but he hadn’t swallowed that damn rock for nothing. He had to take a closer look at what he was dealing with.
Expelling a frustrated breath, Dmitri hopped over the balcony railing, precariously balancing on the thin ledge. It was too small for him, but he managed to hold on with the tips of his fingers.
He poked his head around the corner of the building for an unobstructed view inside Wilcox’s bedroom.
There were four men in there. The old man was lying in a wide hospital bed, the head of which had been raised to allow him to sit up. He was talking to two lackeys, security judging by their clothing. Both men were muscular and wearing the mid-range dark suits preferred by bodyguards everywhere. A young African-American man in salmon scrubs was fussing with Wilcox’s IV line.
Damn it. There were too many of them. He no longer had a choice but to come back another day.
In truth, it would be a simple matter to take out the guards, but he wasn’t about to strong-arm the poor guy forced to wear those scrubs, or the old man himself. Annoyed, Dmitri was about to make his way back to the balcony when a rush of movement inside stopped him.
At Wilcox’s nod, the two men in suits turned and grabbed the male nurse, forcing him down on his back at the foot of the bed. One struck him over the head with the butt of his gun, a Colt Defender.
The nurse stopped moving.
His jaw clenched as Wilcox raised a shaky hand. One of the bodyguards moved out of his line of sight, returning with something held in front of him as the second supported the nurse, keeping his upper body stretched across the bed.
Dmitri recognized the collar from the photograph Edward Lawrence had shown him. It was a butt ugly thing—and viciously made. The roughly hewn piece was a dull yellow color with jagged spikes jutting in. Anyone wearing it would have the spurs partially embedded in their neck.
The stones laid into the bronze collar were a dark blood red. Their deep fire marked them as real rubies. He could tell as much, even at a distance. But there was something unsettling about them—a hint of menace. It was palpable, even from the other side of the thick glass windows.
Dmitri hated the thing on sight. The whole collar needed to be melted down. Right. If it were that easy, the Elemental crew would have done it a long time ago.
“Do it,” Wilcox yelled loudly enough to be heard through the thick glass.
The second bodyguard fitted the collar on the still form of the male nurse while the first man continued to hold him down. Dmitri tensed, wanting to leap through the glass to help, but there was no way he’d be able to break it without specialized tools. He winced as the metal spurs of the collar cut the vulnerable skin of poor man’s neck.
Wilcox raised a hand. His lips moved, but now his voice was too low for Dmitri to make out.
The unconscious nurse convulsed abruptly, jerking and shaking violently. He would have slid off the bed if he hadn’t been pinned down.
The fit ended as abruptly as it started. The young man arced, his body tightening like a bowstring, then he collapsed. The central ruby flashed, glowing in the dying sunlight.
At first, Dmitri assumed the extra shine was a trick of the light, but the sparkle didn’t dim when one of the guards lifted it. He removed it from the still nurse, holding it out to Wilcox with a great show of solemnity.
Wilcox’s trembling fingers took the bloodied collar. He waved away an offer of help from the guard, fitting it around his neck on his own. Once the points were pressing into his own skin, he let the guard fasten it.
Clasping the collar shut was like wrapping barbed wire around the man’s own neck. Dmitri winced as Wilcox squirmed, visibly trying not to breath as the spikes dug into his flesh. Blood mingled with blood as the light in the stone flickered, catching fire. It was glowing brightly, like an ember heated by the wind. And then its radiance began to fade, transferring to Wilcox at the point where the blood of his victim mingled with his own.
The subtle shimmer raced up Wilcox’s veins, highlighting them with a muted luminescence. The wave passed down his body, into his frail arms, and up over his head. The blue veins sparkled, blazing red-orange momentarily. On
ce the light faded, so did the prominence of the veins.
Wilcox’s body shed the infirmities of old age in minutes.
The near-translucent quality of the skin on Wilcox’s arms and temples shifted, growing more opaque before Dmitri’s eyes. As he watched, the tremble in the man’s hands ceased and his labored breaths became deeper and easier.
He didn’t grow young before Dmitri’s eyes. It was subtler than that. Wilcox’s sallow skin color deepened, his flesh rippled, filling out and growing almost supple. Strong wiry muscles moved underneath. As he swallowed, Wilcox’s lips firmed, and his fingers stopped shaking. The time-ravaged invalid was gone. In his place was a man in peak physical condition for his age.
The stones in the collar were dulled as Wilcox pulled them aside. He set the collar on the bed before starting to rise.
The bodyguards tried to help him, but Wilcox waved them away once again. When one brought a walker, he smirked.
“Stand aside,” he ordered in a firm voice.
With borrowed determination, he slid one leg over the side and then the other until he was standing unaided—something Dmitri guessed he hadn’t been able to do on his own in years.
The young man was still lying at the foot of the bed. His glassy eyes stared straight at the ceiling. Dmitri studied him for signs of life, but his chest didn’t move. He was dead.
“Get my suit.” Wilcox waved at the closet.
Then he began to dress as if the body wasn’t there. One bodyguard ran to the closet, pulling out a set of formal clothes.
Dmitri understood then. After sucking the life out of an innocent young man, Wilcox was going to celebrate out on the town.
Who could blame him after so many years of being bedridden?
Dmitri’s fist curled. He pulled his black balaclava down over his face.
I can.
Chapter Twenty-One
Dmitri punched the back of the bodyguard’s neck before the man had a chance to turn around.
The guard had been grabbing a set of keys—no doubt to drive Wilcox to whatever evening entertainment he’d chosen. The man himself was coming out of the bedroom.
“Put that in my safe,” Wilcox said, his head turned to the guard remaining in the room.
He turned just in time to meet Dmitri’s fist. Bones crunched underneath the heavy weight. He crashed to the floor like an automaton disassembling. His head hit the flagstone floor with a hard, satisfying rap.
The last bodyguard rushed out of the hall holding a steel box. His adversary threw it at him, reaching for the weapon holstered at his side. Dmitri batted the box aside, ducking faster than the human could move. He kicked out, sweeping out his opponent’s leg, following it with a punch to the face before the man could hit the hardwood.
The guard groaned, his head lolling on the floor, but he made no move to get up again. None of them did.
Dmitri surveyed the human wreckage scattered around him. Ragged breathing filled the air. He hadn’t killed anyone. But if there was some justice in the world, they would never be the same again. Wilcox, in particular, would suffer. He might have borrowed someone’s life force, but he hadn’t magicked himself into the body of the Rock. He was going to feel that punch for months to come.
There was no guilt. The only innocent in these rooms had been the nurse, and he was dead. As far as Dmitri was concerned, Wilcox deserved worse. You could end it right now, he thought, but then pictured Nina’s reaction if she ever found out.
He swore under his breath, sending up a prayer to the Mother that someday, somehow, Wilcox would get what he deserved. His only regret was he wouldn’t be the one to ensure the old man paid.
The nurse’s body was lying on the floor now. He’d been covered with a white sheet. Dmitri forced his eyes away from the corpse, taking stock of his surroundings.
The steel box proved to be the custom case for the collar. Dmitri stripped a pillowcase off a pillow to use as an extra layer between him and the cursed necklace. He didn’t want to touch it, not even with his gloves.
He picked up the hellish adornment. Bitter cold seeped through the layers. “Fuck,” he muttered, dropping the thing as if he’d been scalded.
After seeing the stone glow so brightly, he’d thought the metal would be warm. However, this odd chill didn’t surprise him either. The collar may have breathed new life into Wilcox, but it had done so by stealing another’s life force. It was an instrument of death.
Death is always cold.
Trying not to think about it, he shoved the collar into the padded steel box, securing the handle to his belt with a length of polypropylene rope. He made a quick egress from the balcony before any of the victims could stop him.
He hopped over the balcony of his rented suite, rapidly collecting the glass and bottle of vodka, wiping down anything he might have touched. After stashing the steel case with the collar in a larger suitcase, he headed down to the basement parking lot, just another resident leaving for the long weekend after picking up his luggage.
In a few months, Dmitri would have the few furnishings and fake photographs packed up and carted away by a group of movers—long enough for the fervor of the theft to die down. Cass would take care of the details, as usual. In the meantime, he would need her to look into something else.
“What do you mean you’re not turning over the item to the client?” Cass’s voice rang with indignation.
“Exactly what I said. I won’t be giving it to him.”
Dmitri maneuvered the car through traffic, narrowly avoiding getting a love tap from a delivery truck. He shook his head, a failed attempt to jostle the image of the dead nurse out of his head. Horns blared as he refocused on driving, switching lanes with greater care.
“What was that?” Cass snapped. The woman was in a wheelchair, but her hearing worked just fine.
“It’s nothing. I hit a spot of traffic,” he muttered. “Listen, I just saw this thing in action. I don’t know what Edward Lawrence plans to do with it, but whatever it is, it’s not good.”
With halting words, he explained what he’d seen—the collar’s true purpose.
There was silence on the other end of the line. “That’s not really up to you, is it? You get paid a lot of money not to ask questions.” Despite her no-nonsense tone, but he could detect a small thread of uncertainty
“This is different,” he growled.
“How exactly?” A normal person would have been cowed by his tone, but this was Cass. She always spoke her mind.
“Because we’re dealing with a magical artifact—black magic to be precise.”
“And you think it’s the first time?”
Shit. She had a point. Swearing, Dmitri unfastened his best. He was at his destination, one he’d chosen unconsciously. The Caislean Hotel valet came around to the front of the car.
“Your keys, sir?” he asked politely.
Dmitri transferred the call from the car to his Bluetooth headset before opening the door. Cass waited with uncharacteristic patience on the other end of the line. He was in the room he’d rented before she continued.
“Dmitri, we’ve taken plenty of jobs where we had to acquire a black-box object—unidentified packages we outright stole or acted as courier. We’ve always handed them off, no questions asked. It’s why your services come with such a high price tag. People need to know they can depend on you. In this line of work, reputation is everything.”
She wasn’t wrong. It was mere chance that they had learned the true nature of the collar. He’d been trafficking in stolen goods for a long time, mostly gems and the like. People killed for those every day.
Perhaps there’d been something of this nature before and he simply hadn’t known.
It doesn’t change anything. The fact was he did know, and he couldn’t let Lawrence have it.
Dmitri opened the case to examine the collar. The blood rubies winked under the bright track lighting that illuminated the room.
“The Elementals don’t take kindly
to thieves. Alec knows I was on the trail of this thing. He’s expecting to get it back.”
Cass sniffed. “Well, if they hadn’t lost it in the first place, you wouldn’t be in this position. Can you delay returning it?”
Dmitri frowned. He wanted the collar gone yesterday. “I can feel the dark magic coming off this thing like toxic smoke. The less time I have to spend with it, the better.”
“Why not give it to Lawrence for a short while? You can always steal it back after a few days.”
“It’s an idea,” he murmured, pacing at the foot of the bed to view the collar from different angles. “But…”
Cass sighed heavily. “But what?”
He shook his head. “I just don’t like the idea of handing this thing over knowing what it takes to make it work.”
“Now there’s something to consider,” Cass mused. “We know what Wilcox wanted—a fountain of youth. He must have been at death’s door, or else he wouldn’t have killed Genevieve Burgess.”
“Agreed,” he said, staring contemplatively at the glittering stones.
He’d almost forgotten—it wasn’t just the nurse’s blood on Wilcox’s hands.
“I assume she knew what it did because she was a witch. I’m not sure why she wanted it. I didn’t smell the taint of illness on her body. She died from blunt-force trauma.”
“Maybe she wanted to study it, or she was saving it for a rainy day—the why isn’t important in her case. Not with her background. What matters is how Wilcox and Lawrence learned about it. They’re both human, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Could Lawrence be sick?”
“If he is, he doesn’t know it yet.” His nose would have picked up those telltale scents of impending illness long before any diagnostic test. He hadn’t picked up a whiff of anything amiss, not even diabetes which was almost a given in this country’s love of fast food and the vast amounts of hidden sugar in manufactured meals.
