by Jenn Stark
How much was my lack of control around him the result of me no longer wearing the amulet? And how much of it was just a simple lack of control?
Toss-up.
Armaeus smirked, demonstrating that he was still skulking around in my brain.
Asshat, I thought very clearly.
Unlike whatever pyrotechnics he’d thrown at my prince of coins and his goons, however, what Armaeus had used on me was not a magic spell, though it’d felt like it. The greatest of the Connected had utilized heightened vocal projection throughout antiquity, a manner of speaking that required both intense training and extreme force of intention, so that the words delivered with the chosen vibration practically resonated within the listener’s bones. In the hands of a master, even stones and sea could be displaced.
But while I’d heard of abilities to compel at the level of M. Armaeus Bertrand, I’d never experienced it firsthand. From everything I had read, no one had in almost a thousand years.
Bully for him.
“You want to tell me what happened back at the church?” I asked, to keep my focus off my glittering pendant. Then my mind caught up with my words. Oh no. The church. I looked around the limo, locating my jacket next to Armaeus. “What did you do with my phone? I need to call Father Jerome.”
Armaeus caught the Tyet in the palm of his hand, tucking it into his jacket pocket. Apparently, he was done teasing me with it for the moment. “Father Jerome is unharmed. I have people watching him and the church. Those who are searching for the seal know he doesn’t have it, however. They know you wouldn’t have fled with such a prize inside, not with no one but a priest to protect it.” His brows lifted in mock censure. “I could have warned you to stay out of the church altogether, and you would have never placed him in danger.”
“Uh-huh. And to what do I owe your sudden burst of solicitude? Last we spoke, you weren’t exactly part of my fan club.”
“You didn’t deliver the statue in the manner we discussed.” Armaeus’s face clouded over, and he straightened, his mood souring. Good. For the first time since I’d regained consciousness, the constriction in my chest eased and my pulse edged away from jackrabbit. “That caused me a great deal of trouble.”
“Take it up with the union.” Still, I had to be sure. “Is anyone hanging around the church I should worry about? Father Jerome made it home okay?”
“I have a guard assigned to him for the rest of the week. The priest won’t be harmed.” He grimaced. “It’s not smart for you to work so obviously with him, however. Without protection, he could easily be taken when he travels to Chartres.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Chartres is none of your business.”
“You are my business, Miss Wilde, which makes your ill-advised attempts at playing crusader my business as well. If Father Jerome were to end up missing like one of the children you’re so eager to protect, you would be of no use to me at all.”
He had a point. I shrugged. “So?”
“So, I have dispatched a team to meet him and the young family you’ve identified in Chartre, to get them to a safe location.”
“Awfully nice of you. You must need me pretty bad to put yourself out like that.”
He didn’t bother answering that one either, and I blew out a breath and stretched my legs, my scuffed boots jarringly out of place in the lush limo. “Okay, next topic. Why all the interest in this seal I grabbed tonight? From what I heard, it’s been floating around Europe for the better part of the last three centuries in private but not particularly inspired collections, before the Louvre picked it up. And they haven’t exactly been treating it special. What changed?”
“You said it yourself back at that unfortunate bar, Miss Wilde. The black market of magical artifacts is heating up. What was formerly of little interest now has a greater cachet.”
“Which is fine, except that little Roman Frisbee you have in your pocket has no business being treasure of the year. The seals of Ceres were never coveted artifacts, and you know it. They couldn’t enter a Roman temple without tripping over one.”
He inclined his head to agree with that. “Perhaps the one you liberated was special?”
“Doubtful.” I shook my head, though the idea of hiding a valuable artifact amidst a pile of worthless trinkets was exactly the kind of subterfuge the Romans would have enjoyed. “Because here’s the thing. The Louvre assigned it to an infant to carry across the city. If that seal was actually worth something, the museum would have had stricter transport protocols in place. And for those keeping score, there were two parties after the thing. My client and the Swiss Guard, or whoever they were. Who somehow managed to bug the pouch without ever tracking it.” A bug which I’d missed in my careful inspection, so that was some Grade-A tech. “Why?”
Armaeus shot back a question of his own. “Why did your client say he wanted the seal? Or do you continue to insist on not asking even the most reasonable questions before you take on a job?”
Another sore point with us. “I ask the pertinent questions. Like what and for how much. I don’t worry myself with the why, at least not through any official channels.”
“And what did your unofficial channels say?”
His words were offhand, but his manner had sharpened ever so slightly. As the Magician, Armaeus didn’t usually have to interrogate someone. He could simply rifle through their thoughts. With me, however, he could only go so far. I’d somehow thrown up barriers without realizing it. Which was a total bonus ninety-five percent of the time.
In this case, though, I didn’t care enough to keep the information from him. “My client’s family wanted it for leverage, is what I’d heard. Obviously, since they asked specifically for me, I figured there was some arcane connection, but I figured it was the typical goddess-veneration stuff. Lot of that going around these days.”
“And you don’t think that anymore?”
“Gee, I don’t know. I’ve been playing hot potato with it for the past five hours, and now we’re racing away toward your secret lair in the woods.” I rolled my eyes. It’s a particular skill of mine. “You say those ninjas weren’t the Swiss Guard, but I think you’re wrong. One of them definitely had the papal seal tatted on his neck, so they had something to do with the man upstairs.”
Armaeus appeared unimpressed with my ocular gymnastics. “Your assumption about their provenance was not an unreasonable one,” he said. “And not far off the mark. But I will leave that discussion for later this evening. The arrival of their squadron on scene is interesting, but not any more than your client’s interest in the seal.” His jaw twitched. “Who was it?”
I sensed the pressure of his touch against my mind, my own lips thinned. So he wasn’t fooling around on this question. Once again, however, I didn’t want to find out how good my blocks were, not for something so basic. “The Mercault family. Specifically the patriarch, Jean-Claude.”
Armaeus leaned back in his seat. Not to be outdone, I leaned forward. “And for the record, the council had better have restitution in mind, or you can kiss any further work from me good-bye. I could have gotten eighty thousand euros for that little hunk of gold, especially with the ninjas in the hunt.”
He nodded. “That amount will be delivered to Father Jerome at Saint-Germaine-Des-Prés upon his return from Chartres. If”—he raised a finger as I perked up—“you take on a new assignment immediately. And reconsider my offer to permanently relocate to Las Vegas.”
I hesitated, sensing a tidal wave of crazy coming my way. I was developing a sixth sense for it. There was no way I was going to dignify Armaeus’s Vegas offer with a response, but the first part… “A new assignment doing what? And for how much?”
“Back to the pertinent questions, I see. You should take better care. If I hadn’t been there tonight, you would have been trapped.”
I resisted rolling my eyes a second time, but it was a close thing. “In case you haven’t noticed, I was doing this for quite a few years before you showed up. I expect to be doi
ng it for quite a few years after our little arrangement has ceased to provide any value.” Which was going to be sooner rather than later, if he didn’t back off. “You want to keep me on retainer, you’re going to have to put up a lot more cash than what you have been.”
He lifted a long, lazy brow. “That’s all it would take, Miss Wilde? Money?”
“It’d be a heck of a start.”
“And with the money, you think you might have reached the young boy in Toulouse more quickly, I suspect?” His words dripped mockery, and I stiffened.
“You…knew about him? You knew about him and you didn’t do anything to stop it?”
“If you took even the slightest amount of time to understand the council’s work—”
“Don’t talk to me about your work, Armaeus. You’ve got more money than God. You apparently also know everything that’s going on in the world, because it’s not like the killers advertised the fact that they abducted an innocent little boy and gutted him for spare parts. How could you know that was happening and sit back and let it happen? What is wrong with you and your precious council?”
The car abruptly slowed, swerving around a bend into a path flooded with bright lights. I barely caught a glimpse of enormous stone lions on either side of the drive as we plunged into a richer shade of darkness. Armaeus dismissed my concern with a flick of his fingers.
“Your crusade, laudable though it may be, is not the crusade of the Arcanans.”
“Well, it should be! Kids are out there dying every day, which you apparently know with your all-seeing Eye of Sauron. All to give some shit-kicking dark priest a new spleen to stir into his cauldron. The whole underworld is going batshit crazy these days. Everyone is hyped up—everyone is stressed. And finally your holier-than-God council is choosing to take an interest, and all you care about is ridiculous gold seals and idols and trinkets? Why don’t you start worrying about the people who are collecting these trinkets, Armaeus? That’s where the real trouble lies.”
Beside me, Armaeus’s teeth glinted in the shadows.
“In that, I couldn’t agree with you more, Miss Wilde.”
Chapter Four
We swept up the driveway into a deep thicket of trees. Within a minute or so, however, I could see lights ahead. A lot of lights. “You’re taking me to Disneyworld?”
Armaeus didn’t respond. Rounding the last turn, the road opened onto a palatial estate that was lit from bedrock to rooftop. Beside me, the Magician eyed the house with a curious mix of emotions flitting across his face. Sadness. Regret. Pride. Affection.
Not for the first time, I wished I could crawl around inside his head. So much easier than the painful uncertainty of conversation. People could lie. Armaeus was about to, I knew before asking the question. “Um, who are these people, exactly?”
He drew his fingers together, steepling them in front of his nose. It was a movement that for anyone else would denote prayer, a petition to the heavens. But Armaeus was the heavens—and the earth. He prayed to no god that I knew of.
A second later, he drew his hands away, and I blinked. His face was completely devoid of any expression except pleasant affability. Gone were the deep lines of tension that had bracketed his mouth. Gone was the stern cast to his brow, the hard set of his jaw. In its place was the unlined, carefree face of a handsome man in his thirties who’d apparently just returned from a six-month vacation in Fiji.
“Whoa. That is so much better than Botox.”
“Try to mind your manners while we’re here. If it helps, imagine that you have taken on the identity of someone who is polite. Even charming.”
“That’ll cost extra.”
“I have no doubt.”
The car slowed, but before it came to a full stop, the front doors of the immense mansion swung open. A full-test liveried butler stepped out along with an equally outfitted housekeeper, much more chatelaine than French maid, both of them completely ruining the Downton Abbey effect by beaming like they were little kids.
Bustling out between them was a tiny old woman wrapped in a shawl, her white hair glistening in the stream of lights. Beside her strode a devastatingly gorgeous man. He was tall, well-built, with piercing eyes that stared out from a burnished bronze face, and lustrous black hair that edged past his collar. He was stunning. And, more to the point, he could have been Armaeus’s little brother.
I straightened. “Um…”
“Your manners.”
With that, Armaeus’s door was opened, and he stepped easily out of the car, then turned immediately to hand me out. For the first time tonight, I was excruciatingly aware of my beat-up leather jacket, my three-day-straight leggings, my battered boots. Armaeus’s hand twitched with annoyance, so I took it a little harder than necessary, practically ripping the thing off as I hauled myself out of the car.
“Mon seigneur.” A man I hadn’t noticed was flanking the car now, but before he could fully get the words out, the old woman exclaimed with sheer delight, dashing down the steps like she was eight, not eighty.
Armaeus turned as she flew into his arms, and he lifted her up and swirled her around. “Grand-père!” she squealed, laughing like a child.
I tried manfully not to faint. Grand-père?
“You are Miss Wilde?” I turned to see the gorgeous man from the top of the stairs looming over me. On close inspection, he wasn’t exactly Armaeus’s doppelgänger, but I made sure my perusal was very thorough, just to be certain.
Nope, he was shorter. And more slender.
More human too, with his watchful dark eyes appraising me, containing none of the otherworldly glitter that made Armaeus’s eyes so unsettling. He nodded at whatever he saw on my face, which I seriously hoped wasn’t naked lust, but it was probably a close thing. “I am Dante Bertrand, and it is my distinct pleasure to welcome you to Le Sri. Please forgive the bright lights. We do not often have the chance to entertain guests.”
“Of course.” I suppose the whole point of naming your house gave you permission not to invite people over. He placed a hand on my arm, which apparently set off an electrical pulse in Armaeus. He glanced over from the elderly woman, his gaze leaping from Dante to me.
“Mais, Grand-père! Elle est—” The old woman blinked rapidly, then beamed more brightly. “Of course, you are American, yes? How terrible of me to speak so in front of you. My name is Claire Bertrand.” Though she was technically speaking English, her tongue turned every word into a trill, and I found myself trying to translate. She reached out both hands to me, and I obligingly put my hands in hers.
“I’m Sara. Nice to meet you.”
“Mais, bien sur!” As she gripped me with her delicate fingers, no thrill of awareness skittered along my palms, and I frowned. There hadn’t been with Dante either. But there could be no doubt of the family connection here, given the last name and the resemblance.
The old woman chattered on, and I forced myself to concentrate. “You are hungry? Tired? How long can you stay? Please do not tell me you are leaving yet this night.”
I caught the unguarded look of open affection on Armaeus’s face as he regarded his…granddaughter. Surely that couldn’t be right. So far in our relationship, Armaeus’s deep dark past had not fallen into the category of pertinent questions for me. Clearly, I was missing out.
Armaeus must have sensed my gaze, because his expression cleared. “Miss Wilde can spare only a few hours with us, regrettably. She’ll be leaving at first light.”
“You are terrible,” the old woman clucked, saying the word with its proper French inflection. “But come in, come in. We have food and wine, and much to talk about from what I understand, yes?”
We climbed up the broad front stair to the château, moving into a wood-paneled foyer and on down a sweeping hallway. I half expected mail-covered knights to be standing at attention on either side of us, but there were only rather boring oil paintings framed in gold. Yawn.
After traversing roughly the length of a football field, we gathe
red in a room that looked like a set from Game of Thrones. Tapestries on the walls, a fire blazing in an enormous granite hearth. I was fully prepared to have an animal skin thrown over my shoulders, but instead I was led to a large, leather-stuffed chair. The servants bustled around us, setting up trays of food and drink, as Armaeus and his, um, granddaughter talked in hushed tones.
I took the opportunity to study the woman. She was tiny, with fine bones and large, clear eyes. She also had a fierce spirit about her that was currently being channeled into adoration, but I had no doubt that all her emotions were felt with equal intensity.
“You have questions.” Dante had settled into a chair opposite me, his tone conversational but still managing to convey intimacy.
I felt another frisson of attention from Armaeus, but he had his own Frenchwoman to fry. I focused on Dante. “I assume you’re family. Kind of a messed-up family at that.”
He lifted a brow. “Armaeus is never one to share information that is not required, but I suspect you will get all the answers you require soon. He brought you here, which demonstrates his trust in you, no?”
“Right. You going to tell me the story, or do I have to guess?”
“My family history is not the reason why I brought you here.” From across the room, Armaeus’s words drew everyone to attention. The château’s waitstaff turned and filed out of the room, Dante and Claire sat, and I stared around curiously, because that’s what I do. The moment the large door was shut, Armaeus moved to the wall and pressed a panel. The tapestry lifted, revealing a large flat-screen monitor, and I grinned despite myself.
I loved rich people. They always had the nicest toys.
Beside me, Dante had turned as well, and Claire straightened in her chair expectantly, her face no longer wreathed in smiles, but watchful and intent. “What happened in the city?” she asked. “Dante would tell me nothing.”
Armaeus’s fingers flew over a small tablet apparently connected to the monitor. A line of code appeared on the screen, then winked out. “The information trail in Paris has validated our suspicions,” he said. “We’ve successfully drawn out SANCTUS to show their hand. They are active in the city and have infiltrated the families. Their intelligence network tipped them off about the interest in the seals, and they were confident enough to attempt to take it in public.”
