by Lisa Shearin
The rest of the delegates would be arriving late this afternoon. The ballroom was to have been the location of the welcome reception tonight.
I couldn’t see that happening. The room was trashed. I would’ve said destroyed, but all the pieces and parts were still there; it was just that half of them were broken or crushed. Unless Rake had half a ballroom’s worth of antique tables and dining chairs in the basement, there wouldn’t be any social events in the ballroom any time soon.
“Is Kitty here yet?” I asked Ian.
“Yasha went to pick her up. I’ve asked him to bring her directly here when they arrive.”
Yasha Kazakov was an SPI driver who was my and Ian’s unofficial partner—and official best friend. The Russian werewolf saw to it that Ian and I got to where we needed to go—and could make a safe getaway when we needed to leave fast. And if Yasha could break any New York traffic laws in the doing of his duty, all the better. If he also got to use some bad guys as speed bumps for his beloved Suburban, that qualified as the best workday ever. In his opinion, monsters made beautiful hood ornaments.
Kitty Poertner owned Kitty’s Confections on Bleecker Street in the West Village. She was a good friend and a veritable wizard in the kitchen. To be accurate, she was a witch. Kitty’s mortal superpower was her baking skills. Her magical superpower was her ability to create, open, stabilize, close, and destroy portals and dimensional rifts. We didn’t think what we had here was a portal or alternate dimension, but Kitty might still be familiar with it.
At least that’s what we were hoping, because we were running out of options.
As alluded to in her surname, Kitty came from a long line of portalkeepers. She was now one of the few remaining portalkeepers on our planet, and the only one in North or South America. There were a few in Europe and Asia, but they weren’t at Kitty’s level. Best of all, Kitty was right in the neighborhood.
After what she had done in that Hellpit pocket dimension under Rake’s nightclub, she was offered a job by Vivienne Sagadraco. Kitty loved baking and her bakery, so while she had turned down the full-time job, she accepted a position as an SPI special consultant, to be on a retainer and paid by the job as situations requiring her expertise arose.
This had just become one of those situations.
My gut was telling me that the bukas weren’t coming back, at least not in the next hour, but I was still almost afraid to blink. I was presently not blinking and eating at the same time. Ian had arranged to have replacement breakfasts brought to us in the ballroom—complete with a new bacon biscuit that hopefully I wouldn’t have to throw at anything. I celebrated the break in hostilities by adding cheese and an egg to the bacon on my replacement, hot-from-the-kitchen biscuit.
“How did they vanish?” I asked around a mouthful of biscuit. “Just poof.”
Ian was on his third cup of coffee. “I wouldn’t say ‘poof.’”
I swallowed. “I didn’t see or sense any portals. When they went back to wherever, it looked the same as cloaks being activated, except they were gone. They even took most of their stink with them.”
Gethen moved to where the buka had been standing when it tried to carry off his boss. He paused to sniff the air like the predator he was.
Even I could smell the bukas’ leftovers hanging in the air. I had a good sense of smell, though it was nothing like a goblin’s. They were predators of the highest order, with heightened vision, hearing, and sense of smell. Then there was the unnerving way they moved. You didn’t hear a goblin come up behind you unless they wanted you to. Rake had learned with me that it was best not to sneak up and hug me from behind. I had some seriously sharp elbows and knew how to throw ’em. Not that I could do that much damage to Rake, but when it came to the whole trust-building issue, it was important.
Ian had paused in his caffeine intake to finish cleaning the buka blood off his spearhead.
I kept right on eating. Before coming to work at SPI, the sight of monster blood would’ve made me stop eating or worse. Now, cleaning weapons meant the fight was over, at least for now, and I should take time to eat while I could. Practicality won out over any residual squeamishness. If I had any left, it wasn’t much. I’d learned to eat before, during, and after pretty much anything.
I glanced over at my partner as he continued to clean the spearhead’s not-from-this-world metal. A couple of months ago, we’d all found out that there was more to my partner than met the eye.
Ian’s people were from Ireland, which, with a name like Ian Byrne, wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was that he was a direct descendant of Lugh Lámhfhada of the Tuatha Dé Danann, a legendary Irish king, demigod, and hero. Ian had come in contact with an ancient spearhead, which had turned out to be his legendary ancestor’s equally famous weapon. It had several names, but was commonly known as Lugh’s Spear. Touching that spearhead had awakened memories in Ian, whether his own or his ancestor’s we still weren’t sure.
After our R&D folks finished studying the spearhead, Ian had begun spending some quality time with his ancestor’s weapon. Harald Siggurson, our bladed weapons expert, had worked with SPI’s armorer to make a telescoping shaft for it. It could be easily carried in a hidden harness with the spear resting between Ian’s shoulder blades. It could be wielded as very short spear, or, with a flick of Ian’s wrist, the shaft would telescope to its six-foot length. Lugh’s Spear had eventually stopped glowing every time Ian touched it, which was a good thing. If he wanted to carry it with him and actually use it on the job, he could hardly walk around with a gold glow coming out of his jacket. Even jaded New Yorkers would notice that.
Ian hadn’t manifested any supernatural skills as a result of getting up close and personal with his new weapon. He’d trained with it to accustom himself to using it in close-quarters fighting as well as nailing a beastie at a distance. Once he reached a level of proficiency that was acceptable to him, Ian asked Ms. Sagadraco for permission to carry Lugh’s Spear on a trial basis. The boss approved his request.
Considering the importance of the summit, Ian had added the spear to his personal arsenal.
I was glad he had. It had been the only weapon that’d had any effect on the bukas. If Ian hadn’t used the spear, that buka would’ve taken Rake to wherever it was now.
That wasn’t anything I wanted to think about.
Gethen, Sandra, and Roy had assigned patrols to search the rest of the hotel. There hadn’t been another buka sighting, but there had been buka stink reported on the sixth floor. Where there was smoke there was fire, and where there was billy goat stink, there’d been a buka. Unless one of the delegates had smuggled an actual goat into the hotel. Don’t laugh, I’d seen it happen—and more. Supernatural conventions could get freaky.
The patrols would search each delegate’s room before each visitor either returned from their tour or arrived from their country, world, or dimension.
The goblin security chief was having a phone conversation that I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of. Whoever that person was, they were being taken to the proverbial woodshed. When Gethen finished the call, his scowl deepened as he crossed the room to where Ian and I waited.
I knew we were part of the reason for that scowl.
While Gethen was in charge of hotel security, Ian was the SPI agent in charge of the summit. The summit was a SPI operation, but it was taking place on Gethen’s turf.
SPI’s and Rake’s security teams were two groups of highly trained people who were used to being in charge when it came to supernatural shenanigans. Now we were being told to share a playground, and neither group was used to or good at playing well with others. While the situation was personally and professionally unpleasant, as long as nothing went wrong, that unpleasantness wouldn’t escalate into a turf war.
With Rake out cold and Ms. Sagadraco still at SPI headquarters, Ian and Gethen were the ranking representatives of their respective organizations.
The goblin security chief’s expression said he wa
sn’t happy with that arrangement.
Ian put the now-clean spear back in its scabbard.
A diplomatic move.
We needed to be sensitive to Gethen’s situation. Things had just gone to Hades in a handbasket in the hotel where he was responsible for the safety of every guest. We were among those guests, and his boss had nearly been kidnapped. The goblin security chief was pissed and his pride had been wounded. It wasn’t a good idea to mess with a wounded predator, regardless of whether those wounds were to its body or its pride—especially when said predator was also a seriously powerful dark mage.
That being said, if Gethen had any information that would help us get to the bottom of this, he needed to share it, and he needed to do it now.
Ian stood. “What can you tell me?”
“We had an incursion of one buka into this ballroom, followed by five others. As each proved impervious to either magical or mortal weapons, it disappeared and was replaced by another. The final count was eleven bukas. If any succumbed to the injuries we inflicted upon them, they did not do so here.”
Gethen sounded like he was rattling off the verbal version of what would be his written report. He seemed to be most offended by the last part—not getting the satisfaction of seeing the dead bodies. The goblin security chief struck me as a “no carcass, no confirmed kill” kind of guy.
“If someone wanted to disrupt the summit, why wouldn’t they wait until tonight when this ballroom would be full of delegates?” I asked.
“Why indeed, Agent Fraser?”
“And why bukas?” Ian’s eyes were on the goblin security chief. “A distinctly goblin monster.”
“Perhaps to embarrass Lord Danescu in the eyes of his guests.”
I hadn’t considered that. Goblins were big on hospitality. It didn’t matter that this hotel wasn’t Rake’s home. Those who stayed here were under his roof and, more importantly, his protection. New York functioned as the crossroads of the supernatural world. The Regor Regency had welcomed powerful and influential members of the supernatural community since it had been built. When Rake purchased the hotel and restored it, he accepted the mantle of host to the supernatural world’s movers and shakers. An attack here and now was a big hit on Rake’s reputation as a host who could guarantee his guests’ safety.
“And one of those bukas tried to kidnap Rake,” I said.
“Do bukas carry off their prey to eat it later?” Ian asked Gethen.
“They do. They rarely eat where they kill.” The scowl deepened. “There are stories of them taking live captives to consume at a later time, or to feed their young.”
That had nearly happened to Rake.
Suddenly that biscuit I’d just finished eating wasn’t sitting so good.
“Bukas live in remote caves high in the mountains of Rheskilia’s Northern Reach,” Gethen continued. “There are few enough of them that they were thought to be myths.”
Ian rolled his shoulder and winced. While I’d been painting bukas, one of them had tagged my partner. “They felt real enough to me.”
“You said eleven. That was an awful lot of rarity in one room,” I noted.
Ian emptied his coffee cup. “It’s safe to assume they didn’t get here on their own, correct?”
“They’re animals, Agent Byrne. All they know to do is fight, feed, and . . . mate.”
I assumed that last word was changed in deference to me.
“They were sent,” Gethen continued. “Sent and turned loose on us.”
“By whom?” Ian asked.
The goblin’s dark eyes flicked to where the buka who had nearly taken Rake had disappeared. “Unknown. Lord Danescu has many enemies.”
“In a long line,” I added. A line that curved and wrapped around, like at Disney World.
“There must be a shorter list of those who are capable of getting through the hotel wards.” Ian directed that statement at Gethen. He wasn’t giving up. “Getting through your wards and not setting off your ingress detectors was an impressive feat. You said they were recently upgraded, correct?”
I’d never heard about magical ingress detectors until our security briefing yesterday. The gadgets were a relatively recent invention that blended magic and technology. They would detect anyone attempting to enter a building or room by magical means. The Regor Regency’s detectors were set to alert hotel security in the event of unauthorized teleportation, or use of a portal, gate, or other magical means to get in. In theory, no one could get inside the hotel without the security staff knowing about it.
But that was exactly what had happened.
Ian was right, there was a very short list of people who could have pulled that off. Rake hadn’t survived and thrived as long as he had without knowing precisely who his enemies were and what they were capable of doing. Enemies at that level didn’t simply crawl out from under a rock one day. As Rake’s second-in-command in charge of security for his entire organization, Gethen knew every name on that list and their abilities—including the man or woman whose name was at the top.
“We did an upgrade last month,” Gethen said. “It went smoothly, as did the system tests. The detectors were in perfect working order. If magic was used, the system would have notified us.”
“Could it have been hacked?” I asked.
Gethen looked like he’d just bitten down on a lemon. “Impossible.”
I raised my hands. “No insult intended to you or your people. Just putting the possibility out there, and exploring any and all possibilities—too much is at stake to do otherwise.”
Kenji Hayashi had told me once that no system is hacker-proof, and anyone who said otherwise was due for a rude awakening one day. I had a feeling Gethen’s day of enlightenment had dawned this morning.
“I assure you, Agent Fraser, that all possibilities will be carefully examined. I don’t know how those bukas manifested inside our wards; and until I do know, I will be unable to prevent it from happening again. When it comes to the security of this hotel and the safety of our guests, I have an intense dislike of surprises.” Gethen hesitated, as if uncomfortable with what he was about to say. “Since Lord Danescu is temporarily incapacitated, I must thank you both. Your skills and actions today saved many lives.” The goblin’s phone rang. He glanced impatiently at the display, and blew out his breath in a hiss. “If you will excuse me, I need to take this.”
Ian inclined his head. I just sat there.
Once he’d left the room, I blinked in disbelief. “He must thank us?”
“Cut him some slack, partner. He’s embarrassed and pissed, and he’s a goblin, so he’s proud. Rake’s got the latest in magical tech installed throughout this hotel, and somebody who packs a big punch threw a bunch of these bukas inside without setting any of it off.”
I had a thought. “Whoever sold Gethen those detectors is about to have a very bad day. You think he was lying about not knowing who did it?”
Ian snorted as he put his jacket back on over his shoulder harness. “About that and everything else he said.” Ian’s phone chirped with an incoming text. He glanced at the screen. “Let’s see if we can do any better with his boss. Rake’s awake.”
Chapter Five
The Regor Regency’s penthouse was nice—in a jaw-dropping kind of way.
Rake had restored the hotel to its art nouveau glory, and while some of the larger suites were furnished in actual period antiques, most were well-crafted reproductions.
Rake’s decorator had gone all-out in the hotel’s penthouse.
The furniture was warm woods carved into impossible shapes of smooth, flowing lines. The circular windows were clear in the center, but surrounded by stained glass shaped into what looked like a garden of blue irises. A pair of large sofas faced each other on either side of a vine-carved wooden fireplace. The sofas were low, the cushions plush, the fabrics soft and silken.
I’d moved into the hotel for the summit two days ago. That night, Rake had invited me to the penthouse for dinner. The mea
l, the wine, the moonlight through the windows—normally, that would be the makings of a romantic evening. And it was, kind of. Rake had apologized for his inattentiveness of the past few months. He promised to make it up to me, once the summit was over. There was a critical situation that would be resolved soon, which translated to goblin intelligence, super-secret-squirrel stuff. Rake played his work life close to the chest. He had an agreement with Ms. Sagadraco: if anything he was involved in crossed over into SPI’s interests and responsibilities, he would tell us immediately. If it didn’t, he was free to keep it to himself.
Rake had been keeping to himself.
It wasn’t like we had gotten seriously serious. Everyone had kept their clothes on. I was disappointed, and a little hurt, but I told myself that Rake was a goblin, and goblins were complicated to the point of being infuriating to be around, let alone involved with. I tried to shrug it off. It hadn’t been easy.
Life and work went on. The closer we got to the summit, the more that work piled up—for both of us.
Now, there was no moonlight and all cityscape through those windows, but it was no less impressive. The buildings surrounding the Regor Regency had been built around the same time, so instead of seeing steel skyscrapers, the view from Rake’s penthouse windows was like looking back in time—well, except for the honking horns and traffic noise coming up from below.
We were on the thirteenth floor. The mage industrialist who had built the hotel was also an elf, so the number thirteen didn’t have the same negative superstitious weight that it did for humans. I was glad the Regor was short by Manhattan building standards. I’d always felt downright squeamish on the upper floors of some of New York’s skyscrapers that had floor-to-ceiling glass. I knew the glass was thick, but my survival instinct wasn’t buying it. I always stayed well away from the windows. I could see everything outside just fine from the safety that was the center of the room.
There was a surprise waiting in the middle of this room. Though not really a surprise, but definitely an early arrival.
