Ashes Reborn

by Keri Arthur

  Radcliffe swept in, paused until he spotted us, and then strode over. One of his men stayed near the door, but the other followed Radcliffe across. If the slight bulge in the pockets of their ill-fitting jackets was anything to go by, they were both armed. Obviously, Radcliffe hadn’t yet learned guns weren’t a very effective weapon when it came to phoenixes.

  Jackson rose and waved Radcliffe toward the booth seat. “Coffee?”

  “No.” Radcliffe sat with little grace and crossed his arms on the table. Anger oozed out of every pore, and the gleam in his dark eyes very much suggested all he wanted to do was reach out and strangle me. “Tell me what you know about Rinaldo.”

  I raised an eyebrow and leaned back. His scent was sharp, musky, and slightly tainted with the aroma of dampness—though that seemed to be coming from his clothes rather than his skin, suggesting his lair, at least in this area, was underground. It made me wonder if he or his men had had any altercations with the red cloaks.

  “I want a fair exchange of information, or you get nothing.”

  Radcliffe snorted. “Oh, so now you want a fair exchange—”

  “If you want to stop Rinaldo from destroying any more of your gaming venues,” Jackson said, his voice hard, “it would be in your best interest to help rather than hinder us.”

  Radcliffe’s gaze rose to his. “I’m here. Unless you prove you have something worthwhile, you’re getting nothing from me.” He paused. “And if you try, in any way, to burn me or my men, this entire building will come under attack. And from what I know about you, you wouldn’t sleep with the blood of innocents on your hands.”

  No, because I already had enough on them. But I kept the thought inside and let flames flicker ever so briefly across my fingers. His expression tightened.

  “You can try such an attack,” I said quietly, “but I really wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Radcliffe studied me for several seconds, eyes narrowed. Judging me, and weighing his options. Eventually he said, “I can’t tell you much about Rinaldo. The man is a fucking ghost.”

  “So you have no idea where his den is?”

  “None at all.” Frustration touched Radcliffe’s voice. “If we did, we’d have already wiped him out.”

  “Rinaldo has a dark witch working for him, so any direct attack on either him or his den is likely to be repelled by magic,” Jackson said. “The sindicati think he’s also using it to hide his location.”

  Radcliffe raised an eyebrow. “And you believe this?”

  “The witch certainly exists—we’ve met him.”

  “If you’ve met him, why haven’t you used him to get to Rinaldo? Better yet, why is the bastard still alive?”

  “Because he used magic to hide his form and shield himself from my flames,” I said. “Which is something you’ve apparently been looking into.”

  “Is that any fucking surprise?” He snorted. “But the fact that Rinaldo holds the leash of a witch does, at least, explain why we cannot find him.”

  “Which I find really odd,” I said. “Even if his location is being screened by magic, surely a den of vampires could not go unnoticed in a local community.”

  “Trust me,” Radcliffe growled. “We would have been notified if there’d been the slightest rumor of a new den. As I said, we have eyes everywhere.”

  “Meaning maybe he hasn’t got a den.” I glanced at Jackson. “Maybe he’s using hired vamps and De Luca’s get to do his dirty work.”

  “The vamps that attacked us weren’t vamps for hire,” Radcliffe said. “Nor were they from Victoria.”

  I glanced at him. “How do you know that?”

  His smile was all teeth and little humor. “We killed a few of the bastards, that’s how.”

  “And they were carrying IDs?”

  He snorted again. “Of course not. We ran a trace on their prints and got zero results.”

  No great surprise given no one could apparently trace Rinaldo’s background, either.

  “Have there been any more attacks on your venues?” I asked.

  “No, but we did ramp up security after the last one.” He paused. “If he has got the services of a witch, though, we might have to do more.”

  I doubted a witch of any standing would agree to work with Radcliffe, and those who did almost certainly wouldn’t be capable of creating a spell powerful enough to withstand Frederick’s magic. But I wasn’t about to say that. There was no point in aggravating Radcliffe any more than necessary, especially since he was being cooperative. Surprisingly so.

  But it was probably a matter of his need to get rid of Rinaldo being greater than his hatred of me.

  “We were told that Rinaldo was in charge of the most recent raid on the gaming venue—is that true?” I asked.

  He nodded. “The security cams recorded the whole thing. The bastard was obviously aware of them, and just as obviously didn’t care.” His gaze narrowed slightly. “Why?”

  “Because at the same time as he was attacking your venue, he was also confronting us in Rosen Senior’s apartment building.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Apparently not.” I took out my phone and showed him the photograph I’d taken of Rinaldo in his Professor Heaton persona. “This is him, isn’t it?”

  Radcliffe leaned forward and studied the picture for a moment. “Yes. But it’s impossible to be in two places at the same time unless you can clone yourself. And that isn’t possible just yet. Not when it comes to humans, anyway.”

  “Cloning may not be,” Jackson said, “but it’s more than possible that whoever he’d sent in his place when he attacked your venues was using a glamor to make it seem like he was there.”

  The vampire who’d confronted us definitely hadn’t been using one. While glamors could change your appearance, they couldn’t alter your voice. The Rinaldo who’d confronted us at Rosen’s was very definitely the same vampire who’d tried to grab me at the Chase Medical Research Institute—the place where I’d quite happily worked as Baltimore’s research assistant before this whole mess had begun.

  “I see no point in using a glamor in that sort of situation, but I guess we’re dealing with a very old vampire. Who knows how those fuckers think.” Radcliffe frowned. “What were you doing at Rosen’s place?”

  “Looking for Professor Wilson’s missing research notes.” I took a sip of tea, then added, “Don’t suppose you know anything about them, do you?”

  His smile flashed. All teeth, no sincerity. “I’m not likely to tell you that.”

  Meaning, I suspected, he was as clueless as the rest of us. I doubted he would have been able to contain his smugness had it been otherwise. “Would it be possible to view the tapes of the attack?”

  “No.” He paused. “But why would you want to?”

  “To compare that Rinaldo with the one we know. We might be able to tell from the footage whether there was a glamor in use.”

  He frowned. “I didn’t know glamors were detectable.”

  They often weren’t, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. Not if lying got us those tapes. “There’re always tells when it comes to magic. You just have to know what to look for.”

  Radcliffe grunted. “If I give you that tape, what do I get in return?”

  “How about the file Rosen was keeping on Rinaldo?” Jackson said.

  Whoa, I said. Is that wise?

  What else have we got? he replied. We’ll remove the page about the inverter, although he probably already knows about that.

  The inverter was a device that made the wearer immune to telepathic intrusion via an inversion process. Rosen’s company had been working on it before his death.

  Radcliffe was more than likely already aware of the device, given he’d been bleeding Rosen of information for months—if not years—and then selling it via the black market. Although Sam had intimated t
hat PIT had put a psychic block on Rosen in order to stop him from babbling about certain projects, so maybe not.

  “Rosen had a file on Rinaldo?” Surprise edged Radcliffe’s gravelly voice. “I had no idea.”

  “That’s the problem with drugging someone to grab information,” I said drily. “They can only supply what you ask for.”

  The look he cast my way very definitely wasn’t friendly. “The tapes for the file.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “When and where?”

  He hesitated, seemingly surprised—and almost immediately suspicious—of my ready agreement. “Your office, tomorrow morning.”

  “We won’t be there before ten.” I hesitated. “I also want a truce on hostilities.”

  He laughed, a sharp sound that had heads turning. He ignored the looks and leaned forward. “After what you’ve done to both me and my men, what makes you think I would ever agree to something like that?”

  “Because the only way any of us is going to stop Rinaldo is by working together.”

  He snorted. “Good luck getting either the sindicati or the wolves to agree to something like that.”

  “They already have,” Jackson said. “Or at least there’s an agreement to exchange information when it comes to Rinaldo.”

  Which wasn’t exactly the truth, but Radcliffe was unlikely to check the story, given rats generally kept their dealings with vampires as brief as possible. While they did sell information and black market items to them, they certainly hadn’t developed a more permanent business partnership, as Baker’s wolves had. Partly, I think, because the two had a long history of distrust that stemmed from darker times, when vamps had considered weres good hunting material. Humans might always have been a vampire’s main diet, but shifters certainly provided more of a challenge for those so inclined. And rats had always been more plentiful than the larger weres.

  Radcliffe’s gaze swept between the two of us, his expression giving little away. “If I agree to a truce, I want any and all information you might get from either Baker or the vamps.”

  “If you agree to do the same, sure.”

  His eyes became little more than black slits, but after a moment, he nodded, the motion short and sharp. He stuck his hand out. “A deal shaken on is a deal that must be honored.”

  I gripped his hand. His grip was tight—overly so—but I resisted the urge to press more heat into my fingers. “No attacks from either of us,” I said, “until this is over.”

  He nodded and released my hand. “Agreed.”

  I fought the desire to wipe the stain of his touch away on my jeans and simply watched as he rose.

  “Tomorrow at ten,” he said, and then walked away.

  Jackson waited until all three had left, then sat down and reached for his coffee. “That went better than expected.”

  “Yeah.” I drained my tea in one long gulp. “I’m not sure we should trust the bastard, though.”

  “They’ll stick to the terms agreed,” Jackson said. “He can’t afford not to, particularly in this case.”

  I glanced at him curiously. “It sounds as if you’ve had some dealings with him.”

  “Not Radcliffe specifically, but I’ve certainly dealt with rats on a few occasions.” He shrugged. “As Radcliffe said, there’s not much that goes on that the rats don’t see or know about.”

  I frowned. “Is it possible Rinaldo has rats working for him? It might explain why they haven’t been able to trace him—and why Radcliffe got no warning about the attacks.”

  “Radcliffe’s lair might be the most powerful in the city, but it’s certainly not the only one,” Jackson said. “It’s more than possible one of the smaller lairs has decided to work with Rinaldo in order to destroy Radcliffe and take his lair’s position.”

  “I didn’t know rats were so competitive—I thought they all just basically stuck to their own territories.”

  “Regular rats tend to. But we’re talking rat shifters here, and that comes with all the usual human vices such as greed and desire.” Jackson’s voice was dry. “And I’m not talking sexual desire.”

  I raised an eyebrow, a smile teasing my lips. “You’re not? That would have to be a first.”

  “Indeed.” He glanced at his watch. “If we leave now, we’ll have just enough time to go grab the car. And then, my dear Emberly, we can discuss the notion of desire to our hearts’ content.”

  “I’d rather do than discuss.”

  He grinned. “An even better idea—shall we go?”

  I rose and followed him out the door. After donning one of the helmets attached to the Vespa, I climbed on behind Jackson and lightly held on to his hips as he started the thing and drove off. And although it wasn’t a particularly powerful machine, there was still something very pleasant about riding through the dead of night, with the stars bright overhead and the wind cool against my skin.

  It took us about twenty minutes to get across to the car yard. Jackson pulled into the parking area and stopped. In the brief moment of silence, a car door slammed, and then a woman appeared. She was tall and slim, with silvery white hair and the most amazing blue eyes I’d ever seen. It wasn’t just the color—which was a blue as rich as a summer sky—but rather the sense of otherworldliness that hit the minute my gaze met hers. It was almost as if I were staring at someone who wasn’t simply flesh, but something far greater. Something ethereal and powerful.

  Air fae, that inner voice whispered.

  “Emberly,” Jackson said, “meet our savior, the lovely Makani.”

  She raised a silvery eyebrow, her expression amused. “Have you ever noticed he’s so much more generous with his compliments when he’s after something?” She held out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Emberly.”

  The minute my skin touched hers, the air stirred and, just for a moment, it seemed to be filled with whispers. They weren’t ones I could understand.

  But she could. Her eyes widened fractionally as she ever so gently disentangled her grip from mine.

  “What did you see?” I asked.

  She hesitated, her expression briefly uncertain. “Trouble and darkness, but also glimmers of hope.”

  “Air fae,” Jackson said, his tone dry, “are rather like witches. They cannot abide speaking in simple, understandable terms.”

  Makani elbowed him. “Shut up and give me your hand.”

  He raised an eyebrow but did as she bid. She cocked her head to one side, obviously listening to the voices I now couldn’t hear. Eventually, she sighed and released him.

  “It would appear your fates have been tied together. And you, my dear friend, have stepped well away from the path fate initially mapped out for you.”

  “Meaning the death your father saw for me no longer applies?” he asked. If he was at all concerned by this prospect, I wasn’t sensing it.

  She hesitated again. “I believe not. But we’re reaching a time of flux, and you two are going to be right in the middle of it.”

  “So we’ve been warned before,” I said.

  She nodded. “By both Lan and Grace, I believe.”

  Surprise ran through me. Lan was the old Filipino shaman who’d helped us stop the Aswang—the spider spirit who’d been using her victims as fodder for her young. He’d also given us a rather dire warning—that a time of metaphysical darkness was approaching Melbourne, and it was a darkness that would draw even darker creatures and events. The Aswang and the virus were, apparently, just the beginning of our troubles.

  “I’m surprised you know them—I thought air fae tended to be soloists,” I said.

  “While it is true we generally don’t mix with shaman and witches, all of us who read the future—be it through earth or the air—have felt this period of flux coming for a while now.” She shrugged. “It has forced us to unite and discuss the matter.”

  “And have s
aid discussions led to a possible solution to the problem?” Jackson asked. “Or have you all taken the politician’s path—lots of rhetoric and little action?”

  She elbowed him again, this time hard enough to draw a grunt. “I’ll give you lots of rhetoric and little action next time you want to get lusty if you’re not damn well careful.”

  I grinned. The little I’d seen of air fae had made me believe they were all delicate, somewhat fragile beings who often weren’t grounded in any way, but it seemed that belief was very wrong—at least when it came to Makani.

  “Both Lan and Grace were rather vague on what this flux might entail,” I said. “I don’t suppose you can clarify it any?”

  She was shaking her head even before I’d finished asking the question. “Not even my father can see that, and he has been reading fate for nearly a millennium now.”

  I blinked. Even for a fae, that was old.

  “All any of us can do is monitor the situation, and provide support for those on the front line when and where needed.”

  “Meaning us, I’m gathering.”

  “Yes.” A smile touched her lips. “I also believe, in the very near future, that you will need the services of a good secretary capable of providing mystical support.”

  “And you’re volunteering?” Jackson said. “Most excellent.”

  “Well, it was either me or Lan, and as much as I admire the shaman, he wouldn’t be able to put up with your bullshit for long.” She gave him a somewhat severe look, though amusement lurked in the depths of her blue eyes. “There will, however, be no fraternization during work hours.”

  He groaned. “That is nothing short of torture times two. Fate obviously has it in for me this decade.”