Cloak of Dragons

by Moeller, Jonathan

  It was about one in the afternoon, and the restaurant was full of people. Riordan circled around the restaurant and into the alley, coming to the door for Ricci Food Services’ offices. The door was closed, and a small sign had been taped to it, saying that RFS had been closed for the next few days due to unexpected circumstances.

  Nora snorted. “Fancy way of saying their owner and CEO got killed for summoning up creatures from the Shadowlands.”

  “The fewer people who know the truth, the better,” said Riordan. “Gloves.” He and Nora both donned their gloves, and Riordan drew out the lockpick gun he had taken from his SUV. In the US, it was illegal for anyone but Homeland Security and the men-at-arms of Elven nobles to own one, but Riordan had gotten a great deal of use out of the little device over the years.

  The gun caught the lock’s tumblers on the fourth try, and Riordan eased the door open.

  He looked up the stairwell and spotted the security camera mounted to the ceiling. Magic flowed through him as he focused his will, and he gestured and cast a spell. A small globe of lightning leaped from his hand and struck the camera. It was too weak to kill or even badly injure a man, but it was strong enough to damage electrical equipment. There was a flash and a spray of sparks, and Riordan was certain his spell had fried the camera’s electronics.

  “Nice trick,” murmured Nora.

  “Thanks,” said Riordan, and he slipped through the door, Nora following.

  The offices were deserted, no doubt closed while the employees tried to figure out what to do since the company’s owner had died unexpectedly. Riordan used his lockpick gun to open the door to Ricci’s office and stepped inside. As he expected, the office was in disarray, with papers stacked everywhere. Nadia had said it was a mess, and the office gave the impression of an orderly mind that had started decaying. Like its owner had developed a drinking problem or a drug habit.

  Or had summoned a maelogaunt and fallen under its malefic influence.

  “Keep an eye on the hallway, please,” said Riordan, and he seated himself at Ricci’s computer. Nora nodded and stood in the doorway, watching both the office and the hallway at the same time. Riordan drew a thumb drive from his interior coat pocket and slid it into one of the computer’s ports. The drive was loaded with malware designed to bypass computer password protection and encryption, another toy illegal for anyone but Homeland Security to possess. The programs on the drive could be blocked, but only with specialized software and knowledge, and Riordan was betting that Ricci hadn’t bothered.

  His guess proved right. The malware unlocked the computer in about two minutes, and Ricci’s desktop appeared. Riordan pulled up the accounting program and opened the books for Ricci Food Services, looking at the orderly rows of invoices, payments, and expenses.

  Part of his mind noted that Nadia would have gotten in and out of the building with the information already. She had a talent for this kind of covert work, a talent enhanced to a razor edge by Morvilind’s brutal training and her own harsh experiences. For that matter, she had mastered the Cloak and Mask spells to a degree that virtually no humans and only a few Elves had ever done, and that turned her from a master thief and into a ghost. There were very few secured facilities where she could not simply stroll inside, take what she wanted, and vanish again without leaving any trace that she had ever been there.

  A talent nearly unmatched anywhere in the world.

  No wonder the High Queen had recruited her. That kind of power would be a threat to Tarlia anywhere except under her direct control. But the High Queen was far more devious than Morvilind had been. Morvilind had ruled his shadow agents through force and fear. Tarlia had healed Nadia’s brother and given Russell the exclusive license to import fruit from Kalvarion. The stick was still there, of course – but Tarlia covered it with a generous carrot.

  Riordan pushed the thought aside as unproductive. Nadia wasn’t here, though he could never quite put aside his worries for her. The worry came with loving a woman, especially one who had already suffered as much as Nadia had.

  Besides, while Nadia might have been the best at this sort of covert work, Riordan was still pretty good at it.

  They had found only two of the four pages of the invoice in Ricci’s warehouse, but Riordan located the complete document in the accounting program.

  “Got it,” he said with satisfaction.

  “You do?” said Nora.

  “In August, Ricci bought the Summoning Codex, several other antique books, and some paintings from a store called Songstress Books & Antiques in Queens,” said Riordan. “Songstress Books. That would be the SONGB from the RFID tag. It must be the code for their inventory system.”

  “Hell,” said Nora. “I’d never have guessed that.”

  Riordan drew out his phone, opened the web browser, and searched for Songstress Books & Antiques. He found its web page at once, a minimal site that looked like a standard template with the basic business information filled out. The site claimed that Songstress Books & Antiques was owned by a man named Anthony Watkins. The description included a picture of Watkins, a white-haired, white-bearded man with a belligerent glower. Riordan was suddenly struck by a recollection of his youth in rural Texas, of small-town business owners who got annoyed when customers actually had the temerity to come into the shop.

  “That’s our next stop?” said Nora.

  “Yeah,” said Riordan. He closed the accounting program and removed the thumb drive. Ricci’s computer locked itself, and there would be no trace that Riordan had ever been there.

  Nora shook her head and stepped to the side as Riordan closed and locked the office door behind him. “We’re going to wind up driving in a circle through New York today, aren’t we?”

  “Like tourists, but with more guns,” said Riordan.

  He led the way down the corridor and the stairs to the alley. Nora closed the door behind her, and Riordan shot a quick look to the left and the right. The alley was still deserted, and no one seemed to have noticed their presence.

  “This…” started Nora.

  The attack came with blinding speed.

  The gray clouds had gotten heavier, and the early afternoon light was dim and bleary. It looked like it was going to start raining at any minute. Yet it wasn’t a misty day, which meant that the thick current of mist that flowed across the ground was out of place. Puzzlement gripped Riordan for a moment, and then his mind recognized the sight.

  “Wraithwolves!” he shouted, extending his right hand.

  Even as the word left his mouth, the ribbon of mist hardened into a wraithwolf.

  The wraithwolf was big, nearly the size of a pony, its body covered by bony plates of black armor. Its eyes burned like dying coals, and the wraithwolf lunged at Riordan, its jaws opening wide. The jaws of a wraithwolf could bite through a steel pipe without any difficulty whatsoever. Riordan’s flesh and bone would not slow it down in the slightest.

  Fortunately, he was ready.

  He called his Shadowmorph, and the symbiont manifested itself as a sword of dark force, so black it seemed like a hole cut into the air. Riordan lunged, and the dark sword stabbed into the wraithwolf’s yawning jaws and slashed into its brain. The creature shuddered, its claws scraping against the asphalt, and then went limp.

  Nora’s grunt of effort came to his ears, and Riordan whirled just in time to see her attack a second wraithwolf. Her Shadowmorph blade slashed through its head and into its chest, and the wraithwolf went motionless. She lifted her blade and turned, seeking more creatures, but there were none left.

  Riordan looked back and forth, feeling the strength pour into him. His Shadowmorph had fed on the life force of the slain wraithwolf and transferred some of that energy to him as strength and stamina. It was a euphoric feeling and could become addictive. Which was one of the reasons why so few potential Shadow Hunters ever survived the Test. If a Shadow Hunter let himself become addicted to stolen life force, murderous madness quickly followed.

  As h
e had seen firsthand with Sasha.

  Nothing else moved in the alley, and Riordan dismissed his Shadowmorph blade.

  “What the hell?” said Nora. “Where did they come from?”

  “I don’t know,” said Riordan, looking at the dead wraithwolves. “Help me get them out of sight. That will keep anyone from stumbling across them until the bodies dissolve.”

  Nora nodded and dismissed her own blade, and together they dragged the first wraithwolf behind the nearby dumpster. Riordan supposed the sight of a man in a suit and a woman in a skirt and high heels dragging the carcass of a dead wraithwolf was a strange one, but fortunately, there was no one around to see it.

  “They must have been left over from Ricci’s warehouse,” said Nora, straightening up with a grunt after they dragged the second wraithwolf behind the dumpster. “Or maybe from the Sky Hammer battle.”

  “No,” said Riordan. “Why did they only attack us after we entered Ricci’s building? We were standing in front of the door for a couple of minutes while I was using the lockpick gun. That would have been a perfect time to attack.”

  Nora frowned. “You think they were looking for us?”

  “I think they were guarding the building,” said Riordan. “I think whoever summoned the wraithwolves set them to watch Ricci’s restaurant and to attack anyone leaving the RFS offices.”

  Nora let out a long breath. “Hell. Then Ricci wasn’t the only summoner.”

  “Either we missed one of the members of his little cult,” said Riordan, “or he has a rival.”

  “I think we had better head to this Songstress Books & Antiques place and have a friendly little chat with Anthony Watkins,” said Nora.

  “I agree completely,” said Riordan, and they headed back to the SUV.

  ***

  Chapter 7: Upper Class

  I took my motorcycle across the island of Manhattan and came to the Upper West Side, a long rectangular neighborhood sort of wedged between Central Park and the Hudson River. It was a fancy sort of place, with a college campus and a lot of museums and art galleries and places like that. I bet the condos here cost a small fortune, and I was reasonably sure that a cup of coffee at any one of the little shops I saw would cost twice the minimum hourly wage.

  Let’s just say it was the kind of neighborhood that made me want to go to Milwaukee. Rich people tended to get on my nerves. Though, to be fair, I suppose I was a rich woman now. Of course, if I was rich, then why the hell should I spend a ridiculous amount of money on overpriced coffee or some stupid painting of a forest?

  I glanced at the college campus as I rode past it. A few weeks after we had gotten married, Riordan asked if I wanted to go to college. The last time I had been in formal schooling had been kindergarten, when my parents died, and Morvilind found me. I’d missed out on grade school and high school, and Morvilind’s retainers had taught me everything I needed to know.

  I had been so baffled at the thought of going to college that I had said something flippant in response, something about how since so many people with college degrees seemed stupid that I was better off staying away. The real reason was that I didn’t see the point. I mean, if I needed to learn how to do something, I either taught myself or found someone to teach me. I didn’t see any point in learning a bunch of random things for the sake of getting a fancy overpriced diploma. Well, Riordan and Russell did. They both liked history. But reading about history gave them pleasure, didn’t it? It wasn’t as if they were just choosing it at random.

  I put that entire train of thought out of my head and focused on the road. Now was not the time to let my mind wander. If I was going to figure out who had killed Max Sarkany and why, I couldn’t stand around contemplating the foibles of the American education system, especially since I had so little actual experience of it.

  To my mild surprise, I found a parking spot only a block and a half from the Dragon Imports Art Gallery, and I eased my bike into the space. It was a little after noon, and the sidewalks were full of people heading to lunch or visiting the ubiquitous food trucks that lurked near every office building in Manhattan. I climbed off my bike, clipped my helmet to my backpack, and joined the crowds as I headed towards Sarkany’s art gallery. I drew a few admiring looks – I guess a motorcycle jacket and tight jeans really does it for some men. I could have Masked myself, but I didn’t want to quite yet.

  That would come later.

  The Dragon Imports Art Gallery occupied the bottom two floors of a forty-story building. According to the files the High Queen had given me, Max Sarkany owned the entire building and used the bottom two stories for his business. He lived on the top floor in the penthouse, and I wondered if he had chosen that place because it would be easy for a dragon to fly to a high-rise penthouse under cover of night. The rest of the building was divided between office space and ridiculously expensive condo units.

  I walked past the art gallery. Sarkany’s building had a small lobby with elevators, and the art gallery sat on the north side of the lobby, with glass windows overlooking the sidewalk. The lights inside were dimmed, and a sign on the front door said that due to unforeseen circumstances the gallery was closed until further notice. I pulled out my phone and pretended to talk into it as I walked around the building once, and I noted the location of the fire doors in the alley.

  Then I ducked into the alley and cast the Mask spell. I thought about disguising myself as a Homeland Security officer but discarded the idea. No one would bother an officer, but that would be too conspicuous. Plus, someone might come up to me and try to report a crime or something. Instead, I Masked myself as a fortyish man in a suit and tie, indistinguishable from countless others on their lunch break.

  Wrapped in my disguise, I walked up to the fire door. I glanced over it. It was a standard steel door with a crash bar, a lock, and an alarm. A good lock, though, and a high-quality alarm system. I summoned magical force and cast the spell to open locks, splitting my concentration. The spell was basically a focused, applied telekinesis spell, and I eased open the lock even as part of my mind held the pin for the alarm in place. I pushed the door open a few feet, slipped through, and then let it click closed behind me.

  I released my spell and waited, but the fire alarm didn’t go off.

  Satisfied, I turned and found myself standing in what looked like an employee lounge. There were a half-dozen round tables, folding chairs, a row of vending machines, and a long counter with a pair of coffee makers. Good coffee machines, too. I suppose Sarkany hadn’t gone cheap for his employees’ coffee.

  I decided to cast the Cloak spell instead. The gallery was closed, and no one would recognize my Mask. But I couldn’t Mask myself as someone who was supposed to be here, at least not yet. The Cloak spell was more effort to maintain than a Mask, but I didn’t want to draw any attention to my presence here.

  Silver light flashed as the Cloak spell wrapped around me, and I opened the lounge door. Next was a room with a concrete floor that looked like both a loading dock and a locker room. I crossed to the far door, opened it, and stepped into the art gallery.

  I froze in surprise, looking around.

  The art gallery…well, let’s just say it looked expensive.

  Really, really expensive.

  The floor was gleaming, polished marble and all the interior walls had been knocked out, creating a wide space. The square concrete support columns remained in place, and they had been painted brilliant white. Subdued lighting glowed from recesses in the ceiling.

  The ozone-like scent of dragon blood filled my nostrils.

  There was artwork everywhere. Paintings had been hung on the pillars and the walls. More paintings stood in freestanding glass cases, accompanied by velvet ropes and little signs admonishing guests not to touch the artwork. Here and there I saw sculptures, some of which I recognized as quite valuable. I suppose it was just the luck of the draw Morvilind had never sent me to rob this place in the bad old days. Most of my missions from him had helped his quest to de
stroy the Archons, but sometimes he sent me to steal cultural and historical artifacts because he liked that kind of stuff.

  I headed towards the smell of dragon blood.

  It looked as if about half of the gallery was devoted to American artwork, and the other half had been set up as some sort of special exhibit. I wondered what it was, then I found a large sign explaining the theme of the exhibit. It was entitled “The Knight-Errant: Then And Now” and was devoted to Russian artwork, specifically Russian artwork about something called a bogatyr. The sign helpfully explained that a bogatyr was a sort of semi-legendary Russian knight-errant, like King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table, who had wandered the ancient Russian countryside fighting giants and ogres and evil witches. Artwork about the bogatyrs had been popular in Russia two centuries before the Conquest, and in the modern Russian Imperium, the image and story of the bogatyr were often used to inspire men-at-arms fighting for their Elven lords.

  Huh. Russell would have loved this stuff.

  A flicker of melancholy went through me. My mom had been Russian. After the Archons had destroyed Vladivostok, some of the survivors had gone to the United States, and that was how she had met my father, who had been a soldier of the Wizard’s Legion. I wondered if my mom had known about all this cultural stuff. I had no way of knowing. I only had dim, hazy memories of my parents dotted with a few vivid recollections, but I was sad thinking about them.

  Would they had been proud of me? Even after all the things I had done? On the day they had died, I had vowed to do whatever I could to save Russell, and I had done it. It had taken me a century and a half, and I had walked on the face of different worlds, but I had done it. For an instant, I wondered what my life would have been like if my father hadn’t contracted frostfever. Maybe I would be the housewife of some former man-at-arms now, pregnant and happy, all my concerns domestic.