“Their dim-witted granddaughter, Anique, found it after her parents died in that carriage accident a few months ago. I’d brokered the arrangement myself with the grandfather, and come back for good measure when he died to make my point to his eldest son. They understood how dangerous the brooch was. Obviously,” Alard said, disdain clear in his voice, “the girl’s parents never took her into their
confidence. So we’ve got a debutante planning to wear the Verheen Brooch out in public at Lady Evelien’s ball.”
“The only thing more dangerous than wearing that… thing… is trying to sell it. Are you trying to get us all killed?” Dietger was angry now. I could smell his anger. Underneath it lay fear.
“I’m not going to sell the brooch,” Carel replied calmly. “Alard and I are just going to make sure it gets into the hands of a responsible guardian, someone with the Alliance.”
“If the brooch is so dangerous, why not just destroy it?” As soon as I’d spoken, I felt like I must have sprouted a second head. Everyone stared at me. It was my turn to feel righteously annoyed. “How come the mortals here know all about this, and I don’t—even though I’m the one stealing it? You said this was a ‘big’ job. You didn’t tell me there was a dragon involved.”
Carel sighed and exchanged glances with Alard. “Perhaps we should all sit down. This could take a while. I’ll fetch more tea, and blood.”
“I’ll get those, father.” Dietger looked happy to leave the room.
“The Black Dragon isn’t a dragon,” Alard said. “He’s a very old spirit, one that finds a new body to possess every lifetime or so. I don’t think he ever was completely human. Someone imprisoned him long ago in the New World, but the damned Spaniards set him free in their quest for gold and silver, and brought him over with their loot. That idiot, Pizarro, never even wondered why the people he conquered had so many relics hidden and locked away. All he saw was treasure. Never occurred to him that it could be anything else.”
“What was it, if not treasure?”
“Oh, some of the pieces were decoys. But several of those beautiful breastplates and necklaces of gold, silver, and gemstones were magical. They were objects of power, and strong magic users had charged them with spells to keep what was bound beneath those towers bound forever.”
“And it’s taken us several lifetimes to find those pieces again and get them back into the hands of people the Alliance trained to use them as intended,” Carel said tartly as Dietger returned with the drinks, and a hunk of bread and cheese with ale for himself.
“So this Verheen Brooch is an object of power?” I sipped the blood. That kept me from watching the pulse beat in Dietger’s neck.
“And if the granddaughter is wearing it, that means the brooch has been taken out of the vault where it was sealing in something that really shouldn’t get out,” Carel finished.
“Antwerp is built on a very old, very large, mound of earth. There are stories from the city’s beginning about strange creatures exacting a terrible price for crossing the river,” Alard said, picking up the tale.
“Legend says that the city was made possible when a hero battled a giant and cut off his hand,” Alard added. “Hundreds of years ago, those dark creatures were imprisoned in the mound beneath the city, and in the deepest caves. Objects of power guard the entrances to that prison. In this case, the home of our debutante lies directly over one of the main shafts into the caves where the spirits are imprisoned.
That’s why we felt the need to ward it with the brooch. Now that the warding is compromised…” Alard let his voice drift.
“The Black Dragon may be able to escape.” Dietger concluded.
“Who, exactly, did the imprisoning? Who’s the ‘Alliance’ you mention?” I didn’t like what I was hearing, and I liked less that Alard had obviously had just this kind of thing in mind when he turned me.
“‘We’ are a loose coalition of vampires, shifters, magic users, and mortals who would prefer to keep the dark things buried,” Alard replied. “A similar faction imprisoned the Black Dragon and spirits like him.
This sort of thing has been going on since before I was turned. I’m one of the elders now, and, unfortunately, these kind of responsibilities fall to me.” “What happens if they get out, these spirits?”
Alard’s eyes grew dark. “Imagine beings whose hunger for blood is never sated. Things that are unwilling to slake their thirst from goats and deer. The Black Dragon and his kin feed off blood, but they also feed from life itself. They can drain a man’s life without opening a vein. Can you picture what that would be like, loosed across the kingdoms? Even the Black Death would pale in comparison to the horror.”
“So my job is to steal the brooch – and then what?”
Alard turned away. I had a bad feeling that this job even made him nervous. “We steal the brooch.
Carel helps us get it into the hands of a trusted guardian. The Black Dragon stays buried.”
“Alard was your maker?” I asked when the vision let go of me. I gave him back his ring.
Sorren nodded, his expression unusually pensive. “He saved my life by turning me, taught me to be the best jewel thief in Belgium. He was my master – and my friend.”
“If he’s a vampire, then isn’t he –”
“Destroyed,” Sorren said, his accent creeping in, thicker than I’d heard it in a long time. His eyes were clouded with sadness. “It was a long time ago.”
“How long ago?” I asked quietly.
“Fifteen sixty-five,” he replied without needing to think about it. “I was still young in the Dark Gift.
Without Alard I was… adrift.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He shrugged. “It happened – in fact, it was the hunt for the Black Dragon that killed him, the vision you saw from my ring. Alard and his mortal partner Carel – who ran a store much like Trifles and Folly – died fighting a monster that never should have been set free. Carel’s son Dietger and I took up as best we could after that, until…”
His voice faded away, but I took his meaning. Eventually, something had claimed Dietger as well, either the dangers of the job or old age. How many mortal partners has he outlived? I wondered. The loss still hurt him; that much was obvious. For all the history he had seen and all the abilities he had gained from his Dark Gift, I did not envy him the grief.
I looked at Sorren as if seeing him for the first time. He had been much younger in the vision, unsure and inexperienced. It was difficult to imagine him that way.
“And the Family?” I asked as I recovered my wits.
Sorren shrugged as he slipped the ring back onto his finger. “If you’re expecting a magical Mafia, you’re out of luck. The Family is a group of powerful individuals – immortals and mortals with magic – who run in the same circles and want what maximizes their own profit and position.” He gave a wry smile. “You can see why such a group is hardly going to band together for any long-term purpose, since greed triumphs loyalty. Short-term, yes – if the profit is big enough. But betrayal and squabbles get the best of them in the end.”