Thank you. I’ll ask Cornelius to drop it off at your place.
Are you okay?
I was pretty damn far from okay, but I didn’t want to do this over text. I’ll live. Thanks for asking.
Pete steered the Rolls Royce around the bend and Linus’ house came into view.
The sturdy wrought-iron gates hung askew, wrenched from their mounts by some powerful force. Behind them, unnaturally bright blood smeared the paver stones of a wide circular driveway. Normally, in the center of the driveway a white fountain rose from the middle of an artfully landscaped flower bed, water cascading out of its top and spilling into the triple basin. Right now, the fountain was dry, its top scattered in pieces across the driveway. A broken turret jutted on the right between the decorative shrubs, knocked off its retractable mount. Ahead a palatial mansion waited like a castle from an animated fairy tale. The blood smears stopped ten yards short of the door. No assailants had reached the front steps.
Pete parked, exited the car, and held my door open. I stepped out and he led me to the front door. There was a momentary pause as the security system recognized my face, then the locks clicked, and Pete opened the door and ushered me into a three-story foyer.
The interior of the house was as grand as the outside promised it would be. The polished white marble floor gleamed like a mirror, reflecting walls of Venetian plaster in white and cream decorated with acanthus-leaf molding. Another ornate fountain rose in the middle of the foyer, cradled by a double grand staircase twisting to the second floor on both sides. Above it, a stained-glass dome offered white clouds floating over the blue sky. An enormous chandelier dripped long strands of crystal from the center of the dome, illuminating the fountain, and the entire place glowed, white and elegant despite its opulence.
“He’s waiting in the study,” Pete said.
“Thank you.” I turned right and crossed the foyer to the side doorway, then walked through a small sitting room, through another hallway, and entered the study.
The Venetian plaster here was beige rather than cream and trimmed with light brown. Bookshelves filled the arched alcoves—Linus embraced technology, but he loved the texture of paper. Like the foyer, the study was elegant and uncluttered—two padded chairs, a love seat in the corner, a black-and-gold desk that would have been at home in Versailles, and a single ficus tree to the left of the fireplace that somehow thrived despite Linus’ neglect. The air smelled of aromatic tobacco and coffee. He kept loose tobacco on hand because he liked the scent and either Pete or Hera, his other bodyguard, replaced it every few weeks when it lost its aroma.
Linus Duncan sat behind the desk, engrossed in his tablet. A heavy crystal glass with about a finger of whiskey waited forgotten on his right.
I sat in the nearest chair.
Linus leaned back and looked at me. “How did it go with Montgomery?”
Apparently we were going to ignore me being attacked in the park and him being attacked in his house.
“I’m in.” I would have to phrase this next bit carefully. “There are complications.”
He pinned me with his gaze. “What complications?”
“Lander Morton and Alessandro Sagredo are a package deal.”
He rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers, thinking. “Is that a problem?”
“No,” I lied. “It’s not a problem. It just makes things slightly more complicated, because I have to account for an overpowered assassin with an unknown motive.”
“Don’t we all.”
“I’d like permission to run a Warden Network search on Sagredo.” The Warden Network included access to several law enforcement databases that were off-limits to civilians.
“Why?”
“I don’t like to be surprised.”
“Denied,” Linus said. “You know his capabilities and his temperament. In some ways, you know him better than almost anyone else. Anything the Warden Network would tell you would be a guess at best. How are things progressing with Albert Ravenscroft?”
“They’re not.”
Albert Ravenscroft, the heir to House Ravenscroft, was a Prime psionic, twenty-six years old, handsome, and very persistent. He operated on the assumption that if he just put in enough time and effort, I would recognize his beauty and wit. Even if his efforts had managed to wear me down, our relationship would be doomed. Albert was interested in marriage.
Six months ago, when a psychotic mind ripper mage had trapped Alessandro, I made a deal with my evil grandmother. She gave me what I needed to save him. In return, I swore to dedicate myself to House Baylor. I would never become a part of another House. The man who married me would have to join mine. He would have to take my name and abandon all claims on his previous family. I hadn’t shared this bit with Linus because he didn’t need to know. Albert was looking to strengthen his House, not to run away from it.
Linus mulled it over. “His choice or yours?”
“Mine.”
He watched me carefully. “Albert would be easy to manage.”
“I have no interest in managing him. Besides, I’m busy. Why are we interested in House Morton?”
Linus’ tablet chimed. He glanced at it. “It appears I have a guest. I think he’s here for you.”
He turned the tablet toward me. On it Alessandro drove a silver Alfa Romeo Spider through the broken gates and parked in front of the door.
We waited in silence. Five seconds. Ten . . .
Alessandro walked into the study carrying an unconscious Pete over his shoulder, deposited him on the love seat in the corner, and sat in the other chair.
Linus looked at Pete and sighed. “Please join us, won’t you, Prime Sagredo?”
No. Don’t join us. Turn around and go away as far and as fast as you can.
Linus looked at me, then at Alessandro. Neither of us said anything.
“Well.” Linus spread his arms. “Let’s start with you, Alessandro. Why are you here?”
Alessandro threw one long leg over the other and leaned back. “Officially I’m here because Lander Morton hired me to kill the person or persons who murdered his son.”
Linus raised his eyebrows. “Do you think I’m hiding them here in my house?”
“Unofficially I’m here because she is in danger.” Alessandro looked at Linus. “Does the name Ignat Orlov mean anything to you?”
He pronounced Ignat with an uh, so it sounded almost like ignite.
Linus grimaced, as if he’d bitten something sour.
“It doesn’t to me,” I said.
“Former officer of the Russian Imperial Defense,” Alessandro said.
“An Imperium-sanctioned assassin,” Linus supplied. “Trained, experienced, and very good, since he managed to survive all these years.”
“Goes by the name Arkan,” Alessandro added. “It means lasso.”
The nicknames professional killers gave themselves never failed to make me roll my eyes. “Because he snares his enemies?”
“Yes,” Alessandro and Linus said at the same time.
“Why is he important?”
“Excellent question,” Linus said.
Alessandro gave us a short, humorless smile. “Because he stole your serum.”
The Office of the Warden had a primary directive: to safeguard the Osiris serum. In unscrupulous hands, the serum had the potential to wipe out our civilization. A couple of years ago, someone broke into the Northern Vault and stole five samples of it, labeled 161-165AC. Six months ago, we had gone against an assassin firm, Diatheke, to get one of the samples back. They’d used it to turn humans into magic-wielding monsters. We’d managed to recover sample 164AC and its derivatives, and destroyed Diatheke along with Benedict De Lacy, the assassin who ran it, in the process. Four other samples were still missing.