“Nope.” Deacon shook his head. “He’s not there.”

  I went back to the files on the flash drive. Christoff hadn’t kept any magical objects on him. All we had found was a communication orb in his hotel room, but he never carried it, and we didn’t find any at his house. How did he make contact with the other mages in the organization? The Directorate wouldn’t hesitate to store their information on computers. Sorcerers didn’t work with human technology, so hiding something on a computer was about as safe as a mage could get.

  I needed to think simpler, not like a spy. I navigated to the default contact app, not really expecting it to be that easy. When the program loaded, there were enough contacts listed to show that Christoff used the program but few enough to prove that they were important people. Unfortunately, there weren’t any pictures attached, so I’d have to search each of the names online starting at the top. Normally, I wouldn’t expect mages in the Directorate to have any kind of presence online, but because of the seminars, we could get lucky. They had to recruit their human subjects from somewhere. Social media was a great place to find lonely individuals who were looking to improve their lives.

  The profile pics of the first two names didn’t match Deacon’s recollection. When I pulled up the third person’s profile, Deacon pointed at the screen. “That’s him. I’m sure of it.”

  “Adam Chase,” I read the name aloud. “You’re our man.” Back in Christoff’s contact book, I found Adam’s address. He lived in Scottsdale. Fancy. The Directorate must pay well. “Let’s go drop by for a visit.” I closed the laptop and stood.

  “Shouldn’t you wait for Alistair or instructions from the Circle?” Sybil asked.

  “You tell me, Oracle. Does the Dragon Fae wait on other people’s orders?”

  “Nope,” Pint said with the silliness that comes from a meat hangover.

  “Are you telling me you’ve accepted your destiny?” Cautious hope lit Sybil’s eyes.

  “No, but you believe. What do you think she would do in this situation?”

  She sighed and implored, “At least let me come with you.”

  I was touched to see how concerned she was for my welfare. It seemed to come from a place of genuine friendship. I had a hard time believing she’d be this concerned over the famed and prophesied Dragon Fae. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, Sybil. You don’t have to worry about me. We need you to stay here and be in contact with the Circle. Don’t inform them of what we’re doing—I like all contact about my missions to go through Alistair—but they might send more information. If you hear from Alistair, you can tell him where I’m at.”

  “Fine, but stay safe.”

  “She always does,” Pint said. “You don’t have to worry about my girl.” He rolled over on his back, and I rubbed his tummy as I passed by on my way to the door.

  As we walked to the car, Deacon asked me, “Do you think she’ll be safe here?”

  “Why wouldn’t she be? No one knows she’s here. Even if someone did stumble across her magic, she’d look like a fae hanging out on Earth. I mean, does she look like the Oracle to you?”

  Deacon chuckled. “No, it took quite a bit of convincing for me to believe it was her. What about you?”

  “I’m still not sure she’s the Oracle.”

  When I pulled out of my parking space, I weaved in and out of traffic, needing a release for my pent-up energy. All day I’d felt ineffectual, but this was one thing I could do. We didn’t have any other leads. Trevor was working on finding out where those bomb components came from, but I didn’t know if he would come through. Even if he did, I wasn’t sure what we’d glean from the information.

  After a few minutes of silence, Deacon asked, “How do you want to handle this? Are you going to try to sneak into his home? What if he’s there?”

  I glanced at him and back at the road. “Out of curiosity, did the Circle give you any training?”

  “Why? Do my questions give me away?”

  “Not necessarily.” I shrugged. “It’s something I’ve been wondering. It’s hard to tell with you. You’re obviously skilled at combat given what you’ve done in the past, but there are little things, the way the Circle likes things done, that I’d expect someone who’d been through their training to know.”

  “I got minimal training.”

  I tried and failed to contain my laughter, the result being little suppressed snorts of derision. “Obviously not in deception. I never thought I’d meet a worse liar than Julien.” It came out before I could stop it. How had Julien slipped so casually into the conversation? It felt like speaking the name of a deceased loved one for the first time after their death. I never spoke about him except to Pint. It was probably due to the extreme emotional circumstances of the day.

  “Who’s Julien?”

  An innocent question, one I wish I didn’t have to answer, but he’d find out eventually. “My ex-fiancé.”

  “Your fiancé?” I could practically hear his eyes widening. “I didn’t realize you had been engaged. What happened to him?”

  “I did. My job. The life. He didn’t know what I did for a living until I botched that assassination.” I sped up, shifting into sixth gear to pass a woman texting.

  “Ah.” Understanding dawned. “I’d imagine that would be a tough way for him to find out.”

  “To say he didn’t take it well would be an understatement. He accused me of lying to him, which I guess I did, and he wanted nothing to do with me after that. I came here, and as far as I know, he’s still living in the same house we shared.” I conveniently left out that I knew Julien still lived there as of a few days ago.

  “I’m sorry, but no offense, he doesn’t sound worthy of you. You need a partner in life who understands your work, who understands loyalty, understands belief in a cause. His reaction proved that you did the right thing by not trusting him with your secret earlier.” Heat infused Deacon’s voice, as if he personally disliked Julien.

  I opened my mouth to defend my ex-fiancé, but decided against it. I would never see him again. Deacon would never meet him. He wasn’t mine to defend anymore. Besides, Deacon’s words spoke to me. A part of me had always known they were true, but Julien had made me believe I was in the wrong, that no one could ever understand me the way I was. Sitting next to me, though, was someone who did. Deacon understood. So did Alistair and Sybil. No one could ever accuse me of being perfect, and I’d made my fair share of mistakes in my relationship with Julien, but maybe the problem wasn’t me. Maybe the problem was that we had never been a good match from the start. What I did wasn’t just my job; it was who I was. Deacon knew that about as well as anyone. To him, I was the Dragon Fae. That was an identity, not a job description. Perhaps someone existed who could be with me on my terms. Then again, if I was the Dragon Fae, it wasn’t meant to be, no matter the person. We all knew how her story ended: alone and in darkness.

  “Back to your question,” I said. “If he’s not home, we can break in. At this point, subtlety is not my main concern. We need answers, and given the way he ran from us earlier, I’m betting we can scare them out of him.”

  “What are you thinking? Verbal intimidation or something more? Are you going to void him?” Deacon moved as easily to the discussion of the mission as I did, as if our previous conversation had never happened. I appreciated it. As partners went, he was shaping up to be a good one in all the ways that mattered most. I could keep us both alive until he learned the rest.

  “I don’t want to void him unless he’s an imminent threat. It’s hard to get Directorate operatives to talk after they’re voided. They don’t have anything else to lose, and it makes them want revenge more than anything. We’ll start with the verbal intimidation, but I don’t care if you have to go further than that. This isn’t a revenge mission, but let’s be clear that he’s forfeited all rights.” I had no interest in making Adam pay for what had already happened. My only concern was preventing further attacks.

  “That won’t be a problem,” Deacon said. “I can do a lot of intimidation on my own without you needing to use your magic. We don’t know how nasty this is going to get before it’s over, so you need to conserve your magic as much as possible.”

  My magic leapt at the mention. I’d let Deacon take the lead and conserve my strength. I’d unleash it soon enough when I found the mastermind behind this plan.

  26

  When we pulled up to the address in an older part of Scottsdale, it was obvious we had the right place. A subtle hum of magic emanated from the small stucco home as we walked up to it. Adam wasn’t even trying to hide, so different than Christoff. It still bothered me how easily Christoff had slipped into human life, deceiving those closest to him. It had an uncomfortable feeling of familiarity. We had both lied to the people we loved because we believed in a cause that was bigger than ourselves. We both pretended to be something we weren’t. We just happened to be on different sides of this battle.

  “You feel that, right?” Deacon asked when we got to the door.

  “You mean the magic? Of course.”

  “Just checking. Sometimes I forget the level of sensitivity other people have.”

  Truth be told, it wasn’t a lot of magic, it was just a lot for Earth. Walking up to the house felt almost like walking to a house in Elustria. There wasn’t a car in the driveway, but the garage door was closed, and the blinds were shut. Deacon walked right up to the door and knocked. When no one answered, I picked the lock.

  “Let me do a quick sweep before you come in,” Deacon said, leaving me outside. From the open doorway, I saw illuminator orbs activate when they sensed Deacon’s movement. He turned and waved me inside. “Most of the magic is from the two bedrooms and living room. The kitchen’s clean.”

  Clean in a magical sense maybe, but not in the actual sense of the word. Paper plates were stacked in an overflowing trash can, and the counters had a grimy film on them. I didn’t really expect to find anything useful, but looking at least kept me busy and gave me the appearance of working while Deacon did all the heavy lifting. The freezer was stocked with microwavable meals, and just in case throwing one of them in the microwave was too much work, a stack of delivery menus sat next to the fridge. I opened one of the cabinets, expecting to find standard plates, bowls, cups—the usual—but instead I found a stack of paper plates and gallon plastic bags full of dirkweed. It was an herb used in some Elustrian cuisine, but Adam didn’t have it for cooking. It went by another name: dragonslayer. When burned, the smoke was toxic to dragon shifters.

  “Deacon,” I called out.

  “Yeah, did you find something?” he asked from one of the bedrooms.

  “It looks like you really scared the shit out of this guy. He’s got a couple bags full of dragonslayer in his kitchen cabinets.”

  Deacon came out to look. “I don’t know what he plans to do with all that. It’s perfectly safe to eat. It only becomes toxic when burned.”

  “Whenever he gets home, we’ll need to make sure we don’t give him an opening to torch it.” I closed the cabinets. “I wonder where he got so much of it. He had to have gotten it after he saw you. There’s no reason to keep it. This guy isn’t exactly a cook.”

  Deacon shrugged and leaned against the counter, thoroughly unconcerned. “I’ve heard that some people use it in potions to make them go down easier. It’s pretty inert and doesn’t interact with a lot of common ingredients. I know people who sprinkle it over their food like salt.”

  I went into the tiny living room, barely big enough for a love seat and TV. A video game console sat in the TV stand and a small bookcase stood in the corner. “You seem awfully calm for a guy faced with his kryptonite.”

  “Kryptonite?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Deacon. It was easy to forget that he hadn’t been Earthside as long as I had. I’d forgotten that an Elustrian wouldn’t understand. “It’s an Earth reference. It’s the one thing that can kill an otherwise indestructible person.”

  Deacon pushed away from the counter and joined me in the living room, glancing at the few books in Adam’s collection. “Oh, well, dragonslayer, while it is effective, has never been much of a worry. Back at the Spineback Mountains it’s too windy for the smoke to ever build up enough to do any real damage. Besides, most people don’t even think dragon shifters exist, so we’re not exactly concerned about people using the stuff against us.”

  “Well you obviously made quite an impression on this guy. We’ll use that fear to get him to talk. You take the lead on the interrogation. Have you found anything of interest here?”

  “There are teleportation rings in the spare bedroom. It all seems like a pretty typical mage’s home with all the orbs. This place and Christoff’s are night and day.”

  “I know. It’s disturbing,” I said.

  Before Deacon could say anything more, a key slid into the front door. I motioned for Deacon to go back into one of the bedrooms. I didn’t want Adam to detect his magic and ruin our surprise. I flattened myself against the wall next to the door, out of sight. Once Adam had the door shut behind him, I sprang. I easily had him in a headlock with my hand covering his mouth before he realized what was happening. “Look what I have here.”

  Deacon emerged from the bedroom. Another point for him. I hadn’t used his name to call out for him because the first rule of interrogation is that you don’t give the other person more info than they already have. We were the only people walking away with new information from this meeting.

  Adam activated a wand he had hidden up his sleeve. My hands burned with the heat of the spell, forcing me to let go. Adam was so focused on getting me off of him that it left an opening for Deacon. With a slight shift, his hands turned into talons. He sliced Adam’s arm, ripping the sleeve and the skin underneath. Blood poured from the wounds, and Deacon snatched the wand from the holster, snapping it in two. “There, you won’t be needing that for our conversation.”

  I grabbed Adam’s injured arm and wrenched it behind his back, forcing him to face Deacon. He screamed and struggled. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

  “No, no. That’s not how this works,” Deacon said as he walked closer to Adam. “I ask the questions; you provide the answers. Why did you run from us today?”

  Deacon impressed me. It seemed a slow start, but it was the right one. It reminded Adam how scared he was of Deacon, how the threat he’d run from earlier had followed him home.

  “You’re a dragon shifter. I was scared of what you’d do to me if you caught me. Apparently, I was right.” Fear and uncertainty flowed through his voice.

  “Yes, you were,” Deacon said, putting his face as close to Adam’s as possible without touching then pulling back in one quick movement. “There’s no reason to fear me now. You just tell me what was going on, and we’ll leave you alone. It’s as simple as that.” Deacon spread his hands out in front of him as if this were the most reasonable thing in the world, belying the malice in his voice. The result was effective. He even sent a little tingle of fear through me.

  Adam craned his head to the side to look at me, his bloodshot eyes wide.

  “We saw the dragonslayer in your kitchen,” I said. “That’s quite the supply.” The color drained from Adam’s face. His skin went from red to bleach white in a matter of seconds.

  He visibly swallowed and faced Deacon before he could find his voice. “That’s just for me. For my protection.”

  “Well it doesn’t seem to have done you very much good, now does it?” Deacon asked. “Why don’t you tell us what your plans are?”

  “I don’t have any plans.” Adam frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  In one swift motion, Deacon grabbed Adam by the throat, pulling him from my grasp and slamming him against the wall. “We know what you did. We’ve gotten the report. We know about the children you killed today. Children. What harm did they ever do to you? How do you live with yourself?” I couldn’t tell if this was part of his interrogation technique or if Deacon had let his rage get the best of him. I shifted my weight to the balls of my feet, ready to interfere if necessary.

  A measure of calm anger came over Adam’s face. “They were children who would grow up to be brutes like you. I sleep just fine.”

  Deacon’s fingers tightened around Adam’s throat.

  I spoke before Deacon could. “Strong words coming from a man who ran from us earlier and felt the need to have so much dragonslayer on hand.”

  “Yeah, after seeing a dragon shifter, the smart thing was to get me the only protection I could.”

  “The way we figure it is that you had to be the one with the detonator,” Deacon said. “We know that was just a dress rehearsal, a way to test to make sure that the bombs would work, that the detonator would work through a portal. All we want is the detonator. Simple. You give it to us, we’ll go on our way. We don’t want to hurt you. We don’t want to hurt anyone. We just want to prevent more people from being hurt. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Adam didn’t contradict Deacon’s claim that they were testing the detonator through the portal. “You’ll never get your hands on one of our detonators. I don’t even have one here.”

  “Then just give us the name of the person who does have one.”

  “I won’t help you, you filthy shifter.” Adam spit on Deacon. Deacon, to his credit, kept his cool.

 

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