Ruby fever epb, p.4
Ruby Fever EPB, page 4
“In our conference room?”
“Yes.”
“How big is this spider?”
“About a four-inch leg span.”
Alessandro glanced up at the heavens. The heavens were hidden by the car roof, but I was sure the higher power had seen the silent plea for mercy in his eyes.
“I forgot to ask, how did it go with Gunderson?”
Alessandro shrugged. “We talked. I dropped him off at the Justice Center trussed up like a hog. Lenora can take it from there.”
Lenora Jordan, the Harris County DA, would definitely take it from there. As Connor once put it, law and order were her gods, and she served as their devoted paladin.
We turned around the bend. Linus’ gates came into view, Leon’s blue Shelby GT350 parked by the keypad. Alessandro pulled in behind him.
I got out of the car and walked up to the keypad. Leon had the family version of the code, but mine was the Deputy Warden sequence. I entered it.
Leon rolled down his window. “I waited as instructed.”
The gates slid open with a clang. The lights on the keypad blinked but remained a steady lemon-yellow.
I was right. Linus’ house thought it was under attack. The moment an intruder crossed the property line, Linus’ defense turrets would sprout out of the innocuous-looking lawn like some lethal mushrooms and pulverize the offender into a pile of smoking meat. Linus was a hephaestus mage. He built devastating weapons out of random trash and duct tape. His defense systems were second to none.
Alessandro got out of the car.
The wrought iron gates stood wide open, like the mandibles of some beast ready to grind us between its teeth. Theoretically, the system would recognize me and Alessandro. Theoretically, it wouldn’t kill us. Unfortunately, we’d never tested that theory under battle conditions.
“Do we go in?” Leon asked.
“I go in,” Alessandro said. “The two of you stay here.”
“I don’t think so,” I told him.
“There is no reason for both of us to go.”
“You’re right. I should go by myself. It’s my responsibility as the Deputy.”
“It’s my responsibility to protect the Deputy.” Alessandro’s tone said the discussion was over.
“That’s why we’ll go together.”
Leon sighed. “I guess I’ll just stay here. Watching you get inside or get turned into human hamburger meat.”
I could have done without that visual.
The longer we waited, the worse things would be.
Deep breath.
I took a step toward the gates. Alessandro strode next to me and took my hand. “Slow and steady. It’s a walk in the park.”
We walked past the gates and down the circular driveway, keeping our pace measured. The grounds looked perfectly ordinary. No signs of battle. Nothing out of place.
No sudden movements. No holding your breath. The system had our biometrics, but biometric scanners were notoriously unreliable.
Two months ago, I’d watched Linus test one of his turrets. He’d fired at an armored car with a ballistic dummy in it. The stream of bullets cut through the armor, nearly slicing the vehicle in half. When he was done, the ballistic dummy was no more. There was just mush. Thick gelatinous mush.
Alessandro’s strong warm fingers held mine. “Almost there.”
Slow and steady, around the fountain in a pretty flower bed, up the stairs, to the front door. Just another day in the life of a Deputy Warden.
We stepped onto the porch. I raised my head, looking straight into the hidden camera. If Linus was inside, he would let me in.
Nothing.
If this was a test, I would turn around, go straight home, and refuse to speak with Linus until he apologized. It wouldn’t matter if the sky started raining the Osiris serum. I would get a genuine, heartfelt apology.
I punched the code into the sophisticated lock and pressed my thumb against the fingerprint pad.
A distant motor whirred, followed by a metal clang.
The lock clicked.
Alessandro put his hand on the door handle.
Breathe, breathe, nice and calm.
The door swung open, and we slipped inside.
The cavernous grand foyer stretched in front of us, full of shadows. Motorized blinds blocked the windows, and the only illumination came through a stained-glass dome high above. White venetian plaster on the walls, a double staircase wrapping around another fountain directly under the dome, three empty doorways, one to the left, leading to guest bedrooms and the garage, one straight ahead, into the dining room, and the last, to the right, opening into the hallway that terminated in Linus’ study.
Alessandro stepped in front of me. We stood quietly, listening, waiting. The house was as silent as a tomb except for the quiet splashing of the fountain.
Alessandro pointed to the left and slightly back, his gaze sweeping the house in front of us. I moved in that direction, into the murky corner between two columns, and pressed the hidden sensor. A section of the wall slid aside, revealing a control panel with all its lights off. I’d have to speak while facing it. My back would be presenting a great target to anyone hiding inside. Adrenaline spurred my heart rate.
I held my arm out and pushed with my magic, forcing it through the bone and muscle of my forearm. An orange glow shone through my skin, forming a circle of a braided vine with a five-point star in its center. A spot between my shoulder blades itched, expecting a bullet.
“Catalina Baylor, Deputy Warden.”
The panel lit up with green, the small display flaring into life. Access granted. I exhaled and typed in my code. A prompt popped up, warning me that siege protocols were in effect. I had two choices, CANCEL, which would take me back to the previous menu, or DEACTIVATE. I chose DEACTIVATE.
The panel flashed with red. I had expected some noise, something to announce it, but the house stayed quiet. No metal clanging, no machinery moving, no sirens, only a word on the display: DISARMED.
I took my phone out and texted Leon.
Clear.
Moments ticked by.
The front door opened, and Leon strode through, carrying a SIG Sauer.
The air around Alessandro’s right hand sparked with orange for a fraction of a second. An identical gun materialized in his fingers.
Leon stalked left, while Alessandro started right, toward the study. I followed Alessandro. We passed through the doorway, through the short hallway, and Alessandro walked into the study. He stopped, blocking my view, moved to the left, and motioned me in. I entered.
On the right, Pete, Linus’ bodyguard, sprawled on the antique Persian rug. He’d fallen on his side in a crumpled heap with his face turned toward us. His lips were black. His eyes were open wide, milky and dead. A dark pattern of jagged lines marked his face, spreading from his eyes across his skin to his hairline.
Shock splashed me in an icy wave.
I’d known Pete for almost a year. He picked me up when Linus wanted to see me, he drove me around to my assignments when I needed it, and he would have put himself between me and any threat without hesitation. I just saw him last week. I’d brought him and Linus a cranberry tart I made. They’d shared it, and Pete told me I had to stop wasting my life on trivial things like being a Warden Deputy and dedicate myself to my true calling, which was making delicious desserts. And now he was dead.
I crouched by him. It felt like someone else was moving my body for me. Slowly, I pushed his right shoulder. Full rigor. He’d been dead longer than a few hours, but less than a day.
The network of lines on his face bulged from his skin. It looked like blood, old blood, somehow forced into a pattern and darkened to near black.
Alessandro moved next to me. His hand rested on my shoulder, the warm strength of his fingers reassuring.
Funny, protective Pete was dead. There was nothing I could do. But Linus was still missing. Until we found his body, there was still hope.
I got up.
Alessandro met my gaze. We talked without saying a word.
Okay?
Yes.
We moved across the study to the corner. I pushed my hand against the wooden panel decorating the wall and waited for the sensor to pick up my presence. A motor purred inside the walls and the wooden panel slid aside, revealing a stone shaft twelve feet across. Stone stairs wound down along the wall, wrapping around a fireman’s pole that stretched to the bottom floor. A dark red smear stained the metal of the pole.
Alessandro descended the stairs, quiet as a ghost. I followed.
We went down and around, three floors deep. The stairs terminated in a wide hallway. On the left, a wire cage guarded access to the freight elevator. On the right, a massive steel door barred the way to the workshop and weapon vault. A trail of blood drops led to it. Red smudges marred the control panel on the wall to the left.
My heart was beating out of my chest. If I never saw another damn control panel again, it would be too soon.
I wiped the blood off the keys with my sleeve, punched in the code, and pressed my thumb against the fingerprint scanner.
Seconds ticked by. One, two . . .
Come on.
Three, four, five . . .
Something thudded beyond the door.
Come on!
The vault door slid aside with a heavy groan, revealing the workshop hidden behind it. The stench of old urine hit me. In front, on the floor littered with first aid supplies, Linus slumped against his workbench. A trail of dark blood stretched from his nose, staining his lips and his shirt. His eyes were shut. He looked dead.
Chapter 3
I dropped to my knees by Linus and clamped my hand on his neck. A pulse. Faint but there. I slapped his face lightly. “Linus! Linus, wake up!”
“Don’t bother.” Alessandro plucked a wrapper from the medical refuse on the floor and showed it to me. It was about the size of my cell phone with a label that showed a black river with an outline of a boat and a hooded boatman on it.
“What is that?”
“Styxine.” Alessandro rummaged through the contents of the first aid kit that had been dumped on the floor and pulled an empty syringe out. “Last line of defense against a mental assault. You inject it, and you’re dead to the world. A mental mage can’t attack a mind that’s not there.”
“How long does it last?”
“That depends. This shit is very bad for you. Sometimes you wake up after six hours. Sometimes you wake up after three days and don’t know who you are. Sometimes it lasts forever.”
“What do you mean ‘forever’?”
“You don’t wake up. You become a vegetable. No brain functions. This packet is double the recommended dose.” He frowned and held up an identical syringe. Also empty. “’Sto vecchio rimbambito took two of these.”
Oh my God. “Is there any way to reverse this? Can we give him something to snap him out of it?”
“If such a thing exists, I don’t know about it.”
Whatever I did next would determine if Linus lived or died.
The fear and anxiety that gnawed on me shattered like a glass bowl dropped on the ground, exploding into sharp shards. They sliced into me in an instant of pain, and I snapped into a calm place where only logic ruled.
To Alessandro and me, Linus Duncan was the Warden of Texas. To almost everyone else in Houston, he was the former Speaker of the Assembly, a man of impeccable reputation, who despite pretending to be retired, wielded a massive amount of political influence.
The current Speaker of the Assembly had been murdered, and now the former Speaker of the Assembly was attacked in his own home and found in a catatonic state. We had to contain this at all costs, or Houston would panic.
My first priority was to get medical treatment for Linus. My second was to hide his condition. And if Linus was conscious, he would tell me to reverse the order of the two.
Leon jogged down the stairs, saw Linus, and stopped. “Okay. That’s a hell of a thing.”
“Anything?” Alessandro asked him.
My cousin shook his head. “No. No signs of teleportation either. Looks like whoever it was killed Pete and walked out the door. I’d like to know how they managed that with the siege protocol active.”
The lockdown would’ve kicked in the moment Linus triggered it from the inside of the vault. He wouldn’t have risked taking Styxine unless he was in immediate danger, so he got into the vault, hit the siege panic button, and injected himself as soon as he could. Even if whoever killed Pete had immediately turned around and sprinted out of the house, the turrets would’ve gotten them before they ever made it to the gate.
“Also, I found this.”
Leon held up a Ziploc bag with a black DA Ambassador, a state-of-the-art .40 pistol from Duncan Arms. Pete’s gun.
“Where did you find it?” Alessandro asked.
“Behind a column by the front door.”
There was no reason for Pete’s gun to be there. He always had it. It rested on his nightstand when he slept. Someone must’ve killed Pete, picked it up, and then hid it behind the column before going out the door.
When the siege protocol was up, Linus’s turrets would ignore people with special clearance, but they would still fire on them if they carried a firearm. The attacker knew exactly how the system worked.
“The intruder had to have special clearance,” I said. “Like Alessandro and I.”
“Linus was betrayed,” Alessandro said.
“Who do you think?” Leon asked.
I shook my head. “We can figure this out later. Right now, we have to get him out of here.”
Linus couldn’t die. He just couldn’t.
“The house is a fortress,” Leon said. “Instead of risking transporting him, let’s just get a medic here.”
“I had to end the siege protocol to get into the vault and to let you in. Once the system is disabled, only Linus can reactivate it.”
Leon stared at me. “Define ‘disabled.’”
“Right now no door in this house can be locked. Doors that are already locked will remain locked, unless someone manually unlocks them, but the front door, the gate, the vault, everything that we opened, can’t be relocked. The turrets are off-line. The surveillance cameras are off-line. We are deaf, blind, and defenseless.”
Linus had no human guards aside from Pete and Hera, who was currently out of the country. They were his last line of defense, one he almost never used. He relied on his automated defenses instead, and right now all of them had about as much firepower as lawn gnomes. We were sitting ducks.
“Why the hell would he do that?” Leon asked.
“Because if he isn’t here to reactivate the system, he is either dead or incapacitated,” I told him. “He anticipated other people entering the house, like Warden personnel, paramedics, and law enforcement. Reactivating the system would be too dangerous. It could end in a bloodbath.”
Alessandro straightened. “Leon, take the lead. I’m going to carry Linus to the garage, load him into one of those suburban tanks he likes, and get him to the Compound.”
“Yes, let’s do that, before some random passerby strolls in to loot the mansion,” Leon said.
Above us something thumped.
A pair of semiautomatic handguns leaped into Leon’s fingers almost on their own. He moved to the right, behind the workbench. Alessandro scooped Linus into his arms. A USB drive clattered to the floor. I grabbed it. It was slick with blood. I put it in my pocket and wiped my bloody fingers on my T-shirt.
Alessandro carried Linus to the left, outside of line of sight from the doorway, gently lowered him to the floor, and flattened himself against the wall by the vault door. I crouched behind the workbench. From here I could see the stairs, but a person coming down the stairs wouldn’t notice me right away.
The sound of unhurried steps echoed through the empty house. The notes of a familiar melody floated down. A man was coming down the stairs, humming the “Triumphal March” from Aida in a well-trained baritone.
Leon turned to me and mouthed, “What the fuck?”
The humming grew louder. A pair of long legs came into view, followed by their owner. He was in his late forties, with wavy dark hair sprinkled with grey and cut in a politician style, neat and unoffensive. His features were handsome in that generic adult-male-in-good-health way. He wore a grey summer suit.
He landed on the last step and stopped, looking into the vault.
“About time you got here, Ms. Baylor.”
His voice sounded perfectly generic. No regional accent, no hint of origin. He would have been at home on any major news program.
“I was beginning to think I would have to carry the old man out myself. Needs must, I suppose.”
Alessandro frowned.
The man took a step toward the vault.
“That’s far enough,” Alessandro said.
The man’s eyes widened. “Sasha! You’re here too. Fantastic. This will simplify things.”
The man stopped and stared straight at us. Flames licked his chin. His face caught fire.
An illusion Prime. The only illusion Prime in my life was Augustine Montgomery, and he wouldn’t have bothered with a different voice or the fire show.
The flames blazed, shockingly orange. The air smelled of smoke. The man’s skin, hair, and clothes burned away, as if made of paper, turning into ash and then melting into nothing. He shook his head, flinging the last of the ash into the air. He was in his late twenties now, tall and broad-shouldered. His long legs stretched a pair of faded jeans. A blue Henley draped his muscular body.
His hair was that coveted shade of white gold people spent thousands of dollars to imitate. His skin had a golden tan, and his face wouldn’t just stop traffic, it would create a pileup that would require hours to sort out. A square jaw, full lips, high cheekbones, a strong nose, and large arresting eyes, warm and inviting, a deep ultramarine under the sweep of dark blond eyebrows. He looked like a celestial being knitted from sunlight and sea spray.
Wow.
The man smiled, and it was as if the spring sun had risen after a long dark winter.
“Prince Konstantin Leonidovich Berezin, of Blood Imperial, at your service.”
